Do you use Linux?

[AusWolf]

I've used it in the past as my main system and there was so much I liked about it. But I game a lot and while proton, bottles, Lutris were fantastic, there was generally little issues with certain games, or dips in performance. Then comes the time to sometimes tweak things where as Windows just worked for this type of thing and required less of my time to make it run and have a better overall gaming experience. From a workflow point of view I could actually say I found Linux better, more customisation to suit my needs and workflow. If Only I could wrap Windows gaming, Mac look and feel and Linux customisation and workflow... damn that would be one hell of an OS.

I don't need the Mac look and feel, but other than that, I agree. The only reason I'm still on Windows is gaming. Once all my games get ported over, I'll open a new era in my life with no Microsoft in it. So far, Valve is doing a great job with Steam and Proton, but I've also got GOG, EGS, Ubisoft, and a ton of old classics on CD and DVD that will probably never get any Linux support. Luckily, they've been popping up on Steam and GOG a lot, so fingers crossed.

 

[cvaldes]

This simply enforces my long held opinion that Linux is a realistic OS consideration for servers and embedded systems. It still sucks large rocks as a general purpose desktop OS for consumer usage. And I was a UNIX/Linux sysadmin 25 years ago.

The plethora of various Linux desktop distributions most definitely does not help adoption; it just results in a heavily fractured effort split up into too many small factions, none of which have enough muscle to make any sort of lasting impression.

Device driver support is still slow and sketchy and power management (especially on notebooks) is notably weak.

 

[R-T-B]

and a ton of old classics on CD and DVD that will probably never get any Linux support.

Honestly those'll run fine in classic wine 99% of the time. Add dxvk if applicable, and done.

 

[DaemonForce]

I have tons of linux ISOs yet somehow don't use linux. DietPi is the closest I tinker with it in recent days and strictly in a low spec VM.
I was around for DSL and Knoppix when it still made sense to use College Linux and other weird distros with broken package managers.
Wrote a chainloading bootloader for SLAX back in the early WinPE days and today it probably doesn't resemble anything I remember.

.......

The only time linux makes sense to me is when setting up some DNS poisoner/sink and running an Android VM which also lost its purpose recently because I finally dropped Windows Phone for Android.

I can't run linux on my home server either. It runs like absolute garbage on old stuff and I don't trust modern builds to compete. It would be really nice to have something with low overhead running as a basic Samba+torrent server/client but that already sounds like asking too much and yes I get that it's completely insane that anyone would ever think that way. Windows really is the better server for me and that's awful considering the direction that the client builds have always gone. Just can't have anything anymore.

 

[argon]

My actual configuration is Main Arch with Windows on a different disk, when i wanna boot i select the other boot disk in bios i use that basically only when i wanna play call of duty
for listening music, ircing , and browsing in general and some java games i use arch
secondly i have debian (setuped with casaos)on my nas for using plex and navidrome

 

[bug]

This simply enforces my long held opinion that Linux is a realistic OS consideration for servers and embedded systems. It still sucks large rocks as a general purpose desktop OS for consumer usage. And I was a UNIX/Linux sysadmin 25 years ago.

The plethora of various Linux desktop distributions most definitely does not help adoption; it just results in a heavily fractured effort split up into too many small factions, none of which have enough muscle to make any sort of lasting impression.

Device driver support is still slow and sketchy and power management (especially on notebooks) is notably weak.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. Linux on desktop is really good. I can watch videos, stream music, edit photos... no problem.

And while there are some incompatibilities wrt peripherals, they are rarely the fault of Linux. More often than not, manufacturers deviate from some specs, mess up PCI ID and whatnot. That works on Windows, because they will provide a driver that accommodates those deviations. On Linux, it may take time till someone manages to reverse engineer the deviations and come up with a workaround. Sure, this is all academic for people that just want a working PC.
Also, the fragmentation is a plus in my book. Instead of "one size fits all" (already covered by Windows or macOS), on Linux you can actually search for something that fits you best.

 

[AusWolf]

Honestly those'll run fine in classic wine 99% of the time. Add dxvk if applicable, and done.

Oh really? I might have a go, then.

What about .exe installers? Does Linux handle them?

 

[SchumannFrequency]

I can't run linux on my home server either. It runs like absolute garbage on old stuff and I don't trust modern builds to compete.

FreeBSD, Void Linux, NetBSD and Alpine Linux run fast on old hardware. Gentoo and Calculate Linux with XFS are also fast on old hardware.

Windows really is the better server for me and that's awful considering the direction that the client builds have always gone. Just can't have anything anymore.

Due to this and some other known issues version of nginx for Windows is considered to be a beta version.

Is Windows even a 'server OS' if it cannot properly run the best web server?

The only time linux makes sense to me...

Some other situations where Linux makes more sense than windows 11:
1. Privacy
2. Security
3. AI and IoT
4. Python
5. Stability
6. Filesystems with more IOPS and features or technologies like ZFS
7. Many games run better on Linux than windows
8. Several game emulators work better on Linux than windows
9. Choice in desktop environments and window managers and the productivity boost they achieve
10. General performance:

Ubuntu 24.04 Boosts Performance, Outperforming Windows 11 On The AMD Ryzen Framework 16 Laptop - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[bug]

Oh really? I might have a go, then.

What about .exe installers? Does Linux handle them?

That's the whole point of Wine, to run Windows executables
It doesn't get everything right 100%, but it was doing a good job years ago when I tried it last. I imagine it got better since. And because of SteamOS, it got numerous enhancements around handling games.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

It doesn't get everything right 100%, but it was doing a good job years ago when I tried it last. I imagine it got better since. And because of SteamOS, it got numerous enhancements around handling games.

People often focus on what Windows can do and what Linux can't do. But what also needs to be said is that there are thousands of old apps that run better on Wine than on Windows 11. For many old windows apps, Linux has better compatibility than window. Certain old Microsoft webcams also work perfectly in Linux, but no longer have working drivers in Windows 11. Or to put it differently, specific popular Microsoft hardware products are better supported in Linux than in Windows 11. What is also often not said is that Linux has thousands of useful apps that are not natively available on Windows 11, or that are less stable and/or less easy to configure in Windows 11.

 

[Shou Miko]

Lately I ran Arch with KDE Plasma 6 for a about a week but WiFi6 doesn't really work great in Linux around 20mbit no matter what I did and I could read online it was the same for others.

Performance was really nice in Arch with KDE Plasma 6 all applications I use worked expect Dolby support it's not available yet only HDR is.

On Windows 11 Pro I do about 500mbit down that's a lot compared to 20mbit on the same WiFi.

People often focus on what Windows can do and what Linux can't do. But what also needs to be said is that there are thousands of old apps that run better on Wine than on Windows 11. For many old windows apps, Linux has better compatibility than window. Certain old Microsoft webcams also work perfectly in Linux, but no longer have working drivers in Windows 11. Or to put it differently, specific popular Microsoft hardware products are better supported in Linux than in Windows 11. What is also often not said is that Linux has thousands of useful apps that are not natively available on Windows 11, or that are less stable and less easy to configure in Windows 11.

Linux have it's purpose and I do want to run more Linux but some things needs to get their fixed before I go full Linux on my laptop again.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

On Windows 11 Pro I do about 500mbit down that's a lot compared to 20mbit on the same WiFi.

My sister had an old Windows laptop and the Wi-Fi was suspiciously slow. Then I put Linux on it and its Wi-Fi worked much faster (more than 50% higher performance)

It may be that certain specific modern Wi-Fi hardware works better on Windows. But it is very Wi-Fi hardware dependent.

The older this Wi-Fi hardware gets, the more likely it is to work better on Linux than window11.

WI-FI SPEED WINDOWS vs LINUX

Hello, I am having trouble with wifi. When I am on windows my internet speed i about 3*3-5 MB/s. But when i switch to LINUX i can download on full speed 6,5 MB/s. I though laptops just have bad antennas becouse i tried several laptops (Lenova Yoga, acer nitro 5 etc...) and when i tried internet...

www.electro-tech-online.com

I am having trouble with wifi. When I am on windows my internet speed i about 3*3-5 MB/s.
But when i switch to LINUX i can download on full speed 6,5 MB/s.

This is the more common situation on most hardware.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/q50ss6

 

[bug]

People often focus on what Windows can do and what Linux can't do. But what also needs to be said is that there are thousands of old apps that run better on Wine than on Windows 11. For many old windows apps, Linux has better compatibility than window. Certain old Microsoft webcams also work perfectly in Linux, but no longer have working drivers in Windows 11. Or to put it differently, specific popular Microsoft hardware products are better supported in Linux than in Windows 11. What is also often not said is that Linux has thousands of useful apps that are not natively available on Windows 11, or that are less stable and/or less easy to configure in Windows 11.

Go figure, I have one myself.

And running Windows software better than Windows is nothing new. OS/2 used to do that around the time Linux was born. But yes, a different OS is just that: different. It will never be a 100% exact replacement. It will have pluses and minuses.

 

[Shou Miko]

My sister had an old Windows laptop and the Wi-Fi was suspiciously slow. Then I put Linux on it and its Wi-Fi worked much faster (more than 50% higher performance)

It may be that certain specific modern Wi-Fi hardware works better on Windows. But it is very Wi-Fi hardware dependent.

The older this Wi-Fi hardware gets, the more likely it is to work better on Linux than window11.

WI-FI SPEED WINDOWS vs LINUX

Hello, I am having trouble with wifi. When I am on windows my internet speed i about 3*3-5 MB/s. But when i switch to LINUX i can download on full speed 6,5 MB/s. I though laptops just have bad antennas becouse i tried several laptops (Lenova Yoga, acer nitro 5 etc...) and when i tried internet...

www.electro-tech-online.com

I am having trouble with wifi. When I am on windows my internet speed i about 3*3-5 MB/s.
But when i switch to LINUX i can download on full speed 6,5 MB/s.

This is the more common situation on most hardware.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/q50ss6

I use Intel's AX210 on my T480 and from research even on reddit it looks like even updating the firmware for the wifi6 in kernel doesn't really work sadly so that's why I went back.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/q50ss6
It depends a lot on the hardware. Believe me, there are ways to make wifi work horribly on Linux as well.

Why does my Android show faster speeds than my iPhone when both of them are connected to the same Wi-Fi network? The speeds differ by abo...

Answer (1 of 3): That's because WiFi doesn't manage data distribution among different devices unless you specifically want it to work using QoS (Quality of Service). All the new Router features this new tool for managing your bandwidth. Whenever you connected to your WiFi network it dedicates al...

www.quora.com

I tested in India. And Android (Linux) phone always win. I tested with same internet provider “jio” in India. I checked with 6s, iphone X vs Nokia 5.1 plus and galaxy s9
Android Always win. Also I saw a main problem in iphone whatsapp that is a rotating circle is taking too much time to load content in iphone. I am not a technical person in this field. I didn’t use any instrument or online software. I checked manually. I tested because I was using Android from starting. But in 2019 when I switched to iphone, I saw internet issue with same Internet provider. then I started testing with different phones (nokia, samsung and iphone) and yes I saw slow internet in iphones.

I use Intel's AX210 on my T480 and from research even on reddit it looks like even updating the firmware for the wifi6 in kernel doesn't really work sadly so that's why I went back.

A particular website loads 2.5x faster on the Sony XZ2 (Android=Linux) than on the iPhone 13 (iOS=not Linux).
This could also be because there were a lot of tabs open on the iPhone, and no tabs were open on the Sony XZ2.
But the result is certainly not what I thought it would be and shows that many factors can influence this kind of performance.

By the way, I would recommend you to try another distro based on the following I found:

No it's definitely the AX210. I have checked via the terminal output and it says:
29:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 160MHz (rev 1a)
It has always worked flawlessly.

I'm not saying there isn't problems, it's just that many other users have used these cards with success as I have as well. There are regressions in the kernel that do cause issues and are usually solved by an update, but as of right now I'm using the AX210 without any problems and maxing out my bandwidth throughput at high speeds.

There is nothing in the logs you have provided to suggest there are problems with the driver of this device. So as much as we would like to help you, there's only so much we can do with the limited information we have.

The only thing I can think of from the top of my head is that presumably you're dual booting as you mentioned Windows, maybe the 'Fast Startup' feature is causing the Wi Fi card to enter a low power state when the computer is turned off which does not resume when booting into Linux.

A possible solution may be to disable the Fast Startup feature in Windows.

Here is a thread about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/n3jf1p

 

[remixedcat]

fast startup should be disabled before you install linux for dual boot. this is what I followed and it worked great

How to Install Ubuntu and Windows 8 Through Windows 11 as a Dual Boot on your Dell Computer | Dell US

cuz I accidentally didn't one time and none of the usb wlan adapters worked either.... so ... yah

 

[Shou Miko]

I have almost always kept fast boot off because the new way Windows 11 handle this by putting the machines in the a sleep state ain't good for the hardware and since my T480 and M720q runs 8th gen Intel and my 4th gen at work doesn't seem happy with it they are all off even my gamer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/q50ss6
It depends a lot on the hardware. Believe me, there are ways to make wifi work horribly on Linux as well.

Why does my Android show faster speeds than my iPhone when both of them are connected to the same Wi-Fi network? The speeds differ by abo...

Answer (1 of 3): That's because WiFi doesn't manage data distribution among different devices unless you specifically want it to work using QoS (Quality of Service). All the new Router features this new tool for managing your bandwidth. Whenever you connected to your WiFi network it dedicates al...

www.quora.com

I tested in India. And Android (Linux) phone always win. I tested with same internet provider “jio” in India. I checked with 6s, iphone X vs Nokia 5.1 plus and galaxy s9
Android Always win. Also I saw a main problem in iphone whatsapp that is a rotating circle is taking too much time to load content in iphone. I am not a technical person in this field. I didn’t use any instrument or online software. I checked manually. I tested because I was using Android from starting. But in 2019 when I switched to iphone, I saw internet issue with same Internet provider. then I started testing with different phones (nokia, samsung and iphone) and yes I saw slow internet in iphones.



A particular website loads 2.5x faster on the Sony XZ2 (Android=Linux) than on the iPhone 13 (iOS=not Linux).
This could also be because there were a lot of tabs open on the iPhone, and no tabs were open on the Sony XZ2.
But the result is certainly not what I thought it would be and shows that many factors can influence this kind of performance.

By the way, I would recommend you to try another distro based on the following I found:

No it's definitely the AX210. I have checked via the terminal output and it says:
29:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 160MHz (rev 1a)
It has always worked flawlessly.

I'm not saying there isn't problems, it's just that many other users have used these cards with success as I have as well. There are regressions in the kernel that do cause issues and are usually solved by an update, but as of right now I'm using the AX210 without any problems and maxing out my bandwidth throughput at high speeds.

There is nothing in the logs you have provided to suggest there are problems with the driver of this device. So as much as we would like to help you, there's only so much we can do with the limited information we have.

The only thing I can think of from the top of my head is that presumably you're dual booting as you mentioned Windows, maybe the 'Fast Startup' feature is causing the Wi Fi card to enter a low power state when the computer is turned off which does not resume when booting into Linux.

A possible solution may be to disable the Fast Startup feature in Windows.

Here is a thread about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/n3jf1p

I don't remember the rev just by research a lot had the same issues with speed on the AX2xx series cards using Arch so that's why I changed back for now maybe in 6months or more I will try Arch again.

 

[bug]

I have almost always kept fast boot off because the new way Windows 11 handle this by putting the machines in the a sleep state ain't good for the hardware and since my T480 and M720q runs 8th gen Intel and my 4th gen at work doesn't seem happy with it they are all off even my gamer.



I don't remember the rev just by research a lot had the same issues with speed on the AX2xx series cards using Arch so that's why I changed back for now maybe in 6months or more I will try Arch again.

Yes, that's the thing: no matter how limited these things are, they still sting when they happen to you. Me? They will pry wired ethernet from my cold, dead hands.

 

[AusWolf]

That's the whole point of Wine, to run Windows executables
It doesn't get everything right 100%, but it was doing a good job years ago when I tried it last. I imagine it got better since. And because of SteamOS, it got numerous enhancements around handling games.

People often focus on what Windows can do and what Linux can't do. But what also needs to be said is that there are thousands of old apps that run better on Wine than on Windows 11. For many old windows apps, Linux has better compatibility than window. Certain old Microsoft webcams also work perfectly in Linux, but no longer have working drivers in Windows 11. Or to put it differently, specific popular Microsoft hardware products are better supported in Linux than in Windows 11. What is also often not said is that Linux has thousands of useful apps that are not natively available on Windows 11, or that are less stable and/or less easy to configure in Windows 11.

That's it, I'm convinced. As soon as Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 10, I'll be back on Linux (probably Mint).

 

[R-T-B]

What about .exe installers? Does Linux handle them?

That's what wine does yes.

It's still a bit of a tinkerfest not gonna lie, but the end result is attainable.

 

[Zareek]

Is Windows even a 'server OS' if it cannot properly run the best web server?

Not really in my experience, I deal with both Windows and Linux servers (RHEL/CentOS/Rocky) for work. Windows servers require regular reboots to maintain stability and performance. For our Linux servers, we schedule downtimes when needed, but the only time they crash is when AWS or Azure has a hardware problem. They never get slow for seemingly no reason, like the Windows servers, and they can almost always accomplish the same task with less resources. We literally have older Linux servers that are not internet facing for various tasks that have uptimes of over four years. The Linux servers will literally go from being built, to doing their task, to retirement without a single reboot. Meanwhile, the Windows servers need a reboot every 4 to 6 weeks to work reliably, again depending on their given task. I'm sure they could run for a year doing certain tasks, but all the security updates seem to interfere with that.

 

[AusWolf]

Not really in my experience, I deal with both Windows and Linux servers (RHEL/CentOS/Rocky) for work. Windows servers require regular reboots to maintain stability and performance. For our Linux servers, we schedule downtimes when needed, but the only time they crash is when AWS or Azure has a hardware problem. They never get slow for seemingly no reason, like the Windows servers, and they can almost always accomplish the same task with less resources. We literally have older Linux servers that are not internet facing for various tasks that have uptimes of over four years. The Linux servers will literally go from being built, to doing their task, to retirement without a single reboot. Meanwhile, the Windows servers need a reboot every 4 to 6 weeks to work reliably, again depending on their given task. I'm sure they could run for a year doing certain tasks, but all the security updates seem to interfere with that.

Server or not, I've always wondered why Windows relies on periodic reboots while other OSes don't.

 

[R-T-B]

Server or not, I've always wondered why Windows relies on periodic reboots while other OSes don't.

Me too. Linux has had kexec and ability to reboot the full kernel without the machine forever. Windows? Good luck with that.

 

[bug]

That's it, I'm convinced. As soon as Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 10, I'll be back on Linux (probably Mint).

Probably not the best choice if you care about gaming. Gaming often requires new packages for a number of things. Mint, being Ubuntu-based is more about stability and that means older, tested packages.
If you want up-to-date, I would suggest OpenSuse Tumbleweed or some Arch derivative that comes with a proper installer. Do some research first, see what works for you.

Me too. Linux has had kexec and ability to reboot the full kernel without the machine forever. Windows? Good luck with that.

I had a big wtf moment back in Win7 days when it was able to install series of driver updates without needing a reboot, but couldn't do the same for a... wait for it... IE update!

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

That's it, I'm convinced. As soon as Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 10, I'll be back on Linux (probably Mint).

For what it's worth, on my Linux box I'm able to successfully run and use:

• Steam
• Blizzard's Battle.net launcher for Diablo II R, III, and IV, WoW, Starcraft, etc. (lutris launcher)
• Ubisoft's Connect Client for Assassin's Creed Mirage, Avatar FoP, etc. (lutris launcher)
• EA App for Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Dragon Age franchise, etc. (lutris launcher)
• Rockstar's Client for RDR2, GTA V, etc. (lutris launcher)
• Other games installed from Windows installers (like games from Spiderweb Software) (lutris launcher)
• Epic Games, Amazon Games, and GOG using the Heroic Games Launcher

I think you've mentioned in the past that you have some extra hardware after upgrading. The best thing you could do is put together a box and start messing with/learning it now.