Just get Linux and run a Virtual machine if you want to Game on PC
I use Linux for everything, including gaming, but I have a VM with win11 for when I need ads in my os.
I just use Windows 10 v1809 ltsc, I’m good for a few more years.
im one of them 😬
Or, like me, still on Windows 7, they could just no longer use Steam. Lots of games I can still play on this OS or in my browser. Maybe someday I’ll go back to Linux, or maybe even React, just for the hell of it.
I’m one of the many. Hate where tech is headed, I remember hearing about Microsoft wanting to turn windows cloud based with a subscription. Hell no
The only reason I’m still on windows 10 is because I’m dreading the weekend of head banging against table I’m going to have when I do the switch to Linux before October… Not looking forward to getting it all set up and working
Make a dual boot system. You can continue to use win10 while getting comfortable with linux. If something breaks just reboot.
Honestly, just install Kubuntu 24.04. Install it and forget it. It’s super stable and has great support. Whatever people argue about the Snap packaging system, that will be almost invisible to you as the end user.
If you have a spare drive on your PC I’d recommend trialling Linux on that. With that setup, you will have it dual booted with your existing Windows installation. It should help with the transition since you can just boot into Windows if you still need it for anything. That will give you time to get accustomed to Linux while still having that Windows safety net for a while.
Also if you later find that Linux isn’t for you then it’s easy to undo that, since all you will need to do is boot into your Windows drive instead.
I went with that strategy when I made the jump 4 years ago, and later dropped Windows entirely when I built my new PC a few months later since I realised I didn’t need it at all.
If I modify my existing PC to dual boot from the same drive into Linux, can I easily and safely delete Windows once I have migrated my files into Linux?
Just one piece of warning for dual booting, if the EFI portion for Linux and Windows is on the same drive Windows could decide to nuke the Linux bootloader with any update…
It’s not too difficult to create a redirect to the windows bootloader in Grub or similar, which is the solution I went with in the end.
Yep, you can delete your Windows partition once you no longer need it or any data within it. Then once you update your bootloader (usually GRUB, some distros do this automatically when updating the system), Windows will disappear from the boot options.
Then you can either create a new partition in its place to store data on, or extend an existing partition to fill the empty space.
I’d recommend also backing your data as a precaution in case something goes awry.
Do you have a separate computer that you can use to do a “test run” of using Linux? If not, I would at least play around with Linux in a virtual machine before committing to the bit (and I say this as someone who has been using Linux laptop / Windows desktop for 6-7 ish years now)
Yeah, this was my strategy. Used Mint on a secondary computer until I got more comfortable with it, then made the plunge on my main computer. Made the transition so much easier, as I was able to learn the differences at a relaxed pace.
I might make the plunge soon as my desktop is just slightly too old—but, at the same time, I need Windows for a few things for work so it’s a little frustrating 🫠
Gaming wise I’m completely able to use Linux, but I also don’t really play competitive games with anti-cheat so it is not exactly surprising.
When you make an installer USB stick, it also doubles as a live preview (for most? all? distros).
So you just boot into it and you can play with it before running the installation.
I have to say, in general this doesn’t happen too often. But if you are afraid of this scenario specifically, my advise is either use a separate partition for the home folder (this is where all user installed things go, as well downloads, documents and pictures by default) and make a backup in some other drive with something like timeshift, or use something a bit more advanced namely immutable distro. I will give a bit of advise here: immutable distros can be extremely unintuitive, so if you want to try and understand it, go for a VM and take a weekend playing around. For gaming, bazzite comes to mind for this specific case.
Bazzite was a 15 minute experience for me, from first boot to playing X4 foundations and sea of thieves.
Take the leap.
Steam runs pretty smooth on Linux. Am currently using OpenSuse. Steam runs smooth. Games run smooth with one or two exceptions. For those exceptions I have a dual boot Windows 10 that doesn’t need Windows Update for anything I ask it to do.
Steam does, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your games will. I spent like an entire day getting comfortable and customizing some distro to finally fit my liking, only to later on realize that proton just doesn’t fucking work for shit on it.
Did you install Steam for Windows in Linux or Steam as a flatpak or something? My experience on many PCs is install Linux, install Steam from the distro’s repo, flip the compatibility switch in Steam settings, and only customize bits here and there because I’m busy gaming or doing work.
This has nothing to do with steam (as much as you can separate the two). Even through Lutris it Proton work. Even plain wine was janky but technically worked.
Once you get it all setup and proud of your work, make a fucking backup image, because a single update that changes an obscure library in some forgettable package that was part of your install will break everything and you will be pulling your hair out kludging a CLI script to unfuck some other binary that was unimportant, but now has affected another thing that was crucial for a graphics card or network adapter to function.
You’re either running Arch/some other bleeding-edge system without Linux experience (do not recommend) or you haven’t tried Linux in 10 years.
I promise you I’ve been using Linux likely for longer than you’ve been alive, and have used every permutation of Linux, from old school CLI-only shit, to fringe PowerPC YellowDog, to modern Ubuntu/Debian.
This is why I really don’t want to have to use Linux, but Microsuck just can’t stop with the fucking greed and I’m absofucukinglutly not running anything with recall… :(
i dont know what you are using but the general linux experience hasn’t been like this in years. and even if there is a problem now and then a bit of googling generally is all it needs. the one thing you cannot get around is malware like kernel level anticheats. that’s windows only.
having a backup is good advice no matter what system you use
I don’t know, the last time I tried Linux the fucking Nvidia driver fucked my system a couple times before I said fuck it and went back to 10.
Going to try again with my amd card at some point
AMD support is baked into the kernel, so you really don’t have to do anything unless you’re on bleeding edge hardware and the drivers are in a version of the kernel your district doesn’t ship yet.
That’s fantastic news! Nvidia drivers are literally the reason I’ve abandoned Linux easily a half dozen times.
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, can’t control what support Nvidia offers for their own products, but he often shows his opinion of them:
If you’re switching over with gaming in mind, then using Bazzite or Nobara will make it so you have no head banging. Bazzite has everything you need for gaming all ready to go, and since it’s an immutable distro, it’ll be difficult for a newbie to fuck up on accident.
can it run some emulator? like nintendo or ps or ps2?
Sure, if you want to. I run Bazzite on my Steam Deck, and frequently emulate GBA and Switch games. I’ve never done any Playstation (yet), but I know there’s emulators for them. And for many other consoles as well.
Emulators aren’t installed by default on Bazzite though, since it’s geared more towards PC gaming. They’re pretty easy to install though.
Just get another disk or partition and get it running on that. If it goes fucky, boot into Win and game, try again later.
I was dreading trying Linux as well and it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated. Did full transition (I got new SSD for dual booting to try the waters) to it much faster than I ever anticipated.
I mostly just use the PC for gaming though so mileage may vary.
Valve later this year:
11’s been fine for me. I know this is a hot take around here but if any readers are dreading it because of things you’ve read, just try it out.
Also, “end of life” doesn’t mean your computer bursts into flames, it just means you stop getting patches.
People around here are super excited about it being this momentous occasion, I guarantee the people that have lived with the “Activate Windows” watermark for a decade don’t care about the “patches are over” pop-up, either.
I mean, Windows 7 has more users than Linux Mint in the Steam survey.
It’s not the usability that’s the issue, it’s the spyware.
Windows 10 has had more or less all of the same spyware backported to it.
People said the same shit with windows 10 vs 7/8. I swear every other update is the same cope over and over again.
I’m not worried about functionality, I’m worried about ads, AI, and privacy. Win11 is actively hostile on all three points
Tried it on my laptop and work computer. Absolutely hate it. I refuse to upgrade my gaming PC to it. I’m planning on swapping to Linux Mint whenever I feel motivated.
This may precipitate a massive shift to Linux, especially for gamers.
I run it on the servers I administrate and recommend it to everyone, but I can’t switch until the get Adobe support. I NEED to use Adobe apps for work. At least macOS is UNIX and far better than Winblows.
The very same reason I use macOS for work. I know older versions work fine but when you’re collaborating with a bunch of people using the latest versions and all the cloud and AI stuff, macOS is the most reliable *nix host to run it on. Can’t wait for Wine to figure it out so I can throw my last Windows box and mac in the trash.
MS can pry Windows 10 out of my cold, dead hands. I’ll switch to Linux before Win11 and I don’t particularly want to do that either.
Make the switch, even if it’s on an old laptop first just to try it out. About 90% of my Steam library runs without any extra effort needed, a few games needed tweaks that I found in the steam message boards, and 5 or 10 just refused to work at all.
I have a laptop that I dual boot on, I’ll have to try a few games on it. The biggest thing for me is if MusicBee will work, because I’ve been using it for almost ten years and want to keep using it.
It should work according to my research, though I do recommend trying Linux native alternatives as well. I personally went with Strawberry for now and it is similar enough for me.
I also dual boot on a laptop and a lot of games work well, especially via steam. I do have more problems with my GoG library and I had massive troubles to get Anno installed via Uplay. I’ve also noticed there are a lot of native native Linux ports coming out for some older games as well.
I’m not familiar with it but you might get lucky and it will work with Wine. It took me years before I was comfortable dropping Windows but I am a lot less anxious now about having an update randomly brick my PC or wipe out my settings/tweaks.
Good luck!
Unfortunately all the games I play require anti cheat and they all have dont support linux because of that
That sucks. About 5 years ago I put ideology one peg above entertainment and just avoid games that use Windows only anti-cheat, I don’t get to play the biggest releases but there are literally thousands of other games that work perfectly and are just as fun.
If I were you I would keep my Windows gaming machine as a single function device. Play games, get all the MS updates and 3rd party spyware, don’t let it touch anything you want to keep private or safe.
Yea once w10 reaches eol I’m gone. If my games decide to fix linux by then, then all is well. If not, oh well.
Most anticheats work on linux these days unless its a kernel level anticheat… and personally i wouldnt want that garbage on any OS.
To be honest when october comes and w10 is at eol I’ll probably just move to linux and stop playing those games altogether
At this point I am not even sure Microsoft thinks it is better to run important windows software natively on windows rather than in a much more stable, reliable virtual environment inside of Linux or WINE.
Both are going to crash occasionally (we are talking about windows software after all) but when the part running Windows software in Linux crashes it isn’t anywhere as likely to sink the whole boat and crash the rest of the operating system and potentially lose a bunch of stuff.
I think clearly what Microsoft is gunning for longterm is to eat their operating system with a bunch of cloud crap that doesn’t even really run locally for the most part.
Which is why we need to burn this to the ground so there are consequences for Microsoft for betraying users this thoroughly and completely.
Do you part, give friendly helpful linux advice to newbies, share resources and have some fun with it!
You are correct Microsoft is selling a branded Thin Client Mini PC, around $400. It doesn’t store anything local it is all cloud app, onedrive access stuff. Their Azure is Linux so its just a “Windows” Box for gaining access to Linux in the cloud. Lol
Pathetic, and the plan will backfire on even their contracts with corporations as any moment now all the data they are storing will be stolen in a truly massive data breach and Microsoft won’t even be able to do damage control effectively because they purposefully removed, broke and obsifucated local and secure workflows and focused everything on a subscription based model where everything including practically your social security number is entrusted to their shitty servers.
I think there is a good chance the EU could regulate on this.
What Microsoft thinks they can do in a situation like this is the same thing they have always done, hamfistedly and halfassedly walk back anti-consumer/anti-user practices until people calm down, rinse repeat.
Hilariously though this manuever relies on Microsoft not having any rivals in a seriously threatening position to flank when Microsoft begins to enter an enshittified vulnerability, which as much as they seem to be clueless about it (please keep being clueless M$), Linux is.
For anything that HAS to work and only runs on Windows (eat a dick Siemens) I put it in a VM with no network connection. A physical machine that gets regular updates is too unstable to rely on.
When ever I’m teaching a new guy I try to get them on board with using VMs at at minimum for reliability and a VM under Linux if they are interested.
I’m having a problem finding VM software I can use for free that isn’t a trial, or requires an account/login.
Virtual Box. It’s dead easy.
Here goes (installing now)
People, I’ve already mentioned that Windows 10 LTSC is out there until 2027. Additionally, Windows 11 non-TPM is available out in the 'bay.
I know it’s still early but how do I grab LTSC? As far as I know my mobo has a home edition license and it defaults to it whenever I reinstall
What is non-TPM? My main resistance to 11 is just enshittification / advert bullshit plus whatever the screenshotting privacy nightmare garbage was as well.
TPM is the Trusted Platform Module, a security chip in computers that can be used to verify the integrity of the boot process. Windows 11 requires a TPM 2.0 chip, which many older computers do not have. Windows 11 non-TPM is a pirated version with this requirement hacked out.
I was able to upgrade to Windows 11 on my dinosaur desktop (at least 10 years old) without any issues. Been able to keep it updated, too, for at least the last 2 years.
There are ways to bypass certain hardware restrictions, and I’m sure plenty of how-tos are still available.
No need to sweat it.
Some people just don’t want to switch. I find windows 10 is still better than windows 11. I only updated on my gaming PC because it automatic updated.
Oh, I hear you. I resisted for a very long time, but once I started using Windows 11, I upgraded all my Windows computers to it. It’s far more stable, in my opinion.
But… micro$oft has gone backwards as these iterations are pushed out. More ads, more spyware, more bloatware. Even if I want to keep using windows, they’ll force me out of it once my limit has been reached.
W11 has some nice features that match GNOME and KDE desktops, but it also some terrible buggy stuff going on. And the Office Ai.exe and relates AI junk bogs down the system so badly. Thankfully I’m able to move everything to Linux for home use.
I installed bazzite recently and trying it out. Working well with game scope on nvidia card. But still has some graphical glitches. It’s almost there. Only issue I have now is I just got into PCVR and Linux support is lacking.
fuck Windows, I am done with M$
If they want to buy me a new laptop, go for it.
