alt Hacker NewsI switched two of my PCs over to Linux Mint last week. The automatic driver support is shockingly good compared to when I last installed Linux on a PC (almost 20 years ago). It even found a driver for the random no-name USB wireless receiver I bought on Amazon, whereas I had to install that driver manually on Windows.
Part of my motivation was that one of the machines was still on Windows 7, but more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account, and the cramming of Copilot into everything, that have left a bad taste in my mouth.
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"more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account"
Absolutely. Obnoxious and unacceptable. Then there's the fact that Windows has regressed into a clinic on UI incompetence and defective design.
I put Mint on my 2014 27" Intel iMac and it's slick.
I switched my primary PC over in 1999, my secondary over in 2001, and haven't looked back since.
You're in a better place today than back then as finding software solutions to common problems is much easier now.
For other OS needs, just virtualize. I started off using VMware Workstation, after a decade (or so) transitioned to Virtualbox, and now today, virt-manager (qemu, kvm through libvirt).
It was good back then as long as your hardware wasn't too new.
Good that you decided to do the move. Often any existing problem on Linux has already been solved by someone; it may just take a while when you find a solution. In that case I also recommend to make local notes. I do so since +20 years. Some of those local notes helped me many years later.
Finding it's much easier to migrate to linux with an llm as a troubleshooting assistant.
Even used it to make a task bar applet adjacent to Media Controls, where I can rate the current plexamp song without having to open plexamp.
A big plus of linux is the easy ability to use workspaces and switch between them with a hover over the workspace taskbar applet and the mousewheel (and other options).