Migrating from Windows to Linux

Moving from Windows to Linux is less about learning new software than about unlearning a few assumptions baked in by twenty years of Windows habits. The applications are mostly there or have good substitutes, the hardware mostly just works, and games — surprisingly — mostly run. The friction is concentrated in a handful of specific places, and knowing where they are in advance is the difference between a smooth switch and a frustrating one. This post is the practical bridge between understanding Linux conceptually and actually living on it.

level:Beginner

If you are arriving here cold, read the earlier posts first: what Linux actually is, how distributions differ, and what a desktop environment is. They explain the vocabulary this post assumes.

The mindset shift

Three Windows assumptions need to go before anything else makes sense.

There is no registry. Windows stores system and application configuration in a single opaque binary database. Linux does not. Configuration lives in plain text files: system-wide settings under /etc, per-user settings in your home directory (often in hidden ~/.config folders). You can read them, copy them, version-control them, and back them up by copying files. Nothing is hidden in an editor you have to fear.

You install software from a package manager, not by downloading .exe files. On Windows you hunt for an installer on a vendor's website and run it. On Linux the normal path is a package manager: a single trusted catalogue of software, maintained by your distribution, that you install from with one command or a click in a graphical "software" app. The manager handles dependencies, updates everything together, and removes things cleanly. Downloading random executables from websites is the exception on Linux, not the rule — and it is the habit that most needs breaking, because it is also the main way Windows users pick up malware. Universal formats like Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage cover apps not in your distro's repositories, and on Arch the community-run AUR covers almost everything else.

The filesystem layout is different. There are no drive letters. Everything hangs off a single root, written /. Your files live in /home/yourname (often shown as ~). Other disks and USB drives appear as folders mounted somewhere under the tree rather than as D: or E:. Programs live in system directories you rarely touch directly. It feels alien for a day and then becomes obvious.

What a package manager is

Concretely: a package manager is a program that downloads, installs, upgrades, and removes software from a curated repository, resolving dependencies automatically. Debian and Ubuntu use apt; Fedora uses dnf; Arch uses pacman. The mental model is closer to a phone app store than to a website full of installers — except it covers everything, including command-line tools, libraries, and system components, and a single update command upgrades your whole machine at once.

Application equivalents

Most of what you do on Windows has a Linux equivalent. Some are drop-in; some require adjusting how you work; a few have no real replacement, and it is better to know that up front than to discover it after wiping your drive.

At a glance, the common swaps map like this:

flowchart LR
    A["Microsoft Office"] --> B["LibreOffice"]
    C["Photoshop"] --> D["GIMP or Krita"]
    E["Outlook"] --> F["Thunderbird"]
    G["File Explorer"] --> H["Files or Dolphin"]
    I["Media Player"] --> J["VLC or mpv"]
    K["PowerShell"] --> L["Bash, Zsh or Fish"]

Most daily tools have a close equivalent; the table above carries the caveats each one comes with.

Be honest about the gaps. The full Adobe Creative Cloud suite — Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects — has no official Linux version and no fully equivalent open replacement; the alternatives are good but they are not Adobe. Likewise certain professional and industry-specific tools (some CAD, some audio plugins, some accounting and trading software) are Windows-only. If your livelihood depends on a specific Windows-only application, check before you migrate whether it runs under Wine or in a virtual machine, or whether you simply need to keep a Windows machine for that one task.

Dual-boot or full wipe

You do not have to choose all at once, and the right answer depends on what you still need from Windows. Dual-booting installs Linux alongside Windows on the same machine and lets you pick at startup — this is the safe way to try Linux without burning a bridge, which is why it is the usual recommendation for a first migration. A full wipe is cleaner and avoids the gotchas below, but you commit to it only once you are confident. A virtual machine keeps Windows running inside Linux (or the reverse), which is how you keep one stubborn Windows-only app reachable without rebooting, at the cost of some performance.

flowchart TD
    A["Still need Windows?"] -->|"no, ready to commit"| B["Full wipe <br/> cleanest, no boot gotchas"]
    A -->|"yes, occasionally"| C["Need full GPU or games?"]
    C -->|"yes"| D["Dual-boot <br/> reboot to switch"]
    C -->|"no, just one app"| E["Virtual machine <br/> run Windows inside Linux"]

Pick by how much Windows you still depend on, not by which sounds boldest.

If you dual-boot a modern Windows machine, two things will trip you up:

Three of these prep steps happen entirely on the Windows side, before you ever boot a Linux installer, because they decide whether the install goes smoothly or stops with a scary prompt:

• os:windows Make room for Linux. Open Disk Management (right-click Start, or run diskmgmt.msc), right-click your main partition, choose Shrink Volume, and free up the space Linux will install into. Why do this from Windows rather than the Linux installer: Windows knows where its own immovable system files sit, so its shrink is the safe one. What you get is unallocated space the Linux installer can claim without touching your Windows files.
• os:windows Turn off Fast Startup. Go to Control Panel → Power Options → Choose what the power buttons do → Change settings that are currently unavailable, then untick Turn on fast startup. Why: Fast Startup leaves Windows in a hibernated, half-shut state that locks its filesystem, so Linux can corrupt the shared disk if it writes to a Windows partition that Windows thinks it still owns.

With those done, two more things specific to modern, encrypted machines will trip you up:

• os:windows BitLocker. Recent Windows installs encrypt the drive with BitLocker device encryption. Adding a Linux bootloader changes the boot chain, which the TPM detects, so Windows will demand your 48-digit BitLocker recovery key on the next boot. Before you start: find and save that recovery key (it is in your Microsoft account online, and you can also see status under Settings → Privacy & security → Device encryption or by running manage-bde -status). Many guides recommend temporarily suspending or disabling BitLocker before installing Linux.
• os:windows Secure Boot. Secure Boot is a UEFI feature that only lets signed bootloaders run. Mainstream distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint) are signed and boot with it on; some setups need it disabled or configured with a tool like sbctl. Note that Secure Boot is also what lets the TPM safely hand the BitLocker key to Windows, so changing it can re-trigger the recovery prompt. Read your distro's Secure Boot notes before installing.

⚠️ Warning Do these Windows-side steps before you boot the Linux installer. Save your 48-digit BitLocker recovery key first — adding a Linux bootloader changes the boot chain and Windows will demand it on the next boot. Disable Fast Startup so Linux cannot corrupt the shared disk, and know how Secure Boot interacts with your distro before you touch it.

Always back up your data before partitioning. Always.

Drivers

This is the biggest reversal of Windows expectations: on Linux, drivers are almost never something you hunt down and install. The vast majority of hardware support is built into the Linux kernel itself, so wifi, sound, webcams, printers, and most peripherals work the moment you boot. There is no "go to the manufacturer's site and download the driver" step for the common case.

The well-known exception is NVIDIA graphics. Their open-source driver works but the proprietary driver delivers full performance, and historically it was the rough edge of the Linux desktop. That has improved markedly: NVIDIA now ships open kernel modules for Turing-and-newer GPUs, and their 2025 driver releases brought Wayland support that users now describe as usable for daily work, with DRM kernel mode-setting enabled by default in recent versions. AMD and Intel graphics, by contrast, work out of the box with open drivers in the kernel and need no setup at all. If you are buying hardware specifically to run Linux, AMD or Intel graphics remove a whole category of friction.

Gaming

The single biggest reason Windows users historically refused to switch was gaming, and that reason has largely collapsed. The engine is Proton, Valve's compatibility layer (built on Wine) that runs Windows games on Linux, integrated directly into Steam as "Steam Play." For thousands of titles you click Install, then Play, and it works — the same technology that powers Valve's Steam Deck handheld.

To check whether a specific game works before you migrate, use ProtonDB, a community database that rates each game's Linux compatibility from "Borked" to "Platinum." It is the first place to look, and it is well-maintained.

Be accurate about the remaining gap: anti-cheat. Many games using Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye now officially support Proton — but only when the game's developer flips the switch to enable it, so support is inconsistent title to title. Games that require kernel-level anti-cheat with platform attestation — notably Riot's Vanguard (Valorant) and Activision's RICOCHET (Call of Duty) — remain effectively Windows-only and likely will for the foreseeable future. If your gaming life revolves around one of those specific competitive titles, check ProtonDB and the title's anti-cheat status before committing. For most single-player and many multiplayer libraries, Linux gaming in 2026 simply works.

⚠️ Warning Games that use kernel-level anti-cheat with platform attestation — notably Riot's Vanguard (Valorant) and Activision's RICOCHET (Call of Duty) — do not run on Linux and likely will not for the foreseeable future. If one of those specific competitive titles is central to your gaming, check ProtonDB and the title's anti-cheat status before you wipe Windows.

Data migration tips

A few practical notes for moving your files across:

• Back up to an external drive first, then copy from it onto your new Linux install. Do not rely on having both OSes accessible mid-migration.
• Linux can read your Windows drive. The NTFS filesystem Windows uses is supported by the kernel, so you can mount an old Windows disk and pull files off it directly.
• Browser data syncs itself. Sign into Firefox/Chrome on Linux and bookmarks, history, and passwords come back via your account.
• Cloud-stored data is free. Anything in OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or a password manager is reachable from a browser or a Linux client immediately.
• Watch for path and line-ending differences if you move scripts or config; Windows uses backslashes and CRLF line endings, Linux uses forward slashes and LF.

Where to land first

You do not have to start with Arch — and most people should not. If you want the gentlest possible transition, begin with Linux Mint or Ubuntu: both are beginner-focused, ship familiar desktops (Mint's Cinnamon is the most Windows-like landing), and have enormous, friendly support communities. Live there for a while, get comfortable with the package manager and the filesystem, and then, if you want to understand the machine more deeply and build it up yourself, move on to the Arch install companion — it makes the case in why Arch and then walks the whole install by hand. There is no prize for jumping into the deep end first.

A short close

Migrating from Windows is mostly a matter of replacing a few assumptions — no registry, a package manager instead of downloaded installers, a single filesystem tree — and then finding that your applications, your hardware, and even your games are largely waiting for you on the other side. The honest gaps are narrow and specific: Adobe's suite, a handful of pro tools, and kernel-anti-cheat competitive games. Watch the dual-boot pitfalls (save that BitLocker key), prefer AMD or Intel graphics if you are buying, and start on a beginner distro before working toward Arch. Mac users have a slightly different path — the macOS migration post covers it.