this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Mad rant props!
For real though, flatpak exists partially for exactly your use case. Simple to use, won't break shit, and pretty much available everywhere.
You're kinda lucky in a way. Linux in all its flavors have steadily improved over the years. Even when win10 came out and I jumped ship for all but a few niche uses, it was a higher learning curve, and came with much disappointment in what I couldn't do that I had been able to on win 7 (which was my favorite version of Windows overall).
Now, while I still have my win 7 drive for the two things I can't get working on linux reliably, I can do everything else. I also have a win10 partition on my laptop for one single piece of software because it's easier to just keep it for the rare usage than try to figure out how to get it working (is Amazon's shitty kindle author program, and since I only crank out a book every three years or so [and only one that I've felt like selling there], it just isn't worth fucking with for that tiny amount of extra space.
Linux, right now, is the best it's ever been. It's also on par with windows. Enough so that I can't see myself ever going back. At some point, win7 won't work on new hardware, and I'll have to jank a musicbee install on linux, and tackle the character sheet generator that I use formy absurdly over crunchy home brew TTRPG that I've yet to find a replacement for that isn't a compromise.
Anyway, I suspect that in a year or two, you'll be in a similar space. You'll have figured out the bullshit, abandoned windows habits, and actually be satisfied with your distro of choice.
Truth? If I had spent as much time on linux back in the nineties, I would likely have has equal difficulty adapting to windows if things had been in reverse.
For real. I floated around with Ubuntu like 15 or so years ago. Everything was learning and researching and getting things to work. Plopped Mint on my laptop a few months ago and didn't hardly have to do a thing to figure it out. But of troubleshooting to get my VPN to run correctly on it.
Js, i love reading anything fiction. If you want to either just to share your work, or constructive criticism, let me know. Ive been wanting a writingprompts community here, but i dont want to start one because of personal issues.
!writingprompts@literature.cafe :)
Have you considered a virtual machine for that super rare use-case?
Yeah, I suspect that's what I'll end up doing. But for now, dual boot ftw?
It's one of those things where screwing around with an otherwise stable system just seems pointless unless I don't have a choice.
Well, if you have that laptop just lying around otherwise, why not. I have a similar situation at my in-laws. They have an ink printer that needs cleaning periodically, which is triggered via software. I know how to do that from a built-in Windows app, so I have no idea hope to use Wine for that. That laptop has been lying around mostly unused, so not a big deal. Just grab it, wait till it boots, could take five minutes.
But I thought of first installing Linux on that laptop, so it would be useful. And then, I could clean the printer heads from any laptop I have, which is much more useful too. I keep Windows around only because of that.
Your use-case seems different, yet I thought we have some similarities here. I haven’t tried the VM way yet. But I just hope a lot it would solve my problem.