The Unexpected Hurdles of Switching from Windows to Linux

When I moved from Windows to Linux, I thought I knew all the things I had to realize before making the switch. Yes, I realized that .EXE files wouldn’t work. Yes, I knew that not all apps would work on Linux, so I’d need to find alternatives. These are the common challenges every Linux user tells someone wanting to change operating systems about. However, no matter how much I prepared, read up on topics, and analyzed discussions, there were several things that still caught me off guard. While I’ve since come to know and love these elements of using Linux, I still think they’re worth mentioning for anyone else considering the jump.

Coming to Terms with AppImages

On Windows, running an app was easy. You grabbed an .EXE, and that executable would either install the app on your system or run as a portable app. Unfortunately, .EXEs don’t work on Linux, but it does have its own alternative: the AppImage. Coming to terms with what an AppImage was felt strange. They’re similar to portable apps on Linux, where you download the file, allow it to run, double-click it, and watch it open. Under the hood, an AppImage works differently from a portable app on Windows, but to a newcomer, they feel the same.

When I first began using Linux, I would download the AppImage for the app I wanted, put it on the desktop, and just leave it there. Because, in my head, that AppImage was essentially just like a Windows portable app. I couldn’t install it, so I just had to have it sitting around on the desktop until I needed it again. It wasn’t until someone informed me about Gear Lever and how AppImages contain everything you need to set up an app (including all the icons and dependencies) that I learned you can ‘install’ them like a regular app. They’re still a little strange to me, but I’ve come to love them instead of tolerating them.

Getting into Manual Partitioning

When I used Windows, the extent of my knowledge about partitions involved squashing the main partition down so I could dual-boot and reclaiming the partition when I didn’t desire to dual-boot anymore. I didn’t really know how they worked, what the different filesystems were, or why I should bother learning them. They just worked, and that was that.

Then I challenged myself to install Arch Linux. Once the realization hit that I had to manually set up my partitions, I realized just how deep the ‘deep end’ of Linux goes. Fortunately, the documentation on how to set up your partitions on Arch Linux is excellent, and it didn’t seize me long to be the proud owner of a filesystem I built with my own hands. By the time I came out the other side, I knew about the different kinds of partitions, the filesystems, and why operating systems set them up the way they did.

This knowledge proved invaluable when I would eventually move to other distros. Partitions were no longer this big, scary thing that I was afraid to tweak. I had my ‘trial by fire’ with Arch Linux, and now I can approach partitions with confidence. Well, okay, more confident than I was. It’s still a little scary.

Learning What an Atomic and Immutable Distro Is

Someone once recommended I try Fedora Silverblue. What I thought would be ‘just another OS’ ended up being an experience I had never felt when using an operating system. And, to be honest, I’m still wrapping my brain around it.

See, Fedora Silverblue is both an atomic and an immutable distro. The ‘atomic’ side means it doesn’t directly edit the system files during an update; instead, it makes a copy of the image in another folder and swaps to it when you restart. The ‘immutable’ part means that nothing is allowed to tweak system files, which prevents applications (or curious Linux novices like myself) from messing anything up. I ended up falling in love with the system to the point where I think Windows will always be at a disadvantage because it can’t quite replicate it. But that first week of using Fedora Silverblue was a real challenge in working out how to install apps on a system that does not want things installed on it. Spoilers: the solution involved a lot of Flatpaks alongside my new friends, the AppImages.

Getting Used to Manual Updating

If you’re a long-time Linux user and you haven’t touched Windows recently, you should know that you don’t really have much of a say when your Windows OS updates. You’ll be happy using your PC when Windows tells you, “hey, we kind of need you to restart right now,” and if you don’t, it’ll pester you until you do. As such, updates aren’t so much something you do as they are something that happens to you.

Moving to Linux meant that I had to break this expectation that the OS would automatically download and install everything without my knowledge. Granted, I prefer things this way; I have far more control over which apps get updated and when, and I don’t want to sacrifice that freedom in exchange for a mildly inconvenient system. But I’ve had to learn a ‘night-time routine’ for my OS before I shut it down to ensure it has all its updates sorted before I head off.

Learning the ‘Guts’ of Each OS I Used

When I first moved over to Linux, I assumed that each distro was, essentially, a different ‘flavor’ of Linux. They would all work identically under the hood, but the UI would be different, and they may update differently. Turns out, I was dead wrong; moving from Ubuntu to Fedora to Arch Linux means you’re learning three different operating systems, and each one has its quirks, its stances, and its traditions that its users have upheld for decades now.

However, I came to learn that that’s Linux’s biggest strength. If you don’t like how one distro does things, it’s not like all the other distros will feature the exact same design philosophy with a different lick of paint. Each system has its preferences, from how they update, to the package managers they leverage, to how they need to be maintained, and part of finding a home on Linux meant finding an OS where my own wants and needs from an OS matched the developer’s own.

Distro Hopping

When I first moved from Windows to Linux, I feared I wouldn’t find a home in the world of FOSS. I figured I’d try one distro, dislike it, discover that all distros are ‘basically just like that,’ and crawl back to Microsoft’s ecosystem in defeat. The excellent news is that, as I covered above, I was dead wrong about how distros work and feel, and that there was a whole world of software I could explore. The poor news was…I had a whole world of software I could explore. And it was all free.

The problem now isn’t finding a Linux distro to retain me off of Windows; the problem is finding one that keeps me off of other Linux distros. The temptation to back up my OS to my D: drive, wipe my C: drive, and install something else just to ‘see how it works’ is always present. I mean, the apps are free to download and use, and as soon as you figure out how to set up Ventoy on a large USB stick, you can essentially fill it with a ton of ISOs and create the distro hopper’s dream.

These days, my desire to hop has subsided somewhat, and I change operating systems far fewer times a month than I did when I first started. But when I was starting, I had no idea how addictive it would be to take every distro under the sun for a spin.

My Linux journey was full of challenges, and that’s why it was fun. Was getting to grips with Linux as easy as using Windows? Not quite. Was it fun? Definitely. Whenever Linux presented a problem, there was always some cool solution that I simply didn’t know existed yet. And that sense of discovery taught me a lot more than several years of Windows ever did, or would.