Getting a New Desktop

[Joe]

A quick search on Google says that most top-notch CGI artists these days use MacOS or Windows and Linux is used mostly to create networks to use on render farms, Joe

Linux doesn't have drivers for Nvidia GPUs, high-end gaming and software is not recommended on that platform, AMD GPUs can do some gaming, of course, it's gonna be limited on which games can run natively on Linux and you'd need Steam to have a decent library of games running

Once again, you seem to be more confused than certain, although not 100% wrong.

I'm interested in trying out Linux since that Mac I got can run it @RANCIDMILKO ™ ®©

Theres some high end software that can run on it like Maya Flame Substance Painter Steam.

The Hollywood studios use it but probably have to customize the software with an army of programmers to make it work.

Somehow I dont think it's an out of the box solution like Windows or Mac. I've seen ads asking for people who can use these high end software on the linux platform. But then they add..." Must know C++ & Python Scripting."

If Linux was easier to use I suspect a lot more people would use it. But as it stands now it's more of a niche market.

And yeah I seem to remember in the specs that a lot of linux based apps asked for AMD not NVIDIA as much. And their preferred linux flavor is Centos or Rocky Linux.

 

[Neil B. Formi]

I'm interested in trying out Linux since that Mac I got can run it @RANCIDMILKO ™ ®©

Theres some high end software that can run on it like Maya Flame Substance Painter Steam.

The Hollywood studios use it but probably have to customize the software with an army of programmers to make it work.

Somehow I dont think it's an out of the box solution like Windows or Mac. I've seen ads asking for people who can use these high end software on the linux platform. But then they add..." Must know C++ & Python Scripting."

If Linux was easier to use I suspect a lot more people would use it. But as it stands now it's more of a niche market.

And yeah I seem to remember in the specs that a lot of linux based apps asked for AMD not NVIDIA as much. And their preferred linux flavor is Centos or Rocky Linux.

Most professional-grade audio and visual apps are indeed still geared toward macOS or Windows, with macOS being the stronger preference for professional output but Windows having the wider selection.

That wider selection also tends to include a lot more... well, putting it bluntly, garbage. The weakness of Apple's walled garden is also its strength: Less subpar trash gets in.

Conversely, Windows' strength is also its weakness: Hyperfocus on compatibility to the near-exclusion of attention to optimization. In some workflows, you can do more on a Mac with 8Gb of memory than you can on a Windows machine packing 16 -- not because of any "magic math", but because macOS uses every kilobyte of that memory so much more efficiently than Windows does.

But back to Linux. The best reason for a casual user to prefer Linux over Windows or macOS is privacy and control over their system. Both Microsoft and (more and more, recently) Apple have user-privacy-disrespecting stances. Microsoft collects user data constantly, even passing it on to at least one known third-party data brokerage business (Scorecard Research.) Apple's tight cooperation with Google strongly implies, at least, that it's probably doing the same thing.

And both strongly push cloud storage like OneDrive and iCloud -- users are well advised to remember that there is no such thing as "the cloud" -- only other peoples' storage hardware. It's like taking all your most sensitive personal documents and storing them in your neighbor's garage.

 

[Lily]

Im doing that with Arduino. Building stuff and learning code. I have several boxes of electronics in my "workspace" and it's a fun hobby

My son has been building his own gaming computers for years. His last one was about 3 years ago.