This is my third attempt. Partly to rage quit Windows, and partly to gain utility and control with some professional AV software.
I have converted an old Asus netbook to Ubuntu netbook remix and used it for a while. I was impressed with how much better that tiny thing ran with Linux than Windows. But in the end it still had less power than a TI-84. So I stopped using it, and never really learned Linux proper.
I dual boot my Chromebook, so I can use gimp for photos on vacation, but everything I do with the Linux partition is cut and paste from articles by people who know what they’re doing. (I was motivated to post here by a meme about that.)
I’m thinking of dual booting my main desktop, because I need Windows for some fairly processor intense A/V software I use for work. So what would be a good distro to look into for a novice and where should I look for a tutorial? I would ultimately like to see if I can use Linux to run my AV software in emulation and add drivers for some professional audio interfaces. I’m fed up with windows and trying to see how far I can get without it. Your help is appreciated in advance, and if this is inappropriate for this topic, let me know and I’ll delete it.
I would go from the bottom up instead of top down.
Make a list of software and tools you use, and search for functional Linux native equivalents. Then find the distro that supports up to date versions of that software (through flatpak or the package manager).
You can honestly do 100% of this without even touching the command line if you choose something user friendly like Mint, Pop OS, Ubuntu, or Fedora. Don’t fall into the rabbit hole of finding the perfect distro. Go from what you need to what supports it.
keep the windows partition around for a while until you are 100% confident you can fully make the switch.
For finding applications alternatives AlternativeTo or reddit is best resources!
I second this. It helps that basically every distro is highly customizable, so if you don’t like some default settings or something’s not supported on a specific distro, it’s usually still possible to get it working with some manual tweaking. You don’t want to be spending the time for every application though, so finding a distro that supports most of what you need out of the box is a good suggestion.
Personally wouldn’t recommend Fedora as a newbie distro because most guides assume Debian/Ubuntu-based package managers. When I first switched from Pop!_OS, I couldn’t understand why my apt-get commands weren’t working. Of course, that was until I learned about other package managers like DNF, Yum, etc. Also, Nvidia proprietary drivers and media codecs can be a pain.
Pop!_OS, Ubuntu and Mint are all great recommendations though!
