The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

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Betonhaus said:
Are all your games on Steam? If so then Linux Mint easily wins, as it's just a matter of using the driver manager to install Nvidia drivers and installing Steam and it just works. If you're games aren't on steam it's probably a little more complicated, but Mint likely still wins as the super uper game optimized distros often have less support and will have issues that crop up.

If you're new to Linux then it might be easier to start with Mint than something that has a steeper learning curve, or hides the complexity too much and makes it difficult to use.
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Yes, most of my games are on Steam. I have a few that aren't, such as Minecraft and Diablo 2, but I can probably figure those out (or, in the case of Minecraft, it probably runs fine on Mint since it's such a popular game). Am I likely to encounter any hardware issues switching to Mint? My computer was built for Windows and I don't know if I'll run into any errors trying to run a Linux distro. I'm also curious what word processing software is available to Mint. I do a lot of writing as a hobby and, as a result, I'm used to Microsoft Word.

It also sounds like Mint is heavily supported. One of my major concerns with Linux is picking a version and then sitting there with a thumb up my ass while the more technically capable update it. Or I want to do something that cannot be done because there's no Linux support. That's obviously the big appeal of an OS like Windows: rarely do you run into issues like "your OS isn't updated to run this program."

Most of what I use my computer for is shitposting, gaming, and word processing (writing). I want something that works, that I don't have to tweak regularly, is secure, and doesn't have the aggravating spyware/bloatware/telemetry of Windows. My favorite operating systems were Windows XP and Windows 7.
 
Jesus Swept said:
So it turns out there's an extra menu in the XFCE monitor settings where you can set your preferred monitor for UI panels, desktop icons and notifications. But even with everything set to the right monitor, every new program that opens always starts on the left monitor, even if it's turned off. I found forum posts as far back as 2012 complaining about the same thing, why is it so hard to make a primary monitor toggle that actually does something?
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Unfortunately the XFCE project is small and underfunded so bugs do tend to sit a while.
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
Yes, most of my games are on Steam. I have a few that aren't, such as Minecraft and Diablo 2, but I can probably figure those out (or, in the case of Minecraft, it probably runs fine on Mint since it's such a popular game). Am I likely to encounter any hardware issues switching to Mint? My computer was built for Windows and I don't know if I'll run into any errors trying to run a Linux distro. I'm also curious what word processing software is available to Mint. I do a lot of writing as a hobby and, as a result, I'm used to Microsoft Word.

It also sounds like Mint is heavily supported. One of my major concerns with Linux is picking a version and then sitting there with a thumb up my ass while the more technically capable update it. Or I want to do something that cannot be done because there's no Linux support. That's obviously the big appeal of an OS like Windows: rarely do you run into issues like "your OS isn't updated to run this program."

Most of what I use my computer for is shitposting, gaming, and word processing (writing). I want something that works, that I don't have to tweak regularly, is secure, and doesn't have the aggravating spyware/bloatware/telemetry of Windows. My favorite operating systems were Windows XP and Windows 7.
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I find it helps to dual boot at first to see if there's anything missing. Hardware should all be supported fine, I'm not sure how Diablo 2 would work but steam lets you add non-steam games to the launcher and you can use proton then, but there might be a Diablo 2 specific guide available you can look at first

This guide might be what you need
 
Betonhaus said:
I find it helps to dual boot at first to see if there's anything missing. Hardware should all be supported fine, I'm not sure how Diablo 2 would work but steam lets you add non-steam games to the launcher and you can use proton then, but there might be a Diablo 2 specific guide available you can look at first

This guide might be what you need
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I very much appreciate your informative posts. Thank you. I'll look more into Mint. Is it possible to make it look more like XP/7 in terms of the user interface?
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
Are there any versions of Linux that have press-and-play or press-and-play-with-a-little-tweaking capabilities?
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Most of the time all the tweaks you might need to apply can be done inside Steam (i.e., selecting a specific Proton version or adding launch flags to the game). You should also check ProtonDB for reports and advice from people on how the game runs or what they did to improve it (and you can filter by Mint there). Note that you can forget about modern multiplayer games with intrusive anti-cheats, period.
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
I'm also curious what word processing software is available to Mint. I do a lot of writing as a hobby and, as a result, I'm used to Microsoft Word.
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You poor fuck, you're gonna have to get used to LibreOffice. In fairness, I don't know if it's bad these days, it's been a while since I've needed any office software.
 
Max Weber said:
You poor fuck, you're gonna have to get used to LibreOffice. In fairness, I don't know if it's bad these days, it's been a while since I've needed any office software.
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It pulls in a fuckload of dependencies, some you never will have practical use for, OnlyOffice has official *.deb repositories and doesn't pull in a huge stack of dependencies for the standard experience. OnlyOffice seems to play nicer with Excel spreadsheets.
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
I don't know if I'll run into any errors trying to run a Linux distro. I'm also curious what word processing software is available to Mint. I do a lot of writing as a hobby and, as a result, I'm used to Microsoft Word.
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Unless you're autistic I'm pretty sure the LibreOffice suite will give you a solid replacement to Microsoft Word. I've been using it for ages and I don't think one has anything the other doesn't also have.

I switched to Mint earlier this year and stopped dual-booting recently as well. I still have the Windows side on a partition but haven't had a single reason to access it. I'm not a big gamer though.
 
Max Weber said:
You poor fuck, you're gonna have to get used to LibreOffice. In fairness, I don't know if it's bad these days, it's been a while since I've needed any office software
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@Hey Johnny Bravo I would recommend looking at OnlyOffice. LibreOffice internally uses a different file format so it has to convert between docx and such and loses some formatting details, but OnlyOffice is built to use the Microsoft formats like docx internally and so have much better compatibility
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
Most of what I use my computer for is shitposting, gaming, and word processing (writing). I want something that works, that I don't have to tweak regularly, is secure, and doesn't have the aggravating spyware/bloatware/telemetry of Windows. My favorite operating systems were Windows XP and Windows 7.
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It will really depend on your specific computer. Because some might have actual issues. But linux does actually have a really wide range of hardware support.(it's why it has such a huge kernel than bsd spergs hate so much). Even though the computer was build around windows. That realistically doesn't matter too much. At least in my case, I haven't actually ran into hardware issues while on linux. But that's not to say you won't have hardware compatibility issues.

The main places where linux will be a pain point. Is if you are running games with kernel level anticheat. Because there just isn't a way to get around that. And if you want a native version of microsoft office or something. For that you can still use the online versions of microsoft products actually. Or imo the better option is just to use an open source version. And also the adobe suit doesn't work on linux.

I know for sure minecraft runs fine on linux. and I would be surprised if it wasn't the same for diablo.

For shitposting. I just use gimp for memes. it does a fine enough job for me. It's actually more capable than people give it credit for being. The only thing is it works differently than photoshot. but there are at least changes you can make to have it be a bit closer to it if you want. and for videos. kdenlive has been good enough for me. Null actually made a short tutorial on how to use it for clipping. its basically 4 keybinds you need to know.

That or some people just use ffmpeg. But you will need to be comfortable on the terminal for that.
 
Max Weber said:
Note that you can forget about modern multiplayer games with intrusive anti-cheats, period.
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I've heard that some work fine with tweaking, such as Helldivers 2. Most games that are supposedly off the table are AAA or MOBA shooters that I don't care about anyway, such as the new Call of Duty game or Fortnite or other such garbage. I found ProtonDB on my own (thanks for linking it anyway, that's a huge help for anyone interested in Linux) and most of the games I searched in there are "Gold" status or higher. Most of what I'm seeing online says you're okay as long as you run Proton in experimental mode and/or make a few little tweaks here and there.

I'm fine with little tweaks. I'm not fine with spending an entire day trying to troubleshoot.
Legalize Asbestos said:
Unless you're autistic I'm pretty sure the LibreOffice suite will give you a solid replacement to Microsoft Word. I've been using it for ages and I don't think one has anything the other doesn't also have.

I switched to Mint earlier this year and stopped dual-booting recently as well. I still have the Windows side on a partition but haven't had a single reason to access it. I'm not a big gamer though.
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I don't know if this is a retarded thing to say - I'm a total newbie to Linux - but I'd like to avoid dual booting as much as possible. For some reason, the idea bugs me unless I'm dual booting for testing purposes.
Betonhaus said:
@Hey Johnny Bravo I would recommend looking at OnlyOffice. LibreOffice internally uses a different file format so it has to convert between docx and such and loses some formatting details, but OnlyOffice is built to use the Microsoft formats like docx internally and so have much better compatibility
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Good to know. My biggest concern is file compatibility and I'd strongly prefer not to lose formatting, since the formatting on some of my documents are particular. Is OnlyOffice free or paid? If it's paid, is it a one-time fee or a subscription?
prollyanotherlurker said:
I just use gimp for memes
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I already do this, but thank you for the suggestion.

A big thanks to all of you for your helpful input.
 
Hey Johnny Bravo said:
Good to know. My biggest concern is file compatibility and I'd strongly prefer not to lose formatting, since the formatting on some of my documents are particular. Is OnlyOffice free or paid? If it's paid, is it a one-time fee or a subscription?
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OnlyOffice is completely free, they do have an enterprise version and one you can run off a webserver but the free home version is fine
 
@Hey Johnny Bravo
Once you have Steam set up, I recommend you download Proton-GE. It's an unofficial custom fork of Proton that has things like cutting edge bug fixes, custom workarounds, and proprietary video codecs. It often just works better than base Proton, especially on recently released games or games using propriety Windows media formats, so I always use it as my first choice for running things.
https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases
Just download the tar.gz file and unpack it into Steam's compatibilitytools.d folder to add it as an option in Steam's menu to select a Proton version to use.

And a bit of advice on troubleshooting. Old games usually work fine, but if they don't it's likely to be a problem that affects running the game on modern Windows too, so the fix is often not a Linux-specific thing but just to install whatever fan patch exists to get it running better on modern systems.
 

An interview with the guy from framework. I haven't seen this channel before. Its a guy that's moving from windows to Linux. Seems like a good watch for people just moving or thinking of moving to Linux.
 
I have another Linux question. I still have Windows 10, but is it possible for me to dual-boot with Linux Mint and do a dry run to make sure it works with all my hardware? Again, if this is a stupid question then it's because I am stupid.
 
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