Yep, never had a single issue swapping GPU on windows. First time on Linux, I went to the Nvidia website to download drivers. Apparently that's the worst thing you can do (?!) and it took me hours to undo the mess.

Don't get me wrong I still use Linux daily but there's no need to lie. It has some sharp edges and GPU drivers is one of them.

I’d much rather deal with Linux issues than windows, but that’s just me.

It's not just you. ;)

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia

Seriously though, this is still the same problem on windows. If you switch from AMD to Nvidia, it'll load a generic display driver until you install the Nvidia one either through windows updates (heavily outdated) or GeForce Now (heavy bloat).

At least Linux gives you Nouveau instead of throwing you into a 480p fallback output.

This is, specifically, the workflow for changing graphics cards manufacturers on windows, e.g. nVidia to AMD. If you're just going from one AMD card to another, or vice versa, generally you can just toss it in and reboot a few times, yes.

GPU manufacturers are fucking awful about actually uninstalling their bloatware shit on windows, and it often (potentially intentionally) interferes with other manufacturer's drivers (and sometimes their own, though that's less common these days.)

I agree that the original post is dishonest, but your solution is exactly the same as what they said with the exception that you knew it would be a problem so you downloaded the driver beforehand. Had you not known that would happen the series of misfortunes could have happened to you too.

I think in either direction, people forget how much becomes intuitive about their OS, and how quickly we can fall into "Works on my machine". I'm sure plenty of people have never had problems with their graphics drivers breaking things. But can you really say with full certainty that some random driver conflict couldn't possibly happen? What if they are swapping from AMD to Nvidia, does your confidence remain?

Everything is easy and intuitive when you know what is expected of you, and everything goes according to plan, but good luck if something gets fucky.

Frankly, this is EXACTLY the problem that I had, that made me switch to linux.

I had a MSI laptop with a 3060. At first, it was wonky on Windows but overall it worked with a few workarounds. So far so good.

After some times, an update to Windows (I believe) made it that I had to run DDU to uninstall the drivers then reinstall everything. It took me more than one afternoon. Then I still had to do the workarounds.

After a while, I had to uninstall the video drivers at every boot, then reinstall a specific version of one driver, then had to run Windows Update, uncheck one specific little tickbox for the video card to function. At. Every. Boot.

And then, not even that worked.

On Nobara, I just had to install the distro and boom ! It worked out of the box. With the only downside that the HDMI was capped at 1080p 30Hz (when Windows wouldn't even display over HDMI). I think the 30Hz part was a Wayland limitation at the time.

So no, it wasn't because I was bad at Windows. Bloody thing just did not work and made me go full linux.

This is how I am with mac os. I'm pretty knowledgeable about computers, so there are a lot of tasks I view as simple that I will attempt to do, only to have it fight me the whole way. I'm sure it's just that I don't know proper protocol, but it's annoying.

Example would be I had some photos on my phone I wanted to put on my mom's macbook. Okay, I have a cable, just plug it in. Well, it shows up but refuses to show files in usb mode. Okay, the photo editor saw the phone, but it was import all or nothing. It wouldn't let me send just one folder. Okay... So I can't copy/paste files from the phone, import is all or nothing. So... I ended up having to put the folder on a usb stick- but the the photo program wouldn't recognise that as a source to import from, so I had to copy the folder to the desktop and THEN import from that. Something that should have been relatively simple turned into a whole ordeal because it was designed for one type of workflow and I didn't know all the little tricks to get it to do what I wanted. I know that's on me for not knowing the easy way ro do it, but when the obvious option 'import' doesn't give me any real options, I have to figure it out.

I'm not being cheeky. This is my actual experience as of this morning. I'm still fucking angry.

Yup. I've had massive driver issues with lengthy troubleshooting on both Linux and Windows before. Even had to switch to a completely different distribution once, because it wouldn't play nice with my GPU.

If you pretend like everything always works seamlessly with Linux, you're bound to give people false expectations that will very likely be disappointed.

Regular gaming on Windows Anno 2024 after a re-install where I spent a sizeable amount of time trying to understand why the fuck it is so hard to just run Windows11 with a local account:

Game is stuttering, dafuq(TM)!? Check privacy settings, all were reversed in the last update that I DID NOT install myself even though I sprung the wallet open for a pro license and deferred updates a week or so prior. Check netlimiter, telemetry collection time at Microsoft(TM) WTF!? Double check "local update sharing" is off, it is, it's likely really telemetry. WTF, Microsoft also enabled copilot by default on my machine?! Uninstall Windows. Spend a year on bazzite on both laptop and desktop. No major issues.

There's a remapping bug with the ROG falchion on linux that reauires a trivial txt file creation and copy to stop the keyboard from sending the PC into sleep mode. Otherwise, peachy.

Nah, literally just swapped nvidia gpus last week.

Pull one out, pop one in, resume gaming.

If you don't already have the nvidia driver or nouveau, you have to install that and make sure it isn't blacklisted. Reboot and done.

I would say by my experience, in order from easiest to most difficult, it's AMD on Linux, then Nvidia on windows, Nvidia on Linux. I haven't had a recent enough experience with amd on windows, but from what I hear its like you either install drivers then it works or you gotta do some crazy shit like op did to unbork something.

I'd still rather deal with Nvidia on Linux than anything to do with modern windows if I have the choice, especially with the insane amount of anti-features+spyware they seem to be shipping it with these days.

Windows still complains.

Yup.

Build PC

Activate Windows

Motherboard develops a fault

Get a refund/replacement

Install it

Windows is no longer activated, because they tied it to the motherboard...

I rolled my eyes real hard at this.

As a Linux supporter, this is absolutely not the case and it's going to piss off every person who swaps to Linux thinking it'll be this easy, and then when they're hit with reality, switches back to Windows.