Linux

Dota (1, in warcraft 3) would have a hitch every once in a while, and i'd die if it was in a fight. Cause was swap writing to disk, that you can't turn off in winxp. I was already looking at linux, so i said f it. Bdw warcraft 3 runs well on linux if you add -opengl.

I have shity low end laptop. It was fine for w10 at first but each update made it worse. I tryed cleaning, reinstall... But then I installed Mint. It was amazing from unusable to snappy. I still use it and it is enough computing for me (browsing, office, watching movies...)

A lot of the things i was doing on my pc were either done using wsl or a linux vm at some point, using windows mostly for gaming reasons. When i tried linux on bare metal again i had no issues running the games that i care about using proton or wine so i just stuck with it.

I switched in June 2021. I was a fan of libre software before the switch (I still am! Love me Krita, Kdenlive, LibreOffice, VS Code if you can count that...), and I saw that many people in that community, plus programming communities, use Linux. I heard that there were lightweight distros (my computer was fairly low-end), and a lot of customization options. I also wanted to try something new, so I ended up dual-booting W10 and Linux Mint, after trying LM in a virtual machine!

Now I have a new computer. It's dual-booting W11 and LM 21.1 Cinnamon. I rarely boot into the Windows partition.

I'd been tinkering with Linux for years and never using it properly when I saw how Windows Vista performed on my new fairly high end PC and formatted and installed Ubuntu and never looked back. Of course it wasn't an entirely smooth experience, setting up X properly was fun in those days but the performance was so much better.

Only real option if you want to tinker

The things I was using my computer to do were becoming increasingly technical - I work in science, and I'm also a massive nerd outside of that. Many of the programs I was using were on both Windows and Linux, but often I was unable to find troubleshooting help for the Windows versions. I knew enough of Linux that I could jiggle things around and make the Linux advice fit into my Windows situation, but it was awkward and added another layer of uncertainty to the stressful troubleshooting.

At a certain point, it felt like a case of "you can't find Windows specific advice because who in their right mind would actually be using Windows to do this stuff?"

Who indeed

(That last part is hyperbolic, but it sort of does feel like I was trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver sometimes. Combine that with Windows being annoying and stressful in the personal use context too and I wasn't having a good time. Things got very messy.

I switch to Kubuntu in 2020 because Microsoft discontinued Windows 7. Then I switch to Debian to learn more about how Linux work, and after that I moved to Siduction to get the up-to-date packages. I still rice KDE to look like Windows 7 to this day :P

Foss software for everything that's a one click install got me. I'm surprised msft doesn't make Winget more visible

Download a linux distro iso file

Burn iso to usb using rufus

Restart computer with usb plugged in

Get into bios by pressing your system's specified key to get into bios while booting

Go to the boot settings

Select your usb

Linux should pop up after a minute with install menu

If you configure the settings right, you can have a dual boot setup with both windows and linux

After linux is installed you no longer need the usb

The easiest way to try linux is to install it from the Microsoft App Store — not joking, windows officially supports running Linux now. Here’s a random tutorial: https://adamtheautomator.com/windows-subsystem-for-linux/

Because it was mandated by our communist party!