Win11 LTSC when?
if you thought I was judging someone (specially for not using arch btw) you misinterpreted my message
debian is what works for me, and all of this info can be found by watching enough yt videos, like the one from titus I guess, that he tries to break debian rolling and can’t
yes, I’ve distrohopped a lot, but that time could’ve been spent somewhere else
yet, it’s important to understand that YMMV
What are the main differences between ubuntu and debian based systems? Specfically in terms of day to day use, or under the hood.
I think Debian is a more philosophy oriented distribution. It is reflected by their preference for true FLOSS software - They refrain to use proprietary drivers when they can, but they do not get in the way of the user (should the user opt to put it Nvidia drivers for example).
Ubuntu, on the other hand is a business oriented distro. They have enterprise offerings and freely permit third-party proprietary software to integrate to whatever purpose the OS might serve. They tiers of offer software support just like RedHat.
Under the hood, Ubuntu has done so many tweaks that it is practically a different distro. More prominently, they offer PPAs, which is sort of what AUR is to Arch. Its a third party repository for you to build their latest software. Ubuntu is also tightly integrated to Snaps, their homebrewed universal software sandboxing and package management… thing. It is somewhat maligned by the greater community though - but at the very least Ubuntu tries stuff differently and invites to package proprietary software for Ubuntu that isnt normally or readily available to Linux.
My laptop runs POP!_OS. I “banned” Windows into VMs. And with all the info that is coming out from Win11, I think I had the right timing on my migration. I’m so happy I don’t rely on Windows application at all and can watch the shitshow from a safe distance
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To start I think Ubuntu will be a better transition as I can find similar programs to start off with. I think Debian may be too much of a culture shock to begin with.
How well does GPU pass through work in a Linux VM if games are not compatible with Linux? and what is the performance like when playing in a VM? (in general terms, obviously everything is dependant upon hardware, but are we talking near 100% speed or much more limited)
Arch was just an example. Usually when people are like “do you use Ubuntu, or do you use Real Linux” they tend to be Arch snobs lol. Which distro they are being snobby about isn’t really the point. Personally I think it makes sense to start off with something like Ubuntu or Mint and then explore rolling distros. You can learn a lot about different distros from the Internet, but it’s not the same as actually experiencing it, and I wouldn’t say the time is wasted at all. Ultimately using your PC is using your PC, whatever OS you happen to be using, and the skills you experience and gain along the way are transferable. Before those “normies” installed Ubuntu they’d probably only ever used the terminal for ipconfig, and if they then decide to try out openSuSE or Debian or Arch I wouldn’t call them dipping their feet in Ubuntu a waste of time at all.
Ultimately it’s all Linux, and each distro comes with its own ideology and quirks and every single one of them engenders more enthusiasm about the system itself than Windows, and I think that’s something to celebrate and experience.
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While Ubuntu is a good start for people dipping their toes into GNU/Linux, Debian is provides a more “stable” system and is easier to modify and try things. Canonical (Company behind Ubuntu) suffers from a NIH syndrome a lot. Even though Ubuntu is based off of Debian SID, Ubuntu is a different enough animal configuration wise that you will be somewhat limited in what skills you can transfer to other GNU/Linux like distributions.
I say this as a deacades old Debian SID user and as a Debian and ArchLinux shill.
This may be a very vague question. Is game compatibility dependent on which Linux distro is being used?
I would assume it would be akin to Windows vs Mac, but have not actually looked into it. Or does Proton or WINE-like applications solve this?
Yes and no. Some distributions package older software and do not have the most bleeding edge kernel and packages. If you use AMD GPUs, this will be the most apparent because all of their stuff is open source and their official driver usually lags behind the open source releases unless, you are running newly released hardware. If you distributions uses an LTS kernel, then the new stuff in the kernel gets back-ported to the LTS kernel. You would then just need to ensure that you have the newest version of mesa and LLVM that supports your GPU. All of this can be overcome by compiling the required components from source, but that may be off putting to a newbie at first.
If you are using nVidia, distribution is less of an issue and more of an issue of “does nVidia support your kernel” and in some cases, your display engine/DE combo. There are other issues with nVidia that may or not be obstacles for you.
The answer is somewhat yes. On a purely game compatibility level, mostly yes. Sometimes the vendor did not implement the OGL/DX calls to spec and that may cause issues. These tend to be quickly worked around on the wine/proton side but sometimes regressions are encountered. Even then, some anti-cheat software does not play nicely with wine and derivatives.
All that to say that your mileage may vary but there are ways to overcome the issues. Compared to twenty years ago, your chances of getting games, especially native games, to run on Linux and BSD are really high. Even most MS Windows games work well as long as they are not doing something nefarious with their anti-cheat solutions.
Thank you for the great information. Is there a resource for nVidia specific drivers and distro compatibility or like-wise?
Ubuntu and SteamOS are the targetted Linux distribution for steam gaming. I am not aware if Ubuntu/Canonical is actively participating in the process of making games run easier or just a passive target because it is common.
I know for a fact that rolling distributions actively target game compatibility (Solus has the Linux Steam Integration). Arch/Manjaro has it too.
nVidia has release notes. You need to read them before installing them to ensure that they are not dropping support for you card or if they are fixing/introducing new bugs. Just like with MS Windows, when you go to donwnload the driver from their site, it will walk you through a decision tree to find the right driver. With that said, your distribution should have the latest stable nv driver installer.
How often is it that support for a card is dropped? When that happens are you just stuck using a potentially outdated version of the drivers until you get a new card or support is renewed for that card.
That depends on nvidia. I think recently they stopped making drivers for older Kepler cards (GTX600 and GTX700) last May, which some are still quite functional. Maybe noveau drivers can help them, although I dont know how they perform on older cards.
Good:
- It’s windows and runs windows software
- the UI looks a little more modern and less brain damaged
Bad:
- it’s windows and runs windows software
- the new UI has a heap of rough edges
- Microsoft are using it as an advertising platform that you pay for
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