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The original was posted on /r/linux_gaming by /u/KosmicWolf on 2025-01-15 16:00:01+00:00.

I’ve been a Linux user since 2009, though it didn’t become my main system until 2017 with Pop!_OS. And for the last few years, I’ve been exclusively on Linux.

Recently, I ran into some issues with some visual novels on Linux, and I was also curious to try out Affinity Photo, GIMP is okay, but I’ve always found its UI a bit clunky. Plus, I wanted to check out some other things like the Apple Music app and the Google Play Games app. Since I’m not a fan of dual booting, I decided to go all-in with Windows 11.

Just to be clear, I don’t dislike Windows, and I actually quite like the Windows 11 UI. However, the overall experience wasn’t really any better for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been on Linux for so long and I tend to buy hardware with Linux compatibility in mind and use software that works well on Linux.

Everything on Windows just felt slower and more tedious. For example, installing software felt less efficient – hunting around for EXE files on the web. I tried Chocolatey, but it was a bit slow. Browsing files, navigating settings, and using the different menus also felt slower. Even file transfer speeds seemed slower. I’m not saying the system itself was slow, just slower compared to what I’m used to. Also, while Windows 11 has visually appealing menus, they’re not entirely functional, so sometimes I found myself having to use the old Control Panel.

Beyond that, Linux has come such a long way that my workflow (game dev and coding) and the games I play weren’t any better on Windows. I know there are games like Fortnite that don’t work on Linux, but I don’t play those. Coding in JetBrains or VS Code wasn’t any better (I’m aware Linux has been better at this for a long time), Blender was about the same, and since I’ve been learning Godot (which works great on Linux), I wasn’t seeing any advantages there either.

So, what about the things I wanted to try on Windows? Well, the visual novels didn’t work there either. The Apple Music app is fine, but my current setup can’t take advantage of lossless quality anyway, so Cider on Linux does the job just fine. Google Play Games is pretty barebones. And Affinity Photo? It actually works well in a VM! I wouldn’t recommend it for production work, but since I’m just testing it out and learning how to use it, it’s perfectly fine for now. But if it’s just for one piece of software, I can keep Windows to go on an USB.

To sum it up, Windows felt slower and didn’t offer me a better experience, so I went back to Linux – Zorin OS, specifically. Why Zorin? I wanted a stable distro that looks nice, has great software compatibility (Ubuntu-based distros are the best for this imo), and I don’t have the energy these days to troubleshoot random issues on more niche distros. I could have gone with Mint, which has a newer base (Zorin 17 is based on Ubuntu 22.04, while Mint 22 is based on Ubuntu 24.04), but I already had Zorin downloaded, so I went with that.

And in case anyone’s curious, here’s the hardware I’m running:

• Ryzen 5 5600X
• 32GB of RAM
• RTX 4060ti (yes, I went with Nvidia instead of AMD on Linux)
• 2x 1TB NVMe SSDs

Oh, and my peripherals (mouse, keyboard, headset, gamepads, etc.) don’t require any special software and I have a single ultra wide monitor so VRR works fine and I don’t use HDR ( HDR in my monitor sucks either way)