Im on a very weird journey right now.^^ I started using Linux on my second drive ~ a month ago. Had some fun theming, reading docs from arch wiki and fixing my little bugs here and there. Figured to play my games, everything was working. Pretty happy and knowing to have Windows on the back of my hand was good.
So few days ago something doesnt work on my Linux install and i nuked every drive, every partition etc. and jumped back to windows, cause I thought “you dont need the trouble, after your workday, you just want to play a game and go to bed. just be like everyone else.”
What should say? I have the urge to just tinker on my Linux, be happy to play a game on Linux and say “Hey, I use Arch (btw)”
Last time I had so much fun was early android days and tinkering with different roms in the good old XDA-Forum days. Right now I’m like “You know what, f**k all of that, stay on windows and enjoy games” or “Nuke everything and only install Linux on your main drive and enjoy yourself” ^^
I dont even know why I asking for your opinion. Guess some of you were on a similar boat back then and you can help me how you decided and why
It takes time to get used to - I also had a period of going back and forth between Windows and Linux after getting frustrated that something didn’t work quite the way I wanted it to and not feeling like putting in the effort to fix it. Ultimately, you have to want to make the switch and accept that it’s going to come with teething trouble - it’s almost certain that the first time you ever used Windows you didn’t know anything about that either, it’s just that you also had no option to fall back on something else because it was the only game in town for the vast majority of people so you knuckled down and learned your OS.
I’ve dabbled on and off over the years and bumped into the “screw this, this just worked out of the box on Windows” wall countless times, but now I’m coming up on about 6 months of having ditched Windows entirely and I’ve learned plenty along the way after making myself push through things rather than falling back on the OS I already know inside-out, and I’m absolutely confident I’ll never be going back - and as a bonus I’m getting to be pretty handy around a Linux system - despite being a neophyte I’ve contributed helpfully to the community here with a few solutions, which is something I’ve always genuinely enjoyed doing.
The straws that finally broke the camel’s back for me - Windows Recall and Copilot AI. The privacy and security implications of both concepts are an absolute, ‘no effing way in hell do I want that anywhere near the devices I use’ deal-breaker for me. As a great man once said:
There are still some concessions for people depending on what they need to use their computers for - what you may need from your computer and what you may be willing to put up with to achieve it are almost certainly going to differ from anybody else, so ultimately only you can make an informed decision about what you want to run on your machine.
I also always offer the caveat that Linux is not for everyone - for some specific purposes (certain games, certain applications) there simply is no alternative to having to use Windows if you absolutely must play those games and use those applications. And alongside that, nobody else has the right to tell you that you should just abandon those games and applications and make the move to Linux anyway - it’s your choice.
Same. I could never use Windows again. It’s been more than a decade for me. I only have to deal with Windows 11 at work. And I HATE it. But, as you say… Whatever work for YOU, whatever feels right for YOU is all that matters.
Another suggestion if its the tinkering you enjoy about linux, run it through a VM inside windows. You can change whatever you like then and not risk anything actually breaking on you. Good to see you gave it another go though.
FWIW, I’ve found Windows 11 updates have been particularly troublesome (even compared to previous versions) for the amount of times they mess with the ability to dual boot. I agree with Smokey that trying Linux in a virtual machine can be a good way to dip your toes in.
Yeah it’s to much issues with dual boot(windows randomly F’s it up).
so it’s best to go full in on Linux(EndeavourOS of curse) and if you run into problems and don’t know how to fix?
post on this forum and somebody will help you!
And if you get a relapse and want to go back to Windows think: NO EndeavourOS! NO EndeavourOS! NO EndeavourOS! Tere is only EndeavourOS!
One thing I would suggest is setting up two EFI partitions – one specifically for Windows and another for Penguin.
Yeah, I know that adds complexity to the setup etc., but I’ve been practicing it for two years on several laptops and never found myself in trouble because of that.
I’d suggest, if you can afford to, is having multiple machines. That is the path I took. These are all relatively inexpensive machines (laptops and desktops), like one right around $225 (15.6" FHD, a 6W Intel N5030, 4GB Ram). Keep you Windows machine (I have one). Have an EOS machine (I now have a couple). And have a distro hopping machine. Quite frankly, part of the fun is GParting and starting over from scratch.
This is what I am planning on doing on Wednesday (around $200 and it comes with a 1 year warranty ex-government/office) as I need Windows for a few programs at the moment (they just don’t work correctly through WINE at all). After I’ve finished using it I’m then going to use it as a machine I can mess around on.
