I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great • Hacker News Board

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#251

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

herczegzsolt wrote: post #238

nh2 wrote: post #226

I'm using Linux on the desktop for 15 years and I still sometimes cannot connect to Wifi. This is because the list of network refreshes (and disappears) before I can find and click the correct Wifi: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-applet/-/issu... This completely breaks the Linux experience for anybody living in a reasonably populous area. The issue has 3 upvotes. I also put a 400 $ bounty on it, if an…

If you are sensitive to these issues, unfortunately you need to go with a mainstream linux distribution and use near-default settings. It's great that you can customize everything and use your own window manager, compositor, etc ... but these issues are the price you pay. It is unfair to compare this to Windows, where you don't even have these customization options. Specifically for the network manager applet, it is…

[deleted]

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#252

Post by barnabee » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #130

1over137 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial OSes (both Windows and macOS) are also both American, and lots of people are trying to de-Americanize.

Yep, I'm in this boat. After years of macs my next will be a FreeBSD Desktop. edit: Although phone is much harder. I guess I'll just turn all the 'stuff' like icloud off, use only signal and my banking/etc apps, and get a separate camera.. Anyone found a less painful way to live without an iPhone/Android?

GrapheneOS is not quite "without" Android but it's without what makes it bad (Google) and works fine for me. I hear LineageOS is ok too.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#253

Post by browningstreet » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

ethersteeds wrote: post #133

browningstreet wrote: post #81

I was watching the Lenovo CES keynote and couldn’t believe how hard they were selling Qira on Lenovo computers and Motorola phones. All the major players have platform specific Windows features that can’t possibly meet their success criteria in terms of ROI. Lenovo isn’t Apple or Google or Microsoft, and even the latter two have trouble selling fully integrated platform services on hardware. All this time, money, dev…

Gotta be doing something, elsewise it's layoffs for your business unit

The "do something" is support open hardware, sell more machines, provision fewer product variations.

I get that these are the immovable objects and sacred cows of the management ranks ..new executives need to try, try, try again. All these features just sit in the "update" queue advertising their uselessness, and eventually highlight their abandonment.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#254

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

jama211 wrote: post #146

“Linux is so easy and great, my mouse didn’t even work and I have it unplugged to this day, and I can’t even play minecraft!” - I use every OS and have arch on my gaming pc (dual booted I’ll admit), but this is both one of the worst articles advocating for desktop Linux and one of the best at the same time, because it shows the harsh truth a lot of people experience and us Linux users don’t even want to admit exists.

I agree. Yet another "Linux is great! The only issues I had were A, B, C, D, E...".

I also use every OS and Windows 11 is still the most hassle free and reliable (at least if you install the IoT version using Rufus). I still have to use X because Wayland has a couple of remaining issues. Also most distros inexplicably use Gnome despite KDE being significantly better. Why?

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#255

Post by leptons » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

surgical_fire wrote: post #199

0xperke wrote: post #44

For all who switched to Linux: which distro did you choose and why? Fedora: wanted to have the newest kernel and updates due to new hardware - so far i am really satisfied; the only issue i have is that the printer does not work everytime… as a workaround i print with my iphone instead.

Mint because I am a filthy casual. I love Mint. It has been smooth sailing for the past 4 years running it on a 2019 Dell X5. Part of why I lack any motivation to get a new machine is because it still runs very smooth with Mint. I plan on getting a new machine in the near future. Then I'll use my old Dell as a testing ground for other Distros. Was thinking of testing Tumbleweed first.

I started with Ubuntu but had some problems installing software. Then I moved to Mint and it stuck with me. I converted 6 virtual machines from Windows to Mint Linux, and it's been great.

I then moved my main server that runs the VMs from Windows to Linux Mint, and that went far better than expected, basically no problems at all. I had two LSI x8 SAS RAID cards, each running an 8 disk RAID 10 array. Moving over to Linux there was nothing to do except plug them in, and they just worked. No drivers to install. I did have to find a copy of the management software, but that runs exactly the same as it did on Windows.

The last VM I have is running a somewhat complex IIS web server setup that I have to move over to Linux, and I haven't had the time to dig in on that yet, but I will do it this year.

The last system I have on Windows is my laptop/workstation. It doesn't behave that well on Linux with my 3 displayport monitors, and a few other things. I have it dual-booting to Mint, so I will keep trying. There's really not much software that I need that only runs on Windows (I do not play any games).

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#256

Post by icedchai » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

halapro wrote: post #159

blauditore wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop Lol, that's what Microsoft tried 10+ years ago and everybody gave them shit for it, especially Apple fans. Now Apple is "inventing" this again.

You can't seriously compare how inappropriate Windows 8 was on desktop to the latest macOS. Bad UI aside, the OS is effectively the same OS X from 2001 with some fresh skin. Also a lot of people hate on macOS changes, I myself did not upgrade to the latest version.

I'm still on Sequoia on both my Macs. I updated my iPad Pro to iOS 26, decided it was meh, and am not updating my phone. My iPhone is over 4 years old and figure the new iOS will run like crap on it and then I'll be forced to get a new phone.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#257

Post by nikanj » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:58 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #68

nikanj wrote: post #55

Do any of the main-stream Linux installers make any attempt at bringing over your files? I have seen so many ”anyone can switch to Linux” articles, and none of them seem to mention ”all of your files are going to be utterly lost”

This is a non-issue if your files are stored in a partition separate from your OS, and is infeasible otherwise. * If you have a separate partition, you can replace your OS and your file remain untouched. * If you don't have a separate partition, your OS and your files will be replaced by the Linux installation. The only way to preserve your files is to copy to some external media before installation. Even if the Linu…

> This is a non-issue if your files are stored in a partition separate from your OS, and is infeasible otherwise.

That is one of the biggest ifs of 2026. I don't think any major PC laptop vendor has ever sold consumer laptops with anything but one-big-partition layout. For the average user, their files are not stored in any partition, they are stored "right there on my desktop, with a separate folder for photos and bills"

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#258

Post by nikanj » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

BoredPositron wrote: post #163

nikanj wrote: post #55

Do any of the main-stream Linux installers make any attempt at bringing over your files? I have seen so many ”anyone can switch to Linux” articles, and none of them seem to mention ”all of your files are going to be utterly lost”

What desktop OS offers file migration from a different desktop OS during installation on the same machine? Windows and macOS definelty not...

Windows definitely keeps your files right there in your Desktop / Documents folder when you update from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

Like it or not, Aunt Clara is going to expect the same when she "upgrades" to Ubuntu.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#259

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC

iam-TJ wrote: post #234

pjmlp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed nothing other than being the only device that dropped connections on some of my routers, no hardware video decoding no matter what tips from Linux forums I tried, OpenGL 3.3 when the card supported OpenGL 4.1.... And when during 2024 I looked for a replacement after it died, I was so lucky that I got one with an UEFI that refused to load whatever distro I tried from SSD, while having no issues loading the same…

"refused to load whatever distro I tried from SSD" sounds very much like a feature in AMI InsydeH2O firmware (and possibly others) where-by one has to manually "trust" the boot-loader file the boot menu entry points to. This doesn't seem to apply to Microsoft Windows boot loaders so I've always assumed the signing certificate is checked directly against the MS UEFI CA root rather than the intermediate 3rd party certi…

No, because that wasn't even an option on that device.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#260

Post by rickcarlino » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

Linux is one of the last strong defenses for the idea that people should control the computers they own. On desktops and servers, root access is normal, and attempts to take it away do not work because software freedom is well established. On phones, that never happened. There is no real, mainstream “Linux for mobile,” and the result is a world of locked-down platforms where things like “sideloading” are treated as scary security risks instead of basic user rights. This makes it much easier for lawmakers to argue for removing root access on mobile devices, even though the same idea would be unrealistic on desktop systems.

A great deal of gratitude is owed to all the people who volunteer their free time to create the stable desktop environment we have free access to on Linux in 2026.