Linux

I get what you're trying to say but I disagree with this. Software can be a barrier to switching OS but it very much depends on the individual user's needs - it's not as easy as substituting open source for closed, and is only part of the difference anyway. For example, I use Outlook at work; Thunderbird is great but it is in no way a substitute for Outlook. Similarly, I use Microsoft Office 365 at work; OnlyOffice is in no way a substitute for an individual user (it can be for a whole business or for personal use, but not if you're tied in to an organisation or employer using Office). If you're tied into those platforms with work, then for occasional use you can just use the online versions of Microsoft Office in Linux via a web browser. And if you need to work from home or do more, then realistically you need to have Windows and access to the full suite installed locally.

But software does not preclude switching to Linux; for example I dual boot between Windows and Linux on my home PC. I have an M.2 drive for Windows and another M.2 drive for Linux. I rarely use Windows at all now, but when I do it's if for some reason I need to be doing work related stuff from home or rarely if I can't get a game working in Linux. In Linux I can do all my web browsing, social media, video streaming, music listening, even gaming and I know I'm doing so privately and securely.

I'd say the best way to switch to Linux is to switch to Linux. New users do not have to be "all in" - they can dual boot between Linux and Windows (or MacOS and Linux), and then have a low level of risk to try out the OS. It can even be beneficial in itself as they can compartmentalise work and free time by OS. And if they don't want to dual boot, then just try it out by virtualisation.

Is it people that want to switch away from Windows or switch to Linux?

In my case it was the former, having spent a lot of time on FreeBSD so in 2007 I bought a Macbook Pro running OSX 10.3. This gave me most of what I wanted and when I needed something Windows (XP) specific I installed a VM running under Parallels, then Virtual Box. I was able to run most of the open source software at that time such as Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird in preference to the Apple supplied apps.

So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.

This is what I did in the 2000s. At one point I used all open-source software and my Windows was themed like GNOME. One sunny day Wine got fixed for Warcraft TFT. And then I switched to Ubuntu 5.04. With that said, today with the current hardware and software, lots more is palatable to run in a Windows VM. My wife has used MS Office and Adobe software in VMware Player for a decade now. Recently switched her to virt-manager. It's just damn reassuring to know you can run pretty much all non-graphics intensive Windows workloads on demand. Even interfacing with pretty much any USB hardware, which is important for dealing with various arcane hardware.

This is good advice, but I would add having a bootable Linux distro on a usb, and using more and more until you find yourself not needing Windows, then move to Linux with just it or a dual boot configuration with Windows as a fallback

You know there is almost more stuff advising how to switch to Linux than there is stuff for existing users or people with their feet in both worlds. There are plenty of people who used Linux but only for server, or as a dual boot, or on one machine but not another. I think they would benefit from advice on how to fully switch over or how to use both systems to full effectiveness together. Like I only fully switched to Linux maybe 6 months ago after going back and forth for years.

We also need to be thinking about how to get people from beginner level to intermediate, and then on to advanced levels. There isn't a clear progression path forward. It could be something like: Linux Mint -> Arch -> Nix. I believe projects like Arco Linux are striving to fulfill this gap from beginner to advanced.

To add to the software point, STOP buying hardware that requires some shitty software to fully work.

I did this back in the Windows 7 days years before I even knew anything about Linux. But Razers rootkit managed to load in before the Win7 login screen then crash it. After that I avoided any peripherals with mandatory software and it made my transition to Linux a lot easier than most people I know.

Great post! Completely agree! I will add that for filling out PDF Forms, Okular is amazing!

Honestly, I just kept some distros on a USB disk with Ventoy (amazing software for booting ISOs from USB) on it and booted them up repeatedly until I felt comfortable and found my favourite.

I really don't think waffling around on Windows trying open source alternatives is the answer. Look up what the alternatives are, then boot up a live image and download them. Try them. Then switch if you like it.

This is coming from someone who used Windows from 1999 until 2023 and planned a transition to Linux over time (about a month) using a spreadsheet. It really doesn't have to be complicated or difficult; I'm not a programmer or anything, I'm just a former Windows power user.

I just dive head first and use Arch btw if games or softwares I play/use refused to run Linux I just stop playing/using it and find alternatives, I yet to find any softwares that doesn't have open source alternative

Last time I checked, Davinci Resolve (which is fantastic, btw) is only officially supported on CentOS for some reason. There are guides/scripts that allege to make it work on other distros, but I had zero luck with them on Mint when I tried like a year ago.

Libreoffice draw is really bad.

Instead, you either need

• masterpdf, paid but I guess worth it
• a mix of: Firefox PDF editor (drawing, inserting images, text annotations), Pdf arranger (bundling PDFs, removing pages, reordering), GIMP (redacting, compressing), Okular (viewing, marking, drawing, bookmarks)
• stirlingPDF, in a local Docker/Podman container, used in the browser

There is no free tool that does all the needed things. StirlingPDF is really close though and I am working on good desktop integration.

So tldr start with a dual boot machine

Old hardware runs better on Ubuntu than on Fedora or Tumbleweed? Nani?

Yeah I originally trying to daily Linux for like the past 10 years but kept falling back to Windows, mainly due to the app compatibility.

A lot of people suggested dual booting but I found that it messed up disrupted my workflow, and Level 2 hypervisors were too slow to be practical

What finally made Linux stick for me was Proxmox.. it let daily Linux and still have the option to quickly spin up a Windows VM with a GPU if I needed something urgently, without the hassle of rebooting.

So now, six months later, I’m dailying Arch and also self-hosting a bunch of stuff on Debian, and I haven’t looked back.

I think it's about convenience.

Tags for federation: @acceptable_humor #infosec

Really neat post, I'd not heard of a few of these (never knew libre office draw could edit pdfs!).

Couple of extra ones:

Note taking and pdf annotation: Xournal++ is amazing, it's also great to use on larger whiteboard screens. Plug and play support for scribe tablets on both windows and Linux.

Emulation (up to ps1): Mednafen is lightweight and comes with a gui. It also supports recording, though not netplay.

Ebook management/reading: Calibre - allows easy importing and exporting of ebooks to devices, also has a great built in search letting you find DRM free versions of a book.

I did that for about a year while I was waiting for a game to be supported on linux. I agree, is the best procedure.

I've installed Linux on dual boot because I've always loved it and used it as a solo operating system or in dual boot configurations years ago. Now I'm using KDE Neon for the sole reason that it has the wobbly windows. Otherwise, any operating system is fine for me. The only thing I need to find is a good alternative to Affinity Designer 2 or a way to make it work on Linux. I know there's Inkscape, but I'm not used to it or its user interface.

For me, inkscape is the easier PDF editor.

Who wants to start a flame war? NixOS is a better bleeding edge distro than Arch. Nixpkgs has way more packages than Arch.