Thinking on switching to linux
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
- AMD Drivers: Good news! They work even better on Linux. Bad news, you're probably referring to the AMD "control panel" type application instead of the drivers themselves, which doesn't have a direct equivalent. The drivers should come pre-installed, though depening on distro you may need to select/install "radv" or "vulkan-radeon" manually. Most of the control panel functionality can be found in other applications, like OBS for recording or CoreCtrl for clock speeds.
- Chrome: Although Firefox is pre-installed in most cases, you have full freedom of choice here. Most people find that Firefox works basically the same after using it for a bit, but if it doesn't fit you, there's other options. Google Chrome is most likely available in your distros app store, but there's also less "spying" options like ungoogled-chromium.
- Gmail: You can access this on the website, or through a mail client like thunderbird. You can switch if you want to, you're not limited by any means here.
- Office 360: Though LibreOffice is a great alternative, some find themselves forced to use MS office for compatibility reasons. This is still possible, buy only in a webbrowser.
- ITunes: This is a hard one to find alternatives for, depending on what you use it for. For managing iPhones from a PC, you essentially need Windows or macOS. For playing music, there's plenty of options.
- JBL: I'm unsure as I don't use any of their products, but assuming you mean audio related "control panels", there's many options available. Though they may need a bit of tweaking and searching around to get things to sound the way you want.
- Musescore: I also don't use this, but it's available on Flathub, meaning you can (and probably should) use your distros "App Store" to install this.
- Norton AV: Not many AVs targeting Linux exist, and they're not the greatest quality. Though it's doable to go without one, as long as you don't download and run random files off the internet. Stick to the app store, and you should be totally fine.
- PyCharm: This is available on Linux, also in the "app store". There's other IDEs available too, like vscode.
- Remote Desktop to iOS: I haven't owned an iOS device since 2019, so I don't know which protocol they use. It's possible this isn't supported at all.
- Star Citizen: It looks like this is playable through Proton. You can use Steam (add non-steam game), Lutris, or Bottles to launch non-steam Windows apps/games.
- Steam: Works great
- VPN: As you didn't put a previous VPN provider here, I'm not able to tell you if it works on Linux. Personally I have a hard time recommending any VPN service, but Mullvad stands out as being the least untrustworthy. Almost all others like Nord, Express, etc. share some common traits that make them very untrustworthy to me.
- Windows Games: This is a bit more complicated. Games from the Microsoft Store are very unlikely to run, and require messing about to even try in the first place. Other games made for Windows likely work (even outside Steam), using management tools like Lutris or Bottles is often easier than manually using Wine.
If a tool (or distro) works well for you, it's a good option. Everyone has different opinions on the "best" distro, but since it's very subjective, there is no single "best" distro. There's only 2 distros I recommend against, that's Ubuntu (and close spin-offs) and Manjaro, because they have major objective downsides compared to equivalents like Mint or Endeavour. The distros I generally recommend to new users are Mint and Fedora, but feel free to look around, you're not forced to pick a specific one.
You noted you were likely going to choose Linux Mint, great! It's a "stable" distro, as in, it doesn't change much with small updates. Instead, new release versions (23, 24, 25, etc) come with new changes. Linux Mint comes with an App Store that can install from Flathub, which should be the first place to check for installing new applications.
As for VR, it depends heavily on which exact headset you have, and is not always a great experience on Linux right now (speaking from experience with an Index). The LVRA wiki is a great starting place: https://lvra.gitlab.io/. If you're on a Quest, WiVRN and ALVR exist, though they both have their own downsides. If you're on a PCVR headset from Oculus, your options are more limited. You might also want to consider a different distro, as VR development is moving very fast. Many VR users choose to go with a "harder" rolling release distribution, like EndeavourOS, to receive feature updates quicker.
Also of note, if you have the storage space, you can choose to "dual boot" (even with just one drive). This will give you a menu to choose between Windows and Linux when starting your computer, and will give you time to move stuff over. I generally recommend this, as it provides an option to immediately do a task you know how to do on Windows, when it's absolutely required to do the task asap.
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VR on linux is scuffed. https://lvra.gitlab.io/ refer to this site for vr on linux. If you play VRchat, its pretty much unplayable in vr on linux, its literally somehow a better experience on quest standalone
I don't play VRChat myself, but I have to disagree. I'm in several Linux VR groups, and the general sentiment is that it's not as easy to set up, but works well for the more popular games, including VRChat. This is similar to my experience. There's good resources (like LVRA) to help people set things up, or when they're running into issues. I'm also not saying VR on Linux is flawless, far from it, but to describe it as just "scuffed" without context doesn't explain the whole state of it.
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I had tried ALVR in the past, on my Quest 2, but it sucked. A couple of months have passed and I should probably test again.
Try WiVRN, it's not built on SteamVR, and doesn't have the same issues SteamVR does. You can get it through a flatpak or by using Envision, as described on the LVRA wiki.
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AMD Drivers: if your GPU is new enough (which it probably is since you're playing Star citizen) it should be just magic here since they come together with the kernel.
Chrome: it's available for Linux, no need to switch. Although Firefox is very nice too.
Gmail: not sure what you mean, Gmail is a website, those are available on any platform. If you meant a desktop email client (which honestly I have never in my life used) there's Thunderbird.
Office 360: Are you talking about Microsoft 365? Is that not a website too? In any case Libre office is a nice alternative to the classical Office desktop app too in case you want that.
I-Tunes: A quick search online reveals people use wine to run the Windows version of iTunes, although I would probably consider migrating. Spotify has a native client and there are some places where you can buy music and have it locally for playback.
JBL: not sure what this is other than a brand for speakers.
Anti-virus: You almost assuredly don't need an anti-virus on Linux, as long as you install software through the proper channels (i.e. using the package manager) chances of virus are so small it's not something to worry about. Most Linux anti-virus serve to check windows binaries in the system to avoid someone using the Linux machine to send virus to Windows users.
PyCharm: it's available for Linux
Remote desktop to iOS: Not sure this is possible even on Windows, I use remmina for remote desktop, it supports several ways of connecting to the other device so maybe see if it works for you.
Star citizen: Never played it but it seems to be playable with Wine.
Steam: While steam is available not all games are compatible, check out https://www.protondb.com/ to see the status of any specific Steam game.
VPN: should be native on Linux, there's a protocol caller OpenVPN which most VPN providers will give you a Config file for that you can use directly on the network applet on Linux.
PS: Next time share the list in text, it makes it easier to reply
Remote desktop to iOS: Not sure this is possible even on Windows, I use remmina for remote desktop, it supports several ways of connecting to the other device so maybe see if it works for you.
What? This is absolutely possible, and it seems like OP is already doing so from Windows. Remmina is also, as far as I'm aware, a client app, not a server. I would personally recommend Sunshine, with Moonlight as the iOS client, but that's more geared towards gaming. xrdp would be my recommendation if OP is using the built in Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol currently, as that will continue to work with whichever iOS client they are already using. Otherwise, if they're using VNC currently, I would go with TightVNC as there are dozens, if not more, iOS clients.
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I would say libre wolf instead of firefox, the rest of the list is spot on
For an average user i would recommend Firefox
For someone tech-savy and privacy focused - LibreWolf
Why? Some websites will not work properly on LibreWolf because of how hardened it is (not extremely, but just enough to break some things on websites). I don't mean it's bad, it's just not for everyone atm since many people want things to just work
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Regarding oculus software:
If you need the actual oculus software for some reason (say, if you're using a rift S) your only option is a windows VM with full access to your GPU (and possibly your USB controller), either via looking glass or single GPU passthrough. Both options are a little hard to wrap your head around and annoying to set up but I'm sure your favorite search engine can help.As other comments have mentioned, ALVR and SteamVR are solid options of all you need is the "screen sharing" part.
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Just to chime in, since a lot of people are recommending Thunderbird as an email client. I would rather check out Betterbird. It's just smoother with more bug fixes which has not been prioritized in Thunderbird.
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https://cider.sh/ is an Apple Music client for Linux.
Interesting use of itch.io to handle payment in this case.
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- AMD Drivers: Good news! They work even better on Linux. Bad news, you're probably referring to the AMD "control panel" type application instead of the drivers themselves, which doesn't have a direct equivalent. The drivers should come pre-installed, though depening on distro you may need to select/install "radv" or "vulkan-radeon" manually. Most of the control panel functionality can be found in other applications, like OBS for recording or CoreCtrl for clock speeds.
- Chrome: Although Firefox is pre-installed in most cases, you have full freedom of choice here. Most people find that Firefox works basically the same after using it for a bit, but if it doesn't fit you, there's other options. Google Chrome is most likely available in your distros app store, but there's also less "spying" options like ungoogled-chromium.
- Gmail: You can access this on the website, or through a mail client like thunderbird. You can switch if you want to, you're not limited by any means here.
- Office 360: Though LibreOffice is a great alternative, some find themselves forced to use MS office for compatibility reasons. This is still possible, buy only in a webbrowser.
- ITunes: This is a hard one to find alternatives for, depending on what you use it for. For managing iPhones from a PC, you essentially need Windows or macOS. For playing music, there's plenty of options.
- JBL: I'm unsure as I don't use any of their products, but assuming you mean audio related "control panels", there's many options available. Though they may need a bit of tweaking and searching around to get things to sound the way you want.
- Musescore: I also don't use this, but it's available on Flathub, meaning you can (and probably should) use your distros "App Store" to install this.
- Norton AV: Not many AVs targeting Linux exist, and they're not the greatest quality. Though it's doable to go without one, as long as you don't download and run random files off the internet. Stick to the app store, and you should be totally fine.
- PyCharm: This is available on Linux, also in the "app store". There's other IDEs available too, like vscode.
- Remote Desktop to iOS: I haven't owned an iOS device since 2019, so I don't know which protocol they use. It's possible this isn't supported at all.
- Star Citizen: It looks like this is playable through Proton. You can use Steam (add non-steam game), Lutris, or Bottles to launch non-steam Windows apps/games.
- Steam: Works great
- VPN: As you didn't put a previous VPN provider here, I'm not able to tell you if it works on Linux. Personally I have a hard time recommending any VPN service, but Mullvad stands out as being the least untrustworthy. Almost all others like Nord, Express, etc. share some common traits that make them very untrustworthy to me.
- Windows Games: This is a bit more complicated. Games from the Microsoft Store are very unlikely to run, and require messing about to even try in the first place. Other games made for Windows likely work (even outside Steam), using management tools like Lutris or Bottles is often easier than manually using Wine.
If a tool (or distro) works well for you, it's a good option. Everyone has different opinions on the "best" distro, but since it's very subjective, there is no single "best" distro. There's only 2 distros I recommend against, that's Ubuntu (and close spin-offs) and Manjaro, because they have major objective downsides compared to equivalents like Mint or Endeavour. The distros I generally recommend to new users are Mint and Fedora, but feel free to look around, you're not forced to pick a specific one.
You noted you were likely going to choose Linux Mint, great! It's a "stable" distro, as in, it doesn't change much with small updates. Instead, new release versions (23, 24, 25, etc) come with new changes. Linux Mint comes with an App Store that can install from Flathub, which should be the first place to check for installing new applications.
As for VR, it depends heavily on which exact headset you have, and is not always a great experience on Linux right now (speaking from experience with an Index). The LVRA wiki is a great starting place: https://lvra.gitlab.io/. If you're on a Quest, WiVRN and ALVR exist, though they both have their own downsides. If you're on a PCVR headset from Oculus, your options are more limited. You might also want to consider a different distro, as VR development is moving very fast. Many VR users choose to go with a "harder" rolling release distribution, like EndeavourOS, to receive feature updates quicker.
Also of note, if you have the storage space, you can choose to "dual boot" (even with just one drive). This will give you a menu to choose between Windows and Linux when starting your computer, and will give you time to move stuff over. I generally recommend this, as it provides an option to immediately do a task you know how to do on Windows, when it's absolutely required to do the task asap.
Can I run any game on Linux steam if it is bought there?
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Its only nvidia GPUs that's have trouble
And even they are starting to work better now. Running a 4070 SuTi here without major issues myself.
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Just how will you manage to open gmail on linux?
People have been trying for decades, there is just no way
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Can I run any game on Linux steam if it is bought there?
You can always check proton.db (it keeps a track of how well steam games run on Linux).
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You can always check proton.db (it keeps a track of how well steam games run on Linux).
So I should do this with at least ny favorite games before wiping my drive and installing a Linux distro?
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Can I run any game on Linux steam if it is bought there?
Not every game works, but as another user pointed out, ProtonDB is a good resource. If you buy a new game on Steam, and it doesn't work, you can refund it within the first 2 weeks (and below 2 hours playtime) for any reason. That includes "Ths game does not work on my operating system".
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So I should do this with at least ny favorite games before wiping my drive and installing a Linux distro?
Probably, yes. Dual-booting may also be an option for the one or two games that don't work.
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Can I run any game on Linux steam if it is bought there?
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Lol that table is pretty strange
What does "Windows 10" mean? XD
Also btw dont expect all games to work in Wine. You should use Steam if you want a pain free experience.
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Gmail: any paid hoster
pycharm is on linux
Star Citizen runs in Proton, no?
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Just how will you manage to open gmail on linux?
People have been trying for decades, there is just no way
what ?
Thunderbird exists... -
Just to chime in, since a lot of people are recommending Thunderbird as an email client. I would rather check out Betterbird. It's just smoother with more bug fixes which has not been prioritized in Thunderbird.
Or Evolution, it's pretty neat. But they didn't look for a groupware client or Outlook alternative.
