I know people have had problems with linux but man I have installed it on so many laptops with no issues. I mean way back in the aughts it was different but in the 20’s I have had worse problems with windows.

My 2 cents:

Never, under any circumstances, use CachyOS or any other Arch-based distribution if you’re a Linux newbie. Arch assumes you know your way around the system, know how to fix this or that, and which package you miss to make the sound work. It is, by all means, “move fast and break stuff”.

That’s OK. Maybe sticking with Windows is what’s best for you.

CachyOS might be a bit too ambitious for a transition like that. Tinkering and optimizing is a given on arch-based system.

Don’t get discouraged though and give Fedora, Ubuntu or even Bazzite a go I’d say. You can try out the sound in their live environment without having to install anything.

Those kind of hardware incompatibilities do happen. I think the audio one can be troubleshooted but I have absolutely no idea about the nvidia one.

Hopefully your hardware gets supported on Linux one day.

Burning an ISO to a DVD in 2026 as a way to test out Linux is crazy…

Sometimes I think people just want to justify their choice to stay in Windows and try to have a bad experience.

In Kubuntu, I was able to get my HT Omega Fenix sound card to work (switching profile to the correct spdif output), but the Audioengine D3 only works at 100% volume. This is the kind of thing that it’s like cool if it’s a one time thing. But you just know if it can’t work out of the box for something like a USB DAC, it’s not gonna be all fun down the line for other more specialized hardware I try to use.

I also tried getting 4:2:0 subsampling to work in an X11 session in Kubuntu. I was able to get there editing xorg.conf (which is annoying having to edit a config file - no option for it in the Nvidia X Server settings). 4K120 over HDMI works in principle, but then Night Light’s hue becomes green instead of red.

Additionally, Kubuntu (KDE Plasma) was the best looking and functional desktop I found when browsing various ones (it has the taskbar customization settings I want built in), but it still just feels kind of cheap to me. The early 2000s looking pngs everywhere, the transparency and jiggling in window dragging, very basic looking UI icons. It feels more cute and amateurish rather than serious, visuals and design wise.

I understand it’s free software which is awesome but yeah all of this is not working for me. Gonna stop my search for now after trying CachyOS and Kubuntu. Maybe when SteamOS is in full wide-release mode I will try that.

Thank you everyone.

works for me three years ago now when I switched, I use Mint, no issues. AMD CPU and integrated GPU, dual booted for a month and stopped using windows, formatted the NVME and installed LDME from a USB thumb drive, using that ever since.

Dude, I wanna tell you that success is possible.

On this one daily driver of a 6-year-old machine. I installed proxmox. Then a desktop on top of that. Then I made the USB keyboard, mouse, and sound, go into that internal machine with the video card. Then I plugged all that shit into a USB KVM, then a 20ft set of USB and video cables to my desk, where the USB is hubbed to the ends of sanity itself before it comes out to a USB mouse, keyboard, and sound dongle. Video goes to the panels clamped onto this desk.

Works. It defies logic, threatens one spec and probably breaks a low of nature and more than one of decency, but it works.

Your way-better gear should really work like gangbusters. Please keep at it in case the solution is right there.

Tbh, this in specific is why I still have a win7 pc for my music enjoyment.

Not that audio can’t work fine on Linux, it absolutely can. But it doesn’t always, and it’s definitely not as friendly to an external DAC unless you get lucky. Mine works fine overall, but it’s still not quite as reliable. The signal cuts out, etc. Works better on my laptop than my desktop, though the laptop I’ve never had any issues, despite using the same distro when I had Linux on that desktop.

Me? In your place I’d try some other distros before full on quitting, but I’m a glutton for punishment because I enjoy fiddling up to a point. Mint, maybe one of the more noob friendly arch options, something along those lines. PopOs might be an okay starting place to see if it’s Linux, or a distro issue. I do know that pulse and the other audio functions vary some between distros, though I’m nowhere near capable of understanding why without learning other things first. I do know that when I tried cachy via a live drive last, it was pissy about sounding decent straight out of the box, so I abandoned it without an install.

Either way, I totally get it. Some things, it isn’t about adapting to the system, you just want shit to work the way it should. Music is one of those things for me too.

I have never tried Catchy, but some distros require more setup and maintenance than others.

Currently I have Debian and Pop os as my main distros. Those two have worked almost without issue compared to other distros I tried. Troubleshooting and learning how your computer actually works is part of the fun with Linux though. I used to get really discouraged when something on my computer would not work, but I realized that was mainly due to not understanding how to fix it. With Linux you can fix it yourself and it teaches you how to be patient and learn to solve computer issues on your own.

1. Audio is always an issue. I still have issues with Audio on some distros. like on Void I couldn’t get audio working at all to save my life. Try a different distro like Fedora or Debian if you want it to work out of the box. if you’re looking for a gaming focused distro like CachyOS try PikaOS which is a fork of Debian. by far one of the quickest and most straight forward installs i’ve ever experienced.

2. you don’t have to use Wayland, I don’t. I can’t stand wayland. I use X11 with Picom. I use DWM cause it just works. if you want a desktop environment then use XFCE4. that just works and is very light weight.

But honestly at the end of the day if Windows works for you and still works for you then just stick with it. Don’t listen to the people who say “wah wah windows bad” it doesn’t matter. Use whatever works. I mean I use every OS on various machines because I honestly enjoy playing around with Operating Systems. I use Linux, BSD, Windows, MacOS on various machines. there’s no perfect OS out there and I’ve used them all. just use what works for you and your hardware.

Hmmh. Isn’t there some way to fix those two issues? I mean it’s usually the case that we have to put in some effort when starting fresh. You probably put in time to get the audio how you like it with Windows, and configured the display subsampling to your liking and now that’s all set up perfectly. And now you’re trying to set up the computer in a different way. And I’d expect that to sometimes come with a bit of friction?! At least it won’t just continue exactly as is, because you’re starting fresh with a new operating system.

If you really like to switch… I think configuring a USB DAC should be possible. Not sure about the Nvidia stuff. You’d have to blame the big companies for deliberately messing up HDMI. And LG for not providing any alternative. I mean if it’s worth the effort for you, you could try asking for help. If you’re okay with Windows and like to avoid starting all over again, maybe just stick with it?!

I mean it’s going to be some sort of tradeoff anyway. Currently you have the subsampling right. Maybe on the flipside your CPU performance is worse than it could be with Linux. And it’s a bit wasteful with the memory and spies on you. With Linux that might improve, but you might trade it in for a few different quirks. Computers rarely come anywhere close to being perfect. But you can pick your poison.

Buy Linux-compatible hardware. NOT NVidia.

Just use win11. Ignore the doomers