I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too • Hacker News Board

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#401

Post by WD-42 » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

free652 wrote: post #381

WD-42 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just false. Amdgpu is an in tree kernel module and has been forever. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/amdgpu/index.html If you are installing via an outside method, again, you are going agasint the grain for no good reason and making problems for yourself. Nobody is suggesting installing LTS on brand new hardware.

>This is just false. Amdgpu is an in tree kernel module and has been forever. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/amdgpu/index.html You are arguing and arguing and shifting goal posts as we go. The facts are: * I am running the latest amdgpu video driver. * AI 395 wasn't released yesterday, but a year ago. * (My original point) Many different permutations of hardware / os / kernel / drivers / window manager /…

I’m not shifting any goal posts. I’m just tired of these posts from people saying that Linux is unstable, has quirks, etc but when you dig into it, all of the “quirks” are actually the result of strange decisions made by the author.

It’s fine to be new to Linux, but please refrain from the sweeping generalizations until you are more familiar with how it works.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#402

Post by drysart » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

clappski wrote: post #53

Jackknife9 wrote: post #42

I tried to leave Windows 11 for Linux - it just didn't work for me. I installed EndeavourOS onto my main gaming desktop. It worked great for a while and ran all the games I played with my friends. However, one night when I went on to play a game I ran a system update and it seemed to completely break my nvidea drivers - I tried reinstalling them and also using the open source driver. This meant I just couldn't play a…

The mistake is that you did a system update when you wanted to use the computer. Not implying that system updates should be a dangerous thing to do, but just something learnt from experience - I’ve had similar issues, especially with Nvidea drivers and kernel versions getting updated at the same time. The take away is keep the updates to when you have an hour to debug or get comfortable rolling back updates.

That's absurd. The system should be able to update itself without fear that it's going to break anything. The user should not be expected to have to set aside time to babysit an update.

Windows isn't perfect in this respect by any means, but it sure seems like it handles updates a lot better than the distros that have been mentioned in this thread; in that Windows at least takes steps to examine your hardware first and to not apply updates where it's known something has fallen out of support.

Windows also, apparently unlike these mentioned distros, maintains a Last Known Good configuration so if an update does start causing failures, it can automatically roll itself back (or, at worst, can manually be rolled back). There are some distros that do similar, particularly immutable distros; but honestly this sort of thing should be table stakes to the point that if a distro doesn't do it, it should be laughed out of the room.

There is absolutely no acceptable excuse for any operating system to break itself in an update.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#403

Post by xedrac » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

voxleone wrote: post #299

It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds. But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could…

I would argue that hardware support in Linux is superior to any other operating system on the planet.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#404

Post by worksonmine » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #367

crocowhile wrote: post #278

I have been using Linux exclusively for twenty years now. I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest.

> I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest. Most people don't make their coffee in an Aeropress either. I've also used Linux exclusively (in my case 25 years), but I also realize that with a few niche exceptions, there are few mass marketed products that feature the traditional Linux desktop as their primary UI. Desktop OS UI is hard. It takes investment in technology, product, and marketing all…

> Most people don't make their coffee in an Aeropress either.

Stupid analogy, the Linux version of that would be whatever french press you want to use. Buy your coffee ground or as beans and grind yourself, depending on preference. And for my girlfriend there's always the Starbucks equivalent (Debian stable with Gnome).

Apple would be picked by modern slaves and sold in a capsule at 100,000% markup and it only fits their machines. Windows comes with pesticides for the "benefit of the user".

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#405

Post by fragmede » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #149

keyshapegeo99 wrote: post #134

For both ideological and practical reasons, I'd love to switch. If I were a desktop computing person, I'd already have done so years ago. Alas, I exclusively use laptops - as I work a great deal while travelling. I do not wish to have to carry around a mouse with me wherever I go with my portable computer. If any Linux distro manages to replicate even 80% of the smoothness and functionality of a Mac trackpad experien…

I always agreed with this take until I went all in on keyboard driven tiling window managers. First with i3 and now with Omarchy/hyprland. I find my use of the trackpad so rare now that it’s a non factor.

what do you use to get web browsing to work without a mouse? I tried Vimium and Vimperator, but that was a really long time ago.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#406

Post by everdrive » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #274

everdrive wrote: post #52

Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint remain great recommendations; good stability, community support, etc. (even for Ubuntu, a regular user might not actually care that much about snaps so long as everything works) I just moved to CachyOS, (from Fedora, and earlier from Ubuntu -- I've been on Linux for a while) and I've been very, very happy. The gaming performance is legitimately better than what I was getting on Fedora…

I think a lot of cachy performance is placebo, because Steam games use the container runtime's Debian 11 libraries, it doesn't use the native CachyOS ones at all.

I'm CPU-bound on one of the games I play, and cachy's scheduler may have made a difference for me. I was also fully on the closed-source NVIDIA drivers in Fedora, and had been totally out of the loop that that the kernel driver had been open sourced. And, cachy had me on a more recent version of the driver.

None of these things are truly unique to CachyOS, but nonetheless I do think I experienced a boost when I switched.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#407

Post by everdrive » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #206

everdrive wrote: post #52

Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint remain great recommendations; good stability, community support, etc. (even for Ubuntu, a regular user might not actually care that much about snaps so long as everything works) I just moved to CachyOS, (from Fedora, and earlier from Ubuntu -- I've been on Linux for a while) and I've been very, very happy. The gaming performance is legitimately better than what I was getting on Fedora…

I've yet to have a day when CachyOS can come out of sleep: hangs at various steps and requires a hard reboot that somehow relaunches apps on login that I explicitly closed hours ago.

I had the same problem with Fedora which is part of what prompted me to switch. It works great for me in Cachy. I assume either way it was an Nvidia problem.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#408

Post by fragmede » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

jwpapi wrote: post #397

I switched to fedora and I’m so happy it’s so chill not ads and bullshit everywhere. All my littler hacking projects are faster setup and my idea is faster However I think if you do video editing you need Mac or Windows

Davinci Resolve is a high end professional video editing suite, and is well supported on Linux. Also Lightworks (but I'm biased because I used to work there).

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#409

Post by Vinnl » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

mnls wrote: post #164

Every now and then a new article "Why you should go Linux". I get it, I like Linux too but every case is different. I want to use Linux but I have to use Digital Audio Workstation. So in my case, I shouldn't dump Windows (and thousand of $$ I've spent on audio software). I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the a…

There is no "there" for Linux to be, because

> every case is different

Every article like this is another person for whom Linux is there.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#410

Post by a-dub » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

it's really good these days. nvidia finally fixed their drivers (i suppose all it took was becoming the richest company on earth), kde is really nicely polished and all the friction from the x11 to wayland transition is over (at least from my perspective of an end user of linux desktops).

it's remarkably stable and reliable and way less annoying than modern windows or macos. i'm looking forward to a panther lake thinkpad with robust linux support and incredible battery life.