Linux is here for me
This is yet another story about someone leaving Windows for Linux and living happily ever after. I know there are a lot of such stories out there in the wild, but it doesn’t stop me from telling mine 😼
I loved the hell out of Windows 7, but when Valve dropped its support, I needed to upgrade to Windows 10. Can’t say I liked it too much: none of the older problems got fixed, and new bugs got introduced. I set all the things up regardless, only to find out about EOL for this OS shortly after. I had to edit the registry and stuff on my official, licensed Windows 7 and dance with official Microsoft utilities to get to Windows 10 - and now I had to do another round to avoid TPM requirements? Something needed to change.
At the end of December 2024, I decided to install Linux. As for my hardware, this road was pretty bumpy: that Sandy Bridge configuration didn’t like any distribution other than a specific EndeavourOS version with KDE (very specific). Problems varied from a non-working WiFi adapter to a black screen after sleep. Truly picky hardware.
Ten months later, when I was preparing that computer for my younger brother and installing Linux Mint on it, I successfully troubleshooted the issue: turns out, Nvidia drivers had nothing to do with it, and the solution was to change the sleep mode in the GRUB config. Who would’ve known when every other link says it’s the Nvidia GPU to blame for the wake-after-suspend issue?
Flash-forward to the present day: I have a new PC and daily-run Ubuntu LTS. Problems? Yep, there are a few to name:
- No SMART output in GNOME Disks for NVMe drive. This issue is quite old.
- Steam can’t start on a fresh install. Fixed by disabling some default setting in the Steam client.
- Can’t watch Steam Store trailers in full screen: hideous graphical issues. This one’s been around for a couple of years on GitHub.
But I still use Windows 11 in the office, and I can say I don’t regret switching - it’s just worse on Windows. For example, I had to hard-reset because File Explorer wasn’t responding and the OS froze.
Some users would make a case about having to tweak the system to get things done. Sounds troubling, but I’ve used Windows 7 for more than 10 years, and I can confirm I had to fix problems and bugs on that OS multiple times - starting with missing .dll files and something-something redistributable, up to games and programs refusing to run for no apparent reason. I’ve been there; I had to search forums for solutions, so don’t tell me how stable and care-free Windows is!
Using Linux leveled me up - my general computer knowledge has deepened, I know my way around the CLI now (that’s a bold statement on my side), and I can do basic BIOS tweaks. As for general users, I conclude that if they don’t troubleshoot on Windows, they wouldn’t do it on Linux either - though they’d be content with the default experience.
".exe doesn’t run after an update? Won’t use it. Can’t install this program? Will find some other one.” Problems like that genuinely exist, and users like that exist, too. There would be little to no difference if they used something else rather than Windows.
All in all, it’s been the Year of Linux for me right there. It is feature-loaded and user-ready. Now go and make ’em backups and install something freaky!