[rpigab]

As a gamer and software developer, I've been Windows-free for over two years, no regrets, maybe kernel level anticheat competitive multiplayer games, but I have tons of other games and not much time to spend in multiplayer. Ubuntu on desktop gaming PC, Ubuntu on laptop, Steam Deck, Debian/Raspbian for servers. GNOME everywhere except on Steam Deck which has KDE, love both.

> Linux won't stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC ("sudo rm -rf /").

It will definitely stop you from running that command because of "--preserve-root" that is enabled by default, if you want to break your system you have to opt out of it. Just don't try to put an asterisk after, pathname expansion will be a different case ("rm -rf /*").

[MarsIronPI]

> It will definitely stop you from running that command because of "--preserve-root" that is enabled by default

Until you come across a system old enough that the coreutils' rm doesn't have that safeguard. And that is how I accidentally'd my OLPC XO's Fedora install.

[rpigab]

Ha ha, I think the busybox rm implementation also doesn't have it, be careful, it's present in lightweight containers, even though it's probably a recent thing. Can't speak for MacOS too.

TBF, this safeguard has never saved me, being careful saved me. You can afford to take the time to be careful, because writing the powershell equivalent is probably at least ten times longer (just kidding, or am I?), and clicking buttons in the file explorer is a hundred times longer. Always write the "-rf" after writing the path! I never run rsync without a dry-run, too, even without --delete.

[Johnny_Bonk]

I'm new to both but just picked up a 3080 with 32gb ram. Would you recommend I clear my windows to install Linux? And games like arc raiders etc will still work?

[rpigab]

I would recommend it yes, the biggest pain point of switching OSes for me is getting your data out on an external drive, I'm not good with backups so it always takes a while for me to find my files and make sure I'm not erasing valuable documents or non cloud savefiles. If you have a new SSD you can keep the old one as a backup.

To check for game compatibility, you should check :

- Steam store page for Steam Deck compatibility, be aware that sometimes a bad rating only means the in-game text is too small to read on small screens or that gamepad support is poor, also I've played multiple "not supported" games that ran just fine.

- ProtonDB, community rating, separate comments for Steam Deck and PC, troubleshooting for Nvidia/AMD specific issues, etc. -> This includes Valve's Steam Deck compatibility score https://www.protondb.com/app/1808500?device=pc

- https://areweanticheatyet.com/game/arc-raiders AWACY says ARC Raiders is not officially supported, but runs. You never know, it might break in the future or not.

- Be aware that the Steam Client is only officially supported on Ubuntu, though you might be fine with other distros as well. Don't use the open source "nouveau" GPU driver, use the proprietary Nvidia drivers, also I've had GPU hiccups during the transition from X.org to Wayland that might be related to NVIDIA, but now it's fine.

[mixedCase]

Look up protondb for game compatibility. Arc raiders is marked as running perfectly fine, but plenty of multiplayer games with invasive client side anti cheats such as Fortnite or Genjin Impact do not run. If you depend on such games it's best not to switch, any privacy concern you may have with Windows is gone with those games running literal rootkits on your PC anyway.

I've been running Linux for gaming for well over 15 years and have not missed much in the last 5 or so. There's way too many games out there to play that do run on Linux even if unemployed and have the time to dedicate it as your sole hobby.

[freedomben]

I would buy a second hard drive and replace your current and install Linux on that. That way you can swap them back without issue. If you feel satisfied and ready to wipe windows, and have open slots, you can add the original drive back to your motherboard and mount it in pretty seamlessly (or entirely seamlessly with LVM).

I wouldn't try to dual boot, mainly from past experience. Linux is very fine with it, but Windows can aggressively try to repair itself and break other things, or end up broken itself.

[cheald]

Arc Raiders runs great. ProtonDB is the right thing to check to find out if any given game is gonna run on Linux. Fortunately, the success of the Steam Deck has more and more devs playing ball.

You could just buy another SSD and install Linux on that. Then, you have your Windows drive left untouched and pristine so you can swap back if you want, or you can pull data over as needed.

[worksonmine]

> just picked up a 3080 with 32gb ram

Prepare for some potential headaches, do some research and see what kind of problems you might encounter. And before blaming Linux watch this short clip[0].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ

[queenkjuul]

Dual boot. I have never not had a need to boot into Windows on occasion. Daily driving Linux is very pleasant but personally, having the fallback for multiplayer games or modding tools and stuff has always been worth it.

[glitchc]

Try dual-booting first if you can. It's better to understand the new OS before switching over completely.

[canistel]

Fedora has the following aliases in the root .bashrc.

alias rm='rm -i'

alias cp='cp -i'

alias mv='mv -i'

[rpigab]

It's a nice addition for certain use cases, however in the case of running "rm -rf ...", it has no effect because of the "-f / --force" flag set afterwards.

"rm -if" never prompts, "rm -fi" prompts. --preserve-root is an entirely different thing which will stop the command from deleting files even if you told it to.

  $ sudo rm -ri /
  rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'
  rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe

When in doubt, you might want to activate xtrace with "set -x", run the command and see what it expanded to. then "set +x" to disable.

[zahlman]

"It is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'" is such a stereotypically traditional Linux way to explain the situation.

(I would write something like "Refusing to delete the entire filesystem (did a shell variable expansion go wrong?)".)

[rpigab]

There's worse:

"Out of memory: Kill process or sacrifice child"

[Linux-Fan]

Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/293/

[godelski]

  >> Linux won't stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC ("sudo rm -rf /").

  > It will definitely stop you from running that command

You're protected against removing / but your can still run `rm -rf /` and even as a user that'll do a lot of damage.

I think for the average person this would be synonymous to "every file on your PC". It is all the files that they care about. It deletes everything they have permission for. Everything they* own. For the average user `rm -rf /` is no different than `sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /`

That said, some* systems have some protections. It is common to see the following aliases in the default .bashrc (check your /etc/skel/.bashrc) but also we have to ask the question "is this a bad thing?" I'm not so sure the answer is as clear as people like to suggest it is. But you're asking your computer to do something and either it is going to do that thing or it is going to refuse. I'm personally on the side that a computer refusing to do what you ask it to do is a worse thing, but I can also understand why people want to add in precautions to protect users. Sudo is even one of those!

I'd also suggest adding the following to your ~/.bashrc and would encourage distro makes to put this in /etc/skel/.bashrc

  alias rm='rm -I' # Ask for confirmation if deleting more than 3 files
  #alias rm='rm -i' # Ask for confirmation if deleting files
  alias cp='cp -i' # Ask for confirmation if overwriting files
  alias mv='mv -i' # Ask for confirmation if overwriting files

This can help reduce mistakes. It has saved me on multiple occasions and I've been using linux for over a decade. And honestly, I am deeply frustrated every time I have to touch a Windows machine. I have terrible experiences and it has never "Just worked". With my last work laptop with windows (2024) I learned that Windows Hello (login with fingerprint) likes to break Outlook. The fact that this was a known issue to my IT team kinda highlights how disorganized Microsoft is. FWIW I do also use a Macbook Air as a daily driver but to be frank, for any work it is an overpriced SSH machine. I haven't tried a linux netbook in a few years but that would be ideal if it can actually have long battery life. Biggest help is that Microsoft is inadvertently being less hostile to linux users by making everything cloud based. I hate cloud apps but at least I don't have to have their shitty software on my computer to read a Word document (and because people can't just normalize sending PDFs)