I haven’t had any problems (yet). I’ve been able to play Total War: Warhammer 3 and Darktide without issue.
ProtonDB is great, shows you what the current status is for any particular game’s Linux compatibility.
Today I had to walk someone through running vssadmin delete /all at the command line on Windows.
Just thought it was a bit ironic with all of the discussion about Windows saving people from command line interaction. There may be GUI ways to handle shadow copies, but vssadmin was the first thing to come up in a search, and seemed easy to use.
Yeah, there are many thing in Windows that you just can’t do via the GUI - there’s a thing where device manager will hide away broken/redundant device driver entries if the device wasn’t actually present and ‘show hidden devices’ doesn’t reveal them - the only way is to open a command prompt and do:
SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
START DEVMGMT.msc
I think a lot of it is that when something happens in Windows that requires this sort of interaction, many users find someone else to do it for them.
Sounds like yet another “improvement” of recent versions of Windows. In Windows 7, Device Manager has an option under “View” for “View hidden devices” that has never failed to show all of them. But I suppose there may be exceptional situations, but the theory of enshittification seems quire plausible here.
As I said:
It’s been like that since Windows XP at least.
Well, i did ask about that:
Hey – one more question. How much space do I need on a thumb drive for this temporary linix installation? Anyone know?
I believe 4GB is likely sufficient, and definitely less than 8GB (easy these days).
(Reply has a much more authoritative answer below)
For Ubuntu, it says 8GB or larger: Create a bootable USB stick - Ubuntu Desktop documentation
You can get a 64 gig one for like $10.
I should note that most USB drives are very slow compared to HDDs and especially recent SSDs, so if the Linux live experience takes forever to start, don’t let that alone drive you away. Once installed to your computer, it should load much faster.
for mint it says 4mb (IIRC) … and I am pretty certain I used a 2mb thumb-drive for some of the more minimal linux distros out there, I put on a real old system.
(a good part of Mint is OpenOffice, sizewise)
Okay, so as fast as possible, but any size i can actually buy today is probably enough space. Thanks.
You probably mean gigabytes?
Just clarifying because there actually used to be some tiny Linuxes, like Damn Small Linux - Wikipedia that could fit on 50 MBs and run on a 486. Today it’s still less than a gig, but not quite 4 MB.
Pretty much.
If this is just a trial for you and you’re not even sure you’ll like Linux, I’d prob just grab the cheapest USB drive the store sells. The difference between a 5-min and 10-min live boot isn’t that big (and once you’re in the desktop, it shouldn’t matter that much because most of it will have been loaded into your computer’s RAM by that point). And if you actually like the Linux and decide to permanently install it, then it’s up to your computer’s own hardware. The USB stick doesn’t stay plugged in after that.
And if this is an older laptop, you may be limited by its own USB port’s transfer speeds anyway, especially if it’s USB 2. Even “fast” USB sticks aren’t generally very cost-effective; they’re generally not that much faster until you get to “external M2 NVME SSD inside a USB enclosure” levels ($100+).
Yeah, I’m looking at $10-$20 drives, and might pay $20 to get a cute form factor.
Heh, then surely it has to be a penguin-shaped drive?
yes, you are of course right!
No, that’s USB A, i need USB C. 
My wife loves her Linux penguin USB drive. I guarantee she has no idea its connection to Linux, but she thinks it’s adorable.
Heh, i found this:
But i think I’d prefer to buy a plain memory stick and load software myself from known places.
Cute, though.
I’ve used Linux for the vast majority of my home machines pretty for more than 20 years. It has its quirks, but I really can’t stand Windows. My most recent Windows experience was 5 years with a work laptop. It was a slow memory hog of a system, and I never trusted it. Honestly wanted to hit it with a brick a few times. Since they’ve transitioned my work laptop to a Mac, I’ve been much happier.
Of course, I’ve been supporting some sort of Unix system for 20 years at this point. So I’m totally comfy with the terminal. Though, as has been said, I don’t normally have to use it. It’s just easier to write a one line script to do a lot of the stuff you want to do once you’ve done some scripting.
Good call. Sometimes the no-name sticks can have preloaded malware on them. It’s a good idea to wipe them before first use.
Same. Still, though, I wish there were a proper Apple-supported Linux for Apple Silicon Macs. Asahi only works somewhat, and only on certain models.
It’s nice that macOS is a Unix and has a proper shell, but I’m not a huge fan of its mouse-dependent GUI. Windows and Linux are much more keyboard-friendly. macOS can get halfway there with a bunch of third party utilities, but it’s still nowhere as good. And Liquid Glass is an abomination. Window management is bizarre too. I don’t know what half the fancy terms mean (what the hell is a stage manager) and my windows keep disappearing into some virtual desktop that I can’t find… who knows what’s in there from last year…
And I still do miss having a proper, useful taskbar that doesn’t take up 10% of my screen’s vertical real estate.
My dream machine would have Apple Silicon hardware, a Linux kernel, a bash shell, and a Windows XP GUI. Maybe someday the Snapdragon Elite chips would get there. Arm64 on laptops is the most exciting thing that’s happened to computers in two decades…