Very positively surprised by how seamless the switch from Windows was
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I moved to Kubuntu recently. I'm overall happier, but I've had a number of pain points.
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I bought DaVinci Resolve thinking they supported Linux. They do, just very poorly. Figuring out how to get that up and running was a faff. Davinci Resolve also doesn't support AAC audio on MP4 files on Linux, so I had to write a script to transcode the audio of media to WAV. It also doesn't play nice with window management. Overall, using resolve has been a huge pain.
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I use Insta360s software just to stitch 360 video, getting that set up with bottles wasn't the most straightforward but it works now.
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I still haven't figured out Fusion360, and I really don't want to spend the time learning a new software. I learned it before I'd started making an effort to only use cross-platform tools.
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I bought the Xbox Store version of Forza Horizon 5 so I could play it on my PC and Xbox. I no longer have the Xbox, and I'd have to re-buy it on Steam if I wanted to play it.
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My Index just isn't detected on Ubuntu. It was on Windows. I've tried a bunch of things, but it just doesn't show up, so I haven't been able to play VR. It might have a bad cable, but I'm not sure. Weird that it showed up before and doesn't in Kubuntu.
Linux is all about finding alternatives. There is an alternate workflow, but you might have to deal with inconveniences or put in effort to learn something new. It's been a lot of work. Also, I might need to dual boot windows to play VR stuff.
Fusion isn't going to function fully. I think the cloud integration pipeline messes with it. You're better off with OnShape.
FreeCAD is fine with addons but it's just not streamlined in my experience.
If it weren't for CAD I'd have a linux workstation.
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Sorry if I'm mostly focusing on paragraph 3 but I have to. MP3 CDs sound way worse than a redbook audio CD though. You can losslessly compress PCM by about 50% by using a codec like flac or alac, but there is data loss if you use a lossy format like .mp3.
You can compress 20 vacation photos taken by an iPhone 16 to fit on a 1.44 mb floppy disk and you will have something resembling the original data, but I think you'll agree it's worse.
Back to my original point, A CD-R is much more likely to reatain data for 5 years than an SSD is. Unless it's periodiclly powered on of couse.
I have an HDD from 2008 in my PC actually. I'm often impressed how long they can last.wrote on last edited by [email protected]Sure, lossy compression is lossy, but that wasn't my point. My point was that data corruption in information-dense formats is more critical than in low-density formats.
To take your example of the vacation photos: If you have a 100 megapixel HDR photo and you lose 100 bytes of data, you will lose a few pixels and you won't even notice the change unless you zoom in quite far.
Compress these pictures down to fit on the floppy from your example (that would be ~73kb per photo), then losing 100 bytes of data will now be very noticeable in the picture, since you just lost ~0.1% of the whole data. Not taking the specifics of compression algorithms into account, you just lost 1 in every 1000 pixels, which is a lot.
High resolution low information density formats allow for quite a lot of damage before it becomes critical.
High information density formats on the other hand are quite vulnerable to critical data loss.
To show what I mean, take this image:
I saved it as BMP and then ran a script over it that replaces 1% of all bytes with a random byte. This is the result:
(I had to convert the result back to jpg to be able to upload it here.)
So even with a total of 99865 bytes replaced with random values, the image of an apple is clearly visible. There are a few small noise spots here and there, but the overall picture is still fine and if you print it as a photo, it's likely that these spots won't even be visible.
As a comparison, I now saved the original image as JPEG and also corrupted 1% of all bytes the same way. This here's the result. Gimp and many other file viewers can't open the file at all any more. Chrome can open it, and it looks like this:
The same happens with audio CDs. Audio CDs use uncompressed "direct" data, just like BMP. Data corruption only affects the data at the point of the corruption. That means, if one bit is unreadable, you probably won't be able to notice at all, and even if 1% of all data on the CD is corrupt, you will likely only notice a slightly elevated noise level, even though 1% data loss is an enormous amount.
If you instead use compressed formats (even FLAC) or if it's actual data and not media, a single illegible bit might destroy the whole file, because each bit of data depends on the information earlier in the file, so if one bit is corrupted, everything after that bit might become unreadable.
That's why your audio CD is still legible far beyond its expiry date, but a CD-R containing your backup data might not.
Again, these data retention time spans don't mean that after that time all data on the device disappears at once, but that until that time every single bit of data on your device is preserved. After that you might start to experience data loss, usually in the form of single bits or bytes failing.
Edit: Just for fun, this is what the BMP looks like with 95% corruption:
Even with this massive amount of damage, the image is still recognizable.
Edit 2: Due to a mistake in the script, this image is actually 61.3% corrupted, not 95%, but that's still a massive amount of corruption and the image is still clearly recognizable.
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I moved to Kubuntu recently. I'm overall happier, but I've had a number of pain points.
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I bought DaVinci Resolve thinking they supported Linux. They do, just very poorly. Figuring out how to get that up and running was a faff. Davinci Resolve also doesn't support AAC audio on MP4 files on Linux, so I had to write a script to transcode the audio of media to WAV. It also doesn't play nice with window management. Overall, using resolve has been a huge pain.
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I use Insta360s software just to stitch 360 video, getting that set up with bottles wasn't the most straightforward but it works now.
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I still haven't figured out Fusion360, and I really don't want to spend the time learning a new software. I learned it before I'd started making an effort to only use cross-platform tools.
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I bought the Xbox Store version of Forza Horizon 5 so I could play it on my PC and Xbox. I no longer have the Xbox, and I'd have to re-buy it on Steam if I wanted to play it.
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My Index just isn't detected on Ubuntu. It was on Windows. I've tried a bunch of things, but it just doesn't show up, so I haven't been able to play VR. It might have a bad cable, but I'm not sure. Weird that it showed up before and doesn't in Kubuntu.
Linux is all about finding alternatives. There is an alternate workflow, but you might have to deal with inconveniences or put in effort to learn something new. It's been a lot of work. Also, I might need to dual boot windows to play VR stuff.
+1 for onshape. I use both fusion and onshape. I used to be a diehard fusion user but onshape has won me over.
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Today, I switched the last of my Windows machines to Linux: my gaming PC. I've been using Linux on servers for many years but was a bit apprehensive for gaming.
Turns out it just... works. Just installed steam and turned proton on, have zero performance or other issues. I'm using Ubuntu 25.04 for the 6.14 kernels NT emulation performance tweaks. Aside from there not being a catalyst driver for it and so I can't undervolt my card everything is great.
I had the exact same experience: been doing Linux since the 90s, both for fun and professionaly - the latter mainly in pure server configurations - finaly got around to moving my home PC (which is mainly for gaming) to Linux (using Pop!OS, since I have a Nvidia graphics card and it just supports it out of the box) and it just worked.
Only problem I have with it is that on startup of X I usually get a blank screen and have to switch my monitor OFF and back ON again.
Oh, and startup times are a fraction of Windows startup times (my Windows 10 work machine literally takes longer to wake up from hybernation than my home Linux PC takes to cold boot, and they have equivalent SSDs.
I think I got more hassle with Windows than I do with Linux.
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Assuming you're playing games through Proton rather than vanilla Wine, kernels before 6.14 already have fsync which is used by Proton and effectively does the same thing as ntsync.
I don't think either has ntsync support enabled by default, but it's supposed to have better accuracy or performance, thanks to putting the needed APIs directly in the kernel, right?
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How are you getting FreeCAD to run poorly? I've run it fine on a Raspberry Pi.
Well, first I install it. Then I launch it. Then I try to do literally anything with it and it takes like 90 seconds to actually respond to every command. I do have a Raspberry pi around somewhere. Maybe I'll try that.
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Yeah and we're still we.
And my axe!
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Installing linux: step 1: install linux. (If distro eithout nvidia drivers, step 2: run 3 commands in console or use discover)
Installing windows: step 1: install windows. Step 2:activate windows, step 3: install drivers for every piece of hardware attatched to your pc, step 4 use cmd, regedit and/or sketchy download to debloat windows
step 2: run 3 commands in console or use discover
Just one, no? Usually the installation instructions will tell you which package to install for your GPU.
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Just in case you didn't know, odd numbered Ubuntu versions (in your case 25) are considered short term releases and won't be maintained beyond a year or two.
Unless you really need that version, you'll want to install 26 when it comes out next April (upgrade should be very seamless).
Even numbered versions are supported long term, often for several years.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]It's not just odd releases, it's also releases that end in 10. 24.10 is short term too.
For new users, if you're within a year of the next LTS, just use the most recent release and switch to the LTS cadence once it launches.
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Well, first I install it. Then I launch it. Then I try to do literally anything with it and it takes like 90 seconds to actually respond to every command. I do have a Raspberry pi around somewhere. Maybe I'll try that.
Can you provide machine specs? Maybe you're using an Nvidia card without drivers or something? Or maybe it's a laptop and it's using the wrong GPU?
Again, I agree with the first responder, make your own post so it gets more visibility and provide as many details as you can.
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You made the right call, for your situation.
They're just letting you know that you will want to apply each annual upgrade when they come out, to ensure your system stays secure.
This may contrast with any Ubuntu-running friends you may have, who may not be applying updates annually.
Once you've upgraded to
28 (in ~ 2028)26.04, you can safely skip the next four years of upgrades, if you feel like it, because28it will(probably)be the next Long Term Support (LTS) release.LTS for Ubuntu are every two years; April of the even years. Next LTS will be 26.04, then 28.04 etc.
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Well, first I install it. Then I launch it. Then I try to do literally anything with it and it takes like 90 seconds to actually respond to every command. I do have a Raspberry pi around somewhere. Maybe I'll try that.
How are you installing it? Are you somehow using a Windows version or something?
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LTS for Ubuntu are every two years; April of the even years. Next LTS will be 26.04, then 28.04 etc.
Sweet. That's more often than I realized. Thank you.
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How are you installing it? Are you somehow using a Windows version or something?
I've installed it via Flatpak and using the appimage, both were the same. I also tried the appimage on my windows desktop and had the exact same performance.
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Today, I switched the last of my Windows machines to Linux: my gaming PC. I've been using Linux on servers for many years but was a bit apprehensive for gaming.
Turns out it just... works. Just installed steam and turned proton on, have zero performance or other issues. I'm using Ubuntu 25.04 for the 6.14 kernels NT emulation performance tweaks. Aside from there not being a catalyst driver for it and so I can't undervolt my card everything is great.
What games are you playing and what hardware are you running?
Linux has come a long way regarding the ability to easily play games made to run on Windows. It’s never been so easy and well performing. However, in my experience, it’s not quite “just works” yet. Yes, some Windows games will “just work,” but for now that’s still the exception to the rule in my experience.
I use Arch btw, with a i9-9900 and an Nvidia RTX 2070. I still have to tweak settings, research what others are tweaking, I have a few hours of research and tinkering invested into stopping up close jitters in VR(still unresolved), my graphic settings have to be lower than normal for decent performance and I do not enjoy the same frames I’ve enjoyed on Windows with this same machine.
I could probably get some better performance squeezed out of these games, but it’s going to cost me time and tinkering.
tl;dr
I don’t think we’re in “just works” territory yet, but we’re getting closer and the progress over the recent years has been amazing. I can’t wait to be rid of Windows forever. -
You made the right call, for your situation.
They're just letting you know that you will want to apply each annual upgrade when they come out, to ensure your system stays secure.
This may contrast with any Ubuntu-running friends you may have, who may not be applying updates annually.
Once you've upgraded to
28 (in ~ 2028)26.04, you can safely skip the next four years of upgrades, if you feel like it, because28it will(probably)be the next Long Term Support (LTS) release.TIL that Ubuntu release denotes the year and month. I thought it was just quirky versioning..
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Sure, lossy compression is lossy, but that wasn't my point. My point was that data corruption in information-dense formats is more critical than in low-density formats.
To take your example of the vacation photos: If you have a 100 megapixel HDR photo and you lose 100 bytes of data, you will lose a few pixels and you won't even notice the change unless you zoom in quite far.
Compress these pictures down to fit on the floppy from your example (that would be ~73kb per photo), then losing 100 bytes of data will now be very noticeable in the picture, since you just lost ~0.1% of the whole data. Not taking the specifics of compression algorithms into account, you just lost 1 in every 1000 pixels, which is a lot.
High resolution low information density formats allow for quite a lot of damage before it becomes critical.
High information density formats on the other hand are quite vulnerable to critical data loss.
To show what I mean, take this image:
I saved it as BMP and then ran a script over it that replaces 1% of all bytes with a random byte. This is the result:
(I had to convert the result back to jpg to be able to upload it here.)
So even with a total of 99865 bytes replaced with random values, the image of an apple is clearly visible. There are a few small noise spots here and there, but the overall picture is still fine and if you print it as a photo, it's likely that these spots won't even be visible.
As a comparison, I now saved the original image as JPEG and also corrupted 1% of all bytes the same way. This here's the result. Gimp and many other file viewers can't open the file at all any more. Chrome can open it, and it looks like this:
The same happens with audio CDs. Audio CDs use uncompressed "direct" data, just like BMP. Data corruption only affects the data at the point of the corruption. That means, if one bit is unreadable, you probably won't be able to notice at all, and even if 1% of all data on the CD is corrupt, you will likely only notice a slightly elevated noise level, even though 1% data loss is an enormous amount.
If you instead use compressed formats (even FLAC) or if it's actual data and not media, a single illegible bit might destroy the whole file, because each bit of data depends on the information earlier in the file, so if one bit is corrupted, everything after that bit might become unreadable.
That's why your audio CD is still legible far beyond its expiry date, but a CD-R containing your backup data might not.
Again, these data retention time spans don't mean that after that time all data on the device disappears at once, but that until that time every single bit of data on your device is preserved. After that you might start to experience data loss, usually in the form of single bits or bytes failing.
Edit: Just for fun, this is what the BMP looks like with 95% corruption:
Even with this massive amount of damage, the image is still recognizable.
Edit 2: Due to a mistake in the script, this image is actually 61.3% corrupted, not 95%, but that's still a massive amount of corruption and the image is still clearly recognizable.
I am not OP, but thanks a lot for a great educational post! Incredible how you can lose 95% of pixels from BMP and it still somewhat works.
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My only hangup is installing repacks or modding games. It for sure works, but it's a bigger headache. I use mint on my daily driver laptop otherwise.
Iv always just run the modding software in the same wine/proton instance as the game and it just works like on windows.
Other then wabbajack for Bethesda games because the devs behind that are fucking asshats who break their shit on purpose if you try to use it outside how they want you to use it.
It's always been very easy to mod.
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Sure, lossy compression is lossy, but that wasn't my point. My point was that data corruption in information-dense formats is more critical than in low-density formats.
To take your example of the vacation photos: If you have a 100 megapixel HDR photo and you lose 100 bytes of data, you will lose a few pixels and you won't even notice the change unless you zoom in quite far.
Compress these pictures down to fit on the floppy from your example (that would be ~73kb per photo), then losing 100 bytes of data will now be very noticeable in the picture, since you just lost ~0.1% of the whole data. Not taking the specifics of compression algorithms into account, you just lost 1 in every 1000 pixels, which is a lot.
High resolution low information density formats allow for quite a lot of damage before it becomes critical.
High information density formats on the other hand are quite vulnerable to critical data loss.
To show what I mean, take this image:
I saved it as BMP and then ran a script over it that replaces 1% of all bytes with a random byte. This is the result:
(I had to convert the result back to jpg to be able to upload it here.)
So even with a total of 99865 bytes replaced with random values, the image of an apple is clearly visible. There are a few small noise spots here and there, but the overall picture is still fine and if you print it as a photo, it's likely that these spots won't even be visible.
As a comparison, I now saved the original image as JPEG and also corrupted 1% of all bytes the same way. This here's the result. Gimp and many other file viewers can't open the file at all any more. Chrome can open it, and it looks like this:
The same happens with audio CDs. Audio CDs use uncompressed "direct" data, just like BMP. Data corruption only affects the data at the point of the corruption. That means, if one bit is unreadable, you probably won't be able to notice at all, and even if 1% of all data on the CD is corrupt, you will likely only notice a slightly elevated noise level, even though 1% data loss is an enormous amount.
If you instead use compressed formats (even FLAC) or if it's actual data and not media, a single illegible bit might destroy the whole file, because each bit of data depends on the information earlier in the file, so if one bit is corrupted, everything after that bit might become unreadable.
That's why your audio CD is still legible far beyond its expiry date, but a CD-R containing your backup data might not.
Again, these data retention time spans don't mean that after that time all data on the device disappears at once, but that until that time every single bit of data on your device is preserved. After that you might start to experience data loss, usually in the form of single bits or bytes failing.
Edit: Just for fun, this is what the BMP looks like with 95% corruption:
Even with this massive amount of damage, the image is still recognizable.
Edit 2: Due to a mistake in the script, this image is actually 61.3% corrupted, not 95%, but that's still a massive amount of corruption and the image is still clearly recognizable.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Fair enough, I misunderstood your argument. I appreciate your demonstration. Any chance you'd be willing to share your script? I have a few ideas on how to play with it.
Edit: I forgot, I actually had a HDD fail on me, luckily I was able to recover some of the data. Many .flac files on it were completely corrupted and unreadable past a certain point. The .aiff files I had were perfectly readable. I suspect they were at least partially corrupted. Luckily, I was able to re download all of the affected files. So, no data was actually lost.
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Today, I switched the last of my Windows machines to Linux: my gaming PC. I've been using Linux on servers for many years but was a bit apprehensive for gaming.
Turns out it just... works. Just installed steam and turned proton on, have zero performance or other issues. I'm using Ubuntu 25.04 for the 6.14 kernels NT emulation performance tweaks. Aside from there not being a catalyst driver for it and so I can't undervolt my card everything is great.
It pleases me to read these things. I worked for M$ and coupled with more intense reasons I left Win/OSX about 10 years ago, and have never looked back. Carry the flame.
