Some advanced uses from Windows that are very easy can be very difficult on Linux still. PipeWire, for example, while more stable overall, has made getting my audio routing all correct (e.g. for streaming) much more difficult than it is on Windows. Once it's set up it's just as stable but it took me longer to set up.

I could see that among other things totaling dozens of hours for a Linux beginner. Power management on laptops is still a common sticking point; i probably spent more than a dozen hours on that alone before giving up and going back to Windows on my laptop. And I've been using Linux for 20 years.

I wonder if this is due to Linux being harder to work on or because it is possible to fix some errors which would be catastrophic on other OSes?

Back when I used Windows a lot (Windwos XP times...) I also had the "long, scarring evening of frustation" rather often. It was usually solved by a reinstall.

In recent times, the “standard” seems to be smartphones (I use Android). The logic of smartphones it: It works or it dosen't and if it doesn't there is nothing you can do about it. Like ... not supporting some docking station because its network interface is called usb0 rather than eth0 ... no bypass, no solution, buy another docking station.

Of course this is faster than debugging the issue and maybe fixing it for good or maybe waste the evening on it.

Effectively Linux giving you the option to do something about errors doesn't mean the workarounds from other OSes like “reinstall”, “buy a new one”, “use a friend's system because it doesn't work here” are still readily available?

Ha ha, I think the busybox rm implementation also doesn't have it, be careful, it's present in lightweight containers, even though it's probably a recent thing. Can't speak for MacOS too.

TBF, this safeguard has never saved me, being careful saved me. You can afford to take the time to be careful, because writing the powershell equivalent is probably at least ten times longer (just kidding, or am I?), and clicking buttons in the file explorer is a hundred times longer. Always write the "-rf" after writing the path! I never run rsync without a dry-run, too, even without --delete.

I would recommend it yes, the biggest pain point of switching OSes for me is getting your data out on an external drive, I'm not good with backups so it always takes a while for me to find my files and make sure I'm not erasing valuable documents or non cloud savefiles. If you have a new SSD you can keep the old one as a backup.

To check for game compatibility, you should check :

- Steam store page for Steam Deck compatibility, be aware that sometimes a bad rating only means the in-game text is too small to read on small screens or that gamepad support is poor, also I've played multiple "not supported" games that ran just fine.

- ProtonDB, community rating, separate comments for Steam Deck and PC, troubleshooting for Nvidia/AMD specific issues, etc. -> This includes Valve's Steam Deck compatibility score https://www.protondb.com/app/1808500?device=pc

- https://areweanticheatyet.com/game/arc-raiders AWACY says ARC Raiders is not officially supported, but runs. You never know, it might break in the future or not.

- Be aware that the Steam Client is only officially supported on Ubuntu, though you might be fine with other distros as well. Don't use the open source "nouveau" GPU driver, use the proprietary Nvidia drivers, also I've had GPU hiccups during the transition from X.org to Wayland that might be related to NVIDIA, but now it's fine.

Look up protondb for game compatibility. Arc raiders is marked as running perfectly fine, but plenty of multiplayer games with invasive client side anti cheats such as Fortnite or Genjin Impact do not run. If you depend on such games it's best not to switch, any privacy concern you may have with Windows is gone with those games running literal rootkits on your PC anyway.

I've been running Linux for gaming for well over 15 years and have not missed much in the last 5 or so. There's way too many games out there to play that do run on Linux even if unemployed and have the time to dedicate it as your sole hobby.

I would buy a second hard drive and replace your current and install Linux on that. That way you can swap them back without issue. If you feel satisfied and ready to wipe windows, and have open slots, you can add the original drive back to your motherboard and mount it in pretty seamlessly (or entirely seamlessly with LVM).

I wouldn't try to dual boot, mainly from past experience. Linux is very fine with it, but Windows can aggressively try to repair itself and break other things, or end up broken itself.

Arc Raiders runs great. ProtonDB is the right thing to check to find out if any given game is gonna run on Linux. Fortunately, the success of the Steam Deck has more and more devs playing ball.

You could just buy another SSD and install Linux on that. Then, you have your Windows drive left untouched and pristine so you can swap back if you want, or you can pull data over as needed.

Try dual-booting first if you can. It's better to understand the new OS before switching over completely.

Dual boot. I have never not had a need to boot into Windows on occasion. Daily driving Linux is very pleasant but personally, having the fallback for multiplayer games or modding tools and stuff has always been worth it.

> just picked up a 3080 with 32gb ram

Prepare for some potential headaches, do some research and see what kind of problems you might encounter. And before blaming Linux watch this short clip[0].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ

It's a nice addition for certain use cases, however in the case of running "rm -rf ...", it has no effect because of the "-f / --force" flag set afterwards.

"rm -if" never prompts, "rm -fi" prompts. --preserve-root is an entirely different thing which will stop the command from deleting files even if you told it to.

  $ sudo rm -ri /
  rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'
  rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe

The main difference is that with Windows the work is mostly front loaded. From 2000/XP forward, as long as you set up the correct drivers post-install, they for most intents and purposes, barring shitty hardware, really did “just work”.

There’s something to be said for “Windows creep” though, where the install decays over time and a reinstall is required. Back in the 2K/XP/Vista days this could be pretty bad, but that improved with 7 onwards. It still exists today, but the decay takes years to become noticeable instead of months.

Linux isn’t without its own issues there however. Even on a more friendly distro like Ubuntu or Fedora, eventually one will end up with things like config files that slipped through the cracks and didn’t get migrated correctly, very slowing degrading the desktop experience.

It's also still not true. My son has a Windows machine that he's responsible for, after a long time running ChromeOS. He's reported all kinds of weird driver things, and having had to watch YouTube tutorials to figure out how to fix issues.

I don't disagree which is why the level of effort needed to use Linux has always seemed overblown to me lol, but that is the relative popular perception

Even on idevices, just works is more marketing and mental gymnastics than reality.

I'm not convinced that's the case. A few years ago I had a laptop with pre-installed Ubuntu and it worked without any fiddling. You certainly can turn Linux into a hobby and try all sorts of variations, which isn't really an option with Windows or Mac. But you don't have to do that.

For me it came with age. I'm in my mid-forties now and although I loved to tinker with stuff, now I want things to "just work". I certainly see the allure of Apple ecosystem. (anecdata but my brother is the same).

Technology advances by increasing the number of things people can achieve without thinking about them.

Linux doesn't really require you to think about it, necessarily. More that odds are high if you have tinkered with something recently, you are more likely to do so again. Think of it as a reverse lindy number. (And this can be frustrating for folks with automated marketing that feel that they are too dumb. They are, but the dumb approach works rather well.)

To that end, the last time I tinkered with what linux distro I'm using is over a decade ago.

Valve hardware is a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a blip for desktop hardware sales. It will not bring the Year of Linux to the Desktop.