Boys, I tried. But I couldn't get HDR working properly in KDE, the kernel kept randomly locking up to the point where even REISUB didn't do anything, and 95% of my GPU settings were missing from the Nvidia X Server app and I couldn't get most of them restored.
Linux users look at me like I'm insane when I ask where the RTX Video Enhancement and 3D settings are. Half the reason why I bought an RTX GPU was for the video enhancement features like SDR to HDR conversion and AI upscaling, yet these features simply don't exist in Linux. And when it comes to the 3D settings, "just change the graphics settings in-game", I've seen people say, failing to realize that the vast majority of games are missing several graphics settings that are in the 3D settings screen. I go into that menu and make tweaks before I play anything. It's a make-or-break feature for me.
I'm sorry but Linux still hasn't caught up enough with Windows yet in the gaming and HDR realm for me to commit to an OS change. But if you have an AMD GPU and don't have an HDR display, I'm sure it's a wonderful gaming experience for you. I'll check back again in another 5 years.
You're absolutely right that Linux is still missing a lot of the features that are available on Windows. But the freedom you get with it is so worth it for me, even if my 4090 is bored most of the time.
I just wish Linux partisans would acknowledge that Linux has serious shortcomings rather than constantly shouting about how there is literally no reason to ever use Windows.
I greatly prefer Linux for tasks like software development, but when I sit down to pay a game, I don't want to have to debug it first.
To be fair, if you do not care about the newest iteration of whatever Nvidia is up to (Frame Generation, RTX HDR, etc.) and don't play games with kernel-level anti-cheat systems, there are really no issues with gaming on Linux these days - at least in my experience.
It has no shortcomings if you have infinite time to write your own patches first. That's something you can't legally do on windows.
Theoretically almost all shortcomings can be overcome apart from the time you spend.
Realistically there are a few shortcomings but for me they are barely noticeable and the customisability and package managers more than make up for any troubles I personally run into. And it's foss.
I only recommend Linux to people who are in similar situations to me. Unfortunately most people I know use some windows only games or share the device with others and are scared of messing up the installation.
I mostly jokingly recommend it whenever someone complains about Microsoft messing something up for them, encountering a problem and not finding out why it's happening.
Of course Linux has shortcomings.
But compared to Windows, it's still the vastly better OS regarding compatibility, UI, UX, user friendliness and overall functionality. At least for me and my use cases (I use it for browsing, gaming, office, photo editing and as a streaming station).
You're mileage may vary.
Currently supported feature sets on Linux cover 90% of the general computer using population's requirements. Linux has shortcomings on features that most people don't even have access to based on their existing hardware.
I'm in the same boat as you. I really wanted to switch. I had Ubuntu 20.04 installed on a partition from a previous attempt to convert. Installed all the software I needed, mapped my NAS, and then hit a huge roadblock when trying to connect my laser cutter.
Found plenty of support pages that all agree on possible issues related to either drivers or dial out access, but nothing worked. I researched and tried everything I found. So many USB drivers, a few different driver and package utilities and even drivers from repositories I came across on some Chinese websites that I had to translate and appeared to be related.
I got to a point that I thought a clean install might help. Uninstalled Ubuntu 20.04, installed Mint, tried everything again, uninstalled Mint, and finally installed Ubuntu 22.04. I spent 3 full days pushing back projects trying to communicate with my laser, but finally got to the point that I was going to miss deadlines if I didn't start running projects.
Booted up Windows and had no issues connecting and running. I was even able to drag in a second windows laptop that had never been used with the laser before, and it just worked immediately.
I think most Linux users (including me) are just cheap and don't even have hdr. One of my two monitors has a dent in frame and has one DVI port and power. I think a lot of the maintainers are similar and therefore don't prioritise problems they don't have yet.
I think it's a real shame how bad the Nvidia experience can be but at this point I've found that if the drivers from the arch repos don't work nicely the flatpak ones usually will. Wayland is of course still a problem for now but hopefully not for long.
Not that the HDMI forum would allow that in oss at all... But I get the point. Honestly though if the stuttering goes away on Wayland I personally won't have any more issues.
Half the reason why I bought an RTX GPU was for the video enhancement features like SDR to HDR conversion and AI upscaling
Neither of those things have anything to do with raytracing. Well the tensor cores used for denoising in RT workloads are suitable for all kinds of AI workloads and thus also upscaling, but really it hasn't got to do anything with raytracing. Or AI in particular any GPU can do convolutions.
I don't own an nvidia card and honestly few linux users do because their driver support sucks, I'd say if nvidia advertised those features and their linux drivers don't have them your complaints should be directed at nvidia. They won't care.
Meanwhile, mpv does inverse tone mapping natively. They don't integrate AI upscaling but there's various projects providing glsl shaders which mpv can use, here's the configs for Anime4K. There's also frame interpolation around somewhere but I haven't used it in ages because variable refresh rate is the best solution to odd frame rates.
Development of X halted, the few patches that are still landing concern xwayland, don't expect anything to happen there. KDE 6.0 ships with experimental HDR support on wayland, you might not need to wait five years go give a live USB stick a spin. Arch wiki has some pointers (not that I'd be recommending arch but I am recommending their wiki).
Let's wait for the next version of Windows, which will be distributed exclusively by paid subscription. Do you think Microsoft won't find a way to hard-cut Windows 10 and 11? We are living in an era of another economic crisis. So I'll meet you when you've learned the zen of the acronym RTFM.
The battlecry of everyone that bitches that people aren’t willing to use Linux but won’t bother to meet them where they are.
Does it ever occur to you that people often don’t even know what they need to Google? Half the time I do Google something, it comes to some forum or Reddit post of someone screaming READ THE FUCKING MANUAL, but not even giving that user some hint what they’re even looking for in your religious scriptures.
You want people to use Linux? You need to meet them where they are, not take it as an opportunity to show how smart much of a smartass you are.
Maybe a social interaction manual would be an idea.
I honestly try my best to be helpful in most cases but if were something related to a specific program I would suggest reading the manual because otherwise I'll be the one doing it for them. If necessary I'll show them where to find the manual and how I normally look through it.
Honestly, yeah. I get that social interaction is awkward for some people. I myself have Asperger’s (shut the fuck up, Cartman, I see your pudgy ass back there fidna pipe up), and I’ve never found people easy to understand. I think there really needs to be an initiative to teach people, normal people, how to use this stuff, and it doesn’t start by being an asshole. It starts by giving a shit and answering questions if you know the answers, or by helping people understand what might be going wrong. Even a word or two is helpful for beginning a Google search, but you have to know what you’re looking for in order to start looking for it.
What fantasy world are you living in that you think the next version of windows will require a subcription? If you just think about that for 5 seconds, you would realise how wholly stupid that idea is, and that it's too stupid even for Microsoft.