Transition from Windows 10 to Solus via Dual boot/stupid questions/privacy

Emperor

Hello everybody 🙂
First and foremost I have an idea for transitioning from W10 to Solus. I want to install Solus via Dual boot...then configurate/sync the browsers/password manager/Thunderbird calendar/Joplin and so on to be like it was on W10. Then I want to compleately remove W10 and stay with Solus(if I can). I want to ask if it is a good idea to do so given that I can also stay with W10 because I want to access Hearthstone,Lightroom,Photoshop before I find a way to use at least Hearthstone in Linux(which I know maybe requires Wine). Also I need an exe. program called Yacco and I want to make it open easy...not with need of Wine if possible.
Moving on I also want to ask about Software centers. When I used Mint or Ubuntu there were 2 or more versions of some programs. Some smaller and other bigger xD What is the difference and being given I want to use GIMP and other programs at their full capabilities do I need to install them via terminal or I can simply download them via software center(which sounds strange to me because GIMP is like 1GB and in software center is less than 100MB). Also I remember at Mint when I used it via the center it was version 2.8 and I couldn't upgrade to 2.10 so I installed it via terminal. In solus there is only 1 version of the same program and not 2 like in other distros-why? And if apps from the center are cut down version then what is the purpose of them in Linux as the main way of installing software?
And finally I wanna ask you about privacy of Solus, because I couldn't find anything about it...
How private and secure is Solus? I know it is not Qubes OS or PureOS, but how does it stand to Mint or Debian? And what is the effect of Solus not being based on another distro to privacy and security?
Finally do I need an anti-virus program in Linux?
Thanks to all of you who followed to the end 🙂

brent

I can address a couple, not all, concerns. You say "Then I want to compleately remove W10 and stay with Solus(if I can). I want to ask if it is a good idea to do so given that I can also stay with W10 because I want to access Hearthstone,Lightroom,Photoshop before I find a way to use at least Hearthstone in Linux(which I know maybe requires Wine). Also I need an exe. program called Yacco and I want to make it open easy...not with need of Wine if possible."
The biggest problem with people abandoning Windows is they want to make Linux in Window's image, replete with the same programs. It's a nonsensical notion. That said, Wine is a nonsensical program as well, but a good option for those weening themselves off Windows. After 2 years of freedom I am no longer missing Win and I can make do with all the Linux software.
If your self-stated goal is to never see Win again, as I believe you said, than do it. It's a heck of a learning curve, I was a stranger in a strange land with a ton of questions but I did it thanks to this forum.
As far as security....I'll let others address this. It's sometimes lively debate. Enable UFW is the first thing you have to to in Solus.
I'm not going to answer any of the repo stuff, either. Others will chime in. Congrats on your plan.

Emperor

brent I understand...but this PC is also being used by my father. He really don't want to learn new stuff because of me and he really don't use computer for anything alse than chrome and yacco program. So I really don't know what to do. 2 different OS looks best, but when I leave him he will use only W10 and I don't want that-especially after I disabled the updates and many more things via W10 privacy. Using the same OS on the other hand-he will use only chroimium and I don't know how much that blocks my privacy at firefox and opera...and the system overall. Also I don't know how dual boot works-does it compleately block/isolate one OS from the other-or a compromise for W10 means the same for Linux...Virtual Box as you probably concluded is not an option.

CraigMatze

For safety, Solus is safe and secure. As with anything, you must use safe common sense when on the web.
Solus is a rolling release, example GIMP is updated with each point release. SC- GIMP- Changelog, will show each revision.
You can use SC or terminal for software selection and/or updates. They perform the same function, just allows choices.

As for running W 10 maybe the best solution would be to run it in VM. Safe easy and it works.

Enjoy Solus as your main system.

Emperor

CraigMatze So if I was with Debian or Mint SC will be too slow for me?
Also I don't know how fast Solus will come to new poin release-it was long time to go from 3.9999 to 4.0. So is SC as fast as terminal or it would be better to go with terminal(which is as secure as SC?).
VM is not an option 🙁 check the previous post.

Fatih19

I actually do this as well. Granted, I don't use photo manipulating software professionally. But, I'd recommend using Darktable and GIMP once in a while for personal and passion projects. Slowly moving away from Adobe. I used to use Affinity Software in Windows so I've been trying to get used to GIMP and Inkscape.
For the dual boot, I personally would recommend buying separate drives instead of making 2 partition in one drive so that you could easily boot into one if the other is messing around with booting or stuff in general (Had my Windows partition unusable after installing Linux Mint) .
Linux Mint and Ubuntu is slower because that's the nature of their "principle". Other distros like Fedora and Manjaro is almost always up-to-date because their focus is "bleeding edge" while Ubuntu and LM is usually better at stability. Because they have different principle in mind by their development team.
IMO, you already don't need anything other than Windows Defender in Windows as long as you don't do sketchy stuff. So, I would say that the same thing could be applied to Linux. If you ever need to do some questionable stuff on the web(which really is not a common thing that people do), you could use a virtual machine.
IMHO privacy anywhere in Linux would be miles away from Windows. https://twitter.com/Barnacules/status/1106648869985619968 I'd refer to you this thread by a tech youtubers that are currently making a video on this topic.

Emperor

Fatih19 Yes my friend 🙂 I want to use Darktable + GIMP(to replace Lightroom and Photoshop) I like the mask option in Darktable which alone makes it better than Lightroom, I also like how it makes image cool only with it's curves automatically-which other youtubers seems to dislike?! GIMP wouldn't be used often(as Photoshop)-I have 2 questions about it-is it a good ideal to just watch videos about Photoshop and use them to work in GIMP...I know there aren't layer masks, but even they will come alive soon 🙂. Also why Photoshop shows the size of a file and when saved it's exactly that, while GIMP shows 330MB for simple edits and when saved it's 60MB(which to me seems very big file for nothing).
I actually have 2 Hard disks 🙂 But I prefer to put Linux and W10 on the same hardrive-is it gonna be so bad?
Also I know for W10 it's best to use Windows Defender + Malware protection(for me Emisoft, because I read that it is ,,privacy respecting''). But what about Linux? Linux might be famouse because it is safer than W7,8,10 , but to be honest Linux is 27 years old, it randomly kills some proceses as that's it's nature and that's the best we have...it's used on most servers and super computers(this information is from this site http://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/ and I had found it via Purism's Librem 5 web site). Still it is good enough, but it's not so secure-so what should I use for Linux instead of Microsoft Defender and Emisoft?

brent

:Emperor With that information about your Dad, I would say Faith19's dual drives idea might be best. The hard thing is always the setup, though. But people here would guide you through if you went that route. Good luck.

Fatih19

Emperor Why are you giving Linux a prejudice? Try it out first, then give your opinion.
I'd prefer you buy another drive if you can.

Staudey

Honestly you'd probably be better off without antimalware suites, even on Windows. Keeping Windows Defender running can't hurt though. There have been numerous security issues with antimalware software itself over the years, and I'm not sure whether there is any added benefit over the included Defender on an updated system. Btw I wouldn't recommend turning off updates as you've mentioned above if you use the internet on that computer. Sounds like a very bad idea.

Emperor

Staudey Antimalware unintalled. I will probably only donwload and use it once every 6 months then delete it.
And what would be the Linux's Defender?

brent

Wow I told you security was a barn-burner. I consider W10 a compromised, open wound of bloat and mal that calls home every 5 seconds and I could not have enough security installed for any version...not only that the privacy policy is terrifying and I've read every word. Those two things alone made me turn my back forever (except for workplace PC's).
Linux can also be compromised but I still 'feel' a heckuva a lot more secure with a stiff firewall here and a community with it's best interests in mind.

Emperor

brent I know my friend-but I have to have W10...at least for now.

Solarmass

Fatih19 I'd prefer you buy another drive if you can.

or SSD 👍️

yursan9

In Ubuntu, you get the packages from Ubuntu's package repository and Snap Store. Usually the package from Snap Store is newer, but it's bundled with required library for that application. The package from package repository is older and smaller, because it's using system library. Solus basically only have one package because it's only pull the packages from Solus' package repository, and it's newer because Solus is rolling release.

Regarding privacy, Solus never harvest your data. Solus doesn't even know how many people downloading and using Solus.

Fatih19

yursan9 even distrowatch, a website used to know what's the most popular distro, doesn't even collect data from the end-users. They tracked the traffic on the Distro's website. That really shows how Linux-based OS respects users privacy.

nodq

Don't ditch Windows right away. I know many people that did that, and then realized that they are overwhelmed by Linux as a daily driver and/or don't like it that much.

I use Linux since 15+ years but I still have an extra SSD drive with Windows on it. Just in case. For that particular game thats brand new I REALLY wanna play on release day and just doesn't work at all on Linux, most of the time it is due to Anti Cheat tools that it won't work at all on Linux. Like Apex Legends for example, and EAC.

So if you have more than one Drive, keep Windows on one and use Linux on another drive. Before you delete Windows, use Solus/Linux for a couple of weeks or even months. Then decide.

And about Hearthstone. It runs fine with Lutris, like all Blizzard games. I play them all on Linux, WoW, SC2, HotS, OW etc.

https://lutris.net/games/hearthstone/

Justin

nodq OW still got the mouse input jitters or have they fixed that now? Haven't played around with it for a while.

Emperor

nodq So Lutris is like Wine, but for games?! Does it drop down fps of the games compared to Windows much?
Also isn't Wine gonna do the same work-I only need Hearthstone from Windows games...

nodq

Justin If I remember correctly it was a problem due to Battle.net.exe and/or Agent.exe. There was kinda the same problem on Windows tho. Where Battle.net Launcher fucked with performance in games.

Solution back then on Linux was killall Battle.net.exe Agent.exe

Or just use the setting in Battle.net Launcher to close itself after launching a game, that kills Battle.net.exe but not Agent.exe IIRC.

And about OW in general. For me, it runs perfectly fine on Linux. And on Solus it feels even more smooth. My mouse feels better than on Windows to be honest. I do have 1x1 pixel movement on Windows, no skipping etc. no accel. ofc. But still, it feels somehow better on Linux/Solus for me. Only thing is, when starting the game first, it drops on frames for couple of seconds, because if shader caching or whatever. But thats about it.

Fatih19

Emperor there's some fps drop, but it's not much. Plus, does fps REALLY matters in hearthstone?

Justin

Emperor Lutris is just a launcher, it has launchers that use steam, wine, gog.com etc. Lutris however puts together custom wine builds that work best for each game so you don't have to tweak stuff.

nodq

Emperor With Wine, there are lots of scripts, tweaks, versions etc. Lutris has a "Database" of games where they provide install scripts with the best possible settings, versions, tweaks and all that.

So you do not need to research anything anymore or do anything on your own. Maybe set some settings in Lutris UI itself, thats about it. Lutris does all the work for you to get your games working. Just follow instructions, if there are any for the game you wanna install.

Justin Origin games are tricky. I am not an EA fan, don't like BF at all. But as far as I am aware, BFV can be installed with Origin. I don't know if it works.
Apex Legends for example, because of easy anti cheat does not work. BF uses BattleEye IIRC. So that could give problems too, I guess.

Emperor

Fatih19 When you have an old HD 4600 graphics and you go below 30 fps it's not feeling smooth-which at least for me is pain in the ass.