Basically the forced shift to the enshittified Windows 11 in october has me eyeing the fence a lot. But all I know about Linux is 1: it’s a cantankerous beast that can smell your fear and lack of computer skills and 2: that’s apparently not true any more? Making the change has slowly become a more real possibility for me, though I’m pretty much a fairly casual PC-user, I don’t do much more than play games. So I wrote down some questions I had about Linux.

Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

And also, what distro might be best for me?

  • methodicalaspect@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    6 hours ago

    If you use a distro with the nvidia drivers preinstalled, or you get the drivers set up with dkms, you don’t need to reinstall the driver with every kernel update.

    Pop!_OS has the drivers in their repo and they get applied during system updates like any other package; I’m sure this is the case with Bazzite as well.

    I use AlmaLinux at home with the driver from nvidia’s site (yes, I’m aware that rpmfusion exists), and have never had to reinstall the drivers as the installer configures dkms to do it every time the kernel is updated. Same with my Plex server (Debian, Quadro P2200) and my office workstation (Arch, Quadro P600).

    • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Oh yes DKMS is a life saver. I need to get that setup for myself. Maybe push a slackbuild for it too.

      I’ve not used nvidia drivers on anything but Slackware so I have no idea how it works and honestly it doesn’t make sense to my simple head.

      A fellow selfhoster!! How’s the almaLinux parity with redhat going? (I’m rooting for both alma and rocky)

      • methodicalaspect@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        I’m self hosting a lot of things, but those services are mostly on Debian. I’m daily driving AlmaLinux on my main desktop. I do a decent amount of video editing using DaVinci Resolve Studio, and while I’ve consistently gotten it working on Pop!_OS and EndeavourOS, I couldn’t get the Micro Color Panel working on anything other than the CentOS successors. I tried manipulating udev rules, sniffing USB traffic, etc but it just wouldn’t go on anything else. The product was fairly new to market when I bought it so the body of knowledge may have changed since then.

        Blackmagic Design officially supports Resolve and Reaolve Studio on Linux, but only on their lightly preconfigured version of Rocky 8. Everything else is best-effort, so I started with the Blackmagic ISO, converted it to AlmaLinux 8.6, and then upgraded to 9, and the Micro Color Panel still works.

        I also love that my external disk array works with every kernel update because the kernel’s so old. I keep all my originals on an 8-disk ZFS array connected to a cross-flashed Dell PERC H810. Endeavour and Pop sometimes go beyond the kernel versions supported by zfsonlinux, and editing the source code of a file system is not something I’m particularly comfortable with.

        Also, every game I’ve played on it works, though I mainly play single-player titles.

        As for parity: I’ve got several hundred VMs at the office on Rocky, and maybe a dozen on Alma, and both are running flawlessly. They’ve been as solid as the RHEL physical machines. Quite happy with all of them, to be honest.