The major tip I always give is: Linux is different from Windows, this means things are done differently and if you try to do things the windows way you’re going to have a bad time.

As for distro hoping forget about this, you’ll experience it but it shouldn’t start for a while, pick something you’re comfortable with (maybe the same you use on your server) and a DE that looks good to you (personally I like KDE Plasma, but this is a very personal choice, and I don’t even use KDE but I’m not going to recommend i3 for someone who’s just starting now). Distro hoping will start whenever you see something that picks your interest on a different distro, and you decide to give it a try, but that should only come into place after you’re comfortable with the one you’re using. But I always also recommend keeping /home in a different partition just so it’s easier to switch or reinstall the system if needed.

Welcome! I made the leap not long ago as well. I’m using Linux Mint, and I’ve had a great experience with it (including gaming).

My recommendation: when you get to installing games, use something like Lutris or PlayOnLinux. These are frontends (like Steam) that will help manage any special configurations you might need. They can even connect to online sources and apply settings that have worked for other people. I’ve been using Lutris and it’s been pretty good (I’ve been playing a lot of BG3 lately, runs like a dream).

Welcome and have fun!

Start with something generic. Maybe not Ubuntu because of their recent hijinks. But something like Debian or Linux Mint. Just because it makes troubleshooting so much easier when because you can Google problems more easily.

I made a video going over my own experience. But I feel the biggest tip is to understand the difference between the OS and the Desktop Environment, since in Linux these are separate.

In Windows I found myself identifying the OS based on how the start menu looks and how the file explorer is.

But in Linux these are separate and are called Desktop Environmenta (DE). Your desktop can look like Windows with DE’s like KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or Mate. It can be Mac like with KDE Plasma, or Gnome. Or it can be unique like Gnome.

If you noticed I repeated a few names, that’s because they can be customized, and some distributions make them look and feel the way they want them too.

Meanwhile the distro is more focused on what applications are pre-installed and what software will run and are available. I.e. Debain is more stable while arch is more up-to-date.

There are many guides going over this, but distro hopping is the best for narrowing this down. I found finding applications that need to work and seeing if the distro can do it, can weed out any distro that won’t work for you. If you don’t like the feel of a distro but like the functionally, then look for a similar distro but with a new GUI.

For example Ubuntu ships with a mostly unmodified Gnome. I personally am not a fan of Gnome and prefer a more Windows-like feel. So I look around and find Zorin, Kubuntu, and Mint.

Word of the wise though, while you can install more than one de on install, you are better off either making a new profile or not swapping your de. Something something shared resources, something something breaking your install.

Pick something basic like PopOs or Mint or whatever to start with. If youre trying to avoid distrohopping, install a virtual machine and test out distros with.

Avoiding any kind of distrohopping is kinda silly in the long term. You will want to find the distro that suits your needs best. By using a virtual machine, you can basically hop on the side, and keep a working system around til you find your goldilocks distro.

Ive been using linux for over 20 years. Ive daily driven several different distros for years at a time. If you stick with linux, you will most likely do the same.

First off, welcome to the club! You’ve taken your first step into a larger world :) I was a Windows user most of my life. Switched 100% about 4 years ago and I’ve never looked back.

Lots of good advice here, make sure Timeshift is set up. It can save you from accidentally borking your system lol.

As for Distros, my favorites for new users are Linux Mint, Fedora, and Pop_OS. I currently use Linux Mint with their Cinnamon desktop on my laptop and it works great. Cinnamon is similar to a cross between Windows XP and Windows 7 and feels very familiar to navigate for a long time Windows user.

My favorite desktop environment is KDE Plasma, because you can customize it like crazy.

Use the live image editions to test on USB like other people suggested, it will save you lots of time deciding which distro and desktop environment to choose.

Best of luck!

You can trial several distros, desktop environments, etc. on Live boot USB first, no need to rush that decision. But for no hassle configuration and day one 100% productivity, Mint or EndeavorOS. You won’t look back.

Keep your home in a separate disk altogether, or at least a different partition.

Configure Timeshift or another system backup tool as soon as possible, because as a noob you will want to do things that might inadvertently break your system.

Ignore fanboys, distro warriors and zealots in general. The magic of Linux is that it is whatever you want to make of it.

Welcome, I was very excited to make a full switch and ditch windows from my life 2 years ago, It makes me love to use my PC again. First, distro, I suggest 2 Mint and EndevourOS, I suggest this two because they are community driven with a great user base and are very user-friendly.

Why Mint? Mint has specific versions, you will update similarly to windows from time to time, you sometimes will not have the latest version of a package but is not that stale as a distro like Debian that aims for maximum stability and is sometimes too old for some normal desktop stuff.

Why endevourOS? EndevourOS is probably the well-rounded, user-friendly rolling release distro out there, you will always have the latest versions of your packages. It is based on arch, that is the fact the best rolling release distro, but have a more normal installation, Arch is just unbearable to install for any non-experienced user, you have to learn so many things that I feel is a waste of time of a new user that want to touch the buttons, but I do recommend to you if you want to understand your system in the future.

Now about the desktop environment, I suggest you take some time choosing and even hoping between them, it would be your daily workflow, and it is more important than distro. Here is a great video talking about the major ones, you can have multiple DEs at the same time, if you install a new DE you can switch between them in your login screen, do not be afraid to test.

About games:

If you use steam, always check games compatibility here. It is a community resource to talk about how you run your games.

If you use GoG or Epic, Heroic is a great launcher that aggregates both.

About wine, wine is a program that translate windows programs to linux, every non-native game on linux run through wine (even valve proton is just a product on top of wine with some additional sauce). Wine has the concept of wineprefix that is the folder that contains your Windows driver (C: disk and configuration about this wineprefix), if you just run a program with wine it will default to the folder ~/.wine on your personal desktop. I took some time to get it, and I believe it would have helped me to understand earlier.

Both steam and heroic uses different wineprefixes to manage your games, but if your game is not from these 3 stores? (you can manage it by hand but… you know, I’m lazy)

There is Lutris, Lutris help you to manage games in different wineprefixes and have an amazing interface to configure a lot of stuff, there is also a repository of installer scripts that you can click and run, I feel lutris a little more complicated cause usually I had to do tinkering (older scripts and things like that). You can also install your games directly or even other programs if you want to keep your wineprefixes organized.

Have a great journey.

Posting to say thank you to all the helpful replies here. Just skimming I see so many good resource links and tips. I am about to do the same thing OP is doing since I decided Windows 10 is the last release I’ll be using as my main PC, for many of the same reasons as OP. I have some linux server experience but have never used it as my primary desktop PC. But I am too tired of the telemetry blocking game to keep putting up with Microsoft’s bullshit. I’ll have a Windows 11 partition for gaming with things that don’t work on linux, but Microsoft can kiss access to any of my non-videogame data goodbye.

It’s a sign of the times that so many helpful replies are here instead of 10-15 years ago where mostly you’d get “RTFM” responses. Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences.

~2010 is when I gave up on dual booting and went 100% Linux. TBF I had mostly been on Linux many years before but just kept Windows “in case I needed it”

It’s a great time to take that leap, it’s getting better everyday too. The ONLY thing I wish I had was Office, but webapps and things like OnlyOffice work just as well if not better.

Here are some tips from somebody who made the switch about a year ago. My advice is to take it slow.

I first tried Linux on an old laptop that nobody was using anymore. I messed around with it, did a coding project, tried to see what it was like to get this and that running. It’s good that you tried Linux with a home server first. That means you’re already decently comfortable with it.

I recommend starting with a dual boot setup. Some time later I got a new PC, and I was planning to run Linux on it. It came with Windows 11. I wasn’t comfortable with going full Linux, so I split the 512GB SSD down the middle and gave most of the 2TB hard drive to Linux. This has served me very well. It gave me peace of mind to know that if there was something I really needed that I couldn’t get working on Linux, I could boot into Windows.

After a bit, I defected back to Windows. It ended up being somewhat bad timing. I wanted to play Sonic Frontiers, but it barely worked on Linux. At the time I was also using the game engine Unity, which was what my game design courses were teaching me, and I couldn’t get it working properly on Linux for the life of me. I kept my Linux partition in case I ever wanted to use it for something or even switch back. This is partially why I recommend a dual boot setup. You might be dissatisfied with Linux the first time you try it, and if you end up really wanting to go back to Windows, you’ll be glad that you left yourself an easy way back.

Well, I’m glad I left my Linux partition on there, because I eventually came back and stayed here. I was over Frontiers, and I finally managed to get Unity working, so there I stayed. As I spend more time with Linux, I get more and more comfortable with it. I only ever boot into Windows to play multiplayer games with my friend since I don’t want to waste time troubleshooting a game for an hour during a call if something doesn’t work. Though I suspect that most of what we play would work fine on Linux! I’m starting to feel like I’m getting comfortable enough with Linux that if I wanted to get rid of my dual boot, I could. It helps that Unity destroyed itself so I don’t want to use it anymore anyway. Moral of the story: Don’t feel like you have to fully commit to Linux at first. You can make the transition slowly and do what makes you comfortable, and you’ll get there eventually.

I know this comment is very long, but I want a paragraph to recommend distros. I highly recommend something Debian based for a new user. It’s relatively easy to learn compared to other kinds of distros and more stable. I recommend either Linux Mint or Pop!_OS, both of which are excellent for beginners. They’re both based on Ubuntu, which itself is based on Debian. They’re pretty similar under the hood, so it mostly comes down to which UI you prefer. I believe that Pop!_OS is a little more up-to-date with some packages, but not everyone likes its UI, and its app store is somewhat miserable. I use Pop and I adore it, but it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. If you want to try a few distros before you commit, I recommend trying them on some old device you don’t use anymore, or a virtual machine.

Welcome to the club! My advice is, after you’re done with the installation, make a bootable external device with a live distro (e.g. a USB stick) and keep it around. Now, if your main system ever gets messed up and can’t boot anymore, you can boot the live one and start troubleshooting.

Don’t be scared by this suggestion: getting an unbootable system is not so common, but if it happens you’ll be glad you have something ready to work on it

I just did it about 2 months ago with my two laptops.

One (I use for work, self employed) I installed Manjaro, had a few hiccups in the first 2-3 weeks (some due my inexperience, some I assume is manjaro but i don’t really know), anyway now it is stable and working fine.

The other one I use for gaming I installed Garuda, also arch based but with focus in games, so it comes with a lot of stuff you will need for my gaming on linux pre-installed and so far it is great. As insane as it sounds some games that are windows only now run better on my garuda than when I was on windows lol.

The main diference I noticed is Linux sometimes is not for the faint of heart, you have to have both good reason and some commitment to use it (in my case it is also ideological, otherwise I would have stayed in win10 until EOL).

It is true that it makes better use of your hardware (with Nvidia it is complicated… both my laptops have nvidia GPUs) but there is also a learning curve.

The community have some genuine amazing people and some assholes. ignore the assholes and payback the good ones by teaching newcomers when you have earned some xp :)

I will be completely honest with you, I have read and watched hundreds of distro recommendations, and the only one that doesn’t suck is this one: https://reggie.re/blog/20230625-actually-good-distro-recomendations-for-beginners.html

The article also contains some useful tips here and there like: “Software Stores are actually useful on Linux so use them”

In addition to this community, you may want to check out linux4noobs as a place to post general usage questions.