Finally migrated from Windows to Linux. For anyone wondering, what is the state of Linux as your primary OS for home PC\laptop in 2023.

I’ve finalised my Archlinux installation yesterday, I dropped of Linux more than 10 years ago and experience in 2023 in comparison is awesome and beyond even wildest dreams back then:

  • For average user looking for more out of the box experience I would suggest something Arch based (people in comments suggest EndeavourOS, please do your research). Archlinux installation took me quite some time
  • Almost everything works out of the box, by just installing corresponding package
  • KDE Plasma environment is fast and beautiful
  • Pipewire audio server (Jack\Pulseaudio replacement) works great
  • Wayland window server is not there yet, especially if you have Nvidia with proprietary drivers and want to use VR. Waking up, session restoration and other scenarios have issues. Use X11.
  • Wine is great!
  • Music making - Bitwig Studio DAW has linux native version, yabridge allow you to use windows VSTs, which are easily installed via wine
  • Gaming works out of the box with Steam for majority of titles, some games have native linux version. Performance is great. In worst case windows game might loose 5-15% in performance. Was not case for my titles
  • Gaming outside steam is fine too. Use Wine, Lutris, Proton
  • VR is a mixed bag. Not everything is there (Desktop view, sound control and mirroring, camera, motions smooth, lighthouses do not wake up os go to sleep. I use my phone to turn them on/off). But if its not the problem for you, quite some titles work. Tried: native HF Alyx, Lab, windows: Beat Saber and Boneworks. For me it’s a surprise, I did not count on it. Performance is great.

So overall my experience is great. Eventually I’m going to get rid of WIndows on other computers and laptops at howe. I can finally wave goodbye to Windows, with lots of ads and bloatware. Alway glad to help with answers regarding installation while my memory and history logs are fresh. ^^

  • aard
    57•9 months ago

    especially if you have Nvidia

    This is something that needs to be highlighted over and over again: Don’t buy nvidia if there’s ever a chance of running anything but Windows.

    • @rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
      19•9 months ago

      Mmh. If you like Machine Learning / AI / Stable Diffusion you’re kinda screwed. Hope AMD ups their game regarding this.

      • raubarno
        9•9 months ago

        IDK, I used to have a dedicated software for playing with CUDA. Most of the image-specific AI stuff from the internet require 8 GB of VRAM or more, though.

        Nowadays, I don’t feel the need for GPU-accelerated computing, though. If I needed, I would write Vulkan compute shaders for that thing.

        • @rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
          5•9 months ago

          Yeah. Lots of frameworks are optimized for CUDA (Nvidia). ROCm (AMD) and Intel’s efforts are a niche. Hence often cumbersome to set up and get all the performance out of it. Nvidia invests orders of magnitude more into AI. I believe they consider this to be the more profitable market in the future.

    • @hexagonwin
      12•9 months ago

      Not really though, more like if you need open source drivers. Nvidia cards with the proprietary driver work great on OSes like Illumos (solaris) or FreeBSD, Linux on X11 where no other card works properly.

      • @CatsGoMOW@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20•9 months ago

        I’m not sure I would say that Nvidia works “great”. I’ve had numerous issues over the years trying to get my laptop with an Nvidia card set up and working just right. I’d say it’s more like Nvidia “can” work in Linux.

        I just bought a new laptop with AMD graphics, and so far the difference is night and day. It just works.

      • @relic_@lemm.ee
        7•9 months ago

        I would agree with this, I use Nvidia cards for professional work on Linux and I’ve never had a problem. Yeah there’s some upfront work configuring the drivers, but I’ve never had it take more than an hour to setup.

    • @rishado@lemmy.world
      6•9 months ago

      I see this sentiment often but like, tuxedo, system76, kubuntu focus, are all selling laptops with Nvidia gpus, what’s the deal? What’s your take on that

      • aard
        7•9 months ago

        Pretty much the reason I’m not interested in buying their stuff.

        I get it as workstation option for very specific purposes - but for 5 years or so you’re just better off with an AMD card.

        Before that things sucked a bit if you needed 3d performance - I just stopped gaming after I moved off my last voodoo card as I don’t support companies with that kind of behaviour.

        • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
          2•9 months ago

          System76 also sell full-AMD builds. Friend of mine got the Pangolin which has an AMD CPU with integrated graphics. No it’s not gonna thrash through everything but it works for him.

          • aard
            -1•9 months ago

            I’m aware of that - but I think when you’re marketing as Linux / open source friendly you shouldn’t be selling those systems.

            I might get interested if they ever have a modern AMD system with proper coreboot support - but until then they don’t do anything special.