Giving you a heads up as a Onyx Boox Nova 3 owner. These devices are poorly supported. You’d get maybe a year of “updates”, meaning the bundled apps are updated. But after that you are on your own.

It’s a brilliant e-reader don’t get me wrong, and I’ll take it over a Kobo or a Kindle any day. But go in assuming that you’d want to keep it offline.

For me, Windows 11 mandatory account, and Internet on setup. Yes there are bypasses, yes I could upgrade from 10. But where I’m from, having the internet isn’t always a given.

So imagine dropping $500-$1000 on a new laptop booting it up for the first time, and learning that its now a brick since Windows refuses to let you use it since you have no internet. No Pro license can unbork you from this.

Even MacOS isn’t that dumb (for now).

The account thing is a personal beef I have with windows. I.e. my PC my account, why does it need to be online, I have no reason for it.

So my plan was to migrate to FOSS or proper cross platform software for work, see if Linux works, and if it doesn’t move to MacOS. So far Linux Mint has been stable.

This is how switched, though I’d recommend properly platform agnostic software (Windows, Mac, and Linux support) since if you don’t find Linux proper works for your workflow, you could switch to a Mac.

Another thing which helped me was switching my Laptop first before my Desktop since if I had problems (which I did) I could loose my laptop and not worry about data loss.

As of now, I am 2 year with Linux on my laptop and 6 months on my desktop with no noticeable difference between my Windows experience and Linux.

For those, like me who entered this chat wondering why the hostility? Here is a great write up of what happened in 2021.

https://hackaday.com/2021/07/13/muse-group-continues-tone-deaf-handling-of-audacity/

Honestly for art I’ve started using my iPad for it, and transferring the results onto my Mint install. Since mint or gnome (not sure which one) integrates Apple file sharing into the files app.

I too install Linux Mint, though Fedora Silverblue and Kinote is another good alternative.

You can do this with 10 but not 11. Tested on both a VM and hardware.

Windows 95 -> Windows 98 -> Windows XP -> Windows Vista -> Windows 7 -> Dual Boot Ubuntu -> Windows 7 -> Dual Boot Ubuntu -> Windows 7 -> Windows 10 -> Ubuntu (VM) -> Pop_OS! -> Windows 10 -> Manjaro -> Fedora -> Manjaro -> Open Suse -> Linux Mint -> Linux Mint DE -> Fedora -> Debain -> Linux Mint

Was more focused on the online games with kernel level anti cheat. But yeah, it’s surprising how many online games work. Excluding native games like CS2/CS GO and TF2, I was able to play non-steam online games online like EA’s Battlefront 2, OG Battlefront 1, with wine-ge.

While I agree with this video. As someone who did migrate from Windows to Linux, I feel the biggest issue which wasn’t address here was the planning for migrating to Linux.

Migrating to Linux means loosing access to Windows native applications like Adobe and kernel level anti cheat online games. What I found helped the most was transitioning to cross platform application and learning their ins and outs in Windows, or discovering ways to validate which applications work well in Proton and Wine.

With games ProtonDB is your best bet to see if there are issues. Or finding ways to solve issues.

With Professional software… you’re not going to be as lucky, so transitioning to an alternative which works for you might be the best solution.

The best way to check if Linux will work for you is to run Linux in a VM or on an external SSD on your actual hardware. The best way to check if something works for you is to try it yourself.

I while I understand the sentiment, I have found that paid software is more polished than foss software… most of the time. And when I need to get work done, I want to ensure that my software is stable and I will pay to do so.

That said, I feel software is like a bell curve, and the older the type of software is, the more it should be FOSS. Like word processors, 3D modelling, or image manipulation should be foss, while video editing and 3D scanning software is OK to be paid.

What I feel everyone should agree with is not being forced to use a subscription service to use the software. I will boycott software if it forces that upon their customers, looking at you Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft.

I see it has two different products for two different use cases. Kdenlive is for those who missed Windows Movie maker or iMovie. Something to stitch together videos, or split apart videos.

DaVinci Resolve is for those who need stable professional software like adobe.

Not saying that kdenlive can’t be used professionally but I found its stability lacking, its tools unpolished and its functionality limited. The only benefit is that it can handle aac audio, and export it too thanks to ffmpeg.

Look at the compatibility of the device you are running it on. Older hardware like the PlayStation Vita, will only work with H.264 AAC.

Handbranks is able to convert this for you with no issues (even on Linux flatpak ftw), and web playback on a Apache2 server is great. But if your planning on watching it on more modern devices, then don’t worry too much about it.

Well your only alternative is Kdenlive, which is a very unstable experience. There are some alternative video editing software on Linux, but they follow the adobe model of, give me your money forever to use it. Resolve works, just need to tune your injest to get the video to work. I have a bash script I can send you that batch fixes videos which I can send you.

As for apple machines. I get the distain as I too don’t like Apple, and feel their locked in software, hardware, and ecosystem is overpriced and unreliable. But the way I see it, if the computer is for work, which this appears to be, I need the best machine for the job, and Apple unlike Microsoft and Google, has very clean software and hardware that I can trust for professional work. No ads, very fast hardware, stable, with no compromises.

That said I will not use them for personal use. Hence the switch over to Linux. I would’ve got a Mac Mini for work if I had the budget for one.

OK, let me fill you with my experience. Now I am on Desktop Linux, and I can’t say how your Double Touch screens will work. But I can tell you about some of your points.

Affinity, canva, corel, and cinema4d are not Linux compatible and you’ll need to run them in Wine/Wine GE via software like Bottles or Lutris. Most will not work, while others like affinity might work, but requires a lot of working around. If these software’s are required, you may want to look at a Mac.

keyshot, gimp, vscode(ium) are all native and have either scripts or can be installed via Flatpak or from the distros app repos.

Davinci Resolve is interesting, You’ve lucked out since you have an rtx2060, but Resolve is quite finicky to get working Linux. You’ll need nvidia drivers and the open source free drivers will not work. All good Linux distros should have easy access, but I found Fedora to be trickier to install. Once you can get Resolve working, you’ll either need to buy Studio if you want H.264 support, and if your videos aren’t using PCM audio then you’ll need to convert it using FFMPEG. I have a script which I use at the end of my injest. Afterwords, it runs and works fine, with no issues (assuming you have the RAM to run it 32GB recommended). If you don’t want to deal with any of this (understandable) Mac OS has no issues out of the box.

Working file explorer: up to taste, and personal preference. Every distro will have one and it’ll be good enough, but some distros tailor theirs to their OS’s tastes. If you are running with a popular Desktop Environment, i.e. KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, then it’ll work.

Now if you want my two cents on all of this. First you should aim for a Ubuntu based distro. While Ubuntu itself isn’t bad, I personally prefer a different Desktop Environment as Gnome is too different for me from what Windows offers. Linux Mint with Cinnamon and POP_OS are good alternative with a more Windows/Mac flavoring, and since they are running Gnome underneath it’ll have the same compatibility as Ubuntu proper with hardware.

Another option is Kubuntu which used KDE’s Plasma. Plasma is OK, but I find it to be a little less refined than it’s appearance lead me to believe.

Now for testing, I’d advise you to get a second SSD and an enclosure and plug it into a USB-C port. It’ll do wonders to quickly go an run everything, without sacrificing you existing install of Winblows. Linux is so efficent I ran my main PC for a week off of it, and only noticed while running games.

Finally, depending on how often you are using your Windows only software. You might get away with running them in a Windows 10 VM, and using a shared folder to the Host machine to move files back and forth.

This is definatly a project you should look into, but I feel you should probably look at more cross platform alternatives to your software first. Since another alternative, if you aren’t playing games, is a Mac.

I’ve moved away from KDE for a while now. Been using Cinnamon since.

And most of my “bugs” are more missing features than anything.

It’s like al KDE projects IMHO. Good on the surface and works well. But use it for any length of time and you will find problems, unfinished areas, or parts where it was implemented without considering why it was like this in the first place.

For example, plug your 1080p laptop into a display with 4K and watch are your desktop icon gets sorted by a-z randomly instead of keeping the order you had it.

Or try to add a calendar even to your system by clicking the calendar which is found in the date and time on the taskbar.

Online accounts added to the system do not integrate into other KDE apps requiring additional signin.

I feel this is probably caused from KDE’s team being small, but having a large suite of apps.

In Settings you’ll find an option called “Compatibility” here you’ll find 2 options, I’ll advise the Steam Play for supported titles, but the all other titles option is more desirable, but the results may not be desirable.

Here a quick run down of PC gaming in general and the state of it on Linux.

PC gaming has boiled down to Clients which will manage your games, this would be your Steam, EA App, Ubisoft Connect, GOG Galaxy, and many many more. These Clients act as both the Store to buy your games, the Game manager to install and delete your games, the online client to let you play online with friends, and the DRM to ensure that you and only you can play your games. Out side of GOG most PC games will not run without a client installed.

In Linux there is only officially Valve’s Steam which is compatible. You can find Steam as a Flatpak or as a Package in your distros Package Manager. Thanks to Valve’s Steam Deck console there is a shocking number of Linux native games to choose from, however thanks to Steams implementation of Wine called Proton, many native Windows games are also compatible. Proton can be enabled for all games in the settings, though the results cannot be guaranteed.

Hardware wise, your default controller is your mouse and keyboard. But Linux is compatible with, from my testing, any modern controller compatible with Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo systems. For certain generas of games you may want to consider getting a controller if you find your mouse and keyboard is frustrating to control your game with.

In terms of games it really depends on your tastes so a recommendation is difficult. I’d look at what TV Shows, books and other forms of entertainment you’d like to discover titles which you prefer. If you aren’t afraid to raise the Jolly Roger you may find some classic games on older video game consoles online as ROM files which you can play on open source emulators. Linux is compatible with a wide array of them, though Retroarch is used as a hub that has a minor learning curve but is compatible with everything. (Just make sure to install the Flatpak version or the steam version).

Last piece of advice, Humble Bundle bundles is a good place to find a lot of games for cheap. Not all the games are bangers, but often can include games from small developers than can often fall between the cracks of many user recommendations. You can find them here: https://www.humblebundle.com/games

Here are some game recommendations which I feel would be fun to anyone who wants to play games.

• Antichamber A Fun Indi puzzle game which twists reality and loop back onto itself.

• Fallout 3/The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim - Some of the more critically acclaimed games, both are adventure games in the same style, but Fallout has guns and based in the Post Apocalyptic Future, while Skyrim is more like Dungeons and Dragons.

• The Stanly Parable - A Hysterical narrative adventure with no combat. A YouTube playthrough will explain the game better than I could.

• Team Fortress 2 A Team Based First Person shooter, also the first Free game here. It’s an older title but it still holds up and can be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

• Besiege A sandbox medieval weapon construction game. The tutorials will get you going and you can many many silly things.

• Portal/Portal 2 Puzzle Platformer shooter, where you play with physics to solve puzzles. It’s a must play and is often on sale.

• SimCity 3000/Cities Skylines A City Building game where you can build and manage your own City. SimCity is an older title but holds up well IMHO but Cities Skylines is a more modern game (Skylines 2 is a buggy unoptimized rushed mess. Avoid it for the time being)

• Civilization 6 Strategy game where you can build an empire. I prefer 5, but 6 is the go to game right now.

• Rollercoaster Tycoon/Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 Make your own theme park, from the rollercoaster to the rides. OpenRCT2 has a more modern look to the classic.

Now just because I am recommending Steam doesn’t mean the other launcher won’t work in Linux. Lutris and Bottles can be used to install and manage your Windows apps, with varying degrees of stability.

ELI5: when a computer stores something like a file or a folder, it needs to know where it lives and where its contents are stored. Normally where the a file or folder lives is the same place as where its contents are. But there are times where a file may live in one place and its contents are elsewhere. That’s a symlink.

So for your video example, the original video is located in Downloads so the video file will say I am movie.mp4 and I live i live in downloads, and my contents are in downloads. While the symlink says, I am movie.mp4 I live in home, and my contents are in downloads over there.

For a video player, it doesn’t care if the file and the content is in the same place, it just need to know where the content lives.

Now how software will treat a symlink as an absolute. For example if you have 2 PCs synced with cloud storage, and both downloads and home is being synced between your 2 pcs. Your cloud storage will look at the symlink, access the content from pc1 and put your movie.mp4 in pc2’s downloads and home. But it will also put the contents in both places in pc2 since to it, the results are the same. One could make software sync without breaking the symlink, but it depends on the developer and the scope of the software.