Switching from Windows to Ubuntu

I made the switch from dual-booting in 2007 to avoid Windows Vista (I think it was). Ubuntu was great. Linux Mint was and is better, but early on it couldn't handle my graphics card. I've been using Mint since then. The Mate desktop environment appeals to me because it's simple and understandable. I really thought that KDE 3.5 was perfect, but when KDE 4 came along, I found that I couldn't understand it. I like simple and reliable above all else.

Now I'm considering an alternative to Linux Mint since the Debian ecosystem sees a significant refresh only once every two years, but I would suggest Linux Mint as a great starting point. You might also look at Zorin, which is designed to appeal to Windows and Apple refugees. MX Linux has high ratings on DistroWatch. Fedora updates twice a year, which is appealing, though I had problems back in the 1990s with Red Hat 2 and Red Hat 4 and dependency hell, and have an irrational emotional reluctance to try Fedora, though I need to.

These days Ubuntu has seen some friction, particularly with its use of Snaps for installing/updating software out of the control of the user. Back in the early 2000s Ubuntu was light, clean, and honest. And a little plain, compared to Linux Mint. These days I myself would not use Ubuntu. But it's your life, so you need to do your own research and make your own decisions. Don't forget about trial runs of Linux from a thumb drive. Genius.

Ubuntu is decent, I made the switch you describe and never looked back (at least for dev stuff!).

My advice would be to take it for a spin. You can run Ubuntu without wiping your disk (via a USB I believe). As a Linux newb Ubuntu has been pretty painless as a Windows replacement.

Definitely consider Kubuntu, which is under the Ubuntu Umbrella. Linux has a lot of different desktop environments. I find the KDE Desktop environment is a lot more similar to Windows compared to Gnome, which Ubuntu uses.

Ubuntu also has some of their preinstalled applications installed using a package format called snap, which can result in slower startup times for some applications. I think Kubuntu does not.

If you don't care as much about having the latest and greatest version of software, also go with the LTS version, which has mostly security updates for 5 years from date of release.

If you want to try it out before installing it, you can get an image from osboxes.org and run it in a virtual machine like VirtualBox.

I've been making the switch from Windows 10 over to Linux Mint (ubuntu based)).

Bog standard recommendation: - backup your data - dual boot instead of replacing Windows.

In my case I first created a full install on portable hard drive to try it out. But that's hardly necessary.

Pro tip if you run into any driver issues, install the latest lts kernel. Easy to do in the system update gui.

I switched to a dual booting Windows-Ubuntu a decade++ or so ago. After a short time, I found that I rarely if ever booted back to windows so I stopped with the dual boot and only install Mint now.

The only thing that I find better on windows is the office products. Libre office / open office are not very good compared to MS office.

I did first to Mint, then to Ubuntu. Couldn't bother with dual boot, have a VM for the few times i want to use Windows. Web browsing? all good same experience. Development? hey Linux is development, unless you want to use Visual Studio of course.

If you just want something simple to dip your toes, maybe go the way of a live dvd boot and try out a couple different flavours first.

I'd suggest both Manjaro and Rosa are worth a look.

Chromebook? A lot simpler to maintain and you can still drop into Linux if you need to.

Why?