Linux people, I need your help!

[ParanormalBanana]

Hello community!

I require your enlightened minds regarding my possible switch to linux starting today! 

So windows got the best of my computer AGAIN. I don't do crazy stuff, but I find that I need more functionality out of my computer, and up until now, I achieved such using apps like Stardock Fences, keyboard scripts, custom taskbar shortcuts that lead to more scripts which edited the registry and rebooted apps, etc. Now that windows killed the taskbar, I have to jumps even more loops to have basic functionality that I used to get in XP. 

Long story short, all that is fun and stuff but it keeps leading to crashes, bad desktop performance and as is the case today, complete OS crash and corruption for no reason whatsoever and I have had it with windows, so I want to install linux to try it out as a dual boot solution for a while. 

- I have tried live usb for a bunch of stuff, and have found that I like KDE Plasma. I might go for something else but it's an idea. 

- I have always had a kind of a hands on approach to most things, and that is why I feel like I should be an Arch fan. Even though it's kind of scary right now. I don't really know how much time I'll have to put into the linux adventure and I don't know that I won't get discouraged halfway, so I have reservations regarding Arch, even though it's quite clear that my brain is hardwired for DIY solutions. 

- based on my fears from above, why not Manjaro? Also, the idea of a rolling distro sounds nice to my noob ears, I need help on that as well. 

- use case : Davinci Resolve, Blackmagic Fusion, Gaming on ANY game, OBS Studio, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Ableton Live, Unreal Engine 5, Blender. 

Those MUST run. The idea is to dual boot FOR NOW, and then replace Windows altogether, so I need a solution which can ultimately support all of those apps. Resolve MUST perform, and be able to use GPU acceleration. 

So there you have it. It my project possible? Is it realistic? Does it take years of work? Are some of my use case apps impossible to use on Linux? How many drawbacks are there? And what distro would be best outside of Arch? Or is it Arch? 

Huge thanks to anyone who bothered reading all that and has any answer to my questions, i know it's a lot to ask but the internet is so confusing, and basically all articles I read about linux says to choose whatever distro and be magically able to do whatever, but the recent series of LTT videos ab out linux gaming seem to say otherwise... 

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Now that windows killed the taskbar,

did i miss something?

4 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Gaming on ANY game,

gonna be problematic

4 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Adobe Photoshop

not gonna happen

 

in my opinion, as someone with more linux than windows in their life, i can say it's gonna be more of a grind to get all that happy on linux, than to learn how to get the most out of win10/11, fill the rest with some classic start type of application, and rainmeter for the fancies.

[RONOTHAN##]

I've never been much of a fan of dual boot solutions, since it's not fun having to shut down everything to go and switch OSes to get access to one program that you need on the other. Doing a dual boot, eventually you'll find that you're gonna just be staying in Windows since everything you need works in there and there's not much reason to switch back to the Linux partition. 

 

I do love Linux systems and all that, but at the same time, half the stuff you need to work doesn't work in Linux. You will be better off just trying to get used to Windows. If you've got a secondary machine (say a laptop) that you don't do Adobe stuff on, feel free to stick Manjaro KDE on there, but with your main machine you really are better off just sticking to Windows given what you need it to do. 

[tikker]

48 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

I don't do crazy stuff, but I find that I need more functionality out of my computer, and up until now, I achieved such using apps like Stardock Fences, keyboard scripts, custom taskbar shortcuts that lead to more scripts which edited the registry and rebooted apps, etc.

Depending on what this "nothing crazy" functionality is, linux won't be that much different from Windows in regard to custom scripts and whatnot for things. Linux isn't a magic bullet and something like Arch takes that to the proverbial extreme, being aimed at customisability and tinkering. That sounds nice at first, but if you're not interested in playing sysadmin then it's a lot less fun in my opinion.

48 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Those MUST run.

Well as said Adobe doesn't have linux support, so that'll be the show stopper in that case.

48 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

So there you have it. It my project possible? Is it realistic? Does it take years of work? Are some of my use case apps impossible to use on Linux? How many drawbacks are there? And what distro would be best outside of Arch? Or is it Arch? 

If you're willing to give up Adobe software then yeah with some sacrifices it's possible. I daily drive Fedora linux for work and it's great, but my personal PC runs Windows. I would not recommend jumping into Arch if you're completely new to linux. I recommend starting with something "simpler" like Fedora or Mint, maybe PopOS.

[Kilrah]

If Adobe MUST run you can simply forget all of it straight away.

 

Might want to look into this to get your taskbar/start menu back.

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

[ParanormalBanana]

Just now, Kilrah said:

If Adobe MUST run you can simply forget all of it straight away.

 

Might want to look into this to get your taskbar/start menu back.

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

Yeah that's part of what i've been using and it has unfortunately also caused it's few share of crashes in the last few weeks, even though it's the best solution out there kudos to Valinet. 
 

Just now, manikyath said:

did i miss something?

gonna be problematic

not gonna happen

 

in my opinion, as someone with more linux than windows in their life, i can say it's gonna be more of a grind to get all that happy on linux, than to learn how to get the most out of win10/11, fill the rest with some classic start type of application, and rainmeter for the fancies.

Even with Wine and whatnot? Damn, I guess i am stuck with windows... 

[Sauron]

57 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Those MUST run

Then use windows because it's not going to happen.

[Eigenvektor]

3 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Even with Wine and whatnot? Damn, I guess i am stuck with windows... 

Wine isn't perfect. There's stuff you can get to run and stuff you can't (and stuff that runs so-so or requires workarounds). You can check on WineHQ, but you'll notice that most stuff is games, because that's what most people are interested in.

 

15 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I've never been much of a fan of dual boot solutions, since it's not fun having to shut down everything to go and switch OSes to get access to one program that you need on the other.

Guess it depends on what your needs are. In my case Linux is the main OS and Windows is just there to play games (that either don't run or don't run well enough). I've sometimes gone months without booting into Windows.

[deltatux]

49 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Even with Wine and whatnot? Damn, I guess i am stuck with windows... 

WINE has come a long way but unless you're willing to use really old versions of Adobe software. It's either you stick with Windows or you have to find Linux alternatives like Corel AfterShot, Rawtherapee or Darktable for Adobe Lightroom and for Photoshop, it's going to be GIMP.

  

42 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Guess it depends on what your needs are. In my case Linux is the main OS and Windows is just there to play games (that either don't run or don't run well enough). I've sometimes gone months without booting into Windows.

Same for me but if it's for software that's not too heavy like Microsoft Office for Office-specific features, I just run Windows in a VM.

[RollyShed]

I've installed over 40 Linux Mint Cinnamon systems for users. A large number have been fitting an SSD to a laptop to speed it up and give the user a reliable system to work with.

 

Of the apps you mention Blender, yes. It depends what you actually do with Photoshop as to whether there is something that will do the  same job. GIMP? A mention of Microsoft Office. Why? LibreOffice will do everything and more.

 

Gaming is possible but you will have to follow that up elsewhere as all the users I know use their computer for real work.

 

As for time to learn to use Linux versus Windows 10? None. I have a user here, Windows one day, Linux the next and carried on doing the same work, documents, accounts, emails, web applications.

 

Did she have a delay getting things going? Yes, had to drag her icons on the desktop back to where they were wanted. Less than 30 seconds to do it?

[ParanormalBanana]

24 minutes ago, RollyShed said:

Gaming is possible but you will have to follow that up elsewhere as all the users I know use their computer for real work.

Funny that you'd mention "real work". I do gaming for real work, that's kind of the reason I need ALL games to work. Noticed I need blender, UE5 and OBS to run? Gives you a hint of what kind of work I intend to do. 

 

26 minutes ago, RollyShed said:

Did she have a delay getting things going? Yes, had to drag her icons on the desktop back to where they were wanted. Less than 30 seconds to do it?

No disrespect but if my issue was about icon placement, I think I would be needing the help of a knowledgeable community, would I?

[ParanormalBanana]

Thanks a lot for all who posted advice!

I now realize I will never be able to fully switch to linux

I will then stick to windows, It's always been about the exclusives

 

[RollyShed]

25 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

No disrespect but if my issue was about icon placement, I think I would be needing the help of a knowledgeable community, would I?

No, it was to show just how little was involved.

It would appear that the type of work you do does rely on Windows.

[tikker]

36 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Funny that you'd mention "real work". I do gaming for real work, that's kind of the reason I need ALL games to work. Noticed I need blender, UE5 and OBS to run? Gives you a hint of what kind of work I intend to do. 

But that's not gaming, those softwares can mean anything from 3D modeling and streaming to game development. A list of software can be ambiguous, so people will be able to give better advice if you come at them straight up and say "I do game development using X, Y, Z; do they run on W?" instead.

1 hour ago, RollyShed said:

It depends what you actually do with Photoshop as to whether there is something that will do the  same job. GIMP?

I'll die on the hill of GIMP still not having non-destructive editing as a big reason of why it is not yet a valid alternative (saying this as a GIMP user). It can do nice things, but that and other small annoyances keep me from doing more advanced stuff than basic layout or minor edits time and again. It's a bit of a shame for quite a versatile program.

33 minutes ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Thanks a lot for all who posted advice!

I now realize I will never be able to fully switch to linux

I will then stick to windows, It's always been about the exclusives

 

That's the reason my personal rig still runs Windows. As much as we like to complain about Windows, when it comes to software support you can mostly bank on it being supported. Sure there are alternatives on linux, but industry standards are still the standard for actual reasons w.r.t. functionality and user experience. The only reason I don't use Adobe's suite is that I can't justify the monthly subscription cost with my frequency of use, so I went with Affinity as something close enough for me, but that also doesn't support linux.

[Sprawlie]

6 hours ago, ParanormalBanana said:

- use case : Davinci Resolve, Blackmagic Fusion, Gaming on ANY game, OBS Studio, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Ableton Live, Unreal Engine 5, Blender. 
 

Recent full time convert from Windows to Linux for my desktop. 

 

Davinci Resolve works great. Don't know Black magic.

 

Gaming is hit or miss but gettting much much better with a combination of proton for steam and Lutris. My games seem to all work great. (world of warcraft, Cities Skylines)

 

Any Adobe is a no go. End of story. Don't even try. not worth it. UE5 should run via above gaming methods as well as blender if I'm not mistaken

 

But yah, saddly, there's just a few things that are so tied into windows due to whatever reason that I keep my windows 10 instance on a drive ready to boot should I need to. Just need to turn the drive on in the bios.

 

 

 

[ParanormalBanana]

20 minutes ago, tikker said:

I'll die on the hill of GIMP still not having non-destructive editing as a big reason of why it is not yet a valid alternative (saying this as a GIMP user). It can do nice things, but that and other small annoyances keep me from doing more advanced stuff than basic layout or minor edits time and again. It's a bit of a shame for quite a versatile program.

That's the reason my personal rig still runs Windows. As much as we like to complain about Windows, when it comes to software support you can mostly bank on it being supported. Sure there are alternatives on linux, but industry standards are still the standard for actual reasons w.r.t. functionality and user experience. The only reason I don't use Adobe's suite is that I can't justify the monthly subscription cost with my frequency of use, so I went with Affinity as something close enough for me, but that also doesn't support linux.

I can only agree to all that. I dodn't really know what was supported and what wasn't on linux before starting this thread, but same as you, I can't live without non destructive editing. As a colorist (I'm only getting started in the video game stuff, so that's why I only mentioned the two programs I'm actually getting the hang of) I'm relying hugely on nodes and non destructive abilities found in Resolve, and I would never alter a picture forever even in photoshop. I rarely use photoshop but I will never switch to anything else than Lightroom for photos because I just love the features and UX design. + their all new AI masks feature is just amazing. 

[ParanormalBanana]

24 minutes ago, Sprawlie said:

Davinci Resolve works great.

Thanks! At least, that's great to know

[manikyath]

13 hours ago, ParanormalBanana said:

Even with Wine and whatnot? Damn, I guess i am stuck with windows... 

wine is not a magic solution. a lot of things *may* work just fine, but it might also just not work, break unexpectedly, run into some edge cases, ... and you basicly have ZERO support to get things fixed.

[Xiee]

If you must absolutely need to use Photoshop, consider using it with Bottles. It's an app that sets up WINE automatically for you so you don't have to do any manual setup.