I will respond since you directed this question to me, but other more knowledgeable users could provide better answers.
I am not a big Linux user. I believe it takes some getting used to. I also don’t use MAC and at times struggle with that OS when I have to help students with DT on a MAC. I am primarily a Windows user, but I am not devoted to Windows.
My big love of Linux comes from the fact that a computer that is still useful becomes landfill under Windows because they discontinue support and demand that you have minimum requirements to run their operating system. So these old computers can run and run well if Linux is installed. How many computers will go to land fill when Windows 10 is no longer supported?
I have put mint on some old computers and it runs well for the tasks required of it. My DT computer is windows, but most DT developers use Linux I believe, but I am not sure.
I wouldn’t personally try and talk a MAC user into Windows computer or a Windows user into Linux, but if it comes to the choice of a computer becoming landfill or having a new life I would recommend Linux. In my experience Linux runs faster than Windows did when I have done this. But no bench tests, just gut feeling.
The computer has to meet minimum specifications and not all computers do. This will become more of a problem when Windows expects AI capabilities regardless of if you want to use AI. But yes free upgrades is part of the landfill solution.
I’m running a 10-year-old Intel Core i5-6500 with Arch Linux KDE as my server.
The PC feels much faster than my wife’s Windows machine with a Ryzen 7900x. But tomorrow is the last day with Windows on the hardware, then she will have finished her last seminar and completed her bachelor’s degree.
Arch Linux has been running on her Asus Z13 for quite some time and she can’t wait to switch completely.
I was simply stating a fact. Nothing more nothing less.
When you have an operating system that just works, never crashes and runs plenty fast enough, that’s good enough for me. I have played extensively with Linux on a computer that I built in 2018. For me, and I’ll say that again, for me, it’s just too buggy and unstable.
There’s around an estimated 400 million PC’s that cannot move to Windows 11 due to the ridiculous requirements set by Microsoft. Theres another 100 million Windows 10 PC’s that are riding out the Free ESU till the end in October. Both of my PC’s are still on 10 , I needed to wait for my niche software to get ported and made to play nice with Windows 11. One of my PC’s will move to Linux Mint and the other to Windows 11.
My Mom’s PC ill move to Linux Mint in the coming weeks… I hope that most of those 400 million PC’s if their basic home users don’t throw out there in most cases perfectly functioning PC’s. A mass switch to Linux would require a large education effort of online ads , billboards , tv slots and teaming up with local computer shops…
I am not trying to talk anyone out of windows or MAC to Linux. I am just saying a computer that can not be upgraded to Windows 11 can be saved from the trashcan by installing Linux. I have it successfully running on a 2006 model computer and a couple of computers over 15 years old. Windows 11 could not be installed if I wanted to on them.
You shouldn’t, unless you want to and you know what you are doing.
And if you do, consider that if you are used to X, Y will always feel difficult/wrong until you familiarize yourself with it.
Besides all the other differences in every day usage, the ecosystems of Windows and Linux are very different when it comes to hardware support.
Windows is the product of a large corporation, manufacturers build their hardware and provide drivers for it. This only rarely applies to linux drivers.
Before installing Linux on any system, check that the hardware is well supported, and if it’s in the grey zone be prepared to get your hands dirty to make things work. There is no guarantee that you will manage, but if you have time to spend and are wiling to learn it will be a fun and rewarding experience.
All that said, I started using Linux when things were waaaaaaaaay harder than they are now. There were fewer docs, fewer communities, virtually no users and no automated tools for anything.
Yet, the feeling of freedom was liberating. I ditched windows without thinking twice and I never looked back.
Now because of work and its excellent silicon I am using macOS. But man, ain’t that boring and not fun. Everything is locked down and I cannot even change the damn window manager.
Works well? Yes. Do I miss my Slackwares, and Gentoos and LFSs? You bet I do! macOS will get the boot the moment that my chip gets decent linux support
How can I check whether hardware is in the “grey zone” or not?
I bought a new pc with a more powerful GPU recently, so implementing Linux on the old one is an experiment to get somewhat acquainted with Linux and to have some fun. Linux is a hot topic in Denmark, and whether our public systems should and can be migrated to open source (Linux) is
being debated in the media.
I was also hoping to get some good advice on how to make darktable/OpenCl work on Linux.
Do a web search for the specific hardware, if it’s not something very exotic you will almost certainly find someone else who has tried (and maybe succeeded) in making it work.
Ask in a forum such as this one if people have similar configurations.
Because of what I wrote in the previous message, if you want to be sure that something works (especially if you want it to work out of the box) you should check before buying.
If your GPU has good linux drivers this shouldn’t be an issue. Other folks who are currently on Linux may be able to say more, as I mentioned in the other post, nowadays, sadly, I am on macOS.
Either give it a google or post your hardware here. Generally I would say: Just dive in. Be prepared to reinstall a few times e.g. to try out different distros. From my experience there will probably be a bit more tinkering then with windows. But getting away from Microsoft is worth it to me. The only thing I truly miss is microsoft word. Libre Office Writer doesn’t stand a chance against the current Word-Versions in usability.
For that, we’ll need to know what graphics card you have.
For NVidia, it’s easy enough: get the proprietary drivers (NVidia site or add-on repository from your distribution). And install the OpenCL libraries, of course.
For AMD, it might be a bit more complicated, but as I don’t use those, someone else would have to chime in (or do a search in the topics here)
I a very happy with Libre Office for my needs. I decided to switch a couple of years ago to break my dependency on Microsoft and I am lucky I did because my lifetime access to Microsoft Office from my University along with my lifetime email address died a premature death and I lost access to both with little warning. I don’t want to pay Microsoft a subscription to type up documents or do spreadsheets or presentations (PowerPoint). Libre Office works great for me, but of course that may not be the case for your needs.
I am running endeavour and my office package is Softmaker Office. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet app and a presentation package. It is available in the aur repository. I was using it back when I ran windows. It runs on windows, MacOS, and linux. There is even a an android version though limited in functionality. For my needs it works great and I’ve never had any compatability issues with the Microsoft document formats.
