It’s going to be purchase a new hard drive and then jump to Linux Mint this August.
It’s not an experience I am looking forward to (5080S, I do a lot of modding, and enjoy fangames/indie games which do not always play nice with linux) but needs must - the Linux community in general is very friendly, so we’ll get through it, even if the first 6 months are rough. I’ll keep the dual boot and push the windows partition to 11 if needed by work, that way I can put off rewriting my elderly access database for another few years.
Honestly, Microsoft are committing suicide when it comes to home users. It won’t be sudden, but the wheels are turning, all the IT savvy folks are switching people over (already did my aunt’s potato, mum’s demi-tato is next week). Eventually, a tipping point will be reached and offices will start switching - I hope that day comes before I die of old age!
It essentially (if I’ve understood things correctly) aims to replicate the behaviour of proton.
Works like a charm, I have a simple alias set up that will run almost any .exe - even installers and stuff. Only thing that hasn’t worked so far was my digital exam software (that is essentially a windows rootkit) because it couldn’t find the cursor images lol.
…all the IT savvy folks are switching people over…
Totally feels strange because my dad’s laptop doesn’t have the TPM requirement and he was telling me about how he was talking to the IT guy at his work about possibly switching to Linux just so he can keep his laptop. No clue if he’s gonna have me or ask if Mr. IT can do it, though, if he follows through. Absolutely insane because I might not be the only person in my house using it anymore (android not included because I view it as a completely separate entity).
I was telling him that day that I could flash Mint (have the most recent addition on my laptop) to a thumb drive if he was actually wanting to switch over. He’s definitely an average computer user, so nothing too special, but it still feels real weird.
Though this will also suck for a while because the tech savvy people helping them switch over will also be running IT for these people who have never used Linux before and most likely have never even used windows CMD either. Cannot wait for stories of people being fed up because their parent/aunt/uncle/friend/whoever looked up how to fix their device and entered the cursed rf command without thinking once about it.
good thing about the terminal is it scares most general users so much that they won’t touch it even with instructions. There will be many issues, but I don’t think people running random commands in the terminal will be common
So, in the case of my aunt, there were a few teething troubles. That said, a lot of it was just requests to add web page shortcuts to her desktop.
The really big thing is that she’s stopped complaining about how slow her laptop is, and openly says she finds it easier to use.
Most of the troubleshooting is going to be around office software and games. It’s also going to be about replacing windows tools (I am really going to miss my “.bat cave”), and learning new troubleshooting skills (wine is a bit rough to troubleshoot unless you’re willing to get your mining gear out and dig deep into logs).
It’s going to be purchase a new hard drive and then jump to Linux Mint this August.
It’s not an experience I am looking forward to (5080S, I do a lot of modding, and enjoy fangames/indie games which do not always play nice with linux) but needs must - the Linux community in general is very friendly, so we’ll get through it, even if the first 6 months are rough. I’ll keep the dual boot and push the windows partition to 11 if needed by work, that way I can put off rewriting my elderly access database for another few years.
Honestly, Microsoft are committing suicide when it comes to home users. It won’t be sudden, but the wheels are turning, all the IT savvy folks are switching people over (already did my aunt’s potato, mum’s demi-tato is next week). Eventually, a tipping point will be reached and offices will start switching - I hope that day comes before I die of old age!
Tip: Add your non-steam games to steam to launch launch them with Proton. thats probably the easiest way.
Otherwise there’s Bottles and Lutris (and maybe HeroicLauncher)
There’s also umu!
It essentially (if I’ve understood things correctly) aims to replicate the behaviour of proton.
Works like a charm, I have a simple alias set up that will run almost any .exe - even installers and stuff. Only thing that hasn’t worked so far was my digital exam software (that is essentially a windows rootkit) because it couldn’t find the cursor images lol.
Thanks for the tips!
Lutris I’ve used with some success, and I’m somewhat ok with wine when it works out if the box (or troubleshooting using the wine wiki).
Do you recommend any other sites/guides for troubleshooting?
Bottles is just a GUI to help you set up wine environments without having to deal with wine directly.
For troubleshooting just the lutris forums and wine bugtracker. I mostly play steam games so protondb is the best source of troubleshooting tips.
Totally feels strange because my dad’s laptop doesn’t have the TPM requirement and he was telling me about how he was talking to the IT guy at his work about possibly switching to Linux just so he can keep his laptop. No clue if he’s gonna have me or ask if Mr. IT can do it, though, if he follows through. Absolutely insane because I might not be the only person in my house using it anymore (android not included because I view it as a completely separate entity).
I was telling him that day that I could flash Mint (have the most recent addition on my laptop) to a thumb drive if he was actually wanting to switch over. He’s definitely an average computer user, so nothing too special, but it still feels real weird.
Though this will also suck for a while because the tech savvy people helping them switch over will also be running IT for these people who have never used Linux before and most likely have never even used windows CMD either. Cannot wait for stories of people being fed up because their parent/aunt/uncle/friend/whoever looked up how to fix their device and entered the cursed rf command without thinking once about it.
good thing about the terminal is it scares most general users so much that they won’t touch it even with instructions. There will be many issues, but I don’t think people running random commands in the terminal will be common
So, in the case of my aunt, there were a few teething troubles. That said, a lot of it was just requests to add web page shortcuts to her desktop.
The really big thing is that she’s stopped complaining about how slow her laptop is, and openly says she finds it easier to use.
Most of the troubleshooting is going to be around office software and games. It’s also going to be about replacing windows tools (I am really going to miss my “.bat cave”), and learning new troubleshooting skills (wine is a bit rough to troubleshoot unless you’re willing to get your mining gear out and dig deep into logs).
Best part is, if they do switch over they won’t go back. Not having to deal either bloat and telemetry is worth it.