I'm on Ubuntu Studio 24.04.3 LTS (Noble). I chose this over the newer 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) since 24 has support through 2027, and 25 only has it until Jan 2026. I figured this was the smarter move.

However, as was mentioned by one of you lovely people in my last post, some of my issues may be fixed in 25.04. My taskbar just froze up, and I found a sort of fix to restart Plasma, and it was mentioned this is fixed in Plasma 6, which is in 25.04. That said, I'm terrified of ruining everything haha, so I have more questions:

1: I'm assuming (hoping) this wouldn't be a full wipe and start over? It should just upgrade right?

2: Do I need to do the whole USB route, and if so is there an option to keep everything (I'm hoping, I put a LOT of work into this so far and I don't remember if that was an option on first install).

3: I remember a few apps I installed were specific to Noble, will this break those apps?

4: It seems like there should be an option to upgrade from the desktop, but I don't have that option. If I run

plasma-distro-release-notifier

I should get an update notification right? In which case I can just say "hell yeah!" and it'll do its thing?

I really appreciate all of you, you've made a super stressful experience slightly less stressful so cheers to you all!

It's been a week. Ubuntu Studio, and every day it's something. I swear Linux is the OS version of owning a boat, it's constant maintenance. Am I dumb, or doing something wrong?

After many issues, today I thought I had shit figured out, then played a game for the first time. All good, but the intro had some artifacts. I got curious, I have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and thought that was weird. Looked it up, turns out Linux was using lvmpipe. Found a fix. Now it's using my card, no more clipping, great!. But now my screen flickers. Narrowed it down to Vivaldi browser. Had to uninstall, which sucks and took a long time to figure out. Now I'm on Librewolf which I liked on windows but it's a cpu hungry bitch on Linux (eating 3.2g of memory as I type this). Every goddamned time I fix something, it breaks something else.

This is just one of many, every day, issues.

I'm tired. I want to love Linux. I really do, but what the hell? Windows just worked.

I've resigned myself to "the boat life" but is there a better way? Am I missing something and it doesn't have to be this hard, or is this what Linux is? If that's just like this I'm still sticking cause fuck Microsoft but you guys talk like Linux should be everyone's first choice. I'd never recommend Linux to anyone I know, it doesn't "just work".

EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who blew up my post, I didn't expect this many responses, this much advice, or this much kindness. You're all goddamned gems!

To paraphrase my username's namesake, because of @SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone and his apt gif (also, Mr. Flickerman, when I record I often shout about Clem Fandango)...

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall GNU/LINUX OS grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail."

I've been working and testing to switch my main PC (used for work like audio recording, music, and general multimedia) and have been playing with Ubuntu Studio on my laptop. Loving it so far but I keep seeing people talk about CachyOS, Bazzite, or the new Debian Trixie.

I'm having trouble finding what's really different about all these distros aside from how they look or slight changes in how they do things (I know Ubuntu Studio has a low latency kernel which seems important for what I need to do). Is there a big difference? Like, if I go with Ubuntu Studio am I gonna end up wiping everything and installing CachyOS or Bazzite or something in a month because it's better? Or are all these distros basically the same thing with a different look and feel and as long as I choose one that gets regular updates, it doesn't matter fundamentally?

I'm trying to grasp the Linux concept but being a Windows user my whole life I'm struggling to 'get it'. Instead of trying to understand in the contex of Windows or Mac, is a better comparison Apple/Android? Like iPhones would be similar to both Mac and Windows (you don't get to choose much) and Android would be Linux (I know it's built on it haha) and it's really just a bunch of different options to do the same thing?

Before I fully make the switch to Linux I'm looking for options to replace an old Windows program called SCRU. You set a folder to watch, and an output folder and it automatically copies specified extensions or extracts rar into the output folder.

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to do this in terminal and haven't dug into scripts yet, just want to know of it's possible.

I made the switch! Well mostly, my main PC that I use for work (audio, music, etc) is still Windows for now while I figure out if I can do what I need with Linux. 3 days ago I threw Mint on my old laptop (which I don't use much for testing as it's still slow, even with Linux) and wanted to use my main laptop to test for switching my PC. Unfortunately it's a Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra, which apparently has issues with Linux hardware-wise. I got everything up and running (except for the webcam which was expected) and found Ubuntu Studio, which seems to basically be Ubuntu with auto-install of a suite of audio and video programs, and a low latency kernel (whatever that means. I'll get there to figure it out eventually).

I've learned a LOT. Pulling in Windows vst files through Wine and yabridge was a journey. Every time I fixed an issue and took a step forward, I encountered a new one haha. But, I got it working. I LOVED figuring out the problems, even if I wanted to pull my hair out. The terminal is...really neat.

Anyway it's important to me to try and learn the how/why as I go so here's my question. Librewolf. It installs via terminal, and I'm having issues on Ubuntu Studio. I tried it on Mint and it installed fine. Ubuntu studio however throws up this error: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 76F1A20FF987672F

I tried sudo apt-get install -f (which I think looks for missing dependencies and stuff?) but no go. Since both distros are Debian, I'm guessing the biggest difference between Mint and Ubuntu Studio is the kernel? I've been able to fix things with missing dependencies but I'm guessing the public key is something different?

ELI5, why does it work on Mint and not Ubuntu Studio?

Edit: Got it thanks to u/frongt I added the key and it's all good!

Execute the following commands in terminal

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys

where is your missing public key for repository, e.g. 8BAF9A6F.

Then update

sudo apt-get update

Back again haha, I asked a little while ago about making the switch from Windows to Linux and general consensus was maybe don't, as I use my PC for work doing voice acting, music production, and digital art.

Anyway, my PC has been crashing lately so I may be at the point soon of re-installing my OS, so I may as well bite the bullet if/when that happens. Right now I'm making some backups, making a list of Linux programs I'll need, and just trying to get my ducks in a row so I'm not scrambling if I wake up one morning and have to do the thing. Which brings me to Distros.

I've done some research into it but already but there are a bunch of options (thinking maybe Bazzite or Fedora?), and I'd rather know what I'm going with if my PC dies so I don't have to waste time trying to figure it out then. My PC specs are:

Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11400F @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

Obviously the priority is to get up and running but I'd really like to use a distro that I can learn some as well. I've installed Mint on an old laptop (recommended for being similar to Windows) but ideally I'd like a distro that's a bit more Linux-y. I'm ok taking some extra time getting up and running, though I'm not at a point for something like Arch yet haha.

EDIT: Wow, lots of comments, thanks! I think I've been overthinking it overall based on these responses. I have Mint on my old laptop and it works well, but had issues on my main laptop (Samsung Book3 Ultra) which I've read has to do with Samsung in general. I also had some issues with Nvidia on it but that may have been a Samsung issue more than anything else. My main PC uses Nvidia so I was under the impression that some distros just don't play well with it and wanted to make sure I used one that worked well with that graphics card.

Bottom line, I've been looking into Linux over the past few weeks and there's still distros mentioned here that I've never heard of haha. It seems really intimidating (hence why I asked) but I'm getting the impression that, at least for now, I'll just go Fedora to start when I bite the bullet. Arch looks really interesting but again, seems intimidating coming from Windows.

A few days ago I asked about taking the big leap, but I use my PC for work in the arts (voice over, music, digital art, etc).

I've been playing around with Bitwig to replace Cubase and ideally Adobe Audition. It's... a learning curve but I'm willing to make it work if I can get everything about my PC lined up with Linux.

I then discovered Wine and Proton. So, they're basically bridges that allow you to use some Windows programs in Linux? I read they can use vst files with a bit of work, and people have had some success with Cubase, though Adobe is still right out but I'd love to get away from Adobe anyway. Also games??

Is there a difference between Wine and Proton or are they basically just different programs that do the same thing? The big leap might be more feasible than I thought if they do what I think they do.

Edit: This seems like it could suit most of my needs. I need to do more research into it but you guys answered my questions. Appreciate you all taking the time, thanks!

This PC is basically my life, I use it for work (freelance business), entertainment, and to self host a server so I'm hesitant. I have a handful of questions for now while I look into it more:

1. I'd prefer not to dual boo, but it might be the safest way to start? If I dual boot, get used to Linux and (hopefully) get everything I need working, can I then go from dual boot to erasing the Windows partition and recombining so I then only have Linux installed and can keep the work and programs I already installed on Linux?

2. I do voiceover work, music production, and digital art/photography. Anyone else here do all this and what programs would you recommened to replace Audition, Photoshop, and Cubase?

--2.1. Regarding music production, has anyone successfully used vst files from Windows on Linux?

3. The drives for my server are NTFS. Does anyone have experience with this format on Linux (I use Emby)?

4. My bread and butter right now is voice acting so I NEED everything to play nice. I've read there might be some issues with drivers for my hardware, namely Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 and Behringer UV1. Anyone have any experience with this?

EDIT: Wow that's a lot of responses. I'd like to respond to each but I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the info haha. I think I'm gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out. Thanks to everyone, I've got a tonne to mull over now. Appreciate it!

I've always been intrigued, but never got around to any of his films. They seem to have a very unique "flavour", like I can almost taste his style, which I find really interesting.

Should I start with Bottle Rocket and go through by release date, or is there a recommended film to start with?