Scheiß drauf, ich installiere Linux

Is Linux Mint still the go-to for people familiar with Windows and zero experience with Linux?

Just install Windows 11 Enterprise IOT LTSC, you get a junk free version of Windows and support until 2034

I feel this sentiment, but basically every time a new Linux related article is posted, someone is hyping up a different version than the last one, makes it real confusing to try and start.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it actually worked – and entirely unsurprised when I quickly discovered a really obnoxious, difficult to solve problem. (Soft locking seemingly due to issues figuring out which video card to use in any given moment.) If I could solve the really obnoxious problem, I think my only remaining concern is modding. Not that you can’t, only that the manual option is seemingly the most appealing option. But that’s not a *real* concern. Most games I just play as is anyhow, so really this concern was basically „but maybe I’ll play Skyrim/Fallout for the trillionth time“. (And if I’m honest, the part where I cram mods and launch the game and then tweak mod lists until it’s on the cusp of breaking is the experience of playing Skyrim these days. I mean, yeah, there’s a game to play at the other side of all the modding, but once you get things just so, usually the itch to scream at dragons is well and truly scratched!)

I want to switch to Linux but the few games I play don’t have Linux options 

Ive been considering this for a while.

Pros:
– i do NOT want a bar of windows 11, fuck. That. Shit.
– my job is technology adjacent, i could do with more linux experience
– i already run an unraid server, but im mostly a gui monkey
– i dont really care if i cant play some games

Cons:
– im really fucking lazy and I HATE troubleshooting and get frustrated pretty quickly
– i dont have a backup box to test on, and im reluctant to taint an existing box with dual boot as i tend to fuck things up easily

Im actually hoping this gains steam and a few more linux morons try it out over the next little while so i get a bit more data to compare before i dive in.

But i suspect approaching windows 10 deprecation is when im gonna make the switch and never look back.

Installed Linux Mint on an old Windows laptop just a few days ago. It’s come on leaps and bounds since the last time I tried a desktop Linux distro a few years back.

I love it, but even now it takes some fiddling around to get it running smoothly. Most non-techy people buying from Curry’s would likely give up and return it for the familiarity of Windows. 

It’s impressive and it’s so close to being ready for the mainstream but there is still work to do, not least by game devs on making their anti-cheat compatible.

Steam deck mentioned quite early on. It’s such a weird situation. Is the argument for Linux that it has some good compatibility layers to run windows software? 
End of the day if a reason for people switching is the can use a lot of their software through a compatibility layer, the OS their software is designed for is still going to win. 

As a long term Mac user who has been using wine for almost all of my gaming, there’s no shift from windows in first part gaming support. It won’t change until that starts happening. 

I’ve considered it, windows becomes more of a steaming pile of anti consumer bullpucky every day it feels like. If Companies fully supported it, I’d be willing maybe even eager.

I’m considering switching this week, really fed up with windows.

There’s 1-2 games I still play that have zero Linux support, as the side apps required are windows only,
Apart from dual booting, what options could anyone suggest?

Is a VM an option? With windows 7/10/11 or whatever purely for these games? Would it be smooth?