The amount of tinkering required to get Windows to function as I want is increasing, while the same for Linux is decreasing. Eventually they'll cross and that's when I'll switch.
I just used their own firewall to block all the Microsoft ads URLs. I even changed my DNS server to the adguard one so I don't see ads anywhere. That's for the one laptop I have with Windows on it. My main desktop and other laptop both run Linux.
I did recently. I backed up my boot drive and then loaded a Ubuntu distro. That was a mistake because of the snap store but other than that, it still didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I had trouble with Lutris installing the blizz launcher and I gave up after an hour of troubleshooting and reverted back to Win10.
urg blizz launcher, i think heroic launcher could help you with that, but yeah non native software is a pain
and that's why you test a pedrive and in dual boot first, so you always have windows to revert, itss anothwr OS after all, if you try again test it in dual boot(and fuck snap lol)
Unfortunately, while people tout things like Wine as a fairly simple and easy way to play games on Linux...the fact of the matter is that trying to play games on Linux continues to be absolute hell. Sure, some games work great out of the box. But the majority of games require a shitton of tinkering to even run, and many won't even work at all. And your specific hardware matters as well.
I used to dabble in Linux from time to time. And I'm not even a bit gamer or anything, but app incompatibility (especially with games) was one of my biggest gripes with it.
Lutris and Proton. A large chunk of games work without any manual fiddling at all. Case and point is SteamOS and the Steam Deck. A lot of games just work... and a lot of games that aren't even valuated just work fine.
This is a very outdated take. With SteamPlay and Proton most games these days are literally just click Install click Play. The main exceptions are VR and certain competitive games with invasive AntiCheat where the devs has not enabled Linux support.
These days you should not need fiddle with Wine directly, Proton, Lutris etc should handle Wine for you
I knew I had used a newer service, but I couldn't remember what it was called. I shouldn't have name dropped Wine like that because I knew I'd get corrected lol.
The last time I tried to play games, I didn't use wine directly either although I couldn't recall the name of the service (maybe it was Lutris), so I didn't mention it. But even though it was not directly interacting with Women, I still had great difficulty in game compatibility.
It might be that popular, newer games easily work on Linux. But I had always been attempting to play older games that I had acquired outside of Steam. Never went over well.
It's absolutely insane how many things need turning off to gain some modicum of privacy with win10, I refuse to upgrade but imagine it's worse in win11.
Totally understand the love for Linux. If my audio interface & DAW were compatible I would investigated switching way back. There are other interfaces which appear to be compatible, and other DAWs, but I am highly proficient in the one I've used for ~15 years and don't want to invest time learning a new one; and my audio interface lets me use very, very high end emulations of hardware (UAD).
Seriously considering Linux for potential future live PA work though. Stability is appealing for live stuff!