I’m considering installing Linux on my laptop but I’m unsure if I should start with a virtual machine first. My main use cases are gaming and coding, so I want to make sure it’s the right fit.

What are the pros and cons of using Linux for someone like me? Would starting with VirtualBox be a good idea before going all in?

  • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
    4·
    8 days ago

    One of my buds is a programmer and runs linux and windows on his machine. At this point he’s pretty adroit at fixing any issues on linux, but he has faced limitations before.

    Regarding work, being on linux apparently was a big plus when he got hired, and works exclusively on linux due to its stability.

    Regarding gaming, many games we play apparently run better on linux (inc. ArmA Reforger and some others, I forget), but some will just not run at all (anything with a kernel anticheat), and his mic sounds like utter shit on discord due to missing drivers or something.

    I do remember there was a site where you could check how well a game ran on linux, but I forget. You might be able to check if the games you got run on steam deck, since they are linux based.

    • J4g2F@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      8 days ago

      I do remember there was a site where you could check how well a game ran on linux

      You probably remembering protondb.com. You can check how good your games run your games with proton (valve’s windows compatibel layer based on wine and dxvk). You can use proton with any games also outside of steam. For example with heroic launcher with epic and gog games.

      • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
        2·
        8 days ago

        Might’ve been, but I don’t remember it being so red. I’m on mobile right now though, and my PC browser loads everything in dark mode, maybe the colors were affected.

        In any case, the site my buddy showed me ranked games according to performance just like that one so that one would still be useful.

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
      2·
      8 days ago

      There’s a 100% chance that his mic issues are not driver related, but instead are Discord’s fault. They are classically awful at providing feature parity for Linux.

      Have him fiddle with the audio settings, it’s probably either the echo cancellation or noise reduction. As another commenter mentioned there are third party solutions for both.