So something went wrong with last Windows update, it wont boot, recover, or do anything at all, my laptop appears to be completely bricked, Ill have to do factory reset (and even then Im keeping fingers crossed it will actually work). This is the last fucking drop, Im switching to Linux. The thing is, I have virtually no IT skills, so what is your advice? What type of Linux is most noob friendly? I use computer basically just for internet browsing, some graphic software and bideo games.
>>25781Dont know what you mean. Its already formated anyway, had to do it to get my computer working along with re-download and clean install of windows. It appears to download not Windows 10 I had but Windows 11. Pure fucking cancer, wouldnt let me set itself up without creating microsoft account, cant customize its moronic taskbar layout, and it appears to be unable to truly shut down, my mouse light is kept on as if the computer is in sleep mode. Hate, hate, hate.
>>25782Is it possible to, I dont know, partition my hard drive and run Windows on one portion of it as a sub-OS for the purpose of gaming? Or the WINE thing I heard about? Other than video games, I already relied mostly on open-source software, so there shouldnt be much issue there with transition to Linux. But again, I know nothing about programming, I just want a safe, secure, simple operating system that lets me run bunch of video games and handful of other programs. I am willing to learn more IT stuff, but my free time is limited and I dont want to fight with my computer over basic tasks.
>>25783>Is it possible to, I dont know, partition my hard drive and run Windows on one portion of it as a sub-OS for the purpose of gaming? yes
>Or the WINE thing I heard about? yes
you can also run windows in a VM
>>25785Are there downsides to that? As if not all windows games can be run like that, or questionable performance, similar to console emulators?
>>25782Did little reading on Mint and Ubuntu, from what I understand Mint is build upon the latter, is there any advantage to using Ubuntu?
>>25786use lutris and proton (built into steam) instead of wine directly. it's at least as fast as windows but will be broken for some things
https://www.protondb.com/windows VM will be slightly slower and cannot share a GPU with the linux host, so you need at least 2 gpus
don't use ubuntu, it has snaps, which are terrible
>>25794>Which Linux is the most popular one? I would imagine Ubuntu is the most popular Linux Distribution (distro) for both websites/servers and personal use.
>Or alternatively which of the user friendly ones is the most popular? Im asking because if I search for "how to fix X", "how to change Y", with which system I have the highest chance of someone already dealing with the same issue and figuring out the answer?I believe PopOs is the best candidate for user friendly. It has a nice desktop environment, which somewhat resembles the look of Windows 11. It comes with a store and tries to minimize spooky scary command line actions as much as possible.
>Also gaming wise, I have a Lenovo laptop with Nvidia Geforce, is that all right driver-wise? Any issues with Linux there?I haven't heard of any, although I hope another Anon more knowledgeable than me can speak to this.
>>25795Another option, dual boot, so Ill just use Linux and switch to Windows for gaming, is there any downside I should be aware with this method?
Some minor downsides- Less avaliable storage space for your Linux system, since you have to allocate some for Windows. However, my question is what games are you looking to run? With the compatibility of WINE, most games (and apps!) made for Windows can run on Linux, the issue is if the game employs an anti-cheat, which may cause the game to crash. I'ce had experiences with this in games such as Valorant, Helldivers 2, and Destiny. But I've ran other games, such as Borderlands 2-3, Metro Exodus, Overwatch 2, with no problems.
>>25796Solid choice aswell Anon.
>>25796Dude, go with LMDE. It's Debian based therefore more stable and future-proof.
I'm also a fan of Cinnamon. It has almost no customization but that's kind of the point, it just works out of the box. KDE is more powerful if you wanna customize your shit but I'm not about that
>>25806All right, solved that one, I think, I can use Nvidia driver, so I guess its solved.
Immediately encountered 3 additional problems: 1st - cant change my monitor refresh rate
2nd - cant switch between integrated and dedicated GPU
3th - on Windows, I had Lenovo Vantage limit my battery charging to 60%, which it did though BIOS, so now even after clean install of Linux the battery never goes above 56%, and I dont even know if its because its actually charged to that level, or if Linux now displays fully charged as 56%, or how to change it.
I am going to waste an entire Saturday trying to fix this thing, but if its still broken come tomorrow, fuck it, I am going back to Windows.
>>258272nd problem appears to not be problem at all, I do have both cards functional, I was just for so long used to my old laptop with Inter integrated card I didnt even realize the current one has AMD.
The other two still persist, for first one I had to beg forum to spoonfeed me solution, 3th one is technically working how I want it to, so Im just going to deal with it later.
>>25836you can install fwupd and use the fwupdmgr command to install firmware updates for various devices including UEFI updates. it uses signed firmware from vendors
you can check the documentation for it at fwupd.org:
https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices for supported devices
https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors for supported vendors (including Lenovo)
also check
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fwupd for the basic commands and GUI options for updating firmware
>>25836Had to reinstall Windows to update BIOS.
>>25827Problem 3 solved, it was just matter of changing value in conservation_mode file. The refresh rate issue though seems unfixable, plenty people posting about refresh rate issues online, but they fix them by updating drivers or other things I already tried.
>>25856Gave up on trying to change refresh rate. Figured out how to game on Linux, surprisingly easy, Steam lets you launch pirated games through Proton. Havent tried anything from GOG yet though, and I suspect old titles might be an issue.
I dont regret switching OS, the peace of mind I get from not having mandatory updates, telemetry and bloatware infestation is worth the hassle, but at the same time, I dont really feel in control. Every time I need to do anything I have to search internet for someone else doing it, paste the commands, and then having no idea what is it actually doing. Like I install something, dont know from where, to where, what are all the other packages or dependencies, which of the 4 different clean and remove commands should I use to delete in order to uninstall. Its all so opaque.
>>26004After dicking around with linux for long enough, you will feel more in control and YOU WILL like it. That is the curse of unix. Start by getting a sense of where things are in the filesystem.
https://linuxjourney.com/lesson/filesystem-hierarchy seems like a good resource, compare it with
https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/file-hierarchy.7.html as well. Use apropos to look for commands you might want to use. Read the bash manpage front to back when you feel ready.
>which of the 4 different clean and remove commands should I use to delete in order to uninstallThe remove/delete command should at least uninstall any explicitly specified packages unless the output says otherwise. Most package managers have a special command for pruning unused dependencies. Theoretically you don't have to worry about pruning dependencies and cleaning caches, until you start running out of disk space.
>>26004>I dont really feel in controlthis is a matter of complexity. on average, as the user, the more complex the software is, the less control you are going to have. the software stack required to run games, specially those that were made for a different os, is complex. the only difference is that at least with linux (and open source stuff in general) you can educate yourself and regain control by understanding the simple parts that form the complex stack
that said, most distributions, specially the popular ones, are complex, obscure and even hostile <- this is, paradoxically, the price of being beginner-friendly and "enterprise". you could switch to a simpler distro like gentoo or artix if you want to try fixing things by yourself instead of depending on the community for everything. the stack required to play windows games will still be complex and error-prone
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