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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • My install does use btrfs (but unfortunately since I reused the other drives they are still ntfs formatted) and it does regular snapshots, but to the same drive. It isn’t completely borked yet so I’m hopeful I can “clone” to a new drive and rma the bad one (10 months old so should still have mfr warranty). I’ve used clonezilla in the past but had read it doesn’t support btrfs, maybe that info is outdated? I did see some promising tools for doing basically the same job through btrfs though. I planned to work on salvaging what I can tonight. Worst case scenario, all my personal files are synced to a cloud storage service so I’d just be out installed programs and configs if I have to reinstall from fresh.


  • I’ve been 100% on Linux since July of last year. I thought I was currently having my first major Linux fucked up situation that I just could not figure out this weekend.

    It has been very depressing, after trying to convince friends and family to give Linux a chance and keep an open mind for months, I was beginning to feel like a fraud and a liar.

    But, after hours of software troubleshooting turning up nothing I’ve discovered I’m in the early stages of a dying ssd… My first major problem, and it’s hardware related. It sucks but it is also a relief in a weird way.

    And I’m finding out about it way earlier than I likely would have in windows thanks to btrfs. But it’s also funny because if I had been having similar issues in windows I probably would have ran hardware diag much sooner, but because I’m still a bit of a Linux newbie I assumed I broke my OS and wasted hours troubleshooting software.








  • I’m just pointing out the perceived contradictions in the ‘requirements’, and explaining why you were likely getting “the Linux recommendation” you complained about in your edit.

    Also, this isn’t an ‘RFP’ - you aren’t offering to pay anyone anything to do your dirty work. You asked for advice and appear to get mad when some of the advice you receive is not to your liking. Don’t act entitled, it’s literally free help/advice in a public forum. Even if someone’s suggestions don’t help you, they might help the next person with a similar situation/concern that comes looking for advice.


  • I’m not providing day to day tech support

    This is the problem. Debloating Windows is a tug of war with Microsoft. Many here have pointed out you’d need to likely re-run the scripts after Windows Updates. After getting over the initial hump, you are likely going to be needed less day by day going the Linux route (or give up on them actually using a debloated and tracker free Windows).

    Either:

    1. Your parents are sharper than you are giving them credit, and they’d likely pick it up pretty quick.

    2. They really are as unsavvy as you say and should not be downloading and installing whatever software they think they need on Windows, and would likely be safer on any Linux distro with a gui package manager.


  • Frankly, the way MS has been heading for the last decade, you either get OK with their official bloat and trackers or you switch to Linux. Anything else is just lying to yourself. That’s why you are getting those recommendations.

    I’m also suspect of legacy software (not proprietary, but legacy) being supported in Windows 11 that wine can’t handle. The only stuff I’ve ran into that won’t run is DRM laden trash, and if that’s the case I wouldn’t classify it as ‘legacy’ if their call home servers are still running and supported.




  • I’ve been using it daily for about a year on my primary desktop gaming pc without any issues. I love it.

    As for performance, I vaguely remember phoronix doing a benchmark comparison of a few distros and in some tests it was marginally better (cannot find it now though…). For the most part though I’d say it’s not as much about potential performance gains as it is ease of use for gaming. So many useful tweaks and useful programs “out-of-the-box”.



  • I’d suggest that Linux tends to attract a higher percentage of people that want to tinker with their OS, and tinkering with your OS can lead to some unexpected outcomes, or outright break things that someone would have to turn to the community for help.

    It depends a lot on what you want to do with it though too. Browsing the web, checking email, spreadsheets / word processing, etc? You could likely install literally any Linux os and be fine, and definitely be fine with the mainstream core distros.

    If you’re gaming, I’d recommend a distro aimed at gaming. PopOS, nobara, bazzite, or Garuda all come to mind, depending on your preferred flavor.

    But, as much as it pains me to say it, if you need to run, for example, Adobe or Autodesk products (or something similarly specialized and proprietary) you’ll probably have a better time doing it in windows. There are alternative options that will work in Linux fine, but if it’s for work or some other situation that requires you to use those specific proprietary products, you might be stuck.


  • He’s just flat out wrong about gaming. I haven’t had to put in any special “commands” (unless he means the tick box in steam settings to allow compatibility on all games, which I checked once and didn’t have to futz with anymore…) and I haven’t run into a game I wanted to play and couldn’t. I’ve heard that games that rely on aggressive root-kit anti-cheat don’t work, but I’ve avoided those titles on principle for a decade at least. But if those are titles you want to play, then yes, you’ll need windows - no amount of tweaks or commands will make them work in Linux because of the game developer’s choices.

    That said, it really makes me wonder if gaming on Debian derivatives is worse? I can only speak to what I’ve used which is fedora based and arch based. And no I don’t constantly run into issues with either. I’ve spent less time “fixing” stuff since I switched to Linux, not more. Ymmv.


  • If you are interested in something arch-based but like having guis for stuff, I highly recommend Garuda Linux. I’ve been using it for about a year on my everyday desktop for gaming and it’s been great. I also have really liked fedora bazzite on my laptop for almost the same time period.

    I’d stay away from manjaro, I wouldn’t touch it again with a 10 foot pole. Every time I’ve tried to use it, it just breaks itself every 3-6 months. I know some people swear by it, but I just have to assume they either have extreme tier knowledge to prevent trouble before it starts, are so used to fixing problems they are blind to their time spent doing it, or they are just incredibly lucky.