Okay I know this sounds like click bait but trust me switching over to linux requires you to first master the open source software that you will be replacing your windows/mac counterparts with. Doing it in an unfamiliar OS with no fallback to rely on is tough, frustrating and will turn you off of trying linux. DISCLAIMER: I know that some people cannot switch to linux because open source / Linux software is not good enough yet. But I urge you to keep track of them and when so you can know when they are good enough.
The Solution
So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.
The Alternatives
So to help you out I'll list my favorites for each use case.
MS Office -> Only Office
- Not for folks who use obscure macros and are deep into MS Office
- Has Collaboration and integration with almost all popular cloud services..
- Has a MS Office like UI and the best compatibility with MS Office.
Adobe Premiere -> Da Vinci Resolve
- It is closed source but available on linux
- Great UI, competitive features and a free version
Outlook -> Thunderbird
- Recently went through massive updates and now has a modern design.
- Templates, multi account management, content based filters, html signatures, it is all there.
Epic Games, GOG, PRIME -> Heroic
- Easy to use, 1 click install, no hassel
- Beautiful UI
- Automatically imports all the games you have bought
PDF Editor -> LibreOffice Draw
- Suprisingly good for text manipulation, moving around images and alot more.
- There might be slight incompatibilities (I haven't noticed anything huge)
- But hey, it's free
How do I pick a distro there are so many! NO
So finally after switching all the apps you think you are ready? Do not fall into the rabbit hole of changing your entire OS every two days, you will be in a toxic relationship with it.
I hate updates and my hardware is not that new
- Mint - UI looks a bit dated but it is rock solid
- Ubuntu - Yes, I know snaps are bad, but you can just ignore them
I have new hardware but I want sane updates
- Fedora
- Open Suse Tumbleweed
I live on the bleeding edge baby, both hardware and software
- Arch ... btw
Anyways what is more important is the DE than the distro for a beginner, trust me. Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc. you can try them all in a VM and see which one you like.
SO TLDR: Don't switch to linux! Switch to linux apps.
I keep trying to explain how Linux advocacy gets the challenges of mainstream Linux usage wrong and, while I appreciate the fresh take here, I'm afraid that's still the case.
Effectively this guide is: lightly compromise your Windows experience for a while until you're ready, followed by "here's a bunch of alien concepts you don't know or care about and actively disprove the idea that it's all about the app alternatives."
I understand why this doesn't read that way to the "community", but parse it as an outsider for a moment. What's a snap? Why are they bad? Why would I hate updates? Aren't updates automatic as they are in Windows? Why would I ever pick the hardware-incompatible distros? What's the tradeoff supposed to be, does that imply there is a downside to Mint over Ubuntu? It sure feels like I need to think about this picking a distro thing a lot more than the headline suggested. Also, what's a DE and how is that different to a distro? Did they just say I need a virtual machine to test these DE things before I can find one that works? WTF is that about?
Look, I keep trying to articulate the key misunderstanding and it's genuinely hard. I think the best way to put it is that all these "switch to Linux, it's fun!" guides are all trying to onboard users to a world of fun tinkering as a hobby. And that's great, it IS fun to tinker as a hobby, to some people. But that's not the reason people use Windows.
If you're on Windows and mildly frustrated about whatever MS is doing that week, the thing you want is a one button install that does everything for you, works first time and requires zero tinkering in the first place. App substitutes are whatever, UI changes and different choices in different DEs are trivial to adapt to (honestly, it's all mostly Windows-like or Mac-like, clearly normies don't particularly struggle with that). But if you're out there introducing even a hint of arguments about multiple technical choices, competing standards for app packages or VMs being used to test out different desktop environments you're kinda missing the point of what's keeping the average user from stepping away from their mainstream commercial OS.
In fairness, this isn't the guide's fault, it's all intrinsic to the Linux desktop ecosystem. It IS more cumbersome and convoluted from that perspective. If you ask me, the real advice I would have for a Windows user that wants to consider swapping would be: get a device that comes with a dedicated Linux setup out of the box. Seriously, go get a Steam Deck, go get a System76 laptop, a Raspberry Pi or whatever else you can find out there that has some flavor of Linux built specifically for it and use that for a bit. That bypasses 100% of this crap and just works out of the box, the way Android or ChromeOS work out of the box. You'll get to know whether that's for you much quicker, more organically and with much less of a hassle that way... at the cost of needing new hardware. But hey, on the plus side, new hardware!
This is the reason my 77 year old father in law switched. It seemed like every couple of weeks, he was calling me because Microsoft changed something. And it confused him, and he thought he broke something. I got so frustrated that I asked if he was open to trying Linux. After having him try some distros on Live USB, he went with Pop.
Haven't heard from him other than the occasional question about how to do something new.
I genuinely think Linux misses a beat by not having a widely available distro that is a) very closely tied to specific hardware and b) mostly focused on web browsing and media watching. It's kinda nuts and a knock on Linux devs that Google is running away with that segment through both Android and ChromeOS. My parents aren't on Windows anymore but for convenience purposes the device that does that for them is a Samsung tablet.