Ask HN: Upgrade from Windows 10 to Linux instead of Windows 11?

[codeismath]

Hi HN,

Should I upgrade my development and business workstation from Windows 10 to Linux (instead of upgrading to Windows 11)?

I'm extremely intimidated in taking the leap. I'm very familiar with Linux without a UI, and feel very comfortable with managing linux servers. I setup and run a cluster of RHEL servers for a private-cloud OpenStack deployment (kvm hypervisor). Familiar with apache web servers, and I run my own Asterisk PBX phone system, and have in the past done my own email server. Networking, iptables, etc.

But I've never used Linux in a desktop UI environment. Ever. Always been an MS Windows guy. But Windows 11?

I think my biggest fear are driver issues and having to convert a ton of files over to new formats for things I use to run my business. (Lots of MS Excel files for example). I use Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook, Excel) and Microsoft Visual Studio (F# Development) heavily. Excel is my biggest worry. And fighting with driver issues.

I'm familiar mostly with RHEL (CentOS, and I guess now "Rocky Linux").

Anyone here convert from Windows to Linux? What kind of issues did you run into? Should I do it?

Perhaps most importantly: Which Linux distro should I choose, and which desktop environment?

-AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 16-Core 3.50 GHz

-Aorus X399 XTreme EATX TR4

-128GB RAM

-NVIDEO GeForce RTX 2080 (Gigabyte)

-(Two) 1TB NVMe Samsung SSD 970

[phendrenad2]

You won't know until you try it. Here are some tips:

1) Try several distros in a VM (VirtualBox) first. This can be challenging to set up in and of itself (especially things like graphics beyond 640*480, shared folders, etc.) But it's a good way to quickly decide which distros you are interested in trying to install as your main OS. There are TONS of distros and flavors of distros. Here are some that are considered easy to use: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, KDE Neon, openSUSE, Manjaro, Feren OS, Debian GNOME, Debian KDE, Debian MATE, Debian Cinnamon, Elementary OS, Solus, Zorin OS, Pop!_OS, Fedora, Deepin. Your server Linux skills don't help much with the frustration of configuring some of the more esoteric Linux distros, such as Arch, which are obtuse to install on purpose (configuration over convention).

2. Driver issues likely won't be a problem. The only problems I've had with Linux drivers are with desktop USB or PCIe wifi cards (certain manufacturers, even top-rated cards on amazon, just don't support Linux!). Also, if you're on a laptop, you could have sleep/hibernate issues or touchpad issues. You may also have battery life issues. I recommend going with a desktop. If you want a laptop, either go System 76 or buy a several-year-old model that people online have confirmed works out of the box with Linux.

3. For Microsoft apps like Excel, you'll probably have to run them in a VM. It's annoying, but works well.

[GhettoComputers]

>But I've never used Linux in a desktop UI environment. Ever. Always been an MS Windows guy. But Windows 11?

Use KDE, it's just like windows but better.

>I think my biggest fear are driver issues and having to convert a ton of files over to new formats for things I use to run my business. (Lots of MS Excel files for example). I use Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook, Excel) and Microsoft Visual Studio (F# Development) heavily. Excel is my biggest worry. And fighting with driver issues.

Use a windows VM if you have to, or just use MS's office cloud in browser or some electron app. The kernel is the driver, there are no driver installs except from nvidia off the top of my head. Everything just works. If you can use a server with linux you are fine.

>Anyone here convert from Windows to Linux? What kind of issues did you run into? Should I do it?

Yes, 10 to Kubuntu 18.04, no issues at all, less setup, miss foobar2000 and installed deadbeef instead.

>Perhaps most importantly: Which Linux distro should I choose, and which desktop environment?

Kubuntu 20.04 LTS is easy as a windows user, and if you want to use still use Windows I suggest Windows 10 LTSC.

[cdaringe]

Do it. It’s great. Excel is better than Calc, no doubt, at least with the native app. Online Excel I find has offensively poor performance. Calc gets the job done for mostly all common functionality. At this point, I do have a w10 install solely to play games—and really that’s the only reason. Id be delighted to purge that disk and get the SSD space back :). I’d recommend not getting too hung up on the perfect distro or desktop environment choice. Most big distros will let you swap DEs after the fact, but swapping historically does leave some cruft behind. I just stick to vanilla Ubuntu, despite experimenting with literally dozens of distros, DEs, window managers, kernels, etc over the last decade. At some point I got tired of over customization, and found that vanilla yields max simplicity. The gentleman above suggested kubuntu—sure, great choice. Don’t over think it—just try it and commit to it for minimally a few weeks before making a final judgement.

[toast0]

My current plan is to keep going with Windows 10 for at least another year (maybe two), while it's still mainstream. Then probably switch to FreeBSD with an ancient window manager, so I can use UI paradigms that are stable. But, I mostly am in the browser, and use one of the Apache Libre OpenOffice.org suites for documents. Maybe some light gaming which will be a challenge on FreeBSD, but then I'm a classic PC gamer, getting the game to run is the fun part, you don't actually need to play it.

[GhettoComputers]

>I'm a classic PC gamer, getting the game to run is the fun part, you don't actually need to play it.

I also enjoy installing Linux on computers

[bruce511]

If you care enough to try, then try. No one else can make the decision for you, and naturally asking here will just get a million replies from people, who have or have not, and none of them are you.

Clearly there are billions of people happy with Windows, but many millions are happy with Linux, so clearly that works (for some folk anyway).

So if you care enough to try then go for it. It's probably worth understanding your own goals (what are you looking for?) and then make up your own mind.

[tucaz]

Isn’t there anything more important for you to focus on your business?

This is not my place to say, the thread is not about this, and downvote me if you want but it sounds like people go out of their ways to find things to take their focus away from what they should be really doing. Later, we get a Ask HN thread asking “Why my business have failed?” or “How can I get clients?”.

If all you do is play with technology your business won’t move forward.

[daviddever23box]

Why choose? Windows 11 with WSL2 will get you both, giving you enough time to migrate any pitfalls.

[hulitu]

Did they solved the issue when WSL2 was terminated by Windows while installing update.

[galdosdi]

Give it a shot; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! The key is to be practical and lean into making it easy instead of trying to go for the linux martyr merit badge. Your two issues you mention are hardware (driver issues) and software (excel, etc)

The best way to deal with driver issues is to avoid them entirely. This means

(1) pick the easiest distro. Any distro can work, but it's a matter of how much work you need to put in. You want to put in none, so ignore any distro fans and nerds who promote the flavor of the week and any other preferences of your own and just use Ubuntu. Debian Sid is also a good choice but not quite as easy as Ubuntu. I don't recommend Red Hat on the desktop (I'm hypocritically typing this from my Fedora laptop because I ignored my own advice...) but if you can't help yourself, at least use Fedora, NEVER an LTS distro like CentOS. LTS is great on the server but means outdated or missing drivers on the desktop. (To be honest Fedora is fine but Ubuntu is a bit more popular and you'll run into software packaged as .deb but not as .rpm, and blog posts assuming debian/ubuntu and not an rpm based distro when searching for desktop related stuff these days. Maddening for a RH fan, but best to just take the easy path here.)

(2) Buy the laptop for the linux, not the other way around. Might be too late in your case I guess, but check out https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn (this will apply to Ubuntu, which is based closely on Debian, and to a lesser degree, any linux distro) or some other page appropriate to your chosen distro. You can easily figure out how compatible the hardware is ahead of time this way. Desktop linux works GREAT on a laptop or desktop build that you choose already knowing you want to put desktop linux on it at purchase time. It's only when you force it to work with whatever you happen to already have lying around that you're rolling the dice.

The best way to deal with software issues.... is also to just avoid them. Use Codeweavers CrossOver Office or whatever it's called these days so you can just keep using Excel. No need to waste time converting to OpenOffice or anything silly like that. You run a business so the tiny license fee is well worth it. Try a VM for stuff that doesn't work well in CrossOver.

In summary the key is to not reinvent the wheel. Follow the well trodden paths of a very popular distro on very popular well tested hardware using the same windows software you already use but emulated/virtualized, and you'll have a fantastic time. And as soon as something starts acting funny you'll get a real kick out of being able to apply your existing linux admin skills, run iostat, strace, ps, look at /proc, take LVM snapshots, all that sort of thing, in a desktop setting. And frankly, as long as you stick to this easy path, you will wonder why anyone complains about desktop linux being painful at all. If however, you decide to use some random cool distro and switch to some random cool open source alternative software and try to make it work with whatever random hardware you already have lying around.... you might get lucky, or you might get the infamous linux desktop experience of spending all weekend screwing around to try to barely make things work, and then you'll end up writing another blog post about why desktop linux still isn't ready.