I took the Linux plunge first trying to make my $30 eBay chromebook do more while I saved some money. Now, I have a Ryzen desktop that I’m aiming to learn VM madness on, because it’s been a fun learning experience. If you’re in it to learn, it’s worth it. Good advice above to match.
–[but wait, there’s more! break]–
As for Windows 10, I have to deal with that at work a great deal. So how do I make Windows 10 not piss me off and install Candy Crush again for my users? (Also, lower-budget small business can’t quite justify enterprise licensing and the perks therein)
I’ve found that when installing Windows, Audit Mode is the perfect place to stop the annoying Windows crap. A little PowerShell goes a long way. And hey, if you don’t feel like rolling your own, someone else already sorted out a script anyhow. Hell, that script has a lot of useful bits for figuring out where Windows 10 is hiding things and PowerShell scripting basics.
–[conclusion break]–
Linux is a worthy plunge, but I’d be shitty not to point out that a lot of Windows aggravation can also be avoided. Also, that if you’re forced to use Windows because of shitty software that just doesn’t wanna work any other way, there’s a solution.
I have been using linux desktop for over 18 years, and I converted rather slowly, it took many months with several milestones, admittedly, linux desktop was a rough ride back in the day.
I first installed linux as a vm, the simplest vm configuration because it makes sense to focus on the functionality first rather than experince, then did a lot of exploration, and when I realized that most of my workflow is now on linux, I flipped the setup to focus on experience and made linux the primary host os and windows got to live in a vm, and it stayed their until today, not because there are windows software I still use, but simply because I use it for testing applications since I am a software developer.
I would advise you to go slowly and manage your expectations, because it is worth it (for many reasons I am sure you already know since you are considering the change), but it is unrealistic to assume that a complex workflow such as yours that has been setup for many years on windows can be smoothly changed to linux within a month or two, that would end up with disappointment when your work is affected by the transition, you would get the impression that linux is getting in the way, while infact the unrealistic transition plan is getting in the way which could happen even if linux was actually the better option for your work, and it would be just a waste of time and effort.
Speaking of of managing expectations, gaming is not going to work flawlessly, if you are a hardcore gamer, just keep a windows installation (dual boot as a good and simple start) and use that, if you are on the more casual side, you may be fine with linux supported games available on steam, I wouldn’t advise wasting time configuring wine or other emulation layers yourself, it’s too much of a pain and results are almost always suboptimal. Not to mention that GPU drivers on linux are not as good and even if it runs flawlessly, it is probably not running as fast.
So you need to be able to accept compromises, for someone like me, a casual gamer and a software developer who has all their tools natively supported on linux, compromise is very little, like accepting the fact that thunderbird and libre office are not as good as microsoft office, but since they are getting the job done and the benifits of using linux overall are so many and important, that’s enough to make me consider this office compromise rather minor.
It doesn’t necessarily have to work for everyone, does it work for you or the compromises outweigh the benifits? You should answer that question and I advise that you do it slowly and enjoy the experience without pressuring yourself.
And about the linux community being not so nice, I don’t think that is true, if someone is spending time to help you for free, that in itself is very nice of them, and it is reasonable of them to expect you to not waste their time (and yours) by not posting a question that has been already answered many times over and could be found by a simple google search. You cannot compare that to something like windows support where you are effectively paying for support service. If you are nice and polite and if you remember that those people are helping you, they don’t work for you, that would result in a very nice experience and sometimes even friendship with some smart and interesting people.
It’s all about managing expectations, being realistic and enjoying the ride, regardless of the output.
Initial recommendation is to get virtualbox and play around with a couple distributions you’re interested in initially, see if you can do your basics (in no particular order:
Can I use this software/package manager
Can I change display settings easy
Can I add an additional hard drive/format a drive easily
Is this usable for me
Do I like this aesthetically
Does this have the software I need
Then as stated, get a cheap 2nd SSD and install your preferred distro onto it. Use it for sometime and ensure you really like it and there isn’t anything that is a deal breaker for you that you didn’t find initially. I don’t recommend leaving your windows disk attached when installing the linux distro at a minimum or dualbooting due to GRUB causing issues with windows boot manager with 10 (Thanks microsoft!)
If all else fails, get Chocolatey and run some decrapifying scripts and/or use shutup10 to manage some of the bloat
