But Mint is better <.<

I guess the thing is “Ubuntu is the friendly distro” but then also “Mint is the friendly distro?” Way back in like 2009 (okay, turns out it’s been a little while) Mint was super comfy and Ubuntu already felt like it was in my way without actually being any easier.

She goes by “Debra” now ;P (Do we really both have an Aunt Debbie/Debra?)

Also, for sure I don’t mean to pressure anyone nor suggest that you do. I also tried other distros first, even fearing a little that I’d break something. Dual booting (I knew Windows better back then… dunno if I’d know what to do with 11 😅) was a help, but also I started with easier distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mint… definitely Mint gets my recommendation as an easy/comfy/friendly distro even though I haven’t touched it in over a decade) and found that I wanted them out of my way so I could set up my computer how I wanted it to be. All’ the stuff happening “for me” kept doing things I didn’t like and changing things I did, so I moved toward the “harder” or “harder-core” distros less because I wanted Linuxy cool-cred (though I did a little bit ;P ) and more because I just wanted to get my OS out of sight and out of mind rather than having to fight the thing over control. Arch mostly does that, Gentoo does it a bit more. These days I don’t have the latest high-powered gaming hardware and I myself am starting to feel a little old (2⁵+1 years! Augh!) so the compile waits don’t feel so great… but I’ll be back 😅I’ve been oscillating between Arch and Gentoo (may try Funtoo next time! Could be a fun… or two 😹) for ages so unless something else fits I don’t see a reason to quit.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, no need to jump right into Gentoo or LFS or something… but also no need to worry if one does! I really want to make one point in particular: everything can be fixed. Everything. Broke the kernel? Fixable. Broke networking? Fixable. Package manager set off a bomb in its own backend? Fixable. There’s always a fix, whether it’s rolling back a package to an old version, booting another OS or computer, GRUB’s recovery console, a fallback kernel, rolling forward a package to a new version, using a newer/patched/forked kernel that doesn’t crash your graphics driver on a new laptop. No matter how deep into “I’ll just go until I trip on something,” you can get back up and you can learn something from it… or you can just reinstall or hop to the next distro.

And maybe the thing you tripped on was a cute kittycat who you can appease them despite their annoyance at you for tripping on them :3

Also no, I don’t know why I felt like yapping for ages <.< Sorry about that? 😅

Breaking things is arguably the best way to learn

Hee hee, some may agree with you. jumped into Gentoo very early and hasn’t stopped breaking things yet. Sometimes for fun, sometimes 'cause some distro maintainer type did something horrible ^.

I definitely support “Just try things, see what breaks, then learn to fix it” as a learning method. Not necessarily for everycritter and not necessarily as a sole learning method but certainly it can be many fun and very productive, sometimes in ways that other methods would not be.

Assuming I’m understanding you correctly (I think I am: “ghost files” would be files of the old filesystem read and kept by the new one?) No, that’s unnecessary unless you have data you specifically want unrecoverable, in which case you’ll want a ‘file shredder’ or srm type tool to handle that. Other than that you’ll probably not be using any filesystem format Windows offers, so it also won’t be recognizing any Windows files even if such a thing would otherwise be possible.

As for your main post, you seem to have the right idea. Steam recognizes that Windows games won’t run natively on a Linux system and will either “automatically run with a compatibility tool (Steam Play)” (or something like that) or refuse to launch/install the thing until you configure it to run everything non-native with Proton by default (which is a checkbox in the normal settings menu, not anything weird or buried).

…Also sometimes it just launches Wine? At least for me? That’s kinda weird, honestly, but I set up my systems in weird ways so that may just be a me problem 😅

Simply put: I think you’ll be fine just not worrying about anything and going directly to your “boot from install/live media” step and not worrying about anything else unless there’s a problem… at which point you come yell at us and we help you fix it ;P

As a Gentoo user currently vacationing in Arch-land I’m not sure whether to feel insulted or affirmed. Imean, it is but some might say that to disparage it or its users 😅

I so want to join that one :D Brilliant name.

… Then go back to Gentoo and stay anyway >:P

Well, I have this:
https://github.com/solarkraft/awesome-wlroots

Then there are some bits like bemoji (emoji selecty thingy) and getting getting grim (and now swappy!) set up to handle screenshottage, aaand getting Sway to behave (mostly?) like herbstluftwm through tricks like
bindsym $mod+1 [workspace="1"] move workspace to output current; workspace number 1 (which seems kinda odd but whatever; I don’t care that much at the moment and it works fine 😅🤷‍♀️)
Aand there’s this lil pile of stuff to get some things to use their Wayland modes (and some other fiddly bits that may not be Wayland-related): MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland-egl QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPY=physical ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE=wayland_egl ELM_ENGINE=wayland_egl SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland _JAVA_AWT_WM_NONREPARENTING=1 GDK_BACKEND=wayland which probably isn’t all necessary but whatever, somecritter will probably say something if it isn’t 😅

Never gonna take Terminology with the Nyan Cat cursor away from me, though 😝Not unless there’s something better that also has cats and/or rainbows, anyway.

:3 ^.

They like to make a show like everyone on Earth is just like they are so how dare we exist differently but it’s clearly just them being hateful. Idunno how bigots manage to still think they’re clever and totally not insecure whilst making self-contradictory statements and raging over nonsense and trivia for hours at a time, often in spaces where they’re not even welcome.

Terminology, with the Nyan Cat cursor! ^. :3

Buying it now probably doesn’t come with the legendary 600% buyer’s remorse booster.

[Joke] Ugh, probably have to buy it as a microtransaction or whatever DLC crap. I hate when they take stuff out and try to sell it!

🤮

Gross, gross, grrooossssss!

Right? Being a Gentoo nerd, seems like the Gentoo way would be the hated one. Validly, for once!

…I use Arch now, bytheway :'D