I’ve been a Windows user all my life and had dabbled in the Apple ecosystem for a bit. With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in Oct 2025, I figured I’d put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it. If I could survive the struggles for a few months, I’d be golden, and if I couldn’t, then I could switch to Windows 10 LTSC and be good until 2029. The intention was to completely force myself in without a backup plan - the only way out would be to install a new Windows OS. I chose Linux Mint after careful consideration, especially considering that there’s tons of resources and help with this distro, and it’s a great onboarding ramp for Windows users. I need the familiarity since I’m in tech full time and just don’t have the energy to hassle with my PC after a long stressful day at work.
I also used this as a good excuse to upgrade my PC a bit, too. 😀
After switching in mid December, I’m happy to report that I’m still alive after 30 days. My computer hasn’t killed me. And I’ve been able to do work and game on my PC without too many hiccups. Marvel Rivals still crashes ever since the Season 1 update. Overwatch works perfect. My other games, on both Steam and GOG, work perfectly fine. But I haven’t been able to test every game out there, but I know I can use Proton DB if needed.
I even edited this screenshot in GIMP after being forged in the fires of Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop all my life! I even stripped exif data using command line tools! I even installed this cool neofetch thing that I always saw in people screenshots of their PC or whatever, every time I saw someone’s Linux build with their thigh high socks and neofetch on the terminal!
But so far, switching to Linux Mint has been great! I’m excited to deep dive more!
Note:
- I backed up all my data from Windows into a USB drive. I’m slowly bringing all that stuff over to my Linux Mint computer and rebuilding my music, video, photos, etc. Lot of work, but it’s so cool feeling so liberated!
- I may also want help from you Linux nerds from time to time. I’ll make posts/memes begging for help when I get desperate. But so far, almost every issue I’ve had has been resolved via an internet search!
- I pray that I won’t come crawling back to Windows. I don’t expect that to happen with how great my experience has been thus far.
Specs:
- Linux Mint 22
- Ryzen 7 9800x3d
- Thermalright Phantom Spirit
- MSI X670e Carbon WiFi
- Sapphire Nitro+ RX7900 XTX
- Corsair Vegeance 64 GB DDR5-7200
- Gen 5 Crucial T700 (?) M.2 x 2
- Corsair 5000d
- Noctua case fans (Lian Li too problematic on Linux based on all the research I did in advance)
- Seasonic Focus Gold 1000W
Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:
- Windows 10 Pro
- Intel i7-12700k
- Noctua NH-U12A
- MSI Pro Z690-A
- MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
- Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
- Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB DDR4-3600
- Lian Li AL120 case fans
I’m sorry to tell you that you are also a nerd now that you’ve installed linux
“You” nerds? It’s “we” nerds now, nerd.
One of us! One of us!
NOOOOOs very darth vader-y
And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for your meddling logic.
Welcome to the fucking Linux Thunderdome
Nerd
Now they can join in on the fights about which distro is best, get long socks, and post to unixsocks.
The answer is Debian, jsyk
As a fellow Debian (and Mint) enjoyer, I agree.
I use Nobara byw.
The nerd team!
When there’s a call for action, Avengers assemble, do nerds compile?
“Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”
Bro thank you from the bottom of my heart for the type up. I’ve been contemplating this for months and this very may well be the final tipping point for me to make the plunge. I’m in pretty much the same boat, tech savvy but don’t want to deal with shit I dont have to which has been my main reason for not diving in yet. I’ve thought of doing exactly what you described as I do love a little challenge, which I get contradicts what I just typed. Anyway, yeah, thanks again for the post! Will be doing my own switch here in the near future.
Happy to post this! I wish you good luck with your switch!
My approach was of course to backup all my personal files to a large backup drive. I exported as many as configurations for my programs as I could - like for Handbrake and FreeTube as an example. I backed up those configs so that on my Linux OS I could just import them and have all my programs configured the way I wanted. Before I pulled the plug on my windows, I also wrote down every program I used and saved it into a simple list, so that I can hunt for alternatives.
That approach I think was great for me since I spent a lot of time planning and carefully backing everything up.
It’s been very smooth for me with minor hiccups when I first cutover to Linux Mint, but I’m damn happy with how well things have gone.
Take your time to methodically prepare and I’m sure you’ll do well when you’re ready to commit.
You have the option of trying without installing. Lots of Linux distros can run straight from DVD or USB without having to be installed. This way you can rest assure that it will either work for you once installed or you can just eject the media without altering or touching anything on your drive.
Gabba gabba we accept you, one of us! One of us!
Welcome to the club! One bit of advice: Be not afraid of the terminal. Learn to use it, it’s a powerful tool and very useful. I recommend going to youtube and following along with a “bash basics” or “linux terminal basics” type video or two as if it were a class, it’ll help familiarize you with some of the more commonly used tools to navigate your system and stuff.
Woah now there buddy. This fellar just starting down the long trail of Linux and you are already trying to shanghai them to terminal land?
Yes.
When I studied I had classes in bash lol. So when I tried out distro of linux, I found myself relying more on terminal than desktop x_x (then proceeded to terminally kill my desktop enviroment, damage some wifi apps, change shit up and had to reinstall :| )
Nice hope to do the same when windows 10 goes end of life.
Why wait?
If you know something works it’s hard to want to fix it.
he needs more challenges in his life
I’m in similiar boat. I just don’t wanna bother 'till I have to. I don’t mind Win 10, and I am not ideologically inclined for linux so the only motivation really is simply end of updates. So, currently, there is no motivation.
Congrats. I made the switch to Ubuntu in 2016, you are spoiled these days with Proton. I want to concur with the advice to learn the terminal. You dont need it yet, but you will eventually. It’d be wise to do some research on your package manager too. You’re on Mint, so it should be apt.
Also, word of advice for future OS swapping if you- say- wanna try a new distro someday. Find yourself an external drive for your files like music and documents. Its better to not need to rebuild your library in the first place if you can, and its safelyoff the OS drive if something goes wrong. I got a cheap Mybook backup drive, 4TB for 90 bucks, and formatted it.
Your striped thigh-highs will be delivered in the mail within a month.
This hit me in the gender
I must have missed that promotion, any chance I could order some?
It is only for people adopting Linux after 2023
If you did it earlier, like me, you’ll have to purchase your socks separately.
Pro tip, if you’ve not found it already - there’s a package for gimp called “photogimp” that makes it use the photoshop interface instead of- it makes it so much easier to use! Highly recommend.
Oh that’s so awesome, I had no idea about this! I jotted this down and will definitely try it out tomorrow. Things I take for granted and know so well in Photoshop, I can’t even figure out for the life of me how to do in GIMP. It’s practice what I need, and this package sounds great to help me ease into it again. Thank you!
Sounds amazing. Using GIMP sounded like the worst part of this whole endeavor.
Rip it’s not in the aur
Can verify that photogimp is brilliant. As well as the interface it also creates photoshop like keyboard shortcuts too. There are one or two things not quite right but on the whole its a life saver.
This sounds awesome! Thank you for commenting about it
One of us
ONE OF US!
One of us!
one of us!
ONE OF US
OnE oF uS
For those making the switch to Linux for the first time, especially Mint, one of my favorite YouTube hosts is currently filming/releasing a series where he does the same.
Check it out: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXHMZDvOn5sU4nw1wdWGXQf5-Fj0k2N7n
You are a certified penguin now
Another nail in the Windows coffin.
Another lost potential customer for Linux hostile gaming publishers.
Thank you! Now I’m ready to kill the Batman and torrent more Linux ISOs. It will make a fine piece to my collection
Today Valve published a Proton Experimental update that fixed the Marvel Rivals crash for me. Be sure to set it up in game properties / compatibility.
You may be my savior because I plan on playing some comp this weekend and don’t want crashes.
Do you just set the game compatibility to force Steam compatibility and then Proton Experimental? Did you get rid of any of the launch options that I saw all over the Steam forums and Proton DB (e.g., steamdeck=1 ) ?
Yes, force the compatibility to Proton Experimental. You can try without the launch options and see if it works. Keep a copy of the launch options just in case though.
For Marvel Rivals
LD_PRELOAD=‘’ fixed stuttering for me (but this also disables the steam overlay so you’ll need to remove it to make purchases in game)
SteamDeck=1 fixed crashes when booting the game
Haven’t tried the update since I’m away from home though.
You love to see it. I also switched my home machines cold turkey from win10 to Linux Mint last month!
I have been using it at work for a long time, but just didn’t do enough on my home desktop PCs for it to be worth fiddling with them and setting servers and stuff back up. But now that I made the switch, I am actually using my PC more at home because it’s smoother and more fun to use now!
The main one is an i7-9700k (8c/8t) with 32 gigs of ram and a GTX 1080. It has such a long life left ahead of it. Heck the other machine is a 2500k (4c/4t) with 16GB from like 2011 and it’s excellent for desktop use or non-demanding games.
I see myself sticking with Mint with Debian & Ubuntu upstream for the foreseeable future. But I do wonder several years from now SteamOS will push many of us to use something with Arch upstream if not just SteamOS itself.
Hey I just wanted to share how I was able to get Marvel Rivals running, although I’m on a different distro it should work for you:
In the Launch options (right click game > properties > general tab) enter this:
SteamDeck=1 %command%
Then, it tricks the game into believing you are on steam deck, and it should run. If you want to disable the performance metrics, just press right shift+f12.
I’m a recent lifetime windows user to Linux but loving it! I’ve dual booted so I can still play stuff like fortnite/call of duty but surely those will come around as the user count climbs :)
Edit to add: I found this fix on protondb.com - you can usually find others posting helpful stuff there relating to any Linux game!
This also skips the launcher, which is nice
Thank you for this! I jotted down your launch options along with what some of the other persons here were posting. Hoping of course NetEase can get this addressed in a coming update so we don’t have to use this workaround.
Congrats on the cutover! I don’t play Fortnite any more but my spouse wants to give it a go some time. If I play with them, I may have to install a Windows drive as a secondary device after all. Totally forgot about this game because I don’t think I currently play any games that can’t work on Linux.
If you have a dusty old console lying around, Fortnite is cross play. That was my solution for the odd match with friends.
If you are a gamer you should really just make the switch to bazzite though.
Not at all.
Bazzite is good for a console experience or for something like a kid gamer PC.
Everything Bazzite does is perfectly possible on other Linux distros.
Heard about Bazzite basically being like Steam Deck. I think it’s great for a handheld, or for some one who wants a specific use case such as a PC hooked up to a TV that primarily is only for gaming.
With the way I use a computer, first and foremost as a computer, Bazzite does not work for me. I want to boot directly into desktop and do desktop things. If that ever changes for me, I will definitely consider Bazzite and Steam OS as options.
Before you do, check https://lemm.ee/post/52533824 and the responses
I’m thinking of doing the jump this weekend but I’m scurred. I don’t want to spend hours debugging an OS like I did over a decade ago. Any reassuring words?
A direct hop is usually not the best way to move into the Linux world. The best way I’ve heard (and wished I did myself) is slowly start migrating to programs that will be available and you’ll be using, while still on Windows. Get used to how new things work and if an emergency comes up, you can fall back to your tried and true tools. Then, just keep migrating apps until most of what you use is open source stuff, or stuff widely available. (Spotify, Discord, Zoom, etc.) Once you have your workflow worked out, you’ve found substitutes for things you can’t get on Linux, then is a good time to take the plunge.
Going cold turkey is going to be really rough. I had Fedora on a side piece laptop for years before my first try on my workstation and it was a disaster. Less than a week later I had to go back to Windows. But, now I’m familiar with the tools I use and I’ve been a full convert for a few months now and it’s been great.
You can do it! Just…take it slow.
Can second this strategy. I still dual boot W10 and LMDE, but every day I find myself booting Windows less and less. All I really use it for is Roblox and Playnite, and Playnite isn’t even necessary because I’ve been getting more and more used to Pegasus on Linux.
You just gotta get comfy with a bit of program migration, for example I used to use programs like Word, Brave browser, and Playnite, and learned LibreOffice, Librewolf, and Pegasus one at a time until I didn’t need the often worse Windows version.
I’ve been migrating to Foss and cross-platform software recently, so that’s good to hear. My only concerns are kernel-level anti-cheat games not porting over and issues with drivers. Nvidia has Linux support for somewhat older video cards, right? I guess I’m about to find out. lol
E: Extra words, how’d they get in there?
Yes, the older drivers are just proprietary.
It depends on what kind of software you usually use. You should look up the programs you use regularly/can’t live without to see if they have Linux versions or if they have decent replacements. If everything there checks out, find an LTS distro. Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives (PopOS or Mint) or fedora and derivatives (I don’t know any fedora derivatives) would be good.
I started using PopOS last year for a gaming machine and all the tinkering I did, I did because I’m a nerd and I wanted to. If I wanted an easy experience without even looking at a command line I think I could’ve.
One more thing. Most (maybe all?) Linux distros can be booted and viewed in a live environment from a USB without having to erase your whole drive (just make sure you don’t go through the setup and actually erase your drive (unless you want to))
Linux Mint has been set and go for me personally. You will thank us later.
Ohh, I think I’m gonna make a list of a few distros I want to try out before I settle with one. This one’s next after Pop!OS. Thanks for the suggestion!
I mean, it’s not like I haven’t spent hours debugging windows. Why is the sound crackling? WHY?
Never solved it and Linux just worked
Hmm, my only issues with Windows over the years have been hardware-related, although cryptically, so maybe that’s why I’m not as upset. But I feel you, not knowing what the problem is drives me nuts.
Linux just worked
I’m crossing all my appendages! 🤞
I had bunch or games start working and stop crashing once I moved to linux. Also my graphics tablet and audio devices stopped having driver issues. Even simgear works. Only thing missing is vr support but seems I am the odd one out in that case.
I had the same issue, it was a security update that made some wireless sound devices get rice krispied. Took me way too long to debug and when I found out Microsoft was responsible, I reverted my Windows and have been waiting for a solid jump off point. I might just back everything up on a HDD, then format my boot drive and go Linux. I’m tired of being tired of Windows.
I’m sure others have mentioned this and you know it by now. But just in case, it is possible to run a complete Linux desktop from DVD or USB without installing. It is a good check to make sure your hardware is compatible and everything works for you.
I think one failure of the Linux community is not communicating that this feature has been around for two decades now.
Agree with both commenters.
Make a live USB, see if you like it, and then install Linux alongside Windows in a dual-boot configuration. Note that it is recommended to use two different physical drives for the respective operating systems, but one will do as well.
Then do everything in Linux while feeling safe that there is still Windows to fall back to.
Note that it is recommended to use two different physical drives
Oh, that’s perfect! I have two SSDs ready for that, and a third HDD where I’ve kept all my media. I feel like I accidentally set myself up for success on this one. lol
This is 100% the way to do it, you can dabble as much or as little as you want, with familiarity one reboot away, and that takes all the stress off the distro selection.
Initially, treat the Linux OS as just fully disposable, which you may realize you have some subconscious resistance to, I think I did. Plan to try a few just to compare the overall experience, you may find that one really just feels more intuitive or smooth than the others, and there are many worse ways to select a longer-term distro to use.
Amazing! Then you’re all set for sure 😊
I recommend using windows tools to shrink windows partitions if you only have one drive and read about manual partitioning for your Linux install - though the “use free space” option should work fine after windows shrunk itself.
