While I don’t know how, I do know that there is a way to have mesa for most things while having AMF encoder for encoding. Nobara has this set up out of the box so there is some way. Maybe you could search for it using a search engine
Does it really? I know when I looked into it a bit ago the main dev for nobara had a video about how to install it and use it but it didn’t let you split that out. You could quickly change back and forth between mesa and amdgpu but if you tried to run amf with mesa it would hard lock and crash
It has been some time since I tried out Nobara so I might be wrong. I just remember that Nobara page lists having amf encoder support out of the box as a feature
If I'm being totally honest, my primary use-case is gaming. I only have linux installed on my device, and if a game doesn't work, I simply play other things and hope it will eventually work.
Sometimes, with some effort, you can get windows programs to work using wine. For example, I was able to run Mod Organizer 2 to mod skyrim without issues. If that fails and your software won't work in wine, you could either find alternative native linux software or just dual-boot. I used to do that to play VR games in windows 10 since I've had issues running them in linux. Another option is to run a windows Virtual Machine whenever you need whatever software you can't get working, but there's pretty bad performance limitations unless you can get hardware passthrough working.
I come across Windows-only apps very seldom, when it happens I run them in a VM. It’s usually stuff like proprietary config app for a mouse or keyboard.
If you need Windows-specific programs, you need Windows.
However, “need” is an overused term. Think about what tasks you want to accomplish, not what software you want to use.
Linux has software available for all tasks a computer can do. Some are sub-par and some aren’t widely used which makes professional collaboration impossible.
But for most tasks and most computer users, Linux-supporting software is perfectly fine and sometimes better than the Windows equivalent.
If you have to use a program that is windows only you have to use windows. I could move our entire company over to Linux if it wasn’t for SOLIDWORKS been windows only.
Wine can be an option but I’ve found it very hit and miss on some of the more obscure windows only programs
In the past I’ve used virtual box (virtual machine) in seamless mode, so it looks just like a window in Linux. I can’t remember why I stopped, I think it was down to licencing and oracle buying it.
Wine/Proton can run a huge amount of Windows programs.
Honestly though I’ve just been using Linux for 8 or so years now and just find some other solution. For general computing it really isn’t hard at all. Perhaps if you have some weird proprietary work software or absolutely need Adobe it could be an issue
Wine/Proton can run a huge amount of Windows programs.
Except for everything that people usually want such as the latest MS Office. Or that nice program developed for Windows 98 that works flawlessly under Windows 11 and it totally broken under Wine.
A lot of programs I work with very often are Windows-exclusive, and alternatives supporting Linux are rare.
Consider mentioning the programs you work with. On a general note, Wine can be used to make Windows-software work on Linux. Bottles can be used to that effect as a front-end. Furthermore, for a more sophisticated solution; consider taking a look at CodeWeavers.
About a year ago I was lucky on eBay, winning an old Acer Switch Alpha 12 for ~95€ including shipping. I think it was released about 2016.
Even if it shows a lot of signs of wear, it is still a very good device. I received it with Windows 11, but of course I didn’t want use it like that. 4 gigs of ram aren’t enough for that anyway.
So I installed Fedora. (Had to rename the uefi boot entry for it to boot from disk. This is described elsewhere online but if you read this post and wonder how to do it, please dm me and I’ll be happy to help.)
Now this is my primary device for when I’m away from my desktop PC. Gnome is stunning on 2-in-1s IMO, much better than Windows would ever be.
Hardware wise everything works just fine out of the box, apart from the rear camera which isn’t recognized, but I wouldn’t use that anyway.
Honestly, the Switch Alpha 12 is the poor man’s MS Surface and I think it’s a shame that Acer has apparently given up on this device class. For now I’m happy to use this pc for as long as I can.
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