Is Ubuntu for me?

[wyr6]

Hi everyone,

For many years now, I was interested to leave Windows System behind, but there was not a right opportunity to do so.
I have a high range gaming laptop and I would like to jump on Linux, but my question is:
Is enough support from companies like Steam Valve, Nvidia, Ubuntu to sustain my desire for a change?
Also, my desire: Dota2, Last Epoch, Diablo 3, 4(when is actually a game to play), The Last of Us p1, Half Life all, CS2, Path of Exile, PoE2 when will be released.

Here is my technical details:

13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900HX 2.20 GHz


32 GB RAM
2x 1TB SSD EVO 990 PRO

Thank you.

[ian-weisser]

The Ubuntu installer includes a "Try Ubuntu" environment so you can answer these questions for yourself.

Test your hardware and desired software before committing to an install.

[oldfred]

Gaming is one place where Windows is still better supported.

Many start by dual booting and see if the games they want work in Ubuntu..

I do not game but had one application, quicken-financial, that that I had run since DOS days.
But after about 5 years of dual booting and only needing Windows for that one app, I found the apps in Ubuntu were maybe not as good, but good enough as the hassle of Windows was not worth it.

I am back to dual booting just for tax software.

[yancek]

The Ubuntu site has detailed information on certified hardware, good place to start.

https://ubuntu.com/certified

Also trying it on a 'live' usb or virtual software would be a good idea. Since you have specific games you use on windows, you might try an online search for using these games on Ubuntu/Linux.

[TheFu]

Try it. See if it meets your needs. Don't feel like Ubuntu is the only possible Linux choice either. There are 20+ popular distros and 100+ less popular versions.
All hardware is a little different.
All our knowledge is a little different.
The learning curve is steep. You'll need to unlearn things that MSFT forced you to learn. You'll need to learn other things that MSFT didn't force you to know, that are Linux/Unix specific.

Often, the best Linux distro for anyone who isn't highly technical will be the distro that a friend uses too.

In the last 4 yrs, Ubuntu has made some choices to make things more complicated and difficult by default. Other distros have avoided some of those choices, which makes them easier for people new to Linux, while allowing users to do more complex things, if they choose.

In the end, only you can decide, but it doesn't hurt to try it out so you can make an informed choice.

BTW, if you are mainly into gaming, LTT ( a youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXu...E6Xw-yeJA0Tunw who is all about gaming and hardware ) did a few months of trying to get Linux setup for gaming. In many ways, it worked better than MS-Windows, but because he wasn't a Linux nerd, he did struggle in some areas. Another guy at his company who is more Linux nerdy did the same stuff and had more success because he wasn't as trapped by lack of knowledge and understood Linux distros much more.

Star by making a list of the software you use and prioritizing each. Then look for the same or replacement software that runs well under Linux/Ubuntu. If it comes from the Synaptic Software Repos, then it will work best. Not all programs you currently run ported to Linux, so you'll need to find replacements. For almost all software, there are equivalent Linux replacements. I won't say exact - since Adobe doesn't support Linux. There are lots of creative professionals using Linux solutions without any Adobe.

Games are easier. Either the game runs or it doesn't. Unless you are a real stubborn nerdy person, you can look on a Linux-Games website to see what works and how most people install it. The best games will have native versions.

nVidia can cause some issues with every Linux, so beware. They've been getting better, but there is a famous photos of father of Linux showing nVidia what he thinks about their Linux support. You can find it. A few years ago, I removed my last nVidia GPU from my Linux systems after getting an AMD GPU with integrated graphics. You and I are completely different for what want in a computer. At the high-end, nvidia GPUs are the state of the art today. If you aren't at the high-end, do yourself a favor and choose an AMD GPU instead. AMD GPU drivers are built-into our kernels and I've never had a booting issue with them that I can remember since around 2012.

BTW, loading software for Linux is different from MS-Windows. Don't go get drivers from the GPU vendor. Only use the tested drivers through the Ubuntu Repos. You'll save lots of problems doing that.

[wyr6]

Thank you everyone, I will keep searching more about compatibility games on different OS Linux.
Very much appreciated.

[denz]

From my experience Steam works really well. I haven’t played those games you mentioned though.

[aljames2]

+1 to give any distro a spin with a “Try Ubuntu” usb and see what you think.

I have a Windows 10 bare metal machine that I keep around for when I get the itch to play my older Steam Windows games. However, since I’m no longer members of any gaming clans or no longer do online multiplayer, I could almost bid farewell and experiment with Linux games on steam. I am not the gamer I used to be.

Everything else in my world is running Linux, including my work laptops, and the laptops that I provide to a few employees to use. I even managed to get away from Quickbooks and find an open source solution to transition all of my double entry accounting to.

It’s interesting, when I think back to all the years using windows, In hindsight, I see that I was trained pretty well by the players in that ecosystem to look at the box and see if there was a “Windows 7 ready”, or “whatever” version “ready”, labeled on the box. All software and hardware was purchased by looking in the specifications to see if it would run on the version that I had at the time. We already see today that laptops can become obsolete to the latest windows, & when those older versions reach EOL, it’s time to go shopping again. Not w/Linux.

Enjoy your newfound venture, and don’t give up on it, it’s ok to transition little by little. 20 seconds to update a Linux OS, vs. 45 minutes on the W machine…my oh my, what took me so long..

[MAFoElffen]

Me?

I dual-boot. Most my Steam Games are Proton, so are both Windows and Linux. On the few Games that I play that are not, I boot as Windows.

Steam Linux based, has a very large Ubuntu user base. I don't think you will find many Linux Distro's that are geared and developed with Gaming in mind, as Ubuntu has been in the past decade. Not just my opinion. Look at the Phoronix News Articles about that. Even their users seem to agree:
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...tro#post940364

[cwmoser]

Once you break the "Microsoft addiction", life gets better.
I've been using Ubuntu Linux so long that Microsoft Office feels odd to me.
Some jobs though are tightly interwound into Microsoft Apps, but many are not and even if you are not an IT professional a journey learning Linux is interesting and rewarding.
My journey started dual booting while I had a job supporting Windows desktop PCs.
Later I was 100% Linux at home and Windows at work. I could easily remote in to work and home and get a command prompt or GUI interface.
It was neat as could be.
I started with Ubuntu 6.10 followed with the Beryl eye candy and now run Ubuntu Mate with Compiz.
The advantage of Linux is that it will run absolutely great on most older computers.
So its fun "dumpster diving" on Ebay picking up still nice desktops and Laptops from the E-Waste computers that corporations dump off to resellers every year and recently when Microsoft made the proclamation that only newer generation hardware is to run on their Windows 11.