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 :)
Welcome! I think a big thing is to realize it is a bit different and try to stick with it a while you get comfortable.
I usually keep a copy if the original system file when I edit something. Basically things in /etc.
The Arch wiki is a great resource even if you're not using Arch.
For gaming and the occasional Windows app, if I'm not using Proton through Steam I like Lutris. Over the last several years I've found Windows to be far less necessary though.
Also don't be afraid to mix things installed from your distro's repository with Flatpaks or AppImages. I use all three types of apps with no issues. I would avoid snaps if possible though. The last few times I tried them things just didn't work well.
I think I have a fairly good idea of where I'm going. I've been using my old gaming rig as a Linux self hosting server for a few months now, I'm confortable with the Terminal and SSH. Kind of understand the file structure, but not as instinctively as Windows for sure.
I'm more worried about the friction of not having every software I wish for instantly available.
For instance, I use MusicBee to listen to my music library. It's been the case for over a decade, so I'm not sure where I'll go.
I have to use Windows at work, and I've found that just about everything I use on Windows has an equal or better equivalent on Linux. I find most of the time on my work computer I miss having Linux.
Except for music management... MusicBee is really great and apparently it doesn't work too well with wine. There are a few applications that do manage a library but I've found they all fall a bit short when compared to MusicBee. I've taken to just and old time approach of managing music with the filesystem. I also use Audacious for a touch of nostalgia since it works with Winamp 2.x skins :)