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Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by newzisforsukas on Friday June 21, 2024 @11:14PM (#40755952)
I think Proton is a great project (and CodeWeavers deserve credit there as well), but why does it have to be a choice?

I have been multi booting for 20 years, preferring Linux distributions the whole time, but other OSes when I want to use them.

I recently started using a dedicated Windows system for gaming and other Windows favored tasks. I am running a KVM switch, using AMD Graphics on a Linux system and Nvidia on this Windows system. I also have a macOS system, that I use as needed.

I do this with mobile devices as well. It doesn't seem worth it to squabble over choosing a path.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by tcmart14 on Friday June 21, 2024 @11:45PM (#40756071)
I don't know if I'd say its a choice between a squabble or no squabble, its just a different set of squabbles.

For me, there are evenings when I am hacking away on a hobby project for 2 or 3 hours. Then suddenly just go, 'I wanna just veg out for another 2 hours then go to bed.' When I'm in that mood, I don't even want to be bothered changing machines. Just hit the steam icon and veg. Thats also bout the only time I end up gaming though, haha.

Last time I dual booted though, I remember why I didn't for along time. Did a Windows update, windows rebooted my computer and it did something with grub and I couldn't easily boot into linux anymore.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by gitaarik on Saturday June 22, 2024 @02:15AM (#40756770)
Sounds familiar. Dual boot sounds nice but in practice isn't always that nice.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by A4ET8a8uTh0 on Saturday June 22, 2024 @08:00AM (#40758412)
It was my experience as well. For the longest time, I had dual boot with a thought that I will switch between OSs as needed ( and as a back up if things break down ), but that never really happened and I spent majority of time on Windows ( and games ). Eventually, I just realized VM works better for me.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by EasyMark on Sunday June 23, 2024 @05:28AM (#40766009)
Works better for me as well, plus it keeps windows in a nice little bundle that I can cut off from the network at will, it’s really nice with a dedicated GPU to play games as well with pass thru
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by A4ET8a8uTh0 on Sunday June 23, 2024 @09:55AM (#40767492)
Holy mackerel, yes. Once I realized pass through can and does work, I never looked back. This is also why I dislike how nvidia seems to do everything in its power to make it as painful as possible for anything after 3060, but that is a separate rant.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by 93po on Saturday June 22, 2024 @11:47AM (#40759881)
I refuse to dual boot unless I can physically disable the drives I'm not booting into
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by nine_k on Friday June 21, 2024 @11:52PM (#40756111)
Not everyone has multiple desktop computers at home, especially powerful ones. (With an Apple device to top it up.)

But hardware is more affordable than ever (unless you want a really powerful GPU). What's worse is that you have to separate the tasks between OSes, you can't easily have a default computer for everything, with everything relevant locally available. It's fine if you keep Windows for gaming, and want gaming to be explicitly separate. It's harder if you need Windows for graphics / video, or for CAD/CAM, or for Office. Having important related bits and software on another box may be a hassle.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by dylan604 on Saturday June 22, 2024 @12:48AM (#40756344)
Why do you need multiple computers when you can have multiboot and use one computer to run different OSes?
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by mihular on Saturday June 22, 2024 @02:09AM (#40756743)
Author said he was using KVM switch, hence multiple computers. Also you can't install macOS on a PC. Also you might need switching between OS in real time and often. Just some thoughts.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by hot_gril on Saturday June 22, 2024 @02:07AM (#40756728)
Cause it's not fun having to reboot every time you want to run a Windows program, especially if it means dealing with Windows nagging.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by atemerev on Saturday June 22, 2024 @02:36AM (#40756901)
I can live with this if I occasionally want to play so-called “AAA” games. I don’t use Windows for anything else.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by hot_gril on Saturday June 22, 2024 @02:46AM (#40756950)
In a way, it's worse the less frequently you want to play, cause it means you'll have to wait for Windows updates every time. But it works.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by creshal on Saturday June 22, 2024 @04:24AM (#40757394)
If you're careful with how you handle the ESP and other shared drives on Linux's side, I found it reasonably ergonomic to suspend to disk, rather than hard shut down, when switching between OSes.

At least back when win10 was new, Proton is good enough that I haven't needed Windows in a good few years.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by marginalia_nu on Saturday June 22, 2024 @06:32AM (#40757896)
It's actually a pretty good thing to compartmentalize your computer. I use it to reduce procrastination.

Put all your fun things on one OS (or user account), and all your business stuff on another (possibly blocking distractions via hosts or firewall rules); and you've added a bunch of friction to switching from work to play. Not that it can't be done, but it needs to be a deliberate choice and you can't just bounce between them.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by dotnet00 on Saturday June 22, 2024 @07:28AM (#40758192)
I've found that this only works in very specific circumstances. If you have any flexibility to your work schedule (which is a lot more common nowadays with any amount of remote work) this becomes massively inconvenient, as every small context switch means reseting your current system state (eg closing your dev tools).

I don't really have a set work schedule, so it's normal for me to jump between a work context and a play context. It's much easier to do by very rarely rebooting my computer (once or twice a month), so I can always pick up where I left off. The regularly scheduled update meetings do a good enough job of keeping procrastination in check.

Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by hot_gril on Saturday June 22, 2024 @11:12PM (#40764462)
Better to quit playing video games altogether
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by EasyMark on Sunday June 23, 2024 @03:39AM (#40765467)
This is very true, most of my rescues are older laptops that said were “broke”. I offered to help figure them out what was broke because I hate calling something obsolete when I can usually throw linux on it and bring it back to like. 2 of them just need an OS install, and 2 needed a new SSD. All the owners said “I was looking for an excuse to get a new laptop anyway” so I took them off their hands.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by WWLink on Saturday June 22, 2024 @12:01AM (#40756165)
I was that dude, but I hate using Windows! Microsoft kept giving me more and more reasons to stop using Windows, on a silver platter lol. So now my gaming PC runs fedora, and all of my other computers are Macs.
Re:My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore by abhinavk on Saturday June 22, 2024 @12:59AM (#40756386)
If you have two GPUs, you can run a Windows VM in Linux and configure GPU passthrough for Nvidia card.

[1] Doesn't work for games requiring kernel-mode anti-cheat.

[2] https://looking-glass.io/ to use both GPUs on the same monitor.