I think I am almost there. At this point, I genuinely believe I can stay on Linux long-term. I have even switched my main PC to Ubuntu Server 25.10, running XFCE on X11 as my desktop environment.
Most games work without major issues, as long as they do not rely on Windows kernel-level drivers, which many modern anti-cheat systems unfortunately require. My workflow is slightly unconventional: instead of using Proton through native Steam, I primarily run Steam inside Wine and then launch games directly through Wine itself. This is something I have always done, and it still works well for the majority of titles.
There are, however, a few exceptions. Games such as GreedFall and Horizon Zero Dawn have issues related to color depth and full-range color output when running under Wine. At present, there is no functional fix for this in Wine, and if there were, I would have found it. In these cases, I use native Steam with Proton, sometimes combined with specific launch commands, as in the case of GreedFall, where forcing full color range resolves the problem. These are the only titles that currently require Proton for proper visual output.
For video editing, I use Kdenlive. While I prefer PowerDirector, it is effectively unusable under Wine due to serious instability and rendering problems, particularly during encoding and conversion. Given the difficulty of achieving reliable results, I chose not to invest time into making it work and instead adapted my workflow around Kdenlive, which runs natively and reliably on Linux.
For media management, I use TinyMediaManager, which I strongly prefer over Media Companion. Although TinyMediaManager has a free tier with limitations, I chose to purchase it because I value the software and its capabilities. It is roughly twice the price of FileBot, but it also offers significantly more functionality. I intentionally avoid FileBot primarily because it transitioned from a free model to a paid and subscription-based system. I have a strong dislike for software that adopts subscription pricing after being free, which is also the main reason I no longer use Adobe products. What once was a one-time purchase has become an indefinite recurring expense, which I fundamentally disagree with.
I also ended up abandoning Plex entirely. My current setup directly connects my router, firewall, Pi-hole, and Plex server to my TV. Even when playing media locally on the same machine, forcing direct play and disabling transcoding, Plex would still initiate video transcoding without any notification. The only reason I discovered this was through its transcoding logs. As a result, I replaced Plex with Kodi. Since I only consume media within my home and never remotely, Kodi is a far more logical solution. Additionally, Kodi’s Trakt.tv integration is significantly better than Plex’s. It allows episode-by-episode rating, which Plex lacks. As a result, I previously only rated full series as a whole. Now I can rate individual episodes easily, which fits my viewing habits far better.
At this stage, the final missing piece in my Linux transition is finding a reliable Audible downloader and converter that works natively on Linux. Alternatively, I may attempt to make my existing solution function under Wine, although encoding and conversion processes tend to be unreliable in Wine based on my past experience.
One final observation: every time I use Windows, my Pi-hole logs show a dramatic increase in blocked requests. Recently, the two most aggressive sources of blocked traffic were Windows itself (now replaced by Ubuntu) with 8,074 blocked queries, followed by my iPhone 13 with 4,685 blocked requests. The contrast between Windows and Linux in this regard is stark and reinforces my decision to move away from Windows entirely.
Most games work without major issues, as long as they do not rely on Windows kernel-level drivers, which many modern anti-cheat systems unfortunately require. My workflow is slightly unconventional: instead of using Proton through native Steam, I primarily run Steam inside Wine and then launch games directly through Wine itself. This is something I have always done, and it still works well for the majority of titles.
There are, however, a few exceptions. Games such as GreedFall and Horizon Zero Dawn have issues related to color depth and full-range color output when running under Wine. At present, there is no functional fix for this in Wine, and if there were, I would have found it. In these cases, I use native Steam with Proton, sometimes combined with specific launch commands, as in the case of GreedFall, where forcing full color range resolves the problem. These are the only titles that currently require Proton for proper visual output.
For video editing, I use Kdenlive. While I prefer PowerDirector, it is effectively unusable under Wine due to serious instability and rendering problems, particularly during encoding and conversion. Given the difficulty of achieving reliable results, I chose not to invest time into making it work and instead adapted my workflow around Kdenlive, which runs natively and reliably on Linux.
For media management, I use TinyMediaManager, which I strongly prefer over Media Companion. Although TinyMediaManager has a free tier with limitations, I chose to purchase it because I value the software and its capabilities. It is roughly twice the price of FileBot, but it also offers significantly more functionality. I intentionally avoid FileBot primarily because it transitioned from a free model to a paid and subscription-based system. I have a strong dislike for software that adopts subscription pricing after being free, which is also the main reason I no longer use Adobe products. What once was a one-time purchase has become an indefinite recurring expense, which I fundamentally disagree with.
I also ended up abandoning Plex entirely. My current setup directly connects my router, firewall, Pi-hole, and Plex server to my TV. Even when playing media locally on the same machine, forcing direct play and disabling transcoding, Plex would still initiate video transcoding without any notification. The only reason I discovered this was through its transcoding logs. As a result, I replaced Plex with Kodi. Since I only consume media within my home and never remotely, Kodi is a far more logical solution. Additionally, Kodi’s Trakt.tv integration is significantly better than Plex’s. It allows episode-by-episode rating, which Plex lacks. As a result, I previously only rated full series as a whole. Now I can rate individual episodes easily, which fits my viewing habits far better.
At this stage, the final missing piece in my Linux transition is finding a reliable Audible downloader and converter that works natively on Linux. Alternatively, I may attempt to make my existing solution function under Wine, although encoding and conversion processes tend to be unreliable in Wine based on my past experience.
One final observation: every time I use Windows, my Pi-hole logs show a dramatic increase in blocked requests. Recently, the two most aggressive sources of blocked traffic were Windows itself (now replaced by Ubuntu) with 8,074 blocked queries, followed by my iPhone 13 with 4,685 blocked requests. The contrast between Windows and Linux in this regard is stark and reinforces my decision to move away from Windows entirely.
