Nobara and pikaOS also both good options. I use CachyOs on my main PC and nobara on my htpc and have had a very pleasant time with the distros and their communities. Just gotta leave windows at the door and be open to learning a new way of doing things. Best of luck OP
and browser I love zen browser and have Vivaldi as my chromium browser of choice when some niche task needs it
Bazzite is awesome I just don’t like immutable distros personally. I like to tinker more than they allow. Nobara works great for my htpc but I think if I had to switch from CachyOs on my gaming PC I’d go pikaOS
CachyOS has recently stopped playing H264 videos on some websites after a system update.(on Librewolf and other browsers too).
Installing ffmpeg4.4 will fix this.
If you have a Nvidia card, I’ve found mint and neon to be really poor performing. Kubuntu and Q4 have been amathiugh, I wouldn’t use Q4os unless you have low end hardware though.
That being said mint is just the best os in the sphere for performance and usability, if it runs well for you that would be awesome.
Libre wolf is an amazing Firefox branch, runs well, super private, good overall, though in my opinion it fails to perform well on beefy websites with alot of visual goodies (like sketch sketchfab and other 3d model websites.) Best to have both Firefox and Libre Wolf.
On a side note some fun apps to use on Linux I found: qdirstat (winderstat replacement.) Portmaster (take control of what can access your pc via the internet, also has built in dns, a wonderful user interface, its just amazing.) Vencord (yeah I know discord sucks, but its almost impossible to get away from. Seriously I’ve tried to get my friends to use matrix, no Bueno.)
Also, Plasma is the greatest thing ever. My god is it good.
I’ve had a good experience with Bazzite. It worked out of the box for steam, and the “bazaar” app store built into it had everything I needed. Heroic is in there and good for handling PC games from other stores. Use Proton+ to get the latest Proton GE if you run into any windows game compatibility issues and it may solve them.
KDE is also similar enough but actually looks good, and is a more complete and coherent experience.
I also don’t think “looks similar” is actually good if you’re switching. Because it will be similar enough to be confusing when it then behaves differently, and it’s IMO easier to learn something that’s obviously (slightly) different than trying to just learn different behavior.
Huh. I’ve not had that experience. Then again, I don’t have a ton of tray icons on my Mint install, mostly just Steam, Telegram, and occasionally Discord.
I did have my panel set up vertical, with the system tray icons in two columns. Typically there were two groups (for some reason) stacked on top of eachother and if the top one had an odd number of icons then there was a conspicuous gap.
Now I use Kubuntu, though I miss the GNOME text editor (I installed it, but with GNOME being GNOME it wasn’t themeable, and I can’t find the Cinnamon or Xfce fork in the repositories).
Pop!_OS, PikaOS, CachyOS, and Bazzite are the top gaming distros right now.
I recommend Pop! if you have Nvidia cards. If you have AMD, any of them will work.
PikaOS or Bazzite with the KDE Plasma desktop are going to be closest to Windows 10 in terms of how you use them.
Pop! has a super different UI, almost Mac-like. But it’s based on Ubuntu, the most-used distro. Which means that if anything goes wrong you can search “[problem] Ubuntu” and get hundreds of solution pages.
CachyOS is based on Arch, which is the big, scawy Linux that all the nerds say they use. It’s easier to break than the other ones, and won’t officially offer some of the apps that something Debian/Ubuntu based might have. I would recommend it when you’re looking to get a bit more technical.
That said, I haven’t broken my install yet and CachyOS is like the fastest OS available right now. Serious FPS gains for a LOT of games compared to Windows, and even other Linux distros. I also have not had to sit and troubleshoot it over anything. I was shocked at how smooth it was for an Arch system.
So, there’s not really a bad choice in those 4. I’d recommend Pop! if you never want to have to tinker, Pika or Bazzite if you want to feel like you’re still using Windows, and Cachy when you feel comfortable taking some training wheels off (and that could be right now!).
For browsers, try LibreWolf. It’s a locked-down version of Firefox. Or just use Firefox. It ain’t perfect, but then again it ain’t Chrome.
PopOS vote from me. Very easy to get set up, especially if you have an Nvidia card. Flatpak is integrated to their store, it just works out of the box.
Even at my workplace I asked HR for permission to switch the office desktop to GNU+Linux. They required the installation of a few malware spyware but otherwise didn’t mind.
I have been using GNU+Linux on and off since 2007 only using Windows when needed to. Now I’m fully Windows-free and intend to keep it this way.
But there are a lot of other software, that people have a hard time letting go of. Like Affinity, Scrivener, certain games, a lot of small programs/apps, like FastStone apps (Image viewer and more), AllMyNotes, ActionOutline, Duplicate cleaner 5, EZ CD Audio Converter and more…
I always recommend Loreforge as a replacement for Scrivener. I had no problem swapping once I spent a little time in Loreforge. It’s even available on Windows so they can try it ahead of time.
Edit: Ohhh, I see. They’ve added a subscription for some extra stuff. The full features of the program are entirely available in the free version. I’ve never pushed up against a paywall as far as I can tell.
It may be me being a millenial, but I’m used to Photoshop being widely pirated. It used to be Adobe’s strategy to let people do that because that meant more people who knew how to use it and therefore more business sales.
No offense but with the number of random processes running on any given machine, I am in no way gonna trust a mission critical app to work right from a pirate site and not load something extra like a keylogger. Hell it barely works right in a fully legal install…
Also, I used to strongly advocate switching off Creative Cloud to Affinity to own the software but I have this horrible feeling that they may be going either subscription or AI slop or both on the 30th and you can no longer buy version 2.
(And I say that as a long-time Adobe stockholder from back before they went pure evil with Creative Cloud.)
I used a pirated version of PS too - many years ago. I worked with multimedia, so there was a reason. Most regular people don’t even know how to use PS… They are better of with just a simple tool to do what they need, like cropping adjusting size, levels, colors and and the most basic things.
That was when most users were drawn to computers out of a desire to learn, play and use it. Now, a lot of users are forced to use computers. That doesn’t make them great at it.
My guess is, that you haven’t heard of a lot of apps or games, that a lot of people enjoy using… But it’s really of little consequence to the debate here, what you have heard of. :-)
Yeah, there’s a lot of niche software for specific needs that’s doesn’t have alternative or have subpar alternatives on Linux. Even as a full-time Linux users and supporter, I still have to acknowledge that the amount of investments gone into enterprise stuff over the year have basically made switching from Windows for a lot of professions almost impossible. Unless we start having more funding and development from state actors, the market share of OS won’t change significantly anytime soon.
Adobe has had some pressure for some time to offer Linux versions of their software. I think they are being paid by Microsoft not to offer it. Similar to how Google pays Microsoft to keep Bing shit.
I am waiting for an official SteamOS Desktop release. If I am switching to Linux, I would prefer a gaming-focused PC distro that has the support of an 800lb gorilla.
If I have to migrate early, say, at the start of a 2nd American Civil War, I will probably use CachyOS. I don’t expect Microsoft to be neutral or to work for the good guys.
I ran steamos for a few months on my gaming PC… You can download the iso and run it on just about any hardware (so long as it’s team red).
Cachyos is better
The immutable nature of steamos made sure i wouldn’t ever be able to fuck it up, but it also means you cant really sudo anything, plus it’s missing basic PC functionality like printer drivers etc.
The meat of the work Valve did was with the compatibility layer, not SteamOS itself. This means you can choose any distro you’re comfortable with and games will work as well as they do in SteamOS. I recommend Bazzite.
For anyone else on the fence, you don’t need to wait. Lots of distros support gaming right out the box. I switched my gaming desktop (nvidia card) to Pop_OS!, installed Steam, and it just works.
More performance, which would be appreciated. I use local AI for roleplay, shaving off a couple minutes from a response would be nice.
Aside from that, KDE Plasma might let me tweak my experience better than what Mint allowed. Being nearly a complete newcomer to Linux, I don’t really know what distro actually suits me. That is why I would prefer an official SteamOS Desktop, since that would probably have enough casual and power to be useful for me. I am pretty much just going to try Cachy and see how I feel.
Bazzite is another one. Super easy install, you could dual boot it but you need a bit of tech affinity to follow those instructions. Just installing it by itself and deleting windows is easy as though.
There needs to be some sort of EU directive that once a hardware device sells enough units they MUST provide the equivalent software features and functions available on windows for Linux, and not just a plain driver with no config options.
Imagine being able to buy hardware knowing you can configure it in Linux without relying on some unsupported thing made by the community.
Run LTSC /w MAS to activate it while that’s still an option as that and the rest of the Enterprise/IoT SKUs of both Win10 and Win11 still let you make local accounts, or move to Linux if you can and you’re not locked into Windows by anything.
Great. Proton changed everything. My friend uses arch, i use fedora, another friend uses bazzite. I can play everything i want, no issues. Great framerates
The great framerates was something i doesn’t expect to this extent when switching. I thought that games would probably work similar but i went from 40-50 fps on medium high settings in elden ring to smooth 60 on highest settings just by switching from windows to bazzite
It is amazing for gaming (particularly if you go with AMD over Nvidia). I’ve run into very few (if any) games that have outright not worked. Almost all games work with not tinkering whatsoever.
Checkout protondb.com and look up the games you’re wondering about.
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I use Lemmy and Steam games, someone please recommend a Linux OS and a browser to end this stupid shit for me.
Linux Mint and Firefox should be good starting points.
I’d like to add that librewolf is a great privacy focused browser based on Firefox.
Went this route a few months ago. The switch was incredibly easy.
https://yearofthelinuxdesktop.net/
According to the flowchart there, cachyOS or bazzite, also some other tools and recommendations, good luck!
Nobara and pikaOS also both good options. I use CachyOs on my main PC and nobara on my htpc and have had a very pleasant time with the distros and their communities. Just gotta leave windows at the door and be open to learning a new way of doing things. Best of luck OP
and browser I love zen browser and have Vivaldi as my chromium browser of choice when some niche task needs it
I went from Nobara to Bazzite, Nobara worked but felt super janky, Bazzite is on another planet in terms of polish.
Bazzite is awesome I just don’t like immutable distros personally. I like to tinker more than they allow. Nobara works great for my htpc but I think if I had to switch from CachyOs on my gaming PC I’d go pikaOS
I keep reading this, but it’s never clear what people mean. I still haven’t found anything I’m not allowed to tinker with, it’s just done differently.
Lol, CAD on Linux at 90% of what is available on Windows? That’s straight out dishonest.
Source: CAD user on Linux
CachyOS has recently stopped playing H264 videos on some websites after a system update.(on Librewolf and other browsers too). Installing ffmpeg4.4 will fix this.
If you have a Nvidia card, I’ve found mint and neon to be really poor performing. Kubuntu and Q4 have been amathiugh, I wouldn’t use Q4os unless you have low end hardware though.
That being said mint is just the best os in the sphere for performance and usability, if it runs well for you that would be awesome.
Libre wolf is an amazing Firefox branch, runs well, super private, good overall, though in my opinion it fails to perform well on beefy websites with alot of visual goodies (like sketch sketchfab and other 3d model websites.) Best to have both Firefox and Libre Wolf.
On a side note some fun apps to use on Linux I found: qdirstat (winderstat replacement.) Portmaster (take control of what can access your pc via the internet, also has built in dns, a wonderful user interface, its just amazing.) Vencord (yeah I know discord sucks, but its almost impossible to get away from. Seriously I’ve tried to get my friends to use matrix, no Bueno.)
Also, Plasma is the greatest thing ever. My god is it good.
bazzite and librewolf
I just came here to upvote LibreWolf.
You could literally go into any “technology” post and there will be dozens
I’ve had a good experience with Bazzite. It worked out of the box for steam, and the “bazaar” app store built into it had everything I needed. Heroic is in there and good for handling PC games from other stores. Use Proton+ to get the latest Proton GE if you run into any windows game compatibility issues and it may solve them.
Linux Mint. If my 85-year-old dad can get used to it after over 30 years of Windows, you’ll be fine.
/edit Also Firefox comes with pretty much every Linux distribution, but if you need something Chromium-based, I’m partial to Vivaldi.
Mint is very similar to a Windows feel
KDE is also similar enough but actually looks good, and is a more complete and coherent experience.
I also don’t think “looks similar” is actually good if you’re switching. Because it will be similar enough to be confusing when it then behaves differently, and it’s IMO easier to learn something that’s obviously (slightly) different than trying to just learn different behavior.
Just wish Cinnamon looked a bit better.
Sure, but the cool thing about Linux is that you can pick the gui. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_window_managers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_desktop_environments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_display_servers#Wayland
TBH I’m fine with XFCE. It looks reasonably modern but is lightweight and uncomplicated. Takes recolors well, too. Never had any problems with it.
Yeah, but system tray icons don’t really behave consistently on Xfce.
Huh. I’ve not had that experience. Then again, I don’t have a ton of tray icons on my Mint install, mostly just Steam, Telegram, and occasionally Discord.
I did have my panel set up vertical, with the system tray icons in two columns. Typically there were two groups (for some reason) stacked on top of eachother and if the top one had an odd number of icons then there was a conspicuous gap.
Now I use Kubuntu, though I miss the GNOME text editor (I installed it, but with GNOME being GNOME it wasn’t themeable, and I can’t find the Cinnamon or Xfce fork in the repositories).
CachyOS could be great! If not, Zorin and Mint are great.
Stop giving new people choices! (Quasi facetious)
Yeah you gotta stay stuck in a duopoly of shitty multibilion companies, like God intended! Lol
God intended for a monopoly, hence there must be an armageddon between Apple and Google
Bazzite and Librewolf
Pop!_OS, PikaOS, CachyOS, and Bazzite are the top gaming distros right now.
I recommend Pop! if you have Nvidia cards. If you have AMD, any of them will work.
PikaOS or Bazzite with the KDE Plasma desktop are going to be closest to Windows 10 in terms of how you use them.
Pop! has a super different UI, almost Mac-like. But it’s based on Ubuntu, the most-used distro. Which means that if anything goes wrong you can search “[problem] Ubuntu” and get hundreds of solution pages.
CachyOS is based on Arch, which is the big, scawy Linux that all the nerds say they use. It’s easier to break than the other ones, and won’t officially offer some of the apps that something Debian/Ubuntu based might have. I would recommend it when you’re looking to get a bit more technical.
That said, I haven’t broken my install yet and CachyOS is like the fastest OS available right now. Serious FPS gains for a LOT of games compared to Windows, and even other Linux distros. I also have not had to sit and troubleshoot it over anything. I was shocked at how smooth it was for an Arch system.
So, there’s not really a bad choice in those 4. I’d recommend Pop! if you never want to have to tinker, Pika or Bazzite if you want to feel like you’re still using Windows, and Cachy when you feel comfortable taking some training wheels off (and that could be right now!).
For browsers, try LibreWolf. It’s a locked-down version of Firefox. Or just use Firefox. It ain’t perfect, but then again it ain’t Chrome.
PopOS vote from me. Very easy to get set up, especially if you have an Nvidia card. Flatpak is integrated to their store, it just works out of the box.
oh hey nice I haven been on Mint for awhile and my Nvidia card gives me no end of trouble
LInux mint or bazzite, I’d take a look at both, and firefox with ublock origin
Even at my workplace I asked HR for permission to switch the office desktop to GNU+Linux. They required the installation of a few
malwarespyware but otherwise didn’t mind.I have been using GNU+Linux on and off since 2007 only using Windows when needed to. Now I’m fully Windows-free and intend to keep it this way.
Linux has been a superior OS for a while, especially since Steam’s efforts to port games over to it.
Only reason many people hang on, including some in my household, is platform exclusive tools like Adobe.
Kind of what I was thinking too.
Well, Adobe is not “household” software. :-)
But there are a lot of other software, that people have a hard time letting go of. Like Affinity, Scrivener, certain games, a lot of small programs/apps, like FastStone apps (Image viewer and more), AllMyNotes, ActionOutline, Duplicate cleaner 5, EZ CD Audio Converter and more…
I always recommend Loreforge as a replacement for Scrivener. I had no problem swapping once I spent a little time in Loreforge. It’s even available on Windows so they can try it ahead of time.
i just use obsidian tbh, more fully featured and customizable
It’s a good alternative, but it’s subscription based, and that’s a no go. Thanks for telling me about it though.
Huh? I’ve never paid anything for it.
Edit: Ohhh, I see. They’ve added a subscription for some extra stuff. The full features of the program are entirely available in the free version. I’ve never pushed up against a paywall as far as I can tell.
it is when everyone pirates it
Which everyone doesn’t do. By your definition, every software is household. Come on, please relate to this with common sense.
It may be me being a millenial, but I’m used to Photoshop being widely pirated. It used to be Adobe’s strategy to let people do that because that meant more people who knew how to use it and therefore more business sales.
No offense but with the number of random processes running on any given machine, I am in no way gonna trust a mission critical app to work right from a pirate site and not load something extra like a keylogger. Hell it barely works right in a fully legal install…
Also, I used to strongly advocate switching off Creative Cloud to Affinity to own the software but I have this horrible feeling that they may be going either subscription or AI slop or both on the 30th and you can no longer buy version 2.
(And I say that as a long-time Adobe stockholder from back before they went pure evil with Creative Cloud.)
No need to convince me, I quit using Adobe before they even introduced Creative Cloud.
I’m just explaining what I see.
I used a pirated version of PS too - many years ago. I worked with multimedia, so there was a reason. Most regular people don’t even know how to use PS… They are better of with just a simple tool to do what they need, like cropping adjusting size, levels, colors and and the most basic things.
Yeah, again, my opinion may be influenced by my age, once upon a time computer users were, on average, skilled enough to do simple stuff in PS.
That was when most users were drawn to computers out of a desire to learn, play and use it. Now, a lot of users are forced to use computers. That doesn’t make them great at it.
@Damage
@Core_of_Arden
And skilled enough to pirate. I think most users now don’t have any idea how to access pirated material.
LOL. Never heard of any of them.
My guess is, that you haven’t heard of a lot of apps or games, that a lot of people enjoy using… But it’s really of little consequence to the debate here, what you have heard of. :-)
Yeah, there’s a lot of niche software for specific needs that’s doesn’t have alternative or have subpar alternatives on Linux. Even as a full-time Linux users and supporter, I still have to acknowledge that the amount of investments gone into enterprise stuff over the year have basically made switching from Windows for a lot of professions almost impossible. Unless we start having more funding and development from state actors, the market share of OS won’t change significantly anytime soon.
Adobe has had some pressure for some time to offer Linux versions of their software. I think they are being paid by Microsoft not to offer it. Similar to how Google pays Microsoft to keep Bing shit.
Once I retire and no longer need Windows for work I am switching full time to Linux.
AutoCAD
Freecad?
Not at all comparable.
source: I use it.
It’s the reason I feel stuck too.
Why would a OS need an online account?
We truly live in the stupidest timeline.
How will it know which ads to show you without knowing who you are?
Another big reason to switch to GNU/Linux.
I am waiting for an official SteamOS Desktop release. If I am switching to Linux, I would prefer a gaming-focused PC distro that has the support of an 800lb gorilla.
If I have to migrate early, say, at the start of a 2nd American Civil War, I will probably use CachyOS. I don’t expect Microsoft to be neutral or to work for the good guys.
I ran steamos for a few months on my gaming PC… You can download the iso and run it on just about any hardware (so long as it’s team red).
Cachyos is better
The immutable nature of steamos made sure i wouldn’t ever be able to fuck it up, but it also means you cant really sudo anything, plus it’s missing basic PC functionality like printer drivers etc.
The meat of the work Valve did was with the compatibility layer, not SteamOS itself. This means you can choose any distro you’re comfortable with and games will work as well as they do in SteamOS. I recommend Bazzite.
For anyone else on the fence, you don’t need to wait. Lots of distros support gaming right out the box. I switched my gaming desktop (nvidia card) to Pop_OS!, installed Steam, and it just works.
What factors lead you to select Cachy?
More performance, which would be appreciated. I use local AI for roleplay, shaving off a couple minutes from a response would be nice.
Aside from that, KDE Plasma might let me tweak my experience better than what Mint allowed. Being nearly a complete newcomer to Linux, I don’t really know what distro actually suits me. That is why I would prefer an official SteamOS Desktop, since that would probably have enough casual and power to be useful for me. I am pretty much just going to try Cachy and see how I feel.
🤷♂️
Bazzite is another one. Super easy install, you could dual boot it but you need a bit of tech affinity to follow those instructions. Just installing it by itself and deleting windows is easy as though.
Joke’s on them. I’m not about to use Windows 11 anyway
Yeahhh, I’m going with Linux when I get my warrantied laptop back after some research on drivers.
Had Win 11 on my laptop (came with it) swapped to Mint 2 days ago. First Linux device. I cannot express how much faster it loads shit now.
There needs to be some sort of EU directive that once a hardware device sells enough units they MUST provide the equivalent software features and functions available on windows for Linux, and not just a plain driver with no config options.
Imagine being able to buy hardware knowing you can configure it in Linux without relying on some unsupported thing made by the community.
Oh nooooo whatever will I do now
Run LTSC /w MAS to activate it while that’s still an option as that and the rest of the Enterprise/IoT SKUs of both Win10 and Win11 still let you make local accounts, or move to Linux if you can and you’re not locked into Windows by anything.
I think Enterprise versions don’t require it either.
IoT and LTSC are Enterprise versions.
Sure but they are both special versions, I’m just taking about regular Windows
Deal! (i’m swithing to Linux)
Have fun! It’s a learning curve, but a very accomplishable learning curve, and at the end you get to say that you don’t use microsoft
It’s just so much better than Windows in every way.
Lol.
If I ever use windows again. It’ll be a cracked version.
You don’t need to “crack” anything. Massgrave can activate any version of windows through the official process.
It technically probably breaks the EULA but no one gives a shit (including MS).
sudo apt purge windows
Ok! Moved to linux for gaming 2 years ago and havent looked back. Eat shit, MS.
How is it for gaming? Im hesitant to switch just for that one use case, but its a big one.
Great. Proton changed everything. My friend uses arch, i use fedora, another friend uses bazzite. I can play everything i want, no issues. Great framerates
The great framerates was something i doesn’t expect to this extent when switching. I thought that games would probably work similar but i went from 40-50 fps on medium high settings in elden ring to smooth 60 on highest settings just by switching from windows to bazzite
Same! Windows is so heavy now they are even considering making a leaner gaming edition. Its so silly.
It is amazing for gaming (particularly if you go with AMD over Nvidia). I’ve run into very few (if any) games that have outright not worked. Almost all games work with not tinkering whatsoever.
Checkout protondb.com and look up the games you’re wondering about.
That’s fine by me.
Lol too late. I already moved to Linux and love it.