this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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Could be small or big.

My answer has always been that, Linux can't handle everything I'd ask out of it that I normally can with Windows. I know the games issue has been progressing far from the days when that used to have been an archaic flaw with Linux for the longest time. Games might not be the issue except for some concerns I have for some games.

I was taking some time a few moments ago, to check if a program called Firestorm Viewer would work on Linux Mint which could've been my distro of choice. And the description written on the linux page described exactly the kind of concerns I'd have for compatibility and usability from going Windows to Linux.

They said that their viewer was tested and designed to function mostly with Ubuntu and while it could work with other distros, it's not to be expected to be smooth.

That's the kind of sentiment and concern I have always had with Linux if I were to go from Windows to it. There are programs and tools on Windows that I have that are used for specific purposes and I know they will not function on Linux. Furthermore, incase anything breaks down, any and all solutions would only be applicable to that thing that would be far easier to solve than just being SOL if I was on Linux.

It is something as a user that I just can't simply afford to deal with on a regular basis if I made the switch.

So while I may not have too much of an issue running games, I won't have too much of an issue using alternatives, I won't have to deal with the Windows ecosystem .etc I will just be running into other walls that would simply make me second guess my decision and make me regret switching to the point where I would dip back into Windows in a hurry.

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[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 9 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Man i wish Mint worked out of the box as well as virtually everyone on here says it does.

I am a former software engineer, and don't want my home PC to be a hobby. I'm like 6 hours into trying to make my (simple) audio setup work on Mint Cinnamon and it's intermittent at best. Never have even thought about it on Windows.

It is plug and play compared to Linux of old, it's clearly come a long way. But it's nowhere near as easy as Windows still, for anyone who isn't trying to make this a hobby

[–] Fyrnyx@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 3 days ago

That's exactly how I feel about it as well and largely contributes to my hesitation.

I read and hear how so many people just gush and gush about how Linux Mint or this distro just 'works out of the box'. What they don't tell you, is how they must have had to spend hours getting something to work. Like sure, Linux Mint or a more friendlier distro will work out of the box - if you do nothing but just browse online and maybe install/uninstall programs you may want or need from the software package manager.

But I have had my battles before trying to make things work on linux distros, like getting proprietary functions of a browser to work. Hell, I have even had to fight a little just to get a displaying clock! Like with its formatting from 24hr to 12hr, I'm not saying getting it to display or anything but I don't get this desire to default to a 24hr format. And I have had to fight at times to switch formats.

The point is, I or others should not have to spend more time than we need to, to get things to work when there is already an OS that readily does that without question. It doesn't make us dumb, it doesn't make us incurious or boring or uninterested in computers and technology. It's about patience and respect of time and if some Linux distro is not going to respect my time or patience, regardless of how welcoming it appears, then it is not worth swapping to.

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[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 days ago

just make a vm of windows and use Linux for EVERYTHING else

[–] sifar@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago

There is too concentrated which is bad (mac, win), and there is too fragmented which is bad (that is your Linux/distro universe). In other words, in one world, a single entity controls and is responsible for everything, and in another world, no one is. I am not getting into what is worse or better, rather what is usable for an end user.

And then there's the tacit wisdom of the FOSS/Linux world savants: "Uh, if something is not done or not available – you can just fork it or raise a PR, can't you?" completely escaping the fact that almost the entirety of the users of either world are just end users.

[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I run Linux but it’s hard because no Adobe, no Microsoft, and no esports fps games except cs.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The Finals, TF2(if you play comp), and Older COD games (if you use Plutonium Launcher) are supported :)

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[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 days ago

bill gates will shoot my dog

[–] i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago

My Windows 10 PC is just as, if not more secure than any Linux machine on the planet.

But one of these days I’m going to have to actually power it on again and then I guess I’ll have to do something.

[–] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I have terabytes of games, shit internet and no patience for things that don't just work immediately. I can only tolerated windows because I've already fixed it and I don't have to keep fixing it anymore.

Who knows what will happen with my next gaming laptop though, if it's fresh and empty I won't have that excuse, although there is always 'cbf' to fall back on.

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I use Endeavour and it's near flawless because all the drivers are imstalled, Steam knows when to use Proton, Heroic Launcher handles everything else. 6TB+ of games. All run. When they don't it's because of Epic Games' login requirement. No crashes. No launch errors.

Basically, there's no excuse for incompatibility any more. One exception may be some online multiplayer games with kernel level anticheat that's not supported by Proton. But I don't play those so idk

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[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I made the change about a year ago now. I saw the end of Windows 10 coming up and decided to install linux in a dual boot and try my best to use it exclusively for a couple months until I properly got used to it. You will need to accept that not every program you use on Windows will be available and you may have to try out a couple replacements before you find something that works for you. But most things have decent alternatives. Especially considering how much is done in a web browser these days, there aren't too many programs I really miss from Windows (mostly 3D CAD and RAW image processing).

Also, note that the differences between distros is way overblown when it comes to compatibility, it is mostly just a case of whether your package manager has the packages you want available and how bleeding edge the packages your distro uses are. Debian based distros (e.g. Ubuntu and Mint) tend to use slightly older packages than ones that are rolling release like Arch which should theoretically be a bit more stable.

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 4 points 2 days ago

I recently switched to Linux, but the reason it took so long was primarily:

  1. Just getting the time to do it. I'm really busy these days and setting up a PC from scratch with all the stuff I need and how I want it to be takes a lot of time.
  2. Concerns about gaming, which turned out to be a complete non-issue. I can game completely fine and easily on Linux via Steam's compatibility settings. I can even use it to install non-Steam games and launchers, like Battlenet.
  3. Concerns about stuff not "just working" and I will say, there are more small annoyances. Already had a few segfaults from KDE Plasma when waking from sleep which crashes all programs and leaves me with an empty desktop. We really collectively need to move away from memory-unsafe languages, but yea you just don't get those sorts of bugs on Windows because Microsoft performs much, much more extensive testing of their code than Linux does (which is sad, but is the reality).
[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

My domain. I'm too lazy to bring the whole shit somehow over to Linux. But I recently moved from hyperv to proxmox. Windows just sucks ass in comparison.

And gaming. Sure, many or most games do work fine in Linux, but then there are those with shitty anti-cheat. And also there are no drivers for my soundcard, and I really love my soundcard.

But win11 really really really tested my limits of tolerance. Really....

[–] bobo1900@startrek.website 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Engineering CADs and old peripherals with proprietary drivers for me. This cannot be always solved with a VM because either they are graphically intensive or hardware passthrough just doesn't work for them.

There's one specific case of Texas Instruments' software suite for microcontrollers: they have all the tools, the IDE and SDKs available for windows/mac/linux, EXCEPT one stupid old sdk I needed that was ONLY available on Windows for some reason, so I had to use it just for that stupid piece of drivers.

For games I either do games that work on proton, or for extreme cased I have a VM with second GPU in passthrough, and that works quite qell, but cannot do on a work laptop.

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[–] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 days ago
  • I don't have a personal computer, just my work computer right now so I don't need it.
  • I work in graphics so I'm wary that not everything I use now will be available (I know there are alternatives, but they aren't equal).
  • I got a steam deck for my gaming (not my day to day).
  • my wife and I use Mac's and iPhones and I'm worried it'll be hard for her to switch and the ecosystem is very convent and easy right now.
  • I acquired a gaming computer for my kid and promptly put mint on it.
  • I only pretend to be technologically savvy and am not confident to answer all the questions my family needs to go full Linux. It's more at the testing hobby level.

My main reasons boil down to availability of programs, no necessity yet, and ease of the new ecosystem isn't as simple.

because i already did it

[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

There is a critical work applications that I need. I’ve tried everything to get it to run on Linux, so I really can’t do it.

Bought a Mac instead to at least get away from windows. The day that app can run on Linux, I’ll be switching back to it.

[–] Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

For work our projects use .NET Framework so it needs to run on windows.

For personal use it's a combination of mostly Valorant, which refuses to run anywhere but windows... and short term productivity loss because it's simply the platform I know my way around.

For my homelab I naturally have Linux running though, and the second Valorant supports Linux (lol) I'm gone.

[–] Brownboy13@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

For my laptop, 90% of. The reason is pc game pass. I like trying random games out for a few hours.

That said, my old desktop is still on windows 10 and there's some shitty update that occasionally causes boot failure after which I've to either rollback the update, restore to a system restore point or (once) do a full windows reinstall.

The problem happened again a couple days ago. Since it's not my daily driver anymore, I just don't have to energy to fix it. I think it might be time to move to Linux, except I've no idea what distro to go for. For work, I've used a bunch of centos and rocky servers, but they've always been cli. I've no idea what kind of good ui based distros will work for me.

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[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 days ago

I'm on Linux everywhere at home except for my lounge family PC. It runs windows and Linux, but boots in to windows by default. That way when my kid or friends/family are using it, it's familiar to them, but when I use it, I can boot it in to linux.

It's not even true dual booting. Rather, they're each installed on their own dedicated drives, and I jump in to the bios to boot from Linux when I need it. It means they don't really even have to coexist and break each other's installs

[–] nebula42@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago

VR. Even my valve index, which is supposed to be the best supported on linux, has been nothing but hell on earth to try and get running. I remember reading about envision and if i can get that to work on arch, and the performance is acceptable, i might switch over to it sometime after windows reaches EOL.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Main reasons are:

  • Work - I use my PC every day, all day, for work, so making OS level changes is something I'm not keen to do for fear of breaking something. I had meant to get a cheap laptop to practice Linux on, but time/money got in the way of that.
  • Lack of knowledge - I'm far from a novice with computers, and am frequently the person people turn to for help, but I've never really used anything but Windows (Mac for a year, once, but only intermittently) and I know nothing about drive partitioning, etc.
  • Software - I use Adobe products frequently, especially Photoshop and PremiΓ¨re and while I know people say that there are alternatives, I don't feel like I have the energy to start learning again with new programs.
  • Time - I just don't have the time to spend on all of the above.

All that said, I'm going to have to do something about it! Ugh.

[–] trk@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago

Irfanview, MYOB, and a lack of virtual file system in Nextcloud.

[–] amelia@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Adobe and games. But actually mostly Adobe.

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