My Windows 10 install broke, but I'm hesitant to switch to Linux.

As the title say’s, my Windows 10 install broke, but I’m still unsure whether or not to reinstall Windows 10 or install Linux.

Context:

A few months back, Windows 10 updates started to fail on my desktop. I had considered just reinstalling the OS but as my machine was working just fine I simply tolerated it.

Today, when my machine auto-updated it broke something. At first I thought the update worked. But soon I realized that the taskbar was acting odd. All the shortcuts I had placed on my taskbar were working as usual, but when I right clicked them nothing would happen. I clicked on the start menu and the search bar but nothing happened. Most of the widgets on the right side of the taskbar weren’t working such as Volume, Wi-Fi, Date & Time, and Notifications. I assumed it was just the taskbar that was broken but when I tried to use the windows key to open the settings menu, it didn’t work either, nor did it’s keyboard shortcut.

It seems the update had broken some apps that, though didn’t prevent Windows from starting, made navigating it a lot more difficult.

I’ve used Linux before. I had a Linux Mint, and EndeavourOS virtual machine installed on my computer. More recently, I installed EndeavourOS on an old laptop I had lying around, and have been using it daily for about a month now. Although I’ve had my difficulties, I’ve been loving my experience.

Though I’m still a Linux newbie I’ve been meaning to give Linux a real shot on my desktop for a couple weeks now, but as my machine was working just fine I didn’t really feel any necessity to make the switch.

But with my Windows install breaking, I feel like its time to give Linux a real shot.

My Questions:

I want to install Fedora on my desktop but I still have a few questions pertaining to Linux and my desktop specs.

I’m running a GTX 1660. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about running Linux with an NVIDIA GPU so I’d like a few things clarified.

  • How would I install NVIDIA drivers?
  • Does Wayland work with NVIDIA?
  • A lot of distros are moving to Wayland. How would I ensure I stay on an Xorg session?
  • I enjoy modding Bethesda games. Does Mod Organizer work fully on Linux?
  • I’ve had difficulties running my steam games through proton on my laptop. Does proton work with Fedora?
  • With said difficulties with proton, would installing Steam as a flatpak work or will it cause issues?
  • Can you really not play any games with anti-cheat?

If you believe Fedora wouldn’t be the best distro for me I’m welcome to hear any suggestions, though I’m not enthusiastic about running anything Debian based nor installing vanilla Arch.

I’m sorry if I’m coming off as lazy for not doing my research. I’ve tried to research many of these questions before but found no concrete answers.

To all those who took the time to respond to my post.

Thank You!

Edit: I’ve made a new post

Sina, (edited )

Fedora is a much better choice for a new user than Endeavor. (E is good, but it’s very sink or swim, it’s better to start with something else) So that’s good. Don’t know about the mod organizer, but I would be quite surprised if it didn’t work, though using a windows program to navigate a Linux folder structure is something to get used to.( I played Starfield recently and installed mods manually )

As for anticheat, yeah that’s true. (Not that I would ever consider willingly installing spyware like that on my computer, nor are they very effective outside of stealing user data that is)

As for Proton of course it works. Having a dedicated GPU will significantly increase compatibility, even if it’s nvidia. Though if you want to source your games outside of Steam you really shouldn’t bother with the Steam client, just use bottles.

ILikeBoobies,

Nvidia drivers should be automatic

Yes wayland works but I don’t use it

On the log in screen you will have an option if both are installed (typically)

Can’t answer but this exists github.com/…/modorganizer2-linux-installer

Proton works with any system, if you’re having difficulties with games using it then that will likely carry over unless it’s a performance bottleneck

Yes and no; there are linux anti-cheats. But a lot of devs just block Linux - Easy anti-cheat has a Linux version but Fortnite doesn’t use it. I can play Fall Guys if I stop it from downloading Epic’s authentication

init,
@init@lemmy.ml avatar

I would suggest, whatever you try, that you make sure to write down your windows key and then deauthorize your PC. That way, if it doesn’t work out and you want/need to go back, you can reinstall windows and not deal with the unlicensed copy BS.

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

First of all Fedora is a great distro and I do suggest it if you like it, otherwise I suggest Nobara(fedora based) or Pop_OS(ubuntu LTS based) as they both have iso’s that come with nvidia drivers pre installed. Nobara has steam pre installed too.

(quick note about Nobara: beside pretty much being Fedora customized(and optimized) for gaming and made more user friendly it is maintained by only one devoloper. This person is the creator of the popular proton version ProtonGE and a Red Hat employee, “Glorious Eggroll” and it is still FOSS so trust shouldn’t be an issue BUT due to the small number of maintainers it is more likely to break and should be considered somewhat experimental, despite this it is my daily driver and fave distro)

I use wayland just fine with an rtx 3060 but it js unstable for many othera and you can choose witch session you wanna boot into (x11 or wayland) on the login screen so that shouldn’t be problem to find which works the best for you

I Mod FNV and FO4 using MO2 on linux it works fine but the initial set up was a little painfull.

Steam should work fine both as native package and Flatpak. and proton works with any distro

Many games with anticheat work with linux and many don’t you can check your games on areweanticheatyet.com

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Just because I haven’t seen anyone mention it, the distro that finally allowed me to make the switch was Zorin. It is extremely noob friendly for people coming from windows and the first time (for me) I had a linux that “just worked”.

rufus, (edited )

Sounds like an opportunity has opened up to you. And I don’t know if you have anything to lose here. I’d take it and go on an adventure.

I mean, don’t do it if you got important stuff to finish. Or if you cannot adapt to a new workflow. But -for example- Fedora is super easy to install. And in the long run Linux will save you time and headache and it’s tough and somewhat easy to maintain. And you can always delete it and switch back to Windows if you like.

NVidia isn’t the best, but lots of people use it and it works somewhat alright.

pastermil,

Linux Mint with driver manager would save the day!

rufus,

Usually it’s just about the NVidia drivers. I’ve never had an laptop where those tools detected or installed anything else. I mean all the drivers are supposed to come with the Linux kernel per default, and you don’t need to worry.

accideath,

Broadcom wireless drivers was also something I needed the mint driver manager for

MudMan,
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

Man, I've had two separate devices fail to install updates the last week, leading to tons of weirdness and troubleshooting. I even had to chkdsk c: /F at one point like a neanderthal.

I have enough coomputers laying around that I'd move more of them to other OSs, Linux included if I hadn't tried that and found it as much or more of a hassle in those specific machines, be it compatibility issues or just fitness for the application. I'm not married to Windows at all, but there are definitely things that are much easier to handle there, which does justify sticking with it through the reinstalls and awkward weirdness on those.

Temperche,

Install PopOS, comes with nvidia drivers, and no extra hassle. Boots your GTX right up like a baby.

ichbinjasokreativ,

Mod organizer has a linux install script on github that I’ve used without issues before. I play skyrim on Ubuntu 23.10 with well over 100 mods and it’s been largely just the same as on windows.

Tramort,

You’re getting a lot of good advice. Whatever distro you decide to use, try to find a live CD that lets you use it on the PC without installing it. That should ease your mind tremendously.

Fijxu,

You can play some games with anticheat. But not the biggest ones like CoD, Valorant or any borked game in ProtonDB. In my case I only play BattleBit Remastered, it uses EasyAntiCheat, apex also works. I don’t really care about games now, if a game doesn’t support my system, then I will not buy it nor play it. (Like league of legends)

Presi300, (edited )
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

How do I install Nvidia drivers

On fedora it’s simple, you enable 3rd party repositories during install and then you install it from the software center.

Does Wayland work with Nvidia

Your experience will vary, it works fine for some and not so fine for others afaik.

Most distros are moving to Wayland, how do I ensure an Xorg session.

Distros that are moving to Wayland still provide an Xorg session and probably will do so for the foreseeable future.

Will proton work on fedora.

Yes. Proton is distro independent, it’s a tool, provided by steam and it doesn’t really care what distro you are running. Remember to enable steamplay for all games from the steam settings before you do anything else.

Will installing steam as a flatpaks work?

Yes. I’ve heard that some people have had issues with the steam flatpak, but I personally haven’t, it should work fine.

Can you not play anticheat games.

Entirely depends on the game you wanna play. Some anticheat games work, others don’t. Check the game you wanna play on protondb to see if it works. That being said, afaik anticheat support outside steam is basically a non existent, so if you like playing valorant (you poor, poor soul) or Fortnite for example, you’re kinda out of luck, unless you wanna dual boot.

Note: Try the distro before installing, live ISOs exist for a reason.

Note 2: Take a look at ventoy

twinnie,

I recently switched from Windows 10 to Fedora so I can share my experience. I’ve dabbled with Linux in the past but there’s always been immediate issues which have caused me to never stay that long. It’s too easy to just ditch and go back when everything on Windows just works out of the box. I was getting sick of all the privacy issues so decided to totally bail and go balls deep. I found it easier to push through all the problems by adopting a mentality that I was living with this now and I eventually started to enjoy fixing all the problems (it took a few weeks). Everything’s working now and solutions are out there, you just need to google and power through.

Installing Steam and Nvidia drivers is easy. You open the settings of the “App Store” and enable third party repositories. Once you’ve done that the Nvidia drivers and Steam will turn up in there and can be installed with the click of a button.

However, and maybe I’m just unlucky, but the dream of Linux gaming has been an absolute non-starter for me. I guess people on Radeons may have more luck but with my 2060S I haven’t really gotten anything to play acceptably. Even with Proton-GE and whatever other hacks people talk about everything has been unstable, slow, or both, and that’s if it starts at all. I’m sure it’s probably just the certain games I’m trying to play but I ended up partitioning my drive and installing Windows 10 again just for gaming.

Something else to try is Nobara, it’s a Linux distro built for ease of use and gaming. If I’d heard of it earlier I’d probably have tried it first but I’ve got Fedora nicely set up and I don’t think it includes anything I can’t simply install myself.

Ghoelian,

Have you tested if hardware acceleration even works at all? On my Fedora install, whenever I try the latest 545 driver, it just doesn’t work. glxinfo just returns an error, insufficient resources.

535 still works great for me though.

Evotech,

Thanks for sharing. I want to jump ship but gaming is the only issue…

amminadabz,

Fedora is a great foundation for stability and up to date software. I personally use Ultramarine Linux; it’s a general purpose distro based on Fedora, but with more desktop environments, more available packages, more media codecs (plain fedora leaves out a bunch of codecs that you need to play audio or video files), and some more sane defaults. Even with all that, it isn’t noticeably more bloated than Fedora; it just gives you more options and makes it so that you don’t have to follow a “Things You MUST Do After I stalling Fedora” article.

Wayland works with Nvidia in my experience, and Wayland is remarkably stable and xorg-compatible. Folks will argue about that, but it’s been great for the few years I’ve used it on my laptop and desktop. I know at least Ultramarine installs both, and you can switch between them on the login screen, so give it a shot.

If your games don’t work, it’s quite normal to dual boot windows just for gaming.

Also, you might consider making your home folder a separate partition. That means you can reinstall and switch distros while leaving your documents and media and such in place. That said, partitioning manually is hard to get the hang of; let me know if you want some help on that front.

Guenther_Amanita, (edited )

I think you should check out Bazzite or uBlue.
They’re both based on the immutable versions of Fedora, but more or less slightly tweaked.

I would recommend them over Nobara. Nobara is very insecure and a one-man-project, and I don’t know if that are criteria for a solid distro.

The atomic Fedora spins on the other hand have many advantages:

  • secure
  • self maintaining and easy to use
  • unbreakable, and you can roll back easily in case something breaks
  • work out of the box
  • you can select the -nvidia images and then your drivers are already baked in, since they are known to break or cause problems.

Bazzite is an attempt to “clone” SteamOS/ Nobara, and provides you with a great out of the box gaming setup.
The other uBlue spins are more vanilla and general purpose.

You could also check out VanillaOS, which is currently under development, but very focused on simplicity and newcomers.

Your questions:

  • Nvidia: see my uBlue answer. They’re baked in and the best setup. If you want a traditional mutable distro, like Fedora, Mint, etc., you can install them with one click, but they might cause problems.
  • Game compatibility: look at protondb.com A lot of Anticheat software works, but a lot more don’t. Depends. Remember to activate Proton in Steam, or most games don’t get shown.
  • Modding software should also work, check out Bottles (Wine), but you might have to allow access to the corresponding directories, since Windows apps should and get sandboxed.
  • X/ Wayland: Just try WL and see if it causes problems. With the proprietary Nvidia drivers, and especially Gnome, it should work fine and is in general way better (smoother, etc.) than X
jawa21,
@jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Would you mind explaining why Nobara is insecure, other than it being a one man project? I just recently installed it as my daily driver and due to hardware issues, distro hopping is nearly impossible (primary laptop screen is broken and even using the fn key to swap monitors won’t let me see BIOS or bootloader), so at least knowing the issues would be fantastic.

Evotech,

I assume he just means that one guy will probably miss some stuff and might not patch things as quick. Not that it has known security issues

Guenther_Amanita,

I’ve just made a post where I explained my points I have against it, but want others to give some input and tell me if I’m wrong. Feel free to join the discussion! :) feddit.de/post/9042712

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • fightinggames
  • All magazines
    •