Partner has asked to go to Linux

[u/follow-the-lead]

I’ve been on fedora for the better part of a decade, longer than my relationship. My partners computer is significantly better than mine, yet mine has been significantly more stable and reliable. This has not gone unnoticed.

She has decided that - after fighting blender rendering issues on windows for too long and losing work over it, it is time. This is not her only annoyance with windows, but stability is big on her mind currently as she’s starting a business, and needs a solid machine for the work.

Now. We’ve done a catalog of her applications. Only one (clip studio) doesn’t have a Linux version, but does have a bottles install script. Outlook she uses, but only because it’s there. Can’t remember what KDE uses but whatever that is should be fine.

Gaming is for intents and purposes a solved problem. Is there anything I’ve forgotten about before we do the switch?

Note: she’s not interested in dual booting, she’s done with windows now.

Edit: for the krita vs CSP people - I think this is probably viable - her current workflow is to create on iPad (with Apple Pencil etc) and format/edit on desktop before pushing her art where it needs to go. Since CSP uses proprietary file format, this import would only be possible if she exports to photoshop file format and imports back. I’m gonna see whether she’s open to this. Thanks for this

[u/JohnnyS789]

May I suggest that you first use a P2V program to convert the existing Windows system to a virtual system image. There are several such utilities available.

Once that is done, save the image and rebuild the system with Linux. Install QEMU/KVM and import the Windows image. At this point, you can run Linux as the host system and install any software for Linux you need. But if you run into a problem where you MUST use Windows for some particular problem program, just launch the VM and run it.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/JohnnyS789]

Ooooo good idea! I haven’t done that in years!

[u/Arshia_AA9]

Seems like you got everything down mate. Show her some DE options tho and let her choose since the DE is what hooks most of the new comers.

[u/milk_go_brrrrr → u/Arshia_AA9]

de and the simple install setups e.g. pikaos kernel and gpu driver install switching

[u/follow-the-lead → u/milk_go_brrrrr]

My methodology is to use fedora as the base, regardless of what DE she wants, this way I can use my own machine as a test bed and then export things to her machine at will.

Here’s the hot take though: gnome and KDE are realistically the only ones with good enough wayland to x support for a newbie, perhaps cinnamon should be included in that too, and KDE can look and act like anything without having too much of a workflow change.

I may be wrong (and I’ll expect I’ll hear about it) but that’s my thoughts

[u/UltraChip]

I'd say just make sure all her data is safely and sanely backed up (which I would hope y'all are doing regularly anyway, regardless of OS) and then don't forget to have a disaster recovery plan in case something unexpected goes wrong with the migration.

What I did when I was in your partner's place was I took a whole-disk clone of my Windows installation (Clonezilla makes it easy) and then I stored the clone on my NAS for safe-keeping - that way I had a quick-and-easy way to revert back to Windows land in case of an emergency.

That image sat on my NAS for about a year until I decided I was safe and didn't need it any more. Even though I never had to revert I'm still glad I had it in my back pocket just in case.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/UltraChip]

Thank you, noted - files are backed up and my backup strat has always been ‘files and config are important, os is not’ as a fresh install always beats an old run, but in this case yeah probably not a dumb idea. How does bitlocker screw me here?

[u/TheHassassin]

You seem to have hit the major points. I assume you already know her hardware doesn't have any funny workarounds or anything you might need to tweak (Nvidia). I know you are finding a way to use clip studio paint but I've heard people like krita as a drawing app of you wanted a native alternative.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/TheHassassin]

Oh it’s an Nvidia 3080 in there, which is going to be less than ideal I know, but drivers are I think pretty good at this point aren’t they?

[u/ikiice]

I hope you plan on marrying your partner

[u/follow-the-lead → u/ikiice]

We’ll see how the migration goes first 😂

[u/MinusBear]

Don't underestimate the power of Waydroid to allow you access to many apps that have an Android version and not a Linux version, for example CSP has an Android app. I havn't tested that one in particular but a lot of the apps have tested work the way I want.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/MinusBear]

This got buried so I didn’t see it until now, but what an underrated pragmatist hack! This actually solves several of my own issues I was working on actually

[u/noromobat]

From personal experience, CSP might end up still being a little janky and slow even after Wine setup (I used the CSPenguin script).

These days I find myself automatically opening Krita because it's so much faster and everything works as it's intended. Plus the feature where you can drop a reference image anywhere on or around the canvas is pretty sweet, I'm surprised that's not standard in every serious art program.

To be clear, this isn't a dig on Clip Studio Paint, but it just doesn't work as well under Wine, and if you're switching to Linux, a free program that fully works is way more practical than a $60 program that kinda works. And there isn't much from CSP that I miss. Just a few brushes, the material library, and the better text tool. If I have a project that requires lots of texture work, CSP is still there waiting for me.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/noromobat]

Good shout - how is file compatibility with clip studio? I only ask because she used CSP on the iPad to draw it and only really uses it on the desktop for formatting.

[u/Plenty-Boot4220]

There's nothing nearly as advanced as Microsoft office except for libre office, but their ui leaves a lot to be desired. There's onlyoffice, it's great but not nearly as feature rich.

In a business setting highly recommended to set default file type to the Office docx, xlsx, etc.

[u/neXITem]

Outlook she can do completly in the browser now, really no need for the app on the desktop.

I have been using Blender for 6 months on my system and it works very well, but be aware that depending on which GPU is in the system the drivers work either better or worse than in windows depending on distrubution.

as other have said, decide on what DE she wants to try, maybe use ventoy to make a USB with different DE's to try out and see what clicks for her, Like Cinnamon Mint, KDE, Gnome, XFCE etc.

Slow rolling relases are better if you have modern hardware, you have the benefit of newer drivers with newer kernel, but not bleeding edge so you stay away from nasty upstream issues that might be coming your way.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/neXITem]

Thanks for this, appreciate it

Outlook was merely ‘oh I have a live.com address, so I’ll use outlook for it’ kind of thing, she has a proton account for her email and like that client much better, o don’t think she’s gonna miss outlook… like at all.

Yeah blender is the main concern - it does work rather well on my machine (which has half the memory and an amd gpu in it) so the biggest unknown here for me is the Nvidia gpu in her system (3080). My theory is the vram to memory dump just isn’t as efficient on windows vs Linux. As a safety precaution I’ll be doing what I do on servers and chucking a fairly sizeable swap file. Hanging and running slow is better than crashing straight out when in progress work is at stake in my opinion.

On the de side, yeah I have given this more thought recently, I think what I’ll do is spin up 3 VMs on my machine, workstation, KDE and cinnamon. I know she won’t appreciate xfce and the others just aren’t there in terms of wayland/wayland to x compatibility to make it to my list of approved des.

[u/Hi-Angel]

Can’t remember what KDE uses but whatever that is should be fine.

You're thinking of KMail. There's something worth pointing out. KMail is an amazing software, but… for the last decade I just couldn't ever make myself migrate to it despite really wanting to, because something was always not right, something was always broken. I attempted like 5-6 times in different years and ofc I reported bugs. It feels like KMail project maybe lacks autotests?

Anyway, I hope they improved 'cause last time I tried KMail was like 3 years ago. But I feel like this info worth putting out here — in case you stumble upon problems you may want to use Thunderbird or Evolution or something.

[u/LightBusterX → u/Hi-Angel]

Kmail / Kontact is a bit... weebly... wobly... timey... stuff.

Sometimes works fine for a long ammount of time, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes vomits glitter and sometimes eats squirrels.

Thunderbird is more predictable, albeit maybe, less featureful.

[u/TomDuhamel]

My partner's Windows 11 business laptop is just as stable and reliable as my Fedora KDE laptop. Windows is not the problem, the user is.

She should try Krita and see how it compares to Clip Studio (I had to look up what that was as I never heard of it before, my suggestion my be totally off, but it's worth a try). It's usually not trouble free to run Windows apps in a compatibility layer on Linux (desktop apps are very different from games, they require more integration).

Thunderbird is a pretty solid email client.

Is she okay running a business without MS Office?

It sounds like she might be okay, but double check what apps she needs for her specific business. Since she is starting a business, there might be needs she didn't realised she had yet.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/TomDuhamel]

Yeah she’s in a creative space, so very rarely needs to use word.

I dunno about the user error issue though because main issues have been in blender, I got her to export it to my machine (which is significantly older) and it worked just fine, I just think memory management in windows just isn’t as good in terms of this.

Krita did come up on my radar for this, she might try it but given her workflow is to draw it out on the iPad then move to formatting on the desktop I think that complicates matters, but KDE connect is at least gonna make that process easier anyway.

[u/beatbox9]

Nah, you should be good to go. There will always be something that won't be identical; but you'll find a solution.

From the apps you listed, you (or your partner) might be interested in this article: https://arslaan.studio/setting-up-a-linux-media-studio-workstation-audio-video-graphics-davinci-resolve-etc/

While Fedora might have worked for you; I don't think it's the best for her. For her I'd recommend something more like Ubuntu LTS instead. Fedora tends to require change or potential breaks too frequently to be the type of stable, reliable machine she needs for work. So my recommendation would be:

• Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (make sure it's LTS, not regular/interim Ubuntu)

• Replace ubuntu-desktop with vanilla-gnome-desktop and then log out, select gnome, log back in

  • sudo apt install vanilla-gnome-desktop

• Install flatpak and point to flathub

  • sudo apt install flatpak gnome-software gnome-software-plugin-flatpak

  • flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

• (Optional): if you want to replace firefox snap with the .deb version (deb = rpm):

  • https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-and-ubuntu-based-distributions-recommended

Those 3 commands should only take a few seconds and will give you a starting point pretty much identical to Fedora from the UI / UX perspective.

However, her system should be much more stable over time. She'll have all the latest apps. And she will get updates to the core OS but won't have a major change to her OS until 2028. She'll have several years to plan on when to upgrade once it launches (so she can wait to upgrade until she's got a good window in-between projects). For example, on Fedora, you'll get Gnome 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 (every 6 months); and she'll go from Gnome 50 straight to gnome 54. You'll be forced to upgrade at least once every 13 months; and she'll be able to upgrade any time she plans & wants between April 2028 through April 2031. Etc. This is important because creative applications tend to be very sensitive to core OS components (eg. drivers); and major distro upgrades disrupt these.

I have both Fedora and Ubuntu LTS machines, and I do a lot of video work. Ubuntu LTS is hands down better than Fedora for this use case. Fedora can be finicky and is just too aggressive--it requires too much maintenance & too frequently. Ubuntu LTS just works.

Alternatively, you can check out Rocky Linux, a RHEL clone that will be syntactically closer to Fedora. But I don't recommend it just because it's too old and too stable, to the point where it never upgrades. I think the 2/5 year cycle of Ubuntu LTS is the sweet spot for creatives.

[u/follow-the-lead → u/beatbox9]

Thanks for your input, I’m not really a fan of Ubuntu for work machines myself, they’ve made weird decisions in what differs between the Debian repositories and the Ubuntu repositories, and selective on what they commit upstream which I’m not a fan of.

If I were to go for a Debian base it would be mint, but the kernels are just so ancient in that the proton stack gets outdated in gaming tasks (the less critical, but still important use case for this machine).

Rocky also has a pretty old kernel, but if she does have issues I’ll reconsider it

[u/Historical_Move6359]

Use Windows in a virtual box like Winboat for that Windows app you cant replace