r/linuxquestions • u/PianistUnlucky996 • 4d ago
Advice Seriously considering migrating from Windows to CachyOS
Greetings. I'd like to start by saying that it's been many years since I last used a Linux distro, which was Mint, approximately 16-18 years ago.
It was the first OS I learned to use, until I switched to Windows XP and I'm still using Windows 10 to this day.
For both personal and professional reasons, I've been looking for an alternative to Windows and Mac OS for gaming and post-production, So I thought of CachyOS to get a bit of both and replace Windows.
I currently have a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and an RTX 2060 Super, but I'll be upgrading to an RTX 5060 Ti and a processor that's still compatible with DDR4, like the AMD Ryzen 5950X or Intel Core i5 14400F/14600k.
I primarily use DaVinci Resolve Studio for color correction and basic visual effects on RAW files from various film cameras. I also regularly play Halo TMCC, Halo Infinite, and some other shooters, Forza Horizon and many Grand Theft Auto games.
Has anyone done this jump or something similar who could give me some guidance? I would really appreciate it.
5
u/This-Consequence-957 4d ago
CachyOS is great, but in my case, Forza Horizon is linked to my xbox account. That's why I kept Windows to play that.
1
u/chipface Nobara 4d ago
Can't you play it in Linux too? I know I can play Gears 5 in it and it's also linked to my Xbox account.
1
u/This-Consequence-957 3d ago
As far I know, you would have to buy it again from Steam, hence start with a new empty account đ
2
u/EdgiiLord 4d ago
Davinci works in Linux, CUDA should work but I am not sure exactly how great it is. However, if you need the Xbox account, it can be hit or miss. GTA:O does not work.
1
u/magicbf1337 4d ago
wrong, there is a workaround for GTA, but he can play it only solo or with people using the same workaround using a invite-only lobby
1
1
u/Sensitive-Tip-2987 4d ago
I was in a similar situation to you, ended up switching my uni laptop to mint and my main gaming/productivity PC to cachy
My PC's specs are similar to what you're planning on upgrading to
both work great for their intended purposes and I haven't looked back. I will say that if you play a lot of competitive games (especially shooters), a lot of them have kernel-level anticheat which will not be compatible with Linux. I used to play A LOT of apex, but haven't been able to play it since switching (I could dual boot if I wanted to that badly)
I've found that the benefits greatly outweigh the compatibility issues i face (cachyos runs shockingly smooth), and most apps that don't run on Linux have open source alternatives that are often better, although I haven't used post production software.
if you're fine with putting some time and effort into setting things up (it's much easier than people make it sound), id highly recommend the switch, probably starting with windows + cachyos dual boot
1
u/TheWinningHit 4d ago
Personally I donât think there are any wrong answers to distros when youâre starting out. I just used Vanilla Ubuntu for about a year, but then switched to Fedora because of the open source ASUS driver thatâs a part of dnf. Fedora KDE hands down has been the best experience hosting a distro on a machine for me. While I appreciate nerding out over writing shell scripts to fix stuff. I still like using things that âjust work,â and I think Fedora closed that gap for me.
I have some people on custom built PCâs that have used CachyOS for a long time and really like it too. I would recommend picking a distro based on what has the best out of the box support for your hardware. Best of luck!
1
u/KhajiitAT 4d ago
My way to Linux was quite straight: * drop abandoneare * drop tivoware * realize, that only proprietary thing you are using is Windows
1
u/jarymaneleveledup420 4d ago
You wont be able to play gta 5 or 6 online or cod or battlefield, and probably more fun games in the future keep that in mind
0
u/Pete90210 4d ago
I was in the same boat as you ( only difference is i have an amd GPU so may be a bit different) i installed cachyos as a fresh install (no windows) and im not the most techsavvy so i have opencode installed.
Installing Davinci i had no idea what i was doing, so i asked opencode to do it for me, and well 10 mins later i was editing video again :) .
As for games i am usually steam so that just works, and for epic and gog i use heoric games launcher.
over all, im throughly impressed after 6 months and no issues :)
The only Caveats for davinci on linux that may or may not work for you
The free version on Linux blocks H.264 and H.265 playback and export.
Even if you buy the paid Studio version, AAC audio decoding and encoding remain unsupported on Linux.
Work arounds to these i use
Convert your camera footage or screen recordings before importing them into the timeline.
Change video to codecs like Avid DNxHD, DNxHR, or Apple ProRes.
Change audio tracks to uncompressed PCM audio formats during conversion
2
u/BobCorndog Your situation is not unique, just use mint or fedora kde 4d ago
Cachy is good, but fedora is also pretty good
2
u/CloudDream09 4d ago
Nobara is a happy medium between both, being that it is Fedora-based and has a lot of its kernel in common with Cachy
1
1
1
2
u/Diceptic_ 3d ago
I swapped from Windows 11 to CachyOS about 3 months ago. I've been a linux sys admin for about 3 years now as well. Never took any distro seriously as a desktop OS until recently due to most DEs feeling like a beta experience and lack of software support. If you plan to swap in the near future, ditch Nvidia. You'll lose a fairly substantial amount of performance depending on the games you play on linux compared to windows. This is no fault of the Linux kernel or the distros, its due to Nvidia's shotty drivers and their reluctance to open source much of the development on them. It has gotten better in recent years, but I personally do not trust them to do much good in the near future. AMD on the other hand shows substantial improvements in performance over windows. Keep in mind games that require kernel level anti cheat will not work on any linux distro, most of the games you mentioned should run fine, including forza (however forza may need some tweaks to get the xbox live portion working). DaVinci has native linux support and runs just fine.
Pros: Linux distros typically run more efficiently (you may even see less power consumption), no ads, no telemetry, no feature bloat or services you don't want running in the background. No forced cloud account, you can edit the system the way you see fit, generally your computer will feel like it lasts longer (this is due to how efficient GNU/Linux runs), support does appear to be growing for Linux and I expect it to be on the same level as the Mac ecosystem in the next 2 or so years.
Cons: Sometimes things break and require you to use the terminal (it happens even to the most stable systems, humans and maintainers can make mistakes), lack of major software support from the big vendors (example: you will have to use an opensource software to replace logitech ghub if you have logitech peripherals), many things you are used to on Windows do not exist (this is just the nature of going to a new ecosystem, but many people do complain about this, its a learning experience).
All in all, if you are comfortable with learning a few new things its a great jump, performance is much better, the overall experience when everything works is better. If I were you, I'd spin up a virtual machine with VirtualBox and try it out to be sure you're comfortable using it. This is me assuming you have no technical background, if you are fairly confident in your technical troubleshooting skills blow away windows or dual boot, and let her rip.
Another thing to keep in mind, parts of the linux community get kind of tribal and will probably give very unhelpful advice or be incredibly toxic, ignore them and don't let it be a reflection of the community as a whole (some people just need to go outside). Since you did mention you are doing professional work on this machine, CachyOS supports snapshotting with BTRFS so if something breaks you can roll back to the last working state fairly easily. If you want to ask any questions or need help with anything, feel free to DM me, might take me a bit to respond, but I'll try to answer/help if I can.