I really want to switch to Linux, up to this point there were two things keeping me on Windows, gaming and work.

Gaming nowadays is a lot easier than a couple of years ago thanks to Valve and Proton, so that’s not a problem anymore; with the other one I don’t know if I can make something work enough and that’s why I’m asking here.

I work as a fullstack software developer with windows products I don’t fear for the frontend part because typescript, angular, react, … those I know I can run on linux with no problem on VS Code; for backend thought: dot.net, visual studio, sql server, … I think there is no Visual Studio for Linux and I don’t know if I can run & debug .net 8 applications on a linux machine? I can use docker for things like databases. Does anybody else has a similar scenario and things that had to overcame? Tips, problems that I may not see now before making the switch, and solutions to my current problems are welcome

  • @danA
    1•23 days ago

    Usually I end up moving back to Windows because of font rendering. I far prefer Windows cleartype font rendering on 2160p desktop screens

    I’m surprised this is still an issue. I remember it being an issue when I used desktop Linux 15 years ago. At the time, Linux devs didn’t want to risk accidently infringing on Microsoft’s ClearType patents, so the text smoothing techniques had to be completely different.

    Those patents all expired in 2018.

    • @ms264556@beehaw.org
      1•23 days ago

      Linux font rendering is generally very good now, so I think they’ve gotten past that. Apart from a System76 desktop, which was terrible, I haven’t hated the rendering for many years. It’s just that Microsoft’s font rendering (maximizing clarity at the expense of destroying the font metrics) is exactly what I want to look at all day if I’m staring at code. When I look at screenshots of vscode on Linux and Mac the code looks beautiful, because the font renderer hasn’t beaten the characters with a big stick to make them fit the pixel grid, but when I switch back to windows after using Linux/Mac then it feels like someone fixed the focus and de-blurred everything.

      And now that I can have as many Linux installs as I like running concurrently via WSL2, I get to use Linux all day without losing the stuff I like about Windows.

      • @danA
        2•22 days ago

        when I switch back to windows after using Linux/Mac then it feels like someone fixed the focus and de-blurred everything.

        I haven’t used desktop Linux in a while, but I feel the same about MacOS font smoothing. It’s way too blurry. I’m not sure why people like it.