Any other Linux users here? And has anyone fully migrated?

[_oBSOLEte_]

Let me be clear, i did all that, it had somehow corrupted the os so much that parted and the repair disk thought i never installed a bootloader at all, but still asked for it in a loop, meaning it probably fried the linux equivalent of the master boot record beyond repair.
Like i said i backed everything up before it happened so it wasn't too hard to get back up and running, but oh wow did that put me off partitioning my main drive.

Sounds like disk failure to me. What evidence you got to blame partitioning or dual booting for that?Shit happens invariably. And IME dual booting makes your system *more* robust. If something doesnt work in linux you troobleshoot it in another distro or in Windows and vice versa.

Even being ultrasafe with redundant systems and RAID 6 arrays you'd still have to set partitions and do proper backups on other boxes anyway. So I just consider any OS a temporary solution at best. Specially any flavor of linux which is a perpetual WIP.

 

[SpikeSlania]

Actually monitor model makes sense for another reason, gpu syncing, my monitor if it's above 144hz in settings will sometimes downclock my gpu's vram to 96mhz, the cause of this seems to be monitor based, not os based, apparently it can also rarely happen on windows on some really obscure models but mine is a gigabyte, it apparently has something to do with the mesa drivers.

It makes sense when troubleshooting issues and how to recreate the scenario. But not sure how the monitor model helps them while developing their kernel.
"Mesa just released a patch that fixes issues on Acer KB 272 monitors, should we add it to our kernel?"
"Nah, going by the data we have no one uses it. Let's save a kb and leave it out"

That's the only scenario I can think of, granted I'm not a developer. Though it would be scary if when someone reports an issue without leaving their system specs and the developer responding to it says, "oh it's your Acer KB 272 causing the problem, grab this patch and you're good."

Edit - I don't think they're collecting monitor models for nefarious reasons, more that they themselves aren't sure why they're collecting it. One of those afterthoughts of while getting monitor resolution and refresh rate they figured why not grab the model and which display port they use it as as well with no real thought on how it would be useful.

 

[popckorn]

Because it should not be that your OS must be Esoteric in order to be Linux:

UBUNTU BASED OS’

 

[Leon]

Sounds like disk failure to me. What evidence you got to blame partitioning or dual booting for that?Shit happens invariably. And IME dual booting makes your system *more* robust. If something doesnt work in linux you troobleshoot it in another distro or in Windows and vice versa.

Even being ultrasafe with redundant systems and RAID 6 arrays you'd still have to set partitions and do proper backups on other boxes anyway. So I just consider any OS a temporary solution at best. Specially any flavor of linux which is a perpetual WIP.

It was not the drive, the drive is both fairly new and working perfectly, it only happened after i deleted the windows partition, i'm not going to claim my issue wasn't obscure (i don't even know how windows and linux somehow had placed important data on 2 separate drives, but it did), i'm not saying partitioning is bad, i was saying be damn sure you know what your doing when you do it and keep the os's completely separate.

It makes sense when troubleshooting issues and how to recreate the scenario. But not sure how the monitor model helps them while developing their kernel.
"Mesa just released a patch that fixes issues on Acer KB 272 monitors, should we add it to our kernel?"
"Nah, going by the data we have no one uses it. Let's save a kb and leave it out"

That's the only scenario I can think of, granted I'm not a developer. Though it would be scary if when someone reports an issue without leaving their system specs and the developer responding to it says, "oh it's your Acer KB 272 causing the problem, grab this patch and you're good."

Edit - I don't think they're collecting monitor models for nefarious reasons, more that they themselves aren't sure why they're collecting it. One of those afterthoughts of while getting monitor resolution and refresh rate they figured why not grab the model and which display port they use it as as well with no real thought on how it would be useful.

Don't get me wrong, it's a extremely obscure and dumb problem, but i can see why they'd want to have monitor info for obscure patches in manjaro that mesa missed.

For me i'm extremely doubtful of any info collection, even for justifiable reasons, hence why i say eff ubuntu outright because while ubuntu is better than windows, they also have a opt-out data collection scheme.

 

[diapered]

and that's solely because my Job uses a proprietary program that is Windows only

I know that feel... Someone posted earlier itt about needing teams for their job, and I was worried about that myself a few years ago, but fortunately teams ran fine at that point in chromium browser for me, so it wasn't an issue. I take it though this is a desktop ms program that doesn't run in a browser?

Have you tried installing this program with wine? I am new to wine because I have never used a distro that made it easy to use/configure and have always thought wine was too much trouble, but garuda has changed my mind on that The installation of wine (I'm assuming it's the build in the chaotic-aur) with the garuda gamer assistant has worked great for the few ms programs I needed. To be fair though, they are old CD burning software, so modern programs may not work as well >_<

 

[Zerpina]

is a desktop ms program that doesn't run in a browser?

Correct, it's a Windows program that has to be run from the desktop.

Have you tried installing this program with wine? I am new to wine because I have never used a distro that made it easy to use/configure and have always thought wine was too much trouble, but garuda has changed my mind on that The installation of wine (I'm assuming it's the build in the chaotic-aur) with the garuda gamer assistant has worked great for the few ms programs I needed. To be fair though, they are old CD burning software, so modern programs may not work as well >_<

Of course, I tried, and I have tried configuring it in every conceivable combination of ways. It's not a big deal really, since I only have to use that PC for work. They supplied the system, so it's still theirs anyway.
And that's how they want it done, so hey, whatever, you know.

 

[diapered]

They supplied the system, so it's still theirs anyway.

Oh yea, then don't mess with it. I didn't understand it was a company laptop, thought it was a third party program you had to use on your own device.

 

[popckorn]

I know that feel... Someone posted earlier itt about needing teams for their job, and I was worried about that myself a few years ago, but fortunately teams ran fine at that point in chromium browser for me, so it wasn't an issue. I take it though this is a desktop ms program that doesn't run in a browser?

Have you tried installing this program with wine? I am new to wine because I have never used a distro that made it easy to use/configure and have always thought wine was too much trouble, but garuda has changed my mind on that The installation of wine (I'm assuming it's the build in the chaotic-aur) with the garuda gamer assistant has worked great for the few ms programs I needed. To be fair though, they are old CD burning software, so modern programs may not work as well >_<

Also "BOTTLES" it is A PLEASURE to use, it creates containers, you choose whether to have several Windows programs in the same bottle, or have one bottle for each program. They are very easy to manage. That is the name of the program, just like the concept: BOTTLES.

 

[Piper Halliwell]

I am considering swapping from Windows 10 to Linux. Especially because of the EOL happening in October and I want an operating system that will get the job done. I use it mostly for gaming but I will be using it for college as well. Not sure what distros to use or if I could swap just yet.

 

[MegaDrive1987]

I am considering swapping from Windows 10 to Linux. Especially because of the EOL happening in October and I want an operating system that will get the job done. I use it mostly for gaming but I will be using it for college as well. Not sure what distros to use or if I could swap just yet.

Probably Mint if you're used to Windows I'd say. I'm more than happy with it and the learning curve weren't that steep.

 

[Leon]

I am considering swapping from Windows 10 to Linux. Especially because of the EOL happening in October and I want an operating system that will get the job done. I use it mostly for gaming but I will be using it for college as well. Not sure what distros to use or if I could swap just yet.

Mint for windows transfer is pretty easy, just make a plan for what you want to use it for, gaming wise pretty much everything that isn't online works, if your wanting to play some online games however make sure their anti-cheat tech doesn't get blocked on linux, epic is notorious for this with fortnite.

Single player though, i've yet to find a game that didn't work.

EDIT: the one problem with mint is you'll need to set it up for it to play games, if you want a out of the box experience i'd suggest getting a gaming distro like pika os or the one me and diapered are currently using, garuda, they come setup out of the box for gaming (many suggest bazzite but i'm avoiding that because the creator of it has gone extremely political as of late thus i tend to avoid endorsing any software where the software is secondary to a political message), nobara is also good for gaming but it a bit more intermediate difficulty in comparison to pika os or garuda, if you have issues feel free to ask here, though if your being sincere most in the linux community are pretty helpful too.
Well, except some specific groups who are elitist, but they aren't as common as they used to be.

Oh and for what it's worth, most linux distros offer something called a "live cd"either prepackaged in the installer iso or as a separate download, this let's you "try" the operating system off of a usb thumb drive instead of installing it first, so feel free to play around with a few that way.

 

[WesternYokai]

Hi. I've using Arch since I bought and turned a Steam Deck as my main PC.

I play games and do my remote work (mostly web based) since 2023 no problem. Lately I've been using GIMP and Krita too to do art.

I have no interest in going back to windows, even sometimes the workaround to do tasks that are simple on windows being kinda annoying. Everything just works 99% of the time.

 

[Leon]

Hi. I've using Arch since I bought and turned a Steam Deck as my main PC.

I play games and do my remote work (mostly web based) since 2023 no problem. Lately I've been using GIMP and Krita too to do art.

I have no interest in going back to windows, even sometimes the workaround to do tasks that are simple on windows being kinda annoying. Everything just works 99% of the time.

Once you get used to the problems and learn how to fix them, the benefits outweigh the downsides of switching from windows, it's usually that initial hump that sets people off.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

It was not the drive, the drive is both fairly new and working perfectly, it only happened after i deleted the windows partition, i'm not going to claim my issue wasn't obscure (i don't even know how windows and linux somehow had placed important data on 2 separate drives, but it did), i'm not saying partitioning is bad, i was saying be damn sure you know what your doing when you do it and keep the os's completely separate.

Partitions and dual booting is keeping your OSs completely separate. It's not the same file system, Linux is usually EXT4 or BTRFS. Win10 is NTFS. You can transfer files between the two for example by using another NTFS partition in common with all your OSs. I dont know how the mbr got affected when you deleted the win partition but something must have gone very wrong.

Even only installing linux on a fresh PC you'll get multiple partitions on your drive anyway... So yeah, maybe you started deleting stuff you thought was a windows partition, that turned out to be a FAT32 EFI boot partition for the linux you wanted to keep. As I said, shit happens invariably.

 

[Piper Halliwell]

Probably Mint if you're used to Windows I'd say. I'm more than happy with it and the learning curve weren't that steep.

Yeah that’s a good point! I have used Mint before and continue to use it on an old laptop from 2010, however it is an old version (Linux Mint 19). I was considering using a new version, but I’m not sure how the gaming performance will do compared to other distros. Linux is still new to me :,)

Post automatically merged: May 18, 2025

Mint for windows transfer is pretty easy, just make a plan for what you want to use it for, gaming wise pretty much everything that isn't online works, if your wanting to play some online games however make sure their anti-cheat tech doesn't get blocked on linux, epic is notorious for this with fortnite.

Single player though, i've yet to find a game that didn't work.

EDIT: the one problem with mint is you'll need to set it up for it to play games, if you want a out of the box experience i'd suggest getting a gaming distro like pika os or the one me and diapered are currently using, garuda, they come setup out of the box for gaming (many suggest bazzite but i'm avoiding that because the creator of it has gone extremely political as of late thus i tend to avoid endorsing any software where the software is secondary to a political message), nobara is also good for gaming but it a bit more intermediate difficulty in comparison to pika os or garuda, if you have issues feel free to ask here, though if your being sincere most in the linux community are pretty helpful too.
Well, except some specific groups who are elitist, but they aren't as common as they used to be.

Oh and for what it's worth, most linux distros offer something called a "live cd"either prepackaged in the installer iso or as a separate download, this let's you "try" the operating system off of a usb thumb drive instead of installing it first, so feel free to play around with a few that way.

Oh right yeah. It’s funny you say that, I know a lot of people dog on the game, but I play League and unfortunately Vanguard (their anti-cheat system) will most likely cause bigger problems.

As for the rest, I have heard great things about Nobara and how it improves performance in some games. My current build (which I’ve been looking into buying a new pc that is more versatile), is limited with 8GB of RAM. Storage is not a problem and the Processor is dated though still gets the job done for the most part. I’ve tested distros on VMs in the past which could be nice to try the distros you’ve suggested. If that were possible. I’m still new to this stuff and I’m more than likely going to rely on the Linux enthusiasts on this site as well as others out there. Most games I play nowadays are online, besides: Unreal 1998, Doom 1 + 2, Quake 1-2, and a few other single player games from my Steam Library.

 

[SpikeSlania]

Oh right yeah. It’s funny you say that, I know a lot of people dog on the game, but I play League and unfortunately Vanguard (their anti-cheat system) will most likely cause bigger problems.

As for the rest, I have heard great things about Nobara and how it improves performance in some games. My current build (which I’ve been looking into buying a new pc that is more versatile), is limited with 8GB of RAM. Storage is not a problem and the Processor is dated though still gets the job done for the most part. I’ve tested distros on VMs in the past which could be nice to try the distros you’ve suggested. If that were possible. I’m still new to this stuff and I’m more than likely going to rely on the Linux enthusiasts on this site as well as others out there. Most games I play nowadays are online, besides: Unreal 1998, Doom 1 + 2, Quake 1-2, and a few other single player games from my Steam Library.

Yeah, you can count out of playing Riot games on Linux. Their kernel level anti cheat is a major issue. But I did waste half of my weekend trying to get Windows 11 to work since Microsoft keeps breaking Battle.net for Linux. Let's say I got as fair as the infinite circle loading loop at start up before I gave up on Windows 11 completely and will just hope we have more work arounds to run Battle.net by then besides Proton 10 in Steam and some random Wine version in Lutris/Bottles that is like Wine-Staging-TKG 1.6. Think this is also the second time Microsoft broke the general use of B.net this year.

Nobara is an odd distro. Very gaming/creator centric. A Fedora based distro that uses Aur files in their repo with all of the Gaming fixes that Glorious Eggroll creates. Also comes with his newly developed store front for Flatpaks since he hates the Discover/GNOME app store with a passion. I semi consider Nobara, Pika OS, Cachy OS, and Bazzite to be part of a minor group with how often they help each other with their distros and they often use each other's code. Pika OS would be if you want to be on a Debian based distro with more up to date apps, programs, and gaming/codec patches built in but the downside is it's ran by only 2 guys. Cachy OS is pretty much designed to be a beginner friendly distro on Arch with one of the fastest kernels. Bazzite is hard to recommend unless you don't mind it being immutable so you would be limited to only Flatpaks and the developer tends to favor supporting ROG Ally users over Desktop users. Reason why I use Chimaera OS on my couch set up which I can't recommend for desktop use, but it's great for turning a PC into a Steam Machine until SteamOS gets a wider release.

I'm currently jumping around distros not sure where I will settle down for awhile again since I just went from Fedora (after using it a few months) to Pika, to Nobara, to Windows 11, to Nobara, and now Debian 12 because I got curious to what the Debian stable experience is with some of the offical releases of programs (Steam, Lutris, Discord) all being deb files. It does require more user set up and time spent in the Terminal than I had to in other distros.

 

[Piper Halliwell]

Yeah, you can count out of playing Riot games on Linux. Their kernel level anti cheat is a major issue. But I did waste half of my weekend trying to get Windows 11 to work since Microsoft keeps breaking Battle.net for Linux. Let's say I got as fair as the infinite circle loading loop at start up before I gave up on Windows 11 completely and will just hope we have more work arounds to run Battle.net by then besides Proton 10 in Steam and some random Wine version in Lutris/Bottles that is like Wine-Staging-TKG 1.6. Think this is also the second time Microsoft broke the general use of B.net this year.

Nobara is an odd distro. Very gaming/creator centric. A Fedora based distro that uses Aur files in their repo with all of the Gaming fixes that Glorious Eggroll creates. Also comes with his newly developed store front for Flatpaks since he hates the Discover/GNOME app store with a passion. I semi consider Nobara, Pika OS, Cachy OS, and Bazzite to be part of a minor group with how often they help each other with their distros and they often use each other's code. Pika OS would be if you want to be on a Debian based distro with more up to date apps, programs, and gaming/codec patches built in but the downside is it's ran by only 2 guys. Cachy OS is pretty much designed to be a beginner friendly distro on Arch with one of the fastest kernels. Bazzite is hard to recommend unless you don't mind it being immutable so you would be limited to only Flatpaks and the developer tends to favor supporting ROG Ally users over Desktop users. Reason why I use Chimaera OS on my couch set up which I can't recommend for desktop use, but it's great for turning a PC into a Steam Machine until SteamOS gets a wider release.

I'm currently jumping around distros not sure where I will settle down for awhile again since I just went from Fedora (after using it a few months) to Pika, to Nobara, to Windows 11, to Nobara, and now Debian 12 because I got curious to what the Debian stable experience is with some of the offical releases of programs (Steam, Lutris, Discord) all being deb files. It does require more user set up and time spent in the Terminal than I had to in other distros.

Definitely. I'm okay with giving up League since that's the only Riot game I play now until I can buy a newer build. Battle net is something I've been considering installing again to attempt to play my basically unused copy of COD Cold War. Though, it's not something I NEED immediately. It is unfortunate that Microsoft continues to do that, I guess that isn't out of the ordinary for them. lol

Nobara will most likely be the best option in the case of it being made for gaming in my case. I will say, if you liked Debian and still want a similar Windows experience (as people suggested), definitely go for Mint. Although, I can't really share as much knowledge as you have with me since I'm still new to this stuff, I appreciate the rundown of these distros.

So far, I've had a very positive experience with Linux Mint 19 (which was new at the time of downloading on my old Windows 7 laptop), I definitely recommend it. It is debian based and getting windows programs to run via Wine was a pain because I've never done it before, but the results make it worth while. Despite hardware limitations, I was able to get my very much dated hardware to run UT99 at a solid 30-60 frames except when there were too many effects. Other than that, that's the most I can tell you.

 

[SpikeSlania]

So far, I've had a very positive experience with Linux Mint 19 (which was new at the time of downloading on my old Windows 7 laptop), I definitely recommend it. It is debian based and getting windows programs to run via Wine was a pain because I've never done it before, but the results make it worth while. Despite hardware limitations, I was able to get my very much dated hardware to run UT99 at a solid 30-60 frames except when there were too many effects. Other than that, that's the most I can tell you.

It's Ubuntu based which Ubuntu itself is Debian based. I'm a bit biased against Ubuntu being a Fedora fan :P But there is a Linux Mint Debian Edition. I'm not sure what all distros I will be jumping around on though I know when Cosmic becomes viable for gaming I will probably head straight to Fedora Cosmic Edition. They already have the Spin posted on their site now just need System 76 to iron out all of the bugs in the Windows Environment. I have considered trying out Cinnamon but it's hard to want to give up the features in GNOME.

Edit - Well, think I'm already dropping Debian 12 since I went to play Stormgate and it says my system doesn't support Direct X12. Back to Fedora :P Which is also really weird since Steam's proton layers normally handle all of that.

 

[diapered]

I'm currently jumping around distros not sure where I will settle down for awhile again since I just went from Fedora (after using it a few months) to Pika, to Nobara, to Windows 11, to Nobara, and now Debian 12 because I got curious to what the Debian stable experience is with some of the offical releases of programs (Steam, Lutris, Discord) all being deb files. It does require more user set up and time spent in the Terminal than I had to in other distros.

Since you are distro hopping anyway, have you tried Garuda? Sorry if you already mentioned you had! I know @Leon likes it and is the one that sold me on it You both seem more hardcore than me though, so I like to hear opinions. The gamer assistant has the programs you mentioned and I'm curious how well the gamer assistant works for those programs from others (I don't have a need for steam or lutris).

In my experience though, some of the emulators wouldn't dl correctly using the gamer assistant... No biggie though, octopi installed perfectly what didn't through the assistant which is the only reason keeping me from recommending garuda to newbies: I think garuda could give manjaro or cachy a run for their money as being newbie friendly because so much works with minimal hassle, in my experience.

Cachy OS is pretty much designed to be a beginner friendly distro on Arch with one of the fastest kernels.

I still want to try that out, from the previous manjaro discussion, and see how beginner friendly it is and compare that experience with manjaro.

 

[SpikeSlania]

Since you are distro hopping anyway, have you tried Garuda? Sorry if you already mentioned you had! I know @Leon likes it and is the one that sold me on it You both seem more hardcore than me though, so I like to hear opinions. The gamer assistant has the programs you mentioned and I'm curious how well the gamer assistant works for those programs from others (I don't have a need for steam or lutris).

Garada never really came up on my radar, though I'm curious if it has the same issue I have other distros that use Arch repos and with how they gut the Gnome App Store unless it's just a front for Flathub. But I am curious on that itch.io assistant since there is a Sonic fan game on there that I couldn't figure out how to run with wine/proton. Sonic Boll. That has been the bane of my linux gaming experience of wanting to play fan games and not being able to get them to run properly. Other than Sonic Robo Blast 2 that has a Flatpak version of.

In my experience though, some of the emulators wouldn't dl correctly using the gamer assistant... No biggie though, octopi installed perfectly what didn't through the assistant which is the only reason keeping me from recommending garuda to newbies: I think garuda could give manjaro or cachy a run for their money as being newbie friendly because so much works with minimal hassle, in my experience.

I still want to try that out, from the previous manjaro discussion, and see how beginner friendly it is and compare that experience with manjaro.

Luckily I do all of my emulation under Batocera. I think Octopi comes preinstalled on Cachy and probably the most beginner friendly Terminal I have used Fish. Like it will detect what commands you're typing and give you autofill shadowed text. Though the one thing about CachyOS that is probably the same for most Arch distros that isn't beginner friendly is that when you want to check/run updates you have to bring up the terminal and type update. Luckily with their terminal that's all you type. And once the update is done it becomes a simple just type reboot and hit enter. But I personally like doing my updates through GUI interface instead of having to type in the terminal.

 

[MonkeyMondays]

I want to really bad switch 100% to Linux, but my wifi adapter throws a fit every time I'm in Linux and ethernet is not possible at my place. So far I tried Mint, Ubuntu, and another I can't remember and same issue. Everything runs so much smoother in Linux, I don't have my RAM being taken over by questionable apps, and games that would make my pc fans sound like an airplane lifting off no longer make my pc overheat.

 

[SpikeSlania]

I want to really bad switch 100% to Linux, but my wifi adapter throws a fit every time I'm in Linux and ethernet is not possible at my place. So far I tried Mint, Ubuntu, and another I can't remember and same issue. Everything runs so much smoother in Linux, I don't have my RAM being taken over by questionable apps, and games that would make my pc fans sound like an airplane lifting off no longer make my pc overheat.

If it's newer hardware for your wifi adapter you would want a "bleeding edge" distro like Arch and Fedora. But if it's just an obscure older adapter then you might be out of luck beyond searching for your model and seeing if someone posted a patch for that model on GitHub.

 

[diapered]

has the same issue I have other distros that use Arch repos and with how they gut the Gnome App Store unless it's just a front for Flathub.

Oh, ok I see. Yea, if it is a problem with the arch repos for your needs, then garuda might not be much better, but it might still be worth a shot...

But I personally like doing my updates through GUI interface instead of having to type in the terminal.

YES! I am the same way. I like garuda for the "main" garuda assistant for updates and other general maintenance like managing backups/snapshots: all with a nice gui ^_^ As for the gamer assistant, I can say it does setup up wine and winetricks, but like a said, duckstation wouldn't install using it, for example, and so I used octopi for that... So the gamer assistant "mostly" works >_> Not sure how effective it is for what you want...

I think Octopi comes preinstalled on Cachy

That's cool. I wish garuda was the same for newbie benefit, but they aren't trying to be beginner friendly (but I think for the most part they are!). As great as the gui assistants are for garuda, you do need to know to install octopi at setup if you are a newbie, and without research you won't know that...

Though the one thing about CachyOS that is probably the same for most Arch distros that isn't beginner friendly is that when you want to check/run updates you have to bring up the terminal and type update.

Not for Garuda ^_^ like I said, no need to use command line with garuda (unless you want to) which is why I ::heart garuda!

and probably the most beginner friendly Terminal I have used Fish.

That's the default terminal for Garuda as well.

 

[Leon]

Garada never really came up on my radar, though I'm curious if it has the same issue I have other distros that use Arch repos and with how they gut the Gnome App Store unless it's just a front for Flathub.

Garuda uses the chaotic aur and i believe asks you what installer app store programs you want, i can't remember all the differences between the aur and the chaotic aur, only that the chaotic aur is tested and certified aur packages to work under the os's configuration, garuda doesn't offer aur support out of the box, though you can activate it.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

I want to really bad switch 100% to Linux, but my wifi adapter throws a fit every time I'm in Linux and ethernet is not possible at my place. So far I tried Mint, Ubuntu, and another I can't remember and same issue. Everything runs so much smoother in Linux, I don't have my RAM being taken over by questionable apps, and games that would make my pc fans sound like an airplane lifting off no longer make my pc overheat.

Wifi drivers have often been a problem with both linux and windows. I always use ethernet to install OSs. Even got CPL here with plug adapters to bring ethernet on every floor via the electric cables and avoid packet loss when downloading critical updates.

If you cant get ethernet, try with USB tethering and your smartphone. Wifi antennas on smartphones are always better than the wifi you get on laptops, and USB tethering is usually available without tinkering.

Even with bleeding edge Arch here the wifi adapter on my laptop performs less well than on windows with the official drivers. In scenarios with few networks around and good signal it's working fine, but with low signal it tends to disconnect and bug out. And of course, I had to use the terminal to get it working, so if you're allergic to copy pasting command lines from well documented wiki pages and would be completely lost without a GUI, making wifi work on linux, any linux, might be a challenge... XD