Going Win 10/11 to Linux

[ztejas 43411]

I'm fucking done. I can't do it with Windows' stupid shit anymore. I have a Bluetooth issue with Win 11 right now that makes me want to break my laptop. 

I want to learn Linux.

In (anyone's) experience - what's the learning curve there and is it worth it?

I'm extremely tech savvy. I've built PCs - I swap out parts all the time - I've been PC gaming for 20 years now and know my way around all that shit. 

I just think the hardware that I have is being misappropriated.

How bad is Linux and could it solve some of my shit?

[Dahobbs 17521]

5 hours ago, ztejas said:

I'm fucking done. I can't do it with Windows' stupid shit anymore. I have a Bluetooth issue with Win 11 right now that makes me want to break my laptop. 

I want to learn Linux.

In (anyone's) experience - what's the learning curve there and is it worth it?

I'm extremely tech savvy. I've built PCs - I swap out parts all the time - I've been PC gaming for 20 years now and know my way around all that shit. 

I just think the hardware that I have is being misappropriated.

How bad is Linux and could it solve some of my shit?

Linux is fine. You can choose from a variety of different distributions. It has been quite some time since I've used a Linux machine as my daily driver, but in general the advantage is that you can customize it a lot. It also can be great for stability for something you need running 24/7. But I'm not sure your particular issue would be solved by going to Linux. 

[TwiceHorn 31429]

Yeah with the guis, you don't really need to know much,  they work pretty much like windoze and OSX.  The choices can be overwhelming, though.

But, sounds like you're going to dick around with it quite a lot, so you'll need to brush up on your command-line, posix lingo.  Not impossible, and possibly easier if you never knew any DOS.

I use it a lot on a Chromebook, but that's kind of a virtual machine and hardware issues are taken care of.

Historically, the problem with Linux was hardware/driver issues.  Not insoluble by any means, but takes some knowledge of drivers, settings, and command-line Fu to tweak those config files.  I'm not sure where Linux is on that these days.

And, gaming could be something of an issue.  A lot of things can be run using Wine or other windoze emulators, not sure about where Linux gaming stands, though.

You could try it out on a dual-boot system, maybe.  At one time, windoze was pretty actively hostile to a second boot partition, though.

Edited October 17 by TwiceHorn

[Dahobbs 17521]

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah with the guis, you don't really need to know much,  they work pretty much like windoze and OSX.  The choices can be overwhelming, though.

But, sounds like you're going to dick around with it quite a lot, so you'll need to brush up on your command-line, posix lingo.  Not impossible, and possibly easier if you never knew any DOS.

I use it a lot on a Chromebook, but that's kind of a virtual machine and hardware issues are taken care of.

Historically, the problem with Linux was hardware/driver issues.  Not insoluble by any means, but takes some knowledge of drivers, settings, and command-line Fu to tweak those config files.  I'm not sure where Linux is on that these days.

And, gaming could be something of an issue.  A lot of things can be run using Wine or other windoze emulators, not sure about where Linux gaming stands, though.

You could try it out on a dual-boot system, maybe.  At one time, windoze was pretty actively hostile to a second boot partition, though.

Linux gaming in general is in a pretty good place compared to years past. Steam games in general work well. And drivers get released quickly on Linux, even Intel is doing a good job with its drivers for graphics on Linux. 

@ztejas You can basically use Linux like Windows/ OSX if you download one of the GUI distros. Command line stuff gives you a ton of flexibility to customize. Some people live in the command line. 

https://www.phoronix.com/ is in general a good site for reviews of how hardware performs on Linux. 

But, if you're frustrated by random driver issues (like with Bluetooth), Linux, in general, is not going to be for you. 

[TwiceHorn 31429]

A couple of additional thoughts.  I am assuming here that you don't need to login to a corporate network using M$ credentials.  And, relatedly, that you don't need to use a bunch of corporate-type software that tends to be windoze only.  Even those may not be that big a deal anymore, but that was a hassle with linux, and with osx, many times.  So many things are browser-based now, that you may not actually encounter problems with any of that, unless you are a heavy-duty user.

There also used to be some problems running things like Netflix when semi-proprietary things like Silverlight were required.  I think that has gone the way of the dodo, though.

Libreoffice is good enough that you no longer need an emulator to run a decent/standardish wp like Word.  You can find a pretty good substitute for any Windows app in Linux if you don't need it to fully integrate with a corporate environment.  Mozilla Thunderbird is/was a pretty good outlook alternative.

You can probably get by pretty well with most "home computing" things without knowing much command-line Linux and ease your way into it for the more complex things.

The other thing you can try, that has some limited functionality, but will give you a good taste, is to run a Linux distro off a thumb drive.  That way, you can at least pick a GUI (KDE, Gnome, etc.) that you seem to like and see what warez are out there and how it generally works.

Does windows still tend to corrupt a second boot partition like it used to?

[Celery Man 20929]

It’s been a second and a half since I’ve fucked around with it but I’ve several times created virtual machines running Ubuntu. Once it’s up and running it’s fairly straightforward. I’m sure if you’re doing tons of power user shit in Windows changing your habits may be hard, but also if you were doing that you’d probably know what to expect.

[Apep 645]

I haven’t used Linux on a daily basis in almost 20 years and I haven’t used it regularly in 10+. It was more or less good enough for everything but gaming back then, if you were tech-savvy. Are you a frequent Windows terminal user? An advanced DOS user? Then using Linux has been easy for years. Even if that’s not the case, if your hardware is supported, which it usually is, then it’s been pretty easy for years.

Due to the age of hardware or other issues, sometimes Linux performs better than Windows with certain driver issues. You can search online to figure that out for your computer. As long as online Google office or Office 365 works for you, there isn’t much reason to use Windows.

[Handcruser 2805]

[MonkeyDoughnut 10226]

12 hours ago, ztejas said:

I'm fucking done. I can't do it with Windows' stupid shit anymore. I have a Bluetooth issue with Win 11 right now that makes me want to break my laptop. 

I want to learn Linux.

In (anyone's) experience - what's the learning curve there and is it worth it?

I'm extremely tech savvy. I've built PCs - I swap out parts all the time - I've been PC gaming for 20 years now and know my way around all that shit. 

I just think the hardware that I have is being misappropriated.

How bad is Linux and could it solve some of my shit?

You will just be trading one set of problems for another. I use both daily for different things. As far as desktop goes I'm still Windows primarily.

Grab a box and load a linux based desktop on it.  You'll understand why desktop hasn't gotten above 5% traction.  With all it's problems and annoyances, Windows is just better expericence for most.

[boilerhorn 1371]

There are a bunch of great comments on here already, but I will add my opinion, for what little it is worth.

Problems w/ Windows, its support for peripherals, intermittent failures, etc. are reasons to get frustrated.  To me, migrating everything to Linux would be my 4th or later option.  Option 1: get a different Windows laptop.  Option 2: Get a Mac laptop.  Option 3: wipe and reinstall Windows.  Option 4: Linux.  Your windows laptop may have strange compatibility issues that can be solved by reinstall or using a PC from a different vendor.  As noted, the Linux Desktop is subpar (to some) compared to the Win or OSX desktops.  

To address the "I really want to learn Linux, I would say that it is indeed worth it.  Tons of code development is done in a Linux environment.  If you've never used Linux, there will be a learning curve.  I am not sure how much of your hardware swap, repair, upgrade tech experience will transfer.  The intellectual curiosity will.  The desire to get things to work will.  It might frustrate you at the beginning, but it will make you smarter - just the intellectual stimulation alone will.

Also, Mac's OSX is a derivative of BSD Unix and its terminal and command line interfaces will feel a lot like a linux experience, but with a far more seamless integration into the entire product.  Most Mac users do not use the terminal or command lines on a daily basis.

I use Mac and Windows interchangeably as "daily drivers" to access the professtional and personal world.  The OS/Desktop integration to almost every piece of production software is important to me.  You will not get that with Linux.  I have not messed with MS Office, evernote, Chrome, etc. on Linux, but its integration is quite good on both Mac an Win (as one would expect).  However, I do use Linux when I develop just about any code of any sort.  The tools supporting development, compilation, debug, etc. are all there and are actively being supported and developed.

So, I think you are really asking 2 questions.  What do I do with this laptop problem? and Should I learn Linux?  For the first, I offered 4 possibilities above and could also offer, "solve it w/o using BlueTooth," which is not really helpful.  For "Sould I learn Linux?" I say, yes.  And there are myriad approaches you can use to get started:

1. Grab a box and install linux on it.  It wil be standalone and any damage you do is isolated easily be fixed w/ reinstall.
2. Install a virtual machine manager on your Win machine (VirtualBox is what I have used) and install linux there.
3. Create a bootable Ubuntu USB and dabble
4. Continue using Win and install Windows Subsystem for Linux

Personally, I would do #1.  It's pretty easy to find old-ish hardware for cheap/free that folks are wanting to discard.  In many cases, Linux extends the life of these platforms, as the resource requirements for basic linux is considerably lower.

[ztejas 43411]

Thanks for all the thoughts guys. 

I may just go back to Win 10. Or keep trying to troubleshoot this specific issue. 

I have a craptop sitting around somewhere - maybe I'll play around with linux on that one and see what I think. 

 

[mycox 582]

What is the bluetooth issue? It might be a bluetooth device issue and not the OS assuming you have the latest drivers installed.

Don't go back to Windows 10

[ztejas 43411]

6 minutes ago, mycox said:

What is the bluetooth issue? It might be a bluetooth device issue and not the OS assuming you have the latest drivers installed.

Don't go back to Windows 10

It shuts off my bluetooth randomly and the only way to fix is restarting. I've tinkered with a couple settings already but it keeps happening. 

Here is how it's set up by connection. 

I thought it was maybe an issue with power saving settings but my laptop stays plugged in and I've tried turning off the "allow machine to turn off to save power" or wev but that didn't seem to fix it. 

[mycox 582]

Oh, I thought it was a particular device. Make sure the bluetooth drivers are updated and there is also a bluetooth power management setting that can be disabled in device manager. 

I'm sure you already searched, but Google and Redditt could be help.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5388]

I've been using linux as my daily driver since 1998. Today is a perfect time to jump into Linux, it's literally never been easier. My recommendation would be Kubuntu, it's a debian/ubuntu based derivative that comes pre-installed with KDE Plasma. If you're coming from Windows, KDE Plasma is the desktop shell that will most resemble and look like Windows, you basically won't know you've switched. The bit about it being debian and especially ubuntu based means that it's a very widely used distro, so you can look up and find lots of help online, compared to more boutique distros. KDE plasma looks like the image below:

Coming from windows, the part that usually trips up people the most is how software installations work, and the file directory. A linux file directory generally looks nothing like windows, it's full of obtuse folders that have various usage, and what's worse is there are redundant folders in different spots that certain programs aribitrarily use. However, don't worry about that. The average linux user really never needs to dig into the file system. For most linux users, you will have a home folder, which is usually located at /home/username. This folder is where you'll download stuff and store documents and all that jazz. So /home/username/documents, that's where your docs go. In linux, you can abbreviate /home/username/ with a ~. So ~/documents is where your docs go.

Explaining how installing stuff works requires a bit of backstory on why linux even exists in the first place, to understand the reason and workarounds involved. See, back in the old, old days of computers, there was no interoperability. At the heart of every computer, they spoke completely different languages in their CPU. If you wrote a program, it was specifically for that computer, and if you wanted to run it on another computer, you had to rewrite the program. This, obviously, was not optimal, so a higher level language known as C was created. C is an intermediary language which can be turned into computer code for each platform. So if you had 3 different computers, you didn't need to write 3 different programs. Instead, you could write one C program, and turn it into code that would run on each machine. This process is known as compilation, and the tool which does the converting is known as a compiler.

Now, this is all fine when your computers are dead simple, but we run complex machines these days. We don't want a single program to take over our entire computer, we want to be able to run multiple programs at once. A CPU, ignoring things like threading and such which are more complex topics, can generally only run one program at once. So in order to create the illusion of running multiple programs at a time, a type of program known as a scheduler works with the CPU to swap programs in and out of running billions of times a second. From our perspective, it looks like multiple programs are running at the same time, because it's too fast to notice. This scheduler forms the heart of what is known as a kernel, which forms the basis of an operating system.

So, back to C, an idea was formed for a "universal operating system" which could run on any hardware. The kernel would be a small program built around a set of tools known as gnu that would form just enough backbone to allow C programs to be compiled and run on the machine. This whole project of stuff became known as Linux. To get linux running on a machine, all you have to do is port the kernel and gnu tools to the specific platform, and in theory, any C program can run on the hardware. Your linux operating system will always have the tools needed to compile c source codes into executable programs.

Thus, in the early days of linux, programs were distributed as C source codes, and you had to know how to compile stuff to run it. That was fine for hardcore geeks and nerds, but it caused problems. As programs grew more complex, they would begin to use external libraries of source codes and executable programs to avoid rewriting the same boilerplate code over and over. Compiling your program depended on you having all these libraries present on your system. This created what was known as dependency hell, where you'd run into situations where to compile your program, you'd need to find and compile another program, and that needed yet another program to be found and compiled, and so forth near infinitely. This obviously was a problem for the average user.

To fix this, the concept of build managers came into place, programs which automate the entire process for you. You tell the build manager to build and install a program, and it'll automatically find all the dependencies and build them for you, eliminating the fuss. The way this works is that each build manager has a list of what are known as repositories, basically a list of URLs which link to servers that host lots and lots of code for libraries. Whenever the build manager needs a dependency not on your system, it'll search these repositories for the appropriate code and download it for you.

And thus we have arrived at how modern linux *generally* handles installing stuff. You don't need to compile or make your own software, you have what essentially looks like a built-in store on your desktop, where you search for programs and click "install." These "stores" look just like stuff like the windows store, or the apple store, or similar. Only difference is where those stores only look on microsoft or apple's internal servers, in linux you can edit your repository and thus add other sources for the store. So software in linux is now usually distributed as a repository link that you can click to add the source to your "store" which will let the software you're looking for be found. So, example, if you want to install Steam, you could link to the valve repository and then when you search for "Steam" in your "store" it'll be there to install.

Now, with that said, a bunch of large companies actually handle general repositories for public use, which automatically host the biggest software. So by default, your kubuntu install will be able to find chrome and firefox and steam in their "store" without you doing anything. If all you do is stick to the biggest software in linux, that store is your one-stop shop where you'll find everything. In ubuntu-based distros, the store is known as Synaptic, and it is powered by a tool underneath called apt. If you ever see someone telling you to, for example, open a terminal and type "sudo apt-get install firefox," they're telling you how to search for firefox on the store. An easier alternative would be to open the synaptic manager, which is window application with graphics, and search firefox and install it there. Apt and synaptic are automatically a part of ubuntu on an install.

With regards to distros themselves, if you don't want to use kubuntu or whatever, you can go to other distros. The difference between distros is much like the difference between, say, the home and professional versions of windows: they simply change the bundled software. You can, for example, find Bazzite, which is a gaming-oriented distro, and thus comes with lots and lots of video game related stuff pre-installed. The major branches of distros (i.e. debian, arch, fedora, etc) generally have different build managers at their heart. Like Manjaro uses pacman instead of apt, but the same concepts apply.

One last thing to mention is that compatibility for windows programs in linux has, within the last 4-5 years, DRASTICALLY gotten better. The tool linux uses to run windows programs is known as WINE, and it has been in the works for multiple decades now. It was generally a hobbyist project for many years, until gaming giant Valve decided to start pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into its development. Rapidly, WINE has become compatible with most Windows programs to a great degree. WINE is the general program to run windows applications, and Valve's specific branch of WINE is called Steam Proton. If you install steam on your computer, it'll automatically setup and install WINE for you. This lets you run huge, demanding windows applications, mainly games, in linux at windows-like performance. I would recommend you basically immediately install steam and thus WINE if you go to linux. With Steam, running windows applications, even non-games, is a snap. There is a drop down menu in steam where you can select "add a non-steam game" and it'll let you select any .exe file and run it, even if it's not a game.

That should be a good primer for what you can expect from linux as a windows user. Sorry if that's a big wall of text, I tried to be as descriptive as possible while avoiding jargon or leaving gaps that would confuse you. Best of luck!

Edited October 18 by WelfareBuysMyWeed

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5388]

On 10/17/2024 at 12:06 PM, Handcruser said:

presumably he wants to leave a walled garden, which means that going to Apple would be going in the completely wrong direction. The things he could be upset about with windows re: big microsoft, were made popular by apple. The reason a lot of people are leaving windows is because they're emulating the mac ecosystem, which they don't want.

[Handcruser 2805]

I get that.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5388]

3 hours ago, ztejas said:

It shuts off my bluetooth randomly and the only way to fix is restarting. I've tinkered with a couple settings already but it keeps happening. 

Here is how it's set up by connection. 

I thought it was maybe an issue with power saving settings but my laptop stays plugged in and I've tried turning off the "allow machine to turn off to save power" or wev but that didn't seem to fix it. 

My guess with this would actually be the bluetooth chip itself. Cheap bluetooth controller chips will drop signal quite a bit. I would suggest getting something like an ASUS bluetooth USB device and seeing if that solves your problem.

[Dahobbs 17521]

8 minutes ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

My guess with this would actually be the bluetooth chip itself. Cheap bluetooth controller chips will drop signal quite a bit. I would suggest getting something like an ASUS bluetooth USB device and seeing if that solves your problem.

Yeah, this is almost certainly the issue. 

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5388]

Oh, one other thing regarding how Linux handles installing things: I mentioned that different major branches of linux have different build systems at heart. This means you can't, for example, install a .deb file in Arch linux. It's one last hurdle of interoperability that needed crossing. In comp sci circles, there's a joke where people will respond to others who complain about programs breaking or not running well or being hard to install with "well it runs on my machine." And thus that actually turned into a generally great idea:

Now, without getting into the weeds about how it actually works, this is the basic gist of containers in linux. The really basic premise is that programs can now bundle their own tiny version of a linux distro inside of themselves, so they can install on any other linux distro, even otherwise incompatible branches. There are a few really popular container formats in linux right now. SNAP is one, and Flatpak is another. Flatpak is the container format the Valve uses in Steam, and thus has gained a lot of acceptance. From your distro's "store," you can install flatpak, which will let you install flatpak applications by just downloading the flatpak file and clicking on it, exactly like a setup file in windows. This will work on any distro. If you install Steam, flatpak will automatically install as well. Flatpak files have a .flatpak file extension.

Edited October 18 by WelfareBuysMyWeed

[ztejas 43411]

1 hour ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

My guess with this would actually be the bluetooth chip itself. Cheap bluetooth controller chips will drop signal quite a bit. I would suggest getting something like an ASUS bluetooth USB device and seeing if that solves your problem.

Hmm. That's possible. But I haven't had any issues with connectivity as long as it's turned on. It doesn't like crap out mid podcast or music or gaming I'm listening to. It just gets shut off and totally disappears from my system tray and then I have to restart the PC.

It's also a 5 month* old laptop from a company I trust a lot to ensure everything is running properly. 

Drivers are updated - the power setting got ticked back to allowing the machine to shut off and I just ticked it off again.

We'll see.

Edited October 19 by ztejas

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5388]

11 minutes ago, ztejas said:

It just gets shut off and totally disappears from my system tray and then I have to restart the PC.

that would be a symptom of what I described, give it a try. And basically all manufacturers use the same controller chip components which are cheap, even the "premium" vendors. When in doubt with bluetooth, try buying a better adapter, it's the rule of thumb. You don't need to go crazy and spend like $100 or anything, but a $20 USB receiver should be better than whats on your mobo.

Bluetooth recievers malfunctioning and turning off is the new phonojacks fraying and making your headphones useless.

Edited October 19 by WelfareBuysMyWeed

[SDG 3319]

I just want to bitch about windows 11:  updated a few months ago on my work laptop refresh (we’re several years behind in the finance world). The new right click options suck (no powershell and you have to click a 2nd menu for most options) folders open in minimal and if the names are long getting to the expand/minimize buttons suck and if you want to drag/drop full screen on a different monitor many times it decides 1/3 is better.  Lastly, when you use file explorer to search there is no drag option to extend file names.  I know these are probably minimal annoyances to most and there’s probably workarounds but I don’t have admin access.  
 

I’ll keep my nearly decade old mb pro for personal computing.