When Windows 10 support ends I was planning on transitioning to Linux on my desktop. I just tried CachyOS KDE Plasma and immediately ran into two serious issues:

  1. I could not figure out how to get audio to come out of my headphones. Everything is connected, and sound totally works on Windows 10 with my Audioengine D3 USB DAC, but not in CachyOS. I messed with all the system audio settings, profiles, and mute control, and nothing worked. No audio at all, not from test sound, not from browser.

  2. Apparently Wayland is the name of the default/best video compositor for Linux, but it doesn’t seem to support ycbcr subsampling modes. In Windows 10, I use the Nvidia-provided 4:2:0 subsampling mode with my RTX 2060 Super to get 4K120 support over HDMI to my LG C1 (genuinely hard to see the difference unless you’re running a test pattern). It seems you have to use the X11 compositor in Linux to get that feature, but I’ve read that X11 provides a poor experience compared to Wayland.

Not to mention, my first CachyOS install attempt bugged midway through (installing from DVD disc) and I spent a lot of time unsuccessfully trying to restart the install process not realizing something was borked in that session that was preventing partitions from being formatted for the installer. So I rebooted and manually set to load the installer into RAM, and finally was able to get it to install.

Seeing my experience hasn’t improved since the last time I tried Linux (Mint, a few years ago - really bad audio stuttering), now the plan has switched to sticking to W10 until software inevitably stops supporting it (Nvidia is already ending W10 game ready support this year), and then switching to W11. I’ll just have to use mods to improve the usability, specifically for start menu and right click menu.

I would like to use Linux but it really disappointed me seeing all the hype on LTT’s channel, only to see that it’s still user experience hell. It’s either “works but evil” (Windows) or “doesn’t work but not evil” (Linux) and that’s unfortunate.

  • rozodru@piefed.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    1. Audio is always an issue. I still have issues with Audio on some distros. like on Void I couldn’t get audio working at all to save my life. Try a different distro like Fedora or Debian if you want it to work out of the box. if you’re looking for a gaming focused distro like CachyOS try PikaOS which is a fork of Debian. by far one of the quickest and most straight forward installs i’ve ever experienced.

    2. you don’t have to use Wayland, I don’t. I can’t stand wayland. I use X11 with Picom. I use DWM cause it just works. if you want a desktop environment then use XFCE4. that just works and is very light weight.

    But honestly at the end of the day if Windows works for you and still works for you then just stick with it. Don’t listen to the people who say “wah wah windows bad” it doesn’t matter. Use whatever works. I mean I use every OS on various machines because I honestly enjoy playing around with Operating Systems. I use Linux, BSD, Windows, MacOS on various machines. there’s no perfect OS out there and I’ve used them all. just use what works for you and your hardware.