So where does a lifelong windows user get started with making the switch?
I prefer reading to videos, but ill take any suggestions. I seem to find only broad strokes for beginners, or stuff that is a couple steps ahead of me.
Get a new drive, install Linux on new drive, be too lazy to move all your shit from windows to Linux so just use your windows as a scuffed way to store everything else.
Benefit is you don’t lose your windows drive so you can always go back
The bad thing is windows doesn’t let you see into your Linux drive even though Linux can see into your windows drive so it forces you to move your files to windows fully if you don’t like linux
Or do like me and install to a 200gb partition, then carve down the window partition to create a third partition to keep new files, repeat untill you have 5 partitions on your drive. After that, find that you haven’t touched windows in forever and wipe it now that everything is spread between an unethical amount of partitions.
To be clear if you stop there Linux will not installed, you won’t lose any data, and you can just unplug the USB stick to allow windows to boot up when you restart.
One note, sinceit’s installed to a USB stick it’ll be a bit slower than if you installed it on your PC. Still though, it’ll be the same idea.
Linux Mint, as someone who switched about 10 years ago it’s what I always recommend. I tried several distros, but mint has been my daily driver for the last 9 years.
Also it’s set up similarly to Win 7, so it’s far more intuitive for a Windows user. And Mint seems to have the best documentation and community when you can’t figure something out.
*And before anyone says anything, I’m speaking of the Debian based distros, I know REHL has some distros that also have great documentation and communities, I’m just a Debian guy so that’s what I’m comfortable speaking to.
So where does a lifelong windows user get started with making the switch?
I prefer reading to videos, but ill take any suggestions. I seem to find only broad strokes for beginners, or stuff that is a couple steps ahead of me.
Get a new drive, install Linux on new drive, be too lazy to move all your shit from windows to Linux so just use your windows as a scuffed way to store everything else.
Benefit is you don’t lose your windows drive so you can always go back
The bad thing is windows doesn’t let you see into your Linux drive even though Linux can see into your windows drive so it forces you to move your files to windows fully if you don’t like linux
Or do like me and install to a 200gb partition, then carve down the window partition to create a third partition to keep new files, repeat untill you have 5 partitions on your drive. After that, find that you haven’t touched windows in forever and wipe it now that everything is spread between an unethical amount of partitions.
At least I can give them funny names
my folder management is so bad but yours might just be worse.
For context mine is:
media/drive/archive/important/archive/misc/programming/archive/misc/sdk
I’d suggest the hands on approach personally. It may take some time to get up though.
You can install a distro onto a USB stick and boot from it to play around and see if you like it.
Here’s a quick tutorial:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/preparing-boot-media/
And separately the distro I’d reccomemd using:
https://fedoraproject.org/spins/kde/
After you create the live CD you should be able to keep it plugged in and boot to using this method from howtogeek:
https://www.howtogeek.com/129815/beginner-geek-how-to-change-the-boot-order-in-your-computers-bios/
To be clear if you stop there Linux will not installed, you won’t lose any data, and you can just unplug the USB stick to allow windows to boot up when you restart.
One note, sinceit’s installed to a USB stick it’ll be a bit slower than if you installed it on your PC. Still though, it’ll be the same idea.
Here’s a full guide on how to install it:
https://www.howtogeek.com/693588/how-to-install-linux/
🔫🐧?
Linux Mint, as someone who switched about 10 years ago it’s what I always recommend. I tried several distros, but mint has been my daily driver for the last 9 years.
Also it’s set up similarly to Win 7, so it’s far more intuitive for a Windows user. And Mint seems to have the best documentation and community when you can’t figure something out.
*And before anyone says anything, I’m speaking of the Debian based distros, I know REHL has some distros that also have great documentation and communities, I’m just a Debian guy so that’s what I’m comfortable speaking to.