I agree with your review. I’ve been using Linux since Slack in the mid 90’s and I switched over most of my machines to Elementary. An Alienware with 3090, Airbus laptop with 1080, and a Lenovo with an AMD 550.
Except for NVidia proprietary drivers:
- Fastest OS install. I want to play games, not wait for an OS to install and give me 50 pedantic options to step through.
- Boots very fast, shuts down just as fast.
- Fast Sleep and wake up every time on desktop and laptop. WiFi works, video normal
- Clean, stable, consistent GUI that doesn’t do weird things
- Bluetooth and audio worked great with no fuss.
As you mentioned, Flatseal is a must. However, I use AppImages as much as possible. I get the security benefit of flatpaks, but all this sandboxing and containerizing creates too many problems with apps that need to communicate with one another, and accessing my files was a serious PITA because of permission issues that needed to be corrected. There are no permission issues with AppImage, but security benefits aren’t there either. However, both work wonderfully with Elementary.
- Use AppImageLauncher to automatically create your Application menu items
Heroic Games Launcher was written by wonderful humans!
Cyberpunk won’t work, need to dualboot to Windows. But many windows games work well.
Now, about NVidia: The proprietary driver takes all the horrible fiddling Linux has a reputation for, but reality, is that NVidia drivers are closed source and AMD works with the community. OOTB experience with AMD is flawless.
3090 came up and everything was green, a problem with the Nouveau driver.
1080 everything looked ok
Ran the install, installed the kernel headers, the dev/build packages, mucked around a bit and it works great. However, every time there is a new kernel, the new linux headers and Nvidia module aren’t automatically installed and compiled so it boots to the command line. I know how to manually install them and get back and running, but I haven’t figured out what the problem is yet. Never ran into this on Ubuntu, Fedora or RHEL before.
I figured when work replaced my machine with a new laptop with Windows 11, I’d give in and upgrade my Windows boxes, but I hate it so much. The UI is a confused mess and it’s so buggy and slow, even on a brand new machine with 32GB of RAM. Just getting around file Explorer feels like the entire machine is coated in molasses. It’s like using a 300 baud modem and I am typing faster than the characters can go. I feel like I am always waiting for files to load, I forget why I even opened an app.
My main machine has been on Linux for a couple years already and Waydroid let’s me run proprietary apps. I’ll probably give up on PC gaming and get a new PS5.