Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#181

Post by thewebguyd » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

gortok wrote: post #151

I want to switch to Linux for my EOL Windows 10 originally-built-for-gaming rig. It was “new” in 2016, so I hold out hope that there will be few compatibility issues. My biggest concerns are being able to play my library of steam games on it. Overall the problems I have are that last time I tried to put Linux on that machine I tried a dual boot system, and at the time UEFI did not play well with dual booting. I don’t…

I doubt the dual boot issue was due to UEFI. It's more likely, Windows was clobbering over GRUB and overwriting your bootloader, as it likes to do. Windows really wants to be the only OS on your drive.

Most reliable way I've ran dual boot systems is to have each OS on it's own separate drive, and then choose with the UEFI boot menu which one to boot instead of choosing in GRUB off a single drive.

As for games, plug them into protondb (https://www.protondb.com) to see compatibility & read through the comments

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#182

Post by ukuina » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

Zambyte wrote: post #94

giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…

> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.

Do the top sellers from the past year work on Linux?

I've been meaning to set up Bazzite on an older desktop.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#183

Post by DanOpcode » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #116

> You had unsaved work? Too bad, it's gone, get bent. This has happened to me a couple of times. I put the PC to sleep and the next morning I discover it has decided to close everything to install an update. Not using Windows ever again to do any work. Say what you will about Apple but at least they don't do crap like this.

Happened to me just a few days ago. Woke up, turned on PC, all my open programs were gone due to a Windows Update...

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#184

Post by hamdingers » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

dgritsko wrote: post #82

giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…

What made you switch from Pop OS? I just installed it on a couple of old PCs I had lying around for my kids to play around with/learn from.

Long term stability is less important for gaming computers than having the most cutting edge (and theoretically highest performance) drivers. That's why the community leans so heavily towards arch.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#185

Post by friendzis » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #110

W3zzy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

''By the way, I use Arch''

The meme was “I use Arch, BTW,” but I think it has mostly died as enough people have pointed out that Arch isn’t really hard-mode Linux or something. It is a barebones start but 1) very stable due to rolling-release producing small changes 2) the skill barrier to getting a full system is “basic literacy, to read the wiki” Eventually I switched to Ubuntu for some reason, it has given me more headaches than Arch.

> very stable due to rolling-release producing small changes

Can you elaborate on the chain of thought here? The small changes at high frequency means that something is nearly constantly in a state, quite opposite from stable. Rolling release typically means that updates are not really snapshotted, therefore unless one does pull updates constantly they risk pulling a set of incompatible updates. Again, quite different from stable.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#186

Post by Akronymus » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #162

Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.

The only pain point I've found is VR. I've bounced off trying to get it working multiple times with the best results getting about 10% functional (video working on one or two games, input broken on all). That said, I haven't tried getting the same kit working on windows so I can't say if it's any better.

or DRM for old games that check stuff like the cd being present

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#187

Post by eYrKEC2 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #98

My experience is more like: "I'll switch when Linux supports X." Linux still doesn't supports X. "Okay, but how about my X?" Linux still doesn't supports X. "Well, X is still missing..." Trados Studio, good luck finding equivalent, I tried, and the alternatives are horrendous and I'm not gonna run it in VM. Also I tried at least for son on his old computer live distro Mint from USB drive, everything works fine (unlik…

If the activities are distinct, dual boot. I do all my dev in linux and boot into windows for gaming.

Dev in linux is so much nicer for me than dev in Windows.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#188

Post by hereme888 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

It's worth noting that if someone has the skill to install and run Linux with games, they probably have the skill to use massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts and ask AI to help bypass to install a local Windows account. And that probable takes less time.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#189

Post by psyonity » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #162

Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.

The only pain point I've found is VR. I've bounced off trying to get it working multiple times with the best results getting about 10% functional (video working on one or two games, input broken on all). That said, I haven't tried getting the same kit working on windows so I can't say if it's any better.

It was very broken for a long time. Since fairly recently you have WiVRn (specifically wivrn-dashboard on Arch) for Oculus (more supported though) and I would daresay it works better then SteamVR used to do for me on Windows

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#190

Post by giancarlostoro » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #162

Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.

The only pain point I've found is VR. I've bounced off trying to get it working multiple times with the best results getting about 10% functional (video working on one or two games, input broken on all). That said, I haven't tried getting the same kit working on windows so I can't say if it's any better.

I ran into the issue where I didn't know that you can tell Steam to always prefer NATIVE LINUX programs over everything over Proton. This was causing a ton of issues with VR, I havent gone back to try it yet though, havent found the time.