Yeah exactly. Although it’s also totally understandable that OP is unhappy with their decision. At the end of the day any reasonably large workplace just wants all their IT to be as manageable as possible, which means as uniform as possible in hardware and OS. But using windows for many jobs just kinda sucks.
I used to feel the same. At some point I put some time into setting up KDE how I wanted it and then I just kinda kept using it. Still use it today. I do find the editing tools of the toolbars etc to be extremely chaotic. But once that’s in place it’s actually nicer than Gnome imo
I did so at the start of 2025. It was meant mostly as an experiment, to see what I needed before switching permanently. But I kinda just kept going. I think I’ve booted windows like 2 or 3 times across the year to get something off of it or to run test something that didn’t work on Linux. I’m kinda considering to just wipe it, or wipe it and install it on a separate partition so it can’t mess with shit anymore. Maybe put it on an old disk in my spare parts PC (if that is possible with the TPM bullshit) to isolate it further.
Honestly, not at all. If CS paid like shit I’d still do it. Out of all the things it’s just what I enjoy most. Studying CS didn’t feel like something I had to do but rather something I wanted to do most of the time. Programming is like solving puzzles but then much cooler
Aren’t CRT monitors actually quite nice for pixel art games? Maybe the dad just really likes his old games
Because windows has become spyware and enough shit works to be worth the hassle. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a constant struggle. I have many hobbies, and for some of them it’s really annoying to be on Linux. Programming is awesome on Linux, gaming is for the most part fine, music production gets a lot more iffy and some of the photography stuff isn’t really cooperating. But I’ll just have to endure it, I’m almost one year in and for the most part everything works in some way or another. I only start Windows once in a few months now.
Lol no. I’ve been using Linux for 10 years and it’s been a continuous dumpster fire. Constant issues l, especially with Nvidia, across many different machines. Issues with wine, no X11 (or Wayland) after updates, games not starting, etc, etc. Across Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch (and derivatives).
Yet I almost exclusively use Linux nowadays. Why? Because it’s a dumpster fire I can influence. Windows is going to shit, they were taking my PC hostage, installing spyware, ads, forcing updated without my consent. On Linux I have to invest hours to fix shit, on Windows I can get fucked whenever something happens that I don’t want.
With proton advancing, Wayland working somewhat usable even with Nvidia,my threshold was passed. I’d rather fix the fixable Linux issues that cost me time than deal with Windows any longer. But for the layman I’m not sure I’d recommend it. I’m a computer scientist. I can fixodt issues, it’s just a question of time and energy. But that doesn’t go for everyone.
Even people who’ve been at it for years. I am skeptical of the AI hype bubble as much as anyone here, but it’s been very useful for fixing things in Linux. Just in the past years it helped me (among others):
I’ve been using Linux with Nvidia for 10 years and it’s been a constant dumpster fire. The Nvidia driver constantly caused issues over these 10 years, especially during updates. Currently I’m having the issue that the entirety of Wayland, including all open programs, crash when I run out of VRAM because the Linux Nvidia drivers cannot fall back on RAM when running out of VRAM. It’s making my gaming experience very frustrating.
I haven’t tried them, so I cannot judge, but I’m just afraid I’ll run into issues when I will have to go off the beaten path. Inevitably I’ll have to do something hacky in order to fix some obscure software that the maintainers of the distro didn’t think of, and that’s currently already a big pain. But in such a strict setting it will be even more difficult. There will be no documentation and probably no guide or questions/answers on any forum either.
I’d be willing to try it for a productivity setup if I needed a reinstall, but not for my main PC because I just rely on too many hacks to get shit working.
The “Forgetting How Your Own Code Works” is real. I’ve looked at code, thought to myself “what fcking idiot wrote this garbage”, only to see my own name next to it. It’s a very humbling experience
I was just about to post the same thing. I’ve been using Linux for almost 10 years. I never really understood the folder layout anyway into this detail. My reasoning always was that /lib was more system-wide and /usr/lib was for stuff installed for me only. That never made sense though, since there is only one /usr and not one for every user. But I never really thought further, I just let it be.
Sometimes I look at the memes around here and wonder wtf y’all are doing. Like, neither my code nor the code at the place I work at are perfect. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a merge do this. Maybe some of the most diverged merges temporarily had a lot of errors because of some refactoring, but then it was just a few find + replaces away from being fixed again. But those were merges where multiple teams had been working on both the original and the fork for years and even then it was usually pretty okay.
I’m on Arch (actually a converted Antergos) and I have an NVIDIA card as well. My first attempt a few months ago was horrible, bricking my system and requiring a bootable USB an a whole evening to get Linux working again.
My second attempt was recently, and went a lot better. X11 no longer seems to work, so I’m kinda stuck with it, but it feels snappy as long as my second monitor is disconnected. I’ve yet to try some gaming. My main monitor is a VRR 144Hz panel with garbage-tier HDR. The HDR worked out of the box on KDE Plasma, with the same shitty quality as on Windows, so I immediately turned it off again. When my second monitor is connected I get terrible hitching. Every second or so the screen just freezes for hundreds of milliseconds. Something about it (1280x1024, 75Hz, DVI) must not make Wayland happy. No settings seem to change anything, only physically disconnecting the monitor seems to work.
I bought a ThinkPad new in 2014 for my study for like 1200 euro’s. She’s still happily purring today. Around 2019 I made the mistake of emptying a cup of tea into the ThinkPad accidentally and then holding it upside down to get the water out. I think I should’ve just let it leak out of the bottom since the laptop has holes for that, but I panicked. This broke the keyboard, but not the rest of the laptop. I got an official new keyboard for like 100 euro’s which came with a tool and the simple instructions, and since then everything has been working flawlessly.
So I recommend ThinkPads, although I can’t really say anything about compatibility of new models
True. Guess I misread. I’ve already switched to 36 hours and I totally aim to go lower once I earn more. Work to live, not live to work
Disagree. I used to spend time on more energy-intensive hobbies like programming and music production. But I’ve had mono and COVID in 2020 and I’ve never felt the same thereafter. Also working 40 hours a week drains a lot of energy
Yeah sports were my first attempt to solve it. I’m running twice a week usually and have done a few half marathons now. It’s helped a bit, but my energy is still not amazing. It’s probably related to having issues with mono and COVID in 2020, I’ve never been the same since then. Working 40 hours per week didn’t help either.
Because an average user would do that. Hell, I use Linux full-time and I didn’t know that PopOS in a huge transition. A user wants a gaming-focused distro an picks one. It should just work if we want all those Windows users to transition. He can’t do it right either, there will always be someone complaining about his choice. People here seem to think they’re an average user, when they’re really way above average in terms of technical knowledge. Even if Linus should maybe know better, it’s better that he does some dumb stuff because that’s what many people would do.