what are some things you wished you knew when you first transitioned to linux?

[fairyrune]

hello everybody!

with the death of win10 and my heavy distaste for microsoft, i've been looking at changing my main OS to a linux distro - primarily a ubuntu one since most games if they have linux support go that route. but that's kinda besides the point  i was wondering - what are things you wished you knew before you changed over? what distro did you pick? do you still use it? why/why not? what did nobody tell you at first and assumed you knew already?

[ArtificialAnima]

You might prefer an Arch-based distro (like Manjaro), since that's what SteamOS (the distro that the Steamdeck uses) is based on, so, presumably, most games that support Linux are targeting that now.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

First Linux I sticked to (and I did so for ~15 years) was OpenSuse; I switched to Arch recently, as OpenSuse was hard to use with my graphic card; I had the impression that quality sunk for quite some time, though. I couldn't come to like Ubuntu, as I felt that it was limiting in too many places even back then.

Things I'd have liked to know:
-Emergency restart is done by holding ALT+Print and typing REISUB.
-To kill a task blocking your system, press STRG+ALT+F3-7, type top, search for the ID of the problematic process, and kill it by entering k, followed by the ID, and Return.
-Terminals are easy to use
-Full disk encryption does much more harm than good
-XFCE is the best desktop environment available
-Beside video gaming, there is no need for Wine.
-Never try to make a package made for another system compatible to yours. Compiling yourself is easier.

I recommend using PipeWire (that wasn't existent when I started) over PulseAudio. Using an ATI/AMD graphic card will save you a lot of headache.

[fairyrune]

You might prefer an Arch-based distro (like Manjaro), since that's what SteamOS (the distro that the Steamdeck uses) is based on, so, presumably, most games that support Linux are targeting that now.

i hadn't considered arch actually - i've been poking at xubuntu and linux mint, and i haven't run any games through them yet, but i'll try to get one running. i will have to be using wine and steam's emulator a little bit though...
the pages for the games i own currently all ask for ubuntu-based distros, but they're also compatible with steam deck. i have a bit of time before MS pulls the plug, so i'll give it a go.

I recommend using PipeWire (that wasn't existent when I started) over PulseAudio. Using an ATI/AMD graphic card will save you a lot of headache.

i'm curious, is the card thing a problem with NVIDIA not rolling out drivers fast enough? i will definitely keep that in mind - though i barely update my drivers anyway! i can't afford a new card right now, but i've already been thinking about AMD.

[ArtificialAnima]

-Full disk encryption does much more harm than good

Could you elaborate on this?

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

i'm curious, is the card thing a problem with NVIDIA not rolling out drivers fast enough? i will definitely keep that in mind - though i barely update my drivers anyway! i can't afford a new card right now, but i've already been thinking about AMD.

AMD is supporting the open source drivers since ages - it often just works out of the box. With NVDIA, you often have to install packages and, depending on the distributions, they sometimes indeed desync with the kernel - and than you have to roll it back (using btrfs+snapshots is a good idea!). My flatmate who still uses OpenSuse has the problem quite often - I hadn't to do any fixes since swapping distros.
I wouldn't recommend to get a new card because of this - depending of your distribution, you might have problems from time to time, but it is no nightmare. Just get a AMD when your current one breaks ;).

@ArtificialAnima I used full disk encryption for ages - and while it worked well on average, it caused various problems: I distinctly remember that an upgrade affecting the boot loader requiring a manual fix at least one time (which is indeed nothing a beginner wants to do), and I had sometimes the problem of file systems on intact hardware turning read only. Also, it really can make fixing a broken system much more complicated. I'd say that it cost me a few dozen hours; it also slows down the system a bit - and in all this time, nobody attempted to physically access my PC; against data theft via malware (which is a much bigger risk factor nowadays) it brings no benefit. I went over to just encrypting the non-system data disks, and even this is, honestly, rather due to paranoia than to any real need. I see that things can be different for people who have notebooks that they really travel with - but even there a encryption of the system/file partitions should be more than sufficient.

[arcus]

I've been using Linux dual boot for years before swapping over fully, so my list is short.

Things I wish I knew:

• Vim isn't hard, it's different. Encyclopedic knowledge of all of its hotkeys and features isn't needed to benefit from it. It takes awhile to get used to it, is all. Ignore the plugins and Neovim at first, and stick with vanilla Vim.
• Coding knowledge is unnecessary for using the terminal. It's pretty much the same as talking to a Discord bot.
• Bash is cool and fun. There's no need to sit down and study it to get use out of it, just use cheatsheets and search on how to do things: https://learnxinyminutes.com/bash/ https://quickref.me/bash
• FFXIV works fine, use XIVLauncher. Make sure you copy your files from your Windows install to the right directories, option settings aren't tied to accounts.

Things I wish others know:

• Test Wi-Fi and sound before swapping over.
• Test any hardware peripherals before swapping over (printers, tablets, etc.)
• Linux comes with drivers for most things and usually a button or command to update all drivers and software at once. Drivers for the graphics card and printer will probably be needed to be installed though.
• NVIDIA drivers will sometimes bork after an update, resulting with a black screen on the next reboot. If this happens, they will need to be reinstalled or rolled back.
• The Arch Linux Wiki has a bunch of useful info, with most of it applying to other Linux distros as well. The List of applications page is incredibly helpful for finding new applications.
• If you need to run specific Windows software, double check if they work under Linux with WineHQ.
• VR support on Linux is jank. Check this list for headset compatibility.
• DAW and VST compatibility has come a long way, but if you need something specific, you should test it before swapping over.
• There's plenty of nice art software now, but if you need Clip Studio Paint specifically, it might not work. There's Kolourpaint (XP era MSPaint clone), Krita, MyPaint, AzPainter, GrafX2, and more. Sai2 and various versions of Photoshop work fine under Wine.
• Pretty much all games without anti-cheat work fine in Steam, all you need to do is enable Proton under settings. Check ProtonDB to see what works and doesn't.
• Arch Linux and Gentoo being hard to install is exaggerated. They have very well documented wikis with guides to walk one through the whole process. That said, do not start with them. They're time consuming to set up and not worth it unless you have a specific reason for using them.
• Mint is good to start off with, because the community expects new users and are generally nice and wanting to help out people. It's popular, so if you have any troubles, you can search "how to [do thing] Linux Mint" and you'll likely find answers.

While this is a long list, if someone was doing an install of Windows from scratch, I would write a similarly long list with compatibility warnings.

i hadn't considered arch actually - i've been poking at xubuntu and linux mint, and i haven't run any games through them yet, but i'll try to get one running. i will have to be using wine and steam's emulator a little bit though...
the pages for the games i own currently all ask for ubuntu-based distros, but they're also compatible with steam deck. i have a bit of time before MS pulls the plug, so i'll give it a go.

Don't start with Arch. If you're interested in Arch, try it out in a virtual machine or on another computer before using it on your main machine. What matters more with game compatibility is your graphics card, and even then it's not that big of a deal.

i'm curious, is the card thing a problem with NVIDIA not rolling out drivers fast enough? i will definitely keep that in mind - though i barely update my drivers anyway! i can't afford a new card right now, but i've already been thinking about AMD.

They update often, but as ThunderPerfectWitchcraft said, they sometimes break when updating, so the next time you reboot, you might get stuck on a black screen, and will have to manually roll back the update. It's a pain, but it's not worth getting a new card for.