I Tried Linux Desktop for 2 Months...

I ran Linux desktop as my daily driver for 2 months - dev, streaming, gaming. Here’s the straight rundown: what worked, what broke, and what I’d do differently if I tried again.

---------------------------------------------------

💻 Learn Frontend (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
⚙️ Learn Backend (25% off): https://boot.dev/?promo=DONTHEDEVELOPER
🤖 Learn AI Engineering (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-ai-engineer-path-c02v?via=donthedeveloper
🐱 Learn NestJS (free) - https://scrimba.com/nestjs-c0n7djgjma?via=donthedeveloper
🧠 Advanced Coding (40% off) - https://app.codecrafters.io/join?via=donthedeveloper

👥 1 on 1 Mentorship - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper/coaching
👁️‍🗨️ Join Discord - https://discord.gg/TpQe2k8Ab3
🐦 Follow on X - https://x.com/thedonofcode
👾 Follow on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/donthedeveloper

Disclaimer: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Don Hansen: 0:00

I'm just gonna come out with it. I have really sad news to share. I went back to Windows. Now I know. I know. I was angry too. I had to go through a mix of emotions. I was using Linux desktop for about two months. I was using Pop OS. Everything seemed like it would work out in the beginning. It really did. I wanted it to. I really wanted it to. In fact, I spent a full week just trying to um set up like the dual boot for Linux, and I wanted to keep Windows as a backup. And then I realized that my motherboard kind of had the security thing that prevented it from me doing it easily. And so I finally just settled on deleting Windows. And I spent like a week straight figuring that out. I deleted my video drivers several times. I got into command prompts that I didn't even know existed to restore that. And AI did help me out a little bit with that. It also caused me to lose my video drivers, but it did, you know, fix its own problems that it brought me. But to be honest, I didn't know a lot about like I interact with the Linux, and I've interacted with the Linux ever since you know I became a dev, but there's so much to trying to make Linux work with the software that you love to use. And I spent a lot of time doing that. If I spent a week figuring out the video driver stuff and the dual booting stuff, um, you know, I had low points, but I would just remind myself, honestly, how much I hated Microsoft and Apple. I didn't want to go back, right? I think that's a good motivation to start with. Like that gets that fire burning under your butt, and you just want to make it work no matter the time, no matter the graying of your hairs. I feel like that's probably why I got some of this gray. Um, but you want to make it work and it's exciting. And the idea of customizing your environment and having that control, like it sounds exciting, unless you're running a business. Unless you aren't, unless you're trying to make it work for your business, right? If you're just spending like an hour or two, maybe a few nights a week, and you're just playing around with it, you can break stuff, it doesn't set you back. Linux is a great thing to try out. The desktop is a great thing to try out, but I went full force in, I burned the boats, and I gave it a real try. And I was actually able to stream. So I do live streaming, I set up OBS, and I even got like a web app that replicated what my Go XLR software does on WinX or Windows because that isn't provided on Linux, and it mostly worked when it wouldn't disconnect and reconnect randomly. And then my Stream Deck software, I had to use an alternative for that, and it mostly worked when it would load. And sometimes it would load on its own, sometimes I'd have to manually load it, sometimes it just would give me some error that I would have to look up. And you know, you have some software that works like that, that's fine, right? Couple pieces of software, that's fine. And then when it expands to like half a dozen apps that you use, and then a dozen apps that you use, and the errors happen at the worst time possible, or they screw up my recordings, and I'm just dumping a bunch of time into then having to like set up my my backups and everything for my my progress because I can't trust. I like working locally. And if you're if you're gonna go Linux, you might as well work locally, right? Um, but I can't trust my work to be safe, so I had to figure out backup solutions for Linux that worked with my NES. And it was just problem after problem after problem. And maybe some of you have set all of this up over the previous years, but I've used software that just worked. By the way, if you are diving deep into Node and you've already built a few things with Express, it might be time to challenge yourself with a more scalable framework, NessJS. It's one of the most popular frameworks for Node, and I personally use it to build my projects. It's one of the reasons why I decided to build a course for it, to get people up to speed with the basics. You can find that course at Scrimba.com. Oh, it's also free. If you use my link in the description to sign up for Scrimba, and you decide to upgrade to the Pro Plan, which unlocks a ton of different courses, you actually get a discount. Again, I partner with them because they are actually really good at building up junior developers. Check it out. What do you have to lose? Now let's get back to the video. You can bash Mac, you can bash Windows all you want. It works. Not all the time, most of the time, but it works a hell of a lot more than Linux desktop. I wasn't even using Arc Linux, I was using Pop OS. And gaming is a pain in the ass. I got sold that I could play all these games on Linux, right? Steam is coming out with um kind of their Linux version, I think, for their handheld, and a lot more games were supported through Linux, I think through prototype. I'm probably getting that wrong, but through one of their runners, and my terminology is gonna be off. I tried my best to learn this, but through one of their runners that kind of worked most of the time until I got to my games like Battle.net stuff. When you get to like client launchers, that's when things become a pain. And you can forget any like kernel level anti-cheats and try to make that work and like try to play GTA 5 or anything like that. I just I spend so much time getting most games to work, and most games did work for the most part. Once in a while they had crash, I had Overwatch crash once in a while. You might be saying, Why are you playing Overwatch? And that's a legitimate thing to call me out on. But these are the games I played, these are the games I grew up on, and I got most of them working, but then they would just stop working, or I would have to shut off updates for battle.net because one of those updates could cause me to have to debug for four hours figuring out why I couldn't launch battle.net anymore. Because one of their updates didn't really work with the runner that I was using and that needed updated. Then I'd have to cycle through different. I'm using the word runner. I think there's a proper terminology for this, but basically to be able to run that Windows game through Linux. And it just got to a point where like I kind of felt like Superman. I kind of felt like a tech bro. I felt like I was learning so much trying to get all of this to work on something it wasn't meant to work for. And I feel like I did learn quite a bit about Linux. And then one day I just thought to myself, maybe I should be living life instead of getting Linux to work. I'm not even joking. Like, I'm not being snarky. I'm like, I have spent the last two months trying to make this work fueled by my hatred of Microsoft and Apple. And I literally put my life on hold for many weeks of that. I didn't even realize it. I hadn't touched grass in forever. And that's when I learned that's what Linux does to you. It lures you in with this promise of power and control, and then you come out of it, you haven't shaved for months, and you haven't touched grass, all of your relationships are dead. Maybe it's not that dramatic, but it can be because Linux is that addictive, and I found that I wanted to live instead of try to make Linux work. Now, to be clear, I'm talking about Linux desktop and using it as a daily driver. I'm not talking about just, you know, hosting your application on Linux and interacting with the Linux through SSH or something like that. But I tried. I really gave it a try. And I just wanted to share that. So I'm back on Windows. And it's better. Windows can have my data. I hate that I just said that, but I like I'm not going back to Linux Desktop. I don't know how you guys make it work. Um but I'm curious, have you guys actually thoroughly tried to use Linux desktop as a daily driver? Do you use it as a daily driver and for how long? I'm curious. The main question I have is like, how many people are actually making this work for their daily driver for everything? And I know some people are gonna be like, well, you shouldn't do that. It's like, well, you kind of can though. You have to make some trade-offs, but you can. And why wouldn't you? Right? Because I feel like if you dive into the Linux world, like you go head first. There's no you you burn those boats. Or did I just do it the wrong way? I probably did it the wrong way, but I don't know. I'm not going back anytime soon. But if I do go back again in the future, I'm doing the same damn shit. I'm just gonna make sure I have time, like available time for it. And maybe that's was my problem. But, anyways, do you use Linux as a daily driver? I'm curious how you make it work. And have you tried it and have you ditched it and realized it wasn't for you? Are you curious about it? What are your thoughts about using Linux desktop as a daily driver? Let me know in the comments below.