Linux and Dual Booting - A Happy Story!
Discussion
I recently started moving away from MS for various reasons but ultimately I like my games a bit too much to fully ditch Windows so I've got Mint on one drive and W11 on the other.
Other than a PiHole and HA running on RPis, I last used a CD-based Linux distro (SuSE and Red Hat) back in the 90s I think, and it was challenging to say the least, especially with no internet connection to ask for help.
Recently I decided to test the waters again. Initially I tried Bazzite as it's supposedly best for gaming, but things like getting my printer working were a pain, so I switched to Mint. What a revelation! Printer (multifunction) all detected on boot and installed, Flatpak software and updates are utterly Terminal free, even my little Pi Pico advent calendar project thing works perfectly.
I still have Windows for games, although it's been a while since I fired it up.
I don't really know the point of this post, just that if anyone is thinking of trying something different, either for a change or just to get away from companies training their LLMs on your private data, I can highly recommend it!
Other than a PiHole and HA running on RPis, I last used a CD-based Linux distro (SuSE and Red Hat) back in the 90s I think, and it was challenging to say the least, especially with no internet connection to ask for help.
Recently I decided to test the waters again. Initially I tried Bazzite as it's supposedly best for gaming, but things like getting my printer working were a pain, so I switched to Mint. What a revelation! Printer (multifunction) all detected on boot and installed, Flatpak software and updates are utterly Terminal free, even my little Pi Pico advent calendar project thing works perfectly.
I still have Windows for games, although it's been a while since I fired it up.
I don't really know the point of this post, just that if anyone is thinking of trying something different, either for a change or just to get away from companies training their LLMs on your private data, I can highly recommend it!
Baldchap said:
I recently started moving away from MS for various reasons but ultimately I like my games a bit too much to fully ditch Windows so I've got Mint on one drive and W11 on the other.
Other than a PiHole and HA running on RPis, I last used a CD-based Linux distro (SuSE and Red Hat) back in the 90s I think, and it was challenging to say the least, especially with no internet connection to ask for help.
Recently I decided to test the waters again. Initially I tried Bazzite as it's supposedly best for gaming, but things like getting my printer working were a pain, so I switched to Mint. What a revelation! Printer (multifunction) all detected on boot and installed, Flatpak software and updates are utterly Terminal free, even my little Pi Pico advent calendar project thing works perfectly.
I still have Windows for games, although it's been a while since I fired it up.
I don't really know the point of this post, just that if anyone is thinking of trying something different, either for a change or just to get away from companies training their LLMs on your private data, I can highly recommend it!
You can install Steam and it will give you a lot of what Bazzite/Steam OS offers in terms of compatibility as it will install proton and a lot of the other 'secret sauce' that SteamOS uses. It's surprisingly good without going all the way to a full blown SteamOS install.Other than a PiHole and HA running on RPis, I last used a CD-based Linux distro (SuSE and Red Hat) back in the 90s I think, and it was challenging to say the least, especially with no internet connection to ask for help.
Recently I decided to test the waters again. Initially I tried Bazzite as it's supposedly best for gaming, but things like getting my printer working were a pain, so I switched to Mint. What a revelation! Printer (multifunction) all detected on boot and installed, Flatpak software and updates are utterly Terminal free, even my little Pi Pico advent calendar project thing works perfectly.
I still have Windows for games, although it's been a while since I fired it up.
I don't really know the point of this post, just that if anyone is thinking of trying something different, either for a change or just to get away from companies training their LLMs on your private data, I can highly recommend it!
I spend most of my non-gaming desktop PC time in Linux now - Windows 11 was just getting bloated and the spyware aspect kept getting worse and worse with every patch and release that MS put out. If I want to game I still use a Win11 boot as that is the most compatible with my NVidia gfx card.
I have used dual booting in the past but these days I'm Linux Mint all the way.
The only windows software I still use is CAD because I can't find a suitable Linux alternative. The CAD software does run under Wine but not very well so I have virtualbox installed with a copy of Tiny11 ( a stripped down version of Win 11) for when I need it.
The only windows software I still use is CAD because I can't find a suitable Linux alternative. The CAD software does run under Wine but not very well so I have virtualbox installed with a copy of Tiny11 ( a stripped down version of Win 11) for when I need it.
Bazzite is what is known as an 'immutable' OS and should be a lot more resistant to breakage. I have only used it on my ROG Ally, so cannot really comment on Printers etc, although it probably just needed a few packages.
Mint is very beginner friendly a good starting point.
Performance, in games, compared to Bazzite, CachyOS, Arch etc will be worse as it is running older versions of software. This does have the advantage of stability, but is often quite behind the curve with getting new features, supporting newer hardware etc.
If you do install Steam and use Proton, I would also suggest you look at installing Proton-GE which comes with other tweaks and performance improvements. Some games do require a little experimentation on which Proton version is the best fit, but www.protondb.com (but does really only include Steam games) can help there as well.
As a general rule, if the game is competitive it likely has anti-cheat and won't work. If it isn't, it will likely work fine. And even some with anti-cheat do work, but again, use ProtonDB to check. For example, Genshin Impact is not on Steam and is not listed on ProtonDB, has anti-cheat, but it does work fine using Proton.
Mint is very beginner friendly a good starting point.
Performance, in games, compared to Bazzite, CachyOS, Arch etc will be worse as it is running older versions of software. This does have the advantage of stability, but is often quite behind the curve with getting new features, supporting newer hardware etc.
If you do install Steam and use Proton, I would also suggest you look at installing Proton-GE which comes with other tweaks and performance improvements. Some games do require a little experimentation on which Proton version is the best fit, but www.protondb.com (but does really only include Steam games) can help there as well.
As a general rule, if the game is competitive it likely has anti-cheat and won't work. If it isn't, it will likely work fine. And even some with anti-cheat do work, but again, use ProtonDB to check. For example, Genshin Impact is not on Steam and is not listed on ProtonDB, has anti-cheat, but it does work fine using Proton.
Steve_H80 said:
I have used dual booting in the past but these days I'm Linux Mint all the way.
The only windows software I still use is CAD because I can't find a suitable Linux alternative. The CAD software does run under Wine but not very well so I have virtualbox installed with a copy of Tiny11 ( a stripped down version of Win 11) for when I need it.
Have you tried running the CAD software through proton or proton GE? I don't think proton cares what code its translating, it just translatesThe only windows software I still use is CAD because I can't find a suitable Linux alternative. The CAD software does run under Wine but not very well so I have virtualbox installed with a copy of Tiny11 ( a stripped down version of Win 11) for when I need it.
The0perator said:
Have you tried running the CAD software through proton or proton GE? I don't think proton cares what code its translating, it just translates
Interesting. I thought Proton was just a Wine development specifically for games, I didn't realise it could be used as a general compatibility layer. I might give it a go just out of curiosity, even though I'm quite happy using vbox/win11 for what I need to do these days.
I've recently gone back to linux, running the latest mint. Its come on a lot since last time I tried it (2020 ish). Very user friendly now, stable and works out the box. The only hassle I had was disabling secure boot so my Nvidia drivers would work for Steam.
Its noticeably faster and much less hassle than windows, which is surreal considering it always used to be the opposite! It just goes to show how much windows has gone from you using it to it using you, and MS policy shift to we will decide what you will and won't do and the software you will use.
I've got it set for dual boot with Linux on one SSD and Win11 on the other. So far I've not needed Win11 for anything other than Zwift which has no linux version.
Its noticeably faster and much less hassle than windows, which is surreal considering it always used to be the opposite! It just goes to show how much windows has gone from you using it to it using you, and MS policy shift to we will decide what you will and won't do and the software you will use.
I've got it set for dual boot with Linux on one SSD and Win11 on the other. So far I've not needed Win11 for anything other than Zwift which has no linux version.
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