Alt text: Trojan Horse meme, Steam Deck bringing Linux to Windows gamers
Windows user here.
Idgaf as long as it works and isn’t shit. If it has lots of cool clever stuff, all the better.
I’m a power user, I don’t even want to upgrade or have to reinstall because of how much shit I’ve gone through to get it to this point. Easily a decade old install and very active use. I would lose so much random stuff if I ever had to upgrade or switch. Windows is shit and Microsoft are total bastards for that, there’s no denying it. But for me, it is not so simple as one being better or worse. Maybe if I were in a stage to switch I’d consider it, but still windows is not without its own offerings/positives.
Slowly switching may be an option for you. You could always dual boot a Linux distro alongside your current Windows install.
Then once you have Linux running with all your apps, etc, you can see what you’re missing from your Windows install and if you can move stuff over, etc.
You could even try it in a VM, see if you can set it up in a VM to how you like first before doing the whole install, may or may not be a bit easier (easier in the sense that you can directly compare whatever you do on Windows with the Linux install in a vm).
If your OS is so brittle that you can’t upgrade it without “losing so much random stuff,” you’re not standing on solid ground, and I’d argue "it doesn’t work properly either. You’re basically balancing on a house of cards that, and eventually it will fall, and it won’t be pretty. Do yourself a favour and switch to a more future-proof solution, now that you still have proper access to your data. Future you will most likely thank yourself.
Most vendor software works the best on Windows.
Windows also generally has the best compatibility. I always keep at least one Windows 11 VM to install various things in.
Have you run some demanding games in that VM? And what virtualisation have you been using?
I’ve been thinking about trying that out with QEMU/KVM.
Definitely not trivial to do. You need to use GPU passthrough to allow a VM to have a GPU, which requires manually figuring out a whole bunch of PCI addresses, among other technical things. If you fear the terminal, you will have a bad time.
