Switched to Linux

[Sarsippius]

I don't know about anyone else but I've slowly become more and more disgruntled with Windows 10. My biggest bugbear is windows update which just shits me to tears, it's completely unacceptable to have updates forced upon you, not only that but it can take control of your machine using up resources at inopportune times. Then there's whatever other background processes windows decides to run completely at it's own whim, regardless of what you may want to do with your machine at the time, the spying and tracking they brazenly carry out and they way they reset settings to their own preferred setting after major updates.

A significant part of this is an increasing concern about privacy and security, related to this I've also recently stopped using Chrome or Google search and have opened up a new email address to move away from my Gmail address.

I had thought about Linux on and off for a while, I do have a reasonable degree of Linux knowledge from setting up a few headless server/nas machines using Ubuntu Server so the command line stuff doesn't worry me. Finally I decided enough is enough and I bought a couple of new SSDs for my main gaming pc and the wife's desktop, which I often use as well and set them up to dual boot windows and Linux on separate drives.

I went for Linux Mint which is a popular distro based on Ubuntu which is intended, at least in part to be a distro that is good for windows users moving to their first Linux desktop. It has a similar feel to the classic windows 95 to windows 7 start menu, task bar etc, you can install a bunch of video codecs and stuff during the main install to cover off all of that side of things and it has pre-installed software to handle the majority of tasks or files you may want to deal with.

The transition has been pretty easy and there's been a definite sense of security or relief to be using a system that is infinitely more secure than windows and does not view me as a source of meta data. I have had to do a bit of under the hood tinkering on the command line, something that will be a bit daunting for some but for a lot of users would not be necessary,

There are some caveats though, there's no MS Office which can be a big issue but I've been using LibreOffice which has been fine for the type of stuff I do from home. I still have to use Windows for iRacing but that is about the only thing now that I need it for. Apparently gaming on Linux is getting better and better but as far as I know VR is not supported at all and I'm not sure about my wheel and pedals and stuff. I also still have to use Windows 10 every day at work.

Overall though I would highly recommend to anyone to make the switch although there are some valid reasons why it won't be possible for everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more and more people like me moving across nowadays having gotten sick of Microsoft's bullshit and I think the more this happens the better for us all.

[ysu]

Good onya, mate!(imagine the voice of Bruce from Finding Nemo here) I'm very tempted to do the same once win7 dies.

Problem being is that I do need a windows to test crap and being able to use native office format files, so I'll need to run either a dual-boot (pain in the arse) or emulation. To make a step into the right direction I've started playing with oracle vm, currently running my dev server on an rhel7 in vm.
Good thing I did; I've realised I do not want to do anything with rhel in the future

My experience is mainly with amazon linux, and a bit of centos & debian before that.

(by the way I've found libre too hard to live with; I do use some of OpenOffice, that's a tad better in my experience)


One thing looks pretty sure: I do not want that bight they call windows10. Famous last words, huh.

There's still another potential solution; if I can ever find a proper kvm switch...then I could run two boxes. (But feck I'll need a rack the way things go here, these computers are multiplying at night, I swear)

[hylas]

I'm happy to see a post like this to be honest. It's something that I try to convince people to try but most of the time people still reject the change for themselves and just continue using the product that they are complaining about.

I started playing with linux back in 2003 and slowly increased my exposure to it and by about 2007 I have always had at least one linux machine available to me. If you have questions, hit me up. I'd be happy to help.

These days it's even more of a reason to look at these options as some companies have become so big and selling data can be a solid profit that they will continue to try to become a bigger part of your life in exchange of you becoming a product for them. Google is such a big player that it's quite difficult to get away from, especially if you've been using their services for a long time.

This goes further then just OS choice on your PC these days, but there are some pretty decent options these days.

If you're looking for a mobile phone replacement, the librem guys aren't far off releasing their phone so that's something to check out in the near future. I'm not exactly up to date with it but I'm pretty sure it's progressing along nicely and is expecting a release in our spring season this year. Just something to keep an eye on.

If you find that you want to try other distributions or if Mint just isn't working for you, some other popular distros are MX Linux, Manjaro & Elementary OS to name a few. Distributions are mainly about choice, if your not sure then I suggest to try a few. Read up on their goals and their targeted userbase. There's no right answer to this choice, it's mainly about what works for you. For example, the ideal distribution for me a decade ago is most definitely not the same choice that I would have for myself today. One choice I wouldn't recommend though is Clear Linux, that's had some solid backing from Intel and apparently phones home a lot.


I'll list some of the software/services that I've been using instead of google.

Protonmail - Has been going strong since it's launch and it's something that I would recommend if you want to keep your email away from google & support end to end encryption. They also have a sister project ProtonVPN that seems to be doing quite well as well if you're looking for a VPN option.

DuckDuckGo - A replacement for google search, that I believe is now included in most browsers, just need to make it the default option in browser settings.

Web Browser - This one is difficult to suggest, they all have pros and cons. The one I wouldn't touch at all is Google Chrome for the same reasons you pointed out but the rest, well... Pick your poison. I honestly have a few installed and have them setup differently / specific tasks etc. So I'll have one setup to be strict blocking everything and another setup more open and easy to use for example one of my browsers auto logs in to this site but the other doesn't know this site. The browsers that I currently use are Firefox/Waterfox/Brave.

Many other services I actually host myself on one of my linux servers. I use Nextcloud for files (Mostly documents to share between my devices), Contacts and Calendar.
The only downside to this is my internet speed, being that I'll probably be on adsl2+ for another 12 months it's going to continue being a problem for awhile yet. That problem is speed, trying to download a file from my cloud server to say my mobile whilst I'm away from home is going to be limited to my upload speed at home, which of course is bad. However, this is not really a concern as it's a very infrequent occurrence and I mostly just have small document files on there so it doesn't take long regardless. This could be a big no if you were mostly using file storage for photos or videos.

[norbs]

If you dont need it for gaming, LINUX is perfect.

My next little project will be swapping the HTPC over to Linux as the WIN 10 updates are pissing me off.

Woodsy should chip in soon.

[hylas]

If you dont need it for gaming, LINUX is perfect.

My next little project will be swapping the HTPC over to Linux as the WIN 10 updates are pissing me off.

Woodsy should chip in soon.

https://libreelec.tv/

These guys have a simple setup for media centre, it's basically just Kodi running on linux. It's quite easy to install and updating is also a simple process, worth checking out.

[w00dsy]

I've used Linux sporadically since I first tried Coral in the late 90's. I'm no Linux expert and no good at the command line, but I like the freedom of it and bring able to get under the hood and fiddle with it. One or twice a year i distro hop and despite finding some nice ones there's always something that pulls me back to Windows for my main system. Usually games and Photoshop, I just can't gel with Gimp. Also I use Yamaha guitar software that comes with my amp for recording and try as I might I just can't get anything decent working on Linux. I'm running Manjaro Deepin on my laptop and I love it, because I don't need that other stuff.
Every time I try Linux I feel like it's too fragmented and different people keep pulling it in different directions. There's so many distros and window managers that the whole thing feels like it's lacking direction. Shuttleworth kind of did that for a while with Ubuntu, but that seems to have run out of steam a bit now. I still really like it, but I can't use it for my primary desktop.

[DarrenM]

I've had it as dual boot at home since the late 90's and use it full time at the office. Haven't used it much at home lately though. Sometimes it's just a pain to reboot to do something. I've been using Mint with the MATE desktop for the last couple years.

There's a huge number of steam games that run well now thanks to Proton. Just go to Steam->Settings->Steam Play to enable it. You can force any game to run with proton in its property page. It translates the directx calls to Vulkan, so it doesn't have the big performance hit that wine used to.

https://www.protondb.com/

Fanatec wheels should work if you put them into playstation compatibility mode. Not sure if the newer ones have that though, or if it works with Proton.

SteamVR runs on linux but that will only work with Vive and Index headsets as Oculus/WMR headsets don't have linux drivers.

[w00dsy]

Fanatec wheels should work if you put them into playstation compatibility mode. Not sure if the newer ones have that though, or if it works with Proton.

Any idea where I'd go to find out about Thrustmaster compatibility?

[DarrenM]

Not sure about Thrustmaster. I did some googling and found this, which is supposed to make TM wheels and pedals work but without FFB. There were some posts from 2016-2017 about trying to get the required info from TM, but no apparent progress on that front.

https://github.com/her001/tmdrv

IIRC there are logitech kernel drivers and setting the fanatec wheel to playstation mode makes it emulate a logitech wheel which is how they're able to work. I had a look and the new DD wheels don't have playstation compatibility mode so they might not work.

[w00dsy]

Or I could just use Windows without having any problems

[Santaria]

I have a shitty i3 laptop I use for my daughter to watch wiggles and other YouTube stuff. Pretty much all it does. What distro these days would be light weight so I can boot the laptop under 15 minutes, lol.

I used to dual boot with Gnome and Redhat but it was years ago. Any help would be appreciated.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[DarrenM]

Mint Xfce

[hylas]

I have a shitty i3 laptop I use for my daughter to watch wiggles and other YouTube stuff. Pretty much all it does. What distro these days would be light weight so I can boot the laptop under 15 minutes, lol.

I used to dual boot with Gnome and Redhat but it was years ago. Any help would be appreciated.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

MX Linux seems to be the one gaining a lot of attention recently as the preferred option. Mint has been a very popular choice for some time but there's also Elementary OS which is tailored for newer users and seems pretty good out of the box.

[w00dsy]

Qwant.com is an interesting search engine. Not quite as fast as Google but has promise.

[ysu]

Qwant.com is an interesting search engine. Not quite as fast as Google but has promise.

My problem is that google actually works. And it works better than bing or the duck; it gives me more relevant hits. I find it very hard to go elsewhere - I'll give this one a try as well.

[w00dsy]

I agree, Google and Win10 just works for me without any issues. There's talk of Chrome not allowing ad blocking soon and as much as I want to like Firefox I just find ugly, as soon as you go into any menu it looks like it's from Windows 95. I'd really love to be able to use alternatives but the big players just do a better job with everything.

[ysu]

I agree, Google and Win10 just works for me without any issues. There's talk of Chrome not allowing ad blocking soon and as much as I want to like Firefox I just find ugly, as soon as you go into any menu it looks like it's from Windows 95. I'd really love to be able to use alternatives but the big players just do a better job with everything.

wow...I find it incredible that anyone would throw out a perfectly good piece of software on looks. But each to his own.

[norbs]

I have found this works well...

https://1.1.1.1/

[ysu]

I have found this works well...

https://1.1.1.1/

Ah, CloudFlare. 1.0.0.1 & 1.1.1.1 are the two IPs to use.

[w00dsy]

I agree, Google and Win10 just works for me without any issues. There's talk of Chrome not allowing ad blocking soon and as much as I want to like Firefox I just find ugly, as soon as you go into any menu it looks like it's from Windows 95. I'd really love to be able to use alternatives but the big players just do a better job with everything.

wow...I find it incredible that anyone would throw out a perfectly good piece of software on looks. But each to his own.

It's more that at the moment it doesn't really do much that I can't already do with chrome, so until then I'll use the one I'm more comfortable with. Plus I feel like aesthetics are an important part of the user experience.

[ysu]

I agree, Google and Win10 just works for me without any issues. There's talk of Chrome not allowing ad blocking soon and as much as I want to like Firefox I just find ugly, as soon as you go into any menu it looks like it's from Windows 95. I'd really love to be able to use alternatives but the big players just do a better job with everything.

wow...I find it incredible that anyone would throw out a perfectly good piece of software on looks. But each to his own.

It's more that at the moment it doesn't really do much that I can't already do with chrome, so until then I'll use the one I'm more comfortable with. Plus I feel like aesthetics are an important part of the user experience.

Hm, it's interesting, because it's still more functional (for me) than chrome, even after the major upgrade (more like upfuck) that disabled a huge amount of addons.
I'm forced to use both (and others) to do testing and replicate issues. Potentially me being power user level I've different needs.

I'm pretty much always putting usability before looks. And honestly, there's barely any difference in looks between the two; it's barely more than a border for your webpage display.

[w00dsy]

If anyone is looking for a Photoshop alternative that runs from a browser, this is excellent. https://www.photopea.com

[w00dsy]

There's a cool new add-on for Firefox https://color.firefox.com