I switched to Linux 30 days ago… How did it go?
Grab yourself a Pint Glass at
I’ve ran Linux on my laptop for well over a year, and have showed Linux on Gaming PCs too many times to count… but what about installing Linux on my workstation? I spent the last 30 days with ZorinOS 17, and did 100% of my Video Editing, 3D Modeling, Live Streaming and day to day business operations from it. How did it go? What challenges did I face, and would I recommend it for you?
But first… What am I drinking???
Iron Horse Brewery (Ellensberg, WA) Tiramisu Death (7.0%)
I did this 30 challenge on ZorinOS:
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— Parts from today’s build —
Jinsha X99-E8i Motherboard:
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 12C/24T:
Thermalright Peerless Assassin:
NVIDIA RTX 4060 8GB:
Black Magic DeckLink Quad HDMI 4K60 Capture:
Sinefine USB-C 5Gbps PCIe x1 Controller:
Hynix DDR4 32GB 2400 RDIMM:
Hynix DDR4 32GB 2933 RDIMM:
EVGA 750W GT 80+ Gold PSU:
— 100 Gbps Network Gear —
Mikrotik CRS504-4XQ-IN 4-port QSFP28 Switch –
Intel 100GBASE-CWDM4 QSFP28 SMF Transceiver –
LC to LC Single Mode Fiber Patch Cable –
100G QSFP28 to 4x 25G SFP28 Passive DAC:
Mellanox ConnectX-4 PCIe 3.0 x16 QSFP28 NIC –
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Other issues I didn't mention…
Resolve – Waveforms aren't visible at all in audio clips, making cuts incredibly difficult.
Resolve – This video has a rendering glitch at 7:16. Rendered in x265, so that didn't fix it.
Chrome – Cannot drag and drop files into Chrome to upload (email attachments, YT/Floatplane uploads). It just doesn't work.
ZOOM – Doesn't work with Tiling. When using tiling, Zoom is always on top and not auto-arranged.
File Manager – A network interruption kills my network file share access. Must either reboot, or access console and "mount -a" to restore.
Discord – Cannot access DeckLink HDMI capture (flatpack version)
Nothing that prevents anything from working, but each of them are also a time sink vs Windows/MacOS, where these issues aren't present.
I hate the fact that GNOME is shoved to new users as the default even though the developers are insane
I'm a day 1 DaVinci user so when I went Linux I was solid. Since Photopea and Linux doesn't seem to be getting along anymore I stared using Pinta and MyPaint.
i find it funny how Adobe not porting their software to linux is somehow Linux's fault.
I use a computer to get things done, hence I don't use Linux.
Hate Flatpaks. I understand them, I get the use case, still hate them.
Boring
The window tiling problems encountered during your challenge are more related to the window manager or its implementation in the distribution used.
As you did your test under ZorinOS, it must therefore be Gnome.
Have you done the latest upgrade (ZorinOS is based on Ubuntu which went to 24.04) and if so, have you installed the "Tilling Assistant" plugin? Because it is made for that…
The problem with Photoshop is that the publisher does not want to make the effort to make a clean port or at least an effort for Wine compatibility on its application.
Just like Windows has become an extension of Azure and no longer a product in itself.
Furthermore, changing platforms often involves having to adapt your workflow and the fact that it is not a workflow around a mastered solution does not mean that there is no viable alternative.
In fact, Microsoft and the publishers developing for its centralized platform are in the position of IBM before the emergence of the "Personal Computer", MS-DOS and Windows, and the market is only waiting for an opportunity to switch to new solutions…
Does anyone make a video "30 days with Mac challenge"? No? I wonder why? ๐ค
It is painful to hear you talk about "Linux" as the ZorrinOS DE. Or talking about the PopOS tiler as "linux tiler".
(But maybe that was bait, or just oversimplification for a more general audience)
But if you want an almost 1:1 experience to FancyZones you can go over to KDE 6 that has that exact feature.
For a PhotoShop alternative, I'd ironically say AffinityPhoto + Bottles. But it will take from some to a lot of tinkering.
(Bottles is a Wine [the windows compatibility layer] "manager" allowing you to create [with a nice UI] environments for each app, install apps with yml files or via their store, and some other nice features to get Windows programs working)
It's intersting how quickly Linux adoption is rising right now:
It took it about 10 years to go from 2% to 3%.
But only about 3 to go from 3% to 4%.
And now, less than 6 months later, it sits at around 4.45% (which means it could well get from 4 to 5% in just less than a year).
hmmmm maybe just run both? kvm. windows inside linux. passthrough your pci stuff.
i run both. windows specifically for game. inside kvm. not much hiccups.
all of your problems came from tilling manager. Instead of using default kde environment. I guess that happens when you listen to reddit soyboys instead of linux forum users
Why use Zorin OS? Still haven't heard positive things about that distro. Except for Linux Mint, I would personally only recommend to use a main distro from a branch instead of a sub-distro
MS Office and Photoshop are the main ones that hold me back, OpenOffice most likley could replace office but id have to find a good OneNote replacement ( Im tried tons of them and none of then compete with OneNote or Evernote ). Joplin is close but I dont want everything in Markdown.. I want to drag and drop pics / links /files / picutres / be able to format text etc and thats not easy… For photoshop again theres alternatives but its not photoshop, I think I saw someone run it via Lutris / wine but those are the two main ones.. When I went to Mac from Windows and then Back to Windows these problems didnt exist i just lost gaming but on Linux the work-arounds start to ad up.. I love Linux and keep trying and trying to daily it but it gets frustrating at times.
4:02 Never install software downloaded from websites! Use the package manager instead.
I love the fennec shirt! ๐ฆ
His biggest reason for not wanting to switch to Linux stems from a DE issue and not Linux itself lol. I hate when YouTubers do the 30 day Linux challenge, yet they don't do any research into it. Switching from one OS to another is a pain no matter what OS it is. If you don't feel like doing the work to understand how to make your workflow work like it did then stay on Windows. There's nothing wrong with that.
They are the same.
I love Linux and I've been using it for the past 4 years. I'm a gamer, but I do other creative things on my PC, and everything works fine. I love privacy on Linux.
That GIMP rant is spot on. GIMP desperately needs the blender treatment – a huge upgrade to the UI like blender had in the 4.0 update.
The open source community is its own worst enemy
I switched to Linux full time about 30 years ago. My needs have been basic having been an IT instructor. No special hardware needed. My work needed word processing, text editor, presentation creation, 2D graphics, image editing, email, ftp, gopher in the early days of the Net (how many of you remember gopher?) , web browser (started with Lynx and Mosaic), all readily available software. I received a few faxes electronically – they are TIFF files if I recall correctly. (Been retired for 20 years). I have been using dual monitors most of that time. Few if any of my coworkers did. It has worked well for me on a variety of PC hardware. Been using older machines which are plenty fast. I remember when hardcopy terminals went from 10 char/sec to 30 char/sec. That was a fantastic speed upgrade. So the high speeds of modern equipment are still amazing. Linux has served me well all these years.
It's funny how a lot pick on Linux, if you don't like linux don't use it. I used to use windows, but got tired of, "getting windows ready, don't turn off your computer" and updating virus checkers, malware checkers, updating programs, updating drivers for this and that, microsoft changing things in the background without your consent. Linux is like someone gives away free cars, with free servicing, free gas and tyres and people still have the nerve to complain, go figure.
To the people who asked why isn't Linux as popular as windows, you would have to be naive to not realize that microsoft spend huge sums on advertising, they buy up companies to make sure their programs only run on their systems, they do huge deals to make sure that a new PC or laptop comes preinstalled with Windows. When was the last time you went to a store and saw a PC or laptop that came preinstalled with Linux, or saw an ad on TV for Linux?
Like I said if you don't like Linux don't use it.
Never have I thought tiling window managers would be useful to anyone with a job.
I'm using StumpWM for over a year now. Its main feature is the static by default layout you drop your windows into. You can have more windows than tiles and move them between foreground and background.
It may be useful to you, if not too difficult. I needed a bit of time to get used to it.
The overall hardware compatibility story is pretty impressive, given all the specialized hardware you use!
It struck me that every program whose window management behavior you had trouble with is a closed-source, proprietary app?
PS: Has anyone ever claimed that GIMP is a Photoshop clone? Irdk what you expect here. 99.999% of the time, alternative software is not a drop-in replacement. A more specific video on your workflow expectations/desires/needs, and what makes a Photoshop alternative viable or not for you might be interesting.
So in conclusion there nothing wrong with Linux. The problem is the software editors ๐ solution wait for windows and iOS to die.
Kdenlive is so bad has an Video editor?
So many linux vs windows videos are just of people saying "i was able to use firefox, steam and my word docs were easy to edit!". Like ok, if i was 80 years old thatd be great but i actually use my damn computer, id expect at the very least linux can do what a 15 year old smart phone can. My workflow literally kills linux, i have a ryzen 9 and 64gb of ram and if i open everything i need the whole os shits itself before i even get to the many issues with the UI and compatibility.
I love how every day more and more people is trying linux!! It will be a moment where they stick on linux
im a linux advocate because window screwed me over once too often and if youre stupid enough to sill be using any adobe product after their price gouging subscription attempted content control/theft and ai push bs you get what you deserve and your little rant ends my interest in your channel for forever good riddance
Running Linux Desktop since 2007.
Why I'm not a " everyone should use Linux" Linux user — just too many possible hardware issues. I mean there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to things not working out of the box. What is thirty minutes of work for you, or maybe an hour and a half of work depending on how much you have to google and what the issues are is an impassable barrier for the majority of people.
I primarily recommend it for people who want to get into programming; they can much more easily dual boot with windows and that will allow them a stable environment to code in while also allowing me to better help them.
My experience usually goes about as smoothly as yours — but I use AMD and that's a serious advantage because
– no module hunt down, the amdgpu kernel module is just automatically ready to go with grub. You get your system, update and reboot it and boom you can use GPU. And the AMDGPU is a great driver.
It sounds like it might have been an easier task to figure out the daily Windows crashing.
8:50 you can try to script opening windows at certain size and location with, say, wmctrl.
I am on Archlinux + KDE and I don't have any problems, really.
FYI Natty ice is better than any IPA.