Technology

Try a live USB, lets you boot into a linux flavour without needing to install it (plus has handy buttons to start a real install if you desire).

I procrastinated moving to linux for pretty much the same reason. I hated windows more and more with each passing day but wasn't excited about the part of the learning curve where I was even less effective using linux than I was at using windows.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find I didn't have to go through that stage at all. The same "discover settings" works for customizing (but it's better because linux devs don't have any metrics pushed on them by marketing or MBAs who think user goodwill and patience is infinite when they are "captured", leading to hidden or buried settings so most users just go with what MS wants).

Setup was easier, though deceptively so because I wasn't expecting the answer to "gpu drivers?" to be "already installed" and was skeptical until I had a game running. I did do a bunch of reading during the process but could have just used the defaults for most things and kinda regret some where I didn't (like snapshots are probably worth the disk space they use).

But the best part is that I haven't had to go on little "ok why the fuck is this <back to the default setting/behaving differently/addressing me without my prompting or a reason worthy of my PC interrupting me>?" adventures and wade through outdated MS help forum posts where if the problem was solved, it wasn't by the useless MS rep that seems to be struggling just to understand the words being used (indicated by copy/pasting anything that is vaguely related as a response, rather than actually addressing the question) to either figure out how to force it or give up until the next time it annoys me enough to search again.

I haven't had a single imaginary "it's my fucking computer, not yours" argument since switching and wish I had just tried sooner because it was way less friction than expected.

Even Windows has its moments, bad updates fuck you over a bit.

Most distros just install and work. If you take a 1-2+ year-old system and let Linux wipe it, most of them will just kinda work. Brand new hardware is always dicey, it's better to buy last years model. Steam and web browsers do what you'll expect. Updates just work. Steam games are generally doable; you just have to flip a switch in Steam to use emulation. The big exception on games is stuff with kernel-level anti-cheat. Valorant, Fortnite, PUBG, Genshin Impact.

Now, if you start using hardware that needs custom apps, RBG controllers, custom webcam controls, If you used nvidia broadcasting suite, outlook, photoshop, Then, you'll find the effort. You need to find alternatives or try to run stuff in wine, and learning new apps is work and feels bad everything will feel like a downgrade.

Replacing hardware can also be dicey. Solutions are generally not all that bad, but definintely can turn into work.

If you just need some steam and a web browser, you almost can't go wrong, if you want to emulate every inch of what you were doing in windows outside of that, you're likely to have to work for it.

Most Linux distributions nowadays are all “point and click” (as in you don’t have to use the command line if you don’t want.) and they do pretty much everything Windows does. With some minor exceptions like some games that don’t run on Linux.

Alright, I have a ton of Windows 10 machines, a couple OSX machines, and a few Linux machines for various purposes. Don't let anyone here fool you—Linux is great, I've really enjoyed it, but NO distributions of Linux are easy, effortless, and just /work/. They ALL require some heady maintenance, they all WILL run into issues more than Windows or OSX, they WILL require a lot more learning than Windows or OSX, and there are programs that won't run on Linux (or are prohibitively difficult to get working on Linux.)

Still, I have been loving Linux. I refuse to get Windows 11 EVER, so I'm now using Windows 10 LTSC IoT on all of my video game computers. If you want a computer that you turn on and click buttons and games appear on screen and work great, Windows is for sure the only way to go. That's why all of my video game machines are Windows.

I don't have a video for ya unfortunately, all of my Linux learning is through forums, documentation, and bouncing ideas off friends who know a lot more than me. There are some distros that are very user-friendly and "just work" great out of the box, but no matter what you do, they WILL require special maintenance. You will find programs or games you want to run that just don't. There's often alternatives, and in my experience, the alternatives are always free which is cool.

I think for your use case (and my use case for playing games), Windows is still the way to go. If you can get Windows 10 LTSC IoT and crack it (and run something like OOSU10 to turn off all the spyware you can,) you're good for almost a decade!

(honorary shoutout to OSX—Lemmy overall hates Apple, but fuck em. There's a reason every dev and programmer I know have an OSX machine, most of them using it for their main work machie. OSX is rock solid and works incredibly, and Apple's hardware is acutally good for the price now unlike the mid 2000s when they were insanely overpriced for what you get. You can get an M4 mac for 500-600USD and they're insanely efficient and powerful… Just NOT for games, my Steam library on my OSX computer is extremely limited compared to Linux or Windows.)

If you're interested in Linux, you can boot from it without installing to try it out. Nearly every distribution has a live boot option.

As for differences, the entire OS is different, but with something like KDE, it's still very much "point and click". You don't need to be a programmer to use it. This is especially true if you run most things through a browser.

The biggest disadvantage is program compatibility. Windows applications need translation layers for Windows apps to run on Linux and they don't always work. Many application makers, including people like Steam for gaming, have full Linux support (all of Valve's hardware like the Steam deck runs Linux).

If you want to try it out in a non-live way with a "safety net", you can run a dual boot with both Windows and Linux and choose between them at boot. Or you can install Windows in a VM and run your Windows-specific programs until you find Linux alternatives.

It's a bit of work, but it truly frees your PC. I made the switch from Windows to Linux first with a dual boot.....then only Windows for VR, and now I've got everything on Linux. I haven't booted into Windows on any of my PCs in 4+ years at this point and I couldn't be happier.

That said, use what works for you. If that's Windows or MacOS, that's fine. Just know the advantages and disadvantages.