For what it’s worth, the “i7” branding isn’t a family, but a tier representation.

So basically it goes like:

i3 = basic

i5 = midrange

i7 = high end

i9 = top end

The first i7s released way back in 2010, so some older i7 chips are not supported by Windows 11 while newer ones (2018 and onwards) are.

But yeah, use Linux

Oh I completely disagree. There are severe enough issues for users to switch to Linux, they’re just not severe enough for you.

I’d love to roll back to Linux but my GPU and the drivers don’t get along very well.

Not OP. Around same timeline. Went with bazzite for gaming. Have been using bazzite daily since. Stuff just works super easy to install. Also tried and have mint still installed on another partition but haven’t used it much besides the initial installation. And installed dual boot bazzite and mint on my old gaming laptop. Use mint on there daily for internet browsing and such, no gaming. But I’m certain it would work just fine as it’s all pretty much the same besides Debian (mint) Vs Fedora (bazzite).

I don’t play AAA slop either, and a few older easy anti cheat games don’t work. Such as Fawkes revival of Defiance.

Everything else works pre installed with Steam+ proton, Or Ludis + wine, Or the Heroic launcher for GoG, Amazon and EGS.

I do get higher FPS and better temps and less hardware usage than I ever did on Win11 for the same exact games.

What’s that?

Remote Code Execution

Buy AMD, I suppose

If you have set your mind to Manjaro I don’t want to dissuade you, but if you are not yet strongly convinced of the distro I always like to point out that there were some issues with the distribution in the past (someone collected them here).

If you’re just after an Arch-like distribution I think EndeavourOS is a very friendly distro without adding their own repositories on top of Arch. But again - if you’re happy with Manjaro by all means also stay with it.

Are NVIDIA drivers still an absolute bitch to get working correctly? Is there still no way to run games off Gamepass?

Ok cool, so it’s NOT just easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to switch.

This is a big reason why most won’t switch. Linux can be difficult to get started with and Windows really makes things a lot easier for the average person.

I tried to switch over to Linux this weekend, I gave up and switched back to Windows last night. I’m not completely computer illiterate, I know how to fix things enough that my colleagues often ask me (the administrative assistant) about simple stuff before going to IT.

I really like the Linux environment and I found alternatives to my frequently used programs, but the one thing I really use my computer most is to play World of Warcraft. I spent hours trying to get it working and I couldn’t. I don’t understand the terminal stuff, GitHub is confusing, and there are so many obscure forums with info I don’t understand. With Windows, the install is incredibly simple and I had my previous setup running within 2 hours.

I WANT to switch to Linux, but until I can run wow a lot easier, it looks like I won’t be. I’m not fully giving up on Linux, it just won’t be on my main machine.

It’s really similar to a conversation I had with a classmate on Android vs iPhone. He just didn’t get why I have an iPhone; “Android is more open”, “you have more options”, etc. I had to explain that it just works; I get a new phone when my old one is no longer supported, then all I have to do is sign in and my phone is back to where it was. Yes, it’s a walled garden, yes there are things Apple does that I don’t like, but the phone itself is simple and easy to upgrade. It just works.

God forbid you should have options.

I was about to comment the same - shitting itself when trying to do something nonstandard is a Gnome thing, not a Linux thing :^)

I also fully understand that new users are not aware of what the different components are and “what they do” (how they influence the UX) but they very much do make or break their “Linux experience”. Personally I dislike Gnome because it exposes barely any settings, and it’s “simple” to the point where it feels almost like a toy to me - kinda like macOS feels. Some people might be looking for that, and I don’t judge them, but I think it’s important to make an informed decision on simplicity and “guardrails” vs flexibility and customization. The same goes for immutable vs “traditional”, rolling vs releases, etc.

You don’t need to care about or understand the details, but the choice that the “Linux ecosystem” offers is one of its best parts, and understanding the implications of the ones you make is very important. It also helps avoid getting frustrated in “Linux can’t do this” situations by knowing that maybe it’s just your environment - believe me, unless it’s about running some proprietary code that the vendor is uncooperative about, “Linux” can do it. It might require some lines of code to glue together some pieces, but the “computing” things that “Linux can’t do” are very close to 0.

Gaming distros should have that sorted out of the box.

they’re still just too commonly needed in every distro.

there’s always still basic functionality that just isn’t in the GUI.

Can you give a concrete example?

Which GPU do you have? There are plenty of distros that work just fine with Nvidia.

I’d suggest trying a couple through live ISOs to see what works best out of the box with your hardware. I settled on CachyOS and definitely recommend it. Bazzite is ok, very stable, but keep in mind it is immutable which may hamper its abilities as a full desktop.

No, on popular distros they are preinstalled, or only require you to check a checkbox in system settings.

I have a 3080 and run Mint without any real issues, what sort of problems have you found come up?

Do you have a Nvidia GPU btw?

Linux has two major offerings for display servers: X11 and Wayland.

X11 is old asf and uses TCP/IP to send your data from the GPU/CPU to the monitor.

Wayland doesn’t do this I don’t think… But I believe it’s been known to have issues with Nvidia graphics cards.

Hope Wayland development picks up because last time I checked it still has a lot of bugs that X11 just doesn’t.

The worse part of vista wasn’t even that it looked awful or ran awful. Personal perfence not with standing.

It was just 3 years too early and hardware fucking sucked. Drivers went standardized and everything was too weak.

Going back to vista years after the fact show it was actually really solid.

Probably the last time Microsoft was ever ahead of the curve in terms of design. Vista then 7 were great design wise, then it was only down hill since.