looking back on almost 1.5 years of linux
I saw September 2024 marked one year of Linux for me, so I thought why not share a summary of my almost 1.5 years on Linux now?
Peripherals
During my 18 years on Windows, I learned that when it says "plug and play" on the box, it certainly will not be plug and play. It will be plug in, it doesn't work, plug it in again, it doesn't work, restart PC, turn device on and off, it doesn't work, search for the driver manually, install the wrong one twice, then play. Surprisingly, everything I plugged in so far on Linux worked. Mouse, keyboard, wired headset, wireless headset, external screens.
Hardware
EndeavourOS runs perfectly fine on my old Nvidia laptop, and the installer always offered to install a different set of WiFi drivers that my laptop needed, otherwise WiFi would crash soon after boot. It also runs perfectly fine on my newer AMD laptop. Recently, a friend messaged me that Ubuntu doesn't even have the drivers for his LAN chip and WiFi chip in his new PC and constantly crashes. That has literally never happened to me on eOS, and I was very surprised, because isn't Ubuntu considered the safe, grandma-proof Linux experience? Maybe it does pay off to be on a rolling release model at times when your computer parts are fairly new. I do mention an ALSA issue with my laptop speakers in another post, and I haven't resolved that yet, but I don't see it as an issue since most people would listen via headphones or another screen anyway, as I do.
General Software
I don't need specific software for work or hobby (like Adobe, Autodesk etc. stuff), so I guess I am lucky here. Steam, Spotify, VSCodium, Vesktop/Vencord, Obsidian, LibreWolf, LibreOffice, Aseprite, Zoom, ProtonVPN just work. I may install Ableton in the future and see how it works, but should be fine. For my Photoshop needs, I use Photopea anyway. I haven't gotten my university's VPN to run, but that one is sadly my own fault so far and would be running if I could be arsed to enter the proper shell commands. Maybe for my next assignment.
Games
All games I want to play work and run more smoothly than they did on Windows. There was one so far that didn't work well, but it was some VN I don't really need to play. One, of almost 200 games. An extremely surprising example is the original Mass Effect! When I wanted to play it on Windows, I had to do some tinkering and launch options in Steam before it would work. On Linux, I needed none of that. I also never have to use Lutris or Bottles or whatever, I just launch through Steam/Proton. A big YouTuber I watch deals with constant freezes and crashes on Marvel Rivals, and I've never had that happen. I even now heard people got accidentally banned from Rivals for using Proton, and I wasn't (they have since fixed it and unbanned). I had a brief time period when games would freeze by clicking outside on another screen or in the menu, but that was resolved by simply going back to to X11 from Wayland.
All in all, I'm just happy. Unbothered. Thriving. Not experiencing either Windows or Linux issues. Sleep works, hibernate works, multi screen setup works, WiFi is fine, Bluetooth works, all hubs work.
As with anything, you're more likely to hear about negative experiences than positive. Many people only write to a forum for support when something's not working, or are more inclined to write a review when they're unhappy. Negative content on social media gets more engagement too, and people keep venting and sharing negativity underneath. Nothing new. Obviously, this also happens to Linux. Even more so because Linux is considered the alternative, so any problem is traced back to it, no matter if that's true. :)
Published 10 Jan, 2025