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
Welcome aboard! I did same like a year before, and it’s been a blast!
If you were me from the past, I would’ve definitely recommended you to try out tiling WMs (Guess AwesomeWM is a good start) ASAP! I can’t stress enough how good they’re, especially if you prefer using keyboard shorcuts over mouse navigation.
Also, if you’ll find linux mint problematic, I want to suggest you to try out EndeavourOS (i wish i would’ve done it sooner myself). It’s installation is as simple, but it’s based on arch, and arch has one of the most comprehensive wikis, which allows you to troubleshoot basically any problem. Also. newer software versions get there faster, and finally AURs, that will allow you to forget about manual software installation at all.
Thanks for the suggestion on tiling, I will look into that as well. I remember one thing I heard about Pop_OS was it’s excellent implementation of tiling, so this sounds interesting to me.
Curiously I forgot to try EndeavourOS. I’ll roll Linux Mint for now and then if my use case changes, I’ll explore it. So far I’ve only recently tried Pop_OS!, Zorin, and Ubuntu. Linux Mint felt best for how I currently use computers. I’m interested in the idea of whatever an “AUR”, so I’ll do some research on that too and log that away for some ideas.
Well, i mean, if mint works for you, its perfect! My suggestions come from my personal experience, demands and regrets, so be ware that they might not suit you, though i believe that one should try everything.