Goodbye Windows

A few weeks ago I finally made the switch to Linux on my desktop computer. This was the only remaining machine running Windows so I’m now completely Windows free. I guess this was inevitable as I’ve been running Linux on all of my servers for a few years now and it just seems natural to use Linux as my desktop operating system too. I’ve been running Linux desktops in Virtual Machines for a couple of years but just didn’t have the courage to completely give up my Windows machine.

The hardest part of this migration was making the decision to eliminate Windows once and for all. I’ve been a Windows user since the Windows 3.x days in the 1990’s and it’s hard to give up on something that you’ve been using every day for the past for 30 years. The only reason I’ve continued to using Windows the past couple of years is that it was familiar and comfortable.

Once the decision was made, the switch from Windows to Linux was actually easier than anticipated. There aren’t many things that can’t be done using a cloud-based application so desktop apps are becoming less important for me. As a matter of fact, I can do 90% of what I need to do on my simple Chromebook. For the few things that require a native desktop application, there are plenty of good replacements available for Linux.

I installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on a small 120GB SSD that I had lying around and then started installing apps. I installed a few basic programs such as a web browser (Brave), email (Geary), and Virtual Machine Manager and I was ready to go.

For data storage, I reused the 5TB drive that was setup in Windows. The 5TB drive was re-partitioned, formatted and mounted. Finally, I copied my data files from the Windows backup onto the data drive. I also installed an old 1TB drive to use for backups.

For the desktop environment, I chose to install Budgie. After a bit if fiddling around, I got the desktop setup the way I like it and so far, it’s been great.

I’ve been using Ubuntu as my primary desktop for a few weeks now and can’t say that I miss using Windows.