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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The only backup solution Windows readily gives me is made in a manner that locks me in their ecosystem so I can't really use it to migrate to Linux. Could you suggest a different solution perhaps?
There are a million ways to back data up, many of them are as simple as "copy it to removable media", and don't require any clever operating system features at all.
What removable media you can use depends on the quantity of data, and how long you need the backup to last. Maybe DVDs, or USB drives. If the data is valuable enough, you can also pay for cloud storage and upload it
Start with a portable hard drive which only has one job "store a copy of your critical data".
It's a paranoid set of rules, but if this data is critical, this is a good idea. Even better is to have an additional copy of that data in cloud storage.
As far as operating system, you absolutely can use a Linux machine, but learning a new system risks you accidentally deleting data so be careful. Linux has ways of reading windows-formatted hard drives, so as much as I prefer Linux, I would say don't try new things on the machine which hold critical data.