It's normal to feel these things when thinking about a new OS, it can be quite a big change. You can always dual-boot, at least at first. Anyone telling you that you need to fully wipe your drive and immediately start from scratch is being silly.

Part of the fun of exploring new OSes and Linux distros is experimenting with new things! You don't have to commit to a distros immediately, no one will judge you for distro-hopping! Even if you do eventually choose to go back to Windows, that's okay! And just because you're on Windows doesn't mean you can't use open-source software! Just because your OS is proprietary doesn't make using FOSS any less valid.

No one is born with intrinsic knowledge of Linux, and no one should loathe their user experience of their OS. Are you made to be a Linux user, or do you just need to tinker with your Windows install? Only you can tell, but you sound like you'd regret not at least trying out a LiveUSB of some beginner-friendly distros.

Your hardware isn't too old, in fact a new OS can often help old hardware run a lot better. Proton and WINE have made running games and Windows software on Linux easier than ever before.

Feel free to post here if you have any more questions about your potential transition 💕

This is one hell of a metaphor, well done.

OMG!! This is seriously the best and funniest egg_irl post I've ever seen! I was laughing so much while reading it! And it's even funnier seeing how many people didn't get it. Incredible post!

Seeing someone newly and genuinely interested in Linux brings me so much joy. Welcome friend, I hope you enjoy your journey.

This was so well written, I am not equipped to even respond to all of your questions as I'm new to Linux myself.

Just experiment and try different distros out as you go. You also have the option to dual boot 😉

Masterclass post my friend :) I'm sure it left many people with egg on their face!

You are overthinking this.

The distro you chose is important when you start to do serious things : running a web server, deploying applications for a company, etc.

At your level this is irrelevant. You want to play with Linux, get a taste of it? Install VirtualBox on your PC, create a new VM and install Linux Mint Cinnamon. Is it the best to begin with? Maybe yes, maybe no, who cares, it's one of the noob friendly distros and it is based on Ubuntu Linux (it's virtually the same minus some proprietary crap) which has TONS of documentation online, and forums filled with answers to almost any question you can think of. You run into a problem? Paste the error message in Google and a post on the Ubuntu forums will be on the top of the search results.

In one evening, you will have learned how to run and configure Virtualbox (very easy) and install an "easy" Linux distro. And you will have your playground ready.

Now just look around, try the environment. Open a console and start trying some commands. Find yourself a little project that will force you to look under the hood : setting up a basic LAMP webserver for example. That will teach you how to use package repositories to install new software, where the different components of these software end up in the system folders, how to run command lines, etc. Give it a few evenings.

Then pick up two-three other distributions with different Windows Managers and reinstall your VM (or make a new one) with them. To see the differences. Manjaro with KDE. Fedora XFCE. Endeavour i3 (an amazing Arch based distro but with a very steep learning curve. For later).

Just fool around in a VM. Don't take that seriously. Explore Linux. Give up. Come back to it. Nobody cares, just have fun and try. You won't know if you like it unless you play with it.

Then if you fall in love replace Windows with your favorite distro and run Windows in a QEMU virtual machine... :P

When I ask about my gender on StackExchange, people tell me to just use Arch, but I don't think I'm fully a trans woman?

@Thevenin

Legendary post.

There's a million distros but they fall into some pretty broad categories. The biggest categories are corporate vs community and rolling vs stable/intermittent updates.

Corporate distros are built by or sponsored/heavily influenced by corporations. (Though they're often built on top of a community distro, not from whole cloth) Ubuntu is developed by canonical, Fedora by Red Hat (now IBM), SUSE by Novell which is currently owned by some firm I don't know anything about. They tend to be developed for a wide variety of use cases and often have paid support tiers or have one project that's sold with support to organizations and another free tier that doesn't have the paid support. Community based distro are made by volunteers and foundations and don't have a profit motivated arm, like Debian or Arch.

Then there's rolling vs. Stable. Rolling releases update every software package as the update comes in. New versions, bugfixes, etc, you get them as they're released. Stable or intermittent releases release on a set time period and the idea is everything is compatible at the time of release, and only bugfixes are released until the next big version. There are exceptions to that but it's the basic idea.

The last thing to keep an eye on is the desktop environment. This is the look, feel, and workflow of your UI and how you interact with the computer. There are two big ones, Gnome and KDE. Gnome is used on Ubuntu and most of it's derivatives, and has a pretty specific workflow though it's customizable through extensions. KDE is extremely customizable but in my opinion looks a bit more old fashioned by default.

You can make a live USB of most Linux distros and play around with them without altering your computer. You'd boot from the USB as if it were a hard drive and try it out. Most distros home page have step by step instructions for this.

Gaming on Linux is currently in a pretty good place. Ive been able to play new AAA games in the launch week on Linux and also some old games from the early 2000's. If a game is extremely obscure or has anti-cheat, you might have issues but it's been surprisingly smooth for me and my partner, who is a complete Linux noob and is gaming fully on a fedora based distro I installed for them.

My advice would be to try out Pop!_OS, fedora, and anything that catches your eye and decide. I'd recommend against Arch for a first distro if you're worried about being overwhelmed, the install takes a bit more understanding of how a Linux system works. I'd also recommend against Manjaro, as it's had some issues in the past that caused some people to.lose faith in the dev team, And I'd recommend against Ubuntu which is currently working on a semi-walled garden that bothers some people both for ideological and performance reasons.

I'm personally on Nobara, which is based on Fedora with a lot of gaming necessities built in, so installing your operating system also installs steam and a lot of the compatibility software it needs. It's a great distro and also one I think would be easy to use.

Feel free to PM me with any questions, I'd.love to help more if needed. I'm not an engineer so I can't really help with regard to engineering software but I can probably help more if I know your specific hardware and can help with any questions that come up.

I've been using Linux for many years but I'm very much just a "user", not a Linux expert.

My advice would be to start with the most common beginner-friendly un-fancy distro. For me this is plain ubuntu. The reason is, thousands of people will have already encountered any questions or problems you run into so good answers and solutions will be readily available.

Install on a live USB. This means you don't have to commit by installing on your hard drive.

You've posted this in the wrong community; this community is for memes about both cracked and uncracked eggs. Might want to post this in a different community.

Is my hardware too old to start tinkering with OSs?

I don't know what you have but I'm using an Acer Chromebook from the early days, it's one of the few ones which had Hard drive bay. I upgraded it to 8GB of ram and it works well enough for web browsing and even Minecraft (lowest render distance running optifine, forget about servers). Also windows wouldn't run on this thing even if I wanted to, because it doesn't have proper drivers for it and is way too slow for modern versions to run smoothly anyway.

Generally Linux supports much older hardware than Windows does but if it's too old you are better off replacing said hardware with something slightly newer. Some old hardware is best suited only for Retro applications such as old-school gaming or running legacy equipment.

Will losing touch with the Windows environment make it more difficult for me to succeed in a Windows-dominated career?

Depends if they require it and how much or why they do. If it's required then yes, if you can work around it then not necessarily.

Your is choice should be based on what you plan to use the device for.

It’s a bit like I live horses but if I need a means of transportation I will pick a car if speed and long distances are involved.

When I get enough money I can get a horse as well even if it’s just for going to the local market.

I think for learning the ropes you should pick something easy and basic. You’ll get drawn into other distros as you learn.

If you want to learn about how the system works at the base level Linux from scratch is a great way of learning.

It's understandable to feel that way about trying a new OS. It's a pretty big decision. I think the only way to know would be to try one out. and see if you like it. Linux can run pretty well on old hardware, so I wouldn't be too concerned there.

There's a few ways to try out linux without committing to even a dual boot. You could try running it in a VM in windows. I've used VirtualBox in the past to do that and it worked out fine. You may not get to properly see how well your hardware does in a VM tho.

You can also create a LiveUSB with Persistence, if you've got a spare USB thumbdrive lying around thats large enough (>= 4GB at smallest, maybe?). This will allow you to boot your computer into Linux off of a USB drive and try it out. the Persistence setting will allow you to save any changes you make to it like installing software or creating files to persist on the USB drive so you can go back to Windows and come back and all your changes will be there. It won't do anything to your Windows install at all.

You said you have an engineering background and use proprietary software. It's possible that some of it may run on Linux. Is it software you run on your own personal machine, or just use at work? You can check the WINE Appdb to see how any software you may need thats non-negotiable (as in an alternative just wont cut it) will work. A lot of times, the issue isn't really that things wont run on Linux or WINE, but that they have antipiracy or anticheat measures that won't accept an OS other than the one it was written for.

Valve has really done a lot for gaming on linux, and a lot of Steam games do work well. Idk what kind of games you play, but you can always check ProtonDB for Steam compatibility. Just be sure to click on "PC" once you select the game you're looking for. Sometimes there are tweaks you may need to do (Lookin at you Blue Reflection, lmao) in order to get things to work. Other times, stuff will just run out of the box (eyyy Sekiro). For games outside of steam, I'd look at Lutris, or again, the WINE AppDB. AreWeAntiCheatYet? maintains a list of games that have anticheat systems and if they have, or have plans to implement, linux support.

I would recommend you start with Linux Mint. It's based on Ubuntu, which is a really popular distro, so there's tons of support you'll be able to find out there on the internet that should apply. The standard Cinnamon package should be good, unless you really feel your PC is old, then maybe the XFCE version will be better. (It's more lightweight than Cinnamon). If you do ever go down the route of distro hopping if you choose to do a dual boot, I'd recommend maybe setting up a separate /home partition when you're installing Linux, but that's wayy further down the line from just trying it out.

Have fun with it!

Good thing is that Linux can support pretty much every hardware regardless how old it is. Bad thing is that Linux Users have it hard in a Windows dominated Landscape which makes transitioning from Windows to Linux quite harrowing. I took the plunge and never looked back. Heck my workflows and games even feel better than ever, it's glorious thanks to Glorious Eggroll (did that user and developer chose that name on purpose though?)

I'm not trans but I am gay so you should value my opinion at 50%.

how do you choose a distro? Do you just know, or do you have to try them all?

Pick a reputable one, use it for a long time, figure out what you like/don't like about it, and see if any distros offer alternatives. Most distros offer 95% of the same thing, and the last part is usually down to the out-of-box experience, software availability, and how stable/bleeding-edge the software availability is. I always recommend Linux Mint to get started with since it's Debian-based (wide software compatibility, stable software updates, and the most typical/"normal" type of Linux distro without any gimmicks) and has a good reputation. You can almost always customize any distro to look and feel like any other distro, and they're more similar to "preconfigured installs" than "closed-off/unique ecosystems".

Is there some place where you can try distros on for size without the trouble and risk of migrating multiple times?

Try installing and running distros in a VM, e.g. VirtualBox (I don't know what the best one for Windows is). VMs act like an emulated computer and you can get the full experience of what an install will be like and how it will look/feel without giving it any real hardware.

How do I know if Linux is right for me? How do I know Windows is wrong? If I loathe my user experience with Windows, is that the fault of Windows or just me? If Linux starts feeling comfortable, how do I know it’s because I’ve made the right choice and it’s not just inertia setting in? Does that even matter?

It depends on your values, but a lot of people simply use Linux because it is open source and community-driven, whereas Microsoft wants nothing more than to track you and give you as many ads as you'll tolerate. You can customize literally every part of Linux, and so I really like it because I'm a control freak and if I don't like the way something works I can change it. On Windows you get what you get and every year you get less tunables.

I’m at least good with Windows, but I lack the intuition of the average Linux user. Could I really master Linux the way I have Windows, or would my awkward personality relegate me to being a permanent tourist?

You'll get comfortable quickly if you use a newbie-friendly distro. Linux is different that Windows in a lot of ways but it's not always in a good way or bad way, just different. My guess is that you'll actually become much better at Linux than Windows, because Windows tries its hardest to make the computer seem like "magic" and prevent you from understanding what's going on, whereas Linux lets you open and modify anything you want and even gives you documentation on how to do it. Nothing in Linux will ever tell you "no" (so be careful!).

Is my hardware too old to start tinkering with OSs?

Linux runs on fuckin anything. Windows is like "mmmm your hardware is 4 years old sorry you can't run Windows 11!" whereas Linux is like "does it have a CPU?"

I know your choice of OS should take priority over your programs, as long as those programs aren’t vital, but I have a full Steam library and don’t look forward to losing any old friends. Can I partition my drive? Is that worth the trouble, switching from OS to OS depending on circumstances? I hear some distros these days can run some windows programs, and that you don’t have to leave your old programs behind the way you used to, but can I count on that trend continuing?

IMO partitioning drives and dual-booting can make things complicated for a new user but if you aren't sure if you want to stay you might want to do it anyway. Games run very well on Linux in general, with notable games that don't work being listed here, and specific games listed here (Gold/Platinum is good). Linux (not based on distro) is very good at running Windows programs by using a compatibility layer named "Wine", but there are notable exceptions. Generally you should try to run very few Windows programs that aren't games, and you'll have the best experience by finding open source alternatives to common programs.

Will losing touch with the Windows environment make it more difficult for me to succeed in a Windows-dominated career?

That depends on how extensively your career revolves around Windows. IMO Windows and Linux are more similar than different, and if you're just being forced to use Windows to run some normal workflows you're not going to feel any culture shock. If your career revolves around help desk or something you might lose touch with troubleshooting tips.

All that said, I think you'll find Linux easier to use than you think. Linux itself has very few actual flaws at the moment, and most of the friction is because some popular programs don't have Linux versions. Make a list of all the programs you use, see if they have Linux versions, and look for alternatives if they don't. Also make a list of all the games you want to play and check ProtonDB to see how compatible they are.

Changing OS for the first time is scary, but there are ways to try them without risk (specially linux).

Even though there are better communities for this, like https://lemmy.world/c/linux@lemmy.ml, I'll try to help a little. I would recommend creating a virtual machine (in Windows probably VM Ware would be easiest). There you can install any OS you want and it's isolated from anything else on the PC. Try the programs you want or need, but bear in mind than installation is different than in Windows. In Linux software is installed from repositories managed by the distro and almost all distros offer a graphical interface for this (like Play Store in Android or App Store in iOS). I may add that you can create a bootable USB and start the system from there. That lets you try the OS without install and anything you do there will reset the next time you boot from the USB.

Regarding choosing the perfect OS the first time, don't even think about it. In reality it doesn't really matter. There's a thing called distro hopping and is exactly changing distros frequently, many Linux users do it and it's totally fine to find a better distro for you down the road. Find one with a large userbase, like Fedora or Ubuntu. If you like gaming I would recommend PopOS (based on ubuntu) or Nobara (based on Fedora), so pretty much any issue you have can be looked up on the OS they are based on. This gives you access to a large group of people with the same issues or maybe they already solved it.

Having an old PC you are probably better off with Linux than with Windows. Linux is pretty famous for not consuming many resources and the support for older hardware is incredibly good.

One thing I should say is the different desktop environments. There are a lot on Linux. Find the one you like most, it's that simple. The biggest ones are Gnome and KDE. They have great support and most distros have installs with one or the other to let you download and install the one you want.

I hope this helps you somehow and even though I don't think the initial fear is going to go away for a while, I would like for you to give it a try. It's really liberating not having ads in your OS or being profiled by it.

My first distro was Ubuntu(great for beginners but not advanced users), my second was Manjaro(horrible distro, don't give it a try), my third was Debian(one of the best distros imo) and my actual distro is Arch and i dont plan on switching again. Why i stay with Arch ? because i like the Diy and simple philosophy around it. Linux is the best choice if you don't require proprietary softwares(because they may be not compatible with Linux). Linux is not more hard than Windows to learn, it's just a different world(i switched to Linux in December 2022 so it's very recent).