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

  • bruce965
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    8 months ago

    Yes, you can develop in .NET on VSCode and the debugger works on Linux too.

    There is a Docker version of SQL Server which funnily enough is equivalent to the enterprise version (rather than limited like SQL Express). You can use it for free as long as it’s for development purposes only.

    There is no SQL Management Studio though.

    One option would be to use PostgreSQL instead. Entity Framework makes it almost free to replace the database anyways (unless you are doing some db-specific things).

    There are some other minor annoyances or missing features, it might bother you; but depending on how you are used to work, you might not even notice. But, hey! you are on Linux now, you get all the benefits of a UNIX operating system, it will be worth it for sure, right? (Yes, imho)


    As for gaming, I only do light gaming so I probably don’t count. I use Heroic Launcher and it works wonderfully out of the box 50% of the time, the remaining 50% you can probably make it work as good as on Windows if you are persistent enough.

    Oh, and sometimes some games run better on Linux than on Windows, but I would say most of the time they run a bit worse.