It's Not Me Microsoft, it's you... Switching my whole family to Linux

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]I just did something over the last couple weeks that I didn't think would ever be possible. Every PC in my house is now entirely Windows free. And I'm not just talking about my PCs, but my family's PCs, too. Today, we're going to take a look at some of the gaming hardware that I'm running here at home, what OS I'm running, and more importantly, is everyone happy?

[00:00:28]Welcome back to Craft Computing everyone. As always, I'm Jeff. Quite a few years ago, I did a video where I built my wife and I a dual battle station up in our living room. While the initial goal was to deploy a cloud gaming server in the garage and then run either thin clients or desktops at that desk, that never quite materialized.

[00:00:46]Instead, we've been gaming on mid-tier ITX desktops, both to save on our very limited space at the desk and to keep both the noise and the heat to a minimum. Up until recently, my wife was gaming on what you might call a little bit of a dated system. She had a Ryzen 5 2600 sixcore CPU, 16 GB of DDR4, a 512 GB NVME, and an absolute powerhouse of a GPU in a GTX 1070Ti.

[00:01:12]While not exactly modern, it did exactly what she wanted to most of the time. Her games library includes mostly strategy and worldbuilding games. things like Jurassic Park Evolution, Stardew Valley, Balders's Gate 3, POW World, Schedule One, Crab Champions, and most recently Dinkham. Now, none of her games outside of Crab Champions are necessarily Twitch shooters or massively multiplayer, and she didn't have any problem running any of those games at 90 FPS or higher, but she was also on Windows 10 still. And with 512 gigs of storage, it was starting to feel a bit cramped. So, we had a couple of choices. upgrade her to Windows 11 with an upgraded storage drive just so she can deal with all of the co-pilot integrations and constant headaches around updates and data collection or and this was entirely her idea. Do I have to install Windows?

[00:02:02]You ever spent 20 years married to the love of your life and then she says something and you fall in love with her all over again?

[00:02:11]Yeah.

[00:02:13]She had also seen the Minis Forum G1 Pro come in for review and really liked the idea of an even smaller desktop than she was currently using. So once my review for that machine had wrapped up, she staked her claim. I installed Basite and migrated all of her files onto the new machine. Now the G1 Pro is absolutely overkill for what she needs. Honestly, speed-wise, the Ryzen 2600 and 1070Ti were keeping up just fine at 1080p. Her new rig includes a Ryzen 9 8945HX 16 core CPU, 32 GB of DDR5, a 1 TB gen 4x4 NVME drive, and a desktop RTX 5060 8 GB card. Now, something to keep in mind is my wife has never used a Linux PC before. We talked about some of the potential issues and the differences that might come up between running Windows 10 and running Basite or really any other form of Linux, but for the most part, I wanted her to just use the PC without me dictating to her how she should use the PC. Linux community, you could probably take some notes from this. We compared her games list to Proton DB and found basically no issues when it came to compatibility with her games and most of her software. I installed Basite. We logged her into her Steam account for gaming and installed Chrome via the App Store and logged her into her Google accounts and off she went. All of her games installed natively in Steam with just a single click. And because all of this work that Valve has done making games compatible with the Steam Deck, Proton integration to make Windows games work in Linux is basically invisible in most cases now.

[00:03:47]See a game in the Steam store or in your library that you want to play? Just click install. Steam will automatically use the latest version of Proton, which in most cases just kind of works. If for some reason your game encounters bugs or incompatibilities, you can specify which version of Proton you want to run in the compatibility settings for each game.

[00:04:06]But in my wife's testing, she only had to change the version for a single game.

[00:04:10]Everything else literally worked right out of the box. For the most part, my wife has told me that her experience has been pretty darn seamless, and she's more than happy that she made the switch. But that's not to say this decision is right for everyone or that there haven't been any problems. While the Linux community owes a huge debt of gratitude to Valve's engineers for investing so heavily into technologies like Wine, DXVK, and Proton and then making all of them open source, application compatibility outside of gaming is still very much a your mileage may vary situation. For instance, you all know that I'm a creative type with multiple CNC machines like 3D printers and laser engravers. My wife is actually similarly coded in that aspect and has both a Cricut vinyl cutter and a Jome embroidery machine. And while my machines have native ports for Slicer and LightBurn for native compatibility, that's not the case with programs like Cricut or Hatch. It seems if you have a CNC based hobby that lands on the more masculine side of the gender spectrum, there's likely a Linux native control software out there for you, whether it be for laser engraving, 3D printing, or CNC routing. But if you cut shapes out of vinyl or fabric, you'd better keep a Windows machine around. And that brings us to machine number two in our dueling battle station setup, my main gaming PC.

[00:05:30]Now, you might think Jeff from Craft Computing is probably rocking a Ryzen 9950X3D2 with 128 GB of RAM, 8 TB of NVME storage, and an RTX5090.

[00:05:42]But that actually couldn't be further from the truth. This is a living room PC where other people have to exist often doing different things like watching TV, playing computer at one of the multiple stations, or just existing in the same space with other people. As such, I don't need my PC pumping out 800 watts of heat and noise energy. My rig is actually fairly modest. It's a Ryzen 5 5600G with an RTX 5060 8 GB. And that 5060 is actually a recent upgrade. Up until last fall, I was actually running an RTX 3050 8 gigabyte card. You know, the card that every tech reviewer on the planet said was an absolute waste of silicon. Do you know why I would go with such an underpowered card in my primary gaming rig when I could choose literally any other GPU in my collection?

[00:06:32]Power draw. Like I mentioned, this whole setup is in my living room, which means we have exactly one 20 amp circuit to run everything in that room. This includes three separate gaming PCs, a 75-in TV, a soundbar, a Nintendo Switch, laptops, a printer, and as a twist of fate, the living room shares an outlet with the dining room, which just so happens to be where our window mount air conditioning unit goes, which means during the summer, I can't have my gaming PCs drawing 1,200 W of power because that's what the air conditioner is doing. Even just a pair of 500 W gaming machines plus an air conditioner is all it takes to pop a circuit. And we have popped that circuit before. And to be honest, if I'm just playing games for the sake of sitting down, relaxing, and playing games, I've never been one to worry about is graphics settings all the way to the max. Am I getting all 144 of my hertz that my monitor can deliver? Am I pixel peeping DLSS for anomalies and fan blades or whatever else? No, I'm sitting down to play games. While I've sunk countless hours into games like Cyberpunk, Red Dead Redemption 2, Oblivion Remaster, Borderlands 4, my library is also equal parts Stardew Valley, Dinkham, Crab Champions, Astanineir, Fallout 4, GTA 5, Rocket League, Tearown, and dozens of other games that today can run on a literal potato. For every Indiana Jones in the Lost Circle, there's a Stanley Parable.

[00:08:01]For every Kingdom Come Deliverance, there's a gunpoint. You don't need thousands in hardware to play games. You only need that if your standards won't let you drop the graphics slider down a couple of notches to play games and simply enjoy them. For me, Basite has also been nearly perfect. While I obviously love tinkering, when I'm playing games, I just want to play games. I'm not there to be judgmental or to pixel peep or to, you know, stress out a gaming machine. I just want to play games. One thing I especially love doing in my free time is reexploring older games, which is also a fantastic use case for Linux with all of its recently discovered compatibility layers. Windows, the operating system as a whole, is known for being incredibly backwards compatible, right? If a game was made for Windows, it'll probably run on all versions of Windows, but that's not exactly true and becomes less true the further back you go. Windows 7 games, for the most part, will just fire up fine on Windows 10 or Windows 11, but modern hardware drivers have also been known to drop compatibility for APIs used by older games. Things like Nvidia Physics in games like Borderlands 2 and GTA 4. But for the most part, games will work pretty much without issue. But trying to install a game from Windows XP or even Windows 98 days, you're going to have a bad time trying to get those to work inside of Windows 11. The funny thing is you might have better luck with Linux as compatibility layers are a bit more focused on specific generations of APIs and hardware like bringing DirectX9 compatibility forward. Just this last weekend, in fact, my kids were asking me about games that I played when I was younger and I didn't quite have the heart to tell them that I used to play games like Stunts, Wheel of Fortune, and Bugs Bunny's Maniac Mansion in DOSs. But we did have a grand old time playing Spore, Diablo II, and Simcopter. And all those games ran perfectly inside of Bazi through Lutris with the help of an API called GE Proton. GE Proton is a community fork of Valve Proton by user Glorious Egg Roll and includes fixes for some of those affforementioned issues, basically offering more backward compatibility than Proton itself. GE Proton also solves some more modern problems like easy anti-che compatibility. None of the games that me or my wife play requires kernel level antiche. So that really hasn't been an issue for us. But that's not to say that everyone will be fine avoiding those titles. If you've tried gaming on Linux and for whatever reason Valve's Proton isn't getting the job done for you, I highly recommend giving GE Proton a try.

[00:10:38]Now, for about the last year, we've had a third station in the living room. We bought another really inexpensive desk from IKEA and we've been using a laptop on that desk when me, my wife, and my sister or some of my kids all want to play games together. But now that the kids are older and my sister has moved in with us, this his and hers battle station has evolved into more of a free-for-all of which PC is available at whatever time. It's time to start adding some more permanent machines for more people. Minis Form just sent over their G7 Pro for review. And I figured it's the perfect form factor for the living room. So, let's take a quick look at this right now and see if it meets the needs of general use living room PC while also running Linux. Starting off, the G7 Pro is skinny, like impressively thin, which makes sense as the internals are technically all based off of mobile hardware instead of desktop hardware.

[00:11:35]We've got an Intel Core i9 14900HX.

[00:11:38]It's a 24 core CPU featuring 8P cores and 16 efficiency cores with a max clock of 5.8 GHz. While it is a mobile part, it is still more than capable of drawing up to 157 watts of power. Though, you can limit CPU power in the BIOS by switching between game mode and work mode. As I'm aiming for quiet fans and low power draw, I'll be opting for work mode in my testing. We've got 32 GB of DDR55200 memory on a pair of sodium sticks, which means you can upgrade the memory if you wish. There's also a 1 TB NVME drive and a second M.2 slot for future expansion if you need more storage. As for graphics, this is running the RTX 5070 Max Q mobile GPU, which sounds more impressive than it actually is. The 5070 mobile is not using the same GB 205 GPU die as the RTX 570 desktop chip. instead opting for the GB 206 shared by the desktop RTX 5060.

[00:12:36]So, if you're paying attention, yes, all three of our gaming desktops are going to be running some variant of the GB 206 GPU die and the RTX 560. Specifically, we're looking at 4,68 CUDA cores, 48 rocks, and just 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128 bit bus, putting this card much closer to the RTX 5060 in terms of performance.

[00:12:56]Power on the Max Q is also limited to just 115 watts as well, which might be good for my use case, but is going to fall a bit flat in terms of performance compared to a desktop RTX 5070 card.

[00:13:08]Because we're dealing with laptop internals, idle power draw is all the way down to 40 W, which is pretty darn solid for a gaming PC. While gaming, I saw between 150 and 200 watts being pulled from the wall depending on the game being played. And again being in the lower power work mode in the BIOS.

[00:13:26]As I'm running Linux, Minis Forum doesn't have any app to control system power from the OS and is still a pretty major blind spot for most PC and handheld makers. Like I said, as far as the form factor, it's hard to build a PC that takes up any less room. The footprint is just 81 mm wide, including the foot that's on this PC. So, placing this machine against the wall or behind a monitor, it basically disappears.

[00:13:53]Unfortunately, I'm also not loving how tall this system is. It is a bit topheavy and I can push just about 15° on the top of this and it wants to tilt.

[00:14:06]It wants to fall over every single time.

[00:14:08]I have knocked this PC over twice in the last week while it's been here on my desk. It's a PC that looks great, but I can see being a major headache if you have an active household like I do.

[00:14:22]There are a couple other things that I'm not thrilled about with the G7 Pro either. For starters, the power supply on the G1 Pro that I took a look at is fully internal, so you can plug in a standard C-15 PC power cable and not have to worry about power bricks taking up desk space or dangling below. The G7 Pro, on the other hand, has this pretty massive 280 watt power brick that takes up, I kid you not, more foot space than the PC itself. I'd much rather have a slightly thicker PC, maybe that's a little bit more bottomheavy, than a super topheavy chassis that tips over with the slightest bump, and a power brick that breaks its fall. Port selection on the G7 Pro is also not great. On the rear, we've got a single HDMI and a single display port for video output. Not bad. We've got two display outs, right? We've got 2.5 GB Ethernet, a single USB 4 type-C port, and a single USB typeA port. That might be passable if the laptop internals in this machine included things like a monitor, a keyboard, a trackpad, all on board, as they would on a laptop. But these are pretty significant connections when you're using a desktop PC. Sure, there is an additional USBC and two type AA's on the front, but I'm going to want to use those ports for hot plug items like flash drives, not for your keyboard and mouse to be permanently plugged into the front. There's just not enough expansion on the back of this to be worth a darn.

[00:15:54]Like I said, Minis Forum doesn't have any Linux apps for adjusting things like power profiles or even the RGB lighting.

[00:16:01]So, what you get is pretty much just the rainbow effect that's on here right now.

[00:16:06]As more people are interested in checking out Linux, these apps are going to be more and more of a selling point and requirement for buyers moving forward, especially for niche OEMs like Minis Forum. That being said, every device inside of here worked 100% out of the box inside of Basite. Over the last four or five years, Linux driver support has become the expectation for most new hardware, and is not so surprising that things like an RTX 570 are working perfectly right out of the box. But everything from Ethernet to Wi-Fi to audio and even the card reader and sleep functionality worked without any additional setup. Overall, I'm not terribly impressed with the G7 Pro. It's fine hardware, don't get me wrong there, but the form factor is just a miss for me, especially with what Minism has done on the G1 Pro or other mini workstations in their lineup. Port selection is a definite weakness here, and the lack of options for wall mounting or even Vessa mounting means you're always going to have a tip hazard in this $1,500 PC. Add to that the external power brick, and the G7 feels more of a hassle than it might otherwise be worth. If it were me, I would ignore the G7 entirely in favor of the G1 Pro. with a desktop GPU on the G1 Pro, at least you have the option of upgrading in the future, even if you do need to modify the IO shield to do so.

[00:17:27]The G7 Pro using the RTX 570 Max Q doesn't have any real benefit either.

[00:17:33]It's sticking with the same 8 GB of GDDR7, the same 128 bit bus, and you can't upgrade this in the future. You're going to have the exact same limitations on this graphics card as you are on the RTX 5068 gig. So, I'd rather have the expansion capability in the future than a boltedon version in this, but add in the slightly wider stance, shorter overall frame, less tophavy chassis, and the internal power supply, and I think the G1 Pro is a much better designed small form factor machine. Overall, so some final thoughts on the Linux transition to my entire family who have never used Linux before. I think it's going pretty darn well. Not only are all the desktops up in our living room, including the G7 Pro, which will be going up there shortly, all running Basite, my oldest has a Lenovo Legion Goto that also runs Basite. In total, we're down to just two Windows machines in the house. My wife still has a Microsoft Surface Goto, which we use for packing and shipping out merch over at craftcomputing.store.

[00:18:35]You should totally go check that out, as well as running uh Cricut and Hatch on her laptop to run her creator machines.

[00:18:42]Now, my sister does play some online games which do require antiche and we haven't found the perfect solution in Linux yet, but she is also hopeful that she can ditch Linux along with the rest of us and our machines to get us a full matching set here in the house. After a full month, I don't see our living room PCs going back to Windows. I was going to say anytime soon, but ever. They have been rock solid stable. The games we play all run without any voodoo or witch doctors required. We've even installed non- Steam games and non- Steam mods in Dinkham, Oblivion, and Stardew Valley, and those have all worked fantastically well. My wife and my sister, I think, represent what the average Windows user or average Windows gamer actually are.

[00:19:28]They're not tech experts. They're not enthusiasts, and they either don't understand or don't listen to what I'm saying 99% of the time when it comes to things like this. But inside of their social circles, they've even started questioning whether or not they want to deal with the headache that comes from Windows 11 from all the things that they've heard. The inoperating system ad delivery, suspect privacy concerns, the C-pilot integrations into every nook and cranny, the instability, the inability to manage your own PC down to forced updates and feature changes and removal of features at the whim of Microsoft.

[00:20:01]You know, the rest of the user base is probably considering alternatives as well. Change is coming to the PC landscape, and if Mindshare is already starting to slip away from Microsoft, large numbers of migrating users may not be far behind. I hope you enjoyed a quick look at the hardware and software I actually use to play games when I'm not down here in my office. But I do want to know, have you made the switch to Linux for gaming or productivity?

[00:20:28]Have you gotten your family involved?

[00:20:30]Have friends been asking you if they should upgrade to Windows 11 or if they'd be better off looking at alternatives? Let me know your experiences down in the comments below.

[00:20:40]On your way down there, don't forget to drop this video a like and subscribe to Craft Computing if you haven't done so already. Follow me on the social mediascomputing for daily shenanigans like this. And if you like the content you see on this channel, want to help support me in what I do, there's a couple of ways you can do that. Head on over to craftcomputing.store to pick up some of our fantastic merch. We've got everything from custom laser cut pint glasses to whiskey stones, stone coasters, bottle openers, everything you need to start drinking like a pro. Or you can support me over on Patreon, patreon.com/craftcomputing, and get exclusive access to my Discord server where you can chat with myself and the other awesome users who hang out there throughout the week. I just realized I've never actually listed this stone coaster for sale, so maybe I'll have to do that. Uh, this is the RTX Serial Super because some of my users like using graphics cards as coasters and one of them used it for a serial bowl and so I created the RTX Serial Super.

[00:21:40]Let me know if I should add this to the store. But that's going to do it for me here in today's video. Thank you all so much for watching and as always, I will see you in the next video. Cheers, guys.

[00:22:01]beer for today seemed very fitting given both me and the PC that we're taking a look at today and that is from Brickside Brewing here in Portland, Oregon. It is the Tall Guy IPA.

[00:22:14]Freaking love the can.

[00:22:18]As someone who is 6'4 and has driven a car like this before, I approve. This is just a fantastic Northwest IPA. Uh, West Coast IPA. Uh, I say Northwest because it's a little bit more bitter than what you'd get out of like a Sierra Nevada pale. It's, let's put it this way, if the average IPA was 5'6, this IPA is 6'2, 6'4. It's turned up a noticeable amount, but it's not extreme. Uh, I like it. It's uh not really citrusy. It's more of a a piny start to the IPA. So, if you're a big fan of like the spruce and and piny notes, Christmas treel like notes of an IPA, this one's going to be right up your alley. This is exactly the kind of IPA I love having on a hot summer day or, you know, I'm filming this at the end of May. As we're entering summer, this is a great lawn mower beer. Like, it's not too heavy. Uh, it's only 6.8%.

[00:23:22]Um, it's refreshing. It's crisp. It has a very dry finish, which makes me come back looking for more.

[00:23:33]I've got really no complaints about this one.

[00:23:36]Tall Guy IPA from Breakside. Go pick one up.