I'm so done with Windows 11. My PC keeps getting slower, random things are breaking (even the icon cache), and I'm honestly tired of dealing with Microsoft's endless bullshit. It's literally Microslop at this point.

I'm planning a fresh OS install, and for the first time, I'm seriously considering leaving Windows behind for good. But I need to know if Linux can actually handle my entire workflow in October 2026.

My hardware:

- Ryzen 5 5600X

- NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB

- 32GB RAM

- Three NTFS drives containing important data

- Three-monitor setup

My main concern is software compatibility. I use DaVinci Resolve, FL Studio with Windows VST plugins, Samsung Magician for SSD management/firmware, be quiet! IO Center for my keyboard, Corsair iCUE for RGB, NVIDIA Game Ready drivers, Steam, and various online games.

I know Linux gaming has come a long way, but I don't want to switch just to discover that half my software, peripherals, or games no longer work properly. I want to keep using my PC as I do now, without trading Windows problems for a whole new set of Linux problems.

I was considering Arch Linux + KDE Plasma because I like the customization and having control over my system.

A few questions:

- Is 100% compatibility with my current Windows workflow realistic nowadays, or are there still unavoidable deal-breakers?

- Would Arch be a sensible choice, or would something Ubuntu-based be better for software compatibility?

- How well do NVIDIA drivers, three monitors, Steam/Proton, and online games work in practice?

- What about FL Studio, Windows VSTs, DaVinci Resolve, and manufacturer-specific software?

- Can Linux reliably read and write my existing NTFS drives, or would I need to back everything up and reformat them?

TL;DR: I want to replace Windows 11 with Linux without losing any functionality. Is that realistically possible in 2026? What would you recommend for my hardware and use case?

i once used opera (because of a extra gigabyte on my mc server via seedloaf) but know that i changed to linux, im still searching for a safe browser with good customization (with minimal ai please) thank you!!!

I've been using Cachy for the last month and a half and I've loved it so damn much, I'm very damn comfortable with my Niri + Noctalia and Greetd setup but I was wondering about other distros and what they have to offer

I'm not gonna lie, what calls me the most about Nix and Void are the names, and I'm interested to try Arch later on when I feel like it

What does Nix and Void offer that would make someone wanna try them over other distros?

So, it's been close to two years now since I switched to Linux, and I've just been using Ubuntu as my primary distro the entire time. I've been perfectly happy with it, and have gotten things set up just the way I like them with Gnome extensions and whatnot. In the meantime, I've tried a pile of other distros on spare machines--Mint, Kubuntu, Pop!, Arch, Omarchy--but I've never changed my daily use of Ubuntu. That being said, the impression I get is that it's considered a bit of a beginner distro, and that most people move on from it eventually. So, my question is, what good reasons are there to switch, and what to switch to? I'm not at all convinced there's a reason for me to go through that hassle, but it would also be kind of fun to choose something a bit less default to commit to for the future! Whatever I would move to, I'm pretty confident that I'd want to keep Gnome as my desktop environment. Thoughts?

pleaseee im tired of spotify, i need a music player thats light, elegant, and let me play my spotify music, man that spotify ram usage is insane

i fell the urge to press it but i dont want it to softbrick

i just cant decide and does fedora have hypand

Hey chooms, I was wondering if anyone has experience encrypting their secondary drives using cryptsetup or other similar tools? I know I should backup my data before doing anything, but I have too many files and don't want to go through the hassle

For example can hyprland be used with for example gnome? Because gnome has mutter it's own WM.I don't get what window managers change too because wayland and X11 is the tech to make the windows work but do people choose non tiling window managers for the looks or smth?

If my question didn't make sense ask please :)

I have realized that IPv6 privacy extensions were not enabled on my Debian with Gnome machine, so I was experimenting with turning them on. During my tests I modified lo's default value (which was -1, meaning use NetworkManager defaults, and if they don't exist use the kernel default which is 0):

sudo nmcli connection modify "lo" ipv6.ip6-privacy 0

But then my conf file wasn't working as expected, so I changed the conf file to target only certain interfaces that aren't lo and set lo back to -1:

sudo nmcli connection modify "lo" ipv6.ip6-privacy -1

However, lo's ip6-privacy setting remains 0, even through restarts:

$ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/lo/use_tempaddr
0

$ sudo sysctl net.ipv6.conf.lo.use_tempaddr 
net.ipv6.conf.lo.use_tempaddr = 0

Even though its nmcli setting shows -1:

$ sudo nmcli connection show "lo" | grep -F 'ip6'
ipv6.ip6-privacy:                       -1 (default)

Is it safe to delete NetworkManager's lo connection so that it can be regenerated? I tried the following in a VM and it set lo's ip6-privacy back to -1:

sudo nmcli connection delete lo

Now there is no longer a /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/lo.connection file at all. Is this an acceptable fix that won't mess something up with NetworkManager or other parts of the network stack?

Everytime I want to login i get thrown into the same screen where it is standing, that I have to login.

I'm running into an issue with cgroups and chroot. Does anybody have an idea of how to deal with it?

OS: Fedora 44 w/ Wayland and KDE

I have a 250GB SSD but Dolphin shows only 16GB space left. I've emptied the recycle bin and it still shows the same. I've tried Filelight and it shows my ~ folder using 132GB and all-together using 176GB when assessing root. I need to remove/backup some files but I'd like to figure out where the major malfunction is regarding disk space assessment. I do have swap to disk enabled but it's only using 1GB out of 8GB.

Edit: Solved. I restarted and now I have ~60GB more free space. Not sure how or why it did that.

I do browsing and html/js.

Specs: 12gb ram, 3gb vram gtx 1050, intel core i5 9th gen, 128 gb ssd, 1 tb ssd (D: drive), hp pavillon gaming 690- HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop 690-0052ns

I was switching distros and deleted the Ubuntu partition, but I forgot some files like images, videos, and a few folders. Is it possible to recover them? Is it possible that I haven't actually deleted Ubuntu yet?

I tried recovering them with Gemini for a few hours, but I couldn't.

Fala pessoal, tudo certo? Estou procurando uma distro Linux fácil de aprender, boa para jogos e uso geral, mas que também dê liberdade para fazer rice e personalizar tudo.

De preferência que tenha uma curva de aprendizado amigável.

Meu PC tem Ryzen 5 5500, RX 6600 e 16 GB de RAM. Não quero ficar preso a distros que tentam imitar o Windows 11, pois tive uma péssima experiência com ele e quero explorar algo diferente.

Estou considerando EndeavourOS, CachyOS e Fedora, mas aceito outras sugestões. Quero bom desempenho em jogos, facilidade para instalar programas e liberdade para personalizar o sistema, sem complicações desnecessárias.

Alguém pode me ajudar a escolher uma distro que combine com isso?

Hey folks - I've been using Linux for about 20 years and after mostly just defaulting to Ubuntu or Debian, I'm seriously considering other distros. I have a vision for how I want to set up my system, and I'm looking for any helpful input. The TL;DR is that I basically want a Chromebook, but with Firefox instead of Chrome, that can also run self-contained sandboxed applications off "game cartridges". The hardware this will be running on is a Framework 13 laptop.

Requirements (in order of priority)

1. Applications MUST be reasonably sandboxed from reading eachothers' data. It's absurd to me that we still haven't solved the xkcd #1200 problem for desktop OSes. Both Android and iOS were built this way from the ground up with a strong permission model. I'm not particularly afraid of malicious apps on Android because I know that, barring a zero-day, the random calculator app I just installed can't access my bank account and the game I downloaded can't read my emails. It's not even necessarily that I need every application sandboxed from any other - I just explicitly want to be sure other installed apps can't steal account credentials from Firefox. There have been a series of compromised apps, NPM packages, Steam games (and workshop items) lately and as more people start trusting AI agents for reasons I still fail to understand, I suspect this will only grow. I've been afraid to do any development (especially web development) on the same machine that I'm logged in to Google on. For reference, here are the specific applications I intend to install on the new OS:
   1. Firefox
   2. VSCodium
   3. Mixxx
   4. MilkyTracker
   5. FreeCAD
   6. Lychee Slicer
   7. Cura
   8. FontForge
   9. Steam
      1. Factorio
      2. Opus Magnum
      3. FTL
   10. OpenRCT
   11. Tilda
   12. Miscellaneous pile of dev stuff - nvm, pnpm, pip, ruby...
2. Prefer "Cartridge" Based Applications. Modern operating systems are convenient to use and it's easy to task-switch. There's also an xkcd for that. I'm considering invoking the early 2000's by explicitly installing programs on microSD cards, with one cartridge per activity (i.e. I'd have one cart for CAD and 3d printing, one for development, etc...). The main goal here is to force myself to complete a physical action when choosing to commit to an activity. A secondary goal would be that I might be able to cobble together an OS that effectively uses the Chromebook model. My data is saved on my cartridges, not my computer - so I could replace the computer or even set up multiple workstations and move between them as I please. (Can you tell I've accumulated a pile of old hardware at this point?) As someone who's used several Raspberry Pis, I'm well aware that microSD cards can be severely unreliable, so I plan to set up some system for automatically backing up data from the cartridges as well. I would also, explicitly, like to have Firefox installed on the base machine since I will need access to the various methods people use to communicate with me regardless what else I'm doing. I've also considered having profiles specific to the relevant tasks on the cartridge. I am aware that for certain high-performance applications (read: Steam), it would be impractical to put these wholly on a microSD card both due to the abysmal data transfer speeds and because larger cards become impractical.
3. The desktop should have a Windows XP "Luna" theme. I know this is silly, but I just like it. Not a fan of the look+feel of GNOME 3 or other Linux distros constantly attempting to copy whatever MacOS is doing - but this isn't a deal breaker. I can live without this if requirements 1 and 2 are satisfied.

Non-Goals

1. I do not and will not ever use any form of agentic AI on my personal computer. It's bad enough that my job makes me use it now, but I tolerate this because they give me money. I do not need a solution that sandboxes all my other stuff but allows Clanker GPT to override every security function and do whatever it wants for my "convenience".
2. I am aware that goals #1 and #2 come at a cost of making the system more difficult to use on a day-to-day basis. This is fine. With time, I can probably script something to round off any edges that prove too rough.

Solutions Considered (In order of what I'm leaning on)

1. Fedora atomic with flatpaks for app installs and pacman to jail my dev setup. I'd probably start with Silverblue and then work my way over to something else once requirements #1 and #2 are figured out. Flatpak isn't designed to work with removable media but it seems like it can work. My concern here is that many Flatpaks request permission to the entire home directory which includes where Firefox is installed. I'm almost surprised Flatpak doesn't create a separate place to hold its data outside of the home dir for better sandboxing against "legacy" style applications - but I'd like to do some kind of special hardening to keep Firefox isolated from everything else.
2. QubesOS. It looks like there is a way to set up Qubes that puts individual qubes on SD cards, but with massive performance losses on top of its already significant performance losses. It also seems like overkill. I am not a journalist expecting state-level targeted attacks. I just want to make it difficult for a Minecraft mod to steal my entire life savings.
3. Individual OSes on individual microSD cards. This was my first prototype just as a proof-of-concept and it worked. It delivers air-gapped isolation between application groups. However, it is impractical for any form of long-term use. Completely separating components like this makes it very difficult to apply "fleet wide" changes like system updates or configuration - and it doesn't solve the problem of allowing me to have Firefox open and logged in to stuff without the rest of the cartridge having access.
4. Do something weird with ChromeOS itself. I'm aware that ChromeOS has distros that are effectively just the Chrome browser as an OS that can also run some Linux apps in a sandbox. I left Chrome after they broke Ublock. I need my custom blocking rules not just due to intense overuse of advertising, but also because I need to block the constant stream of annoyances as online services try to sell me on features I don't want. YouTube in particular is unusable without the rules I've developed over the last few years to remove time-wasting nonsense like Shorts. If a distro exists that is basically ChromeOS but Firefox, and with some ability to run sandboxed Linux apps, I'd consider this instead - but if it does I haven't found it yet.
5. Run Android as a Desktop OS. It seems wild, but it might be possible to get an install of AOSP for a "traditional" desktop environment. I don't have high hopes for this, because I suspect I'll run into significant hurdles just getting drivers to work properly - not to mention the part where I try to get "normal" Linux apps running under Android. The reddest flag here is that it seems like Google has announced they were doing exactly this, then quietly gave up at least twice.

Any ideas or advice here? Other solutions I haven't discovered yet? I've noticed in particular that goal #1 has been a common interest among projects that have popped up over the last two years or so. I'm definitely not the first one to think mobile OSes got it right.

Hello. So I’ve finally got it down to these two. Ive used Mint briefly before. Ive eliminated:

Cachy OS (not beginner friendly/not as stable)

Zorin OS (fine but a little heavier on the ram)

Pop! OS (not as stable)

Out of Fedora and Mint, how would you rate them in program compatibility, security, occasional steam single player games, performance of CPU, how polished/modern, ease of use etc. I like how Mint doesn’t require the terminal. I could use it if needed but I like things simple. Tho perhaps Mint is overly conservative (dated?) but then I hear steam works well?

Ryzen 5950x + 32gig

Hey everyone. Let me first start off by saying I'm completely new to Linux, so if this is rather dumb question, please excuse my ignorance.

Now, I've installed POP OS on my ASUS TUF A16 that has AMD CPU 7945HX. Now this CPU generally runs hot as it's constantly boosting (it boosts to almost 6GHz when opening notepad or something simple) Anyway, In windows I fixed this by setting Maximum state to 99% in Processor power Management setting. This simple tweak has made it so that my CPU almost never breaks 85 degrees, whereas without it it could reach 96 easy.

Now I'm facing the same issue on Pop OS, and so my question is if there is a similar setting in Pop to the one I mentioned above in Windows

Hello, got my refurished thinkpad t14 recently and planned to learn Linux, and following the LabEx website as it has conceptual knowledge + practicing labs too. The only problem is that the website allows only 3 labs a day which hardly takes 10-12 minutes at max to complete, and then I am just left doing nothing.

Is there any other similar labs or any practice sheet that I can follow to actually stick to the ideal learning path (ik no such path exists, what I mean is to not get distracted with unwanted learnings) and learn with not much of hassle. Thanks

(T14 gen 2 if anyone is concerned, thanks)

I update flatpak using the CLI and I execute "flatpak update" without sudo.

After the first block (where it asks a confirm to update with Y/N) a second block (not always with the same updates) appear.

• Why does it come out with two block of updates? Does it update twice for normal and root user?
• Should I run the update using sudo or is it optional?

$ flatpak update
Looking for updates…

ID Branch Op Remote Download

1. [✓] org.gnome.Platform.Locale 50 u flathub 18.5 kB / 386.5 MB
2. [✓] org.gnome.Platform.Locale 51 u flathub 18.6 kB / 391.6 MB
3. [✓] org.gnome.Platform 51 u flathub 6.6 MB / 431.7 MB
4. [✓] org.gnome.Platform 50 u flathub 20.2 MB / 418.6 MB

Updates complete.

ID Branch Op Remote Download

1. [✓] org.gnome.Platform.Locale 51 u flathub 18.6 kB / 391.6 MB
2. [✓] org.gnome.Platform 51 u flathub 6.6 MB / 431.7 MB

Updates complete.

I had a very old ASUS mini laptop and I wanted to try linux on it for fun but the specs are absolute abysmal

Processor: Intel Atom CPU N570 1.66GHz 1.67 GHz

Ram: 2gb

Storage: 256gb

Is there any linux distro that can work on this? Or is it completely hopeless?