Finally switched to Linux!

Posted by optimist_autist@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 37 comments

A few months back, I finally switch to Linux on my main machine and it has been a great experience. I have had issues in the past with various distros so I could never put my finger on one. But this time, I installed Debian and it has been rock solid. The stability definately surprised me and the workflow is much smoother than windows for me. I'm using my machine for general purpose work and coding and I have zero complains at this point. Really happy that I took the plunge!

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Snoo_99794@reddit

Could this have been a tweet? What is the discussion here?

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100GHz@reddit

Dudes excited. Why the hate?

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Snoo_99794@reddit

Not all criticism is hate. This is a discussion forum, and posting low effort “hey I use Linux now” is more noise than signal. People confuse Reddit for feed based social media.

What do you think “low effort post” is and why do you think many subs ban it? It is to keep the signal to noise ratio of a sub high for better discussion.

If you want to see an example of unrestricted posts vs restricted, look at gaming vs games. Gaming has no rules against low effort posts, and is therefore 99% meme image spam, or nostalgia bait and so on. Whatever people can upvote with the least mental effort rises to the top. The rules are to keep our collective lazy nature in check and keep the quality higher :)

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rileyrgham@reddit

Yup. These posts combined with "look at my gnome desktop rice" are turning this place into a fanboi love in.

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jaykstah@reddit

People confuse Reddit for feed based social media

Entirely depends on the sub and what they allow, aside from the overall Reddit rules. If this post breaks the rules of this sub, report it and the mods can take it down. The only rule I see close to it is the low effort image rule but other than that it seems like these kinds of posts are allowed in this sub. It's on the mods to be more discerning if these types of posts take too much away from the experience

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privinci@reddit

Just wait post for other user announcing they leave Linux!

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optimist_autist@reddit (OP)

Haha I would be lying if I didn't agree to that. I have tried switching in past as well but ended up moving back to windows. However, this time around I have learnt a few things. If I don't fiddle around too much with my install to the point it breaks, Linux is pretty good. I always get carried away with extensions, themes etc. This time I decided to keep my install as close to stock as possible.

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nix-repo@reddit

Yeah, 99% of people who move to Linux Desktop always end up going back to Windows or macOS within a few month.

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MountainGazelle6234@reddit

Skeet*

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Did you tried Linux Mint, Linux Lite, Bodhi Linux!? And if you did, how was your good and bad experience on this any of three OS? I am asking this to everyone in here including OP. Please share if you want, and do not try to sugarcoat anything.

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optimist_autist@reddit (OP)

I was using Linux mint earlier but one day I suddenly had network issues. So I had to switch back to windows. I never tried bodhi Linux actually. I had actually tried a very underrated distro before settling on Debian and that was neptune os. It ships with KDE and is based on Debian. It was pretty good too!

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Oh, alright. Yes, I have Neptune OS on my Ventoy USB, which I used once on my old computer. These days, I use Linux Mint. You should also consider trying Bodhi Linux—it’s really great and has a very friendly community.

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PatrickPulfer@reddit

Welcome. A tip, https://flathub.org/ I'd great place to find great apps for Linux desktop. Helped me a lot finding replacements.

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

And OP can also use Warehouse to manage flatpaks.

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User_8395@reddit

Time to implement the same feature set in a KDE config module

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Time to implement the same feature set in a KDE config module

Yes i 💯 agree that would be awesome 👍.

To be honest with you, I’m not a KDE user. I started my Linux journey with Linux Lite 5.0 (Emerald) on my 10-year-old second-hand (used) PC, which was 32-bit, back in 2020. The PC I bought from the guy came with Windows 7 Pro, which is a good OS, but the software that came with it was outdated and not good for handling modern-day files and other tasks. So, I thought, why not install a different OS, like Windows 10? But after installing Windows 10, my whole PC became slow and created more problems than it fixed, such as constant crashes, blue screens, black screens, green screens, and many more issues. At the time, I wasn’t technically literate enough to know about Linux, so I started researching on Google to find a lightweight alternative OS for my PC. Luckily, I found Linux Lite 5, and I installed it on my system. After that, I never looked back. That old second-hand PC (I named it Odyssey) is no more, so RIP to Odyssey.

After the death of Odyssey, I bought other PCs, used different OSes, and went on various adventures. For example, I used Mageia, Neptune, Bodhi Linux, Trisquel, and Raspberry Pi. After trying all of these, I finally settled on Linux Mint. Now, I have a mini PC, which I named Minttel, because it has an Intel processor and I use Linux Mint OS. Like I said above, I’ve never used KDE OS in my life, but I watched lots of videos about it on YouTube. Last year, I was using Bodhi Linux on my Minttel, so watching videos about KDE encouraged me to try it. I installed the KDE desktop environment (DE) on top of my BL6 OS, and I was really impressed by how similar the OS is to Windows 10. There are lots of things I genuinely liked about the KDE DE. I’m not a distro hopper, and I didn’t try the whole OS, only the DE, so I can’t speak much about the KDE OS. However, one thing I hated about KDE is that it needs at least 8GB of RAM to function properly. The DE worked fine on my 4GB RAM, but the OS needs more. I think it would be great if KDE OS had a lighter version for 2GB or 4GB RAM. Anyway, here’s my story.

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Icy_Pea_583@reddit

Congrats. Just don't type "rm -rf /*" by any chance.

In other words, be careful with the terminal and don't type what you don't udnerstand.

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mok000@reddit

That command doesn't do anything anymore, hasn't for years.

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LiveFreeDead@reddit

LOL

Go type it on your terminal and press enter... Just to confirm :)

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mok000@reddit

For years you've had to add the option --no-preserve-root so your command doesn't do anything. Basic stuff.

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dbreise@reddit

Welcome :)

Windows = Gaming/Graphics Mac = Design/Video Editing/Multi-media Linux = Everything else :)

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Hot-Macaroon-8190@reddit

Not really. For me :

Most games run better with higher FPS on Linux (overall with some exceptions: 10% better FPS in Linux vs Windows with AMD, Nvidia is the opposite).
Davinci Resolve is great on Linux, as well as other tools (Including Photoshop 2021 with wine).

And the CPUs are so powerful today, that any apps you need on windows can easily run in a Virtual machine (which I haven't needed to do in years since Linux support has become so great).

-> it really depends on what your needs are.

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disastervariation@reddit

Congrats and welcome to the community! Happy to have you ;)

Debian is the OG for sure and one of my all time favs. What DE did you go with?

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optimist_autist@reddit (OP)

I chose to go with Gnome for now. It's a very unique experience. I miss fractal scaling but it's not big deal. I can always switch to plasma otherwise.

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natermer@reddit

Gnome Wayland fractal scaling has worked for about 10 or 12 years now.

The problem with it is Xwayland apps will probably be a bit blurry. Doesn't really impact games.

Most applications now natively support Wayland one way or the other, so configuring them to use Wayland by default is a effective mitigation. It is still a bit of a hit or miss with Electron apps since you can't depend on apps using a up to date version of electron.

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

There is a ton of stuff in gsettings/dconf that doesn't get exposed through the GUI. Things like 'gnome-tweaks' are just dconf front ends. So while they don't technically add anything to the desktop feature-wise they make it easier to access.

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Hot-Macaroon-8190@reddit

No, games don't work.

In 4k with 1.5 scaling in Gnome 47, the games render at 1440p -> ugly mess.

For some games you can fix this by using gamescope, but with some games it doesn't work (with gamescope it completely breaks mouse movement and other issues).

Kde is the only desktop where everything is working properly.

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okimborednow@reddit

I'm pretty sure GNOME has it hidden away but you can enable it

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bstamour@reddit

> Debian is the OG for sure and one of my all time favs.

But it's not ;) Slackware's older. In fact, Slackware is the oldest currently-maintained distro out of all of them.

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