Hello I’m Doctor_Rex I’m the OP of this post:
My Windows 10 install broke, but I’m hesitant to switch to Linux.
I’d like to start by thanking everybody who responded to my questions. Your answers have helped a lot when it came to my worries on switching to Linux.
I’ve taken in a lot of your recommendations: Fedora, Fedora Kinoite, Nobara, Bazzite Linux, VanillaOS,
I’ve decided on Fedora Kinoite, as it has everything I want from a distro.
It was very kind of you all to answer my questions but after making that post and reading your answers new questions propped up.
These questions are a little more opinionated than the last ones, and a little better thought out, but please take some time to answer them.
Questions:
- Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card.
Are there any real noticeable advantages/improvements to using Wayland over Xorg.
- Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?
Does bloat actually have a noticeable negative impact on your system or are people just over reacting/joking.
- What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?
Any habits or standards that I should abide by in order to save myself headaches in the future?
- Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?
Self explanatory.
- What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?
I’m not referring to some skill but instead something pertaining to Linux itself. Feel free to skip this question.
I’ll be going to sleep soon, so apologies if I don’t reply but please take a moment answer any questions you think you can.
Thank You!
Edit: AUR = Arch Wiki. Fixed a typo
Windows has a filesystem hierarchy. It’s super similar to the *nix filesystem hierarchy because that’s what Microsoft mimicked with nominal differences.
/home/username is the same as \users\username
/bin is similarly what \windows is.
/sbin is \ProgramFiles
/etc is your windows registry. Only you can easily edit it with nearly anything. And it’s generally hyper documented. Unlike the windows registry.
Gnome and KDE both provide fairly polished GUI for 80% or more of what an average user is likely to need to encounter. There is generally no need to sideload. In fact, the concept doesn’t really exist. You are the system admin. You are root. There is no one to circumvent on your system but yourself. 90% of the software you could ever want will be within a distros repository. But these days you can download app images, flat packs, etc. That allow programs to be run on multiple different systems as long as they’re binary compatible. Because those containers pull along all dependencies needed to run said applications. But even then depending upon the app etc you can still pull from other distribution, repositories etc sometimes . Under Arch. I have had things installed from the aur that turned out to be Deb files that it downloaded extracted and then dropped the files in the right place. However, that can only be done when required libraries are met. If the versions differ by too much. Which can easily happen between different versions of the same distribution, let alone other distributions. That won’t work. It’s like the missing dll files under Windows.
The Wayland xorg issues. If you need “just works” that’s going to still be Xorg for a while to come. Though many distributions are moving to Wayland being a first class choice since it has come far enough. I have only had Wayland issues with two programs ATM. And only one of those is common, and the issue mostly cosmetic. Window decorations missing on Firefox. And that may be down to my chosen window decorations. The other is an obscure 3d game primarily made for Windows since 2004. That does have a Linux version. But under Wayland currently it goes seizure mode.
Linux already has mass adoption. (Servers) Desktop adoption is only a hurdle because of monopolistic anti competitive practices from Microsoft and Apple. A lot of that specifically due to momentum from Microsoft. They actively punished integrators that attempted to ship any OS but windows. And it’s largely stuck around that way. A lot of the first party SI that still exists offer zero non windows solutions to home users to this day because of it. There are SI that do provide it. But they are often rather niche and fairly unknown. System 76 being one of them. It’s very little to do with command line etc. Only when system integrators all start offering it as a general choice will the home user see much change.