Reasons to switch:
- It’s waaaaay cheaper
- A new laptop costs a lot of money. Repair cafes will often help you for free. Software updates are also free, forever. You can of course show your support for both with donations!
- No ads, no spying
- Windows comes with lots of ads and spyware nowadays, slowing down your computer and increasing your energy bill.
- Good for the planet
- Production of a computer accounts for 75+% of carbon emissions over its lifecycle. Keeping a functioning device longer is a hugely effective way to reduce emissions.
- Community support
- If you have any issues with your computer, the local repair cafe and independent computer shop are there for you. You can find community support in online forums, too.
- User control
- You are in control of the software, not companies. Use your computer how you want, for as long as you want.
Hexbear-related reasons to switch:
- Still can use hexbear
- Hexbear requires a web browser (firefox) to use.
- Don’t have to pay for it.
- You’ll receive updates and features for your operating system free of any personal charge to you till the end of time. You can donate directly to volunteers and workers to make your computer better (better yet non computer related things)
- using Windows for Windows’s sake or Apple for Apple’s sake is liberalism and supports USA/piSSrael
- TBH they copied from us (KDE, GNOME) anyway. Their innovation is being a monopoly and advertising to you.
- Makes you smarter (it’s like reading theory but with computers)
- Using Linux makes you big brain because you’ll learn you can do a lot of things for free that you’d have to waste your soul on.
- Using Linux makes you big brain because you’ll learn you can do a lot of things for free that you’d have to waste your soul on.
GOOD Post. I to believe linux makes you smarter but I can’t say it without coming off pretentious.
Decades spent on the puter and I’m still a newb, anyway can I download Mint and then run windows in a virtual machine to play some games? I’m addicted to windows abandonware and I’m pretty sure I’d need to run it in a virtual machine if I was on linux. How about for emulators like duckstation and pcsx2?
Decades spent on the puter
chances are you’ve already benefited from collectively owned software and haven’t even realized it (silicon valley loves piggy backing open source)! Using a libre operating system just means taking onus of that fact and using it for your own ends from top to bottom. Really it’s just a gateway to being being even cooler.
windows in a virtual machine to play some games?
While this is possible. Chances are that most of your games are already playable through Valve’s efforts with proton. You can use apps like bottles to run them or just use Valve’s Steam client itself. Linux is nowhere near the state it was in only half a decade ago.
I can tell you from experience that I have been able to play modded fallout new vegas on Linux with mod organizer 2, so you just need to give it a shot. Protondb is a community database for games and there are always people willing to share their experiences on getting it to work with linux.
How about for emulators like duckstation and pcsx2?
Both are supported nearly every Linux distribution. If you install Linux Mint, it’s as easy as going to the software center and downloading them from there.
How old is your abandonware?
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DOS - DOSBox works on Linux, it’ll be exactly the same
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Early windows / win32 - WINE works incredibly well, you just install it and then it can run Windows. File menus will end up a bit goofy because they try to point you at My Documents instead of ~
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Early 2000s compatibility dead zone - There’s like a 60% chance it still works on Windows and a 70% chance it works on Linux through WINE.
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Post dead zone - WINE works incredibly well again.
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Modern games and Steam games - Proton works incredibly well and you’ll barely notice you’re using it.
Wine sounds pretty good.
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