Should i switch to linux? please tell me why or why not.
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Lots of mention of dual booting- I recommend getting an e-waste tier 256gb SATA SSD for your first Linux install if you just want to try it out.
No one wants those old drives because they are small but they are plenty quick and you only need 15 to 30 gigs for most distros.
Can you use the existing Windows partition for the games though (without it fucking them up)? Because while Linux fits in that easily, games do not.
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Still a lot for that old tech and a desktop gaming computer.
For a server, it's not a lot.
Yeah but why wouldn't you when sticks are so cheap now? I have an E5-2680v2 and 32GB of RAM. I can have SO many browser tabs open, and games actually run quicker because Linux does a really good job of using excess RAM as file cache. If a game accesses a texture more than once it almost always ends up in cache. I probably will upgrade to 64GB at some point, because I've got two 16GB sticks so only using half the memory channels. Wanna get an E5-2697v2 first though, much better single core performance.
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I like bazzite but the immutable aspect makes downloading some thing even more complicated for a newb. Truly can never go wrong with zorinos or mint
I've been using Linux for 25 years and I kinda hate how clunky immutable Fedora is.
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So i have a gaming desktop that not the best or the newest. What takes up most of my drive space is games, updates, and software's. Im wondering if i should switch to linux and if linux will improve any performance for my main machine? If you believe i should switch what os should i go with or why or why not should i switch?
I mostly game and do mess with ollama/ai tools because i think that's cool. I want to do more things in the future but that might beyond my drive space?
What would you advise?
Nvidia is a bit of a risk under Linux. It might work.
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I haven't. That wasn't one of the mistakes I made!
Lucky you!
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I like bazzite but the immutable aspect makes downloading some thing even more complicated for a newb. Truly can never go wrong with zorinos or mint
That's exactly why I'm recommending it. For a user that just wants to game, it has the guardrails in place to stop them from bricking their install. Think about how comparatively hard it is to severely mess up a Windows install.
There are plenty of other ways to install software, Bazzite highly recommends Flatpak and AppImage. As well, if you do really need anything else, it can be run in a Distrobox and there are plenty of people on the forums who can help with that.
Recommending Mint to users that just want to game, that don't want to learn technical stuff, needs to die. Sure, if someone comes in and says they're happy to learn tech stuff, Mint is a great option. But for everyone else, something like Bazzite is just so much closer to "it just works". Hell, I have technical skills, headless Debian over SSH is my happy place, but I have Bazzite on my desktop and handheld because I can't mess with it. It's always ready to game when I am!
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So i have a gaming desktop that not the best or the newest. What takes up most of my drive space is games, updates, and software's. Im wondering if i should switch to linux and if linux will improve any performance for my main machine? If you believe i should switch what os should i go with or why or why not should i switch?
I mostly game and do mess with ollama/ai tools because i think that's cool. I want to do more things in the future but that might beyond my drive space?
What would you advise?
You've already got plenty of comments explaining why you should switch. You obviously should ideally. Check Protondb.com to see if your games runs on Linux.
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That's exactly why I'm recommending it. For a user that just wants to game, it has the guardrails in place to stop them from bricking their install. Think about how comparatively hard it is to severely mess up a Windows install.
There are plenty of other ways to install software, Bazzite highly recommends Flatpak and AppImage. As well, if you do really need anything else, it can be run in a Distrobox and there are plenty of people on the forums who can help with that.
Recommending Mint to users that just want to game, that don't want to learn technical stuff, needs to die. Sure, if someone comes in and says they're happy to learn tech stuff, Mint is a great option. But for everyone else, something like Bazzite is just so much closer to "it just works". Hell, I have technical skills, headless Debian over SSH is my happy place, but I have Bazzite on my desktop and handheld because I can't mess with it. It's always ready to game when I am!
True true, still modern linux doesn't break as easily as u frame it. And is user friendly enough for even non tech ppl. A user would have to go out of their way todo something weird in cli. As long as they are just installing games then not a whole lot can go wrong.
On bazzite if u want to install something that isn't virtualized like flats, than u would have to dive more into cli. That instead of simply typing sudo apt install.
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True true, still modern linux doesn't break as easily as u frame it. And is user friendly enough for even non tech ppl. A user would have to go out of their way todo something weird in cli. As long as they are just installing games then not a whole lot can go wrong.
On bazzite if u want to install something that isn't virtualized like flats, than u would have to dive more into cli. That instead of simply typing sudo apt install.
I mean, I've bricked plenty of installs before I knew what I was doing more. I still regularly see, in certain places, people give purposefully destructive commands.
rm -rf /
doesn't work directly anymore, but it'll work on your home folder for example. You also don't need CLI to install games, I would say literally never.If a good third-party launcher that needed to be run as a system package showed up, Bazzite would just add that. Games that just ship a Linux executable like a lot of itch.io stuff generally works regardless and doesn't need the CLI. Can you give an example of a gaming usecase that requires
sudo apt
?You can also install packages to the system on Bazzite by the way. It's atomic, not actually immutable. It's just frowned upon because it makes things less stable, and increases the length of updates. You use
sudo rpm-ostree install
in the same way, and it layers the package on top of the current version. It's treated as an absolute last resort, but it is way easier to reset to the base image if anything goes wrong. -
Nvidia is a bit of a risk under Linux. It might work.
There’s hardly any risk anymore. The drivers themselves are mostly fine, with a couple exceptions.
The only two risk factors are either using an immature distro with no properly packaged drivers, or an outdated one
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There’s hardly any risk anymore. The drivers themselves are mostly fine, with a couple exceptions.
The only two risk factors are either using an immature distro with no properly packaged drivers, or an outdated one
Yep, for example Ubuntu took like 4 extra months to get a late enough driver to fix the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth texture issue. Completely unplayable until I believe driver 570.123. I had the updated driver pretty early on Arch, but wouldn't ever suggest that to someone casually considering switching.
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Can you use the existing Windows partition for the games though (without it fucking them up)? Because while Linux fits in that easily, games do not.
Probably not, just trying to save the guy a few bucks. Try some games one at a time that do fit, and rely on protondb for the ones that don't. Then decide to move over and wipe windows.
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I mean, I've bricked plenty of installs before I knew what I was doing more. I still regularly see, in certain places, people give purposefully destructive commands.
rm -rf /
doesn't work directly anymore, but it'll work on your home folder for example. You also don't need CLI to install games, I would say literally never.If a good third-party launcher that needed to be run as a system package showed up, Bazzite would just add that. Games that just ship a Linux executable like a lot of itch.io stuff generally works regardless and doesn't need the CLI. Can you give an example of a gaming usecase that requires
sudo apt
?You can also install packages to the system on Bazzite by the way. It's atomic, not actually immutable. It's just frowned upon because it makes things less stable, and increases the length of updates. You use
sudo rpm-ostree install
in the same way, and it layers the package on top of the current version. It's treated as an absolute last resort, but it is way easier to reset to the base image if anything goes wrong.No not a lot. Was just distro hopping and tried bazzite. When I tried to install something that wans't in the software centrum it indeed said to try sudo rpm-ostree install. But monkey brain already found it too much. So yeah... My bazzite views probaly aren't the best lol. Have to give it a better try some day.
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Yeah but why wouldn't you when sticks are so cheap now? I have an E5-2680v2 and 32GB of RAM. I can have SO many browser tabs open, and games actually run quicker because Linux does a really good job of using excess RAM as file cache. If a game accesses a texture more than once it almost always ends up in cache. I probably will upgrade to 64GB at some point, because I've got two 16GB sticks so only using half the memory channels. Wanna get an E5-2697v2 first though, much better single core performance.
I'm not saying you shouldn't. I have 64 GB of DDR5.
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I was just reacting to the fact that 64 GB is unusually much for DDR3, since DDR3 is quite old and people usually didn't have that much RAM back in those days.
I reiterate: I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Add as much RAM as you like. Who cares.
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No not a lot. Was just distro hopping and tried bazzite. When I tried to install something that wans't in the software centrum it indeed said to try sudo rpm-ostree install. But monkey brain already found it too much. So yeah... My bazzite views probaly aren't the best lol. Have to give it a better try some day.
I mean, Bazzite is Fedora so even if it wasn't atomic, you'd be using
dnf
instead ofapt
. Subbing outrpm-ostree
isn't much different -
I'm not saying you shouldn't. I have 64 GB of DDR5.
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I was just reacting to the fact that 64 GB is unusually much for DDR3, since DDR3 is quite old and people usually didn't have that much RAM back in those days.
I reiterate: I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Add as much RAM as you like. Who cares.
Well, yeah, but seen as it's old now it's dirt cheap, so anyone still running it is gonna have a lot just because they can. It's not like those old computers aren't upgradeable lol
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Well, yeah, but seen as it's old now it's dirt cheap, so anyone still running it is gonna have a lot just because they can. It's not like those old computers aren't upgradeable lol
There's no "but".
I'm not disagreeing. I was just reacting.
It's like seeing a whole heap of fossils in one place. It's super cool and a neat find, but you react because it's a lot.
I know computers are upgradeable.
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There's no "but".
I'm not disagreeing. I was just reacting.
It's like seeing a whole heap of fossils in one place. It's super cool and a neat find, but you react because it's a lot.
I know computers are upgradeable.
Fair fair
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Sandy Bridge is too old for CachyOS. Cachy compiles the kernel with optimizations for newer CPUs
thanks good catch
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There’s hardly any risk anymore. The drivers themselves are mostly fine, with a couple exceptions.
The only two risk factors are either using an immature distro with no properly packaged drivers, or an outdated one
Mint won't properly display games with my RTX 3080 unless I reboot for some reason. There can still be issues but they might be fixable.