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Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

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Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#41

Post by Yohvee7u »

esperent wrote: post #15
rlpb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't assume your laptop will work. Agreed. Note though that the Ubuntu live installer has a "Try" mode that gives you a nearly normal desktop experience without installing, and is an effective test environment to discover what will work and what won't. Wifi, graphics and suspend are worth trying out this way.

This is good advice and I should have done that. However, most of the issues I had only showed up after some time of using it. For example, a big one was wifi and it was very intermittent and hard to debug. I think it was going into low power mode in some circumstances and my wifi speed would randomly drop to 100kbs or less. Sometimes turning wifi off and on would fix it, sometimes a restart was required. Thankfully…

Ah, the issues you mentioned are the top 3 nvidia issues :P

- wake from suspend - laptop power consumption - poor wayland support - sudden desktop restarts - hidpi, external monitors, virtualization

Nvidia's proprietary crap has always worked badly, the re-implement everything and put all their development effort into NIH syndrome instead of playing along with the already existing open source stack.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#42

Post by onli »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #16
esperent wrote: post #4

I'm one of these people. Although it was a several years long plan for me, which involved learning new software (especially 3DS Max to Blender). I finally decided to bite the bullet around 8 weeks ago. Backed up everything, wiped Windows, installed Ubuntu. I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to…

Wifi never seems to work 'out the box', so be ready to connect to the internet using ethernet to download the latest drivers and thus get wifi to work.

Wifi works most of the time out of the box, for many years now. That was different two decades ago, but that's a long time.

But if it does not work that is highly annoying of course.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#43

Post by lostmsu »

daveoc64 wrote: post #7
herbst wrote: post #2

Is anyone here even still using Windows in a professional way?

As the Stack Overflow developer survey shows, a majority of developers use Windows: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#1-computer-o... HN is atypical of the world, particularly anything outside of the USA.

It may also be that Windows users are just not as vocal.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#44

Post by d3Xt3r »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #40

Unfortunately the Linux desktop is in its worst state it has been since two decades with containerized apps/frameworks/browsers updating when they feel like it all the time and the related unsolvable permission and layering problems on top of the usual WLAN, touchpad, and power management issues unsolved for nearly 30 years as a growing number of second system effect frameworks bring new issues with ungooglable solut…

That is highly debatable, largely subjective and probably hardware dependent to an extent.

I'm running Linux on five different machines, and two of them are portables: a ThinkPad Z13 and a GPD Win Mini 2024 - and have none of the issues you mentioned. In fact there's literally zero issues at all, I couldn't be any happier to be honest.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#45

Post by misiek08 »

The day EA games will run on Linux will be the day Windows dies IMHO. This will mean full support of all broken graphical APIs and stability of drivers from e.g. nvidia that currently looks like a rollercoaster ride - every other app works stable on different nvidia driver.

As W10 user, W11 denialer I’m waiting for that day!

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#46

Post by velcrovan »

throw748494 wrote: post #31
markus_zhang wrote: post #22

IMO the best way for Linux to win is to advocate it to your kids. People usually stick to whatever they learned and played with during childhood, and if we can make a whole generation Linux aware, not as a server but as a desktop, then the time of Linux desktop is foreseeable. Instead of poaching to the adults, poach it to the kids. Tell them stories of hackers, etc. We can also volunteer in schools for a few session…

>People usually stick to whatever they learned and played with during childhood Any source for this? I grown on Atari, DOS and Windows. Most kids today are on mobile or consoles. Linux does not need advertising, it is by far the best option from point of hardware selection, development, gaming and ease of use.

I think nerds like us are more likely to experiment and make occasional drastic changes to our computing setup. And in my case I grew up during a time when there was a lot of change in the desktop OS landscape, so sticking with one OS from my childhood to adulthood wasn’t really possible (otherwise I’d still be on Microsoft BASIC and OS-9).

Familiarity and “just-workitude” really are by far the most important factors for people picking OSs, and these days it’s possible to stick with one platform for decades.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#47

Post by FirmwareBurner »

microtonal wrote: post #33
markus_zhang wrote: post #22

IMO the best way for Linux to win is to advocate it to your kids. People usually stick to whatever they learned and played with during childhood, and if we can make a whole generation Linux aware, not as a server but as a desktop, then the time of Linux desktop is foreseeable. Instead of poaching to the adults, poach it to the kids. Tell them stories of hackers, etc. We can also volunteer in schools for a few session…

Or if you want to make them tech capable, another possibility is to give them a cheap Mac (apparently Apple is going to release a MacBook with an A-series SoC soon). You can open a terminal and show how it works, they can explore the filesystem with Finder, but when they need to do school work, they also have access to good DTP applications (Swift Publisher is really affordable and nice for kids), Affinity Designer/P…

A Linux system is a way better idea than a Mac if making your kids tech savvy is the goal.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#48

Post by le-mark »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #36
esperent wrote: post #4

I'm one of these people. Although it was a several years long plan for me, which involved learning new software (especially 3DS Max to Blender). I finally decided to bite the bullet around 8 weeks ago. Backed up everything, wiped Windows, installed Ubuntu. I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to…

> if you want to use Linux, you need to buy certified hardware Or test yours with a live distro beforehand

Or use hardware a year or two old. If your hardware is bleeding edge you’re going to have a hard time. Or if you depend on some peripheral that’s not “mainstream”. The thing windows always, always had going for it was driver support. Linux never had that so it’s always been a game of catch up.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#49

Post by PhilippGille »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #36
esperent wrote: post #4

I'm one of these people. Although it was a several years long plan for me, which involved learning new software (especially 3DS Max to Blender). I finally decided to bite the bullet around 8 weeks ago. Backed up everything, wiped Windows, installed Ubuntu. I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to…

> if you want to use Linux, you need to buy certified hardware Or test yours with a live distro beforehand

And if it doesn't work, check again with a distro that uses a newer Kernel.

That can often make all the difference, but it's not intuitive for Windows people who are used to install hardware drivers.

Especially for hardware like new Bluetooth or Wifi chips, fingerprint readers, but also when there is a new Intel or AMD CPU generation and chipset.

E.g. instead of Ubuntu or Mint, try Fedora or CachyOS. Or even Nobara or Bazzite for gaming-specific optimizations.

Re: Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch"

#50

Post by d3Xt3r »

esperent wrote: post #4

I'm one of these people. Although it was a several years long plan for me, which involved learning new software (especially 3DS Max to Blender). I finally decided to bite the bullet around 8 weeks ago. Backed up everything, wiped Windows, installed Ubuntu. I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to…

I'd wager that a lot of your issues could boil down to GNOME and the ancient software stack that Ubuntu is infamous for. I would recommend giving a more sensible distro like Fedora with KDE a try, or even CachyOS if you're not afraid of the terminal.
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