I don’t want to say it’s hard but it also feels disingenuous just simply calling it easy. honestly depends on the person and what they want to do with the computer
Installing it isn’t hard so long as you’re comfortable following some instructions to load a file onto a flash drive and hitting a couple buttons when your computer turns on
For usability, If you absolutely need specific programs that don’t work on Linux, like anything from Adobe, MS Office, CAD software, a lot of music production software, stuff like that, and an alternative just won’t work in your situation (such as if you need it for work) then unfortunately there’s not really a proper solution there. TONS of programs have a Linux equivalent that’s open source and free, many of them work fantastic, but also there’s many that aren’t ideal. For gaming though, it’s gotten REALLY good. With the exception of certain huge multiplayer games with anti-cheat, almost everything will just work if you use Steam, and most other things you can make work by adding them to Steam as a non-Steam game and clicking a couple buttons
As for cost? It costs no money but will cost you some time when you’re first setting it up and learning the ways it differs from Windows
If installing it doesn’t intimidate you and you don’t need any of the software that’s not supported, then it’s honestly not hard overall but there will be some adjustments
A bit off topic, but since you mentioned music production software I just wanted to quickly say I was surprised by how much easier it is to set up compared to Windows. Since Pipewire became a thing, it’s really dead simple. No need to mess around with ASIO, virtual cables, applications using an exclusive lock on interfaces, etc.
Ardour and REAPER are solid pieces of free (half-free for REAPER) software, and the commercial Bitwig (made by ex-Ableton staff) also has a native Linux build which works great.
That’s awesome to hear actually, I’m not as familiar with music production stuff and don’t have any personal experience with it on Linux, it’s just something I’d heard was an obstacle before
It’s crazy to me how much better and more viable Linux as a whole has been getting over the past several years
Bottles work for almost every windows application nowadays. You will notice a slight performance hit, but for most desktop software on a halfway decent rig that’s completely irrelevant!
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I don’t want to say it’s hard but it also feels disingenuous just simply calling it easy. honestly depends on the person and what they want to do with the computer
Installing it isn’t hard so long as you’re comfortable following some instructions to load a file onto a flash drive and hitting a couple buttons when your computer turns on
For usability, If you absolutely need specific programs that don’t work on Linux, like anything from Adobe, MS Office, CAD software, a lot of music production software, stuff like that, and an alternative just won’t work in your situation (such as if you need it for work) then unfortunately there’s not really a proper solution there. TONS of programs have a Linux equivalent that’s open source and free, many of them work fantastic, but also there’s many that aren’t ideal. For gaming though, it’s gotten REALLY good. With the exception of certain huge multiplayer games with anti-cheat, almost everything will just work if you use Steam, and most other things you can make work by adding them to Steam as a non-Steam game and clicking a couple buttons
As for cost? It costs no money but will cost you some time when you’re first setting it up and learning the ways it differs from Windows
If installing it doesn’t intimidate you and you don’t need any of the software that’s not supported, then it’s honestly not hard overall but there will be some adjustments
A bit off topic, but since you mentioned music production software I just wanted to quickly say I was surprised by how much easier it is to set up compared to Windows. Since Pipewire became a thing, it’s really dead simple. No need to mess around with ASIO, virtual cables, applications using an exclusive lock on interfaces, etc. Ardour and REAPER are solid pieces of free (half-free for REAPER) software, and the commercial Bitwig (made by ex-Ableton staff) also has a native Linux build which works great.
That’s awesome to hear actually, I’m not as familiar with music production stuff and don’t have any personal experience with it on Linux, it’s just something I’d heard was an obstacle before
It’s crazy to me how much better and more viable Linux as a whole has been getting over the past several years
Bottles work for almost every windows application nowadays. You will notice a slight performance hit, but for most desktop software on a halfway decent rig that’s completely irrelevant!