I replaced Windows with Linux and everything is working fine

Greetings from Linux on my desktop.

In November I got fed up and said Heck, I’m installing Linux. Since publishing this article, I’ve dealt with one small disaster after another. None of this has anything to do with Linux, mind you. It just means I didn’t install it on my desktop until Sunday evening.

My goal here is to see how far I can get with using Linux as my main operating system without Spend a lot of time fiddling with it – or even a lot of time researching it beforehand. I’m not looking for more high maintenance hobbies at this point. I want to see if Linux is a viable alternative to Microsoft The operating system is increasingly annoying.

genuinely? So far it’s been fine. Many things I expected to be difficult—such as getting my Nvidia graphics card to work properly—were quite straightforward. Some things I thought would be simple weren’t. And I’ve had a very funny problem with a gaming mouse only Works in games. But I was able to use my Linux setup for work this week, played exactly one video game, and even printed something off the damn printer.

I chose Cassius Rather than a popular distro like Ubuntu because it’s optimized for modern hardware, and I’ve heard it’s easy to install and set up for gaming, which is one of the reasons I stuck with Windows for so long. After backing up my Windows image sometime in December (close enough), I follow the Installation instructions on the Cachy wiki And download Cassius Live picture of Vintui USB drive, plugged it into my computer, rebooted into BIOS to disable Secure Boot, rebooted back into the Ventoy bootloader, and booted the CachyOS disk image.

Challenge 1: Mouse buttons don’t work. I can move the cursor, but I can’t click anything. I try to connect the mouse (without unplugging the mouse first), same deal. Not a major issue. I can get around fine using just the keyboard. Maybe this is just a problem with the live image.

I run the installer and enter analysis paralysis. An operating system needs a lot of little pieces to function, things you don’t even consider to be individual components if you use a Mac or Windows. How do you boot into the operating system? What runs the desktop environment? How are windows painted? What is a file system? Where do you get software updates? On Mac and Windows, all these decisions are made for you. But Linux is completely different: the core of the operating system is the kernel, and everything else is kind of up to you. A distro is just someone’s idea of ​​what pieces to use. Some, like Pop_OS! and mintaim for simplicity and make all these selections for you (although you can still change them if you like). But Kashi depends on bracketthe notorious DIY distro, and before I do anything else, I have to choose one of the four bootloaders. I chose Limine for reasons I can’t remember.

Next, I need to figure out where to install it. On Will Smith’s recommendation Dual boot diary Podcast – Whose “OS is a bunch of pieces” above is pretty much a cliche – I install Cachy on a different physical drive than Windows, since Windows updates don’t tend to care if they’re overwriting other bootloaders.

I have a 4TB storage drive that holds a little over a terabyte of data, so I downsized that partition to 2TB using the installer’s manual partitioning interface, then (following the guide) created a 2GB boot partition and a root partition using the btrfs file system. The manual says it needs at least 20GB, so I’ll go larger and make it 100GB. This will cause a minor problem later.

Next, I have to choose One of thirteen Various desktop environments. That’s too many options. KDE and Gnome seemed to support games the best, so I chose KDE. I could marvel at this, but I don’t.

Then I just have to choose a username and password and name the computer. After some thought, I went with Maggie, after my in-laws’ cat, which half the family calls Linux. It doesn’t answer to either name.

Installation takes six minutes. I reboot my computer, and it loads into the Limine bootloader, which also found my Windows installation, so I can choose between Cachy and Windows.

Then I’m on the desktop Cachy, and the mouse buttons Still Doesn’t work. Switching USB ports doesn’t do anything. Plugging in my trackball doesn’t solve the problem either. Finally I try season mouse, making the trackball work normally. My gaming mouse is Old Mad Catz Cyborg RAT 7 game; It turns out that this is it Known case. I’m putting off editing the configuration files for now and keeping the mouse disconnected.

Aside from that weird mouse, all the ones I’ve tried so far have just worked. Cachy automatically installed the correct GPU drivers; The display, speakers, and Logitech webcam work well without any effort. Even my printer prints, with a simple adjustment to my firewall settings.

There are many ways to install applications on Linux. Sometimes, you can just download them from the company’s website, or get them from your distribution’s official repositories, GitHub, or elsewhere. There is no official app store for Linux, but there are at least three projects that aim to provide universal Linux applications: Flatpak, AppImage, and Snap. salary! Start dribbling.

I use Chromium, Discord, Slack, and Audacity using the “Install Apps” button on the welcome screen in Cachy. Slack I get from the Arch User Repository. Twenty minutes later, I tried to install 1Password from the same location, but the repository was down. I pick my baby up from playdate and try again. It works.

I prefer Arc Browser, which doesn’t have a Linux version, but there are plenty of browsers. Firefox and Chromium will do. I can’t find official apps for Airtable (which I use for work), Spotify, or Apple Music, but they all work fine in the browser in the short term, and I’ll come back to this later.

Cachy has a one-click game pack installation that includes Proton, Steam, and heroic (Launcher for Epic, GOG and Amazon). I think I should try one game. Then I remember that my root partition is only 100GB. I rebooted back to the live Cachy image and used the Parted utility to increase it to 1TB, then created a second btrfs partition in the remaining space. I reboot, log into Epic and GOG, and start the download Outer worldsa game from 2019 that I’ve been playing a bit lately. It works well with Proton, and I can even sync my saves from the cloud. I play it for a few minutes with my trackball, remembering that I hate playing on a trackball, and plug my gaming mouse back in. It works fine as long as I’m in the game, but outside of the game, the mouse clicks stop working again. It makes sense – the glitch is on desktop, not in games – but it’s pretty funny to have a gaming mouse that does this only Works for games.

Children long for mines

The biggest problem I’ve encountered so far is… Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. For some reason, Microsoft did not prioritize creating a Linux version of Bedrock. The Java version works fine on Linux, but I play Minecraft With my kids, they’re using Bedrock Edition on their iPads. There should be a way to run an Android app with it MCPE launcherbut I couldn’t get it to work. There’s also a project to run the Windows version on the Proton, which will be my next step.

Things I haven’t tried yet

I hear good things about him Welcomewhich is the Linux equivalent of Windows Hello facial authentication, but I haven’t installed it yet. Listen beautiful The browser is a good alternative to Arc. I also haven’t synced my cloud storage, configured git so I can compile software from scratch, figure out a backup strategy, or tried much else than what’s currently connected to my computer. There is a command line Spotify player I want to try. I’ve only scratched the surface.

I took the time to install KDE Plasma theme that makes it look like Windows XP, Nevertheless. Just because.

I know very well that this is the honeymoon phase. And using Linux for less than a week is not exactly flexible. Many people use Linux. And I haven’t even tried to do anything particularly difficult, or play a game released in this decade. But so far the transition has been much easier than expected, and a much calmer experience overall. My operating system isn’t trying to change my browser or search engine to please some contributor somewhere. This doesn’t push me to try out some bullshit AI feature.

Will I go back to macOS or Windows the first time I have to edit a batch of photos? maybe! I’ll definitely go back to Windows — or pull out my Chromebook — to play Minecraft With my kids, if I can’t get it to work on Linux. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use Linux exclusively; My job as a reviews editor means I have to stay familiar with as many operating systems as possible. (This is a good way to drive yourself crazy.)

I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun problems soon. But the first few days were great.