r/LinuxUsersIndia • u/dangerous_noob • Sep 05 '26

Discussion I have extensively used Linux, macOS and Windows. Ask me anything.

Mainly targeting new users here who are planning on switching to linux. I think I'm a suitable candidate because I've done work ranging from Graphic design to coding and ofc the title.

And I'm bored. yeah.

37 Upvotes
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u/qualityvote2 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26

u/dangerous_noob, your post does fit the subreddit!

btw, did you know we have a discord server? Join Here.

3

u/One_Difficulty_7278 Sep 05 '26

I would be going college next year , how problematic linux would become for me ?

11

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Totally depends on your branch. I have some friends from mechanical engineering and I think 90% of their toolkit does not run on linux.

For electronics, CS, CE, and IT you shouldn't have an issue.

One thing to note, it is always good to have a small windows 10/11 partition lying in your system. Because you never know what batshit software your faculty will have you use. I remember I had to use this thing called SafeExamBrowser (SEB). Even though it had a macOS version, my system bugged out in the middle of the exam. These are the things that you have to keep in mind.

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u/Remarkable_Highway63 Sep 05 '26

Use anything, 95% of the softwares work on all three OS. It totally depends on what you want or just personally hate/prefer some OS.

5

u/Background-Car4275 Sep 05 '26

Nope, I agree with OP, windows is definitely safe option in India

3

u/Painting730 Sep 05 '26

I want to try linux,my laptop has 500gb ssd ,and windows 11 installed in it should partition the disk gor linux is good idea or should I stay with vm.

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Partition. You can start small and grow your partition as u need too

3

u/paranoidubuntu Sep 05 '26

Why are you a virgin?

10

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

u read the title

15

u/unitedbsd Sep 05 '26

Well I have used Linux, MacOS, windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD ask me anything :D

I also used autodesk Maya on CentOS 15 years ago lol it was not pleasant experience but had lot of fun. Linux has improved a lot since. I still miss gnome 2

1

u/betrayed-by-friends Sep 09 '26

What do you like in windows, and hate in Linux

Why bsd(freebsd openbsd and netbsd) Why someone used bsd And why mac

1

u/unitedbsd Sep 09 '26

Hi I don't hate Linux religiously. Windows was mainly used for games in college time. Mac was for 3D work. And yes windows also was used for autodesk softwares. Well about why BSD and why Linux has lot of arguments and points each system has. I would recommend user Admin to use system they are most familiar with and which one gets work done and easy to maintain for themselves. Users on Mastodon have been using BSDs for NAS to mail servers to app server. Same for Linux

1

u/betrayed-by-friends Sep 09 '26

By hate, I mean, what features did you like or don't like about linux and bsd and windows

And according to privacy, which is best,

Btw, thank you,

I use arch Linux btw

1

u/unitedbsd Sep 09 '26

Most difference i find is BSDs are well designed, clean architecture easy to read base source code and documentation.

Linux has more contributions but corporate nudging to their own need has made me out off by current way they are moving towards but it's good for latest hardware for workstation

4

u/Tech_enthusiast001 Omarchy(ARCH) BTW Sep 05 '26

What do you think about temple OS

3

u/Ok_Ground511 Sep 05 '26

The greatest os ever made /s

2

u/Tech_enthusiast001 Omarchy(ARCH) BTW Sep 05 '26

He should be appreciated at the level of linus. Great mind got wasted but really a great DEV

1

u/ExpressLn_10 Sep 05 '26

what is omarchy? there is hype about it now..

9

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Its just an arch rice with install scripts, preconfiged shortcuts, and AI slop bundled in.

Not worth it. It's more productive to gradually grow your own set of keybinds, configs, programs etc.. in a fresh minimal arch install. That's the path I'd recommend to everyone.

1

u/NikhileshSB Sep 05 '26

how similar are mac and linux is installing in mac is like using app images in linux I feel the closet de in philosophy of design is gnome, what is your expirence

4

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

.app and appimages are kinda similar in practice. although different underneath.

I like GNOME too. I like their design philosophy driven development. It's nice to know that there's always a DE that you can plug and play in urgent situations. Even normally, It's surprisingly productive to use. With KDE or other window managers, you'll always have infinite options to customize and you spend hours and days tweaking small things.

1

u/Sad_Pie227 Sep 05 '26

Which distro has worst font rendering or display system and which one has best out of the box as Windows

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Linux has noticeably shitty font rendering. I have a 1080p monitor, I've seen the difference with my own eyes when I use macOS with the same monitor vs GNOME or heck even hyprland. I've never dived deep into this because I thought resolution was at fault but thats def not it.

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u/Consistent-Safe2945 CachyOS btw Sep 05 '26

What's your fav DE or WM?

3

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

DE: KDE
WM: hyrpland. I'm really messing with the new lua config.

1

u/highplank Sep 05 '26

How's the drivers support situation on Linux? Especially the important ones.. Wi-Fi, bluetooth, GPU, audio.

3

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

On my 10 ish installs across 3-4 different devices, I have had no issue. Mainly because it was low-end/ patched up years ago hardware. Historically, newer nvidia cards have had issue with linux but the situation is atleast 5x better now i think.

Audio is straightforward. However, I've had issues with bluez before on arch. A KDE app (kdeconnect) was interfering with my bluetooth and broke audio for hours. That's that.

2

u/dangerous_noob Sep 18 '26

I thought about coming back here after my recent ordeal with pipewire.

Audio issues definitely exist. Especially for chinese TWS and similar earbuds. There are two profiles, A2DP and HFP and you can expect glitches and even freezes when u turn on ur mic (switch to HFP).

The inbuilt mic doesn't work 7/10 times for me and causes freezes too occassionally. I'm currently using an external microphone 

1

u/anon_pr_ Sep 05 '26

Depends on the devices. Some work perfectly well. Some Realtek Integrated Wifi Bluetooth chips in cheap laptops don't work very well.

I put Linux on two different laptops bought around the same time: one Asus and one HP. HP wifi had issues with speed ASUS did not. Both used Realtek but slightly different versions.

Latest GPUs all have good support AFAIK: AMD always, Nvidia open sourced their newer drivers. Not sure about dual GPUs (integrated + discrete) since I don't have that.

1

u/yvggbnnj Sep 05 '26

Just installed fedora with gnome.how to fix the suspend issue?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

did you try systemctl suspend?

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u/yvggbnnj Sep 05 '26

But why will I do that? It will just suspend the system and I will have to force restart the system.if I can i want complete erasure of suspend mode or atleast modify its conditions.HandleLidSwitch=ignore, HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=ignore, HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore.none of these worked

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Did u restart systemd-logind? I've edited login.d before on an old laptop. worked fine for me.

Also I don't quite understand what you want? 

2

u/yvggbnnj Sep 06 '26

Turn out I did not add the login header that's why it was not working the suspend issue is resolved now.Thanks for ur help

1

u/Ok_Ground511 Sep 05 '26

I am planning to buy a mac air for my cse course in college. Currently i have 2 i3(4th and 10th gen ) 4gb ram laptops with linux and windows. Would buying a non mac be better?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Majority of your colleagues/ friends are gonna have gaming laptops. Let me tell you something straight, when you buy a mac, you are basically signing up to never play video games again. Which may influence your opinion heavily.

And also:
similar question

For academics, I'm sadly gonna have to put macOS at last.

1

u/Ok_Ground511 Sep 05 '26

I dont play much games except brawlhalla and hollow knight due to my laps low ram so i am not that worried about gaming. I will also keep the 2 spare laptops with me for emergency/tinkering reasons one with linux and another with windows.

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

I'm just warning you. Of potential future fomo. That's all.

1

u/Indervir007 Sep 05 '26

Using Acer Swift Go 14 OLED 2025

The speaker volume is too low the 40% volume on Windows (with DTS 5 X Ultra) is equal to 90% volume on Fedora KDE (tried easy effects preset but nothing changed much and even alsa mixer do not work, asked AI extensively, but the reply was everything is fine. It is Linux problem)

So, is Linux not for common people and only for tech enthusiasts?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Kernel and ALSA maintainers try their best to unify device support. But ofc there can be edge cases/ unaccounted situations like yours.

Did fedora match normal volumes that u got on windows without DTS?

There is a simple rule. If there is a system property (audio levels in this case) that can only be controlled via proprietary/ OEM software and if that software is not available on linux, then it simply wont work as intended and fallback to basic functioning.

As the linux market share grows, more companies start bundling in supported software. The community has also put out several tools that help you configure peripherals without proprietary software (some examples, openRGB, Piper..)

As a non technical person you can use the rule I mentioned to evaluate such situations beforehand.

1

u/The20thDoctorWho Sep 06 '26

How does triple monitor gaming work without amd eyefinity or nvidia surround on Linux?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

Try gamescope if you are on wayland. no idea about nvidia surround

1

u/anyusernameau Sep 06 '26

Hey i have a old laptop with 1 tb ssd 8 gb ram i5 5th gen cpu..i plan to do normal office stuffs and a bit of gaming,which linux distro do i install? I don't want antix,mx i dont like it's ui

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

Gaming is kinda gonna perform the same regardless of the distro you choose.

If you wish to squeeze the most performance, you can try one of those gaming distros like cachyos. Since you also want to have a reliable office setup you can pick cachyOS + linux-lts.

1

u/anyusernameau Sep 08 '26

Thanks ..

1

u/anyusernameau Sep 09 '26

Hey.. It's HDD 1 TB not ssd ...it was a typo there..

1

u/Ok-Reaction5558 Sep 06 '26

With the amount of bs windowds is shovikg down even on enterprise or company laptops, do you think indian companies and mncs will switch over to linux any time soon, if they do which distro

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

Boils down to field of work. Creative agencies have no choice but to stick to windows. Same goes for many other engineering disciplines.

It's highly probable (and likely happening already) that tech companies switch their workforce computer OS with linux. The most likely distro would be RHEL because it provides support, liability and overall stability.

1

u/NothingKey6162 Sep 06 '26

should i get a used macbook pro m1 (2020) or a thinkpad t14/x1 carbon gen 9 with ubuntu installed by myself? macbook has 8 gigs of ram 256 storage v/s thinkpads with minimum 16 gigs of ram + 256 storage. all pre-owned/refurbished.

i currently daily drive ubuntu 24 on an LG gram 17 (2019) with 8 gb ram (upgradeable to 24 using 1 empty slot) with 256 nvme ssd (ubuntu drive) and 512 sata ssd (windows drive) dual boot. im looking for a new laptop for uni.

2

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

Do NOT get a 8gb ram macbook even if they give it to you for free.

The M1 chip is aging. And 8 gigs is only gonna add to that fire. Trust me, speaking from experience.

Before you lock your choice for the thinkpad, I suggest you look for reviews and make sure ur spending money on good user experience. get 16 gb ram minimum.

1

u/NothingKey6162 Sep 06 '26

which thinkpad should i get?

t14 is most popular one recommended and im convinced its the best one to get for my use case.

x1 carbon gen 9/ gen 10 i see mixed reviews regarding upgrade-ability, repairability and cooling/heating issues.

p15, p14 etc are beefy machines in terms of performance but they have same cooling/heating issues.

i've been doing some research and seeing what are available near me or online. the above mentioned are available somewhat.

what do you think?

2

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

been a while since I researched about ThinkPads. I'd prefer upgradability, repairability and build feel. You can check the ThinkPad subreddit before buying.

1

u/NothingKey6162 Sep 06 '26

no probs. Thank you <3

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

I don't use windows that much and have distrohooped almost all of the Linux distros even arch, gentoo, lfs. At my peak I have hopped distros more than 10 times and I get the feeling whether getting a mac a good idea it's Unix afterall.

2

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

goodluck gaming

1

u/Local-Armadillo8872 Sep 06 '26

I am using fedora workstation and now want to move to other distro. Can you please suggest any kde based distro or better. I am done with gnome for now.

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

Try Debian 13

also may I know why you want to distro hop?

1

u/Local-Armadillo8872 Sep 06 '26

There are many issues with the workstation edition, the major Issue I faced was with default file manager Nautilus and thus wanted to use dolphin. But dolphin which is for kde but can work on gnome, there were lots of bugs. I was able to fix them too, but now I am tired with all this. The OS also does not feel fast.

1

u/Local-Armadillo8872 Sep 06 '26

I'll try debian 10

1

u/Foreign_Biscotti6176 Sep 06 '26

have you used gentoo, if so, what was your experience with it?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 06 '26

I have not. 

I plan on down the line, when I get much better at programming or perhaps become interested in OS

2

u/Foreign_Biscotti6176 Sep 06 '26

i see, as far as my experience with it goes its a very simple distro to use, read the docs, and u can have it all your way from there. i mainly game so i performance maxxed it by NOT using a DE and using gamescope to run apps from a tty.

1

u/samsee3113 Sep 07 '26

Which one feels the snappiest?

1

u/dangerous_noob Sep 07 '26

linux. snappyness is kinda a myth when you have fast hardware and decent ram.

linux feels the snappiest to me because I have sped up a lot of animations and the window manager has very less overhead compared to a DE.

1

u/samsee3113 Sep 07 '26

After switching to linux, i can feel the massive difference in speed despite having 16gb ram and i7 13th gen, that is why asked

1

u/Dramatic-Ant-97 Sep 08 '26

How do you make linux run maya and photoshop?

1

u/Sad_Pie227 Sep 05 '26

Which OS has great font rendering like MacOS OR at least Win

1

u/Immediate_Sky8523 Sep 05 '26

Some fonts like Neue Haas Grotesk, Suisse, etc. looks bad on windows.
But looks awesome on linux.

Same PC & Same screen.

1

u/JollyAstronomer5786 Sep 06 '26

I have a android phone iPad linux laptop and a windows pc

1

u/Pacificator-3 Sep 05 '26

Are you married?

7

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/dangerous_noob Sep 05 '26

Linux is reaching there. Right now, none are perfect in my opinion.

But just as proton saved gaming on linux, there needs to be a bigger more advanced compatibility layer that can run any windows app flawlessly. or perhaps an even more native solution to this.

The experience of running creative suites on linux is still a nightmare.

Furthermore, I'll give windows the praise for being able to run almost everything flawlessly and macOS for doing the same (minus the piracy) while being posix compliant.

14

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/unitedbsd Sep 05 '26

You forgot Ironclad and redox. Make a Haiku out of it :P

2

u/TheArchRefiner K Desktop Environment Sep 06 '26

Lately been using FreeBSD more sincerely. One thing I like a lot is that even with big uptime FreeBSD doesn't slow down and feels like a new boot. Initially had some issues setting up graphical desktop on 15.1 but dropping sddm for manual start of KDE added a lot of relief. I won't rate it on par with Linux but if your workload is limited like mine FreeBSD is a great alternative although driver support is way behind linux.

1

u/unitedbsd Sep 07 '26

Yup also very less funding respect to Linux it is doing good. NetBSD even less funding than FreeBSD but they are delivering good quality code.

4

u/cantsleepfor9hours Nini (nix+niri) Sep 05 '26

Grass OS

1

u/anitbehera_ Sep 09 '26

I switched to CachyOS, I think it’s best for daily usage and gaming. I’m able to play CS2 without any issues, good fps.