That’s pretty much it, after several months, maybe even a year of wanting to take the leap, a couple days ago I finally did it. I just wanted to share this cuz I think it’s an absolute win, and I guess just see if anyone has any general advice to keep in mind during the process. I ended up choosing Fedora, right now I’m dual booting while I’m still in the process of finding software alternatives and getting everything set up, but trying to minimize my use of windows as much as possible, and so far I’ve been loving it. I love this community and I just wanted to thank everyone that has given any advice or suggestions in the past, i’m really excited about this and grateful that I could get to this point.

    • xttweaponttx@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 months ago

      What the shit - this is how I learn ‘cd’ without parameters takes you home?!?!

      The amount of times my dumb ass has typed “cd ~/.” Or something stupid instead of a simple cd… Gaht dang

    • badbytes@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      I second this. Also, taking time to partition correctly for your purpose, can make disto hopping easier.

    • JustARegularNerd@aussie.zoneEnglish
      7·
      2 months ago

      Hey guys, my Dad was always a neck bearded Unix admin so I’ve grown up my whole life on FreeBSD, then moving over to Gentoo during my teen years.

      I’m starting to have thoughts about switching to Windows given that’s what my new job uses, but I couldn’t find any instructions on compiling Windows outside of very outdated releases like 2000. Also, does anyone know if emacs and htop are compatible, as those are my most used applications?

      • मुक्त@lemmy.ml
        2·
        2 months ago

        … but I couldn’t find any instructions on compiling Windows outside of very outdated releases like 2000.

        Damn! I was hoping to do it with Windows 7. Looks like that ship is doomed as well.

  • max_dryzen@mander.xyz
    4·
    2 months ago
    • Always keep a live USB of your distro handy
    • Don’t ignore the terminal, you’re doing yourself a major disservice if you do. Terminal is life
    • The ArchWiki isn’t just for Arch users
  • Hule@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    Congrats! Just keep at it, Fedora is stable.

    It gets easier with every solved problem!

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 months ago

    Before you know it, it will be over a decade post-Windows like me. This week I have been trying to get a Linux phone to a satisfactory state to leave the mobile duopoly behind…

  • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
    2·
    2 months ago

    For some of the last really stubborn pieces of software that kept me locked it to at least dual booting windows, I’ve found running them in bottles is working really well. Bottles has a community preset for Fruity loops Studio, but it wasn’t really working. Oh it would run, but with massive input and audio lag, most VSTs just wouldn’t work with FL in that install. What does work, is creating a bottle for gaming, and then just installing everything through the “run exe” at the bottle prefix page. After 8 years of dual booting, I finally nuked my windows installs.

  • Corr@lemm.ee
    1·
    2 months ago

    I did the same thing about a year ago, going to fedora (KDE) from windows. I’ve booted into windows about 5 times in the last year or so

  • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    I did this a few months ago. I haven’t found replacements for everything, but I’ve found that it’s really come down to my not actually using those things very much in the first place, so I haven’t had to do the work.

    When I look, I find something that works. What are you still looking for?

    I find the array of installation options a little overwhelming or intimidating sometimes. If I can just do the equivalent of apt-get, that’s, of course, easy enough. But sometimes things are just realeased as tar balls, and I have to go and look up WTF I’m supposed to do each time. Nothing comes up often enough for me to internalize it.

    I do find myself chafing against just the fundamental differences of the *nix environment from the DOS-based heritage of Windows. And I find it difficult to get help with certain things sometimes because the installed user/developer base isn’t super interested in supporting different modes of interaction (“just use the terminal, it’s so much faster [for me]” is a common refrain that makes me want to get stabby). But 99% of the time, it’s been smooth sailing.

    At this stage, if you have drivers for everything, and there’s nothing mission critical that’s still tied to Windows, the best advice I can give you is to copy your important files over from your Windows partition, and then dump it. If you have a 2nd computer, leave that one running Windows for now. The duel booting can make it tempting to just reboot into Windows “just for this one thing”, and stay there until you next have to restart.

  • Alas Poor Erinaceus@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Post-Snowden and post-Windows, I also started with Fedora, and, well, it honestly didn’t go all that well (this of course was my experience! If you like Fedora and it works for you, then 👍! Not here to dis the distro!). Actually, I think it had more to do with GNOME than with Fedora, so it depends on which desktop environment you’re using; when I switched DE to Cinnamon all my problems seemed to vanish into thin air. And from there, I just went straight to Mint and have been happy as a clam ever since and never looked back.

    In my experience, running Windows as a VM inside Mint was overall much better than dual booting, which can really get to be a pain after a while (and also I think that the Windows partition will sometimes overwrite the Linux part so be careful!); it sounds hard, but it isn’t—if old and senile Erinaceus can do it, you can too! Always happy to provide recommendations.

    EDIT: Also (and again not to step on anyone’s toes), I never had good luck using Wine; this is perhaps because I was trying to run Photoshop and other heavy, Adobe-type things in it (this was before Creative Cloud). Other programs might work differently with it, but in every case for me, a VM has worked better. I don’t play games (I know, boring), but I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t for people’s dependence on Adobe products that Windows might finally start losing a lot of market share and eventually end up on the rubbish heap where it belongs.

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    I made the switch in 2010.

    I dual booted for a while, one day I realised that I hadn’t booted into windows for 3 months. At that point I reinstalled, no more dual booting. I haven’t looked back.

    I keep a windows VM, currently has Win10 installed, I haven’t had to use it in about 3 years.

    My advice is, keep dual booting. One day you’ll realise that booting into windows feels like a chore, you haven’t done it in months, so why keep it around…

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    1·
    2 months ago

    its amazing how nice it is now and makes sense for most people. I should have way before this but it was a thing with my wife. still can’t get her to take the plunge though.

  • PushButton@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    • It’s not a race, take your time to read and understand what is what and how things are functioning together.

    • Enjoy your stay, it’s going to be your next home, take care of it; make it beautiful, make it efficient, make sure to get rid of all what is irritating you.

    • Start with the minimum and build from there.

    • And, FFS, make backups ;)

  • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
    1·
    2 months ago

    I won’t deny, it’s refreshing to see posts like these, and I’ve seen a few of them around the web. Perhaps we’re really going to slowly see some positive change in the tech world.

    Good luck, @bpt11@sh.itjust.works and welcome to the community!