this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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Could be small or big.

My answer has always been that, Linux can't handle everything I'd ask out of it that I normally can with Windows. I know the games issue has been progressing far from the days when that used to have been an archaic flaw with Linux for the longest time. Games might not be the issue except for some concerns I have for some games.

I was taking some time a few moments ago, to check if a program called Firestorm Viewer would work on Linux Mint which could've been my distro of choice. And the description written on the linux page described exactly the kind of concerns I'd have for compatibility and usability from going Windows to Linux.

They said that their viewer was tested and designed to function mostly with Ubuntu and while it could work with other distros, it's not to be expected to be smooth.

That's the kind of sentiment and concern I have always had with Linux if I were to go from Windows to it. There are programs and tools on Windows that I have that are used for specific purposes and I know they will not function on Linux. Furthermore, incase anything breaks down, any and all solutions would only be applicable to that thing that would be far easier to solve than just being SOL if I was on Linux.

It is something as a user that I just can't simply afford to deal with on a regular basis if I made the switch.

So while I may not have too much of an issue running games, I won't have too much of an issue using alternatives, I won't have to deal with the Windows ecosystem .etc I will just be running into other walls that would simply make me second guess my decision and make me regret switching to the point where I would dip back into Windows in a hurry.

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Affinity software, Linux alternatives just are not there sadly. If affinity released a linux version tomorrow I'd be gone.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Adobe software doesn't work

[–] WarrenVZ@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Winboat allows you to run Adobe software as if it was a native app on Linux. Or you can just use a virtual machine. There's really no excuse not to use Linux anymore. I personally use Lutris for my non-Steam games, and other Windows programs.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

I'm going to give that a shot because I thought there was no way

[–] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago

Mac OS has always worked well enough. It's much worse now in my opinion than it was since High Sierra but it's still fine. Also, I fear it'd be quite difficult to get Linux working on an M2 MacBook Pro for dubious benefit to me.

If I was on a PC though, I'd definitely try Linux out, really don't like Windows 11 and didn't love Windows 10

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have a professional advantage in being a windows power user. Only way of maintaining that is running windows at home. I do have several Linux systems too.

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[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Most recently when I used Windows was because of work. I've been seeing these posts for a while now and I can make some valid arguments.

  • Anti cheat games
  • Adobe products (Web is not the same)
  • MS Office desktop
  • Work has processes linked to Windows specifically (server that only works on IIS Express maybe?)
  • Big legacy codebase where they don't match filename casing.
  • Specific Visual Studio scripts or plugins for a DSL.
  • Security requirements that need windows APIs (like mandating crowdstrike)
  • Music production with a Ableton (it works but it's not noob friendly).
  • You have deep knowledge of Windows and getting up to speed on Linux would take a year without guarantees you have a comparable system.
  • Your client is on Windows and you're making a desktop Windows app that's not cross platform.

Thankfully none of these apply to me so I'm on Linux but I can see how this is an issue.

[–] xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 2 points 4 days ago

I would like to add two more points

  • Certain pricey applications aimed students and researchers (non CS background) which are only released for Windows
  • Inability to learn a new way of using the PC after learning the "windows way" for 20 years. Even Windows shenanigans are second-nature to mildly-PC literate people.
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[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (8 children)

I run Linux but it’s hard because no Adobe, no Microsoft, and no esports fps games except cs.

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[–] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I have terabytes of games, shit internet and no patience for things that don't just work immediately. I can only tolerated windows because I've already fixed it and I don't have to keep fixing it anymore.

Who knows what will happen with my next gaming laptop though, if it's fresh and empty I won't have that excuse, although there is always 'cbf' to fall back on.

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

I use Endeavour and it's near flawless because all the drivers are imstalled, Steam knows when to use Proton, Heroic Launcher handles everything else. 6TB+ of games. All run. When they don't it's because of Epic Games' login requirement. No crashes. No launch errors.

Basically, there's no excuse for incompatibility any more. One exception may be some online multiplayer games with kernel level anticheat that's not supported by Proton. But I don't play those so idk

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[–] Turious@leaf.dance 3 points 5 days ago

Small? My biggest issue is tiny and probably fixable but not to my skill set. A big workflow for me is finding images in browser and dragging them to a folder to save. Linux can do it but doesn't save the file extensions and renames the file to a number.

Bigger would be there it's no replacement for Irfanview. There are multiple tools that add up to its functionality but not as easy or fast.

Bigger yet would be VR support. Some games in general, really. Most of what I play works on my Steam deck so I know Linux covers 80% of my gaming needs excepting VR.

[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

I flipped in 1997, so any software I might have missed since those days are probably not around anymore.

Windows 95 was pretty shitty in comparison to Linux, and a lot of software broke with NT 4.0

It was an easy choice at the time. Linux was the operating system for this new fancy thing called the internet. Software development turned into a career, and Linux is just a very nice stack for building backends and infrastructure.

I do have an old ThinkPad around running windows 10. I've only used it three times in the past five years: To unbrick an Android phone, to set the MMSI on a marine radio, and to update the maps on my car's satnav.

[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I made the change about a year ago now. I saw the end of Windows 10 coming up and decided to install linux in a dual boot and try my best to use it exclusively for a couple months until I properly got used to it. You will need to accept that not every program you use on Windows will be available and you may have to try out a couple replacements before you find something that works for you. But most things have decent alternatives. Especially considering how much is done in a web browser these days, there aren't too many programs I really miss from Windows (mostly 3D CAD and RAW image processing).

Also, note that the differences between distros is way overblown when it comes to compatibility, it is mostly just a case of whether your package manager has the packages you want available and how bleeding edge the packages your distro uses are. Debian based distros (e.g. Ubuntu and Mint) tend to use slightly older packages than ones that are rolling release like Arch which should theoretically be a bit more stable.

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[–] sifar@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 days ago

There is too concentrated which is bad (mac, win), and there is too fragmented which is bad (that is your Linux/distro universe). In other words, in one world, a single entity controls and is responsible for everything, and in another world, no one is. I am not getting into what is worse or better, rather what is usable for an end user.

And then there's the tacit wisdom of the FOSS/Linux world savants: "Uh, if something is not done or not available – you can just fork it or raise a PR, can't you?" completely escaping the fact that almost the entirety of the users of either world are just end users.

[–] BodePlotHole@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I just want Serato DJ Pro to release a Linux version...

[–] for_some_delta@beehaw.org 3 points 5 days ago

I still need to provide binaries for Windows, so build and compile for multiple operating systems.

I love Linux. Deploying software to customer sites was historically challenging on Linux due to system dependencies. Containers alleviate most of those problems.

[–] compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I did. But I could easily see how people are put off by the β€œfan base”. I actually avoid talking about Linux at all irl because I don’t want people to think I’m a fossbro

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

Nvidia and Asus suck with linux. With default drivers of any popular distro, my CPU fans won't go over 4k RPM on their own, despite the thing easily heating past 90ΒΊC.

Only on windows, running asus' "rog gaming center" piece of shit, the actual maximum speed of the fans can be turned on, it's loud as fuck, too. I suppose it runs at around 10kRPM, which is a HUGE difference.

I gotta check how linux support is for huion kamvas right now, since I have one as my main screen no less (the laptop screen gets all fucky when it heats up, which takes 2 minutes after turning the thing on)

[–] SorteKanin 4 points 6 days ago

I recently switched to Linux, but the reason it took so long was primarily:

  1. Just getting the time to do it. I'm really busy these days and setting up a PC from scratch with all the stuff I need and how I want it to be takes a lot of time.
  2. Concerns about gaming, which turned out to be a complete non-issue. I can game completely fine and easily on Linux via Steam's compatibility settings. I can even use it to install non-Steam games and launchers, like Battlenet.
  3. Concerns about stuff not "just working" and I will say, there are more small annoyances. Already had a few segfaults from KDE Plasma when waking from sleep which crashes all programs and leaves me with an empty desktop. We really collectively need to move away from memory-unsafe languages, but yea you just don't get those sorts of bugs on Windows because Microsoft performs much, much more extensive testing of their code than Linux does (which is sad, but is the reality).
[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

My domain. I'm too lazy to bring the whole shit somehow over to Linux. But I recently moved from hyperv to proxmox. Windows just sucks ass in comparison.

And gaming. Sure, many or most games do work fine in Linux, but then there are those with shitty anti-cheat. And also there are no drivers for my soundcard, and I really love my soundcard.

But win11 really really really tested my limits of tolerance. Really....

[–] bobo1900@startrek.website 4 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Engineering CADs and old peripherals with proprietary drivers for me. This cannot be always solved with a VM because either they are graphically intensive or hardware passthrough just doesn't work for them.

There's one specific case of Texas Instruments' software suite for microcontrollers: they have all the tools, the IDE and SDKs available for windows/mac/linux, EXCEPT one stupid old sdk I needed that was ONLY available on Windows for some reason, so I had to use it just for that stupid piece of drivers.

For games I either do games that work on proton, or for extreme cased I have a VM with second GPU in passthrough, and that works quite qell, but cannot do on a work laptop.

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because i already did it

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 2 points 5 days ago

I ended up doing it, but my hesitation prior to the switch was gaming. I did it anyway though, and now with Proton I don't miss a thing.

Get a couple USB sticks and backup your documents folder. Having backup, aside from being a generally good idea, should make you feel safer to test and experiment.

I do understand the general concern about running your Windows apps, but I'd say just trust yourself and see what you canake work, and what you can find good alternatives for. I'm at a point now where there are Linux apps that I really like but can't get to work quite right on Windows. It's not a one-way thing.

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