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

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.

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.

mvirts,

try it, you can always install windows again

Rozauhtuno,
@Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

How would I install NVIDIA drivers?

Depends on the distro, but you usually just need to look around in the settings, it’s pretty easy.

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.

pewpew,
@pewpew@feddit.it avatar

There are games with anticheat which are compatible with Linux. Usually Easy Anti Cheat games will work fine. Go to protondb.com if you want to check the compatibility with a game. Sorry, I can’t answer the other quesrions for you, I don’t use Fedora

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

For AC compatibility specifically, there is also areweanticheatyet.com

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.

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”.

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.

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)

Jumuta,

you should try out live usbs and see how it goes

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