As the title states, I am primarily a Windows user but for practical reasons I want to learn Linux (as well as FreeBSD but that’s mostly outside of the scope of this website).
Here’s how I got here.
I’ve been using Linux on the desktop off and on since 2008. I was also a Mac user for a few years. I was drawn to macOS (still called OS X at the time) because it’s a Unix-like OS that’s also designed to be a desktop OS that supported things (like Microsoft Office) that allowed me to also dump Windows for good, at least until 2017 when I got interested in PC gaming and bought a relatively cheap Dell Inspiron gaming laptop with a mobile Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti. Also in 2017 I got serious about pursuing a career in IT. From mid-2018 to mid-2019 I took an in-person IT class, after which I got my CompTIA A+ certification. In terms of operating systems, 95% of everything I learned pertained to Windows, and the rest mostly pertained to iOS and Android. Linux and macOS had few mentions, with the BSDs and proprietary Unixes only being mentioned when the history of the internet was discussed and when one of my teachers mentioned having used Solaris and HP-UX workstations in the Navy.
Fast forward to mid-2020. I wasn’t working and everything was shut down due to Covid.
I got serious about learning Linux again, after all Linux (and to a lesser extent the BSDs) are what run the internet, and having Linux on a resume is becoming more valuable every day because the cloud mostly runs on Linux. Storage space is precious on any gaming PC that has less than two terabytes of storage. Physical space is very limited as I currently live with my parents (currently my main PC is a mini-ITX cube I built with most of the inside being occupied by a full ATX power supply and a full-height MSI GTX 1650 in addition to a mini-ITX motherboard with a low profile heatsink), so I considered one of System76’s laptops that are designed to run Linux, specifically the Lemur Pro that I ended up getting. I looked at reviews and Jay’s review on YouTube is the one that convinced me to get it. Since then I have seen alot of Jay’s videos. I don’t agree with him on everything but I like his content, and as someone on the high end of the autism spectrum I found him fairly relatable when he spoke of his ADHD (two different conditions for those not in the know but also alot of overlap, especially in my case because i’m also forgetful and have a poor attention span). His video about his life story was also very inspiring and motivating, especially as my IT career so far has consisted of countless phone repairs and cleaning out the insides of filthy PCs because the comfy IT desk jobs are hard to get into.
So, as a gamer who prefers Windows (on the desktop! I know Linux is vastly superior as a server OS) I still have many options when I want to sit at my ergonomically superior desktop as opposed to using my Lemur Pro which, lets face it, ends up being used as a Chromebook half of the time, and the other half I VNC or SSH into it from my Windows desktop, which leaves me wanting a more local experience where i’m not dependent on a working network connection just to use Linux. I mess with Cygwin often, but it’s still fairly different from an actual Linux OS since the purpose of Cygwin is to implement as much of the GNU user space on top of WIndows as possible in a highly integrated, non-emulated and non-virtualized fashion (e.g. Cygwin programs use the native PE/COFF format as opposed to ELF).
Soon I will be building a newer, more capable gaming PC, consisting of an Intel Core i5 11400F and a Gigabyte RX 6500 XT (on a PCIe 4 motherboard!) inside of a Silverstone LD03 case. I’m really looking into using WSL2 on Windows as i’m increasingly fascinated by containers and how Linux-based, Docker-like, OS-independent containers might be the future for apps that are run locally on desktops and laptops, in addition to their current omnipresence on servers, but my concern here is performance since WSL2 uses a type-1, Hyper-V-based hypervisor when enabled, therefor Windows itself becomes a VM (the root VM with direct hardware access, but still a VM). I know some Linux gamers run Windows in KVM and use a GPU passthrough so the performance hit can’t be much different from that, especially since Hyper-V is a dedicated hypervisor rather than a hypervisor running inside of a full-fledged Linux kernel. There’s also the old fashioned dual-boot setup but Windows sometimes has a tendency to overwrite the bootloader and storage space is still a premium because i’m a gamer without multiple terabytes of space at my disposal, so that’s my least favorite and least likely option.
So, should I switch to WSL2, or continue to use Cygwin in conjunction with my Lemur Pro over the network? Regardless the Lemur Pro will be my target over the network, WSL2 will just reduce dependence on it and open up new possibilities.
PS: Yes i’m aware of Wine and Proton on Linux for gaming, but for me that’s not up to snuff because most games are designed to run on Windows and nothing else, and I have other reasons to continue to use Windows as my primary desktop OS. In addition to using Microsoft Office, during my years as a Mac user I also replaced the MP3s I had “acquired” as a teenager in the 00s with music I purchased from iTunes (and later Apple Music) and I would also like to keep all of that, stored locally as much as possible.
