I dunno, maybe I've just had good luck when it comes to hardware compatibility, but networking has always just worked for me. Along with audio and pretty much everything else.

Getting the apps you want installed is the same thing you'd have to go through with a fresh Windows install too. And I think Linux package management is way easier once you do the initial install. So I would argue that Linux is actually better in that regard.

No. Network connectivity just works unless you have some really esoteric hardware. I just installed a USB wifi ax 5400, total overkill for my telco router. CachyOS just took it in stride. Most apps, including many Window apps install painlessly. The moment Linux sees an .exe, it launches wine and installs the app.

Right now it's mostly "just works" most people use office and internet apps anyway.

I hear you on the unknowns. I just picked up a new direct drive racing wheel, and I spent half the night trying to get it to work. The manufacturer doesn't support Linux, so I have to use Boxflat. The wheel seems to work in there, but it doesn't show up in my device list under Game Controllers and Steam doesn't show it as a controller. However, after more research, it seems like that's all normal and it's probably the game itself not detecting the wheel due to it being plugged into a USB hub (which isn't a Linux issue). Sometimes ime learning the OS is fine, and it's the software that's the issue. With Windows, it was easy to assume things were fine on the OS side, and it just comes from that familiarity.

I haven't made any recent attempts to get FL Studio working again, but from what I understand, Bottles can set up an install pretty easily. Reinstalling your VSTs can be done through Bottles as well, so it's one folder containing everything.

After using Bazzite, I'm convinced that image based distros are the future for end users. Need to install an app? Flatpak. Need to install command line? Homebrew.

It all installs in user space. And Flatpak at least uses an effective sandbox system.

Distros that maintain their own package spaces are duplicating a. lot. of work.

The downside of Flatpak is the disk space usage. But that doesn't matter as much to me as it used to.

I ran SteamOS for a while before they made the recent announcement. It works great. Previously, just had to tell it to always boot in Desktop mode.

Can confirm Bazzite is incredibly easy to install, and all my steam games work without any tweaking at all so far except Tropico 6. And I haven't even tried to fix that.

(Windows was being a dick fuck, and life means I don't have brainspace right now to fuck around with my laptop, so no-tweaking was the goal. Bazzite has delivered that.)

Appreciate the suggestions, probs check them out afterwards. I just wanna do it for the shits n gigs

I daily-drive Bazzite on multiple machines. It's excellent, even on machines I rarely use for games.

If you use the console version of Bazzite (which I use on a HTPC), it runs Steam in console mode on boot. I assume that's what SteamOS does, it seems like they designed that mode to feel identical to using SteamOS on a SteamDeck. That makes it easy to launch games etc. without needing a keyboard and mouse. Then you can go to desktop mode when you need it.

The desktop version of Bazzite is just a Linux desktop that starts Steam on boot so that it's running in the background. It has some gaming-related things installed but if you want to use it as a machine to write software it's basically ready to go.

I've been using Linux since it was a diskette install (Slackware). I've used all main Linux flavors over the years, and for the last few years I've lived in Mint, because lazy. I'm now on CachyOS. It fucking rocks. Like wow level.