I should’ve used it sooner rather than last year when they announced AI integration to Windows. Every peripheral I tried is just worked without needing to install drivers, and it works better and faster than on Windows, just like today when I tried to use my brother’s 3D printer expecting disappointment, but no, it just connected and was ready to print right away (I use Ultimaker Cura), whereas on my brother’s Windows computer I have to wait like 20 seconds; sometimes I have to disconnect and reconnect it again for it to see and ready to use. Lastly, for those who are wondering, I use Vanilla Arch (btw), and sorry for bad English.
You went straight from windows to vanilla arch ?
Quite impressive
Haha thanks but it’s not actually my first distro, I’m distro hopping on my first week of switching to Linux, my first ever distro is EndeavourOS>Nobara>Fedora>OpenSUSE>Vanilla Arch
That’s a lot of different distros in one week. How do you give each one enough time to evaluate it before you choose to move to another?
At the time my main goal is to have to all of my games working, while I can make it run on every distro I tried, I found Vanilla Arch is the better one in terms of performance and ease of use (yeah call me weird for saying Arch is easier to use than other distros XD), so I keep using it ever since.
Vanilla Arch is the better one in terms of performance and ease of use (yeah call me weird for saying Arch is easier to use than other distros XD)
Not weird at all, I use Arch on my main system exactly because I’m lazy and it’s easier to use. It’s harder to install, but a lot easier to use.
That’s a good distrohop pipeline
tbh vanilla arch is not that tough now that archinstall exists, and archwiki is an incredible resource
Welcome!
For a while now Linux has been better at most personal computing things except gaming. And for server uses an even longer time.
There are some specific hardware/software situations where you’ll need Windows but it’s unlikely to happen at home. Unless you have very peculiar hobbies.
Gaming is my struggle, right now. On x11, I get stable framerates, but even though my benchmarks show 60+ fps, it sure looks lower to my eye. On Wayland, gameplay is smooth, but I keep getting this weird thing where after 20-30 minutes of gameplay I’ll get this weird input lag, where my mouse movement stops and then “catches up” every second or so, resulting in choppy gameplay despite the smooth framerate.
If I can figure that out, I’d happily drop my Windows partition.
mouse movement stops and then “catches up” every second or so
I had that issue with a wired G502 mouse. It was caused by an excessive polling rate, and setting it to 125 Hz fixed it.
Interesting! I’ll give that a try.
Yeah it’s quite nice and more fun to use than Windows, I admit it’s pretty hectic on my first week of switching, but after learning a few commonly used terminal commands and open source softwares, I can do pretty much almost anything some time without needing to use DE I can just use tty instead
There’s plenty of good reasons to keep a windows device updated and available for use.
Honestly, I prefer that to spinning up a windows VM, especially if your needs include Windows software that interfaces directly with external hardware.
I realize that’s not an option for everyone, but for those who have an extra device available, or can afford a used laptop to keep in a closet, it’s well worth it IMO.
At work the only issue I ever found is the requirement to use Power Point for presentations and Word for filing patents. LibreOffice just did not translate well enough. Have not tried OnlyOffice.
Edit: Complex Excel sheets especially with macros would be a problem too. These are not always cross version Excel compatible for that matter. One reason I shifted that stuff to Python long ago and voided that issue.
And if something doesn’t work, it’s all your fault somehow. Which is both a blessing and a curse.
That’s fine, I can look up the Arch Wiki for solutions, which is also a learning process for me and if it still doesn’t work, I can just duct tape the workaround myself XD
Linux is awesome
& so are you ^🥁 1, 2, 3, 4… 🎸^
Aww, thank you
These kind of posts make me a little happy. I don’t know exactly why but it does.
Having used Linux on for 25 years or so and now hearing about people who switch from Windows and really enjoying the experience warms my heart a little
Me too, I’ve only used it for a year but every time I see a Linux appreciation post, it makes me happy and makes my day better
Most of my library just works under Linux.
Plus it is a pleasure to code under Linux.
Hell yes it’s awesome.
It’s awesome like physics. It just works.
I use Debian.
I recently made the switch to linux as well and I have it on my laptop and gaming PC. I do keep a portable install of windows on an external drive for more niche cases, such as music production which I had terrible luck with on Linux. When I booted up my laptop with the windows drive, I noticed that my keyboard backlight wasn’t working. And it took me a second to realize that Windows doesn’t come with basic drivers… In Linux mint, my keyboard backlight worked right away. I also wish I made the jump to Linux much earlier.
For music prod on Linux, have you tried Reaper?
Yes. I’ve made posts about my problems before. But I use an E drum kit to trigger vsts in a daw. It’s just easier for me to use windows.
Awesome!
and your english is perfect, dude. no worries. the only suggestion I have for you in that regard is to watch out for run on sentences :)
Thanks, I’m still learning, grammar is my weakest point right now
Can anybody comment on their experience using Arduino and ESP with Linux? Especially does Linux handle COM ports better than Windows? There’s a seemingly immortal problem of COM ports becoming unusable until you go into Device Manager and uninstall them (again and again) - and if that doesn’t work, reboot Windows. I experience this less often now than say 5 or 6 years ago, and sometimes it’s my fault, but jeez.
Yes, com ports work way better than in windows. I’ve done a lot of embedded development on linux and it’s way more pleasant than in windows. One thing you do have to keep in mind is that access to com ports (USB and real) requires root access by default, but once you’ve set the udev rule up, it becomes accesible to normal users and/or group of users. After that, it works flawlessly. Android dev also works great and imo better than on win. Proprietary jtags may be an issue, but I’ve never actually had an unsolvable situation.
Thank you, that’s massively helpful! Pasting your comment into my ESP32 project notes so when I soon move to Linux I can remember to figure out the udev rule and jtags.
I’ve had wemos d1 boards from AliExpress show up as a brltty and the braille teletype driver grabs the device. Just something to look out for on some distros
That’s a bizarre glitch I never would have known to look for - thanks!
Yeah I’d rather deal with this than a blind persons gear not work
COM ports as handled by Windows is misery anyways. Linux definitely does it better
You might have issues with permissions for serial ports on some distros, but there are loads of easy to follow guides for that. Linux definitely handles them better than windows though. I never had issues where they just stop working like on Windows.
Yes. Yes it is.
I wish I could experience this pain free Linux I keep hearing about on this website. Programs constantly stutter and glitch out, and if the computer goes to sleep while running my Linux partition it absolutely will not wake up again. I know this is a skill issue, but I’ve already spent many hours troubleshooting this… I’ve tried several distros as well. Even the steam compatibility everyone raves about only seems to work for me if I don’t use wayland. I can say with certainty that the average person would be completely unwilling to deal with the experience I have had.
I think this “it just works” experience depends much on the hardware and software you use. But no matter what, in the long term, if you’re not willing to put in time and learn how stuff works, how to troubleshoot, how to check logs, use the terminal, etc. I think you’re going to have a bad time and be disappointed.
I’ve used Linux exclusively for the past 10 years, both at home and at work, and I wouldn’t advise anyone who wants a care-free “it just works” experience. Linux is not good at that, and I think anyone who claims it is does more harm than good.
Linux is good for tinkering, self-hosting stuff, connectivity and flexibility. Most people want their games to work, not this. For me, I love it and I use it for everything including sim racing and VR games.
I am more willing to learn things than the average user I’d say - I work in IT and answer incredibly stupid questions more or less daily. Also, im not a shell expert, but I definitely know my way around bash/zsh/cmd/PS, given the system. I have also been using Linux on and off for around 15 years as well - I had things work well in the past.
I’m guessing my custom built PC might be making things harder. The Nvidia card probably doesn’t help, but I feel like my MOBO is probably responsible for my sleep issues. Maybe I just need to try Pop again, I’m currently running NixOS which is my favourite OS in theory, but in practice configuration is a brute force guessing game.
I haven’t had as bad of an experience with Nvidia as people say - but ofc your mileage may vary depending on your compositor, the apps you use, the distro you use, etc.
I also experienced issues with my system completely freezing after waking up from sleep - for me the issue turned out to be due to bluetooth/wifi drivers, and with this workaround things work fine again: https://github.com/alimert-t/suspend-freeze-fix-for-mt7921e/tree/main
My card is mt7922 (found that out withlshw -C network) but I guess it’s having the same issue, because after applying that fix it all works now.It was really annoying and it took me a while to find the issue, because if you just try to google it you find lots of people with lots of different issues, all manifesting in the same way.
If you’re lucky this is your issue too, and the fix above should do it. 🤞Thanks for inspiring me to search around GitHub - I managed to successfully resume from suspend after an hour or so (still doesn’t work in Wayland, but I’m making progress i guess).
Next up is addressing the weird horizontal tearing in all my games!
I’m guessing you’re on Nvidia system?, I never had a program glitching or crashing on me ever since I make the switch (I exclusively use Wayland and never touch X11 once), maybe a laptop specific issue just like I can’t get my fingerprint sensor to work on my machine, but luckily it’s not a deal breaker for me
Correct. But I’ve heard tons of people say Nvidia support is fine now, and that amd is still problematic. I have also tried Pop OS
Which distros have you tried? My experience was rough at first when I finally cut Windows out of my life a year ago. I’m on a ASRock B450M with a Ryzen 3600 and a 2070 Super. Started with Ubuntu > Mint > Debian > and finally settled on Pop_OS, and things have been rock solid. Most recently installed Cosmic desktop on another drive and even the 5th Alpha is playing Steam and Heroic games with few issues.
I started with Ubuntu back in the day, and used that (and its variants) as my only distro up until ~2017, when i used Mint and Fedora in university. I started messing around with Arch maybe 3 or 4 years ago, then tried Pop!_OS, then went back to Arch, then tried NixOS and have stuck there since.
I have a few computers, and some (like my old thinkpads) work very reliably, while my modern desktop has some issues sometimes (e.g. i literally cannot get waking from sleep working, at all)
I’m going to copy paste what I replied to someone else in here, just on the wild chance that this is your issue too and this might help:
I also experienced issues with my system completely freezing after waking up from sleep - for me the issue turned out to be due to bluetooth/wifi drivers, and with this workaround things work fine again: https://github.com/alimert-t/suspend-freeze-fix-for-mt7921e/tree/main My card is mt7922 (found that out with lshw -C network) but I guess it’s having the same issue, because after applying that fix it all works now.
How do you have Cura installed?
You can get it on their official website
So you just used the AppImage. I seem to recall having issues with it, but that’s been awhile. I’ll have to give it another try. Are you using Wayland?
Yes I use the appimage package, I don’t have any issue with it on Wayland, or you can get it on the AUR, you might need to follow this procedure and wait a minute for Cura to detect the USB
My issues were more graphical, plus my printer is a network printer. Thanks, though. I’ll take another crack at it.
My personal experience has been frustrating each time. I’ve tried to switch over at least 3 times over the years, but I always gave up. This time, I installed Ubuntu and immediately had to spend 3 hours trying to get my Xbox controler dongle to work, but just couldn’t do it. Found a driver online that people said would work, it didn’t because it wasn’t properly signed, tried to sign it but the signing app just didn’t create the certificates needed. Gave up, I have Bluetooth so I’d live, though I’d rather use the dongle if I can.
I then immediately encounter another problem that couldn’t be fixed (for the life of me I can’t remember what it was exactly) and just gave up.
The previous time I tried it I remember that among other things, one of my main problems was the lack of clipboard history (which I use extremely often). I tried installing an app for it but all of them either didn’t work or didn’t work the way I want them to or I just didn’t like their look and feel.
I also hate the font rendering on Linux, it always looks blurry compared to Windows, and the double titlebars most apps have (e.g. Discord, at least on Ubuntu), I like my screen real-estate.
That’s good to hear about the 3d printer as I have yet to connect mine to try the same thing. I just have to learn freecad though, as i used to use fusion 360 which is not packaged for Linux.
I used SketchUp web for my modeling (it’s free), for the life of me I can’t figured out Freecad, it’s a few open source softwares I can’t warp my head around
Yea, I have heard about SketchUp as well, but if I can learn the full FOSS alternative instead then I’d like to use it. I guess I could use Blender or something too, but I really liked the engineering oriented parametric modeling that Fusion360 was doing with the timeline.
