Linux on the desktop in 2024

[@oreonproject]

Welcome to Linux! You've made a great decision of trying Linux and that just shows that you care about not only yourself, but open source technologies too. In other words, great video!

[@MichaelCrilly]

Thank you! Well said! Open source software is truly amazing. I owe a lot to open source software !!

[@mark8200]

Thanky you clipy for linux

[@Sonic6293]

I just switched back to Arch on my main rig about three weeks ago. I go back and forth on Linux, but the changes Microsoft wants to implement rub me the wrong way.

[@MegaManNeo]

Linux for casual desktop use is fine for long, despite what _everyone_ says. Valve is the company that pushes desktop Linux currently the most, so as a gaming person, I quite happy.

[@demanuDJ]

I'm also DevOps Engineer and I love gaming after hours and only daily driver is OpenSuse Tumbleweed. I cannot imagine swiching to any other OS than Linux

[@MichaelCrilly]

Glad to hear it! Seems like a popular opinion.

[@demanuDJ]

@@MichaelCrilly For us DevOps Engineers its the best choice, its WAAAAY much easier workflow than on Windows, native and easy integration with almost everything

[@MichaelCrilly]

Absolutely. It makes everything so easy.

[@KM-sv4dh]

Welcone abroad, man. i wish you an enjoyable linux journey

[@JohnCastleSmokeless]

For me, the push away from Windows has to do with Microsoft turning their telemetry schemes into dependencies. For example, I just discovered that terminating the "MSEdge WebView2" process now disables some of the keys on my keyboard (chiefly F5, which I use to refresh web pages and Windows Explorer windows). Then it comes out that the Recall "Feature" is also a dependency which, if you disable it, breaks Windows Explorer even harder. Then realize that _only Windows_ has WebView2 as a dependency; Microsoft is baking their spyware into the OS -- so, nope. No more Windows.

[@YouHaveTrouble]

Almost 3 years microsoft free here! Never looked back since. Now if there are issues, they're usually caused by me, and even if I mess up bad, there's always googlable error instead of random numbers to look up that all end up on the same resolution of "just reinstall lol".

[@Toutvids]

You and I have very similar systems. Same GPU but I have a 5900X CPU. I've used Kubuntu a lot and it was my go to for a long time. But lately I am on Nobara because I game a lot and it has a bunch of settings preconfigured the way I like it. Star Citizen, for example works flawless on this system. Nobara is more bleeding edge than Ubuntu variants are. Once Windows 10 goes EOL I will be Linux full time again. I too have been using Linux off and off since the old Mandrake Linux days. If I could go back to Windows XP, I would. Those were the peak Windows days for me.

[@monkeysausageclub]

The anti cheat thing is just so annoying. I still have a windows install because of that one game I love to play online uses anti cheat. I've even managed to get my favourite apps (affinity suite) working on my Mint system.

[@BarnOwl-dx8vg]

All those anti cheats and the all games are still full of people cheating.

[@pmcomputing2459]

Ive been using plasma for a VERY LONG time, huge fan. Im gaming on an RTX 4080 and OpenSuse is my primary daily driver gaming OS with WIndows11 as a backup for the few mods and games that don't work on Linux. Very happy with the current state on linux, its come a VERY long way, I have a Valve Index and I play a LOT of VR, steamVR used to be sketchy on LInux, some apps would work, others not, now most of my VR games are playable on Linux and that includes the high end ones like Hubris and Halflife Alyx.. I also play Star citizen on Linux and it just works.

[@bitterseeds]

People say Arch is hard. I stayed away from it for years .. until about 9 months ago. I took the plunge and I guess it's having used Linux since the mid-90s and being an SRE ... I honestly found it easy and it's been very performant. I just got things the way I wanted them and committed the files to git. I don't tweak things, compile kernels weekly or all the other things folks who've run Linux for a week as a challenge seem to think is required. I don't evangelize Linux ... too old and lazy AF to do that. BUT neither will I take the ramblings of folks as gospel. Is Linux good for the masses? Maybe. I think once Nvidia gets their sh** together and makes things as easy as AMD does, it's probably. I know that KDE 6.x is absolutely ready.

[@MichaelCrilly]

Thanks for sharing mate. I agree totally. I’ve yet to try Arch.

[@jmacdono]

I have an Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card, and in Windows, I always had to download drivers and install them manually for the card to be even recognized by Windows. And this has been from Windows 7 until now. But there is a known issue with the drivers for this Xonar card that occasionally, playing a streaming video file will result in a horrible screeching sound that can definitely damage your ears (if you're wearing headphones), and / or your speakers. It is so loud and unsettling, and I've been reading different message boards for years to find someone who has resolved the issue. No one has yet. And the issue also exists with Asus' new Xonar Essence STX II card. Keep in mind, these are $200+ audio cards. And are very good!! Meanwhile, in EVERY Linux distro I have run, it always has the drivers for this card, and that horrible screeching issue does not exist at all ever. Guess which OS I am using?

[@vdrand9893]

I use Kubuntu or Ubuntu mate for HTCP. Linux Mint for gaming and production

[@skorne7682]

Its not quite so smooth on Nvidia, Kubuntu is not the ideal choice because you'll be better off with KDE 6.1 or later and need to install nvidia drivers more up to date than the Ubuntu ones. At least if you want to use Wayland. A Fedora or Arch based distro works better in this case.

[@bhargavjitbhuyan9394]

Kubuntu 24.10 uses kde plasma 6.1.5.

[@CommanderBeefDev]

try this one, built arch from scratch and went through kde, xfce and now gnome before ff16 updated and fixed its broken cutscenes lmao, 35th time was the charm just use proton experimental nothing else works

[@TheLotw]

If you dont need anything special OBS is overkill and not the greatest. GPU Screen Recorder works great and with any GPU and gives you hardware recording.

[@MichaelCrilly]

OBS has been my tool for years. I’ll try your suggestions though thanks!!

[@karlp2277]

I've been using Linux exclusively for a bit over a year now and before that I used it on the side a bit for about another year. It's been a great experience. But I went into it wanting to learn something new so I have no idea how it would have went without that. On the other hand moving back to Windows would be harder for me now than moving to Linux was.

[@MichaelCrilly]

Sounds like my experience to be honest. I totally agree that going back would be harder.

[@LinuxAficionado]

My favorite distribution and desktop is LMDE - Cinnamon is wonderful. Zorin too is fantastic. I really like Kubuntu and Tuxedo OS for Plasma. Tuxedo is unique in that it is similar to Mint. Stable base of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with the latest Plasma desktop but way more reliable than KDE Neon. Also, Flatpaks are pre installed and Snaps removed but available. I may go back to Tuxedo. Good video!

[@MichaelCrilly]

Thank you

[@tohur]

Only Ai I want on my desktop is Ai I CONTROL. I like AI but run my own as mainly use it for Home assistant, as I am NOT allowing these megacorps to train their models off my data directly. been on Linux daily without windows for a year

[@MichaelCrilly]

Well said! Local LLMs or No LLMs I say.

[@tohur]

@@MichaelCrilly Yep!

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Played with Linux since 95, full blown Linux exclusive user since 2009! Ditched Windows, and all of Microsoft including my hotmail account that was not owned by Microsoft when I got it in 95, most of google and others too, and have been happy as a bug in a rug with Arch Linux with the KDE Plasma DE! Now I am not a gamer and therefor have nothing to say about that, other than that some of the graphics processing innovation stemming from it has helped other apps too I do use.

[@MichaelCrilly]

Nice one!! You’ve got it made :-)

[@MichaelCrilly]

You might even like FreeBSD with KDE if you’re not a gamer.

[@jjcoolaus]

The only thing I can’t find a good solution for is electronically signing PDFs. How do others handle this?

[@MichaelCrilly]

Good question. I think I’d use an online (saas) service if I couldn’t find anything locally.

[@michadybczak4862]

I've been using Linux since 10 years now. I use Windows only on work computers where company's apps require Windows to run. Managing files is so much better on Linux, so now, I do the necessary work in Windows and then switch to my personal, Linux laptop to do the file management work. Doing the same on Windows would be tedious, some things even impossible. The things I miss is the access to installed MS Office, as online version is too primitive. Libre Office is fine and does the job but it's not as advanced as MS Office.

[@MichaelCrilly]

I do that too. I’ll write code on Linux then commit it to GitHub/Lab, and then pull it down on Windows to do whatever is needed over there.

[@petersilva037]

MS Office won't read old (< 2007) office documents (work policy... don't recall the reasoninng.) Every time I need to read an old document, I fire up LO on WSL, and then write it out in a modern office format... so in some respects... LO is better than MS Office

[@michadybczak4862]

@@petersilva037 Didn't know. I realized, my master degree work was done in MS Office XP, so it's time to dust up the old CDs, download those documents, try to open them and save in more modern format. Although, it is possible, there is also PDF version, so hopefully this one didn't get obsolete.

[@lpj55]

@@petersilva037 Might the MS Office 2007 Compatability Pack be of use here? My preferred version of MS Office is 2003 and installing the CP lets me open and save the more up to date Office formatted docs.

[@petersilva037]

@@lpj55 sounds reasonable. I don't have encyclopedic knowledge on the topic. At work windows is locked down, so don't have the option to install anything, whereas am authorised to install what I need on linux. so LO is easy, and the other is subject to corporate policy and requests and justificiations and corporate visions.

[@matthewevangelista7139]

I wish more control engineers would point out the elephant for us and that is there is almost no compatibility for our software on Linux. I typically run Unitronics VisiLogic, UniLogic and U90 Series IDE. Now I have been playing with Arduino's PLC IDE. None of these have worked for me on Linux. All my C++ programming I do on my Linux machine but unfortunately at this time I am bound to Microsoft for the foreseeable future. I truly wish someone could either find a way to run these programs or someone had a compatibility layer that would work. I know many engineers who would fully transition in an instant if it wasn't for this. The gaming community is starting to get aid on their transition to Linux with the help of Steam and Proton compatibility layer. We industrial automation guys need to start voicing this more and perhaps we may start being heard. If any Linux Gurus out there can make the mentioned programs work, please please please let me know!

[@johanb.7869]

Already made the switch in 2017 and never used it again. MX Linux Xfce.

[@NewmanOnGaming]

I’ve also found Kubuntu 24.04.1 to be most helpful as a daily driver and for gaming. So much so I set up a separate Steambox strictly on Kubuntu with big picture.

[@bryanbarawed5651]

My personal computer is a linux and my work computer is a windows. I use both. I love linux for its simplicity. I love windows for the games.

[@bhargavjitbhuyan9394]

Kubuntu, good choice. Simple and easy. (Why are you using the lts edition? It is better to use the latest stable version.) As of now, ubuntu 24.10.

[@esra_erimez]

Watching on KDE Neon Linux

[@Cyco_Nix]

You got my thumbs up as soon as you said, "Windows can just suck my 🐧". Seriously, though, solid video.

[@drtechno-v3e]

Most of my computers since 1997 have been Linux boxes. Only cheap "win hardware" that is built for windows, which most of it out-date itself when Windows goes to the next version have issues. Kubuntu is not bad at all and the other flavors of Ubuntu I tested (I like Xubuntu on my old machines as it makes my 20+ year computers useful for things). Vavaldi is a bad port of Chrome and has lots of bugs their devs have not patched. Ubuntu distros have the most advanced upgrade system and software as well as hardware handling. The only thing you should get rid of because its Microsoft's quiet contribution to the Linux Eco-system is Zeitgeist.

[@MichaelCrilly]

I love Linux’s ability to breath new life into old hardware AND keep it going for years and years.

[@Aoitori365]

yeah kde + ubuntu is great people rag on uibuntu a lot but stuff works well and is stable more often than not

[@MichaelCrilly]

That’s what I find too: it’s very stable.

[@bobpeters61]

Compare what gnome disk manager (Better known simply as "Disks.") can do with what that pitiful similar-looking thing in Windows can do. The one included in most Linux distros and in the main software repositories of the others, such as Arch, wins that comparison hands down. For example, that Windows toy can't even restore a flash drive from an iso image. To switch to Linux from only having Windows machines, you have to find and install some third-party app to the system you're about to wipe to do the job. Disks in Linux not only does that, but it'll let you format the free space left over so you can save some cute file stored on that Windows system and store it back in your new home folder when you're done.

[@sale666]

Well when you launch a game takes 10 minutes for shaders… on win it launches instantly.. also does not need a bunch of workarounds for it to MAYBE work. I run linux servers and they are great but gaming is not a string point for linux its bad really bad

[@MichaelCrilly]

Fair points mate. I’ve noticed the shader thing too, but it doesn’t bother me too much. Not sure about other workarounds though - I just launch via Steam and Proton takes over.

[@sale666]

@@MichaelCrilly i have not had much luck well mostly because i have an nvidia card so this is one more point for desktops you need to cherry pick hardware it doest “just work” theres always a chance something will go wrong and with nvidia its well a miss for now however i head they will be upgrading drivers for wayland to work well.. Maybe for me its just annoying at this point that i have to thinker with drivers, proton, bottles etc etc and loose hours for a specific game to work instead i just double click and play thats it. On the other note the telemetry is crazy and I agree with you thats why i use linux desktop for privacy realted stuff and thats only debian for me as ubuntu is microsoft 2.0 now with canonical. Dual booting is the way for me for now. I winder if macos is any different

[@MichaelCrilly]

I guess I’m saying it just worked for me, with my combination of hardware. You certainly need to check your hardware is supported.

[@KM-sv4dh]

You can disable shader compilation, with recent GPU that won't make much of a difference anyway.

[@MichaelCrilly]

@KM-sv4dh that’s good to know

[@jjcoolaus]

You can do anything in the GUI in Linux, 90%+ of games are supported by steam/proton and anything else is a myth. Office 365 and Azure desktops can be used in a browser, Teams/VS Code/Edge are all natively supported and Adobe? Don’t give those scammers any more money use an alternative

[@LINUXBANDIT]

SHOW US YOUR FETCH!

[@MichaelCrilly]

🤨🤨🤨

[@Tinfoiltomcat]

​@MichaelCrilly neofetch(or fastfetch)

[@MichaelCrilly]

@Tinfoiltomcat it’s in there - you just have to pause and zoom 😜

[@LINUXBANDIT]

@@Tinfoiltomcat I know in my case I do a neofetch/synth shell hybrid fetch.

[@silvy7394]

Still cant take linux users seriously when they complain about spyware and all this crap that isnt real or you can disable at setup, then pickup their android or iPhone that tracks literally everything and are ok with that.

[@MichaelCrilly]

Who said we’re OK with it? We’re not OK with it, we simply minimise it as best as we can on a device we’re sort of forced by society to have.

[@silvy7394]

@@MichaelCrilly Wrong. Plenty of alternative OS's on mobile that will work. Linux users are the biggest hypocritical crybaby's to exist. Think because they can type commands into a command line they're a genius despite 80% of what's coming out of their mouth is crap.

[@GamerEnLinux]

welcome back to linux ?

[@MichaelCrilly]

Thanks?

[@alternatuber6698]

Why not?

[@MichaelCrilly]

What?

[@OzWannabe]

For many people, Linux is ready for the desktop since two decades already

[@HaukeLaging]

With the meaning on "many" changing a lot over time. Thus a not so useful statement...

[@OzWannabe]

@@HaukeLaging OK

[@switchedtowindows]

Linux is not unix.

[@AI.Musixia]

who wants not a AI on pc? so linux is nice you can put in it an AI and it runs really good and not so unsafe like wincrap11 REC all 🤣 easy stuff at linux command depends on terminal but: "update" or "sudo update" vs. winget update all WINNER IS LINUX! it just workes! at windows aka shell how was the name ehm... power shell or something idk anymore... it workes not really at all so its trash...

[@pandoranbias1622]

Linux on desktop is not there for the average "layman". Ubuntu is the closest, but Linux is still held back by the terminal. If you have to go into the terminal to do literally anything at all for any reason, the average person is just going to give up. They're not going to learn, they're going to go back to Windows.

[@MichaelCrilly]

Actually that would be an interesting experiment: can you use Linux as an average person in 2024 without using the terminal.” I think the answer is yes.

[@petersilva037]

So you never use powershell on windows? You Never drop into command line shells for anything? I find myself running ipconfig /all in powershell (now that it's the default.) when on weird networks, or diagnosing things... It's way harder to get good information about network configs from the gui (ten different dialogs instead of one command.) so for me... Windows fails your test.

[@mahiabir6348]

IMO problem is comparing windows with linux. Linux and windows are different they don't have to be the same. The only drawback of linux is software availability which isn't even Linuxs fault for the most part

[@petersilva037]

@@mahiabir6348 if you go into any domain other than desktop ... it's the reverse... everything is made for linux, and everything else is devoid of software. For example... whenever you're using docker (or anything else with containers...) you're using linux software... often badly or incompletely ported to windows. Most development tooling and libraries are open source, and open source targets linux first. If you're doing development, the platform with little software is Windows... It's just the blingy desktopish end-usery stuff that is Windows... While I get the "there is no software" thing... it's also peculiarly desktop domain specific.

[@EugeniaLoli]

Not true. Both Windows and MacOS have terminals, and power users use them. On modern Linux you don't need to use the terminal if you don't want to.

[@billytk1225]

Wow conceded much! sheesh

[@MichaelCrilly]

Huh? To what do you feel I’m conceding defeat?

[@petersilva037]

@@MichaelCrilly I think he was trying to say "conceited"... doesn't improve the comment much... but whatever... low effort swipe.

[@Appalling68]

0:21 LOL!