Questions about switching to Linux

[minimoose]

So I'm thinking of switching to Linux from Windows due to my being fed up Microsoft and their dumbness and hearing from the keyboard warriors that in some ways Linux is better than Windows. But I'm totally new to Linux and I have a few questions.

 

First of all, Linux doesn't have all the programs I need (a lot of my games and Visual Studios being two big things) so I'm thinking I could run my copy of Windows 10 in a VM for when I need use Windows. Will that work well? What's the best method for doing that? 

 

Secondly what is the best beginner distro? I've heard Ubuntu GNOME is a good platform because of driver support and stuff but I'd like to hear if anyone has other opinions on this.

 

Thirdly would it be possible to make a backup of my current install of Windows and then import the backup into a VM? Because I'm dreading having to wipe my hard drive and set everything up again, even though I'll have to do that with my main install of Linux anyway.

 

Lastly let me know if you have any other suggestions or tips or warnings!

 

Thanks!

[minimoose]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

Don't switch to Linux if you are a gamer, not worth it. I tried to switch to linux as a windows user and I could not get it to work as my daily driver. My server however is running linux.

So I'm not a super duper hard core gamer, I play once a week or so. Can I ask what you couldn't get to work that was a deal breaker?

[Nena Trinity]

Ubuntu is your best hope but you need to look up that program and see if it is supporting Linux! (if not there are other programs for Linux in the software center that could replace it maybe...)

[Tosa]

Ubuntu isn't a bad choice for a beginner, but it is different from Windows. If you want something that's more similar to Windows, Zorin is your best choice.

If you live boot Ubuntu, you can store the content of your entire hard drive inside an image file (though you'll need to keep it elsewhere), which can be attached to a VM later.

 

As for games, there are games for Linux, though usually not as well optimized as those for Windows, Valve games being the main exception. It's also possible to run Windows applications through Wine, though it's often a lot more buggy or simply doesn't work at all a lot of the time.

[silraks]

You seem pretty pissed off about microsoft

[Ryoutarou97]

3 minutes ago, minimoose said:

So I'm not a super duper hard core gamer, I play once a week or so. Can I ask what you couldn't get to work that was a deal breaker?

I don't really see the point of fully switching if you'll just be running a windows VM half the time. Instead, try using both. If Windows is your daily driver and you run your visual studios (adobe/autodesk stuff?) which seem work-related there, just suddenly switching probably isn't the best way to go.

[Enderman]

If you cant be bothered to do a clean install of windows then you should NOT be switching to linux...

installing windows is easy peasy compared to learning how linux works and how to get stuff working that would just run on windows

[minimoose]

4 minutes ago, Tosa said:

Ubuntu isn't a bad choice for a beginner, but it is different from Windows. If you want something that's more similar to Windows, Zorin is your best choice.

If you live boot Ubuntu, you can store the content of your entire hard drive inside an image file (though you'll need to keep it elsewhere), which can be attached to a VM later.

 

As for games, there are games for Linux, though usually not as well optimized as those for Windows, Valve games being the main exception. It's also possible to run Windows applications through Wine, though it's often a lot more buggy or simply doesn't work at all a lot of the time.

I'm open to learning something new although Zorin looks pretty nice. It doesn't seem very classically Linux though.

 

Maybe the best idea is to dual boot Windows and Linux since I should be able to install Linux alongside my Windows...?

[minimoose]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

If you cant be bothered to do a clean install of windows then you should NOT be switching to linux...

installing windows is easy peasy compared to learning how linux works and how to get stuff working that would just run on windows

Dude, it's not about easy peasy, it's just annoying because my install is like 16 months old and I have every program under the sun installed.

 

If I'm actually learning something new I'll work hard to learn it, but just redoing something I already have is a waste of time.

[Tosa]

2 minutes ago, minimoose said:

Maybe the best idea is to dual boot Windows and Linux since I should be able to install Linux alongside my Windows...?

That's a possibility, though you'll typically just end up bootling Windows every time. If you only install Linux, you'll be forced to give it a proper try. If you store an image of your drive with Windows on it (like I spoke of earlier) you can use a live boot to restore your Windows install again if you didn't like Linux. It'll then act as if nothing happened.

[cynexit]

I use Linux as my daily driver and only boot Windows if I want to play some games. Although I wholeheartedly welcome your decision to switch to Linux, I have some doubts when reading your post, but lets start at the beginning.

 

7 minutes ago, minimoose said:

Secondly what is the best beginner distro? I've heard Ubuntu GNOME is a good platform because of driver support and stuff but I'd like to hear if anyone has other opinions on this.

Ubuntu is a solid choice, however I hear more and more people recommending Linux Mint and I guess it would be worth a shot to have a look at it before you decide to go with Ubuntu. Driver support is independent from your distro.

You'll probably want to switch your distro as soon as you've grown with Linux tough to get rid of the last bit of limitations.

 

8 minutes ago, minimoose said:

Thirdly would it be possible to make a backup of my current install of Windows and then import the backup into a VM? Because I'm dreading having to wipe my hard drive and set everything up again, even though I'll have to do that with my main install of Linux anyway.

VirtualBox can do this with just one command. However, this will fuck with your Windows Activation because the hardware changed.

 

12 minutes ago, minimoose said:

First of all, Linux doesn't have all the programs I need (a lot of my games and Visual Studios being two big things) so I'm thinking I could run my copy of Windows 10 in a VM for when I need use Windows. Will that work well? What's the best method for doing that? 

Just to put this first: native gaming sucks balls. I own a fairly capable PC and am not afraid to tinker with driver and kernel modules at all but I couldn't even get close when it comes to FPS in most games. Besides the games from Valve almost all games advertised to "run under Linux" aren't optimized for OpenGL at all.

The best way to game would be a Windows VM or dual boot system. If you want to use a VM you would've to pass trough your GPU, this works fairly well in my experience but can be a bit of a hassle.

Now the software part: Try to use as many native-to-Linux programs as you can, but to some there will never be an alternative. If you do anything with Adobe stuff or Visual Studio there is no chance to find an alternative. You would have to run all of this in a VM. Yeah, you can get some of it to run using Wine and custom bindings, but you'll need to be an expert to do so, this is no task for a beginner. (I spent a whole day to get IDA Pro running...)

 

So, conclusion time: The way you described it it seems to me like you'll have to run Windows in a VM. Not just occasionally but most of the time. This will work but there is a good chance this won't make you happy because it's not a very natural workflow. So my final advise would be: Set up dual boot, try to use Linux as much as possible and if you find yourself gravitating back to Windows as much as I think you will reevaluate the whole thing.

[Burusutazu]

I would dual boot, best of both worlds and not much of a hassle. Ubuntu Gnome is fantastic, as a long time Ubuntu (Unity) user the switch to Gnome was very refreshing. It uses hot corners and even has good touch support if you have a touchscreen.  

 

If you do dual boot, make sure you give both windows and ubuntu plenty of space. I split my 2tb hard drive 1.7tb Windows 300gb Ubuntu and I've began to run out of space on my Ubuntu partition since it became my main driver. If you end up not liking linux make sure you have a copy of your windows recovery media, so you can restore the MBR after deleting the Linux partition.

[minimoose]

1 hour ago, Burusutazu said:

I would dual boot, best of both worlds and not much of a hassle. Ubuntu Gnome is fantastic, as a long time Ubuntu (Unity) user the switch to Gnome was very refreshing. It uses hot corners and even has good touch support if you have a touchscreen.  

 

If you do dual boot, make sure you give both windows and ubuntu plenty of space. I split my 2tb hard drive 1.7tb Windows 300gb Ubuntu and I've began to run out of space on my Ubuntu partition since it became my main driver. If you end up not liking linux make sure you have a copy of your windows recovery media, so you can restore the MBR after deleting the Linux partition.

I just installed gnome, my two biggest issues so far is that multi tasking is super slow, having to mouse over and pull out the dock or mouse to the corner and then find a window I had open. 

 

The other thing is the tweak tool is totally broken, global dark mode straight up doesn't work and the themes I've downloaded only change the status bar and nothing else. 

[Burusutazu]

28 minutes ago, minimoose said:

I just installed gnome, my two biggest issues so far is that multi tasking is super slow, having to mouse over and pull out the dock or mouse to the corner and then find a window I had open. 

 

The other thing is the tweak tool is totally broken, global dark mode straight up doesn't work and the themes I've downloaded only change the status bar and nothing else. 

Yeah the dark theme only works in applications that support it, so I would leave it off. But changing the theme should work, but as you said it will only change menus that support it. There are specific Gnome themes that will change everything.

 

Finding the right Linux distrobution for your tastes can be difficult, or very easy if you happen to choose one you like quickly. If you don't like gnome try something else, some notable distrobutions are Kubuntu, Elementary, Zorin, Ubuntu (Unity), Linux Mint. The first big step for Linux (imo) is finding what your comfortable with and building upon that, and it takes time. Luckily you can try most of these without reinstalling entirely. 

 

Using the terminal you can install various desktops to try using the apt-get command. Keep in mind this will install a lot of extra software and might fill up space if you did not allocate a lot of it.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop (Installs Unity, the default desktop for Ubuntu, and the software that comes with it.)

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop (Installs KDE, the default desktop for Kubuntu, and it's software.)

Cinnamon Desktop (This link explains it better than I could ever.) http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/02/how-to-upgrade-cinnamon-2-8-ubuntu-14-04-lts

All of these would appear on the login screen as a choice to use, not all of them would run at once.

Unfortunately both Zorin and Elementary's desktops have no easy installer as of now other than the distribution.