Let’s focus on helping OP to get moved over to Linux, then we can address his concerns with data availability.
This is a perfect example of a thread that’s on the knife’s edge of being dragged off into the weeds due to forum members not seeing the bigger picture.
Probably the first step when wanting to switch your OS is:
After that come other choices, like what distribution to use (something more beginner friendly, I would assume would be ideal).
Hey I have actually got a very good perspective on this since I’ve kind of done this for my own workflow
I think the first thing that you really need to approach is not approach it from which operating system am I running on point of view. You need to start cataloging your software and trying to make your workflow as operating system agnostic as possible.
What does that mean It means these tools are cross-platform in everything you do so you could use it even on an internet browser if you’re lucky. The reason you want this is because you’re still going to encounter other operating systems occasionally even if it’s not at home and it would be nice if your stuff crossed over That’s the best way to approach how do I get my software workflow to work on Linux It’s to do it from a operating system agnostic point of view
If I were to start anywhere if you’re just really itching to start on a Linux distribution don’t give into those kinds of distribution wars they’re all pretty much the same with different kernels and different defaults and the same basic compilers. you’ll encounter that a lot in the community of open source software especially Linux distributions and it’s just something that really comes with a territory try to ignore it the best you can.
With that mentality in mind… I highly suggest popping open a fedora ISO onto a virtual machine start playing around with it trying to understand it installing software and seeing what will work for you and what won’t before you go in a race your windows and Microsoft software off of your computer. Trust me a smoother transition is more important than a quick one.
It’s always good to start on a distribution that is well known and well supported.
Moving forward from there I would suggest that you do delve into basic scripting skills which are going to come in a lot of handiness on Linux. The most common shell terminal is bash or the bourne again shell. Learn a little bit of that and it’ll make your life a ton easier.
You’ll also need to assess out of the myriad of desktop environments which is going to suit you best and you can probably do that easier online than installing anything yet.
My approach here is going to lend you down a path where you virtualize Linux really understand it before you ever intend to install it and it also lets you get a very good backup solution going before you transition which I think is equally important whether you’re running Microsoft Windows or a Linux distribution
My further suggestion is to really use the small Linux problem thread when you start encountering issues It’s here on our forum and it’s a good place for someone to provide a fix for you. The best thing about that thread is it’s already geared towards fixing Linux problems so you’re not going to encounter people who are just going to walk in and tell you to install Gentoo or sit in trash Microsoft Windows and fill everything up with useless sarcasm. You’ll get the help you need from people that are generally experienced with Linux
Idealistically I wish That’s how stuff went all the time but humans are variable. If you’re the kind of person that benefits from taking notes on what you do to really internalize it then make yourself a blog thread and go through and document your journey It’s another good way to internalize what you are doing.
Lastly know what you’re getting into It’s not going to be a perfect world and it’s going to take a lot of patience
You are going to distrohop probably every few weeks only because you havent formed any real preference yet. My best advice is to separate your /home from your root partition so that you dont lose most of your settings and files when you distrohop.
Normally, I’d say if you have modern hardware, I’d recommend you go with a friendly rolling distro (like Manjaro or Endeavor) but since there is a dearth of new hardware releases, any popular distro should be fine. The only caveat is Wifi drivers, particularly if you are running a laptop. You need to search the WiFi module of your laptop. If its Realtek, you may have to be more involved (as in compile) in the restoration of WiFi functionality. A LAN connection or a separate functioning computer is recommended to have.
The desktop “feel” that is closest to Windows is Cinnamon and KDE. But you are not limited to that experience. You have a “Mac OS-like” in GNOME, a “Windows XP-like” experience in XFCE. There are less popular desktop styles. Try them all or not.
Like Dutch_Master suggested, you might look to start with a “live USB” my main advise would be “google is your friend” (or ddg.gg /startpage etc)
A Live USB is literally a thumb stick, with the whole operating system on it, like a grown-up chromecast, but for a desktop.
You can run the computer from the stick, and do a bunch of stuff; web browsing, office work and stuff.
But, it would be a temporary setup, and you can install some games, but the graphics might not be great.
But, good enough to play around with, poke at menu’s, browse websites and stuff.
I would recommend making a coffee and checking this thread:
then this:
but really, start out and give it a go.
If you can get a spare SSD, and put your windows one away safely, then you can always come back to it, easy peasy, no muss, no fuss.
Or you can dual boot, but be careful not to get one system messing with another too much.
Welcome though, and be ready to search stuff.
If your personal internet is at risk of being cut off and you may have to go to coffee shops to regain internet, you need a good portable Linux computer, and I would currently recommend System76 Clevo rebrands.
If you need smaller than a laptop and don’t mind a Bluetooth keyboard, Steam Deck fits that need.
Burn your Distros and data on M-DISCs if you are super paranoid of losing everything.
Oh, and saving all the data to an external drive, Before installing, just in case never hurt anyone…
having the /home director on a separate partition is a great idea, and not too difficult to do, with the right online guide, but I would say that is more Intermediate level, not just beginner.
While you can buy a new device (even a 2nd hand old laptop with 4GB of RAM or something, like older thinkpads or dell latitudes) and stick to only using Linux on it, I wouldn’t advice that at first. It’s cool that you want to try Linux and get into FOSS, but at the same time, rushing it and buying hardware… I’d say don’t rush to make purchasing decisions that you may regret.
Don’t get me wrong, after you try Linux in a live environment, using a Live USB with a Linux distro, or even inside a virtual machine if you want to install and test software, and you think you are committed to switching to Linux, only then, I would totally recommend getting a second device and try to daily drive it. Only go back to Windows when you need to run something that you can’t on Linux (like maybe completely incompatible games).
Personally, I started my Linux adventure back in 2012 when I first dual-booted Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8 (well, technically, I did try Ubuntu 11.10 before that, but didn’t use it more than 30 minutes). But because rebooting a PC to access another OS and file system was such an inconvenience, I mostly stuck with Windows. But after dual-booting lots of newer versions of Ubuntu and Windows, then trying Arch Linux for a few years, I took the jump (in 2018) and only used Linux as my main OS (Manjaro at the time). I used to distro-hop a lot, but I wasn’t satisfied until I tried forcing myself to stick with something and dual-booting was a big annoyance for me.
If I knew how much more convenient having 2 different PCs was, I would have probably used Linux as my main OS way earlier and only used Windows when gaming or something, kind of like a console (back when Proton wasn’t a thing and WINE was giving mostly garbage rating to titles I owned, or the ones that were marked as gold had strange behaviors on my old-ish system, like the game working, but only showing the first frame when loading the game - probably driver issues, I recall I saw a message that my Radeon HD 6670 wasn’t supported anymore after I did an Ubuntu update).
In any case, driver issues today aren’t that much of a deal as they used to be. To be honest, I encountered lots of drivers issues on Windows too (probably more than I did on Linux in the past 8 years). So I wouldn’t worry about drivers support.
So again, for now, just make a list of your software, see what’s available and what alternatives are for the things that aren’t available, then try to live boot or install Linux in a VM, then you can buy a 2nd hardware to use it on. A big rush to switch will only make more headaches and probably make you regret that you tried to switch, so do it at your own pace.
As someone else said, Linux distros aren’t that different from one another (well, the truth lies somewhere in the middle in this case), so using one where its users are friendly to newcomers and one that has a lot of documentation and how-to’s online would be preferable, which is why I still recommend Ubuntu or Pop!_OS, despite Ubuntu’s somewhat strange behavior / underlying configurations.
And like someone mentioned, use the “Small Linux problem” thread in case you need help, or feel free to create a new thread on the forum with the labels “Linux” and “Helpdesk.”
First things first, you’ll need a second Harddrive (HD) and a usb to sata adapter. Greatest thing ever.
Whatever DAD! Everyone shills Linux & DE Snubs in there own way. Geeeeeeeeeez.
It’s been 8 hours where is this dude?
If @LinuxNoob is jumping windows they probably just want it to work - like a toaster.
So it’s POP_OS or Ubuntu, Das it. If the transition won’t work on either of these distros, it’s not going to work for him/her .
Welcome to Level1 @LinuxNoob
@LinuxNoob, It’s pretty easy to have a home appliance NAS these days. Craiglist box, qnap, synology
Youtube has 10s of libraries with large catalogued tutorials of HOWTOs and DIY!!! Try it!!!
I think level1 may have a few video. Everyone has different learning capacities, conceptually you could pick this up fast and run with it. You a bit of a puter nerd already? @LinuxNoob
Like others here have mentioned, there are two main things to consider;
Is your hardware compatible? If in doubt I’d answer yes, but then you could be one of those people that bought a prebuilt from a shady Dell outlet, and that happened to have a non-supported Bluetooth or non-supported wifi module for instance.
What are you doing on your computer? Here is a short list that should give you an idea of what Linux can do for you, not exhaustive by any means:
I’d put that in the “not best at” category. FreeCAD can read/write all your AutoCAD files. Other options like QCAD are very easy for novices. And several more. On Linux software is quite often free, so it’s easy to try several different tools to find the one that works best for you.
Windows “just works” because you have an OEM preloading drivers and other needed software. There are a few Linux OEM systems out there, which should be just as easy to turn-on and go.
There are many counter-examples to this, though. Some very exotic hardware only works with Linux.
It’s fairly common to see old hardware that is no longer usable in Windows (because the drivers haven’t been updated for years) that still works perfectly on Linux.
Another option is to jail windows in a linux vm and compartmentalize you computer habits.
Put linux on a usb and boot into a live environment. Dick around with it. Don’t overwrite windows until you have replacements for all your software.
Gaming and Linux aren’t 100% compatible. Either keep dual booting or segregate the two activities between two machines. That’s usually the easiest advice to start with.
I’m buying a Steam Deck specifically to train on linux with a second machine. Once i’m comfortable enough with it, i’ll be changing over my main pc to linux as well.
The hardest part of a linux build is being aware of what peripheral devices will work as intended with it.
For instance, you can forget about using a Logitech G915TKL with any kind of linux build.
I will say though that I think it’s a little silly to not trust MSFT and use that as the sole justification for switching. I encourage non-technical users to try MacOS instead, if you really feel the need to get away from MSFT utilities.
However, keep in mind that MSFT is one of the largest business enterprises in the world and that many, many people use their cloud services, so you end up indirectly using them whether you’re aware or not. It’s like trying to avoid Google as an entity; you just can’t entirely disconnect without going way out of your way.
Also, when you start discussing corporate entities not to trust that becomes a deep, deep rabbit hole.
Do we ditch Apple cause of CSAM? What of chrome and google search engine cause of Google practices? Neither are better than MSFT, so than that basically means every off the shelf phone is a adevice you wont want to use, which leads to the whole having to flash your own OS on an Android device, which really comes with alot of compromises.
I’m not trying to discourage switching to Linux, but make sure it’s done for reasons other than a knee jerk “MSFT bad”
Any reason is great for switching to Linux, it’s free and open source, and built to learn and tinker with. Worse case they learn something.
If I remember AMD cpu’s 939 and am3 are non-traceable. Or is it AM2. I cannot remember. If you looking to not be traced based on the hardware you used. The rabbit hole goes further than software these days.
I prefer the rusty bucket. Where all trash goes back to the earth.
I don’t think that holds true at all.
For instance, if someone is wanting to switch because they somehow feel it will be a better user experience…that would be a very bad reason as it’s widely acknowledge that the linux non-technical user experience still has plenty of growing pains. (Hell, even technical users and active developers have issues trying to switch to it)
FOSS and being built to tinker with are not inherently good reasons to push people towards it; the later point would actually make for compelling reasons to tell some to stay away.
Hell. I just got done listening to Linus on WAN talk about his experience trying to switch to linux as a noob. I look forward to his videos highlighting all his frustrations lol
There are plenty of good reasons to use one OS or another, but people should really think about their use case and why before making those kinds of commitments and be prepared for lots of growing pains