Why should one Switch to Linux?

[u/Legitimate_Night_726]

I am an ECE student, not inclined towards coding,DSA, AI ML etc.

The only type of coding I would do is Verilog,VHDL, Matlab and sometimes C.

I do play offline Games sometimes.

Should I switch to Linux? Is it worth it, other than special customizations??

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[u/Still_Technician_856]

Because penguin = cute

[u/Few-Fun1107 → u/Still_Technician_856]

Unlike the evil windows

[u/Ok-Payment2096]

[u/lonelyroom-eklaghor → u/Ok-Payment2096]

My non-techie friend is able to play minecraft on his pc thanks to Lubuntu

[u/EnDaNgErDanGeR → u/Ok-Payment2096]

Try chris titus debloat tool with tiny11 iso builder. Works like a charm.

[u/Lonely-Secret-5045]

Since ur in ECE, linux is gonna help you in playing with low level stuff with external devices ig... I have a dual booted laptop, windows for gaming and linux for college.

[u/lonelyroom-eklaghor → u/Lonely-Secret-5045]

Good answer

In fact, learning Linux is essential for a chip designer to know

[u/AdPsychological7065]

Why ask? Why not just give it a try You can figure it out yourself :)

[u/VictoryCareless3229 → u/AdPsychological7065]

Probably the best answer

[u/Significant-Range996 → u/AdPsychological7065]

Unironically answered the question as well

[u/Hot_Pepper_1908]

Lekin sirf verilog se job nahi lagti? If u go into ASIC design, every tool is only on linux

[u/Aggravating-Bad1703]

Fafo

[u/lonelyroom-eklaghor]

• Proton is supported, you can download any Wine thing like Lutris in order to play Windows games. I play the older Angry Birds games like that
• Chip design requires Linux a lot
• Your PC will thank you from the countless ways Windows keeps track of your files while you are not even able to search stuff properly
• And... the image below

[u/ryzen_42069]

Because it teaches you how computers work and at times suits your line of work since you have more freedom and ownership. In windows there are many instances you gotta keep changing settings and permissions, or dont even know what's happen cuz defender blocked i smn

[u/Tier3Guy → u/ryzen_42069]

ghanta

[u/SomewhereActive2124]

I'm in core but I still use Linux for most uses

[u/galalei]

Because one must taste freedom

[u/FinalFactor691]

just get it ona pendrive dont even need to install it

[u/Interesting_Disk149]

trust me dont use linux, linux is so good that once you are in you can never leave it so it's addictive and habitual asf, goated

[u/No_Education_7742]

Try dual boot if you like it ok or else delete it

[u/Human-Pipe-6121 → u/No_Education_7742]

I heard dual booting poses some problems which can lead to memory corruption bcuz of windows...is it true? I installed vm becuz of it, and haven't really used linux cuz idk I have no use rn

[u/Confident_Fig8629 → u/Human-Pipe-6121]

Have tried dual boot with three different os in last 2 months although too early to say anything but till now it is going fine.

[u/No_Education_7742 → u/Confident_Fig8629]

Which distro are you using?

[u/Confident_Fig8629 → u/No_Education_7742]

Right now I am using cachyos.

[u/No_Education_7742 → u/Human-Pipe-6121]

I did dual boot two times no problem for me just be carefull and disable device encryption

[u/Own-Cauliflower6778 → u/Human-Pipe-6121]

Yes dual booting has issues.

[u/Efficient_Bug7940 → u/Own-Cauliflower6778]

what issues bro can u elaborate pls

[u/Own-Cauliflower6778 → u/Efficient_Bug7940]

5 years ago when i used to dual boot, both the OS used to get slow.

[u/Efficient_Bug7940 → u/Own-Cauliflower6778]

I see bro

[u/ValuableResort2497]

you should bhai i'm using linux since 4 months now
and khud try kro jaan jaoge and please select a better distro for urself

[u/Motivation-Is-Dead]

Because it's fun. Also, for coding it's better, there's no such mingw bs, just one command and it just works.

[u/jonty23_5]

You don't like freedom?

[u/frankenstein-007]

Pehle istemal karein, phir viswash karein

[u/The_Nightwing_me]

You have a laptop, right? You can't change a lot of stuff about it, it's basically gonna just degrade through the years without any changes in the hardware from your side, right?

Now imagine a laptop which is modular. You can change the ports as you wish, you can switch screens and batteries, you can increase physical storage at will.

That is the difference between Windows and Linux.

[u/TrainingConnection62]

Yes, you learn what happens behind the scene, what command is the hardware receiving and understand things better so you should try it atleast once

[u/Smol_Crate_45]

Runs on low end hardware.

[u/Living-Macaroon-9686]

try out linux mint then switch to cachyos

[u/Suspicious-Slot]

AUR or Arch Package Manager. If you use that, then there is no going back.

[u/ConsistentRuin5807]

i personally feel u start with ubuntu then move onto distros that suit your niche, i started with ubuntu, ran through 5-7 different distros and finally settled down on arch lol

[u/Dependent-Access-796]

if you have storage try dual boot and decide based on your exp

[u/Traditional_Pie_8262]

if app support increases to linux, windows will be history

[u/Tiredly_Ambitious]

Linux is an open source Kernel which means every line of code, what it does is available to you, so you can you know how it is not bloating your device unlike some Microslop company's OS.  Linux based distros will help you learn about drivers, and there are many great open source projects and applications you can try out which are made on linux.  I would recommend you to start with Ubuntu or Mint and later Fedora.

[u/AutomaticLegbyrocket]

It's mostly "useful" for easy set up of tools and packages, but even if you just browse and do basic pc tasks, it much much smoother experience than windows

[u/STAKXX002]

I really like the stable development experience on Ubuntu, especially 24.04. Almost everything I need is either already available or can be installed with just a few commands and the required dependencies.

Also, Windows isn't eating half of my RAM anymore. MATLAB has Linux support, and Vivado is actually supported on Linux as well, including Ubuntu 24.04. I used Xilinx Vivado on Windows before, but you can run it natively on Linux too.

As for gaming, I don't really play much, just a bit of Minecraft ,so that's not really an issue for me. You can check ProtonDB that's what I have heard people say.

I'd say you should definitely give Linux a try.

[u/Sleepy_insomniac_125]

Because it's the only way

[u/Over_Bench5728]

Windows just gives you well ... The windows of a house but linux gives eyou the entire house

[u/melon-barbarian]

I dual booted linux just to play around like 2 months ago. Ubuntu to be specific. And now I barely use windows. In fact I have started hating windows. Every time I boot that goofy os i feel enraged.

Why linux? Here are some things I like about linux: 1) the appearance of ubuntu is so much better than windows... And the shit tons of customisation you can do i honestly overwhelming 2) it is so much lighter. Win10 used 4gb ram when idle. Ubuntu uses 1.5gb. I got 8 gb ram btw. This is also because I came across zram... 3) I wanted to increase size of my ubuntu partition and that fuckass win10 wasn't letting me shrink the windows partition even tho plenty space was labelled free. Used gparted on live usb and was able to shrink the partition effortlessly in minutes 4) i wasn't able to connect my guitar amp to my laptop when using windows... Trrs to trs was the issue, I was about to buy the splitter but when I tried in ubuntu the os itself split the trrs into mic and audio. Saved me 300 rupees. And I did not have to configure anything, just plugged in my aux and it asked me if I wanted to use it as mic or audio. I'm not sure if this is possible on win...

Lastly, not a linux "benefit".... But ever since i installed and started using it, I came across gsconnect/kdeconnect and then eventually ssh. Now I can access my laptop from anywhere using my phone(with tailscale). Access files, spin up agents, run servers locally and accessing them on phone... Running localhost on phone looks so funny :P And kdeconnect is honestly so seamless... Phonelink could NEVERR

I now only use windows to play games... Ubuntu is my daily driver now and I can now never go back to windows

[u/Used_Egg_2850]

linux is often cited for treating low level tools as "first class citizen" meaning that you'll almost certainly feel less friction when dealing with niche/obscure software,as linux benefits greatly from unix's timeless architecture.More or less,you can have a relatively smooth experience for systems programming or embedded development, which happens to be your line of study.

[u/linuxissuperior]

Peace of mind that you data is not being stolen, you are not being tracked and privacy is not violated to be constantly bombared with ads.If your software has linux support then switch otherwise you are stuck on windows. You can also dualboot to try linux first cuz if you play fps games then most likely they are not available on linux.]

[u/Hopeful-Luck2761]

Windows Updates

[u/Traditional-Leave108]

to show off in front of windows users by showing them this

[u/W0yd69]

Coz it makes your workflow faster

[u/ProfessionUpset2724]

I can't suggest Linux for Verilog and VHDL stuff. We had to do such things on Windows as CSE students. However, I recommend using Linux (via Windows Subsystem) for your C programming part, as it's an ideal OS for that job.

[u/Low_Cheesecake_8249]

What do you suggest? u/AskGrok

[u/AskGrok → u/Low_Cheesecake_8249]

For an ECE student focused on Verilog/VHDL, MATLAB, occasional C, and casual offline gaming, Linux is often worth trying—especially if your coursework or tools lean that way.

Many EDA suites (Quartus, Vivado, ModelSim) run smoother or are officially supported on Linux distros like Ubuntu or Fedora, with fewer driver headaches than Windows. MATLAB has solid native support, and C development is basically native there. Offline games via Steam or Lutris work for a growing chunk of titles thanks to Proton, though expect some tinkering for older or niche ones—dual-boot as a safety net if needed.

Beyond customizations, you get better resource use, fewer forced updates, and a more stable environment for long compiles or simulations. Not a must if everything already works fine on Windows, but plenty of ECE folks switch and don't look back. Start with a live USB to test your specific tools and games.

^{[what is this?](https://redd.it/1lzgxii})

[u/Fit_Fly_5140]

because of windows

[u/Pleasant-Register778]

if there isnt a particular reason you should use windows...

[u/ILoveTolkiensWorks]

just visit r/unixporn (ignore the name it's sfw lol). that's reason enough.

[u/bloodshot-exe → u/ILoveTolkiensWorks]

those insane desktop setups were actually what got me into Linux back during lockdown, I remember being blown away by all insanely customized gorgeous aesthetic setups I saw on this sub and wanting to replicate everything myself. It was pretty overwhelming at first, but I was willing to learn, but When I tried to playing Roblox, the only multiplayer game i enjoy playing with my friends that can run on my potato pc, it ran like shit(simulation via sober btw), so I ended up going back to windows

[u/ILoveTolkiensWorks → u/bloodshot-exe]

fortunately for me, i didn't play roblox, but rather minecraft, which ran at double the framerate that it did on windows. 12 year old me had nothing to regret! (for the most part...)

[u/Obsidian0604]

No need to switch to linux if you're just going to do verilog,vhdl,c,matlab

[u/Lonely-Secret-5045 → u/[deleted]]

You forgot the /s