[JohnR]

So instead of whinging about Windows, how about a thread posting positive experiences with Linux?

* What distro are you using? Do you recommend it?

* What apps do you recommend?

I'll start. I currently have Fedora Workstation installed on a NUC. It's surprisingly seamless, and they really have the app installation sorted. The Software app will find stuff in the repository and in flatpaks. (From memory, you need to enable the checkbox to enable third-party apps during installation.) It works with "Secure" Boot which can be helpful if you are dual booting with Windows. However, I'm going to go back to Debian and KDE, as I find Fedora/Gnome strangely boring.

Speaking of dual booting, I never dual boot. Just had too many times where Windows craps on the Linux boot loader.

For apps, the mainstay is Thunderbird for email, which also works on Mac and Windows. For browser I install Brave, for some reason I prefer it to Firefox. The rest is all also run-everywhere stuff: Sublime (text editor), GIMP (image editing), Inkscape (vector drawing), Obsidian (Markdown editor/viewer).

I use Resilio Sync to keep files in sync across multiple machines, but if I were starting again I'd try SyncThing first.

I'm not currently running "Office" software on Linux.

[SoCalWJS]

Wish I were up to date enough to feel confident about Linux.

.... I'm not. Have a HS Buddy who know this sh....errrrr, stuff inside out and wants me to convert over to Linux, but I just don't have the drive to do it. T think it's too much work to gain confidence.

I know I should. I'm sooooooo frustrated/pi$$ed off at Microsoft, and I am not a big Apple fan.  Back when I was in my 20's, I would have been all over this.

Not now. 

[JohnR]

  One approach could be to start by using the cross-platform apps. If that works out, then could be much less shock to switch.

With that said, some stuff just won't run on Linux. Say, Roon comes to mind. There are workarounds like VMs or Wine, or just keep another machine around as small PCs are cheap these days.

[mcgsxr]

I have yet to try it on a PC, but have been enjoying various Linux distro's on Raspi's since the demise of the Logitech Squeezebox series.

I have used PiCore, and currently using Volumio.  Super stable, easy to use, and so far has done all I want - Airplay, and replay of local FLAC and Hi Rez.  Easy to control from their app on any IOS device. 

[Mike B.]

I am far from being Linux savvy. I did convert my NUC to Linux Mint. I then switched from jriver media center for Windows to their new Linux offering. I somehow got it to work and like the combination very much. I also use Volumio on a Pi

[Yog Sothoth]

My entire professional career was supporting Linux/Unix environments and networking (I had to retire a bit early due to medical issues.  Organ transplants, and all that).  Primarily it was CentOS, Redhat, and Ubuntu (although SunOS and Solaris in earlier days).  For my own personal use it has always been Xubuntu up until recently.  The upcoming Long Term Support release of Ubuntu is moving to immutable Linux (which I would be ok with) and further and further toward snap based applications (which I don't think I can handle).

Instead and am abandoning Ubuntu and moving toward a straight Debian release with Xfce as the window manager.  Ubuntu is based on Debian  so the similarities are many.  So far I am very happy with it.  In fact I just today upgraded to the 6.7 kernel as it now has the new bcachefs file system included and I am anxious to experiment with it since it supports erasure codes.

I think once I am comfortable with the OS I'll look at moving my Volumio system onto Debian.

[JohnR]

I've had another try at Fedora, this time with the KDE spin (https://fedoraproject.org/spins/kde).

I like it!!

I find it really easy to use. ("Easy" in the Linux sense of the word, I think you probably still need to be able to use a terminal.) KDE Plasma is still (and probably always will be) a bit buggy but it's not terrible and fairly easy to configure to my liking. There are some keyboard shortcuts for snapping windows e.g. left and right half of screen, I have yet to investigate how to add a few more. I like it much more than the Gnome config in the standard Fedora download.

Seems very fast too, relatively speaking, for some of the typical things I do. For compiles/builds of various kinds I measure typically 0 to 40% slower than a Mac M1 that is supposedly three times faster (according to benchmarks). In one case it was actually twice as fast, I might check that one again...

The above is with Fedora 41 (KDE spin) on a 2018 Intel Nuc.

I liked it so much I tried it on my old 2015 (13 inch dual core i.e. slow) MBP. That was great, until I tried sleeping it, when it would either wake up after a minute (with lid closed) or hang, or both. Oh well, still no Linux laptop for me. As a result I did try PopOS and that seemed to work fine. The Gnome config on PopOS is better for me than the Fedora one but I just didn't like it, everything seemed to take up more space and the fonts are weird. Also, it felt sluggish compared to Fedora. So back to MacOS on my old laptop.

Still, a success for the desktop! It's only been a couple of days so far but I'll be adding the rest of the various things I use over the next while and seeing how much of my work I can do on it.

I have another Nuc to do another Linux experiment on, which will be another post. (There's a method to my madness.)

[FullRangeMan]

Nice topic, I will follow it.

[Doublej]

As a test bed, I am dual booting Zorin OS and Windows 11 on an 7 year old Dell laptop. Zorin OS is looking great as a W11 replacement at the moment. It runs faster on the Dell than does Windows 11. I plugged in a first generation AudioQuest Dragonfly and it works under Zorin OS.

I think I could live with ZorinOS. The only missing application for me is Windows Office. Libre Office would work fine if I didn't need to share documents with a Windows Office crowd.

[WGH]

With that said, some stuff just won't run on Linux. Say, Roon comes to mind.

As some here may know, I have used HQPlayer for a few years. I use a dedicated music server running Windows 11 with JRiver as the graphical user interface and drag and drop the albums into HQPlayer which upsamples the .flac files to DSD256. My main computer runs Windows 11 so it is easiest for me to network with the music server if everything is running W11.

So why is this Windows guy in the Linux thread?


HQPlayer has a Linux distro that runs Roon. I haven't tried it but the Linux/Roon/HQPlayer is free to try. No install needed either, it runs off a thumbdrive. See if it works.

HQPlayer Embedded
https://signalyst.com/hqplayer-embedded/

HQPlayer OS is a fully custom Linux-based operating system tailored and optimized for HQPlayer use. It includes both HQPlayer Embedded and Network Audio Adapter functionality in a single bootable image, making it easy to to deploy the media to these different use cases. The image can be simply written to a USB memory stick or other suitable storage media, such as (micro)SD-card and booted up, without requiring any other installation steps. HQPlayer Embedded operates without license key in trial mode for 30 minutes at a time and then needs to be restarted to continue!

Jussi Laako is HQPlayer's developer, he is "Miska" in the HQPlayer user thread on Audiophile Style. Miska answers all questions big and small and the huge thread is an invaluable how-to resource. Search for a topic and your question probably has been answered. I usually start at the last post and read backward to get info about the latest build.
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/19715-hq-player/#comments

HQPlayer is not cheap but it is fun.


HQPlayer Control applications:

‣ HQPlayer Client (comes with HQPlayer 5 Desktop), for iOS

‣ HQPDcontrol on Android and iOS

‣ HQPWV

‣ Roon

‣ JPLAY

‣ mconnect Player for iOS/Android / mconnect Player HD for iOS/Android

‣ BubbleUPnP

‣ Alchemy Desktop

‣ HQplayerd controller


Media server software:

‣ Built-in library

‣ Roon

‣ Rygel

‣ MinimServer

‣ BubbleUPnP


Hardware with HQPlayer Embedded pre-installed:

‣ Antipodes Oladra/K Series/S Series

[JohnR]

Oh, there's three parts to Roon: server, player, and UI. The first two can run on Linux, it's the UI that doesn't. What I was trying to say is that if you're sitting down at your Linux desktop and want to control Roon playback, you can't do it on that desktop, you need to use some workaround like a VM or your phone. In that context my comment about using a separate computer didn't make a lot of sense 

[artur9]

...
I liked it so much I tried it on my old 2015 (13 inch dual core i.e. slow) MBP. That was great, until I tried sleeping it, when it would either wake up after a minute (with lid closed) or hang, or both. Oh well, still no Linux laptop for me. ...

My linuxen don't have GUIs just Debian.  HST, without a GUI Debian sleeps and wakes fine on a super old Mac laptop I have.  It's so old the battery doesn't work anymore and is irreplaceable.

[Joe_Limon]

I’ve often been on the verge of installing Linux.
Is it easy to get used to? I’ve been using Windows since 1992 (I think it was Windows 3.0).

I feel a huge impact on my privacy with Microsoft.

What issues can I expect with Linux? Will I be unable to run certain software, or will I need to find multiple workarounds to do the same daily tasks as in Windows?

Thanks for the help.

[Kurtamus]

Take a look at Linux Mint, probably the easiest transition from Windows if you have no experience with Linux.

You can download the iso, burn it to a thumb drive and run it off the thumb drive to have a look around.  Here is the URL for Mint:

https://linuxmint.com/

If you have an old computer lying around you can install it on that, I am running it as my 'daily driver' on a 14 yr old PC and is very fast and stable.  The install is painless, quick and requires little if any configuration.

As to your "daily tasks in Window" inquiry, that depends what your daily tasks are.  I use Firefox browser, LibreOffice is compatible with MS office documents (in the application options you can set it to automatically save in MS default formats (xlsx, docx, etc).  There are a ton of apps available, basically install with a couple of clicks, you can almost always find a app to fit your need. There is an RDP agent available that works great, VLC player is available (IMO the best tool for video on Linux or Windows.  I guess it really depends on what your daily tasks consist of.  The photo raw editor I use is Windows only so I have a Win box specifically for that.  There are Linux apps (a decent number of them) for photo work, but I really like the one I use.

I use Linux Mint for all my daily web browsing, email, spreadsheets, etc.  I am not a Linux (or Windows) evangelist, I use what ever tool is best for the task.  That said, I prefer Mint for my day to day tasks.  I would move away from Windows completely if it wasn't for my photography raw converter.

[Joe_Limon]

Can I simply install it on a USB so I can choose in the BIOS where to boot from so I don´t lose Windows for the moment?

[Doublej]

Can I simply install it on a USB so I can choose in the BIOS where to boot from so I don´t lose Windows for the moment?

A number of distros have the ability to try before you install it permanently. With these you can create a live bootable USB drive to run it, though your changes during the session will not be stored on the USB drive.

You might be able to partition your computers hard drive and install Linux on this new partition without affecting your Windows installation. When you boot you choose either Linux or Windows and then the chosen operating system loads and runs on the computer until you shut it off.