I wish we as a community could stop with this sense of superiority

Not possible in a Linux community. They have only three jokes:

• Fuck windows

• I'm so smart for using the superior software stack (and everybody is an idiot for not switching)

• and my personal favorite: constantly trying to trick people into using FOSS software by telling everybody they're as good even in cases where they're clearly not (bro please use GIMP it's actually really good bro as soon as you understand its archaic 1998 user interface it's just as good as photoshop bro please)

I spent 1-2 hours debloating Windows and it turns out Windows update doesn't work unless you turn back on the Windows firewall service.

I forgot how I disabled it in the first place, so I gave up and installed Linux

I hear you. I have 3 machines: my main rig, a light laptop and a server. The main rig is on Windows 10 LTSC and the server is on Linux (goes without saying).

When I bought the laptop I decided to use it only with Linux as a way to squeeze it's resources but also as a way to figure it how realistic it would be to use Linux exclusively. After starting on Mint and hopping to Arch I ended up on Debian and I'm quite satisfied with it. But I also realized it would never work on my main rig. Lots of stuff and software would just not work the same way. Would it be usable, yes. But it would be mostly workarounds instead of the perfect setup I have built.

Linux will definitely get there. It's improving fast. But telling people that don't know better to just switch only to find out half of what they did will now have to be done with workarounds and hassles is dishonest and does not help Linux at all. When Linux is perfect those people will already be burned and resist it needlessly.

Ironic that they are on Linux, as ChromeOS is Gentoo, but it's the worst possible distro to use.

I remember people laughing about that Rumsfeld speech but I just feel like those people didn't really get what he meant

Funny how people write a long essay why they stay on Windows, claiming what a hassle it is to set up Linux. Sure, you might know how do deal with Windows, but don't expect that other systems work the same way. Windows is the odd one.

If you depend on Windows-only software, there is nothing wrong with sticking to it. Use the system that fits your needs the most.

no good daw

Ardour!

The potential pain with setups is a reason I like to point people at vendors like Slimbook, Tuxedo Computers or System76. Avoids a lot of possible problems for those who can afford it.

there's no good DAW on Linux

Now that's not true though. Bitwig Studio and Reaper f.e. support all the common plugins APIs and are excellent professional DAWs. And then of course you also got Ardour if you prefer FOSS.

Things like Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects have no solid alternative to this day for Linux

I'm not perfectly familiar with Adobe products, but I'm very positive that DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks (literally used by Hollywood), Blender and Natron offer all the functionality those two do. And most likely with less crashes, as far as I heard about Premiere Pro. 🙃

Office uses proprietary file format constraints to lock down their ecosystem.

Didn't hear about issues with Office Suites in more than a decade. Microsoft famously manipulated their docs to hamper third-party apps in implementing docx support, that's quite a time ago though.

Unreal Engine, lots games, my audio interface, drivers for obscure small devices I need? I just don't know and I have to dedicate time to researching all of it.

Yeah, hardware is always a thing especially during a switch. Once you made it of course you can pick new gear that's known to be supported on Linux by their company. At least with Unreal Engine it's known to work, and Games by now basically always do except for those with the most vile Anti-Cheat.

I bought a notebook and will try to go CachyOS x KDE Plasma on that

May I suggest to use a more general-use, Ubuntu-based distro? Those often offer way better hardware support for more devices out of the box. That's one reason they're called bloated, but damn is it comfy sometimes.

Thing is the people that never needed Windows, also didn't really need a PC...

Gamers seem to be an exception, and while WINE/Proton are good, they're not infallible. I can't even get WINE running unless it's running as root, which I don't really want to do, and it took a lot of faff to get it to even do that. Wasn't even anything complex, just a basic Win32 app I'd done as a test.

Depends what you want to do. I have installed Linux for some people and they were perfectly happy with it and never touched the command line. While for me barely a day goes by using Linux that I don't touch the command line for something.

This.

When switching to Android/iOS/ChromeOS/... people also aren't expected to "learn" that OS.

Actually, stop telling people to "deal with" Windows (okay, this one is pretty weak). Windows is either supposed to be easily navigable without going through a dozen of buttons-tabs-subwindows, ot it's not the right thing for most people

Either dumb it down, or don't expect people to use it

10 minutes is enough only for "Oh, that's too difficult, let's pretend that I'm content with Windows as it is"

I mean, 10 minutes is pretty optimistic even for a relatively savy user. It took me somewhere around an hour to find and fix everything. On the other hand, it took me and a bunch of people on the Linux support subreddit around 20 hours of troubleshooting to get Linux into a mostly functional state on my PC, at which point I and everyone else had given up, so...

Its been nearly two years since then though, and given what a nightmare Windows 11 is, I guess I'll have to give it another shot.

The problem is you used Debian which is missing bug fixes for KDE, and is on a frankly ancient 5.27 - I have had nothing but an awesome experience on KDE 6, with both VRR, and HDR, working under Wayland.

Recommend trying a rolling release

2 days? He said 2 weeks haha

I used to have a Linux/Win 11 dual boot.

After about 6 months I stopped using Windows altogether. After about a year I just wiped the drive and went 100% Linux because Windows becomes a liability when it does BIOS updates you don't want or need to ensure that it's the only OS on the machine.

I mostly just game and browse the Internet and my daily driver is Linux. I have not come across anything that I needed Windows for so far, in a year and a half of not using Linux. There may be some games I was vaguely interested in that don't run easily on Linux, but day to day tasks, 3d printing/slicing software, basic image editing software, browsers, coding IDEs, all work native on Linux.

Sure, if there is a specific software that you really want to use, maybe that specific software isn't available on Linux. But one individual running into multiple things that only run on Windows sounds like it is a fairly specific use case. At best, someone might need to use an alternative program. At worst, maybe that person needs to keep a windows environment around. But that doesn't seem like the case for the majority of people.

I recommend downloading a Live Linux distribution and booting it from a USB stick.

This let's you try out linux without making any changes to your Windows setup. It also lets you make sure linux detects all your computer's hardware. If the live session works fine, the it will detect all that same hardware when you install it for real.

extremely not tech-savvy

You managed to make an account and post on Lemmy so you're probably underestimated your technical knowledge. That being said IMHO it's best to first list what software you use then find alternatives that work on Linux. Once that's done then yes sure try whatever distribution you want.

Sure, here are instructions for getting Linux Mint running: https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

These instructions are for creating a USB flash drive that functions as both a live environment or an installer. If you don't want to install it yet, this allows you to try it out while booting just from the flash drive, without modifying your hard drive at all.