Edit2: Writing this from Pop_Os! I had experience with Mint for my Self hosting rig and wanted to see other pastures. Decided to rearrange my three drives, two of them are still Windows, another I emptied and dedicated to Pop OS. That way I still have easy fallback to Windows if I need to do something fast and then I’ll know what I have to add to Linux over time.
First things first, I’ve setup auto-back up. For now it’s google drive because it’s the easy one. I have to figure how to self host Nextcloud and then use this as a backup storage.
Steam is installed and to be fair, I’m happy with the native linux games. Still going to take a look at Lutris and co out of curiosity.
I mostly miss MusicBee right now. Any recommendation for the most solid music player? Also, what’s a good movie player? I used MPV, I need something capable to deal with 3440x1440 resolution and stretch properly.
Also, I wanted to install Bitwarden and the first thing that showed up is Snap Store. I remember hearing about Canonical in a bad way so should I stay clear from that?
Hey!
Today is the day. I finally got fed up with Windows booting up with an advert that I already had yesterday and had clicked on “remind me in three days” reluctantly. I’m finally tired of killing Telemetry.
Now that gaming is less important for me, I feel like now is a good time to switch mainly to Linux. I might keep a small spare drive with a Windows/Steam partition for the occasional incompatible game.
I’ve just started transferring my precious files to an external drive and I’m preparing for my Exodus.
Still unsure about the distro I’ll choose, I would like to avoid distro hoping. But now I made up my mind, I’m leaving windows for the foreseable future.
I started self-hosting three months ago as a way to trialing Linux with the added bonus of being useful and my server is still up and alive so I’m confident I can use Linux without breaking it.
Any welcoming tips?
I’m a bit anxious about the big change, but also relieved I won’t have to put up with the bloat/adverts.
Edit: Two hours in and so many kind and useful comments. Thanks for the welcome party! You’re all a bunch of good humans :)
You should “distro hop” when you make a decision like this.
This is similar to having a Chevy truck and getting tired of all the problems it has had over its time with you. So you decide to look into Dodge, Ford, Toyota, etc. Of course no one wants to “hop” from vehicle to vehicle; you want to find the right truck for you now! But that’s unrealistic and your best bet is to go to different dealers, look at the different trucks, and take them for test drives.
You should be doing the same to figure out what you like, what you need, and what you want in a distro. Since 99% of them are free, install them and boot them up. Go for live installs on a USB first to give each one a try without having to go through the installation to your machine. But do know that some times, you may experience different results on live USB vs install on SSD. I experienced this with Zorin and its Nvidia drivers that allowed dual screens on live USB but didn’t when installed and I never got it set up correctly.
You’ll get a lot of recommendations here and you should take them into account and the pros that people suggest and see if they fit your specific needs/wants in an OS.
Despite what I said about my experience with Zorin, it was a pretty nice setup and a good one for someone that wants that Windows feel still but without the added Microsoft bullshit. My display issues seem to be a rarity and even despite that, I enjoyed it and have it currently installed to a Chromebook I have for any little Linux needs I need from time to time on the go.