I just wish games worked fine on Linux.
Good news, an overwhelming majority does work fine, and a significant number of those actually run better than on windows. I just switched to Linux on my desktop pc (because of win 10 EOL and because fuck microsoft) and I’m amazed how smooth the experience has been.
I read people online saying this often. But I’ve neve been able to play things without hiccups on Linux before.
With very very few exceptions.
I wonder why our experiences are this different. What distribution of linux do you run, on which hardware and how recent is your experience? For what it’s worth, I have an AMD cpu and gpu with cachyos (which is a flavor of arch with some gaming optimizations pre-applied at install). I’d urge you to give it another try, Proton/Wine has really advanced a lot in the past few years.
They do
I’ve read people saying this here on lemmy often.
But it really hasn’t been my experience at all with very few exceptions.
What games? Because a lot of games do work fine, maybe even most of them. The problem is that the outliers are often games that a lot of people are playing (see https://areweanticheatyet.com/). Those games are usually not my cup of tea anyways.
The two I tried recently that were problematic were wow and last epoch.
Allegedly they both work fine. They don’t though.
I’m usually playing steam games, and I often will find a solution to make it work on protondb if I have issues. Most of my games I can just install and run though. But I understand it being frustrating if your favourite games don’t work or require lots of tinkering. I have played a few older games outside steam as well. I usually use Bottles for that, as it creates a wine prefix for me that’s set up with DXVK, etc out of the box.
Last epoch is a steam game. And on protondb it’s platinum apparently.
Never had a good experience with it on Linux though. Buggy as hell.
Any Tipps on how to do that in a business environment? Preferably from people who are actually using Linux in a professional environment? I’m using Linux at home for more than a decade now, and I don’t miss Windows at all, but transforming a smallish company to use Linux in a way that is remotely as comfortable as the Windows stuff seems impossible for now. I need to find solutions that don’t make it harder for our staff to get their work done, because they are busy enough with actual work.
Simply replacing MS Office with LibreOffice and Nextcloud for example does not cut it. The tight integration of MS Teams, Office and Cloud functionality is seen as a huge benefit there and I can’t just take that away from them unless I find a combination of tools that work in a similar fashion. Using Google products instead is obviously not a viable alternative. Every cloud based solution I have found so far is underwhelming at best and lacks a good integration.
Serious answers appreciated.
As it stands Linux isn’t really viable in a business environment. You can make it work but it will involve lots of pain and suffering along with toms of custom scripts and configurations.
It is great for servers but Linux desktops are hard to manage and are unfamiliar to most folks.
Nextcloud has Nextcloud Talk, and you could add the Collabora or OnlyOffice plugins. There you have it all.
Nextcloud is such a pain in the ass. I would never deploy it in production due to its monolithic design
Any Tipps on how to do that in a business environment?
Simply replacing MS Office with LibreOffice and Nextcloud for example does not cut it. The tight integration of MS Teams, Office and Cloud functionality is seen as a huge benefit there and I can’t just take that away from them unless I find a combination of tools that work in a similar fashion.
You just answered your own question; you can’t. Add in Group Policy Management and Active Directory and there is no windows replacement in any other OS.
Now mix in O365 and it just got more complicated.
If anyone knows of a 1:1 Linux equivalent for AD, GP, and DFS (both replication and namespace) I’d love to learn about it.
Friends don’t let friends use DFS
Seriously though it is prone to combustion
Distributed File System?
Only answering your last paragraph. You will not, ever, find a 1:1 equivalent for a few reasons, but mostly because:
- Windows quircks do not have to be accomodated in Linux distros
- Microsoft has very much encouraged massive software where everything is done in a single application, whereas in UNIX world the philosophy is to do one thing and do it well.
- Not sure how DFS works, but with the myriad of networked filesystems available I’m sure there’s an exact requirement match.
Users can be centrally managed in a myriad of ways, but the most used software seems to be following the same X.500 standard - OpenLDAP, FreeIPA, etc.
Machines can be centrally managed via Puppet, Chef, etc.
Company software is managed by having your own repo.
SELinux can be used for incredibly granular access controls, but I can’t see most companies actually needing that.
To sum it up - you’ll always have trouble if you’re solving a windows problem in linux and vice versa. Just for a moment, try imagining a situation where you want to switch a 100% linux company to windows.
Ok, so, no. There’s nothing that exists that’s a 1:1 for Active Directory and the services that come along with it.
This is why companies aren’t switching to Linux in mass.
To sum it up - you’ll always have trouble if you’re solving a windows problem in linux and vice versa. Just for a moment, try imagining a situation where you want to switch a 100% linux company to windows.
I can’t imagine that; not that it doesn’t exist but it’s rare.
I think you’re missing the point of what I’m saying. Unfortunately, words are difficult enough to produce for me, I don’t have a better way to express it.
5 reasons you should not ditch Windows:
-
Your hardware is incompatible or you do not want to fiddle with settings or command lines
-
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows (and not wine)
-
You need serious group policy support or other device/software lockdown methods
-
Your company policy requires it
-
Makes helping Windows users harder if you cannot walk them through the same things they are doing
Of course if any of these apply you can always dual-boot or use a VM. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Linux at all.
What’s with all the downvotes? Anyone care to explain?
This is community, where major portion of users only criticize Windows and praise Linux.
And rightly so! 😇
To me, my activity on my own computer being monitored by Microsoft is the only reason i need to not use it.
And I do actually think you may be slightly mad to be OK with that. Maybe because you feel you get a “free” operating system. I think thats the mentality of a slave.
you do not want to fiddle with settings or command lines
Kinda the reverse for me
I need to fiddle with Massgrave and various debloat scripts to run win
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows
Windows for docker, winboat, etc
serious group policy support or other device/software lockdown methods
I would argue sudo and normal file permissions do the same
Makes helping Windows users harder
???
Your hardware is incompatible
I think you’ll have an extremely hard time finding any hardware that supports Windows but can’t run linux. With Win11 requirements it’s much more likely to be the other way around.
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows
Personally, every game I care to run works perfectly fine on my Steam Deck. I refuse to play any games that require kernel-level anti-cheat. It’s officially distributed malware if you ask me.
Your company policy requires it
The only legitimate thing on this list. Also the most obvious and pointless.
I don’t think anybody is saying to format Linux over the company computer against their Windows policy.
-
Real-time Kernel?
Like my popcorn?
Desktop environment
Jimmy I work in an office. What are you talking about?
- Your average Windows user… Probably.
deleted by creator
Linux doesn’t really have better security. It is actually worse from a purely security perspective.
The key difference is privacy and freedom. A high security prison might be secure but you probably don’t want to be there.
Why worse?
Not OP but - Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much. This kinda’ guarantees Windows has a pretty good resilience (these days).
On top of that - in Linux you can change/break anything, which means bad actors could have you run malware by posting “helpful” comments on help threads. You know, “just run this .sh with
sudo”.Then you have situations like Arch has been going through - DDOS attacks on official repos and malware injected into a couple of packages in AUR. Sure, it got caught - but how many users installed the malware? How many other packages are under less scrutiny and are still serving malware in AUR?
And, I’m certain, someone out there is reading this and preparing to write a hot take on how “AUR is what it is, you’re not supposed to blindly install stuff from it” - but that’s exactly the problem. Because 99% of users have no clue what they’re doing.
Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much.
Linux dominates the server space. Basically any company with access to lots of capital or trade secrets is running Linux servers. It is a massive, massive opportunity for hackers to hit jackpots. Linux gets bombarded by attackers constantly and holds steadfast. I’m not sure where you get this idea that this isn’t the case…
Edit: Just to really drive this point home, 65% of Microsoft Azure servers are Linux. Let that sink in, the majority of even Microsoft’s cloud servers are Linux. That is the one company you would think would be pushing Windows, yet here they are talking about their high quality Linux offerings!
“With over 65% of Azure workloads running Linux, our commitment to delivering high-quality Linux VM images and platforms remains unwavering.” - Microsoft
Linux dominates the server space
But the discussion is about user-space. Not everything from server-Linux translates 1:1 into desktop-Linux.
For example, there are no anti social engineering security measures in Linux. Just
sudoand break anything and everything. Whereas on Windows, if you try doing something stupid, most probably Windows won’t let you, or will at least make you jump through some hoops.There are no anti social engineering security measurements in Linux, for instance. Just sodo and break anything and everything.
Windows gives you a UAC prompt or needs one to run a cmd prompt as admin, both of which are functionally the same as sudo…
Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much.
But, to circle back to the core statement. Yes it is. And Linux holds steadfast.
They’re very much not, that’s the point. There are things that require the
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEMaccount permissions. Admin can do a lot in Windows, but not everything.EDIT: also, Windows throws the UAC prompt around much less than Linux asks for the root permissions. ANY software update on Linux needs root. Even regular users are starting to get that if they see the UAC prompt, something big is about to happen.
You do have a point—Linux does not warn users against running superuser commands constantly and naggingly. Also not the beginner-friendly distros like Zorin, Mint and Ubuntu (as far as I know).
To me that’s fine, because I know not to just run any command, but my grandma who gets an email from a trustworthy-sounding person telling them to run “sudo install this keyboard logger and Rustdesk scripted installer” will not know better.
So then that begs the question, given you seem to know something about it: how should this be addressed? (I assume you know something about this—I don’t even know what an UAC prompt is.)
On the other hand: How does Windows stop users from running the .exe file a trustworthy-sounding person emailed them? You could argue that’s easier to ask people to do than to open the terminal and write a command in there.
Thanks for the summary!
If you want a bit more, also on security, check this comment.
Windows Defender monitors the entire system continuously
Windows is bad for privacy but security is a different matter.
It’s easier than you think to try out on dual boot. You can also run your windows apps through a virtual machine!
Is dual boot a good way to ease yourself in? I literally just made a new nvme partition to try a dual boot
One thing you should do is to start with Windows and then add Linux, not the other way around. I remember someone online said Windows installation likes to occupy all of the drive/will erase the Linux partition, but I might be wrong on that. I have dual boot Fedora + Windows, and I solely use Windows for: a) using windows installation assistant when needing to reinstall windows for family and friends (apparently you can’t create a bootable Windows drive with Linux, which is kind of odd. Just getting the ISOs don’t seem to work, you have to use the “assistant”) b) Not much else actually, I use Fedora for almost everything now. There’s a Linux version of every app I use!
I dual booted by “shrinking” the Windows partition by using the Disk management utility built into Windows. Then, when installing Fedora, I selected the free space available.
LibreOffice (the UI seems to be much better on Linux vs on Windows), Firefox, Thunderbird, Tauon (the only music player I could find without iTunes era UI and has a usable shuffle function. Gapless/G4Music and Amberol are slick GNOME apps, but shuffle is terrible on both), Joplin (for notes), Okular (PDFs), VSCodium (code editor), Godot (game engine), ES-DE + RetroArch (for emulation), nomacs (images), Celluloid and Clapper (video player), FreeTube (YouTube client), OBS studio (screen recorder), Aseprite (pixel art, the editor I use the most, very awesome!), GIMP (photoshop, don’t really use this one as much as I never really used photoshop), Inkscape (illustrator, this is the editor I use the second most, it’s awesome), RawTherapee (Lightroom, I will eventually learn how to use this, but I am putting it off right now), FreeCAD + Blender (3D modelling), Kdenlive (video editor), OrcaSlicer (3D slicer), Nextcloud (self-hosted file backup + a bazillion other things), Immich (self-hosted photo backup), the default Calendar app w/ Radicale (finally I can sync my calendar with my phone! You aren’t able to do the same thing with the def. cal. of Windows…), Steam (all the games I play are supported), and a bunch of CLI utilities as well (like yt-dlp).
Don’t do it on a machine that holds valuable data or one that you need the machine to stay functional for work. I repeatedly fucked up my installation trying to get dual boot setup initially. Bootloader are easy to mess up. Even on a working installation, a Windows update would sometimes break the dual boot.
Its not difficult to set up a virtual machine inside your Linux installation. That way you don’t have to reboot and lose your other workflow to access your windows apps.
If you can, dual boot by having each OS on a separate physical drive.
This is what I was planning, I added a small nvme drive to my desktop to put Linux on
Or if you make two efi partitions, one for Linux and one that Windows uses. Then use the Probe Foreign OS in Linux to make a chainloader entry to windows. Set Linux as UEFI bootloader. Windows doesn’t know about the other partitions and leaves them alone.
Windows is notorious for wiping Linux parts off a shared drive
Not if you separate into two EFI partitions and set Linux one in your UEFI boot options. Windows only gets access when grub hands over boot to windows via a chainloader entry, windows only knows about its EFI. I have run it 8 years like this…after dealing with windows killing my first shared EFI.
Too much hassle, would never recommend that for beginners
This sounds more complicated than it probably is.
And then fuck it up by pointing Linux at your windows EFI partition, end up with neither system bootable and make things worse as you panic and try to rush a fix without understanding what you’re doing.
If you’re new to how it all works and having a working machine is important, best to keep it simple and as separated as you can.
I’m also not convinced that “Windows doesn’t know about the other partitions”, that sounds like the kind of thing that’s true until it isn’t and it overwrites your Linux bootloader.
I’d say no. The effort to setup a dual boot and then hope it never breaks isn’t with it. I’d recommend installing into a virtual machine and running from there. If you break something in your install then it’s easy to start over and it’s way easier for initial setup.
This is the right answer.
the effort to setup dual boot? most distros that sell themselves as beginner friendly have an option for dualboot set up during install. I have dualbooted windows and zorin for 6 months+ without something ever breaking.
It is just a matter of the before Windows update goes rogue
Or just run a live disc.
It is so easy for everyone to just answer this question for themselves rather than read articles about it. And it takes about the same amount of time and effort.
Disc?
yep. short for USB-diskette ;]
The only thing holding me back at this point is a thin thread called my favorite game only supports and requires anti-cheat on Windows. :(
And money but hopefully that’ll solve itself soon.
Money is stopping you from using Linux? What dons that mean?
It means that I need more storage space to do what I want to do
You see Linux is free so what will you spend your money on?
time
Which game is it?
Likely apex or fortnite.
Or League or a slew of EA games.
1 reason:
Microsoft
With Linux, I can change just about everything. If I want a real-time kernel, I can switch. If I want a different desktop environment, change. If I want more control from my keyboard, Linux has my back.
As much as I agree with the sentiment of the article, this is a terrible reason and more likely to scare people away from Linux rather than get them to install it.
If you know what a “real-time kernel” is, you’re probably already using Linux and you are a highly technically literate user. Any “normal person” user is going to look at that and think “Oh, I guess I need to understand technobabble in order to use Linux”. Normal users care about easy, preset defaults, not customization.
Once again, Linux adoption is kneecapped by its own users, who forget what normal people really care about.
Linux adoption is kneecapped by its own users, who forget what normal people really care about.
Yep. My primary goal has always been: ‘It just works’. I’m fairly techy, but I don’t want to fix shit constantly.
What finally got me to switch was Windows no longer ‘just working’. Every update was another assault that required active effort on my part. PiHole, debloating, O&O Shutup, etc, etc. This coupled with Steam bringing Linux gaming into the prime-time, means the OS that most resembles ‘is just works’ is no longer Windows.
For most users, Linux just works. That is the angle that should be pushed. Particularly right now there is a massive opportunity to swap your family members over. No reason for Gran to throw away her facebook machine just because it doesn’t like Windows 11. Throw Mint on there, point her to the Firefox icon, and she is good to go!
Stupid insta360 software >:(
Oh boy my time to shine. Took me a while but I finally got Insta360 Studio working smoothly in Bottles on Linux with GPU acceleration. All credit goes to this github repo https://github.com/SveSop/nvidia-libs.
- download
nvidia-libs-0.8.1.tar.xzfrom https://github.com/SveSop/nvidia-libs - unzip it
- the zip includes a
bottles_setup.shscript, you can try it and see if it works, but it didn’t work for me so I had to use the manual method detailed as follows
- the zip includes a
- copy the extracted
nvidia-libs-0.8.1folder to$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/- this is just copying it to a location inside the Bottles flatpak sandbox, so we can access it inside the Flatpak command shell that we use later
- go to Bottles > Preferences > Runners
- install
kron4ek-wine...runner (not the proton one) - create a new Bottle:
- Name: Insta360
- Environment: Gaming
- Runner: soda
- after creation, go to Insta360 bottle > Settings:
- DXVK: Disabled
- VKD3D: Disabled
- Discrete Graphics: Enabled
- (optional) at this point feel free to close Bottles and disable internet for Bottles if you are really paranoid about privacy and don’t want the Insta360 Studio sending telemetry. You can disable internet for Bottles entirely using Flatseal, or use the experimental option inside Bottles to disable internet specifically for the Insta360 bottle
- then in terminal, enter a shell inside the Bottles flatpak sandbox:
flatpak run --command=bash com.usebottles.bottles - enter the folder you copied from step 3:
cd $XDG_DATA_HOME/bottles/nvidia-libs-0.8.1 - set variable pointing to the folder corresponding to your Insta360 bottle:
export WINEPREFIX=$(realpath ../bottles/Insta360) - set variable pointing to the soda runner:
export PATH=$(realpath ../runners/soda-9.0-1/bin):$PATH- exact folder name depends on the version of soda you used in step 6
- run the installer script
./setup_nvlibs.sh install - back in the Bottles flatpak, go to the Insta360 bottle settings and switch to
kron4ek-wine...runner- as for why I didn’t start with the
kron4ek-wine...runner from the start, it’s because I had trouble running thesetup_nvlibs.shscript in step 13 when I tried to point to thekron4ek-wine...path in step 12, so I started with the soda runner instead
- as for why I didn’t start with the
- run the Insta360 Studio installer inside the Insta360 bottle
- open Insta360 Studio inside the Insta360 bottle, go to Preferences, and if hardware acceleration is enabled by default then everything should be working!
Note: You’ll want to put all 360 files in the Bottles Flatpak sandbox at
$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/Insta360/. This way Insta360 Studio will be able to see them. Exported files will end up in the sandbox as well.I actually did this all in a VM with GPU passthrough, and then made a backup of the entire VM. This way I’ll always have a working copy of Insta360 Studio, even if newer versions of Linux or Bottles stop supporting it.
Tested on:
- Fedora Bluefin 42
- Bottles runner: kron4ek-wine-10.8-amd64
- nvidia rtx gpu
- Insta360 Studio version: 5.6.1
References:
JFC, 16 steps!
Hey thanks so much for this! Is the nvidia stuff needed if I don’t have an nvidia GPU? I have integrated (Radeon 700M) and I see the Insta360 startup splash, but after that the bottle stops. :(
Aw shucks I don’t know anything about AMD, sorry. I doubt any of the nvidia-libs related stuff would do anything on AMD. I did learn a bunch of troubleshooting tips while trying to get it working though, hopefully they can help:
- as always, check system logs. You can use
journalctlin the terminal (look online for more tips, like how to filter for a specific time range), or your distro might come with a GUI (Gnome and KDE both have one, though the Gnome one is much easier to use imho) - Insta360 Studio has log files, you can find them in the bottle sandboxed filesystem, pretty sure it was under AppData, so the path on the host would look something like
$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/Insta360/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/... - in the Bottles flatpak, after installing Insta360 Studio in the bottle, next to the Insta360 Studio shortcut there should be a triple-dot menu with some options, try clicking “Launch with Terminal” so you can see the terminal logs as the application is launching
- though for some reason I noticed that on Bluefin this option doesn’t work…in that case maybe try running the entire Bottles flatpak from the terminal:
flatpak run com.usebottles.bottles, though I haven’t tried this specifically
- though for some reason I noticed that on Bluefin this option doesn’t work…in that case maybe try running the entire Bottles flatpak from the terminal:
- try running tools like GPU_Caps_Viewer and GPU-Z inside the same Bottle to see if they detect the GPU, and what capabilities they report (for the Nvidia GPU you need the CUDA capability, not sure what might be needed for AMD)
- search for Insta360 Studio under https://appdb.winehq.org/, see if anybody else reported getting it working on AMD, and how they did it
- in Bottles, try different runners, like the proton runner or the caffe runner
- ask an AI like ChatGPT or Gemini, the ones with web search access are pretty good at solving Linux issues from what I’ve heard
Unfortunately this is just as tedious as it sounds. I hate trying to get Windows software running in Linux (aside from games, those generally work and you can just check protondb for support). Luckily Insta360 Studio was the last remaining software that I still needed a Windows VM, so once I finally figured it out I could retire Windows for good.
Thank you! I gotta figure out how acceleration but otherwise it’s working :) just had to find a runner that worked with it
- as always, check system logs. You can use
- download
The first paragraph alone filled me with so much emotion because my very first computer was a Pentium 75 too! If I hadn’t switched over to Linux earlier this year I would do it again in a heartbeat 💓 best decision I’ve ever taken!
I’ve said this many times here, but I was a Windows fanboy for close to 30 years. I hate that Windows got so bad, but I’m happy that I switched. Linux is great.
How is the support for linux on M-based Macs these days?
Is it viable ?
Maybe on M1,but after some heavy dispute, Asahi Lina, main dev of the graphics driver, stopped working on it and does not feel safe coming back. Also, it was in rust
I’ve heard it is getting better. It would be worth downloading and trying a live-usb out and see where it is presently at.
I need something that I can use for work though
It is still considered unstable and unfinished
Wouldn’t use it for work
Asahi has made some good strides. Might be worth checking out.
To me, that’s the same as “Five reasons not to invite a renowned scammer and con artist into your home”. Unfortunately, my work colleagues think its normal and what else can they do but shrug.
i worked in a specific financial subindustry and the three software packages that were the best in the industry were not supported on linux (i did not test with WINE). the only software package that had linux support was absolutely awful. interface designed by business majors, not industry specialists.
i wish it were easy to work on linux, but hoping doesn’t get them to change.
I am in a similar situation but in healthcare. Nothing save as the web-front ends are any use in linux. Some information systems are built on linux, but we need a Windows machine to use them, Hopefully the slow European gentle tilt to FOSS might help.
Zorin OS is much more straight forward than Windows 11.
Why are people promoting this, all of a sudden?
Edit: I went to the website and saw the “Pro” paid option. It’s starting to make sense now.
Why are people promoting this, all of a sudden?
They just released a new version a few days ago that’s really solid and aims to be a drop-in replacement for Windows. It’s probably the most beginner friendly distro out there and has stuff like Onedrive/MS 365 integration for people using that stuff.
The paid version is useless unless you need support.
“Why are people promoting beginner friendly distros on a post about reasons to switch?”
U are right, lets promote Nix and Gentoo here
Gentoo is the best OS I’ve ever tried.
With install script and automatic updates it would be OK for 95% of people.
Thats awesome, personally never tried it. But it keeps popping up in “hard distros” discussions.
Man all these install scripts are making every distro too accessible 🤣🤣 /s
Only way too stay cool now is to switch to hannah montana os, or freebsd lol
People say a lot of stuff, and I now assume they’ve never tried it.
Mint was the default suggestion for people switching from Windows until a few days ago, and then Zorin popped up.
Yeah true that mint is the default. But if you look up any beginner distro recommendation then zorin is often also mentioned. Zorin 18 released last week so it’s a getting a bit more mentions then normal. But look up any beginner distro video or article and it’s always mint and zorin. Zorin has been around since 2009, so it’s a bit wild that ppl are acting as if it fell out of the sky all of the sudden
Yeah it’s like, Zorin was the Trendy Distro Of The Month a few years ago. Cachy, Bazzite, at least two others ago. Like Zorin was right after Pop!_OS got a lot of praise for having the Nvidia version of the ISO.
