I’ve been a Windows user all my life and had dabbled in the Apple ecosystem for a bit. With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in Oct 2025, I figured I’d put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it. If I could survive the struggles for a few months, I’d be golden, and if I couldn’t, then I could switch to Windows 10 LTSC and be good until 2029. The intention was to completely force myself in without a backup plan - the only way out would be to install a new Windows OS. I chose Linux Mint after careful consideration, especially considering that there’s tons of resources and help with this distro, and it’s a great onboarding ramp for Windows users. I need the familiarity since I’m in tech full time and just don’t have the energy to hassle with my PC after a long stressful day at work.
I also used this as a good excuse to upgrade my PC a bit, too. 😀
After switching in mid December, I’m happy to report that I’m still alive after 30 days. My computer hasn’t killed me. And I’ve been able to do work and game on my PC without too many hiccups. Marvel Rivals still crashes ever since the Season 1 update. Overwatch works perfect. My other games, on both Steam and GOG, work perfectly fine. But I haven’t been able to test every game out there, but I know I can use Proton DB if needed.
I even edited this screenshot in GIMP after being forged in the fires of Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop all my life! I even stripped exif data using command line tools! I even installed this cool neofetch thing that I always saw in people screenshots of their PC or whatever, every time I saw someone’s Linux build with their thigh high socks and neofetch on the terminal!
But so far, switching to Linux Mint has been great! I’m excited to deep dive more!
Note:
- I backed up all my data from Windows into a USB drive. I’m slowly bringing all that stuff over to my Linux Mint computer and rebuilding my music, video, photos, etc. Lot of work, but it’s so cool feeling so liberated!
- I may also want help from you Linux nerds from time to time. I’ll make posts/memes begging for help when I get desperate. But so far, almost every issue I’ve had has been resolved via an internet search!
- I pray that I won’t come crawling back to Windows. I don’t expect that to happen with how great my experience has been thus far.
Specs:
- Linux Mint 22
- Ryzen 7 9800x3d
- Thermalright Phantom Spirit
- MSI X670e Carbon WiFi
- Sapphire Nitro+ RX7900 XTX
- Corsair Vegeance 64 GB DDR5-7200
- Gen 5 Crucial T700 (?) M.2 x 2
- Corsair 5000d
- Noctua case fans (Lian Li too problematic on Linux based on all the research I did in advance)
- Seasonic Focus Gold 1000W
Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:
- Windows 10 Pro
- Intel i7-12700k
- Noctua NH-U12A
- MSI Pro Z690-A
- MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
- Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
- Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB DDR4-3600
- Lian Li AL120 case fans
One of us
ONE OF US!
One of us!
one of us!
ONE OF US
OnE oF uS
Sexy!!
Don’t make me blush bro
What are you doing step-Linux Bro?
Welcome to the penguin side! I made the switch over a year ago and it’s honestly been fantastic.
You love to see it. I also switched my home machines cold turkey from win10 to Linux Mint last month!
I have been using it at work for a long time, but just didn’t do enough on my home desktop PCs for it to be worth fiddling with them and setting servers and stuff back up. But now that I made the switch, I am actually using my PC more at home because it’s smoother and more fun to use now!
The main one is an i7-9700k (8c/8t) with 32 gigs of ram and a GTX 1080. It has such a long life left ahead of it. Heck the other machine is a 2500k (4c/4t) with 16GB from like 2011 and it’s excellent for desktop use or non-demanding games.
I see myself sticking with Mint with Debian & Ubuntu upstream for the foreseeable future. But I do wonder several years from now SteamOS will push many of us to use something with Arch upstream if not just SteamOS itself.
Congrats. I made the switch to Ubuntu in 2016, you are spoiled these days with Proton. I want to concur with the advice to learn the terminal. You dont need it yet, but you will eventually. It’d be wise to do some research on your package manager too. You’re on Mint, so it should be apt.
Also, word of advice for future OS swapping if you- say- wanna try a new distro someday. Find yourself an external drive for your files like music and documents. Its better to not need to rebuild your library in the first place if you can, and its safelyoff the OS drive if something goes wrong. I got a cheap Mybook backup drive, 4TB for 90 bucks, and formatted it.
Nice. ProTip, checkout ProtonPlus or ProtonUp-qt. They manage different versions of Proton for you. They both do the same things in about the same ways. ProtonPlus will match better with Gnome based Desktop Environments and ProtonUp-qt will match the Kde like environments.
This is helpful, I will do some research into these. So because I’m on default Linux Mint, I believe my desktop is Gnome (especially considering my screenshot which also says Gnome). KDE, I only recognise from my Steam Deck - at least I hope that’s KDE lol.
I’ll learn these terms one day. I feel ignorant, but I’m hungry to learn. The exciting part about cutting over is that it reminded me when I was learning about computers as a kid, and moving around connectors on PATA drives as a pre-teen. :) So I’m enthused to try a lot of stuff! Thanks dude
No problem. I use Gnome as well for my desktop and yes that is KDE on your Steam Deck. If you’ve got a Steam Deck then protonup-qt is definitely a must have. Maybe it was more important when the Steam Deck first released, but it’s still handy to manage Proton versions for games that are already rock solid on older versions.
Lutris would be a more universal pick, as it manages Wine, Proton and a lot more, has more settings and is generally more user-friendly.
Does Lutris manage Proton for just Lutris or will Lutris manage proton for all your other launchers?
Should do for all - after all, it’s just a matter of prefixes
Should do for all - after all, it’s just a matter of prefixes
naa, they do two different things. Sure you can go to the Lutris wine manager under runners and install Lutris versions of wine or select an already installed version of wine. That’s not the same as what ProtonPlus and ProtonUp-qt are doing. They are like Lutris wine manager on steroids, for Lutris and Steam and Bottles and whatever else. Always the possibility I completely overlooked a feature of Lutris.
I didn’t go too much into the technicalities of Lutris tbh, it just works well enough so I never had to tinker
I don’t see the point of managing Proton versions for Steam as Steam itself handles it perfectly alright, but if someone needs it - hooray!
On my end, if we’re talking about non-Lutris, Protontricks can fully manage all Proton instances, including Steam ones, similarly to Winetricks. Also, PortProton is cool and can be useful for some.
Well, Steam doesn’t install leading edge versions of Proton. For instance, if you install Battle.net through Steam. Sometimes Battle.net breaks. like here https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/01/ge-proton-9-23-released-with-a-battlenet-fix-for-linux-steam-deck/ , so you need the latest changes which wont be available to the Steam Deck, proton-experimental wont get the changes right away. If you just pop open protonup-qt, you can just download ge-proton-9-23. Of course once you have ge-proton-9-23 installed, then the Steam UI can switch between the various versions installed, or you can do it from protonup-qt while you have it open after downloading the latest leading edge proton that you need. I think it’s a good tool, especially for beginners.
The more I know, thanks!
Great to hear you switched. I just switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. I had actually used Ubuntu circa 2007-2009, but switched to Windows because it was just easier. I never really loved Ubuntu. Linux Mint seems amazing so far. Very intuitive and user friendly. I can see non techies in my family using it on their Windows 10 machines later this year.
That’s what I like the most about it is that it’s mostly familiar. I think it’s an excellent OS to bridge users leaving Windows.
Years ago I experimented by dual booting pop_OS! and also Ubuntu. But they always ran so poorly for me, despite having great hardware at the time (i7-7700k and GTX 1080). It was just super frustrating so I abandoned it.
Last year as part of my preparation and research to get off Windows, I rolled VMs of Zorin OS and Linux Mint. Zorin was good overall, but Linux Mint just felt better to me. There’s so much information available online for Mint, and over time as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won’t be using internet search terms like “install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint”. 😀
as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won’t be using internet search terms like “install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint”.
Lol don’t be so sure…
Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:
- Windows 10 Pro
- Intel i7-12700k
- Noctua NH-U12A
- MSI Pro Z690-A
- MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
- Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
- Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB >DDR4-3600
- Lian Li AL120 case fans
Brother, that’s a whole new computer. Anyway, have fun and, if you haven’t already, you should install KDE Connect and Syncthing. I don’t know what you use your computer for but I have yet to meet someone who wouldn’t benefit from it.
Definitely will be taking advantage of those two softwares. I tried dabbling with Syncthing when I got my Steam Deck, because I wanted the save files for my… er, Linux ISOs, to sync with my Windows PC. I couldn’t get it to reliably work (user error probably). So this time I’ll try again and hopefully it will be much better!
I’m sorry to tell you that you are also a nerd now that you’ve installed linux
I’ve been doing the exact opposite approach to Linux for a little while now. lol:
I’ve installed Mint onto my two “used parts” PCs and also an ancient laptop i have.
My gaming PC will stay Windows until Win10 EOL for the sake of game compatibility.I do more and more on Linux as things come up!
To each their own my friend! I thought of riding out Win 10 and installing Linux Mint on an old computer, such as my really old Macbook Pro from 2012. But for my use case, forcing myself to use it and work through hurdles seemed to be best because after a long work day I was afraid I wouldn’t spend time trying out Linux.
Thankfully, I’ve had basically 99% perfection while using Linux Mint. The 1% were the little unique problems that I’m still trying to solve, such as getting OpenRGB to work and detect my devices. Inability for CoolerControl to control my case fans, no way to control my AMD GPU fans, etc. I’ll invest time into figuring these out, but for now, all my games work and I just ignore the RGB I can’t control via software.
I’m curious which of your games doesn’t work on Linux? It’s usually the ones with a particular anti-cheat system.
Yeah I think some people really don’t know how far it’s come… Windows versions running on Proton often work better than native Linux runtimes.
Oh, i haven’t really looked into it. I’m sure most of them do.
I just don’t want to deal with it right now. lolHaha fair enough :D
I’ve recently switched to kubuntu and one of the games that didn’t work well was vermintide 2. Curiously, their next game, darktide, works fine :V
My display support HDR400, But I don’t see much difference between Windows 10 and Arch Linux.
You are a certified penguin now
Another nail in the Windows coffin.
Another lost potential customer for Linux hostile gaming publishers.
Thank you! Now I’m ready to kill the Batman and torrent more Linux ISOs. It will make a fine piece to my collection
Hell yeah! I’m proud of you nerd! Trust me i know it can be overwhelming but you’re doing amazing figuring all these things out! :)
Thank you! I only wish I discovered all this back when I was a teenager and had much more free time! I could have been a wizard like all these other nerds posting here!
Ah well, I’m never late or early, as I understand the lore. Picard or Dumbledore said that, it’s true.
Congrats and welcome to the camp! It will only get better as you familiarize yourself more with the system.
Nice hope to do the same when windows 10 goes end of life.
Why wait?
he needs more challenges in his life
If you know something works it’s hard to want to fix it.
