I finally switched back to Linux as my daily driver after a couple of years of being on nothing but Windows.

I ran Manjaro Linux as my daily driver a few years ago but slowly phased it out for Windows for some reason, and I’m finally back using Linux (currently Linux Mint). I gotta say, I don’t know why I ever switched back to Windows. There’s just so much freedom Linux gives you right off the bat that Windows is just plain stubborn about. The final straw for me was a couple weeks ago when Microsoft added a Copilot (Bing AI) Shortcut to my Windows 11 taskbar. They’d already added ads to my start menu and preinstalled a bunch of garbage that should be opt-in, not opt-out, so I was just fed up with it at that point. Plus, Linux is so much more customizable. Been running Mint for about a week and a half now, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll be using Windows much anymore.

purplemurmel,

I just switched back to windows, after using Kubuntu for the past 13 month.

I’m a software dev, I work on a Dell precision 5560 and just got tired of the worst touchpad experience ever, the endless Bluetooth issues, the fact that sleep mode basically does not exist anymore and a bunch of other small things.

On windows I do almost everything in WSL so I still work on Linux, but this way I get a much better desktop experience on my laptop.

scrion,

I used to be a Windows system developer, think device drivers etc. for what, 20 years? I switched to Linux 18 years ago and never looked back - the whole dev experience is a lot more pleasant, more control, reasonable tools and software installation, proper customization etc.

I believe you didn’t have a Linux problem, you had a problem with hardware manufacturers being fussy about enabling development of proper support for their hardware. Why not look into hardware that is actually readily compatible with Linux? Tuxedo Computers are often recommend, I used to run a Clevo and had a great experience as well.

purplemurmel,

I believe you didn’t have a Linux problem, you had a problem with hardware manufacturers being fussy about enabling development of proper support for their hardware.

Which is a Linux problem at the end of the day, unfortunately.

My current laptop is also “Linux certified”, whatever that means. I cannot say that linux does not work on my laptop because that is not true. It works. Bluetooth works, touchpad works, like 95% of the time. In that 95% I love linux. However, when the remaining 5% hits, that is freaking annoying. And you can bet the bluetooth issue hits in the middle of an online meeting, and not when you just listen to music. 4K monitors are around since ~2013, still, no user friendly solution for fractional scaling, and the list goes on.

My main problem is that, this 95% was always 95% for me. I have been trying to switch to linux since 2011. I spend 3-15 month on linux and switch back to windows for a year or two. As I see, linux desktop just runs after the desktop market and it is 2-10 years behind. I know that is mostly because of the HW vendors. But knowing this does not make me feel better when my productivity decreases due to these issues.

Why not look into hardware that is actually readily compatible with Linux?

Honestly? Because I don’t believe that 95% is significantly higher on those laptops and I just don’t have ~1500EUR for an experiment like this.

Windows + WSL2 works great. I use a Windows distro, if you will. All the issues I had with my native linux install are gone, and I can still use linux comfortably while working. This is the reality from my point of view.

scrion,

Hm, I never had any hardware issues in the last ~10 years, but don’t get me wrong, I hear you. I absolutely believe that it is possible to find a combination of HW and SW that will simply not work for a particular use case, and if my productivity would be threatened, I’d also switch in a heartbeat. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to the customizations Linux offered me that I can’t even imagine working on another Linux system without my setup and dotfiles - a different kind of vendor lock-in, if you will.

Anyway, just wanted to put a brand out there that offers some guarantees when it comes to hardware support, in case you (and others) might not be aware of such vendors.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Happy that you are on the light side now!

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I always think about going back to Windows, but then I snap myself out of it seeing what Microsoft are doing. I still have a virtual machine for MusicBee (which… isn’t the greatest in WINE, I’ll just say that much) but everything else works fine. Also had a pretty good experience with Apple Music in Waydroid, with scrobbler support (Pano Scrobbler)

Owljfien,

I was trying to get MusicBee working earlier this week and gave up, ended up trying something called Strawberry and found myself liking it for the brief amount I’ve used it

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

My workflow is too married to MusicBee to do that lol, it’s the reason I keep a Windows VM handy nowadays (okay, and Apple Music if I need to do some playlist things)

Grass,

Welcome home

somegeek,

Mint is just lovely

Diplomjodler,

It’s a breath of fresh air…

___,

I’ve been daily driving Debian with cinnamon on top. The only thing keeping my windows partition going is lack of HDR support and horrific Wayland nvidia support.

LeFantome,

Are you using Mint ( LMDE ) or running Cinnamon on Debian directly?

___,

Used to use LMDE but moved to Debian to get 12 early.

possiblylinux127,

Both of those features are only starting to make appearance in newer software

IonAddis,
@IonAddis@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve nibbled at trying to use Linux on my home computer for years and years, but games didn’t have a good track-record in Wine so I never went over.

I recently heard differently, and tried PopOS, and I’ve mostly been able to get all the games I wanted to play to play, mostly using Steam’s own emulation using Proton, and a few using Lutris.

The only two that gave me trouble were Starfield–it had a bug with Nvidia cards and I had to wait for a Linux driver to be updated with a driver fix. (And honestly after playing Starfield, it wouldn’t have mattered if it never played.) And Crusader Kings III…but only if I had it playing natively on Linux, as it’s supposed to be able to. It kept constantly crashing if I clicked on a character portrait. When I switched to playing it on Proton (so emulating Windows) it’s been rock solid.

I’ve played No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, Rimworld, Control, Alan Wake II, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Valheim all successfully. (And Starfield and Crusader Kings III after some troubleshooting.) Those are modern enough that I don’t feel any more disadvantaged gaming on Linux than I did on Windows (accounting for my last-gen hardware and such.)

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Linux just fine as well, and Forza Horizon 4 (though the Xbox account setup was a rigmarole). Only thing I had to do was use bluetoothctl to set up my Xbox Series X/S controller, as it uses Bluetooth to connect and it doesn’t work with KDE’s Bluetooth setting GUI.

Honeybee,

www.protondb.com is worth a look. It shows the state of games using Proton and people list their tweaks to make games work. You can filter it to only show Nvidia GPU’s on PopOS as an example too. To find tweaks more applicable to your system.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres,

I rarely use Windows but I have a dual boot situation on my desktop PC for the odd game that acts up on Linux or to recreate bug reports. Every time I boot into Windows, I’m like, “Damn, people live like this?” Why does every single thing ask for a reboot? I know the reason but why can’t that be fixed?

xfts,
@xfts@lemmy.world avatar

I’m dualbooting as well, but only because a few games I play aren’t supported on Linux due to their anticheat. Namely Fortnite and Destiny 2. I’d completely switch if that wasn’t the case. Hopefully someday.

SendMePhotos,

Is there a sub for One Drive? I use that for coursework, otherwise I could transfer over. What I do is use Linux sometimes and save my docs into a folder accessible by both OS and then just transfer it over to the proper spot on windows.

BackOnMyBS,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

On KDE Neon, I go to Online Accounts in the system settings and add my cloud drive. Then, I can access it directly from my file manager as if it were a directory on my computer. On Linux Mint, I think I had to install Gnome Online Accounts or something like that to get a similar setup.

SendMePhotos,

Is there a windows app for flip flopping back and forth between devices?

BackOnMyBS,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

What do you mean flip flopping back and forth between devices? If you’re trying to access the same cloud drive from separate devices, I’m thinking it’s likely that whatever app is maintained by the cloud drive you are using will work on both Windows systems.

rustydomino,

For work the only thing that holds me back from using Linux is Office 365. The web apps for O365 are just not up to par for anything other than the most basic tasks.

tmsbrdrs,

Using prospect mail, Thunderbird with Owl for Exchange or one of the myriad other email clients as well as teams for Linux (obviously for teams) solved the issue for me. Actual productivity apps, I’ve always preferred the extensibility of libre office but there’s also kingsoft office, open office, etc.

To each his own though.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Fortunately my work uses Google docs mostly. We do have office 365 and use it for mail and their PWA is really decent.

I keep a domain bound kernel virtual machine sitting around mostly for directory services. I installed 0365 and all the supporting apps just in case I ever have a need. The real b**** of the whole thing is that Windows 11 needs a minimum of 60 gigs of storage.

sadreality, (edited )

Imagine being a PC guy, paying thousands of dollars for a decent rig, and not having control over it

🤡🤡🤡

All these, PC gamers got some learning to do.

Neil,
@Neil@lemmy.ml avatar

Windows 11 finally made me tell my boss “i’m not using that anymore.” I’ve used Linux exclusively at home and Windows at work, but got fed up just like you. I have a VM for testing purposes as the security admin and it’s actually improved my workflow since I can tear down and bring up VMs instead of using my main OS for testing.

Glad to hear you’ve had a positive switch as well.

const_void,

Why is everyone in here saying “daily driver” all of a sudden?

hugz,

It has always been a very common term to describe the distro/OS of choice. Even moreso when linux was a bit less usable as a desktop OS and dual-booting was pretty necessary

Sonotsugipaa,
@Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s a term that has existed for quite a while, at least in this kind of community.

chaogomu,

Daily Driver

Here's someone using the term in 2011.

https://xdaforums.com/t/what-os-are-you-using-as-your-daily-driver.919218/

And I'm sure there are plenty of older examples.

But some others are here from 2015

https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34990

2017

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=222919

2014 (ish?)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/2njaz3/what_are_you_using_as_your_daily_driver/

All that from a simple google search.

governorkeagan,

Adding to what has already been said. It can help to differentiate when you use multiple OS’s but end up using one more than the rest.

ani,

People using cars as wallpapers on GNU+Linux is trending right now

xfts,
@xfts@lemmy.world avatar

Haha, that’d be funny if this was the meaning.

TrickDacy,

It’s been said for a long time afaik. Didn’t start on lemmy

LeFantome,

Well, if obviously comes from the world of cars. My guess is that its use there dates back to before PCs. It just make sense that people that already used it for cars would apply it to computers. It is hard to know the timing. Probably at the point that at least some people started to have access to more than one.

Resonanz,

Fellas, the FOSS team gets +1 c:

xfts,
@xfts@lemmy.world avatar

Every new Linux user counts!

aarRJaay,
@aarRJaay@lemmy.world avatar

Next year: The Year Of The Linux Desktop!!

echo64,

I switched from ubuntu to osx, and then from osx to Windows when they added wsl as that seemed as close to Linux as I needed.

Eventually, windowses windowsness wore me down, too. I don’t much care about the freedom of linux, I don’t want to tweak and customise things. I just want an os that is focused on being an environment for me to run my Web browser and run my tools.

Just get out of the way and let me do my nonsense

Dudewitbow,

Yhat sounds like youre looking for an OS in long term support mode. Not a good idea to use consumer OS for that purpose, as new features would always be added to retail operating systems.

charliespider,

What distribution are you on?

wrath_of_grunge,
@wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social avatar

this is basically why i ditched android and switched to iphones.

at the end of the day i need my phone to be a phone more than i need complete control over everything.

same with the PC OS. i like Linux, i like Windows, under some circumstances i even like MacOS. at the end of the day it really doesn't matter what OS i'm using, so long as the software i need to run, runs.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

You should take some time to look at fsf.org and gnu.org and read up is what Free Software is. It is literally the most important set of principles in the history of computing.

Without these principles, your Linux system would not exist.

It’s well worth your time.

sekhat,

I mean having control over everything also means you have control to not exercise control. Android as a phone OS, depending on what the phone manufacturer has changed, has pretty sane defaults. I can’t say I’ve ever seen the need to switch to iPhones. My Android phone works excellently as a phone.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

You should take some time to look at fsf.org and gnu.org and read up is what Free Software is. It is literally the most important set of principles in the history of computing.

Without these principles, your Linux system would not exist.

It’s well worth your time.

echo64,

Hi, I’ve been around linux and free software since likely before you were born, Theres a good chance that if you use gui software on linux today you are using some of the code I’ve written.

Please don’t lecture people like this, it’s offputting and insulting.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

Sadly most Linux users today seem totally clueless as to what the Free Software Movement is. They just see it as another OS. This point of view will see Linux eventually become as full of proprietary junk as the other OS’. Or even proprietary itself.

I’ll stop now, but this is a free speech platform. People are free to ignore me. No one is forcing them to read this.

Lastly, thank you for all your hard work on the code. Appreciate it. 👍

PseudoSpock,
@PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don’t much care about the freedom of linux

But you should care, Linux is for those that care.

echo64,

No, it isn’t. it’s a kernel for people to use, and the surrounding ecosystem is still just something for people to use.

You enjoy the niche of ultra freedom, good for you. Have fun. Don’t say that other people have to enjoy what you enjoy.

PseudoSpock,
@PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Even the license disagrees with you.

Bronzie,

Where would you recommend a complete Linux noob start after having used Windows his entire life?
I’m in your boat: I want an OS that works (more or less) and will let me browse, listen to music and occasionally fire up a game or two without forcing new money grabbing crap down my throat.
I enjoy troubleshooting strange issues now and then, but if it’s a daily occurrence I’m not interested.

Thank you in advance!

echo64,

just grab Ubuntu or Linux Mint, and ignore everyone who seems mad about things.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but it’ll feel more at home for a windows user. Ubuntu is a good base because they include drivers that make hardware work, but aren’t open source. a lot of linux os’s don’t do that and it just makes life harder.

Aside from that, if you have a Nvidia gpu it’s going to be a pain and there’s not a lot you can do about it, nvidia sucks on linux. If you want to install an app, use flathub.org - it’ll make life easier in the long run to just install things from there.

Bronzie,

Cheers!

I’ll dual boot Mint then.

caseyweederman,

I’d say Debian has closed the gap, now that Bookworm and onwards include nonfree firmware by default

sekhat,

While Nvidia isn’t as great on Linux as other cards. It generally works. It’s pretty much fine on Xorg, slowly getting there with Wayland. At least using Nvidia with Hyprland which wlroots based Wayland compositor worked for most cases.

echo64, (edited )

At least using Nvidia with Hyprland which wlroots based Wayland compositor worked for most cases.

this is the part where it doesn’t work well and you are doing all these hoops to try and get something usable ;) what you consider “pretty much fine”, “getting there”, “worked for most cases” is all annoying and broken for others

compared to intel and amd, nvidia on linux is awful and full of roadblocks - i’ll always recommend people stay away if they are going to use linux unless they are comfortable with all the pain

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