Or push it to a file, just in general. That way if something goes tits up you can still check it later.

Which distro

Do you do AI stuff?

I’ve heard NVidia is better for AI

For gaming, you’ll probably not notice a difference. If anything, you’ll be happy due to not having to wrestle NVidia Linux Drivers :P

SuSE Slowroll. Not rolling release. Also not super-conservative like Debian is.

minor spelling mistake

I wouldn’t know, but since OP is having compatibility issues, I’d try to get as close to native as I could. Eliminate the room-for-error. Hence the VM with actual Windows.

They can just delete the lot after they’ve converted their files to an opener format. :P

(these count as piracy, but yes, they work well and are reliable)

I will agree with the people suggesting “VM and a pirated copy”

Just get like office 2010 and windows 7 off of the web, run it in a VM, convert the files, dump it all.

I tried using virt-manager+kvm to try some stuff out the other day but I failed to set-up some crucial things. Probably me being incompetent.

Not like virtualization is a big part of my life anyway. I just wanted to try some other distros and such without rebooting.

If I were to get serious about virtualization I’d need to build a new PC with a second GPU. Then I could stop dual-booting and do everything with VMs. But it’d only be worth it to get serious about learning how to virtualize stuff if I were to do that.

Idk, exFAT is meant to be compatible with more stuff than NTFS. If I ever decide to hook this HDD up to a console or smartTV to play the videos I have on it, it is guaranteed to work.

Btrfs main boot drive

Xfs main storage drive

exFAT external “archive” drive (easy to connect to Windows machines if ever I need my backup in someone else’s windows machine in an emergency and such)

What will you be studying?

When I did CompSci (before dropping out anyway), Linux was actually the recommended setup.

When I switched to Communications, I pushed on with Linux for a long while – MSOffice wasn’t really a thing? Professors and colleagues alike all used GSuite, which runs in browser and is therefore OS-agnostic. Nobody cared what I was using, we all just wrote stuff in Google Docs. (that said, if everyone around IS using MSOffice, then in my experience, stuff translates between Word and LibreOffice pretty well? There’s a little bit of derping around with PowerPoint ig, but word documents were seamless afaic. ALSO it should be noted that if you have to use M$ stuff, Office365 has a completely functional WebApp :P)

I did a lot of graphical work on GIMP and Inkscape.

Buuuuuuut eventually we got to like. Video and compositing related stuff. And much as I’d like to, nothing on Linux can even come close to what Premiere and After Effects can do. A lot of my professors had Macs, but even if I wanted a Mac, I couldn’t afford one. (neither could 95% of my colleagues) So I had to set up Windows. Though it should be noted that since I live in Brazil, my professors encouraged & helped us with pirating the Adobe suite lmao.

I actually kept using GIMP/Inkscape on Windows for graphics stuff, simply because I didn’t want to relearn all the keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop/Illustrator.

Anyway now that I’ve graduated and mostly do writing (worked at a news site, now trying for a job as copywriter at an ad agency), I still keep my Windows install around just in case^tm but have not logged into it in like a year.

It should also be noted that, at least here in Brazil, Canva has consumed like 80% of the market for graphical work. They never ask for Photoshop experience anymore, they ask for Canva. It’s weird to me because they have totally different vibes, with Canva having all those presets and shit, but it is what it is. :P

Watching the discussion here I finally get how it feels like to be a centrist. And it feels dirty.

Anyway, good for them, or whatever. Hyprland was a’ight when I tested it, even if it ain’t my thing. Still hoping for a Wayland Compositor that gives an XFCE-type experience (that is to say, UX without Gnome’s ‘opinionated’ weirdness, and without all the fancy effects that Plasma has. Relatively lighter, also looks a bit retro)

Finally

ClosedSUSE

I actually still end up using Windows 11 on occasion because work.

But the last windows I daily drove was 8.1

Prior to that, Linux was “the other OS” and Windows the daily driver. I started using Linux for the first time in the Windows XP era.

Best we can do is a remote controlled plane with guns.

Yeah I mean

Hobbyist collectors of typewriters (I know because my father is one) and cars (one of my friends is one) all have to learn how to maintain and service their own stuff because businesses that did that for them have all but disappeared. It’s considered part and parcel of the hobby.

It’d be nuts to expect it to be any different for computer collectors. Compile your own kernels, diagnose your own problems, fix your own shit. That’s what you do for a hobby. :P

If you’re running something that old, then it is by choice anyway, hardware gets more expensive after a certain age, and you definitely won’t be getting a (functional) 90s computer for cheap.

Linux is absolutely the gold standard when it comes to supporting legacy stuff.

With Windows trailing behind. At least Microsoft tries to support stuff from older versions of Windows, whereas Apple just says “**** you” every few years.

I feel like with libre/open source software, this is a lot less of a problem – So long as it is still possible to add it back by messing around under the hood, we are pretty much fine with the “Main” branch of some software dropping legacy support?

It’d be unreasonable to expect the devs of anything to keep supporting things that are over 20 years old.

And like, if you’re using 25 year old kit at this point you’re either a hobbyist collector of vintage stuff, OR an enterprise with mission-critical assets on old legacy hardware/software – In either of those scenarios, “figure out how to go under the hood and fix stuff” (or in the enterprise’s case, “hire someone who does that for you”) is not an unreasonable expectation to have.

The smelly part is of course proprietary software and hardware, where “dropped official support” might as well be the signing of a death order. We desperately need a “right to repair and maintenance” regulation on every country in the world.

Closest I got was with xfce. You can grab all the themes you need from xfce-look.