this post was submitted on 09 May 2021
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Asklemmy

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14
OS switching :( (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello Lemmy,

Past 30 days I have installed Debian GNU/Linux and Windows 10 probably around 6-8 times. I am stuck not being able to decide what I want...

I dislike Windows 10 software management, having to install most things from the product website. I also don't like my system installing bloatware automatically even after uninstalling it manually. Also window management, desktop customization and other elements I am custom to on Linux are lacking on Windows. But with simplewall and some other third party software I can tolerate Windows...

The reason I keep switching back and forth to Windows is are the video games. I know there is no real technical limitation for Linux distro with proprietary NVIDIA or AMD open-source driver installed which would prevent it from running modern games. However its quite a hassle getting games to run manually with Wine. Perhaps if I had the money I would be able to buy games from Steam and run them with Proton with minimal effort, but I can not do that at the moment. Also I do not like having to run Steam because I feel like that defeats the point of using free OS...

Anyways this post probably have no point to it, just rambling how I cannot make my mind regarding my OS. At the moment I am back on Linux but I have none games installed, i don't know how long will I last with this state...

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[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 3 years ago

"Also I do not like having to run Steam because I feel like that defeats the point of using free OSโ€ฆ"

You're having a cognitive dissonance because of the dialectical nature of Linux's goals with the reality of software in world society. You can't think hyper rationally about linux. It has goals and a mission to provide a free software ecosystem but there are many things it offers that are proprietary. Think about this from a priority perspective: would you rather support a FOSS OS that aligns with your values and compromise by installing Steam and Lutris, or be a purist and say if it can't all be free there's no point at all and I will embrace the proprietary nature of Windows 10? This is the same folly that some ideologies fall into, they are not willing to make compromise because they feel it dirties the goal of their movement, so they participate in the existing world and just complain. Be pragmatic.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Did you try Lurtis? With that its quite easy to install and play most games.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago

Yeah I run pirated windows games with lutris a lot. It's a little bit of a hassle but what are you gonna do. Lutris makes it very easy to manage wine versions and dxvk so it's sweet.

But I don't play AAA games or online anticheat games so my expectations are a bit modest.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I don't game that much but iirc something like > 80% of steam games have been linux compatible ( as in no wine necessary ) for the last few years now. That was a big push when they were making steam boxes.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I don't think the number is that high. But regardless Proton performs very well.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago

Also I do not like having to run Steam because I feel like that defeats the point of using free OSโ€ฆ

Think that is the same with non-free games. Most people try to see games as other thing away of software but it is not.

You must choose between making a full change or not if a free OS is what you want.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Sounds like you should consider dual booting :)

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Probably I could configure dual boot somehow, however I don't like the idea because I only have a small SSD for OS and hard drive for games and my PC has no more slots available. I wish I had dedicated drives for dual booting.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

I find personally that my current distro takes up barely any space compared to Windows and a few games only, so there's minimal overhead to having two operating systems on the same disk. On my current setup I have a single SSD dualbooting both operating systems; Windows is ~ 180 GB while my daily driver distro is a 20 GB partition, of which it currently takes up 10 GB of space. There's not going to be a lot of overlap in applications that you install on both systems, and it even helps you develop better habits. No more gaming when there's work to be done; you have to restart and boot into Windows to do that ๐Ÿ˜‰

Another thing to consider is that for all of the distros I've tried (not a lot), you can easily access files stored on your NTFS Windows partition. You can just mount it and access files there when you need them.

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Just save money and get a bigger drive. This is a non problem.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

Wtf

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Dual booting is for oldfolk

Recently i hear that, using virtualbox + nvidia, you can do gpu pass-thru which should yield good gaming performance on reasonably modern hardware with hyper-v or similar

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

What's your specs? If they are good you can probably try to run a KVM/QEMU win10 VM to install your games on

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Oops i probly shoulda read this before posting...

Does kvm/qemu support gpu passthrough?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Also I do not like having to run Steam because I feel like that defeats the point of using free OSโ€ฆ

Error description: does not make sense

Are you RMS levels of staunch who lives and sleeps by FLOSS principles? If no, Steam is just fine. If you started using Linux for ideological and not functional reasons, maybe Linux is not your thing.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Lutris and emulators (Retroarch) plus some cheap/free games on Steam should be able to cover those needs. I agree that vanilla WINE is a pain to run games with, but Lutris manages to hide that complexity pretty well.