I’ve been a Windows user all my life and had dabbled in the Apple ecosystem for a bit. With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in Oct 2025, I figured I’d put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it. If I could survive the struggles for a few months, I’d be golden, and if I couldn’t, then I could switch to Windows 10 LTSC and be good until 2029. The intention was to completely force myself in without a backup plan - the only way out would be to install a new Windows OS. I chose Linux Mint after careful consideration, especially considering that there’s tons of resources and help with this distro, and it’s a great onboarding ramp for Windows users. I need the familiarity since I’m in tech full time and just don’t have the energy to hassle with my PC after a long stressful day at work.
I also used this as a good excuse to upgrade my PC a bit, too. 😀
After switching in mid December, I’m happy to report that I’m still alive after 30 days. My computer hasn’t killed me. And I’ve been able to do work and game on my PC without too many hiccups. Marvel Rivals still crashes ever since the Season 1 update. Overwatch works perfect. My other games, on both Steam and GOG, work perfectly fine. But I haven’t been able to test every game out there, but I know I can use Proton DB if needed.
I even edited this screenshot in GIMP after being forged in the fires of Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop all my life! I even stripped exif data using command line tools! I even installed this cool neofetch thing that I always saw in people screenshots of their PC or whatever, every time I saw someone’s Linux build with their thigh high socks and neofetch on the terminal!
But so far, switching to Linux Mint has been great! I’m excited to deep dive more!
Note:
- I backed up all my data from Windows into a USB drive. I’m slowly bringing all that stuff over to my Linux Mint computer and rebuilding my music, video, photos, etc. Lot of work, but it’s so cool feeling so liberated!
- I may also want help from you Linux nerds from time to time. I’ll make posts/memes begging for help when I get desperate. But so far, almost every issue I’ve had has been resolved via an internet search!
- I pray that I won’t come crawling back to Windows. I don’t expect that to happen with how great my experience has been thus far.
Specs:
- Linux Mint 22
- Ryzen 7 9800x3d
- Thermalright Phantom Spirit
- MSI X670e Carbon WiFi
- Sapphire Nitro+ RX7900 XTX
- Corsair Vegeance 64 GB DDR5-7200
- Gen 5 Crucial T700 (?) M.2 x 2
- Corsair 5000d
- Noctua case fans (Lian Li too problematic on Linux based on all the research I did in advance)
- Seasonic Focus Gold 1000W
Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:
- Windows 10 Pro
- Intel i7-12700k
- Noctua NH-U12A
- MSI Pro Z690-A
- MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
- Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
- Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB DDR4-3600
- Lian Li AL120 case fans
You must log in or register to comment.
You could have kept the 3080 and would have still be good to go with mint 😇every nvidia with 4 digits name is working good on Linux (except if you do not want any closed source software on pc)
What about my GeForce 6600 GT?
Good to know! Somewhere in this thread I mentioned that I heard AMD typically works better, so it gave me an excuse to also upgrade my video card and pick up an RX 7900 XTX. Lesson learned though! But I can’t complain too much as I got a big uplift along with a massive improvement in VRAM - 10 GB to 24 GB.
I installed my RTX 3080 into my home theater PC where my spouse and I will game on from time to time when we want a couch TV game on PC. We recently set up PS VR2 on that PC, and with the 3080, the games run so great.
Very nice 😃
😏so you already have a target for your next Linux installation
Well, to be fair, I know nothing about compatibility of different VR headsets yet and if VR works on Linux well…
Yep! So the unfortunate thing is that PS VR2 requires some PSVR app on Steam, and it’s only working for Windows. Some Linux people have been trying it out with mixed results and instability, last I checked.
Considering my spouse and I want to use it for VR gaming, I want it to work exceptional 100% time without troubleshooting. And for now, that answer is Windows 10. We turn it on and it works flawlessly. If the platform matures and Linux gets supported, I’ll switch our home theater PC to Linux because that’s the only thing holding it back.
Your post let me to iVRy, where I found out, that there is the possibility to connect phone cardboard VR to seamVR 🤭 guess I know what I try next time I start my gameArch (his hostname ☺️)
Now that is really cool! I’ll check that out, too! And now we’re both down rabbit holes ha ha
I didn’t have a clean Linux mint experience on my 2080, and am currently deciding which AMD GPU to upgrade to for that reason
Great to hear you switched. I just switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. I had actually used Ubuntu circa 2007-2009, but switched to Windows because it was just easier. I never really loved Ubuntu. Linux Mint seems amazing so far. Very intuitive and user friendly. I can see non techies in my family using it on their Windows 10 machines later this year.
That’s what I like the most about it is that it’s mostly familiar. I think it’s an excellent OS to bridge users leaving Windows.
Years ago I experimented by dual booting pop_OS! and also Ubuntu. But they always ran so poorly for me, despite having great hardware at the time (i7-7700k and GTX 1080). It was just super frustrating so I abandoned it.
Last year as part of my preparation and research to get off Windows, I rolled VMs of Zorin OS and Linux Mint. Zorin was good overall, but Linux Mint just felt better to me. There’s so much information available online for Mint, and over time as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won’t be using internet search terms like “install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint”. 😀
as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won’t be using internet search terms like “install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint”.
Lol don’t be so sure…
deleted by creator
Bullshit. Mint is my main for years now. Its an almost perfect linux experience.
deleted by creator
For outdated, read “known stable”. Unfortunately newer software very often has dependencies on even less well-tested new things that conflict with other pieces of software and their dependencies, on and on, and the whole thing cascades to either needing to be bleeding edge or very safe. Mint deliberately chooses the latter.
The memory leaks are there, I grant you, but you’ll need an exceptionally long uptime to see any kind of problem from them. And it’s not like restarting the DE is hard. And it takes less than a second.
As for slowness, I don’t remember anything being annoyingly slow even when I was running Mint 17 from an honest-to-goodness HDD on a then 10±year-old computer. 1st gen i7.
deleted by creator
Hey I just wanted to share how I was able to get Marvel Rivals running, although I’m on a different distro it should work for you:
In the Launch options (right click game > properties > general tab) enter this:
SteamDeck=1 %command%
Then, it tricks the game into believing you are on steam deck, and it should run. If you want to disable the performance metrics, just press right shift+f12.
I’m a recent lifetime windows user to Linux but loving it! I’ve dual booted so I can still play stuff like fortnite/call of duty but surely those will come around as the user count climbs :)
Thank you for this! I jotted down your launch options along with what some of the other persons here were posting. Hoping of course NetEase can get this addressed in a coming update so we don’t have to use this workaround.
Congrats on the cutover! I don’t play Fortnite any more but my spouse wants to give it a go some time. If I play with them, I may have to install a Windows drive as a secondary device after all. Totally forgot about this game because I don’t think I currently play any games that can’t work on Linux.
If you are a gamer you should really just make the switch to bazzite though.
Heard about Bazzite basically being like Steam Deck. I think it’s great for a handheld, or for some one who wants a specific use case such as a PC hooked up to a TV that primarily is only for gaming.
With the way I use a computer, first and foremost as a computer, Bazzite does not work for me. I want to boot directly into desktop and do desktop things. If that ever changes for me, I will definitely consider Bazzite and Steam OS as options.
Not at all.
Bazzite is good for a console experience or for something like a kid gamer PC.
Everything Bazzite does is perfectly possible on other Linux distros.
If you have a dusty old console lying around, Fortnite is cross play. That was my solution for the odd match with friends.
This also skips the launcher, which is nice
One of us
ONE OF US!
One of us!
one of us!
ONE OF US
OnE oF uS
Welcome nerd!
Have fun with it! This is how it starts. :)
But seriously, whether you stick with it in the long run or not, toying with Linux from time to time is a great experience for any computer nerd and now is really a great time to do it.
Feel free to ask questions!
Also save yourself some hassle by using the right terms when you search for things, for example, searching for “How to X in Linux Mint” or “How to Y in Cinnamon Desktop”. A lot of people do searches for “Linux” and end up frustrated when the bulk of the results are terminal commands, but familiarizing yourself with the different pieces that make up your system is I think a big part of learning “Linux”.
Even though I was aware of it, this was one of my challenges. I was using Bazzite, which is obviously so niche that few tutorials would be specific. So, I tried to understand which distro was the base layer for it, and based my searches around that. Even then, a lot of things felt inapplicable, or needed to go through its containerized compatibility structure.
For Bazzite , I search for “how to do X in Silverblue”, or “how to do X in KDE”
Bazzite is built on the same technologies as Fedora Silverblue (immutable base, ostree, btrfs etc).
Also important to know is, us that Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. The majority of Stuff that works on Linux Mint should work the sane way on Debian and Ubuntu(except UI solutions OFC). So if you’re stuck try exchanging “how to do XYZ in Linux Mint” to “how to do XYZ in Ubuntu/Debian”
I’m working on learning all the terminology, which I’ll figure out over time as I immerse myself.
Things that catch my attention are distro hopping. As a hopefully former Windows user, the idea of being able to switch your OS to another distro just baffles me. Without having any understanding of this, I would imagine it’s possible switching from a Debian to a different Debian distro. But if I switched from an entirely new “framework” (no idea what to call original Linux distros), such as Fedora to Debian or something, that baffles me. I don’t expect to distro hop but who knows!
And then I learned you can switch things out like KDE, Gnome, and even learned that Gnome is not pronounced like the traditional word, but like “Guh-Nome” as a play on the acronym “GNU”. LOL
I’m very much a novice with this system. In the past I tried to roll Pop_OS! and also Ubuntu, but they were so glitchy and didn’t work great for me. After having my Steam Deck and seeing just how stable Linux is, I felt much more confident going all in on Linux Mint (appreciating Steam Deck is Arch).
Anyway, the point of my rambling is unknown. If you made it this far, I’m proud of you.
Though I had a negative experience on my last go of it, and a “root”-based filesystem still confuses me, this was one of the big solid advantages last time I checked a few distros. I followed some advice of putting the system-level directories on one partition, and my user content on a different one. When I got fed up with one distribution, I cleaned and reinstalled things onto the system-level partition, leaving the user directory alone; I just had to inform it where those directory mappings would go.
omg you chose the wrong distro aaahahhhh~~~
Seriously, though, I’m glad you’re enjoying the switch, hope you also enjoy the mandatory thigh-highs!
It’s the one I recommend, but honestly have never actually used. I’ve gotten a few people to successfully switch with it and got a few others away from Ubuntu (my first distro), hence why I keep recommending it.
Isn’t Mint a fork of Ubuntu anyway?
Either way it’s what I’m running on my Thinkpad and it’s been fine for me.
Yes and no. The main version is forked from ubuntu, but there is also LMDE which is debian based.
Yeah, that’s part of what makes mint so good. It uses most of what Ubuntu built on top of Debian, but excludes and blocks their proprietary and controversial snap stuff. But of course, it’s still Linux so you can enable it if you really want to.
Mint’s website will even tell you how. Their page on snaps is hilarious. It describes the situation in a very clear and convincing manner using about a page of text. Then at the very bottom of the page under “what if I want to install snaps anyway” it just has a few terminal commands with no comments.
Honestly this is the big thing I’ve found handy about using Mint. If there’s something wrong and I can’t find it a Mint answer, nine times out of ten I can fix it by searching for the Ubuntu solution. There’s so much Ubuntu troubleshooting going on.
This is why EndeavourOS was a great starting distro for me. Arch has SO MUCH FUCKING DOCUMENTATION
I’ve used it for a short time, to get a feel for it. It’s really intuitive, so it’s a good springboard into the wilderness of Linux distros.
Now you’re a nerd too 😀 Welcome!
Your striped thigh-highs will be delivered in the mail within a month.
This hit me in the gender
I must have missed that promotion, any chance I could order some?
It is only for people adopting Linux after 2023
If you did it earlier, like me, you’ll have to purchase your socks separately.
You are a certified penguin now
Thank you! Now I’m ready to kill the Batman and torrent more Linux ISOs. It will make a fine piece to my collection
Another nail in the Windows coffin.
Another lost potential customer for Linux hostile gaming publishers.
Have you customized that Cinnamon of yours, or is that how it looks nowadays?
I do dig the specs. Looking to build something similar myself soon, except with more cores and RAM, but probably cheaper GPU, maybe even keeping my current 3060 ti, because lately I run more docker containers, VMs and compilers, than games.
As a LMDE user who usually keeps it pretty stock, that’s customised. I actually didn’t even know you could do centred taskbar with Cinnamon (even if it is objectively a crime)
Protip.once you have it setup make a snapshot or backup. You will be trying stupid shit out and breaking the system as you explore.
Always great advice. I set up Time Shift to take daily and weekly snapshots. Is that all I need or is there a “backup” thing I need to engage.
My history of this in Windows was System Restore, but that was always hit or miss for me back in the Windows XP days. Although I was a teen so I probably didn’t know fully well what I was doing.
You probably already know this, but just to be clear; Timeshift (by default) only backs up your system, but not your data, documents photos etc . Basically everything outside your Home directory.
You can probably tell Timeshift to also backup your home directory, or install a separate backup app for that.
Thank you, that’s an important distinction. I figured it was just for settings and not my data, naturally just to reduce the size of snapshots. I’ll look into separate backup solutions, especially as this year I’m going to be looking into either a NAS type of solution, or if I want to try to learn how to roll my own on-prem Nextcloud and begin educating myself in basic networking and things like that.
I’d recommend something like Borg or Vorta(a GUI-frontend for Borg). It’s packaged as a flatpack, if not in the Mint repos, and it’s been what I use. Offers de-duplication with compression, so once you’ve done the inital backup, it only snapshots what files have changed between backups.
Timeshift is just for the system itself. BTW in Preferences you might want to turn on Automatic Maintenance/Remove obsolete kernels and dependencies (in the Automation tab). This keeps old kernels from filling up your drive.
For backing up my data, I use Lucky Backup (in the repositories) set with the default profile to back up my entire home folder to a secondary hard drive and another profile that backs it up to a USB drive. It’s basically a user-friendly front end for rsync.
Thank you very much, this is helpful. I’ve jotted these things down so I can look into a good solution.
I would also set it up to make a new timeshift anytime you add or remove apps. That’s when things tend to break.
My first month was finding out how to unbreak that thing I shouldn’t have touched, knew I shouldn’t have touched, but touched it anyways. Step 1 is snapshots.
Have you tried Krita? It’s made for digital art, but I find that the UI is pretty similar to Photoshop, so I like it for image editing
Welcome to the cool side my friend
