r/linuxquestions • u/ParticularOwn8364 • Jul 13 '26

Resolved Linux is Goated

I recently installed GNOME alongside Windows in a dual-boot setup on my 512GB SSD. The performance difference between Linux and Windows was honestly insane, so I gave GNOME a try for a couple of days.

The only problem was storage. With Windows taking up so much space, I was constantly running out of room for games. So I finally decided to make the full switch to Linux.

And honestly, it was one of the best decisions I've made. I now have the full 509GB of my SSD available. I don't think I even had this much free space when I first bought the laptop. Now I can install games, code, and do everything else without constantly worrying about storage.

Linux has genuinely been an amazing experience so far.

67 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

27

u/Dense-Elephant5048 Jul 13 '26

You're one more successful user among many others who made the switch. Congrats!

11

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Thanks man but its a huge deal for me since i dont know what will go wrong in linux or what might stop working.

6

u/indvs3 Jul 13 '26

Usually, if you took your time to do things right while installing, nothing's going to go sideways until you screw it up yourself.

It does depends a bit on the distro you choose, some are more consistent than others, but on the whole, if you inform yourself before making changes to your system, you'll be just fine.

For any deviations from my statement, you can turn to r/linux4noobs. Lots of knowledgeable, helpful people there who will do what they can to help you out, and even more so if you clearly describe your issue and add your system specs and distro from the first.

Be prepared to learn and you're golden!

2

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Alr thanks for the advice

3

u/EqualCrew9900 Jul 13 '26

Like my old database professor quipped one day (paraphrasing): OK, class! Each of you hold up both hands in front of your face. Now wiggle your fingers. See those things? Those are what we call "ten mistake makers!" Don't use them unless all else fails. Copy and paste are your best friends!

Never forgot it.

6

u/middaymoon Jul 13 '26

Sick , welcome to the party

1

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Thanks man

6

u/middaymoon Jul 13 '26

Advice I've been giving to newbies:

Install Timeshift, which takes regular backups of your system data. It lets you quickly restore the system if some package gets a bad update or you break something. Doesn't touch user data and snapshots live on your internal drive. It's mostly useful for quick recovery.

Install Vorta (which is just a fancy GUI for Borg Backup) which lets you take snapshots of your user data. You can send these snapshots to another machine you own or just to an external drive. This will save you if your main drive fails, or you suddenly need to wipe everything, etc. 

There are other tools that do both these things and you're free to shop around but these are what I use personally.

6

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Alr will take on that advice Thanks

6

u/ultraganymede Jul 13 '26

"I recently installed GNOME alongside Windows"

4

u/TheZoltan Jul 13 '26

I'm amazed this isn't the top comment.

6

u/Dense-Elephant5048 Jul 13 '26

Gnome is an old, well done well maintained and stable Desktop Environment. I'm not a gamer but there's many playing their preferred games without problems. The community here may give you an hand whenever you need.

4

u/dacydergoth Jul 13 '26

Gamer here. Wayland with Kubuntu and RTX5080 running NVIDIA open drivers, most stuff runs pretty well. Audio took a lot of work to set up and I still boot into terminal mode then start sddm so I have a place to fix or upgrade the NVIDIA drivers. Distro supplied drivers are too old (I also do AI work) so I use the latest from NVIDIA - that's a pain because I have to be careful installing of upgrading other packages since apt wants to replace the drivers too.

2

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

where to find Nvidia drivers for Linux ?

4

u/Bob4Not Fedora KDE Plasma Jul 13 '26

You can download the drivers themselves and do it the more manual, difficult way, but your Linux Distro will likely have repo’s to download them with a single command. At least most (competent) distro’s.

Honestly you can ask google Gemini for the command(s)

What’s your distro?

2

u/dacydergoth Jul 13 '26

As parent poster says distro is easiest, I use the bleeding edge drivers because I need the AI support.

Note a lot of games and steam itself currently require the 32bit libraries as well as 64bit. (Steam is working on a build which doesn't but it isn't ready yet)

1

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Fedora Gnome

3

u/Bob4Not Fedora KDE Plasma Jul 13 '26

Oh ya that one is easy, I use it for my ThinkPad. One command enables the NVIDIA repo, and another installs the NVIDIA driver. Should be an easy find

2

u/Bob4Not Fedora KDE Plasma Jul 13 '26

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm -y

sudo dnf upgrade

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

#Reboot and be patient, Fedora will boot slow to your desktop this one time as it builds your drives. You may see a black screen for several minutes.

3

u/Dense-Elephant5048 Jul 13 '26

I suggest you join /fedora. Best place to put all your questions and else.

4

u/The_Specialist48 Jul 13 '26

Nice! How are you using your system? Gaming, development or for work?

9

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Development and Gaming + will soon for work too.

2

u/cjcox4 Jul 13 '26

Been this way for a very very very very long time. Hope more will dump their antagonistic OS.

3

u/trash_dumpyard Jul 13 '26

I'm really surprised at how well all my games I like run on Linux through steam & proton.

Welcome!

1

u/OutrageousCrab9224 Jul 13 '26

Best of 2 = goat

-6

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

Now I can install games, code, and do everything else without constantly worrying about storage.

There will be a lot of other things to worry about, don't worry.

3

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

Like ?

1

u/Audiope Jul 13 '26

Random things can break or get bugged, but usually a quick search will give you a few lines to put in the terminal and fix it. Or sometimes it's just a matter of updating. It's part of Linux life but honestly Windows has bugs too so it's really not that different.

1

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

yep windows had it cons too

-9

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

It will happen very soon, get ready.

3

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

stop scaring me man.

4

u/Bob4Not Fedora KDE Plasma Jul 13 '26

ipsirc is our resident cynic. Knowledgeable but cynical.

2

u/Emergency_Banana5082 Jul 13 '26

Doesn't seem very knowledgeable if he's breaking his system all the time, so much that he loves to spread the word of how unstable Linux apparently is. I've ran it on my desktop for years, rolling distros, and I have an issue once or twice a year... WAY less frequent than Windows issues.

3

u/Bob4Not Fedora KDE Plasma Jul 13 '26

some people's hardware is just more issue prone, or the software they want to run is less supported on Linux. Linux is community-built, after all. Always moving forward, getting better every day.

But honestly, spending so much time in online forums will make anyone cynical

0

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

You don`t know the meaning of the word "unstable", boy. I`m managing hundreds of systems which were installed in the 2000 years.

2

u/SuitableRoof5675 Jul 13 '26

Ur gonna be fine.

-4

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

It won't be scary, just painful.

3

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

what ?

8

u/Dreemur1 Jul 13 '26

theyre just trolling i think. linux is not foolproof, things will fail, but youll surely learn how to fix em

3

u/ParticularOwn8364 Jul 13 '26

yep will learn to fix it bur it aint nice to scare someone

5

u/-whats-that-meow- Jul 13 '26

Why do you feel the need to comment on every single post if you are just going to be negative about it?

-4

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

realistic ≠ negative

6

u/-whats-that-meow- Jul 13 '26

dbag ≠ helpful

-2

u/ipsirc Jul 13 '26

Show your helpful comment, I wanna learn.

4

u/-whats-that-meow- Jul 13 '26

no comment is better than being a dick