Thinking of moving to Linux

[MediocreMetastasis]

I'm starting to get sick of Windows as I need to use Linux VM or something like Docker to develop programs.

I have used linux before on vm for uni so I am pretty competent in using it I just need to know if there's anything I need to do to have a smooth transition from Windows 11.

Programs I frequently use are Godot, Blender, VSCode, and Krita. I also sometimes play games on Steam.

I read that NVIDIA graphic cards don't properly work out of the box on Linux.

Any tips on what to do and what distro I should pick

[mrparker]

I have been a Linux user off and on over the course of a decade, in my personal experience - now is the best time to jump in.

The only caveats immediately I can think of:
- Anti-cheats don't work (sometimes games turn on linux-only toggles - however it is NOT default, the developer has to opt-in to these settings)
- Some streaming sites - chances are use Widevine DRM to control playback - such as Netflix, Hulu, etc have issues without special configuration to the browser (use the Flatpak version of a browser to have the best experience). Hulu in particular needs location services - which only works reliably in Flatpak versions provided by Mozilla, Google, etc - which also package Widevine.
- Wine isn't a silver bullet - you will encounter software issues using it. Music production, for example can work - but your plugins (VSTs) might not. Chances of them working are even lower (if not 0) if you use anything that relies on iLok - heard it's common for Native Instruments plugins to have that bundled.

Look at winedb and the gaming equivalent protondb for guidance. Some comments reply with configurations that might be necessary - typically command line arguments or winetricks configurations. Some games have very devoted communities - like Roblox - which make software to natively run the x86 Android client with special sauce to support Roblox's anti-cheat (the VinegarHQ's project Sober) - but not every community has people this devoted. Your mileage may vary.

Outside those things, for the most part - the software you list does work on Linux natively.

For a beginner distro - especially if nVidia support is required - use bazzite. It works slightly different than a traditional distro, primarily cause it's an atomic distro. I use this personally with an RTX 2080 Super - works flawlessly.

Atomic distros require you to reboot to apply changes such as updates and software installs - but, only if you install software outside of Brew or Flatpak - in bazzite, it is installing software using the rpm-ostree install command.

However, most software can be installed without that command - and, most software can be found in Brew and Flatpak anyways.

If you want more of the traditional experience, use Fedora - use whatever desktop environment that speaks to you. Fedora calls these "spins" - there's a KDE spin, XFCE spin, etc - choose whatever you want.

Best experience is still using AMD and Intel cards (e.g. for 100% Wayland support) - as both of those have open-source firmware. nVidia is playing catch up, and only recently (within the last year) distros started shipping their open-source drivers on Linux. Years and years of work is still needed for this to actually mean something, though - as like mentioned, the Wayland project focused more on cards with open source drivers instead and maximized compatibility with them, as it was easier for them to support than nVidia cards. Wayland is stable despite this - but along the way I have encountered issues with sleep/wake, so turning off sleep on your system is probably best for stability on nVidia systems, and just leave it so the monitor turns off. Turn your system off to properly save power. 2030 is looking bright - provided nVidia still exists as at all as a consumer company by then. Their presence in this area is already seriously lacking.

Back when I started using Linux in 2010/11 - Ubuntu by Canonical was the name of the game. Outside of the corporate associations they've made throughout the years and the Unity interface and it's complaints (they use GNOME now) - Ubuntu now is a completely different distro, but Canonical have a tendency to introduce issues in "stable" versions that are only fit for an alpha release.

Snap, outside of the complaints levied against it - is a nightmare to deal with. Canonical insists on packaging as much of the system inside it, with zero regard for how it interacts with the apt package manager (made by the amazing Debian project - which is the distro Ubuntu uses as a base).

For example, I was able to brick a fresh install after simply installing updates - which is normal to do on a fresh install, as the packages will probably be out of date on the image you downloaded by the time you install it. After doing that, apt lets you know if packages are no longer needed (a feature built in and quite useful, actually). The problem is, every package installed in Snap is dependent on Snap itself, which is not the issue here ironically - it makes sense (this is the same for Flatpak). No, the issue is if you run the command to auto remove packages that apt says are no longer necessary - on Ubuntu, that means nuking the desktop environment and tons of other critical system components.... on the desktop version of their distro, shipped for desktop usage. Yeah, on Ubuntu - removing non-needed packages is actually a dangerous operation that can trash your install.

This was in 2021/22 - I have never touched Ubuntu after that, and don't plan on it, either. I don't run it on servers, either. Nothing.

Ubuntu, pre-Snap - was actually a good distro. But I could never recommend it to beginners ever cause of how impressively easy it is to brick an install by simply using it. You need to be super careful when using it, otherwise you will destroy your install and have to re-install - which at that point, like me, you might as well distro hop again.

[knifex]

Hi! As someone who's like, okay but not good at computers, I use cashy OS and had to do very little troubleshooting to get started and run my usual stuff! It feels familiar coming from windows, but theres so many more widgets

Nowadays, steam has a system in place to run games that dont run on linux on linux. If a game wont launch the fix is like 2 clicks deep under properties

I use pacman to like. manage updates? bf says its a repository manager, its probably important.

Hope 2 see you on linux!

[Dan Q]

I'm starting to get sick of Windows as I need to use Linux VM or something like Docker to develop programs.

I don't want to talk you out of switching to Linux, because you should, but have you tried Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). It's a fully-fledged Windows feature these days, although it's not installed as standard, and it basically lets you run Linux on Windows with much better integration and performance than a VM.

I read that NVIDIA graphic cards don't properly work out of the box on Linux.

They're pretty-much fine nowadays; I've never had any trouble: I've got a handful of Linux boxes in my house using Nvidia cards without any trouble: one's on Slackware and I'm using the Open Nvidia stack (though I've had to cap the version because it's an old card: I'm really only using it for h.264 transcoding these days!); another's on Bazzite and it "just worked" as you'd expect/hope; a third's on Arch and it took more work and I initially had trouble with using the latest features but it's... fine. Don't worry about it; and yeah, if gaming's your interest then as @mrparker says start with Bazzite!

[beebz]

I've been developing from my Steam Deck, which has it's own weird pitfalls. Steam OS is based off of arch linux but I can't use pacman and have to manually set up PATH for stuff like node or python. And for whatever reason I cant install ruby at all because it seems to want a different path.

That being said though I've been using it as my main computer for a year and it's been great. Most windows applications run fine with proton, it's a lot better than it used to be, but you still need some patience imo.

Good luck with your move to Linux! I've heard good things about Debian these days.

[rtdsx]

I'm starting to get sick of Windows as I need to use Linux VM or something like Docker to develop programs.

I have used linux before on vm for uni so I am pretty competent in using it I just need to know if there's anything I need to do to have a smooth transition from Windows 11.

Programs I frequently use are Godot, Blender, VSCode, and Krita. I also sometimes play games on Steam.

I read that NVIDIA graphic cards don't properly work out of the box on Linux.

Any tips on what to do and what distro I should pick

You should try out Linux Mint, and Nvidia support on that distro has been flawless (for me, anyway. i have a gtx 1060) and nvidia cards should run out of the box.

For games, i suggest checking Are We Anti-Cheat Yet? and ProtonDB 

[arcus]

I have used linux before on vm for uni so I am pretty competent in using it I just need to know if there's anything I need to do to have a smooth transition from Windows 11.

This post onwards has good advice and explains the NVIDIA situation in more detail. If your tablet isn't a Wacom or XP-Pen model you might need to install OpenTabletDriver.

Programs I frequently use are Godot, Blender, VSCode, and Krita. I also sometimes play games on Steam.

Use VSCodium instead of VSCode. It's the same thing but with Microsoft's telemetry stripped out. Krita and Blender run better under Linux than Windows.

Any tips on what to do and what distro I should pick

Echoing Bazzite and CachyOS, they're both set up for gaming out of the box, so no worrying about NVIDIA support.

Bazzite is immutable, which can be a pro or a con depending on how far you want to go with managing your system. It uses Flatpaks which is better for security but can be annoying with permissions and file paths. You get less control, but it's harder to break. Refer to this chart for installing software:



CachyOS is Arch Linux based. It has a learning curve but The Arch wiki is incredibly comprehensive and it's very easy to find support for it. Check Arch's news posts before updating: There's major updates occasionally which require manual intervention. You get more control, but it's easier to break.

Linux Mint I recommend against in your case. It's good for beginners, but since you have Linux experience, you might as well use a distro aimed at gamers.

[SugrPawz]

Not really here to suggest anything in particular. Everyone here already suggested some GREAT options!. I know the hesitation but everything you say you run will work fine so theres 0 real hangups. Also the Nvidia concern is a bit overrated. I noticed similar or the same performance between the two game rise. The drivers just aren't as up to date which means it doesnt get full performance expected. Its still equivalent in my experience with not all that many problems at all, at least bot compared to years ago.

I ran away from windows about 8 years ago now. Its perfect time to get away. Take that step!

[eezstreet]

NVIDIA drivers aren’t really an issue these days. Especially within the last 4-5 years, the process has become a lot more painless. On Ubuntu they actually have the ability to install them directly from “apt” out-of-the-box.

[hein]

I've been a Linux user for many years. Haven't touched Windows in years.    I do use a Mac for graphic design and other editing, but for everything else, i currently use my Framework 13. I'd say go for it. I game exclusively on Linux (pc gaming anyway) on my steamdeck, I'd say 95% of my steam library runs, and the ones that don't used to run before (BF1, BFV or GTA Online) but now don't due to newer kernel level anticheat.

I'm running CachyOS. I run that too on my Framework, however I recommend using Fedora KDE for beginners. KDE in general is very windows-esque, but better.

I have an immense dislike of GNOME 

[MediocreMetastasis]

Update:

Spoiler

[close]

I am now on CachyOS. Ironically windows broke my wifi card 2 days ago before I changed to Linux

[candycanearter07]

congrats! i'm not super familiar with cachy specifically but it looks like a well supported distro?

[MediocreMetastasis]

@candycanearter07 It has a pretty popular forum and wiki. It's also a fork of arch linux so I can fallback to that if cachyos doesn't have any info.

I was honestly overwhelmed when they gave me like 20 extremely different types of desktop setups I could've use. Like, which one was the one that suited me  . I went with the default one.

There's also some weird quirks like needing a password to access my D:/ drive. At least linux lets you change it (unlike another os).