(Picture by Jonathas Rodrigues)
By migration I mean using some Linux distribution or more distributions as only installed OSes. I’m a Linux user since 2005., my first Linux was Ubuntu 5.04, but I didn’t migrated fully to Linux till September 2009. In this post I will cover some important things that you need to keep in mind about performing migration to Linux. If you have problems with some of them, maybe you need to wait a little bit or use Windows and Linux as dual boot. If you are prepared to delete Windows but still doubting about it, there are many advantages of migration, just jump to the next part.
Things that brought me back to Windows
I have decided many times to use just Linux on my computer, but after a couple of days I have installed Windows again. Every year I tried about 2 times to switch to Linux, but every one of those was a failure. In the beginning it was because customizability of Linux. There is always something to tweak or setup more custom. Sometimes it ended up good and sometimes not. When there was a problem in many cases it was my fault. For example Slackware just prints the output when it boots, I didn’t like that so I spent hours and hours on trying to find the right patch for my kernel and compile it in order to have bootsplash. That worked well and I thought that it’s easy to compile the kernel so I tried to change some kernel configuration and recompile it. That was the end.
Some other things that have brought me back to Windows are games, I liked playing Pro Evolution Soccer so much that it alone was enough to take me back to Windows. Also it was because of some apps that exist only on Windows like DevCpp or Visual Studio. If you are using some IDE for programming or if you use some commercial app for movie editing or something like that, there is a good chance that you will not find that app for Linux. But wait don’t cancel the migration, check Open Source Alternatives to see if there is some application for Linux similar to that you use.
Some other people had problems with drivers, if your computer is brand new try to find out is hardware working in Linux. Support for hardware is much faster available on Windows than on Linux.
Linux awesomeness
Many people install some Linux distribution on a 5Gb partition or even on VM. In order to explore Linux more you need to give it space and time. You don’t need to make the full migration to Linux but at least give it more time and space to shine, you’ll like it.
If you use some famous distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, … you may install any application with just one click and there are thousands and thousands of applications available. The beautiful thing about that is that you can update all those applications and also the OS with one click. You will never be able to do that in Windows, because OS and software you run on Windows is stored on many different servers and there is no way to easily track if there is new version or not.
If you are a developer or you like to learn about the system you use, Linux is perfect for you. There are so many tutorials and books about Linux that you can find on Internet without spending money on expensive books. You will find a lot of joy by customizing the look or behavior of your Linux distribution or app. If you want to build some new application there is amazing set of tools and compilers to help you. There is a large set of libraries so maybe you’ll just need to combine those libraries or build an GUI for them.
On Linux you will not play every new game that comes out, you can play some using Wine. But you can play almost any retro game that exists. There are emulators for Atari, Dos, Sega, N64, PS 1 and 2 and many more. They are all available through software channels and can be downloaded and installed as any other program with just one click.
Some Linux Myths
Many people think that it’s very hard to use Linux and that it’s hard to install it. Linux is just as easy to install and use as Windows and maybe even more easier. Every Linux distribution can be very easily installed and configured through GUI applications, Linux was hard to install but 10 years ago. My friend with which I share a room at college was once bored and asked me if he can play with my laptop. I said OK, but didn’t even mentioned that I have Linux Mint installed on it. He used it without any problem he played a little bit SuperTux, listen to music and played with Chesee. So myth busted 
There is also a myth that if you run on some problem there is no one to help you. That is so not true, just on Ubuntu forums there are currently 936,047 registered members, there are so many nice people that know much stuff and can help you at any time. You will even get help faster on any Linux forum than from Microsoft. Just try to email Microsoft and ask for help and try to ask on Ubuntu forum for help and see who’s faster .
If McDonalds were run like a software company, one out of every hundred Big Macs would give you food poisoning, and the response would be, ‘We’re sorry, here’s a coupon for two more.
Same problems with me…
My problem is photoshop. I simply used on it so much that I always fall back on it. Not to mention games, even I managed to run some of them on linux like AOE on Wine there were always something because I needed to switch back. Well my next complete move tryout will be somewhere in January.
Hey Hellas, thanks for commenting. I can now proudly say that I'm using just Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) for 2 months. Sad to hear that you can't switch, you need to practice using Gimp more until January.
Do you expect some new distribution release in January?
No. I expect to get new notebook. So I will move all my job files to it so practically I will be forced to use it.
Anyway I am fan of Mandriva Linux, but I like look and feel of Sabayon Linux. So probably choice will be one of that two distrubutions… Last time I tried to switch I nanaged to run Age Of Empires 2 on Linux, so definatlly I am the closer and closer to the goal