So, I was thinking of some experimentation with Linux. I used Windows for my whole life. But I would stop using computers before I would 'upgrade' to NSAware.
So, what is a good distro to start with that can actually replace Windows? I mostly do heavy browsing, editing/converting multimedia files and everything related to webdesign. I already use free programs like GIMP and FF except for Office 2003.
My PC runs a 3770K OC / 16 GB / 780 Ti 4K, will this make any problems? Especially the desktop resolution. I'm planning on a second 4K screen later. How are the drivers on Ubuntu?
I still play games which is the only reason I still work with 8.1.
Windows sounds like a better fit for you tbqh
Differences between distros are mostly minor and basically include:
>what packages (software/programs) you get installed out of the box
>what packages are in the repositories (what can be installed easily via terminal, however there's not much variance here so don't worry)
>how new the packages are (major difference here between distros)
>non-free software (Debian disables it from the start, Trisquel might not allow it at all, Arch, Gentoo, etc. don't care)
>community (this is actually huge, the forum, wiki, and IRC channel related to your distro is pretty important for you to learn and get help with things)
>installer (this is very minor but it has lead to people thinking Arch and Gentoo are leet hacker shit, however Arch has third party installers that are easy to use such as Architect and Gentoo has a variant called Funtoo which I think is easier to install but I haven't tried it)
Personally I recommend Arch.
Not sure how comfortable you are with partitioning, OP, but if you have / and /home on separate partitions you can distro-hop a bit more easily. All your personal data is mostly on /home so you can just overwrite / when installing a new distro.
However you don't NEED to distro hop. For example, if you installed Arch with Architect and then thought it was too hard to use, chances are your issue is specific to whatever DE you chose. You can just install another and it'll feel like a whole new OS to you.
>>53728552
Dual boot with anything you like
Buy a mac
>>53728552
>So, what is a good distro to start with that can actually replace Windows? I mostly do heavy browsing, editing/converting multimedia files and everything related to webdesign.
You can do this on pretty much any distro.
The first thing to understand about Linux is that every distro is the exact same except in internal ways that don't matter to the average joe.
The most user-facing difference is the quality of support and package stability you're going to get out of them. But apart from that, every Linux distro can run the programs of every other Linux distro.
Firefox runs everywhere, as does LibreOffice (your Office 2003 replacement), as do your video drivers, as do GIMP etc. so there's really no point in choosing based on this as a criteria.
>How are the drivers on Ubuntu?
The closed-source ones by nvidia are very stable and supported, the open source ones (nouveau) are very slow and broken.
Use the closed source ones by nvidia and you should have few problems. This goes for all distros.
>I still play games which is the only reason I still work with 8.1.
Some games run directly on Linux, some games run through wine. But the ones that run through wine usually only run in DirectX 9 mode, so you won't get e.g. DirectX 11 features. (yet)
If you _insist_ on playing modern games and don't want to compromise in terms of visual quality and/or performance, then I'd recommend keeping around a windows partition for dual-booting and dedicating that to gaming and nothing else. (This is basically what I do)
>>53728620
Also, for a newcomer I would personally recommend either Ubuntu using the stock Unity experience (if you want everything to just “work” out of the box) or maybe OpenSuSE (they have some very good maintainers who understand what they're doing, plus rock solid packages).
For a user, though, the biggest difference in experience is going to be whether you're using Unity, GNOME+Mutter, Cinnamon, KDE+Plasma or whatever.
The DE is what the user interacts with so it's what they think about in terms of user experience. But in general, the Linux distro really doesn't care about what DE you decide to use with it.
>>53728572
>>53728583
bad posts
>>53728584
possibly bait but still better than Windows (seriously)
>>53728582
>>53728620
good
>>53728620
I know that. My aim is to avoid Windows. There is one big DX11 title I wait for, if it is shit then I'm going to leave it entirely. I play mostly DX9 but in 4K, which runs into problems on Windows, but most Linux users don't have these problems, the Linux desktops I see here on /g/ aren't even FHD.
I won't get a Mac, I don't want to pay thousands for scrap hardware and no gaming.
I'm not sure what happens with Windows 10, but a lot of the people I know 'upgraded' and don't even think about the security/forced updates/adware issues. Microsoft does everything to get this shit on your PC. And they'll work hard to make older systems like 8.1 incompatible.
>>53728803
>I play mostly DX9 but in 4K, which runs into problems on Windows, but most Linux users don't have these problems, the Linux desktops I see here on /g/ aren't even FHD.
I use 4K 10-bit displays just fine on Windows and Linux and don't see why I should run into many problems with it.
>>53728552
The best advice I can give you is – don't expect it to be like Windows. Google everything and try to learn how to do even the most basic stuff from the beginning. Linux is not a Windows equivalent, and you're gonna be frustrated if you want to treat it as one.
>>53728803
what I do is run linux as a host os, which I use for daily desktop stuff, and I have a VM that runs windows and is used exclusively for games and things that don't play nice with WINE
>>53729963
>>53728803
If you have two GPUs (e.g. one integrated and one discrete) and don't mind not being able to use the discrete GPU on Linux, you could set up a VM and use VGA passthrough to let the windows VM directly access the discrete GPU.
That way you can run games etc. with almost no slowdown.
The downside, of course, is that only Windows will be able to use the discrete GPU, so if you're intending on e.g. playing video at 4K on the Linux host you'll run into performance limits on the integrated GPU pretty quickly.
>>53730019
or you could use 2 GPU's
the linux host uses a 5770 I got for $20, since the xeons I have are from an era before iGPU's went in CPU's
>>53728583
No. When Windows updates it crashes the bios.
>>53728583
dual booting is pants on head retarded, having to wait at least a minute to switch OS's is a pain for anyone that isn't of the 'shutdown desktop every night' crowd
>>53730071
>having to wait at least a minute
le SSD face :^)
>>53730071
Honestly I play games maybe once or twice a year, whenever a lot of new games have come out.
Then I DL a bunch of shit and go on a binge for a few days. I don't “dual boot” in the sense that I'm on Linux 99% of the time. It's really not much of a loss.
>>53730120
you still have to shutdown one os to use the other one
it's just a extremely convoluted way of doing things
