It looks like we'll soon be welcoming a lot of new Linux users here

I hope so. More Linux users mean more Linux support

We’ll have to start worrying about malware soon, exciting haha
- Hopefully that'll push for more investment in opensource and security. SELinux being the default with either containerised or sandboxed apps would be great.
  Anti Commercial-AI license
- Can't wait for the day lol

This means we need to keep being the best community we can be. Welcoming, helpful, and distro agnostic. I might occasionally Stan for the distros I love, or talk a little smack about ones that left a bad taste in my mouth, but when we’re helping new users, we need to meet them where they’re at, and give them the little boost they need to stick with it.

I’ve used Linux professionally and personally for about 12 years. Yesterday was the first time I tried Wine after nuking Windows on my gaming computer. Pretty impressed with it so far, even if it will need a bit of tuning.

Fuck Microsoft.

You can use Steam’s proton even on non Steam games. It might work better than wine.
- Thanks for the tip!
I've switched a few months ago mostly for gaming, and here are few tips and issues I ran into, in case you run into them too.
Not sure what distro you are using, but I've run mostly into issues when trying to get NVIDIA and Proton working on Fedora. Just getting the drivers to work took a few tries, and I never managed to get stuff like cutscenes to work properly.
However, I then switched to Nobara (I suppose PopOS may also work), and the experience was wastly better, with everything working out of the box (I did switch to KDE Plasma on X11, since Wayland kept freezing on me).
I'm not sure what of the many changes Nobara does helped solve my issues, but I guess it may be related to it including Proton GE by default, which I recommend getting, and a slightly streamlined installation of NVIDIA drivers.
I also recommend checking out Lutris, instead of using Wine directly. However, I never really managed to get it working, aside from WoW, so your mileage may wary. But I have most of my games on Steam, where everything is working out of the box, so it wasn't that much of na issue. I only sometimes have to switch Proton version (by right clicking the game - properties - Force a specific version of compatibility tool).
- Your issue with Fedora might have been missing the codec for the compression algo the video was using (smth like h.264 or h.265)
Managing Wine directly is pretty tideous job. Use Heroic for Epic/GOG games, Bottles for everything else. Lutris is also worth trying

I just installed gnome on my laptop because they kept spamming the copilot shit.

I use my os to get started on what im doing, not fuck around with all the repeating notifications that can't be disabled.

Copilot being back on the taskbar after removalafter taking my show desktop button (also removed) was it for me as well. Already enjoying it. Some quirks, but I think I'm going to spend way less time configuring than I am trying to unfuck windows once a week.
What distro is gnome?
- Could be the actual GNOME distro or they just forgot to type the name of the distro, which they're using the GNOME version of. Sometimes that happens to me too, where I just leave out a word.
- Gnome is a desktop environment, which you can install into virtually any distro. It's the default for Fedora, which is a good enough place to try Linux for the first time.
- Assuming they used the top link, Fedora?
  https://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/

Ads in Windows Explorer was the final straw to make me switch to Linux a few years back. I would imagine that ads in the Start Menu could convince some others to do the same.

Ads in Windows 10 back in like 2017 were major contributing factors for me to switch back then. But then when I mentioned I got ads in Windows 10, people looked at me like I had two heads. Perhaps there was some kind of A/B testing going on, and I was the unlucky one. This followed a forced update from Windows 8 Professional to Windows 10 Home, so I lost some control over my PC in that transition, as they took Pro features away from me.

After dithering with dual boot for years I jumped ship to Linux only (LMDE) with their incessant reminders about moving to W11 from W10 popped up. Missing a few apps but fuk' em.

small brain move: install windows on a seperate disk to linux and then let your BIOS decide what it wants to boot, instead of relying on a unified boot loader
- VM is even better. It prevents Windows updates from fucking up your real OS.

You wouldn’t enshittify an entire operating system

Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it’s possible the company could decide to ditch these ads […]

are they really looking to see if people want to see more ads? i can’t imagine this is anything more than a meaningless corporate “we value your feedback” message. they already know what people think about ads in their operating system, they’ve tried it many times

They are not seeking feedback between "I like it" and "I hate it", they want feedback between "I tolerate it because I still feel locked in" and "that's it I'm moving to a competitor".

Winbros: But it's opt-out, you can disable it!

Make sure to share your tips and tricks guys!!

"Works fine for me"
- "Marked as duplicate"
If you find yourself running the same set of commands over and over, throw 'em in a shell script and keybind it! It may be obvious, but good to keep in mind.
One fun one is to pipe clipboard to qrencode --- it's a simple and (nearly) universally supported way of getting a URL, etc., from a laptop/desktop to a phone.
Another great one is to take a screenshot, upload to your server, and put the URL in the paste buffer. Bonus points to put the URL in the middle click buffer and the image itself in the ctrl-v buffer.
- And track this stuff in git so you don't need to remember how you did it when you inevitably forget, lol.
- One fun one is to pipe clipboard to qrencode --- it's a simple and (nearly) universally supported way of getting a URL, etc., from a laptop/desktop to a phone.
  KDE Connect

I anticipate switching to a full Linux setup once I build my new PC, hopefully later this year. I can't see myself even unwillingly ~~buying~~ ~~pirating~~ buying Windows.

Any tips for when that day comes?

Go slow, pick an easy distro like pop OS and take it easy.
If its for gaming, even https://nobaraproject.org/ is great as it has a lot of gaming optimisations.
Remember, Linux with a GUI is not more complicated than windows with a GUI, you have just spent your whole life learning the windows one.
- Thank you for your reply and information!
For windows you dont need to buy it, you can activate it using microsofts own tools, its on github (dont remember its name right now.)
As for linux, i would recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed, it is fresh, and the best part about it is that whenever you update the system, it creates a snapshot, so if the update had some kind of undesired sideeffects, you can just startup the old version. (These snapshots only effect the system's packages, your apps will keep their state iirc. My brother uses tumbleweed and he is very content with it.)

This is like one of the worst takes I've ever seen on this platform. Like yeah dude, the legions of users who sat through Windows 10 ads, Windows 8 ads, Windows Vista, EOL support for every OS, and forced packaged apps everywhere have finally had it with Windows 11 sir. The tidal wave of users embracing the glory of Linux is nigh.

They might go in direction of BSDs.

And stumble upon barely useble OSes? BSDs now are as niche as Linux distros were a decade ago
- It's more like how Linux was 25+ years ago. BSDs are great for servers and firewalls, but they aren't really ready for desktop use yet.
why?

I've tried Linux gaming for a good bit but it doesn't seem like it's quite there yet. For the games that worked it was amazing! The only other thing that was annoying was the constant downloading for the shader caches basically every day with steam (yes I know they can be disabled). I was using Bazzite for those wondering.

I have the total opposite experience. Ubuntu, Endeavour, SteamOS. Gaming on Linux has been great in the last 2 years especially. Shader caches are a very small price to pay for having a system that doesn't crash due to Windows driver BS and being able to reinstall and keep my home directory intact.
How long ago was this?
It depends on what „quite there yet“ means for you.
Performance wise linux gaming can be on par or better than windows. Statistically it should always be better by now because the resource hog that is called windows slows older systems down.
The shader caches are bad, ngl. I have enabled downloading/precaching them in the background so its no big deal as long as you have steam open.
So, for those used to windows and being picky enough to not accept any inconvenience for the tons of upsides: linux isnt for you yet.
For those who are able to accept the tinyest inconveniences for a limited time: linux is a lot better than windows.
- Performance wise it was better for almost every game I played! I'm more used to Linux because that's what I use at work, but I don't have the greatest Internet connection, so that's why the shader caches suck.
The more people switch, more impetus there will be to improve things faster & faster.