I Ran an Experiment on my Gaming PC. Windows Lost.

A while back, I started recommending the Mac Mini as one of the best machines you can buy when you're learning to code. I don't recommend things that I don't personally use, so yes, I did buy one and test-drove it for over a month before giving the verdict.

In fact, I enjoyed the macOS experience so much that I went all in and picked up a MacBook Pro as my daily driver for work.

And the more I used macOS for work, the more I found myself... dissatisfied with my Windows experience. It had been brewing for a while, but the contrast from macOS accelerated things. Windows felt bloated, Copilot was getting shoved into everything, despite me slamming on the "No" button every time it tried to get into my workflows. And while I enjoy raging at big tech these days, in this case I wasn't really feeling angry; I was just tired.

• I was tired of my preferences being overridden and being hammered with Copilot upsells.
• I was tired of Windows updates taking forever to install.
• I was tired of OneDrive and having to click extra buttons every time I wanted to save something on my computer... that I own... and not in the cloud.
• I was tired of basic terminal commands that work on Mac and Linux not being there on Windows, and I just didn't feel like messing around with it to make it more consistent. I shouldn't have to.
• I'm tired in general of being data-farmed. I'm not willing to go full luddite, but I'm starting to cut big tech out of my life where it's not overly inconvenient.

But I had a problem. The Windows machine I'm referring to is my gaming and entertainment rig. And I spent a significant amount of money on it a little over a year ago. It has a Ryzen 9 processor, an RTX 4090, 64GB of RAM, and two M.2 drives: 2TB and 4TB. Those were cheaper times, but the machine still ran me almost $4,000.

You don't wipe a machine like that on a whim, but with the two drives available, I decided to run an experiment.

One of the nice things about having a NAS (network-attached storage) on your home network (mine has 18TB) is that you can easily set up a backup strategy. I can wipe any machine on my network at any time, with barely a thought about losing data.

Linux Language Primer

Before I go further, let me get a few terms out of the way, because I'm going to keep using them and I don't want to leave anyone behind. If you already know this stuff, skip ahead.

• Kernel: The kernel is the core of your operating system. It's the connector between the hardware and the software you run. When people say "Linux", this is what they're talking about: the Linux Kernel.
• Distro: This is short for distribution. The kernel is just the core, and the distributions are the flavors. Each distribution comes pre-installed and configured with all the basic software and functionality you expect as a user, like file and folder management, text editors, and so forth. Think of all the apps that came pre-installed on your computer. That's basically a distro.
  
  Linux has tons of distros available in all sorts of flavors, from bleeding-edge distros geared towards people who like to lift the hood and get dirty to more stable ones targeted towards people who just want to use a computer.
• Package Manager: This is how Linux distros install and update software. It's basically the app store for Linux. On Windows, you are likely used to going to websites, downloading installers, and running them. On Linux, you just type a command or click a button, and the software magically shows up, ready to use.
• Desktop Environment: This is your look-and-feel layer. The interface, menus, windows, hotkeys, etc. This is what catches newbies off-guard. When you install Windows, it looks like Windows. macOS looks like macOS. In Linux, you can install any number of wildly different looks and switch between them.
  
  I went with KDE Plasma because it feels right to me, but I also tried others. Linux is about choice.

That's enough vocabulary. Onward!

The Distro Test Drive

Before committing, I test-drove four distros to see what fit.

Did you know that you can run a distro off a flash drive without installing the OS? It's a bit slower, but it gives you a taste of what the distro is like.

• Ubuntu Desktop was where I started, because I'm comfortable with Ubuntu Server. It was pretty much what I expected: vanilla, stable, no complaints. If I was running a small business and wanted to put my employees on Linux, this is the distro I'd install for them.
• Linux Mint runs a desktop environment called Cinnamon, and it's clean and genuinely polished to the point where an average user could go their whole life without opening a terminal. This is the one I'm eventually putting my wife on. She's less technical than me (but more technical than most people), and she keeps curiously eyeing my Linux install from across the room. Mint is where I would start her. And if I was going to rescue an old laptop for my non-technical Mother, this is what I'd install for her.
• Pop!_OS I only really tried out for its new COSMIC desktop environment. It didn't take. I ran into mouse-pointer issues in some games, and it just didn't feel finished. I know the team's still actively building it, so I'm not writing it off, but for me it's just not there yet.
• CachyOS I expected not to like. It's based on the Arch distro, and while I enjoy IT for a living, I'm not a hardcore tinkerer on a machine I use to relax. Arch has a reputation for being more technical than the others. The last thing I want on my recreational box is a hobby that fights back. But with SteamOS and the Steam Machine both sitting in Arch-adjacent territory, I figured the gaming situation over there had to be working reasonably well.

CachyOS ended up feeling right. It has (for me) the right mix of technical and ease of use. I'm comfortable in the terminal, and I was intrigued by the performance optimizations, since my gaming machine deserves them.

Dual Booting my System

The plan was simple: Wipe the drives, install Windows first on the 2TB drive, then experiment with Linux on the 4 TB drive. When you set up a dual-booting environment, you are prompted when you power on the machine to select which operating system to load.

This means I can easily load back into Windows if I run into any issues, need to run some Windows-only software, or want to give up.

FAQ: Why Install Windows First?

Windows has a long, charming history of assuming it's the only operating system a user would ever install. There are four things Windows does during setup that are, let's say, rude:

1. It writes its own bootloader over everything. Install it second, and it may stomp on your Linux install. In contrast, the Linux installers will detect Windows and helpfully add it to the boot menu.
2. Fast Startup doesn't fully shut the machine down, and can leave the drives in a locked state Linux refuses to touch. So you need to boot into Windows and disable it.
3. BitLocker encrypts the drive, which you'll want to disable if you want your other OS to be able to read it.
4. Secure Boot can block Linux from loading until you turn it off.

The Rule for Trying Something New

Every time I run an experiment, whether it's learning a new OS, a new coding IDE, or even a non-technical tool, I know there's going to be friction at first. As a learner, you feel friction all the time, but let me assure you I feel it too when I learn new things.

So, my rule is this: I have to use the new thing for at least a month before I cast judgment.

When I first got my Mac Mini, I had to relearn the OS hotkeys. It was cumbersome at first, but after a few weeks, it became natural. I still hit Ctrl when I should type Command sometimes, but it's mostly smoothed out now.

So the goal was to use Linux for a month for everything I could, only booting Windows if I had to.

Installing an OS

To install a fresh operating system, you need to download an ISO file (a virtual disk image containing the operating system files). In years past, I would use Rufus or BalenaEtcher to set up a USB flash drive with the OS, but now I wanted to try multiple operating systems. So, I downloaded Ventoy for the first time, and it was a pleasant experience: format the flash drive, and copy as many ISOs as you want onto it. The website is ugly, but the software worked great.

I will be direct about one thing: if you aren't familiar with drives and partitions, configuring a dual-boot environment is likely scary, especially if you've never done it before. But from an IT perspective, none of it was hard, because every installer walks you through the process. You just need to be careful not to format the wrong drives and to go in with a plan for which file systems you want to use.

The Windows Installation Experience

I haven't installed Windows in years, and doing it fresh was... frustrating. Not because anything went wrong, but because the experience has been fully enshittified:

• It rebooted at least six times.
• The installer forced me to sign in with a Microsoft account just to install an operating system I already own.
• It tried to upsell me into Office (which I already have), OneDrive (which I don't want), and tried to nudge me into giving them permissions to collect my data.
• And after all that, I still had to go to my motherboard manufacturer's website and download and manually install missing drivers.

I basically sat there, for over an hour, watching my own computer treat the setup process as an upsell opportunity for Microsoft. By the end, I was genuinely grumpy. So I took a walk.

The Linux Installation Experience

In contrast, CachyOS went from zero to installed in about 15 minutes. No one tried to sell me anything or log into a cloud service. I chose KDE Plasma as my desktop environment because it feels good to me.

When it hit the desktop, I logged in with the username and password I created, and it opened a CachyOS Hello app with an "install gaming" button.

I pushed the button.

• NVIDIA drivers: check
• Steam, Proton (the layer that lets Windows games run on Linux), and other gaming stuff: check

I was kind of skeptical, but I opened Steam, downloaded a few games I'm playing right now, and they ran just fine, even on my ultrawide monitor. To say I was pleased is an understatement.

The Application Experience

Next, it was time to install some apps. CachyOS has a graphical "app store" style installer, but I prefer the command-line package managers, so into pacman and paru I went.

On the "it just works" side: nearly everything I care about runs natively or has an equivalent. I installed all the programming language SDKs I use, the JetBrains toolbox for my IDEs, and Zed for a quick editor (I'm abandoning VS Code because the AI pushing is gross). No issues at all.

Spotify, Docker, Typora, Brave Browser, 1Password, no problems. Installed a bunch of other Steam games I play, tested them, no problems.

I also love the virtual desktops on KDE Plasma. I've never really played with them before on other OS's, but I think I'm in love. If you've never seen them, they basically let you configure desktop views for different application layouts. I have layouts for coding, content writing, gaming, and utilities.

What's Lacking

I do have a few gripes.

First, for the most part, email clients on Linux suck. I have many email accounts, for me and my clients. I really like Spark Mail, but it doesn't have a Linux version. I tried a few others, but they feel kind of clunky and old compared to Spark. So, I'm using the browser for email. It's fine, because it's a recreational machine; I shouldn't be working on it (but I do; I'm an entrepreneur; I can't stop).

Second, and this is on me, not the distro. I'm still adjusting to Arch-based systems compared to my Ubuntu background. Ubuntu uses apt instead of pacman and paru. It's not a problem really; I just have muscle memory I'm working to overcome. Same with the terminal; I'm used to something more basic, and Fish and Konsole are nice- I see the appeal- but they don't feel right yet.

The Verdict

Five years ago, I would not have pointed a mere mortal at desktop Linux, especially if they were into gaming. I have told students back in the day that Linux is fine if you enjoy tinkering and don't mind the struggle.

Honestly, that's not the world we live in anymore. I'm not going to stand here and say that this is finally the year of the Linux Desktop, but I no longer see any reason to steer people away from it.

I haven't booted into Windows a single time in nearly a month, and I haven't missed it.

My prediction is that in six months, there won't be a Windows install on the other drive at all.

Happy Coding!