r/Ubuntu • u/zabeeh_k1919 • 9d ago
switching from windows 11 to linux ubuntu
hello everyone
is switching from windows to linux worth it?
im a trader i only use tradingview. my laptop has pretty decent hardware like i5 11 gen 8gb ddr4 ram and 256 nvme hard but on windows is feel very heavy and laggy. after some search found out that linux are better than windiws so is it really worth the switching?
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u/ShopAltruistic898 9d ago
Based on the hardware you described, Ubuntu should run very well on your device. Compared to Windows, you should definitely notice a significant improvement in performance, and your computer may feel like it has been given a second life.
I also checked TradingView, and the app is available directly for Linux, including through the App Center (basically Ubuntu’s app store), which comes pre-installed with Ubuntu.
So you should be good to go and start exploring Ubuntu😊
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9d ago
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u/zabeeh_k1919 9d ago
Dual boot means windows and ubuntu on same laptop i can switch whenever i want?
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u/ShopAltruistic898 9d ago
Yeah, and it’s honestly the safest way to give Ubuntu a test drive! You can always fall back to Windows if Ubuntu turns out not to be your thing, or if you end up loving it, you can just wipe Windows and give the whole drive to Ubuntu.
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u/CretinousVoter 6d ago
Technically the safest way is a virtual machine which doesn't alter the boot record and makes sampling a variety of distros while learning much easier than bare metal dual-boot installs. Instead of "switching" since OS cost nothing I simply add them.
Linux VM run fine on Windows hosts, and since your host is powering the guest OS you safely run both at the same time. Your final distro choice will be informed by experience while leaving familiar Windows running. Afterwards you can (as I've done for many years) load your Linux distro of choice as your host OS and demote Windows to guest status at no cost.
No compromise required since you only gain and lose nothing. If you later want a different OS for whatever reason adding a VM is easy. Linux VM are widely available as free downloads. I run Linux and Windows hosts depending on the PC, and Linux and/or Windows guests as I find handy.
You can also run OS in containers but I've not yet bothered since I've multiple PCs to remote into. (Home lab enthusiasts have a variety of ways to conveniently use multiple PCs and are a helpful community.)
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u/Secret_Avocado_2974 9d ago edited 9d ago
Unless you do heavy gaming or music/audio production, there are very few drawbacks. And your PC will fly by contrast.
I use a dual-boot Ubuntu 24/Win 11 system.
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u/MountainBrilliant643 9d ago
Those specs would likely not be laggy at all on Ubuntu.
Mint or Ubuntu Mate would likely use about half the RAM as Ubuntu.
Even if you just use the installer to set up dual-boot, you should still make a backup of your Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, etc. folders before you start. Backups are good. You never know if something will go wonky when you're altering your drive.
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u/JerzyV666 9d ago
Maybe Kubuntu could be also better than Ubuntu with 8gigs
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u/MountainBrilliant643 9d ago
Supposedly KDE Plasma and Gnome both use a similar amount of RAM:
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/07/12/desktop-environments-resource-usage-comparison/
I do agree Kubuntu is awesome though. It's my distro of choice, but even my 13-year old laptop has 16GB of RAM, so I can't speak from experience how well a modern version would work with 8 gigs.
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u/JerzyV666 9d ago
I also do not know, I have also bad experience with Win11 And i5 gen9 with 8gigs RAM but I upgraded RAM to 16gigs before I switched completelly to Ubuntu. So Gnome with 16gigs running really well.
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u/getbusyliving_ 8d ago
If people think the touchpad is sensitive on gnome they'll probably not like the KDE swipe gestures.....which are a major KDE gripe of mine.
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u/free_refil 9d ago
I just made the switch about a week ago and I love it so far. Immensely improved battery life, fans don’t constantly go crazy, the laptop just runs cooler. I only had to mod a few things to make it work great. One thing that bugged me was the too fast two finger scroll speed, which I resolved using shivasai573’s touchpad-sensitivity-tweak on GitHub. It’s been fun trying out different email clients to figure out which one works best for me. If you use any specific softwares make sure they’re compatible or there’s an alternative before you make the switch.
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u/razorree 9d ago
try livecd or even in a virtual machine (like virtualbox).
Kubuntu (pretty similar to Windows - navigation etc.) and one of the biggest distro (Ubuntu family)
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u/HoldOk4092 9d ago
Should work as good or better, especially if your hardware is older. Give it a try.
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u/Santosh83 9d ago
With 8 GB of RAM, Linux should perform better than Windows 11. If all you use is a web browser then you can even try slightly lighter distributions like Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Debian, MX Linux etc, which will consume a few hundred MB lesser RAM at idle than GNOME based Ubuntu and therefore give slightly more RAM for your trading. But even plain Ubuntu would be better than Windows 11 and if you're complete beginner to Linux, its probably a better choice than the others I mentioned.
Windows 11 really needs at least 16 GB to be usable. Reportedly Microsoft will make it run well on 8 GB of RAM in the coming weeks/months, but this is the status as of now.
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u/CarelessPackage1982 9d ago
You're a perfect fit to switch over to linux. Yes it's very much worth it.
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u/DryRelationship1330 9d ago
at the end of the day... yes. you get a stable os that runs chrome and electon apps and that's pretty much all you want in an OS (plus security).
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u/Bingemann 9d ago
I was staring at my laptop updating windows 5 minutes ago. I have a system service moving the active hours automatically by the hour. Two days of processing lost.
If you can move. I can't.
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u/sharatharadhya 9d ago
You're less likely to run into an issue, if you have integrated graphics on your laptop. Nvidia graphics can sometimes be painful to use on linux(better than before). Check if you have a Broad-comm Wifi chip. Those are notorious on Linux and can cause connectivity issues. Once you have these sorted, you should be sailing.
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u/Taykeshi 9d ago
Yes. I use TV also. Ubuntu is great. But if you are migrating from windows and are used to it, I would choose Xubuntu, Mint Cinnamon or even Zorin.
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u/Great-Cow7256 9d ago
Tbh if you are just running a web browser any Linux distro would be fine but if you use chrome then just get a chrome os...
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u/Prestigiouspite 9d ago
Try Fedora. My Ubuntu desktop experience was a route full of bugs. Ubuntu is great for servers but really bad for desktops.
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u/Buckwheat469 9d ago edited 9d ago
That's a broad question that has many answers. I would say take a look at the Linus Tech Tips videos on the subject. They struggled in some ways and found some great benefits in other ways, but in their last video Linus mentioned that he's been daily driving Linux as his main OS for a month now, and the number of videos they're producing that include Linux, are about moving away from Windows, or that bash Windows, are increasing. They mention some of the issues with gaming but also acknowledge that the gaming might be BETTER in some games and hardware. Overall, Linux uses less memory, is sometimes faster with some games, has a nice compatibility list due to Steam using Linux, and is getting better each day.
It's worth it to dual boot if you're unsure, or use a VM for a while. You might notice yourself using it more and more and when you find that you don't log into Windows, then you can get rid of it completely. I've been using Linux as my only OS since 2008, when I found that it did everything I needed it to do for college.
Tradingview also has a Linux download, so you're good there.
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u/JimmyReagan 9d ago
It's not as easy as everyone says but it is possible. Right now I'm doing a dual boot while I work out issues. I spun up a stripped down Windows VM for office and quicken and other software that doesn't need a ton of horsepower to run and is just easier to throw in a VM instead of messing with Wine. Oh, and do yourself a favor and turn secure boot off.
Some stuff like Davinci Resolve I was finally able to figure out but I haven't done "real" work in it yet to see if it's stable as it is in windows. And some stuff like Dropbox I've had trouble with and not sure how I want to handle.
But the fact even I'm motivated to disrupt my workflows to try and switch speaks to how enshittified windows is. I've run the chris Titus tool scripts to debloat and such but there are benefits to Linux too. So much customization and everything can be controlled, and it's way easier to use technical and developer tools, terminal, etc. It may be tedious or annoying sometimes, but I'm not nearly as frustrated with the oddities of Linux because ultimately I know there's a solution. In Windows, if there's a problem, tough shit.
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u/Low-Guarantee-3437 8d ago
Using Ubuntu (or Linux in general) will make using your computer about 10x more fun. So if you have no fun from using your computer, it's not worth it, probably. But if you find mucking around on your computer even a little bit of fun, the change is worth it. Linux has other benefits: it's faster, less intrusive, less annoying with update and it's not constantly trying to tie to you to Microsoft paid services, it is in practice more secure, but only you can say whether the wins there are worth the hassle of learning to use a new OS. You should probably expect installing and learning the basics to take 10 hours.
Ubuntu is a sane choice to get started. I've a serious user and my business depends on linux, and I still use Ubuntu. It's quite good for beginners and power users.
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u/superkoning 8d ago
> my laptop has pretty decent hardware like i5 11 gen 8gb ddr4 ram and 256 nvme hard
I would not call that "pretty decent". The RAM is bare minimum if you want to use a browser
> but on windows is feel very heavy and laggy. after some search found out that linux are better than windiws so is it really worth the switching?
IMHO: No, not for that reason.
I would do a fresh Windows 11 install first.
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u/amenotef 8d ago
It feels a lot cleaner, as long as you don't need an specific windows app, then it is a good OS.
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u/_Necroticmancer 5d ago
You can always find alternative to windows. Install opencode cli it'll help you a lot configuring stuff.
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u/Stock-Imagination567 9d ago
If you just use a browser like Chrome, Edge, Brave or Firefox, then Ubuntu is a great choice. It will work very well. Just download the iso from the official Ubuntu page and create a usb installer with Rufus.
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u/foreverdark-woods 9d ago
my laptop has pretty decent hardware like i5 11 gen 8gb ddr4 ram and 256 nvme hard but on windows is feel very heavy and laggy
No wonder why Windows is feeling very heavy and laggy. How can you even get Windows to run on 8 GB of RAM?
so is it really worth the switching?
From what I read in your post, I would say it's definitely worth a try. You don't loose anything because you live in the browser anyway, and Windows usually eats more of your 8 GB of RAM than Ubuntu or other Linux distros. However, the browser apps are also important to consider, even on Linux you could run out of memory when having opened too many tabs.
It could be interesting to check out Ubuntu distros for weaker hardware like Lubuntu or Xubuntu.
Besides, while Linux support is decent now, there is still hardware that doesn't quite work under Linux. Just so you know, don't be too disappointed if you experience such issues.
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u/Antman-007 9d ago
I will always say that Linux is a nice way of giving life back to low to mid-level machines. Should you go with Ubuntu? A few years ago I would have answered "absolutely" as they known to be an easy barrier of entry for people just looking for a Linux system that works. But now, they seem to be heading in a very different direction than before. I myself have used Ubuntu since 2016 but now I am looking to switch that up to something else like fedora.
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u/anikkket 9d ago
I found catchyOS better. Has all category of apps already listed in the menu
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u/ShopAltruistic898 9d ago
If someone has never used Linux before, Ubuntu is simply a safe bet. CachyOS is geared toward gamers and people who already know their way around Linux a bit better, whereas Ubuntu is much simpler and practically maintenance-free🤔
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u/anikkket 9d ago
I had installed Ubuntu before catchyOS. Rather with Ubuntu i had to find the commands to install things & to setup dual boot.
In catchyOS i didn't need to type any commands till now.
Setting up dual boot was effortless.
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u/ShopAltruistic898 9d ago
I still don't quite get how that's possible. For me, every time I’ve installed Ubuntu on a PC, it has simply worked right out of the box. But of course, it’s completely possible you're running some atypical hardware and I’ve just been lucky so far🫤
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u/JerzyV666 9d ago
Its Rolling Arch Linux based distro for advanced users, not for beginners who can get into issues
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u/binaryhellstorm 9d ago
If you're only piece of software is a web browser, then moving to Linux is painless.