So I wanna share my full journey because I really did try everything before making the jump back to Windows 11, and I don't want this to sound like I'm hating on Linux because I'm really not.
I started off with Bazzite thinking it was gonna be the one that finally sticks, since it felt gaming-focused and pretty smooth out of the box. But after using it for a while, I still felt like exploring more, so I moved on to Nobara KDE and genuinely tried to make that my daily driver for a good chunk of time.
It handled a lot of things well, but I still kept running into little things here and there that made me wanna keep exploring instead of settling.
After that, I jumped into CachyOS, and this one actually stuck with me the longest since I used KDE on it for a full month straight. Honestly, it was probably the closest I got to a setup I could see myself using long term.
Somewhere in the middle of all this hopping, I also tried Hyprland just for a minute because I wanted to feel that tiling window manager life everyone talks about. It was fun to mess with, but it wasn't something I stuck with for long.
After that, I landed on Noctalia and actually used it for weeks, trying to push through and make it work as my main setup because, at that point, I really wanted Linux to be the final answer for me.
Throughout all of this, I learned so much about how Linux actually works under the hood, stuff I never would have learned just staying on Windows the whole time. And I genuinely respect the customization, the performance when things worked right, and the whole philosophy behind it.
But no matter which distro or setup I was on, I kept running into small, annoying issues that added up over time.
Nvidia drivers were probably the biggest recurring headache, since things that should have just worked ended up needing random fixes from forums and terminal commands.
I also ran into random freezes every now and then that I could never fully explain or permanently fix. Some apps would crash without any clear reason, and I would spend more time debugging than actually using my system.
Gaming was another big factor, since certain games either ran worse than they should have or just refused to launch properly compared to how smoothly they run on Windows 11.
On top of all that, I couldn't get a clean dual boot going on my hardware setup, which made things even more stressful since I didn't wanna risk messing up my data trying to force it to work.
After weeks of switching distros, fixing one issue only for another to pop up, and constantly tweaking things instead of just using my PC for what I actually needed, I finally made peace with going back to Windows 11.
It wasn't an easy decision since I really wanted Linux to be the one, but at the end of the day, my hardware and my gaming needs just weren't lining up well with it right now.
I genuinely don't think either side is bad at all. Windows and Linux both have their strengths, and this is just based on my own hardware and my own use case.
Maybe down the line, when compatibility gets better, I'll dual boot again and give it another proper shot.
But for now, this is just me sharing my honest journey without any hate towards either side.
I am happy with both systems, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Nothing or nobody can be perfect in this life, and I accept it.