My first hand experience with Windows vs Linux this month:
A friend of mine recently bought a very expensive laptop to do some gaming. I helped him set it up and god that was a horrible experience. For example, we could not get rid of LinkedIn and other crap Microsoft wanted to force on him. Disabling copilot and removing Office required registry surgery. And the damn fans were always running because of some unknown activity in the background, maybe Microsoft is moving into bitcoin mining business?
He eventually got fed up, installed Ubuntu 26.04 as an experiment and a week later still seems to enjoy the experience. Games run fine on steam and his laptop finally feels like his own.
Most surprisingly, Linux worked fine out of the box. Windows 11 on the other hand needed a bunch of PowerShell and registry hacks to be copy pasted from various sources before it was even remotely usable. It's funny how it felt as if Windows was the OS for nerds with too much free time on their hands while Ubuntu was created for ordinary people. And my god, Ubuntu feels so much more fluid on the same hardware. The difference is *huge*.
But it's the kind of things you'd expect Windows to take care of automatically, or in the worst case, to prompt the users to install on first boot, especially if Linux (with overall less driver support from manufacturers).
And with a preinstalled Windows (tuned to the laptop) this behavior should not be observed at all.
I got a new computer a couple weeks ago, with a 5070, and installed ubuntu on it and it was incredibly slow. I looked online and found some claim that 24.04 has some incompatability with nvidia, tried installing a bunch of different driver versions and nothing helped, tried turning everything off in gnome tweaks and still slow, tried installing 26.04 and 22.04 but the installer hangs forever in both, tried linux mint 24.04 still slow, gave up and installed windows with WSL :/
I'm running Ubuntu on a 9950x3d and 5090 and it is not slow. Games in Steam with Proton are buttery smooth.
One hiccup was I had to disable variable refresh rate because moving the cursor didn't "count" as a reason to update the screen, so moving the cursor on its own (rather than e.g. moving a window) looked choppy.
But a choppy mouse cursor isn't "slow".
Tip: if you have a performance problem, run Claude Code (or an AI agent of your choice) and ask it to investigate.
Came here to say that. I've recently tried linux mint and it just works. You don't have to use the terminal if you don't want to, but i do enjoy using it. It's a breath of fresh air after windows. I'm now waiting for the year of the linux desktop. Though i'm not holding my breath. The average person will carry on using their system until it grinds to a halt under all the crap they've installed on it, and then complain their computer is too old.
This is a choice for you! I'm a pretty heavy PC gamer and whilst I've run Linux since I was in college (UK college, not US) I've always had a Windows install for gaming.
A few years ago, I finally decided I'd had it with Windows and their crap and uninstalled it. If I game doesn't run on Linux, I don't play it. Simple as that.
I'm lucky in that a majority of games I play run fine on Linux, the only real game I'd love to play is Vermintide 2. My friends also run a mix of Linux and Windows and so we're fairly fine skipping games as a group if we can't play on Linux.
That is a problem of any operating system switch, you need to figure out what software is compatible or weather there are suitable replacements. It's the same even if you switch between iOS and Android.
That said, Linux used to be a tough cookie because there were so little support for software people wanted to run and the alternatives didn't do it any favours, plus the barrage of problems you used to get installing it on a random machine was discouraging, at best. Nowadays your chances of running it well on a random machine is pretty damn good and getting the software you need is lot more feasible. But don't go YOLOing a linux install, see if meets your use cases. There is nothing wrong with waiting until it's good enough.
I'm just down to Creative Cloud now. It's the only thing I still need Windows for. Everything else runs on Linux or there is a suitable alternative. So I've got several Debian machines running at home and at work, and one Windows machine that I boot only for photo editing.
My first hand experience with Windows vs Linux this month:
A friend of mine recently bought a very expensive laptop to do some gaming. I helped him set it up and god that was a horrible experience. For example, we could not get rid of LinkedIn and other crap Microsoft wanted to force on him. Disabling copilot and removing Office required registry surgery. And the damn fans were always running because of some unknown activity in the background, maybe Microsoft is moving into bitcoin mining business?
He eventually got fed up, installed Ubuntu 26.04 as an experiment and a week later still seems to enjoy the experience. Games run fine on steam and his laptop finally feels like his own.
Most surprisingly, Linux worked fine out of the box. Windows 11 on the other hand needed a bunch of PowerShell and registry hacks to be copy pasted from various sources before it was even remotely usable. It's funny how it felt as if Windows was the OS for nerds with too much free time on their hands while Ubuntu was created for ordinary people. And my god, Ubuntu feels so much more fluid on the same hardware. The difference is *huge*.
Gaming on Linux works pretty good now. Setup is easy thanks to Steam and other launchers (e.g. heroiclauncher).
Not the main focus but, FYI, a number of pieces of hardware will default to full tilt fans unless you have their tooling running to manage things.
NVIDIA GPUs were infamous for doing this with nouveau on less ideally supported cards, for example.
But it's the kind of things you'd expect Windows to take care of automatically, or in the worst case, to prompt the users to install on first boot, especially if Linux (with overall less driver support from manufacturers).
And with a preinstalled Windows (tuned to the laptop) this behavior should not be observed at all.
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I installed CachyOS for my 8-year old son and his desktop instead of Windows.
It's been wonderful.
I got a new computer a couple weeks ago, with a 5070, and installed ubuntu on it and it was incredibly slow. I looked online and found some claim that 24.04 has some incompatability with nvidia, tried installing a bunch of different driver versions and nothing helped, tried turning everything off in gnome tweaks and still slow, tried installing 26.04 and 22.04 but the installer hangs forever in both, tried linux mint 24.04 still slow, gave up and installed windows with WSL :/
What was slow?
I'm running Ubuntu on a 9950x3d and 5090 and it is not slow. Games in Steam with Proton are buttery smooth.
One hiccup was I had to disable variable refresh rate because moving the cursor didn't "count" as a reason to update the screen, so moving the cursor on its own (rather than e.g. moving a window) looked choppy.
But a choppy mouse cursor isn't "slow".
Tip: if you have a performance problem, run Claude Code (or an AI agent of your choice) and ask it to investigate.
>What was slow?
Everything, huge input delay in every interaction, clicking on anything, opening menus, typing, tabbing between windows, everything had 1-2s of delay.
>disable variable refresh rate
I think I tried this but dont recall, there were a few things related to monitor refresh I tried that probably included this
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I run a computer with a 5070 and Nobara. Nvidia and Linux always seem to be at odds but that has gotten a lot better with some distros.
If you wanted to run Ubuntu from the beginning, it would be better to search for a computer designed for it, not for Windows.
This is the one thing I want from an OS: I want it to work for the hardware I have, and the hardware I get tomorrow.
Without having to google whether it will, or what hardware to buy.
Without having to google some workaround or configure anything to get the most of it.
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Try CachyOS instead. Ubuntu is not great.
Switch to Mac OS on the MacBook Neo, actually. Much better.
Hard to overstate the sunk-costness of it all
No thanks
Came here to say that. I've recently tried linux mint and it just works. You don't have to use the terminal if you don't want to, but i do enjoy using it. It's a breath of fresh air after windows. I'm now waiting for the year of the linux desktop. Though i'm not holding my breath. The average person will carry on using their system until it grinds to a halt under all the crap they've installed on it, and then complain their computer is too old.
Except I can't because of the games I play?
This is a choice for you! I'm a pretty heavy PC gamer and whilst I've run Linux since I was in college (UK college, not US) I've always had a Windows install for gaming.
A few years ago, I finally decided I'd had it with Windows and their crap and uninstalled it. If I game doesn't run on Linux, I don't play it. Simple as that.
I'm lucky in that a majority of games I play run fine on Linux, the only real game I'd love to play is Vermintide 2. My friends also run a mix of Linux and Windows and so we're fairly fine skipping games as a group if we can't play on Linux.
>If I game doesn't run on Linux, I don't play it. Simple as that.
yes ive reached that point too.
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That is a problem of any operating system switch, you need to figure out what software is compatible or weather there are suitable replacements. It's the same even if you switch between iOS and Android.
That said, Linux used to be a tough cookie because there were so little support for software people wanted to run and the alternatives didn't do it any favours, plus the barrage of problems you used to get installing it on a random machine was discouraging, at best. Nowadays your chances of running it well on a random machine is pretty damn good and getting the software you need is lot more feasible. But don't go YOLOing a linux install, see if meets your use cases. There is nothing wrong with waiting until it's good enough.
I'm just down to Creative Cloud now. It's the only thing I still need Windows for. Everything else runs on Linux or there is a suitable alternative. So I've got several Debian machines running at home and at work, and one Windows machine that I boot only for photo editing.