Question Should I switch from Windows to Linux? Looking for real‑world opinions

[Mateo127350]

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking about switching from Windows to Linux and wanted to get some real-world feedback from people who’ve actually made the jump.

My situation:
• I use Windows daily for gaming, school/work, and general browsing.
• I’m comfortable with tech, but I’ve never daily‑driven Linux.
• I’m mainly curious about stability, performance, and whether the learning curve is worth it.

Questions for those who’ve switched:
• What made you move to Linux in the first place?
• How was the transition — smooth or frustrating?
• Any issues with drivers, gaming (Proton/Steam), or specific apps?
• Do you dual‑boot or fully commit?
• If you went back to Windows, why?

I’m not trying to start a flame war — just looking for honest experiences from both sides. If you have distro recommendations (Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, etc.), feel free to share those too.

Thanks!

 

[Zepp]

Linux can fit your use case very well if you don't play one of the handful of competitive games that require a kernel level anti-cheat (C.O.D, League, Valorant, R6 Seige) to name a few.

nowadays several linux distros are out of the box extremely user friendly and simple to use. you could probably never even have to touch command line.

The learning curve is much smaller nowadays than in years past, and it's worth the effort, even if just as a safety net for if/when windows became unusable for you

• What made you move to Linux in the first place?

Windows 11, 100%. Although I had dipped my toes in linux on and off since about 2007.

• How was the transition — smooth or frustrating?

the last one which was around February last year was very smooth. In the past I had frustrations, but looking back I didn't know what I wanted exactly or what the options were, so a lot of my frustration was assuming everything would be the same experience and giving up to go back to windows.

• Any issues with drivers, gaming (Proton/Steam), or specific apps?

none, but my use case lately is pretty simple. there are a few other members here who've recently transitioned and have a larger use case that will probably chime in later

• Do you dual‑boot or fully commit?

I typically dual-booted in the past. Most recently I started with windows on a separate SSD and Linux on the primary. After a few months I realized I didnt need windows for anything anymore and wiped that drive. now I just have windows VMs for anything I might want to boot windows up for.

• If you went back to Windows, why?

in the past it was either a game not working or getting annoyed by desktop quirks. like my monitor display stretching beyond the borders, or not coming on after resuming from sleep. I have not had any of these bugs since switching last year.

Distro recommendations:

Any of the Ubuntu-based distros could be a good starter choice, the ones you mentioned as well as Zorin, Elementary, Tuxedo, Anduin. all are designed to be polished for beginners.

Many gamers really like Nobara/Bazzite, CachyOS, and PikaOS. They have nvidia drivers and some game specific software setup out of the box.

The best advice here is if you have a spare drive to attach, use it and fully install any distro that seems interesting and use it for at least a day or 2, a week if you have the time.

when you start, post a thread in the Operating Systems subforum and people can help with issues that pop up

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'd say go for it, setup a dual boot and for games use Windows and for everything else use Linux. Lot of games will also run in Linux so you can work towards that, but some games may just not be worth the hassle.

If you get to a point where you are booting back and forth a lot that gets annoying to do so you can also get a 2nd PC for Linux. Linux is really lightweight compared to Windows so it can be pretty much anything, like an off lease mini PC you buy off Ebay. If I was to do it today that's what I would do, since the hardware prices now are retarded so it's not worth building anymore.

Once you have Linux setup with your email, bookmarks, file shares etc it will really feel about the same for every day tasks.

 

[mikeymikec]

I would strongly recommend playing around with Linux in a virtual machine first, then a spare machine if possible. Then at the point you're happy to make the switch, I'd dual-boot with each OS having its own SSD.

• I’m mainly curious about stability, performance, and whether the learning curve is worth it.

Questions for those who’ve switched:
• What made you move to Linux in the first place?

I was happy on Win7, but by 2018 I fully acknowledged that the Microsoft way of things going forward is to force people into subscriptions and a "you are the product" mindset, and I ought to make up my mind by 2020 (Win7 EOL).

One thing I love in Linux is that an app or message box grabbing the focus while I'm trying to click on or type something is an extreme rarity, whereas in Windows in my experience it's pretty much a daily occurrence. It's the simplest example of how an OS should stay out of my way because I'm trying to work, as opposed to Windows feeling the need to show me adverts on the lock screen, or notifications attempting to get me to use OneDrive, etc.

• How was the transition — smooth or frustrating?

Expect the unexpected: I've often found that stuff I thought would be easy was hard and vice versa. For example, I had an i5-4690k rig until 2022 and simply connected the SSD to the new (AM5) system and everything in Linux worked first time. Later I switched from a SATA SSD to NVMe, I used CloneZilla for the first time to clone my Linux drive and it just worked without any faff. On the other hand, I realised some time ago that it's best to stick with a (albeit older) version from the official software repository than insist on the latest release version just because. LibreOffice on Linux Mint 21.x is version 7.3 with all the latest patches for that version, but version 7 is by no means the latest. Who cares though, it works fine for me. If you start getting a bit of software from another repository other than the official one for your distro, then don't be surprised if you encounter some oddness along the way.

In response to the second problem, I have a Linux Mint test VM running under Linux that I sometimes use as a guinea pig for potential changes I want to make.

• Any issues with drivers, gaming (Proton/Steam), or specific apps?

I don't generally attempt to game under Linux, I dual-boot with Win11 because I want an easy life with regard to gaming rather than cut into my gaming time with necessary tinkering.

Drivers: Every distro I've used since 2018 auto installs the amdgpu driver, no issues with that. One slight annoyance I have is that when resuming from sleep mode, the NIC on my old and current setup (two different NICs) takes several seconds longer than expected to link up.

• Do you dual‑boot or fully commit?

Dual-boot. I occasionally do data recoveries typically in Windows and I want it to run natively. I also have Windows VMs running under Linux, mainly because I use Microsoft Access for my company database and I use Xara graphic design software. I've been playing with Inkscape on Linux as an alternative to Xara, I finally replicated my company logo in Inkscape recently I use WINE in Linux to 'emulate' one Windows app for convenience's sake, but I generally try to avoid that sort of thing because WINE can't by definition completely and seamlessly integrate into the Linux user experience.

• If you went back to Windows, why?

I tried a few distros before I settled on Linux Mint. I imagine if I didn't find a good long-term alternative then I would have grudgingly reverted to Windows.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I have dabbled in Linux going back to the early 2010s. Always had things it was useful for. But as a daily driver there was just no way. Too much effort and jank involved for what I do; gaming.

I now spend 99% of my time on CachyOS. The gaming package included everything needed to game. The included Heroic game launcher works with my Epic and GOG libraries. My personal experience is that an AMD video card has been the easiest/requires no user intervention, for gaming. The work Valve and AMD did together on the Steam Deck continues to pay dividends. Performance with AMD cards is also often better than on windows, on a game by game basis.

I have used the terminal for stuff, but it is easy; copy pasta of code a chatbot provides. My VPN was being a PITA, but they have a firefox extension which resolved that SNAFU. I save all of the useful stuff to Kate which is like notepad. I follow the general consensus on r/CachyOS to run the system update command weekly. It is one of the many things I love about Linux, control.

Installing Brave browser, VLC, and other things I used on windows is super easy too. I do not dual boot. I have 11 pro on its own system. The rest have been converted to Cachy, but I am gong to try Pop!OS on a Intel+RTX system here shortly.

 

[notposting]

Before I tell my tale, I think the most important part is doing some due diligence ahead of time.

• What programs do you use? Are any available on Linux? Or replacements? Would dual boot be required, can a VM suffice if needed, etc.
• Regarding the above, is it for work/making money?
• What kind of gaming are you into? Are there games you *require* having available? Check protondb as a start.
• Do a quick search on your hardware, though one of the most surprising parts is how good it is nowadays.

Story time ahead, skip the next three paragraphs if you want.

Anyway, I'm oooold like most here. Started off on the Apple II and Macs in the 80s, started with PCs in the 90s, and went through years of Windows in the 2000s. At one point I was all in on MS, complete with Vista and W7, Media Center plus the Extenders, Windows Home Server v1, Windows Phone 7/8. But then came the dark times...

Anyway, I did mess around with Linux during the 2000s into the early 2010s. Never quite ready for me, but I was also changing. We were pretty early "cord-cutters", and part of that was just walking away from modern sports. No, not paying gobs of money per month just to watch the Lions lose, thank you very much.

That mentality might be needed, especially for games. Oh, a certain game not only is Windows-native, but they've gone out of their way to disable the AC on Linux? Well, f'em, is my general attitude. Being a somewhat hostile and spiteful consumer has served me well.

ANYWAY, where was I? Oh yeah. Come early 2022, Windows 7 was finally, totally, no they really mean it, out of support. Simultaneously, I bought an M1 Macbook Air for myself, and I tried out Linux Mint on a 2012-13 vintage Dell laptop. Hadn't been using it, but got it back out for our kids.

I put the live USB in...and it recognized everything. Wifi. Trackpad. Touchscreen. SD card reader. Brightness. It found our printer on the network. *shrug* Installed it and it began the wave of changes.

Currently that Dell is still on Mint only. Our kids 4th-9th use it. We have five x86 desktops in active use. Four of them dual boot Windows 10 or 11 LTSC IoT Enterprise and Linux Mint, which is the default boot choice. Mine is Linux only, though I might put my old desktop into service with Windows 7 & 10 for older games that we have install discs for. Everything is basically 2018-2022 hardware I think. Ryzen 1700X to 3300X, integrated graphics to RX 7600.

Currently the main reason they boot Windows is to run Space Engineers (and Medieval Engineers) and the older games, but that looks like it's getting usable on Linux now. So Windows will become a pretty rare choice.

I have not really had luck getting old games (think Age of Empires 3) that I have on disc running in bottles or other options on Linux. Maybe I should try a VM next. But in general, things like Steam and Lutris make it pretty easy.

So, current day is that I work on Mac, and game on Linux. That...is kind of funny to me. On a side note—MacOS (under the hood) and Linux are extremely similar in file system organization, CLI, etc. Windows now feels foreign to me. Also funny.

As for why I work on Mac, some of the software I use is Mac-exclusive (Vellum) or I would need to run the Windows version (of Scrivener) in WINE on Linux. And while that does seem to be pretty viable, I don't want to go through "well there was an update, it doesn't work on Linux, which isn't supported, so now wait for it to be fixed before working." There are also other programs like the Affinity suite that work quite nicely on Mac.

One last thing: my kids and wife all had zero issues with Linux Mint. WAF is high. I pick a nice wallpaper, install the transparent panel thingy, and that's about the end of customizing.

 

[Zepp]

Pardon the quick off topic response:

Installing Brave browser, ...

since you use Brave, have you seen this? https://github.com/MulesGaming/brave-debloatinator/ its a quick script you can run that will edit Brave's group policy and disable VPN, AI, BAT, Web3,

Interestingly Brave has said they plan on releasing a slim version that will be free on linux and paid on Windows. I think it's likely they will simple change the group policies just like this script does. Anyway if you dont use any of those extra Brave features it's pretty nice. you can also customize which it disables.


Another cool hidden setting in Brave under flags, you can "Show Brave Shields in Page Info" which hides the big bright orange lion on the right of URL bar and puts it as a small black/white shield on the left side

We have five x86 desktops in active use. Four of them dual boot Windows 10 or 11 LTSC IoT Enterprise ...

Did you find licenses for them, patch them, or just freeball it with the activation watermark onscreen?

 

[notposting]

Did you find licenses for them, patch them, or just freeball it with the activation watermark onscreen?

Uh, licensed via the large and indiscriminate cemetery method.