Ugh... Microsoft... (I want Linux back)

I've always had a hate-hate relationship with windows ever since i had to "upgrade" from windows 7 to 10.

I've been miserable ever since.

It runs like shit, is super unstable, used to blue-screen all the fucking time, filled with bloat and spyware, ran by idiots, and is super restrictive.

I had my first taste of Linux back in 2019 when I installed Linux Mint on a throw-away netbook, which quickly led me down a huge rabbit hole of learning about linux, it's distros, desktop environments, current development, etc.

I was so enthralled by it all that i actually jumped ahead and dual booted Zorin OS next to my windows 10 installation on my main machine.

I. LOVED. IT.

Besides a very quick hitch with installing Nvidia drivers, I had a blast using Zorin OS. Especially because all the programs i used on Windows at the time were all free, open source, and linux compatible (with the exception of a few games that i rarely played anyway).

My XP Pen tablet drivers worked perfectly, Krita (my main art program at the time) ran like a dream. I could still make speed paints, chat with friends on discord, and play my favorite games.

Plus, Zorin booted and ran SO FAST compared to Windows, it was like my old-ass hardware was brand new.

I was so happy and satisfied with Zorin that i rarely even touched Windows, basically daily-driving Linux for a good several months.

And then COVID hit.

My classes rushed online to continue classes, and being a complete Linux noob, things quickly got confusing.

For whatever reason (seriously unsure why) some of the websites my school used did not want to cooperate with Firefox (although now i think it was just my privacy extensions lol), so I scrambled to get chrome to work. Yet, for some reason, I couldnt get chrome to install. I seriously dont remember why, if it wasnt in the package manager, or if i was in such a rush i just gave up early.

Unfortunately, in the process of giving up, I went back to Windows.

Also, during this time, a "friend" (more like somewhat-good-acquaintance?) who was also a fan of Linux found out I was using Zorin, and insisted that it was a "trash" OS and I should just use Pop OS.

With enough nagging, I finally caved, and tried to switch out my Zorin partition with Pop OS.

Aaaaand i fucked up.

Sorta.

Thinking about it years later, I realize just how hard it can be to take in new information when you're panicking.

Basically what happened was I actually installed Pop OS perfectly, but missed one tiny post-installation step that was crucial for a dual-boot setup.

Zorin came with it's own bootloader, so right after I installed Zorin, I could just restart and see the options to boot into Zorin or Windows.

Pop OS didn't come with this, which led to me restarting, not receiving any options, and my computer automatically booted into Pop OS.

Now I p a n i c k e d. Full blown tears and everything. I believed i just wiped my windows installation, which contained lots of super important files, notably my artwork dating back from when I was 12.

And while yes, I did back up all my important files, the idea of loosing my entire installation was still incredibly scary.

I rushed to guides, videos, forums, anything to get an answer. Funny enough, the answer was half-way in front of me. Many sources mentioned using the "sudo os prober" command to locate Windows. The only issue was, in my panic, I failed to realize that i had to install this program.

Completely wrecked and demoralized, I reinstalled windows over both partitions. The funny thing was, i had a slight feeling that my windows files were actually fine, which was evident from the fact that on Pop OS, i could still see my other partition and access the files. I just didnt know how to boot into windows, opting to just reinstall the whole thing. I vowed to never dual-boot on my computer again.

And then I did it again.

About a year or two later, I discovered my very small missed step (felt incredibly dumb), and researched more into Pop OS. I was gaining more confidence the more I researched, and decided to wait until we got our internet upgrade to try dual booting again (our old internet was so slow that downloading anything, especially updates, was a nightmare for everyone in the household).

Also during this time, I made one of the biggest mistakes ever, creating the worst obstacle for my future Linux endeavors.

As I mentioned before, I used to use Krita as my art program, which worked perfectly on Linux.

But, I was always open to experimenting with other art programs, and had actually played around with a lot of different programs before somewhat settling for Krita.

But, I was not the only digital artist in the house. My sister was also super into digital art on her computer, and had found a new program that she really enjoyed.

I looked into the program myself, and found out it was a paid program. But, it was on a really big sale. So I used the free trial and tested it out, and LOVED IT. I was immediately hooked and bought it, using it my new main art program.

That program was Clip Studio Paint.

This was probably one of the worst decisions I ever made for my computer.

Anyways, back to Linux (dont worry the Clip Studio Paint (CSP) part is very relevant!)

When that internet upgrade came through, I jumped back into dual booting, re-doing my Pop OS and Windows set up, this time actually installing os prober.

And things worked out pretty good.

Except, it wasn't the same.

I was missing something.

Pretty much all the programs and games I used worked on Linux or had alternatives that I was comfortable using. All, exept one.

Clip. Studio. Paint.

This motherfucker REFUSED to work on Linux. I tried using wine, playonlinux, lutris, bottles, you name it. CSP just did not want to work.

And because I was still using my aging hardware where everything was installed through an old hard drive, switching between operating systems was a pain due to how slow it was. While I could've used Pop OS for everything else and just switched back to Windows just for CSP, the time it took to reboot my computer, pick Windows, wait for it to load, launch CSP, and wait for it to load was just too much, so I ended up just always picking Windows on startup for convenience and barely used Pop OS.

(Though I did learn about KDE Plasma during this time and got to play with customizing my desktop environment, which was super fun and panic-inducing at the same time).

As months went by without using Pop OS pretty much at all, I decided that I should probably just get rid of it because it was taking up space on my hard drive and my Windows system was starting to run low.

Now i thought deleting just one operating system would be easy, like all the forums and guides I read showed. Everywhere i went just said to boot into a live environment, use gparted to delete the linux partition, expand the windows partition, and bam you're good to go.

Yeah... that's not how it went.

After following these steps and rebooting, I was promptly met with a black screen with white text telling me it couldn't find a device to boot on.

How wonderful.

Thankfully, I wasn't nearly as panicked about this as I was when I screwed up last time, so I (as calmly as I could) looked for more guides, forums, and videos to try to boot into windows.

I tried everything, but nothing worked.

Time to reinstall Windows yet again.

Once again i took the precautionary steps to back up my most important files (i unfortunately do not have a device big enough to do a full system back up but i will be getting one within the next few months i hope) before i deleted Pop OS, but once again, my Windows system was still present on my drive, just unable to be booted into.

I once again made another vow to never do any dual booting on my PC. I have yet to break this vow several years later (I'm a paranoid person, what can I say?).

I've basically been stuck with Windows ever since. Though, luckily I have massively upgraded my hardware so it's far less slower.

But over time, I've become more unsatisfied with Windows, more paranoid about my system possibly breaking, and have even become afraid to do any of my usual power-user tasks like setting up virtual machines due to just how terrified I am of loosing my important data.

It doesn't seem to matter how many back ups I make up my files, I constantly worry ill loose them. Especially my artwork.

I feel like I cant trust my computer anymore.

I desperately want to use Linux again, to just ditch Windows behind and never look back. I just want to daily drive Linux like I used to, not even dual booting, just straight up getting rid of Windows entirely.

But Clip Studio Paint is still being a HUGE pain in my ass.

Recently I've been experimenting with Windows virtual machines, trying to pass through my pen tablet in hopes I can use Clip Studio there with pen pressure.

So far, as of June 20th, I haven't had any luck. Vmware is somehow convinced my pen tablet is a crucial input device for my host system and refuses to pass through to the guest machine.

I'll definitely be looking into it soon, seeing what configurations I need to do, or possibly switch back to virtualbox and see if that gives me any luck.

In the meantime, I've been playing around with a bunch of virtual machines on my laptop. So far I tried Arch (Yes, I used Archinstall, yes I am lazy, and yes I will install arch the correct way when I have the time, motivation, and energy.), Debian, Linux Mint, Manjaro, and NixOS (which is a fucking beast holy shit! I think NixOS is really neat, and I love how it keeps old configurations and lets you boot from them when you start your computer in case you mess something up, but as someone who's yet to attempt installing Arch though the command line, NixOS is a whole other beast that is way more complicated than I expected it to be. I really want to learn more about it though in the future!). I've been doing most of my experiments through Linux Mint, mostly because it's the easiest one to use and the most familiar, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. I've come to appreciate the cinnamon desktop now that I have discovered it's customization potential, and, when I do eventually get rid of Windows in favor of Linux, I'll probably install Linux Mint for the least amount of headaches.

With the bullshit that is Microsoft Copilot, the insane telemetry, nagging for Office 365, and Windows' general... shitfuckery... I've become more and more desperate to find a way to get CSP working on a linux install so I go ahead and just daily-drive linux like god intended (/hj I'm not religious). Also, I just crave the customization of Linux. The full control, the creative potential...

Lately I've also been reconsidering my reliance on CSP. Now that I have a laptop, which I purchased another copy of CSP for, I technically would still have CSP available even if I fail to find a way for it to work on Linux or a virtual machine.

But I also have a massive, super expensive drawing tablet that I like to use on my main computer, and I'd feel way too guilty if I stopped using it (and yes I know I could use it on my laptop but because my laptop is also a touchscreen that uses it's own pressure sensitive pen, having multiple pen drivers going on at once can and has been finicky.).

One day I'll get rid of Windows. One day I'll be free and happy on Linux.

CELSYS... FUCK YOU.