windows to linux Full linux transfer

[Voylinslife]

After being a windows user since the start, I'm getting very displeased with how windows is becoming. Every time windows does an update my whole windows crashes and becomes unusable when updating I can't do anything because I have 1 frame/15 seconds. After using my laptop for a couple of hours I feel it slowing down massively.

My question to you guys is, what Linux distro should I use? I've used Ubuntu, lUbuntu, CentOs, Linuxmint... But I can't find the difference between them.

What I want to do with my laptop is video editing, browsing the internet and that's about it, I'm a very simple person  Oh and the occasional games like Stardew Valley or Minecraft for when I'm really bored. (Please don't think low of me ^^")

The main thing is Video Editing, I've heard about KdenLive so I'm willing to give that a try. So far I've been using Adobe Premiere Pro but I guess there is no way of getting that to work on linux

 

My laptop specs:
- i3-6157U  2 cores (4 with hyperthreading) 2.4 GHz

- Intel Iris
- HHD 1TB

- SSD 120 GB

- 1080p screen
-- That's about it for the most interesting parts I guess


Which linux distro would you advise for me and why?

And is it worth it or smart to switch completely to Linux?

[Tycho]

Glad to hear that you're willing to give Linux a shot, but have you tried a clean windows install? Sounds like your current windows install is just having some issues that could possibly be fixed by doing a clean install. If that fixes your problems you'd be better off that way because you could still use Premiere.

 

If you want to use Linux anyway, I would suggest that you stick to Ubuntu 18.04 because it's the most beginner friendly and compatible with KdenLive.

 

Still looking for more? Try browsing around a bit on https://distrowatch.com/. It has loads of Linux distributions listed on there, so you can find the one most suited for your needs. I suggest sticking to debian based distros to keep things simple.

[Voylinslife]

3 minutes ago, Tycho said:

Glad to hear that you're willing to give Linux a shot, but have you tried a clean windows install? Sounds like your current windows install is just having some issues that could possibly be fixed by doing a clean install. If that fixes your problems you'd be better off that way because you could still use Premiere.

 

If you want to use Linux anyway, I would suggest that you stick to Ubuntu 18.04 because it's the most beginner friendly and compatible with KdenLive.

 

Still looking for more? Try browsing around a bit on https://distrowatch.com/. It has loads of Linux distributions listed on there, so you can find the one most suited for your needs. I suggest sticking to debian based distros to keep things simple.

3

I haven't tried a clean install yet because I'm afraid to lose all my files ^^" I'm just not sure how to do it safely that I don't ruin any of my files

I want to install linux on my ssd but windows is already taking up most of the space on my ssd, so that's not really an option, I also thought about making a backup of my windows, place it on my nass just in case but how easy is it to remove linux and install that backup again? Or is that not worth the trouble?

[Tycho]

2 minutes ago, Voylinslife said:

I haven't tried a clean install yet because I'm afraid to lose all my files ^^" I'm just not sure how to do it safely that I don't ruin any of my files

I want to install linux on my ssd but windows is already taking up most of the space on my ssd, so that's not really an option, I also thought about making a backup of my windows, place it on my nass just in case but how easy is it to remove linux and install that backup again? Or is that not worth the trouble?

Looks to me like you need to sit down and take your time to manually backup every single file you'll still need to an external drive, or online backup location. It's a lot of tedious work but it'll save your life in the event of a hardware or software failure in the future. If you're thinking about switching to a different OS you should definitely make sure you've got all your files backed up before you try installing something new. Starting with a fresh install sounds exactly like what you need.

 

What exactly do you mean by not being sure that you won't ruin any of your files?

[Tabs]

7 minutes ago, Voylinslife said:

I haven't tried a clean install yet because I'm afraid to lose all my files ^^" I'm just not sure how to do it safely that I don't ruin any of my files

I want to install linux on my ssd but windows is already taking up most of the space on my ssd, so that's not really an option, I also thought about making a backup of my windows, place it on my nass just in case but how easy is it to remove linux and install that backup again? Or is that not worth the trouble?

You're equally or more likely to lose files migrating completely to Linux as you are reinstalling Windows. What made you think Linux was the safer option?

 

If you're willing to do a backup (which you absolutely should), either option is as safe as the other - except you already have experience with Windows so getting up and running after the install is likely to be less of a problem.

[Voylinslife]

4 minutes ago, Tycho said:

Looks to me like you need to sit down and take your time to manually backup every single file you'll still need to an external drive, or online backup location. It's a lot of tedious work but it'll save your life in the event of a hardware or software failure in the future. If you're thinking about switching to a different OS you should definitely make sure you've got all your files backed up before you try installing something new. Starting with a fresh install sounds exactly like what you need.

 

What exactly do you mean by not being sure that you won't ruin any of your files?

Well I've had it before in windows that after rebooting my windows that images suddenly weren't useable anymore, Images which I couldn't recover for some reason

I will look through all my files and do a clear backup of everything and delete everything which I don't need anymore, save those files to my nas and my external drive and then maybe first re-install windows with the option to dual boot to ubuntu to see which one I'd prefer. I'm running Linux Mint at the moment and I've been satisfied with it. My laptop seems a lot faster with this OS than windows.

Do you think 60GB for windows alone is enough? I was thinking of splitting my SSD in 60 +60 GB One side for linux, the other for windows, same thing with my HDD for the programs and files then. Or isn't that smart to do?

[Voylinslife]

6 minutes ago, Tabs said:

You're equally or more likely to lose files migrating completely to Linux as you are reinstalling Windows. What made you think Linux was the safer option?

 

If you're willing to do a backup (which you absolutely should), either option is as safe as the other - except you already have experience with Windows so getting up and running after the install is likely to be less of a problem.

The last month I've been using different linux distro's and I also had lessons about Linux when I followed network development. Linux was alway's being shown to us as the better platform for programming, I won't call myself a programmer but I like to occasionally make certain things, mainly in Python.

For me, because I travel a lot, I've had numerous times that I found that someone was messing with my pc when I was on public wifi's and everything, I travel too much and sometimes I just feel like I shouldn't use my laptop anymore in public places because of security reasons. ^^" Maybe I'm just paranoid but I want my pc to work smooth and be secure at the same time. Another thing I like about Linux is that it feels so open, like you can change it until it feels and looks the way you want it. Another big reason why I am looking towards Linux

[Tycho]

1 minute ago, Voylinslife said:

Well I've had it before in windows that after rebooting my windows that images suddenly weren't useable anymore, Images which I couldn't recover for some reason

I will look through all my files and do a clear backup of everything and delete everything which I don't need anymore, save those files to my nas and my external drive and then maybe first re-install windows with the option to dual boot to ubuntu to see which one I'd prefer. I'm running Linux Mint at the moment and I've been satisfied with it. My laptop seems a lot faster with this OS than windows.

Do you think 60GB for windows alone is enough? I was thinking of splitting my SSD in 60 +60 GB One side for linux, the other for windows, same thing with my HDD for the programs and files then. Or isn't that smart to do?

You should only split up your boot drive in two partitions, your secondary drive will be accessible by both the linux and windows install if they have the right file format. I recommend using NTFS. This way you won't end up running out of space on one partition before the other.

 

As for you boot drive partitions, a Ubuntu install is nowhere near the size of a Windows install, so I'd split that 120gb ssd in 80-40 rather. Then again, it depends on how much you'll use one over the other.

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, Voylinslife said:

Well I've had it before in windows that after rebooting my windows that images suddenly weren't useable anymore, Images which I couldn't recover for some reason

I will look through all my files and do a clear backup of everything and delete everything which I don't need anymore, save those files to my nas and my external drive and then maybe first re-install windows with the option to dual boot to ubuntu to see which one I'd prefer. I'm running Linux Mint at the moment and I've been satisfied with it. My laptop seems a lot faster with this OS than windows.

Do you think 60GB for windows alone is enough? I was thinking of splitting my SSD in 60 +60 GB One side for linux, the other for windows, same thing with my HDD for the programs and files then. Or isn't that smart to do?

60 will work for Windows but won't give you much room for updates and future feature installs if you install big apps like premiere. 

 

I'd recommend 70 or 80 for Windows and the remainder for Linux, until you're sure you want to make the switch. 

 

It will be worth your time ensuring your disk is GPT formatted as well, so you won't have any weirdness with the partition limit on MBR disks.

[Voylinslife]

1 minute ago, Tycho said:

You should only split up your boot drive in two partitions, your secondary drive will be accessible by both the linux and windows install if they have the right file format. I recommend using NTFS. This way you won't end up running out of space on one partition before the other.

 

As for you boot drive partitions, a Ubuntu install is nowhere near the size of a Windows install, so I'd split that 120gb ssd in 80-40 rather. Then again, it depends on how much you'll use one over the other.

Well I guess, the main reason why I would still use windows is because of Adobe Premiere.
That disk is already NTFS, so is it safe to say that I could basically just format the SSD and install everything again without touching the HDD?

and about Linux, you say 40GB for linux, but what partition must i set under that? The / or the /home? ^^" Sorry for the probably very beginner question

[Voylinslife]

3 minutes ago, Tabs said:

60 will work for Windows but won't give you much room for updates and future feature installs if you install big apps like premiere. 

 

I'd recommend 70 or 80 for Windows and the remainder for Linux, until you're sure you want to make the switch. 

 

It will be worth your time ensuring your disk is GPT formatted as well, so you won't have any weirdness with the partition limit on MBR disks.

I would install premiere on the HDD, the only thing I would use Linux for is using Adobe Premiere anyway.

So 70 for windows the rest for linux, during install I have to select the / partition to be on the SSD? and with 6GB of ram, do I need to have a swap partition? and where would I best put it if I need to have it, SSD or HDD?

@Tabs and @Tycho Thank you very much for the help and information ^^

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, Voylinslife said:

Well I guess, the main reason why I would still use windows is because of Adobe Premiere.
That disk is already NTFS, so is it safe to say that I could basically just format the SSD and install everything again without touching the HDD?

and about Linux, you say 40GB for linux, but what partition must i set under that? The / or the /home? ^^" Sorry for the probably very beginner question

You can do that, modern Linux distributions can natively read and write to NTFS partitions so you don't need to touch your hard disk at all. I'd still recommend separating your Linux data and Windows data - but separate folders is fine, repartitioning is overkill.

 

For partition layout for the Linux side, you'll want / to be at least 20GB, though more is better if you can live with a smaller /home. You'll want at least 2GB swap.

[Tycho]

2 minutes ago, Voylinslife said:

Well I guess, the main reason why I would still use windows is because of Adobe Premiere.
That disk is already NTFS, so is it safe to say that I could basically just format the SSD and install everything again without touching the HDD?

and about Linux, you say 40GB for linux, but what partition must i set under that? The / or the /home? ^^" Sorry for the probably very beginner question

When installing ubuntu, just select the 40Gb partition, and use '/' as the mount point. This will mean that your /home folder will be placed directly under '/' as opposed to a seperate location. This sounds like a good option.

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, Voylinslife said:

I would install premiere on the HDD, the only thing I would use Linux for is using Adobe Premiere anyway.

So 70 for windows the rest for linux, during install I have to select the / partition to be on the SSD? and with 6GB of ram, do I need to have a swap partition? and where would I best put it if I need to have it, SSD or HDD?

@Tabs and @Tycho Thank you very much for the help and information ^^

The way application installs on Windows work is probably different to what you think. They aren't like OSX packages which are all self-contained - even if you install Premiere to your hard disk, many files will still be installed to your primary partition (your Windows partition). This is to ensure files needed for maintaining, removing, updating or otherwise changing the software are guaranteed to be available to the OS that's running, along with things like temporary files created when the program is in use.

 

Just installing Premiere, or any large program or suite of software (anywhere), will add a not-inconsequential amount of data to your Windows partition. You need to keep that in mind when considering your partition layout.

[wasab]

Get Ubuntu. New time users usually quit and reintsall winblows in frustration on other distros.

[Voylinslife]

On 6/10/2018 at 6:44 PM, wasab said:

Get Ubuntu. New time users usually quit and reintsall winblows in frustration on other distros.

hahaha no I prefer Linux Mint  I have been using it ever since I made this post. I only wish KdenLive was a bit more like premiere or resolve because for video editing I still go on windows ^^"