A Windows User's Guide to Switching to Linux

Say you're currently on Windows 10 or 11 and you are getting increasingly frustrated with Windows. There are many reasons to be, such as but not limited to broken updates, enshittified GUI, and increasingly strict system requirements. In this scenario, you could just choose to put up with it, or you could try Linux. If you're thinking about the latter, then you are the intended audience of this guide. This guide is meant as a broad overview of switching to Linux as a Windows user, but it is not meant to go too far into the specifics of installing anything and that is for a couple reasons. First of all, the exact steps to install whatever Linux distribution you choose will vary from distribution to distribution, and furthermore, other guides have been written which do a much better job than I could.

Why switch to Linux?

There are several reasons why one might want to switch to Linux as a Windows user, including:

This list is incomplete of course, but these are common and good reasons why somebody would want to switch

Why not switch to Linux?

For all of the critiques I just gave Windows, it is still a practical choice, for many people. Reasons why it's the practical choice may include:

Even if any of these reasons will convince you to not switch to Linux entirely, dualbooting your system may still be an option to consider.

How to think about Linux

A lot of people seem to view Linux as one of two things: either a Windows reskin, or something that requires mass wizardry and half an hour to install a web browser. Neither of these are the case. Linux can look like Windows on the surface depending on how you choose to make it look, but it's very different from Windows under the hood, and most software is not difficult to install, it just requires a different framework. Some differences between Windows and Linux include: the filesystem, how things are actually installed, and the overall philosophy of the OS

If you're used to using Windows, you're used to thinking of your filesystem in terms of "drives" (C:, D:, E:, etc). Each partition that Windows can access is usually its own drive, then any other drives, whether they be internal drives, external USB drives, or any disc drives, all get to be their own drive. Linux, on the other hand, does not work like this. In Linux, there is no separation in that way, everything is on one big tree starting on /. The partition the OS runs on gets mounted to /, and any other partitions or storage devices get mounted elsewhere on the tree, usually a new folder under either /media or /mnt, but they could be mounted anywhere. If, for example, you were to insert a USB drive onto a Windows PC, it would show up as a new letter, but if you were to do the same on a Linux PC, it would show up as a directory.

The installation process of new software is another key difference. In Windows, the vast majority of your installations are going to be directly from executable files, usually under the format .exe, that you either downloaded online, or ran from something external. You can do equivalents with some software on Linux as well, such as .deb or .rpm, but the majority of the time, you will want to install software using a package manager. This can be done on a software manager, or from running commands on a terminal. Package managers can automate the process of installing software you need by also installing any dependencies the software depends on, and uninstalling said dependencies when they are no longer needed. This makes software maintenance more convenient on Linux than on Windows, since it's easier to update and you don't have to worry about what the software depends on because the package manager can do that work for you. Which package manager you use will depend on which distro you choose.

These 2 differences both lead into a difference in the underlying philosophy of Windows vs Linux. The default assumption of Windows tends to be convenience, while the default assumption of Linux tends to be control. The former is not inherently a bad thing, as it does often make things easier for the majority of people, but if you want to do something that Microsoft doesn't want you to do, then you are going to be fighting an uphill battle, and this is becoming more of a problem as Microsoft becomes more controlling of Windows. Linux, on the other hand, assumes that its users should be able to control their operating system, which is why the Linux kernel and a large chunk of Linux software is open source, and why Linux is so customizable.

Choosing a distro

There is not one flavor of Linux. In fact, "Linux" in and of itself technically just refers to the Linux kernel, or any operating system using the Linux kernel. There is a large family of various different operating systems that use Linux, which are called distributions, or "distros" for short. A Linux distro is any operating system which uses Linux as its kernel. "Which distro should I pick?" is a question that every aspiring Linux user will need to ask themselves at some point down the line, and it's a common question to get stuck on. Because of how many distros there are (literally hundreds), it is common for people to get stuck on this due to being overwhelmed with choice. If this is something you are worried about, then this choice is less of a concern when you realize the distro you use, or at least the specific distro, isn't actually that important. There are really only 4 major differences between the distros: The package manager, what they come pre-installed with, what they look like by default, and what their installer is like. It is for this reason that it's really not worth overthinking your choice of distro.

If this still doesn't make you feel reassured, then here is a quick list of recommended distros for people used to using Windows:

I have intentionally left out distros like Arch or Gentoo because, although they are by no means bad distros, the learning curve on them is steep enough to send people back to Windows. I also intentionally omitted Steam OS not because it's not a bad distro for hardware it was designed for, but because even Valve doesn't recommend running it on your custom built desktop PC. I'll still link all 3 though because why not.

Trying out your distro

For trying out your distro, you have multiple options:

Try installing software you would want to use on any of these 3 options, and see if you can feasibly get it to work.

Creating a USB boot

If you want to try multiple distros on your USB boot, I recommend using a USB solution known as Ventoy. Just image it to a USB drive and place the ISOs of your chosen Linux distributions onto the root of the USB drive, then restart your PC and boot into the USB drive, and you should be able to boot into any distro ISO you placed.

From there, you will likely boot into a boot menu, usually GRUB. You can usually boot directly into the distro from there, or install it.

When to Install

Before messing with partitions or trying to install Linux, it's important to plan exactly when a good time to would be. If you are pressed for time to do something on your computer, that is not a good time to install Linux, especially if you aren't used to it, because you will be doing something uncomfortable and you will be likely to encounter issues along the way. When you are stressed, you won't troubleshoot as coherently and you will simply delay whatever you is stressing you out. It is best to install Linux and try new things on it when you have some freetime to do so.

Some examples of when not to install Linux:

Another thing worth reiterating from earlier is that I will not be giving specific instructions on how to install Linux outside of simply creating a USB boot because the specifics of installing it vary too much from distro to distro. Most distro sites will have instructions, however. For example, here is an installation guide for Linux Mint

Dualbooting

Dualbooting is when you have multiple different operating systems installed on one computer that you have the option to boot into when turning on your computer. It is a common option for Windows users who want to try installing Linux. There are multiple different reasons why dualbooting might make sense for your use case, including:

Note that dualbooting is not just a "have your cake and eat it too" solution, there are still major downsides to dualbooting, including:

Despite these downsides however, I still do not regret dualbooting for my first few months on Linux because of just how useful of a failsafe it is. To dualboot, you will need to boot into your Linux distro of choice from USB, then open your partition program of choice (I use gparted) and create a new partition for your Linux installation. When installing your Linux distro, select that partition for your install. If everything was done right, booting into your PC should bring you to a bootloader, most likely GRUB.

General tips for using Linux

Recommended Linux software

I'm not going to include obvious things that everybody uses like Firefox or Steam. I'm also not going to include VMs because I talked about those earlier.

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