Thinking on switching to linux

AMD drivers: Native, will auto-install as the mesa library, AMD is tits in Linux, it just works.

Gmail: Thunderbird works with Gmail accounts and can sync the calendar.

iTunes: Rhythmbox has a very similar layout to iTunes and so should feel pretty familiar.

Anti-virus: Linux doesn't really need antivirus in the same way Windows does because it's more locked down and doesn't have the same vectors of attack. If someone is hacking a Linux machine, it's a corporate server, not your desktop PC. If you still think you might need one ClamAV is available for Linux distributions. (.deb for Debian derivaties and .rpm for Fedora derivatives)

Py-Charm: As others have noted, Python is installed natively and is usually already implemented "out of the box" on a fresh install. No need for a program to run it, Python is just... there already.

Remote Desktop: Whatever distribution you have will likely also come with a Remote Desktop client. I am unaware of whether or not they will connect natively to iOS.

Star Citizen: You should be able to add this as a non-Steam game to Steam and use Steam's Proton compatibility layer to play it. A few years ago they were literally asking for Linux players to test it with Proton and Easy Anti-Cheat.

VPN: Linux has extensive VPN support including "roll your own" through either OpenVPN or Wireguard.

Windows Games: Steam, using the Proton compatibility layer, which is essentially WINe, just made a little easier. As with Star Citizen, just add it as a non-Steam game and viola.

Windows 10: The Distribution of your Dreams is just around the corner... I've heard Mint isn't a terrible place to start.

AMD Drivers: if your GPU is new enough (which it probably is since you're playing Star citizen) it should be just magic here since they come together with the kernel.

Chrome: it's available for Linux, no need to switch. Although Firefox is very nice too.

Gmail: not sure what you mean, Gmail is a website, those are available on any platform. If you meant a desktop email client (which honestly I have never in my life used) there's Thunderbird.

Office 360: Are you talking about Microsoft 365? Is that not a website too? In any case Libre office is a nice alternative to the classical Office desktop app too in case you want that.

I-Tunes: A quick search online reveals people use wine to run the Windows version of iTunes, although I would probably consider migrating. Spotify has a native client and there are some places where you can buy music and have it locally for playback.

JBL: not sure what this is other than a brand for speakers.

Anti-virus: You almost assuredly don't need an anti-virus on Linux, as long as you install software through the proper channels (i.e. using the package manager) chances of virus are so small it's not something to worry about. Most Linux anti-virus serve to check windows binaries in the system to avoid someone using the Linux machine to send virus to Windows users.

PyCharm: it's available for Linux

Remote desktop to iOS: Not sure this is possible even on Windows, I use remmina for remote desktop, it supports several ways of connecting to the other device so maybe see if it works for you.

Star citizen: Never played it but it seems to be playable with Wine.

Steam: While steam is available not all games are compatible, check out https://www.protondb.com/ to see the status of any specific Steam game.

VPN: should be native on Linux, there's a protocol caller OpenVPN which most VPN providers will give you a Config file for that you can use directly on the network applet on Linux.

PS: Next time share the list in text, it makes it easier to reply

Antivirus is completely unnecessary and terrible on windows and linux... and on linux it's uniquely useless. Everything is installed from a centralized repo, antiviruses won't be of any help at all. antiviruses came about because windows let executables just be run easily and simply and used them as the default way of installing software, this was beyond idiotic and the reason that OS became infested with malware. Linux never made that mistake from the start, and so antivirus is unnecessary.

Norton is basically just malware, however.

• AMD Drivers: Good news! They work even better on Linux. Bad news, you're probably referring to the AMD "control panel" type application instead of the drivers themselves, which doesn't have a direct equivalent. The drivers should come pre-installed, though depening on distro you may need to select/install "radv" or "vulkan-radeon" manually. Most of the control panel functionality can be found in other applications, like OBS for recording or CoreCtrl for clock speeds.
• Chrome: Although Firefox is pre-installed in most cases, you have full freedom of choice here. Most people find that Firefox works basically the same after using it for a bit, but if it doesn't fit you, there's other options. Google Chrome is most likely available in your distros app store, but there's also less "spying" options like ungoogled-chromium.
• Gmail: You can access this on the website, or through a mail client like thunderbird. You can switch if you want to, you're not limited by any means here.
• Office 360: Though LibreOffice is a great alternative, some find themselves forced to use MS office for compatibility reasons. This is still possible, buy only in a webbrowser.
• ITunes: This is a hard one to find alternatives for, depending on what you use it for. For managing iPhones from a PC, you essentially need Windows or macOS. For playing music, there's plenty of options.
• JBL: I'm unsure as I don't use any of their products, but assuming you mean audio related "control panels", there's many options available. Though they may need a bit of tweaking and searching around to get things to sound the way you want.
• Musescore: I also don't use this, but it's available on Flathub, meaning you can (and probably should) use your distros "App Store" to install this.
• Norton AV: Not many AVs targeting Linux exist, and they're not the greatest quality. Though it's doable to go without one, as long as you don't download and run random files off the internet. Stick to the app store, and you should be totally fine.
• PyCharm: This is available on Linux, also in the "app store". There's other IDEs available too, like vscode.
• Remote Desktop to iOS: I haven't owned an iOS device since 2019, so I don't know which protocol they use. It's possible this isn't supported at all.
• Star Citizen: It looks like this is playable through Proton. You can use Steam (add non-steam game), Lutris, or Bottles to launch non-steam Windows apps/games.
• Steam: Works great
• VPN: As you didn't put a previous VPN provider here, I'm not able to tell you if it works on Linux. Personally I have a hard time recommending any VPN service, but Mullvad stands out as being the least untrustworthy. Almost all others like Nord, Express, etc. share some common traits that make them very untrustworthy to me.
• Windows Games: This is a bit more complicated. Games from the Microsoft Store are very unlikely to run, and require messing about to even try in the first place. Other games made for Windows likely work (even outside Steam), using management tools like Lutris or Bottles is often easier than manually using Wine.

If a tool (or distro) works well for you, it's a good option. Everyone has different opinions on the "best" distro, but since it's very subjective, there is no single "best" distro. There's only 2 distros I recommend against, that's Ubuntu (and close spin-offs) and Manjaro, because they have major objective downsides compared to equivalents like Mint or Endeavour. The distros I generally recommend to new users are Mint and Fedora, but feel free to look around, you're not forced to pick a specific one.

You noted you were likely going to choose Linux Mint, great! It's a "stable" distro, as in, it doesn't change much with small updates. Instead, new release versions (23, 24, 25, etc) come with new changes. Linux Mint comes with an App Store that can install from Flathub, which should be the first place to check for installing new applications.

As for VR, it depends heavily on which exact headset you have, and is not always a great experience on Linux right now (speaking from experience with an Index). The LVRA wiki is a great starting place: https://lvra.gitlab.io/. If you're on a Quest, WiVRN and ALVR exist, though they both have their own downsides. If you're on a PCVR headset from Oculus, your options are more limited. You might also want to consider a different distro, as VR development is moving very fast. Many VR users choose to go with a "harder" rolling release distribution, like EndeavourOS, to receive feature updates quicker.

Also of note, if you have the storage space, you can choose to "dual boot" (even with just one drive). This will give you a menu to choose between Windows and Linux when starting your computer, and will give you time to move stuff over. I generally recommend this, as it provides an option to immediately do a task you know how to do on Windows, when it's absolutely required to do the task asap.

I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.

I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.

The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).

How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.

Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.

Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.

I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.

AMD DRIVERS - Linux's built in drivers

Chrome - Chrome

gmail - gmail

Office 360 - Office 360 (web)

Norton - You don't need such piece of adware in Linux

Py-charm - py-charm

Star citizen - Star citizen though steam

VPN - Proton VPN (my suggestion)

Windows 10 - Fedora KDE

My suggestions if you want a smoother transition, repeated ones have Linux versions

What do you use iTunes for? That stood out to me.

Also Chrome works fine on Linux, though Firefox is a better browser even on Windows.

1. emacs

2. emacs

3. emacs

4. emacs

5. emacs

6. emacs

7. emacs

8. emacs

9. vim

10. emacs

11. emacs

12. emacs

13. emacs

14. emacs

15. emacs

Add Steam to "Windows gaming for Linux." Every game I bought on Windows runs great in Linux Mint. Steam has a native Linux client and ot uses a Wine layer called Proton that has all the settings for each game.

Linux has native AMD drivers, no need for anything extra!

iTunes: Quod Libet

pyCharm: native

Windows games: Proton

Lol that table is pretty strange

What does "Windows 10" mean? XD

Also btw dont expect all games to work in Wine. You should use Steam if you want a pain free experience.

• Gmail: any paid hoster
• pycharm is on linux
• Star Citizen runs in Proton, no?
• Remote desktop: look into VNC, i like Rustdesk
• VPN: Wireguard
• Norton AV: no need
• Windows 10: scrap it

Worth trying Only Office and Libre Office side by side to see which one works better for your workflow.

Just how will you manage to open gmail on linux?

People have been trying for decades, there is just no way

I self host sunshine and use the moonlight client on iOS for my remote desktop. It’s meant for in home game streaming, but using Tailscale I can connect from anywhere.

PyCharm is cross-platform, so you can use it on Linux.

https://cider.sh/ is an Apple Music client for Linux.

gmail -> proton or tuta if you don't care about IMAP, or any other decent email provider (I use disroot, I set my brother up with mailfence, they both seem quite good. I use them with thunderbird) pycharm -> not an IDE, but I like VSCodium (vscode without MS)

VR on linux is scuffed. https://lvra.gitlab.io/ refer to this site for vr on linux. If you play VRchat, its pretty much unplayable in vr on linux, its literally somehow a better experience on quest standalone

• AMD drivers: use the built-in MESA drivers that include the official AMD support.

• Gmail: ProtonMail for the service, Kmail for the desktop client.

• Chrome: Firefox, or Librewolf if you care about privacy.

• Office365: LibreOffice for full FOSS or OnlyOfficr for less freedom but more comfort.

• iTunes: depends entirely on what you use it for, but I buy my music mostly off of BandCamp these days.

• MuseScore: MuseScore

• Norton: Why were you using Norton in the first place? It's practically a virus itself. If you need an antivirus on Linux, you might want ClamAV/ClamTK for something that runs locally only, or Microsoft Defender for Linux.

• Py-Charm: Py-Charm, VSCode, Vim, Kate/KWrite

• Remote Desktop to iOS: I got nothin'

• Star Citizen: Star Citizen

• Steam: Steam

• VPN: Wireguard

• Windows Games: install locally using Wine and then add to Steam as a non-Steam game to use Proton for better support.

Windows 10: run it in a VM if you still need it, or keep it on a separate SSD and dual boot into that.

Star Citizen runs just fine under linux. For the most part, anyway. Being under active dev it breaks occasionally, but the Linux User Group has always gotten it working again so far.

https://github.com/starcitizen-lug/lug-helper

I would recommend using Wine directly over using Lutris right now, but that's an option you can pick in this script. Join the discord if you have trouble, people are friendly there if you're polite.

Don't use Proton/Steam for it.

Gmail as in email client? Thunderbird

Anti virus? Just need common sense. Dont visit shady site and download random executable

Windows? Try linux mint if this your first time. I heard PopOS is good if you play games.

I just switched to linux mint and the install was a lot easier than i thought. Works fine. I love the customization, the lightweight OS and its quite easy to use. Barely needed to use the terminal. The only problems i've faced is discord screenshare not showing my cursor and time to time lagging my games, gaming has not been without issues, mostly played deadlock and it has in my experience came with some bugs.

You're still using itunes and not apple music?

Linux Mint or Nobara would be great beginner distros and would each be great for gaming. If gaming is more important, I would lean towards Nobara. If general use is more important, Mint.

Keep in mind that you can try most of these out in a Virtual Machine. Some others to consider are PikaOS and CachyOS. I'm also working on my migration, and I install and set up everything with each ISO as if I was doing it for real, to see what hiccups I might run into. It will be slower, but it's just a trial run, so just expect things to be faster when you do it for real!

Maybe add Only Office.

star citizen LUG has a quick start guide, wiki, and helper tool to conduct install https://github.com/starcitizen-lug/knowledge-base/wiki/Quick-Start-Guide

Pycharm has a Linux release

To start, I’d recommend checking out Flathub and seeing what’s available there. Flatpaks are relatively new but anything there can be installed on basically any Linux distro. It’s organized by category so you can see your options.

Chrome is available on Linux if you’re worried about switching. Firefox is usually the default and what I use just because I’ve always used it (plus, it fully supports ad blockers whereas Chrome now cripples them). Also, Chromium is essentially the exact same as Google Chrome. Both are made by Google and Chrome is just Chromium before Google adds all its branding and stuff.

Don’t worry about antivirus. ClamAV is there if you want to run a scan but you don’t need anything like Norton.

VPN: check your provider. Most work with OpenVPN or have a Linux client.

Gmail obviously works in the browser but there’s a ton of desktop email clients. To give three examples I’ve used:

• Geary is a simple, clean email client that just does email does it well. Not very customizable, though.
• Thunderbird (made by Mozilla) has more features/options and supports extensions. If Geary is too simple, Thunderbird is a good middle ground.
• Evolution is like the Microsoft Outlook that comes with the paid Microsoft Office Suite. It has a calendar and all that enterprise-focused stuff. Probably overkill but it’s there if you need it.

Windows 10 is listed and I’m not quite sure what you mean but you can always run it in a virtual machine if you need it. I use Gnome as my Desktop Environment. Gnome Boxes is super simple. VirtualBox is more complex but has every option I’ve ever needed.

Don’t worry too much about the Desktop Environment thing. KDE and Gnome are the biggest two and both are pretty much equally capable. (You can also always install stuff made for the other if you want. It just might not match the theme.) There’s loads of desktop environments but don’t be intimidated by all the choices. Some are stripped down and designed for older or low-spec computers. There’s one focused on Chinese users. You can ignore most while you get your feet wet.

"VPN"? Which?

Keep in mind that wine works not only with games, so if you need to run some windows program you can use it too

Remote Desktop to iOS: I use moonlight/sunshine and it works great

If wine does not work try adding the game in steam and use proton that way.

For ppx SoftMaker is better, for Documents that have objekts can leave the paperarea (even partial) like circles i suggest using LibreOffice draw

If you've already tried setting up Win 10, Mint should be downright enjoyable. It's much more user friendly in my humble opinion.

Regarding oculus software: If you need the actual oculus software for some reason (say, if you're using a rift S) your only option is a windows VM with full access to your GPU (and possibly your USB controller), either via looking glass or single GPU passthrough. Both options are a little hard to wrap your head around and annoying to set up but I'm sure your favorite search engine can help.

As other comments have mentioned, ALVR and SteamVR are solid options of all you need is the "screen sharing" part.

oculus software for my vr

Check https://lvra.gitlab.io/ for plenty of options. I'm playing VR on Linux but it's using SteamVR with the Index.

What is this table from? Is it from some website?

Just here to recommend Zorin OS, in case Mint doesn't work out.

JBL sounds like your audio gear, depends on what. Bluetooth, USB audio ot 3.5mm jack connections generally work fine without issue. (Installing PulseAudio Volume Control will help you with finer grained volume control). Some DACs that require custom Windows drivers might not work.

Gaming stuff, Steam will have you covered, Lutris, Heroic, or itch.io for non-Steam stuff. The one unintuitive thing you have to do once you log in is to go to Steam Settings and check the "Use Steam Play for All Titles". Just like that, 75% of your library that only have a Windows version will suddenly be playable and you'll hardly notice a difference: just Download then click Play, that's it (maybe a bit slower launch time).

I would recommend Firefox or Librewolf over Chrome as you have done already, but you should know that Chrome and Chromium do work on Linux FYI.

If you have nothing to lose, ie. if you don't play anything with anticheat or you don't use any productivity software with crazy DRM platform-locking you into Windows, do it, switch over.

The bulk of all games will run in Proton or even vanilla WINE now and the minority that's platform-locked into Windows is anything that uses kernel-level anticheat, if you only play single-player games or even virtual board games like Civilization, those will broadly work fine in WINE/Proton and even in the case of the aforementioned Civilization, those games starting from Civ5 onward even have native Linux ports, but the Windows versions tend to perform better in Proton, and as for productivity software, there's plenty of alternatives to things like Maya, Photoshop, Lightroom, or Premiere/AfterEffects to choose from that isn't platform-locked anywhere, eg. Blender as a Maya alternative, Krita or GIMP as a Photoshop alternative, RawTherapee or Darktable as a Lightroom alternative, and KdenLive or Davinci Resolve as a Premiere/AfterEffects alternative.

Oh, and as for Illustrator, you have Inkscape as an alternative, and for Paint Tool SAI, you got MyPaint as an alternative.

As for a good distro to get you started, Debian or OpenSUSE seem pretty solid for beginners, and Debian Stable at least has a backports repo for newer software, and there's also ChimeraOS if you're building your PC into a games console.

Also, if you're looking for a good Foobar2k or iTunes alternative, Fooyin is great for that, and Whipper's a good CD ripper and basically an open Exact Audio Copy clone, although it's text-based. You could also use CUERipper in WINE as another good open alternative to Exact Audio Copy, which is proprietary. CUETools will work fine in Mono as well.

The linux ecosystem, depending on which distro you choose, has anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of packages. There's only select software that you can't virtualize from Windows to Linux, so you may not even be required to find alternatives.

But without listing any software at all, it's hard to tell you definitively...

There are a lot of software alternatives depending on your needs and preferences. You may want to take a look here or there.

Linux is full of options to let you build the best system for you. That means you'll have to invest some time to decide what you want (starting with the distro). Moving to Linux is discovering a brand new world where it's easy to get discouraged and flooded by the freedom you're given.

I think providing a list of those applications might be a first step 😉

Just to chime in, since a lot of people are recommending Thunderbird as an email client. I would rather check out Betterbird. It's just smoother with more big fixes which has not been prioritized in Thunderbird.

Recommend you Linux mint.

But preferably use LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) instead of Mint based on Ubuntu

for a remote desktop app that also works on ios there's Rustdesk. everything else already had great suggestions in this thread

i didnt know Nortan Antivirus, till now

What is JBL?

Linux mint is great

someone got oculus software to work through wine with access to hardware a while ago and they’re working on something called Oculus Ameliorated which might be simpler to get working

Remmina for Remote Desktop, awesome piece of software.

For VR with Oculus (Quest or older?) you can use ALVR. It can be a bit fiddly but it also gets better with each release and it's been a while since I tried it out. Steam Link might also work. I couldn't try that because it only works on Quest 2 and upwards and I only have a Quest 1.

Pico might be a good way to jump shop on VR. Not sure if you can change OS on current hardware. But next purchase you have plenty of options.

over to Linux full-time back in ~3.15. I recommend you join the LUG Org (Linux User Group), as they have a load of resources in case you get stuck and have some people working on specialised Wine runners. They also run a Matrix Space that's worth joining.

For email and VPN, I recommend Proton. Even their free tier works well.