Slightly unrelated, but one of my recommendations would be to buy a VPN for a month and download all the movies instead of ripping DVDs. Unless you care about the extras of course.
I've recently digitized my DVD collection with MakeMKV(best tool for this) and boy is it hit and miss quality wise. Some are very watchable on a 1080p tv, while others look like a pixel mess. And I'm not that much of a purist when it comes to quality. But DVD is 480p (which is watchable) but when the movie is made from a VHS copy (which happened sometimes back then) it is... an unpleasant watching experience
Also, mpeg2(which dvds are encoded in) are huge filesize wise for what quality they offer.
AND mpeg2 is not supported by stuff like a chromecast...so not great.
I, as a European, had double trouble: our PAL dvd movies actually run slightly faster than American dvd's, so most subs found online simply won't synchronize. So that meant ripping the subs, converting them to a sensible format, finding all the spelling mistakes from converting... A pain.
If I'd do it over again, I'd pay 5 bucks for a VPN and download some bluray rips. Even stuff that is deemed low quality by the pirate community (YIFY rips) are better AND 1/4th the size than your DVD rips will ever be.
You could go the ISO route, which preserves the menus. You can open ISO files with Kodi.
Or rip your dvds if you want to make sure it's all legal. You do you 😜
Yes, I think a minority group of IT enthousiasts will be pushed towards Linux. But for a lot of average users, it is way too much of a hassle, unless the ONLY thing they do is browse the web.
In my 4 weeks with Mint, I encountered:
-Complete system freezes from plugging in USB to USB hubs.
-Bluetooth not working (fix was updating to a newer Kernel... ok... why is that kernel not standard when bluetooth is broken on the older kernels?)
-Random inconsistant UI scaling issues when working with two monitors (and even on the same monitor)
-permission issues when instaling flatpacks from the software manager (let's disable USB permission for arduino... yeah... that's silly)
I figure all the shit out because I want it to work. But it's not the be-all end-all that people here on Lemmy make it out to be.
Switching an OS is always difficult. In 2006 I switched to Mac for about 6 years. The first few months were pain and agony. After that, it was great. Same with many Windows upgrades. And the same will be true for switching to Linux.
I feel you man. I've finally used Cubase enough to get proficiently fast at editing stuff, and I can't get it to work on Mint. It is quite the dilemma.
From what I've seen from Bitwig, I still might switch though. It looks a lot like Ableton, but I much prefer Bitwig's UI. And my most used plugins (arturia stuff) happens to run without any hassle on Wine (for now).
Still, I'll probably keep dual booting for a while. I have so many Cubase projects backed up that I don't feel like converting all to Bitwig projects.
I think for that usecase, Lutris might help. It is basically Wine for games, where it tries to find the right settings for your specific games. If the Epic store installs at all, that is.
But I've commented this a few times now: Wine is... very hit and miss and might not be worth your time.
No first hand experience. However, with my short time with Wine, I'm hestitant to rely on it. Any update from either Wine or the software it's running could break things. Cool if it works, but not something I'd want to bet my work on.
Thanks for the heads up about flatpaks! I'll look into it.
I believe debs are installed through my Software Manager ? When I said "get debs from official source" I meant that bigger software like Godot, Steam, Handbrake etc I prefer to download from their official website. Most stuff in software managers are several versions behind.
I agree that you shouldn't be downloading random debs for some small apps made by a random person, for obvious security reasons.
I would say: don't rely on Wine if you're dependent on the programs it runs somehow. If you don't want to spend hours troubleshooting programs, then accept your losses.
After days of messing about getting music VSTs to work, I decided to stop troubleshooting any error I have within Wine. If a program works with Wine straight away: lucky me! If something doesn't work: I count my loss and accept I won't be able to use that program on Linux for now.
And obviously, don't install and run andom programs that you wouldn't install on Windows either. But that's just common sense.
So for all people that are on the fence about switching to Linux: Here's a sort of review and starter guide from a guy who switched to Mint about 4 weeks ago.
Are you someone who mostly plays non-competetive games (games without anticheat) and browse the web? You'll probably have a hassle free life on Linux. Steam's Proton layer does a lot of heavily lifting. Even if games are not officially supported. Turn the compatability on in the steam settings.
If you play VR or competetive games, it's a different story.
VR is dependant on the headset. I unfortunately have all Oculus Headsets, which there is no good controller support for right now from the open source community.
Anticheat simply doesnt work on Linux.
Design software
From what I've read, the affinity suite now can be used through Wine (a program that lets you use windows apps on Linux)
However, from my time with Wine, it is hit and miss. One update from either the application or Wine can break everything. So it is not reliable, unless you freeze all updates from both the application and Wine. Wine can be great (working out of the box) but also the biggest pain in the ass with hours of debugging. Stay away if you dislike troubleshooting.
Inkscape can be an alternative to Illustrator if you don't do heavy design work.
I haven't touched Gimp for about 6 years (used to be my main editor) but when I switched to photoshop it qas no competition. Don't know what the state of Gimp is now, will try it over the coming year.
music software
Cubase or any of steinbergs plugins outright will not work on Linux (unfortunately my main DAW)
However, I will probably switch to Bitwig (native Linux), which looks really promising. I got some VSTs working through Wine (all arturia stuff works great) but have had hours of troubleshooting without luck with others.
Use Yabridge as a vstlink for windows VSTs.
If you're a professional musician with thousands of dollars in plugins, I'd be hestitant to switch to Linux. You'll be dependant on Wine a lot, which is kind of a pain to rely on for professional use.
overall tips
Might be a bit controversial, but if you're a novice: don't dump all the solutions you find online in your terminal. Actually, try to use the machine as much as possible like you normally would on Windows, unless you want to do Terminal stuff. If you dislike terminals, you'll only be frustrated by all the terminal advice people give you, which might even break stuff on your machine.
Try to download .deb packages from the official sources.++ Software center on Mint is great, but will moatly be outdated or flatpacks. Flatpacks can work, but I've had many issues with permissions and flatpacks (like an arduino flatpack that didn't give permission to use the USB port....)
Welp, I'm out of time, so I'll just randomly stop my reviewish/comment here
I moved to Linux Mint about 4 weeks ago (with optional dual boot Windows).
All the games I tried have worked so far, even when not officially supported (turn on Proton compatibility in steam settings). If your multiplayer games use anticheat, Linux is a no go.
If you happen to have 2 harddrives, try installing Linux on one to see if it's something for you.
I've been using youtube on Firefox with ublock since the premium price raise. Even on android.
The experience is not great, but that makes sure I don't have ads at all.
Also discovered unhooked addon yesterday. Is desktop only, but great for going into less youtube rabbit holes that waste my time.
Oh, my comment was more of an honest followup question about the language, not an attempt to attack the validity of your comment. I Didn't mean to come across that way.
Total noob here when it comes to all things git, but can't you simply host git in a privately owned server? I thought I saw that when installing some packages on my Synology NAS.
Not if your culture doesn't value tradition. Yet there are cultures where tradition is ingrained in it's value systems.