That’s pretty much it, after several months, maybe even a year of wanting to take the leap, a couple days ago I finally did it. I just wanted to share this cuz I think it’s an absolute win, and I guess just see if anyone has any general advice to keep in mind during the process. I ended up choosing Fedora, right now I’m dual booting while I’m still in the process of finding software alternatives and getting everything set up, but trying to minimize my use of windows as much as possible, and so far I’ve been loving it. I love this community and I just wanted to thank everyone that has given any advice or suggestions in the past, i’m really excited about this and grateful that I could get to this point.

    • JustARegularNerd@aussie.zoneEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Hey guys, my Dad was always a neck bearded Unix admin so I’ve grown up my whole life on FreeBSD, then moving over to Gentoo during my teen years.

      I’m starting to have thoughts about switching to Windows given that’s what my new job uses, but I couldn’t find any instructions on compiling Windows outside of very outdated releases like 2000. Also, does anyone know if emacs and htop are compatible, as those are my most used applications?

      • मुक्त@lemmy.ml
        0·
        2 months ago

        … but I couldn’t find any instructions on compiling Windows outside of very outdated releases like 2000.

        Damn! I was hoping to do it with Windows 7. Looks like that ship is doomed as well.

    • kaamkiya@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      One of my friends did this. No clue how you can go from Arch back to windows… just wow. I found that insane.

  • Bappity@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    good on you! I just recently did the same thing as you (cos of some work apps that only work with windows right now)

    small question, did you go with silverblue or workstation?

    I went with silverblue and it’s a bit annoying looking up guides/forums posts because they all use dnf 😭

  • Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’ve been wanting to take the leap, too. I’ve got Linux installed on my gaming laptop and I’ve been trying games one by one to see if they work. Next step is dual booting on my desktop and only switching to Windows when I absolutely can’t make something work. My biggest concern is that I have a bunch of games installed on various drives that are all Windows (NTFS?) formatted and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to run them on Linux. I really don’t want to have to reinstall all of them.

    • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      You can read NTFS drives; I still have shared drives from my Windows install despite barely using Windows at all.

      You can generally import steam libraries, and then steam can do the proton work.

      And you can sometimes run other programmes in Linux from the windows install - i.e. it can have it’s own Wine prefix in Linux and use the installed files on the NTFS. But this doesn’t always work - if the programme’s or game’s installer makes significant system changes or installs other software then they won’t exist in the Wine prefix and the game may not work. It’s better to install windows games fresh so everything is installed into the wine prefix.

      And Lutris is well set up with scripts for installing a wide range of games from their installers; it will avoid problems reinstalling games fresh.

    • kusivittula@sopuli.xyz
      0·
      2 months ago

      ntfs drives do work in linux, but there may be some issues sometimes. i switched alnost 2 years ago and i have distrohopped a bit. fedora and nobara had intermittent issues with the ntfs drive, it suddenly became unmountable and it takes some fighting to get it back. in mint, the drive constantly corrupts files and entire folders, and the only way to delete those is to boot into windows and delete them there.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
        0·
        2 months ago

        There is a linux NTFS fix package, I forget the proper name, it tries to clean up the filesystem like windows would

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      You will probably have to reinstall all of them under Wine or Proton or whatever. I don’t think it can import existing installations.

    • utopiah@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 months ago

      My biggest concern is that I have a bunch of games installed on various drives that are all Windows (NTFS?) formatted and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to run them on Linux.

      I’d check https://www.protondb.com/ and if they your favorite ones are native/gold/platinum then… move on. I’d initially NOT erase my drives and, assuming you have either patience and/or a fast connection, just let it re-download and install overnight, then enjoy. If need be bring the saves back (but again via Steam, should just work) and only once that’s done, erase the Windows partitions. This is a no risk process. Honestly some games will not work but IMHO this isn’t the question. The question rather is… will you have more playable games than time left, if so, then considering moving even without 100% coverage.

    • fernandofig@reddthat.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      Linux can read and write to NTFS drives just fine. Just make sure you’re using the newer native (in-kernel) driver, ntfs3. The older user-mode driver, ntfs-3g, still works but has much worse performance, which I guess should be a concern if you’re going to run games off of it (ntfs-3g is fine for casual use)

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Also, make sure you have backups. I don’t care how stable NTFS drivers are I don’t fucking trust them for daily use, especially writes.

        I recommend copying files off of NTFS and onto ext4 if you’re able. If you can’t, try to keep operations to read only.

        I’ve lost too many drives due to stupid issues (sometimes me making an error, sometimes the driver not working properly).

        Backup:

        • 3 different locations
        • 2 different media formats
        • 1 offsite
  • Telorand@reddthat.com
    0·
    2 months ago

    Keep a cloud-synced notebook of bugs, ideas, and fixes. That way, you can help people in the future or know how to do things for yourself if you ever need to reinstall. I have notes for fixing things like my keyboard layout on GDM/SDDM or how to set up certain software in a privileged podman container.

    • NeatoBuilds@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Yeah i keep a nextcloud synced Obsidian vault and I have a entry for fresh installing my popos system with a list of all the software I install and from where with an Obsidian link to a note of each individual software if it needs more info, like config settings of rapid photo Downloader so that my photos are always imported and named the same or how to add the repository for tabby so that it updates along with all the stuff when I do apt update

  • freagle@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Advice is to build relationships with others who also use Linux. Find a chat room that you can stay in and stick with for a couple of years. It will be invaluable. Don’t try to do this purely from documentation, stack overflow, blog posts, and searching forums. Real live people is the way to go.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      A lot of distros have their own Discord communities these days. It’s pretty easy to find people who can help in real time.

  • Hule@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Congrats! Just keep at it, Fedora is stable.

    It gets easier with every solved problem!

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    0·
    2 months ago

    its amazing how nice it is now and makes sense for most people. I should have way before this but it was a thing with my wife. still can’t get her to take the plunge though.

  • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I did this a few months ago. I haven’t found replacements for everything, but I’ve found that it’s really come down to my not actually using those things very much in the first place, so I haven’t had to do the work.

    When I look, I find something that works. What are you still looking for?

    I find the array of installation options a little overwhelming or intimidating sometimes. If I can just do the equivalent of apt-get, that’s, of course, easy enough. But sometimes things are just realeased as tar balls, and I have to go and look up WTF I’m supposed to do each time. Nothing comes up often enough for me to internalize it.

    I do find myself chafing against just the fundamental differences of the *nix environment from the DOS-based heritage of Windows. And I find it difficult to get help with certain things sometimes because the installed user/developer base isn’t super interested in supporting different modes of interaction (“just use the terminal, it’s so much faster [for me]” is a common refrain that makes me want to get stabby). But 99% of the time, it’s been smooth sailing.

    At this stage, if you have drivers for everything, and there’s nothing mission critical that’s still tied to Windows, the best advice I can give you is to copy your important files over from your Windows partition, and then dump it. If you have a 2nd computer, leave that one running Windows for now. The duel booting can make it tempting to just reboot into Windows “just for this one thing”, and stay there until you next have to restart.

    • jdnewmil@lemmy.ca
      0·
      2 months ago

      Bash is always there, and bash scripts and snippets are precise. Describing gui manipulations when the GUI keeps changing is also quite hard… what if the person you are interacting with has a 2-yo system and you have the bleeding edge? Even knowing which menu the settings are in can be frustrating for the helper.

      Windows users (e.g. me at work) get grumpy when Microsoft starts changing the menu structure after keeping it consistent for 20 years and start thinking of powershell scripts to create consistency between our engineering workstations.

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    2 months ago

    Lessons learned when switching:

    Some things I didn’t expect just work differently on Linux and it took time to figure out those differences. For instance, a change to a network interface config on Windows usually takes effect when you hit the “OK” button. Linux requires toggling the interface for that change to take effect. That one took me a couple of frustrating hours to figure out. There are lots of other examples like this so keep it in mind if things aren’t working as you expect.

    Trying to do absolutely everything on Linux right away was a mistake. I started switching back to Windows for quick tasks and then learning how to do those tasks on Linux when I could spend a few minutes figuring them out. Over time I spent more and more time running Linux and one day realized I hadn’t started Windows in months.

    In addition to (or instead of) dual booting, create a virtual machine to allow you to use what you need in either OS without rebooting.

    Lastly, if you find that you’re spending a lot of time fixing OS problems don’t be afraid to try something else. Haven’t spent much time with Fedora, but I use Mint daily because I don’t have to fuss with the OS much. Others in my household have more problems with Windows 11.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    2 months ago

    If you play PC games (and already familiar with Fedora), check out Bazzite. The whole immutable thing is an adjustment, but I really like it.

    Though not really an adjustment from Windows, more of an adjustment if you’re coming from another Linux distro.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        2 months ago

        I’ve been running it on my main PC (framework laptop) for I dunno 6 months now? And it’s been great.

        Distrobox is dope, and “rpm-ostree” is super useful.

        Aside from that, it’s incredibly stable. And games pretty much just work.

        I’ve seen people say that “it’s not for tech people, but good for newbies,” and I have to disagree. Just because it works most of the time without having to tinker (but you can if you want) doesn’t mean it’s for noobs… That’s how your PC is supposed to function.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      0·
      2 months ago

      I would warn against using an atomic distro for newbies that want a bit more than Internet surfing and gaming.

      Handling such distros well requires specialized knowledge around them in particular, and not all common Linux solutions will fit.

      • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        All of Linux requires specialized knowledge. Immutable just takes different knowledge.

        The real kicker with that is just that you can’t always just follow instructions you find online. Usually you can, as long as you’re doing them in a Distrobox, though.

        I went with immutable as a newbie, and I think it’s great. It feels like getting in on the ground floor of the future.

  • PushButton@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    • It’s not a race, take your time to read and understand what is what and how things are functioning together.

    • Enjoy your stay, it’s going to be your next home, take care of it; make it beautiful, make it efficient, make sure to get rid of all what is irritating you.

    • Start with the minimum and build from there.

    • And, FFS, make backups ;)