Windows to Linux

[joshfrog]

Hi All

 

Watching the WAN show with Linus and Luke talking about Windows and all the stuff going on there, how it could be what forces users to move to Linux.

 

As a Windows user what would it take for you to move from Windows to Linux?

Linux users who moved from Windows what was the reason/cause you moved?

 

Personally i already use Linux on all my devices aside from my gaming computer just because of compatibility with games and anti-cheat not working on all my games with Linux so its ether Windows or not play the games i want to and already own. 

 

Let me know what you think, Thanks

[Poinkachu]

31 minutes ago, joshfrog said:

As a Windows user what would it take for you to move from Windows to Linux?

As trouble free as Windows when it comes to software compatibility

[Brian McKee]

I've been moving my work flow over to Linux for a while now due to the writing on the wall with windows 11. With recent announcements I feel even more justified in my decision. I already actively avoided kernel level anti cheat in windows because I don't believe in it, and at this point there's only a handful of things that I even need windows for left.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

As trouble free as Windows when it comes to software compatibility

For gaming then sure, that was an issue and why I still have a Windows PC for gaming only.

 

For pretty much everything else it was a case of using the software I would HAVE to use on Linux, while I was still on Windows, to see if it was enough for my needs.  eg I switched from Paintshop Pro to GIMP (fortunately never needed the features nor could afford Photoshop), was already using VLC rather than Windows Media Player.

 

Its easy to get stuck on software you've been using forever, without considering if Open Source alternatives actually have all the functionality you need.

 

The biggest thing I miss is not being able to set the voltage curve on NVIDIA GPUs on Linux, so the GPU is not as power efficient.

[Poinkachu]

1 minute ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

For gaming then sure, that was an issue and why I still have a Windows PC for gaming only.

 

For pretty much everything else i it was a case of using the software I would HAVE to use on Linux, while I was still on Windows, to see if it was enough for my needs.  eg I switched from Paintshop Pro to GIMP (fortunately never needed the features nor could afford Photoshop), was already using VLC rather than Windows Media Player.

 

Its easy to get stuck on software you've been using forever, without considering if Open Source alternatives actually have all the functionality you need.

 

The biggest thing I miss is not being able to set the voltage curve on NVIDIA GPUs on Linux, so the GPU is not as power efficient.

Yeah, games included, since it's also a software.

And yes if undervolting is not possible that would suck as well.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Yeah, games included, since it's also a software.

And yes if undervolting is not possible that would suck as well.

But honestly while it "feels wrong" to have a PC sat doing nothing for long periods, I'd highly recommend anyone wanting to move to Linux to have a different PC rather than dual-boot.

 

You could get something like a NUC or a low-end laptop, that's enough for most day to day stuff and can use as little power as a gaming GPU alone will use just sat idle all day.  Then again, people with tricked out RGB setups the RGB alone is adding a significant power budget compared to those.

 

Even before what Microsoft are doing, gaming and doing anything sensitive on the same PC is risky, given a lot of anti-cheat software runs deep within the OS so is potentially a way to compromise your PC.

[Eigenvektor]

31 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The biggest thing I miss is not being able to set the voltage curve on NVIDIA GPUs on Linux, so the GPU is not as power efficient.

Do you know if GreenWithEnvy provides this? I have an AMD card, so don't know, but it appears to be the rough equivalent of CoreCtrl.

[Poinkachu]

15 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

But honestly while it "feels wrong" to have a PC sat doing nothing for long periods, I'd highly recommend anyone wanting to move to Linux to have a different PC rather than dual-boot.

 

You could get something like a NUC or a low-end laptop, that's enough for most day to day stuff and can use as little power as a gaming GPU alone will use just sat idle all day.  Then again, people with tricked out RGB setups the RGB alone is adding a significant power budget compared to those.

 

Even before what Microsoft are doing, gaming and doing anything sensitive on the same PC is risky, given a lot of anti-cheat software runs deep within the OS so is potentially a way to compromise your PC.

To me, that's an extra cost & hassle (switching back n forth) I don't want to go into rn.
Plus in my case doing so means the Linux will go unused for most of the time. Games, Adobe stuffs, etc.

 

As for something sensitive, what I'm most afraid of is probably only banking and e-commerce.

For those things, in my country OTP and 2fa is pretty much required for almost anything related to it, to the point if being annoying sometimes.

At the very least for local transactions and some international transactions.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

Do you know if GreenWithEnvy provides this? I have an AMD card, so don't know, but it appears to be the rough equivalent of CoreCtrl.

Sadly not, NVIDIA do not expose it in the Linux driver.

 

It gets worse, GWE is not yet compatible with Wayland.

 

That said you can control GPU power and clock speeds with nvidia-smi.  This is even useful on Windows as MSI Afterburner only lets you set a voltage curve OR clock rate.  With nvidia-smi you can reduce the clock speed while Afterburner is still using the voltage curve.

 

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

To me, that's an extra cost & hassle (switching back n forth) I don't want to go into rn.
Plus in my case doing so means the Linux will go unused for most of the time. Games, Adobe stuffs, etc.

Indeed, its why I needed to see if ALL my regular usage could be replicated on Linux.

 

However I initially dual-booted and found it was more hassle, as I had to leave what I was doing on Windows and switch, only to need to do something on Windows and have to switch back.

 

With two different machines I can game on Windows while having a second monitor with my normal activities still open.  A lot less hassle than people have getting games to run reliably with a browser or chat on a second monitor.

 

So I didn't become a daily-driver of Linux until I switched to having a PC dedicated to gaming.

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

As for something sensitive, what I'm most afraid of is probably only banking and e-commerce.

For those things, in my country OTP and 2fa is pretty much required for almost anything related to it, to the point if being annoying sometimes.

At the very least for local transactions and some international transactions.

I know what you mean.  I stopped using my PC at all for banking as the 2FA needs the mobile app anyway, so I just switched to using only the mobile app.

This bothers me, as it kinda negates the benefit of 2FA if its all on the same device.

[MootEndymion752]

For me to move to linux, I need something as an excuse.

[RollyShed]

5 hours ago, joshfrog said:

As a Windows user what would it take for you to move from Windows to Linux?

Linux users who moved from Windows what was the reason/cause you moved?

For me, well over a decade ago, an interesting disk with Linux Mint with the Australian APC magazine. I installed it on a spare computer. After a year I realised I'd booted Windows on a faster computer about twice so swapped disks over and didn't touch Windows again.

 

My partner, Microsoft wiped her disk October 2018, her's and a million other users. Everything was backed up on another disk that also had Linux Mint on it. I swapped disk cables and she had used Windows one night and Linux the next morning and carried on with Linux as if nothing had happened..... except every month nothing got broken by MS.

 

An organisation I belong to and I've installed SSDs (to replace hard disks which are so slow) on laptops for members and the local community. All have Linux Mint as the installation I do. Over 50 done.

We also got given desktops. There was wanted a dozen, we ended up with 3 dozen. All have SSDs and Linux Mint installed.

[Poinkachu]

7 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Indeed, its why I needed to see if ALL my regular usage could be replicated on Linux.

 

However I initially dual-booted and found it was more hassle, as I had to leave what I was doing on Windows and switch, only to need to do something on Windows and have to switch back.

 

With two different machines I can game on Windows while having a second monitor with my normal activities still open.  A lot less hassle than people have getting games to run reliably with a browser or chat on a second monitor.

 

So I didn't become a daily-driver of Linux until I switched to having a PC dedicated to gaming.

O yea, in terms of less hassle a 2nd pc is definitely whole lot better than dual boot.

In my case the chance of me daily driving Linux probably around 5%, have 3 distros installed in Hyper-V that I have yet to touch past installing them.

Dunno, I consider myself quite a fast learner, but knowing there's only a very little chance of me daily-ing it made me too lazy to even bother learning to use it I guess?.

 

Not to mention it probably need a GPU passthrough somehow if I want to truly simulate "Use"

 

Quote

I know what you mean.  I stopped using my PC at all for banking as the 2FA needs the mobile app anyway, so I just switched to using only the mobile app.

This bothers me, as it kinda negates the benefit of 2FA if its all on the same device.

I tend to stick to their website if they allow me to, especially since some bank or companies here have either iffy or downright messy mobile apps.

Local e-commerce I'm kinda forced to use the mobile app due to them only allowing the use of vouchers and free shipping if the checkout is done through app. Why? no idea, it sure irks me though, because i hate browsing for items on mobile.

Since their 2fa usually consist of them sending me an OTP code through SMS, currently contemplating to buy a small nokia dumb phone just to receive OTPs.

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

Not to mention it probably need a GPU passthrough somehow if I want to truly simulate "Use"

Yeah I forgot to mention there was another stage where I tried GPU passthrough to still run Windows while in Linux. 

 

Unfortunately I hit two snags with that:

1) I was having screen tearing issues with the Intel iGPU, so I ended up needing to use the NVIDIA card on Linux to get around that.

2)  Unless you lock CPU cores from use by the host so they ONLY get used by the Windows VM, it causes major latency issues in Windows.  Given I want all cores available to both Windows and Linux for best performance, this was a none starter.

 

As for mobiles, honestly it boggles my mind how anyone browses the web on a phone, its such a horrible experience.  The idea that some people only ever experience the web that way, no wonder they end up just browsing social media like a zombie.

[BoomerDutch]

Reason I've left windows is impatience and i take care of what i own and don't own.

 

For example if i pay for the internet then company cannot use my internet for their purposes otherwise I've rather they pay my bandwidth.

 

Security, the windows is just communicating multiple sources the more sources the less security it becomes, I'd just hate it.

 

Windows will execute anything whenever it's for scanning viruses or image fixing whatever reason windows decided to read a file if you accidentally downloaded malware and without user interaction it got activated.

 

It includes usb devices it will autorun even autorun feature is off but defender reads it anyways and gets exploited and malware got run.

 

In fresh install i always kept realising how much bloat windows 10 and 11 it has and always happy to destroy HDD to maximum power for installing f-king teams and other Microsoft software. Which I've never cared and always complained that it takes forever till it's ready to be used.

 

Since then linux was so much fun to tinker with and distrohopping till I've found distro to sit in for while.

 

And wait times is waayy less now.