I’ve been trying various Linux flavours every year for 10 years or so. The last year I tried Arch, then EndeavourOS, which has been my most successful Linux exploration I’ve ever had, and given me huge hope. However, there are still a few things preventing me switching it to my default OS.
I’ll put aside Games that need Anti Cheat, as I doubt that will ever be fully fixed, unless Governments force game devs to support more than just Windows.
Here is what doesn’t work for me:
- Streaming services like NowTV. (Works in Windows in browser only)
- DRM proected VST’s for use with Reaper (not via Wine)
- Roblox (Using Waydroid was not very successful)
- Office 365 (I like Libreoffice and OnlyOffice but fact is Word and Excel are just required for some stuff)
1 and 2: Just pirate. Any company that disrespects the user by enforcing DRM like that deserves to lose out on money.
I don’t know what NowTV is but sometimes you can bypass restrictions like this by using an extension that switches your user agent to chrome on windows.
All the rest: Yeah… It sucks… Most of these issues would be solved if enough people used Linux to make porting stuff a worthwhile investment. It’s a chicken and egg problem but I’m hopeful with the ongoing enshittification of Windows. Surely one day enough people will be tired of eating shit and finally stop doing it.
I haven’t considered pirating VST’s. My only issue with pirating DRM protected stuff is the risk of having viruses injected into them.
NowTV is the streaming service Sky provide in the UK and this is where I watch the Formula 1. There are no working extensions of hacks for it that I’ve found so far.
I pirate a bunch of VSTs from audionews.org. It’s private but they give away 10 invites a day in their telegram. You should be fine just pirating stuff older than a few weeks by trusted groups like R2R since malware will get taken down (if it gets detected). Personally I think the risk is tolerable but it’s obviously never 0.
1 and 2, there’s also the option to still buy it but then download a pirated copy that actually works. In a professional setting at least, if you sell stuff made with the pirated software you have the license and rights to do so. Personally I would rather skip the plugin entirely, but if you must, and you must legally-ish, that’s an option.
Nothing wrong with dual boot if that’s what you need , but do check out win AME for it.