i like gaming,browsing(brave),im open to using open source software like gimp,libreoffice,qbittorrent etc i don’t really care about specific software other than brave.
i don’t use steam,i use pirated games so they should work on whatever distro i will use.
i have no problems with learning more,searching,or posting about linux to learn. and im open to using terminal i already like it somewhat on windows.
my laptop that i will install linux on is msi gf63 with gtx 1650,i5-10500h,16gb ram,1tb ssd sata and 256gb ssd nvme.
so should i switch to linux? i feel like i don’t exactly like where microsoft is taking windows to,but im not sure if my games will work on linux.
you can ask me more questions to see if my usage is supported or not by linux. im open to any easy distro. i don’t relay on microsoft office or adobe apps or any of these things. my usage is pretty generic.
no it doesn’t sound like you’d be able to handle switching OS, sorry
why?
The switch or dual boot is up to you. I can lay out some general steps in case you want to have an overview. Please do not be scared off by it. Depending on the distro, most things work out of the box or with very little effort.
- familiarize
- look up some distros, I personally like to go Arch-based, but feel free to use whatever seems good and popular enough (please no Ubuntu)
- try virtual machine and then live ISO
- verify compatibility
- this one is a bit more work, basically try all functionality in the live ISO, or at least things like display, mouse, keyboard, touchpad, Wi-Fi, storage
- install
- you probably won’t need to look into this super deep, default installers handle this pretty well
- formatting and partitioning (look into ArchWiki guide, you probably don’t need swap partition)
- if you are going to be reinstalling look into using efibootmgr to possibly clear up old and fix existing boot entries (i had to enable boot flag after setting up dualboot, because macOS installer overwrote the previous settings, thanks Apple :-) )
- configure missing/not working OS stuff
- look for missing drivers and system management software for either your specific hardware or some more general ones
- best sources are wikis like ArchWiki (even if you don’t use Arch), forums and some software search sites like AlternativeTo
- in some cases the software does not meet the requirements for a wiki page to be up (Xlibre being notable example - feel free to look up the whole story)
- you may have to put some time into getting GPU fully working, since nvidia has several driver options depending on the GPU
- I personally had to fix USB autosuspend config, only look into it if devices plugged in after boot are not being detected
- use
- installs and updates are done using package manager (windows has winget, btw)
- for windows games use Wine or rather some of its forks
- most people here already shared their recommendations for this part
edited
- familiarize
Unfortunately, no.
Due to the year of the linux desktop, new user applications have been closed. The overwhelming positive response has just completely bypassed the available seats.
I’m sorry, but we’re full.
Playing pirated games is going to require some thinkering. If you buy them on Steam is a much better experience.
Anyways, you should try Heroic Games launcher, there are other options but it’s the best one to me
Give it a go, playing your pirated games is more effort to setup a wine container for them but if you don’t like it then you can go back.
Use Proton, not wine. Just run them through a launcher like Faugus Launcher
Heroic launcher works as well
Proton is wine with a Steam dependency.
You should switch to Firefox with ublock origin.
Brave is a mess of a browser and a dumpster fire of an organization, even compared to Mozilla.
You can look up your games on ProtonDB and see which will and won’t work. Pirated games are no different from retail compatibility-wise but there might be one or two extra steps
i suggest waterfox or librewolf instead of normal firefox because they are just better. Waterfox also has the bonus of having an android app and allowing to download all addons (but some will not properly work because phone)
why do you think firefox is better? i generally don’t care about a corp Politics or historical errors. i care about current product as of now.
Past behavior can be a pretty good indicator of future behavior. Brave has done several shady things, and they will do more shady things in the future. It’s just stupid to ignore that.
Firefox is unlikely to ever sell your data or redirect websites or participate in a cryptoscam or show you advertisements with an adblocker on. Brave has done, at one point or another, all of that.
Plus firefox is not manifest v3, so you can actually have a safe browsing experience whereas all chromium based browsers are now inherently more vulnerable to malware thanks to google.
all chromium based browsers are now inherently more vulnerable to malware thanks to google.
Could you explain why? While at it, would you be so kind to mention why security-focused projects like GrapheneOS and secureblue stick to Chromium-based browsers despite that?
https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
Chromium and their particular fork have much better exploit hardening via sandboxing.
My understanding is Firefox has better anti-fingerprinting and uBlock origin via manifest v2 support (or v2 features ported to v3).
The argument often used is malicious ads. Sandboxing and hardening largely mitigates ads that contain exploits, but it doesn’t protect against social engineering, crypto mining, tracking, etc.
So I guess it comes down to your threat model and desired experience.
I personally prefer the uBlock origin experience, but an ad free experience and escape from targeted advertising was my target opsec when venturing into privacy.
Thanks! Your comment prompted me to check out this entry in uBlock Origin’s documentation that also underlines why Firefox(-based browsers) work better for the purposes of content-blocking.
So I guess it comes down to your threat model and desired experience.
Can’t agree more.
You could click the link already provided above. Just the Table of Contents at the top gives you a good overview about issues with Brave without reading anything else…
It sounds like you would enjoy Linux though you should at least know that running your games will need additional hoops comparing to Windows since they’re Windows games, nothing something wild and will be mostly about changing the default WINE to Proton if you use Lutris or Heroic for them. However sometimes you will probably need to troubleshoot for some game time to time, but you’ll get used to that once you learn the idea.
Linux Mint is likely the safest choice here. Zorin is also fine for newbies.
Also note that, a lot of things will be different than Windows, though you can always search for an equivalent for something you used. At least the structure is much more beautiful on Linux, unlike Windows’ chaotic nature.
if it meets your software needs and hardware compatibility, go for it
It’s like getting children. You only know afterwards how it really feels and even if it’s a hassle sometimes you wouldn’t ever change back.
so im thinking about getting something debian based bec its easy is that a good path of distros?
If you’re going easy but need something more up to date, Fedora based is a good middle ground. Nobara more gaming oriented.
debian is not that up to date, so it might cause problems for gaming
neither are ubuntu-based debian-based distros (mint, pop_os)
debian cycle is 2 years, ubuntu cycle is 6 months
opensuse tumbleweed is similar to debian but is very up to date (and less unstable than other rolling release distros), it updates packages in the repo every 6 hours i think
yeah you should
you should definitely try it out and see if you like it; try various distros and desktops
the distros id recommend are fedora (simply good), opensuse tubleweed (versatile and unobtrusive), cachyos (designed for gaming), bazzite (fedora-based steamOS clone, designed for gaming), or mint (very easy), and the de id recommend is kde plasma
can keep windows on a separate drive to boot for the games that dont work (and in case u want to switch back)
but if ur pirating, those wont be kernel anticheat games, which are the main offenders
And ntfs does not work with proton so if you keep your Windows games that don’t work on a separate drive, they won’t work on linux. Make sure all of your games played on the Linux install are downloaded separately onto a Linux file system like ext4
NTFS works with proton as long as you set up your /etc/fstab properly to make sure it’s mounted as writeable, but I believe you also need proprietary drivers… I can’t remember now, but up until a couple weeks ago I had my storage drive with all my games mounted in Fedora and it was NTFS from my previous win11 install.
good to know
im pretty sure that this statement is not true tho.
source: used a ntfs-drive 4 yeara ago before i switched completely. windows fast boot has to be diseabled because otherwise the drive will not be writeable or something. also the disk needs to get mounted correctly in linux.
I would also recommend against using Brave, but it’s available on Linux if you want to use it.
Pirated games work just fine with Heroic, Lutris or Bottles.I personally like Heroic and I’ve not had many issues with steamrip releases (they don’t need to be installed).
Go for it. Give it a fair time, its a new system, some things may feel weird, but If you are willing to learn you will soon find it to be fine. Personally I would recommend some basic distro like fedora or linux mint. I would stay away from immutable systems like bazzite because I feel like with these systems people are limiting themselves too much (especially if you want to run a bunch of pirated content and stuff). The best course of action, try a few distros with live cd (i mean flash drive) to see what catches your eyes and if basic things work and only after that install your first system.
thanks for advice. i will try live mint
should i switch to linux?
So, as this is a Linux community, do you expect anything but an astounding “Yes!”?
Going through the rest of your post, you’d have to be cautious with the Nvidia GPU. It can go anywhere from working almost seamlessly without any tinkering to causing nigh-unsolvable problems you (regretfully) might have to work around.
But, aside from that, you should be pretty much good to go.
Absolutely. Just replaced my 3080 with an AMD 9060 on opensuse and everything is smooth as butter. The AMD drivers are part of the linux kernel itself.
I mean I think everyone should. But it requires a lot more mental energy to use. Anything commercial or niche will likely be unsupported or require significant research and effort to get working.
On the other hand, no one is spying on you, blatantly stealing your information, and relentlessly shoving office, cloud and AI products down your throat, and installing security holes in the process.
Gaming is fine and very easy if you use Steam. Using anything else will again require more research and energy.
From what I read across this thread, you don’t seem to have any real incentive to switch to linux. But you can always install it and see how it goes. You can later go back to windows if you want.
