!rant

I currently have a PC with Windows 10 and I am thinking of switching to Linux. I am very new to stuff like that. Any suggestions or tips??

If it hot out do you wear pants? If you eat cereal do you use a fork? Do you ride a bike on a long road trip? Do you use a screw driver to drive a nail?

Pick the right tool for the job.

Also Windows 10 has dev mode that has Ubuntu shell built in.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/...

@TonyG what a great explanation

i think you need tp decide why you need to make the change, two years ago, i switched to linux because i wanted to be in that environment which was related to web servers, all the commands and stuff like that, i suggest first think ehy you want to do it and then make the decision

Just do it, you won't regret it. I use linux mint, it's very good. There are plenty of tutorials to install it.
One last thing, don't listen to Windows users. It will take a while to get used to it, but if you are a true programmer learning to use Linux will be infinitely more useful than that Windows shit-os.

@geronimo probably the most short-sighted thing you could have responded with. As someone who frequently uses both - they both have pros and cons. Understanding when to use which is more important. Sticking to only one is only going to limit yourself and your potential.

@TonyG you are right. I'll reinstall windows, and also learn DOS. Who knows right?

To start off I recomend ubuntu. It mostly works out-of-the-box so you'll be able to start working with it and learn about package managers and the Unix file system right away

Do it as soon as possible.

If you don't have any programs you need to use like Photoshop that might require Windows I'd say you should not multiboot. Otherwise you might be tempted to just use Windows because you're already familiar with it and not try to do something the Linux way instead.

And if you do use Linux: You can do pretty much everything on the command line. And it's often times the best tool for the job

Just try out several distributions with virtual machines and then choose the one you like most. Believe me: you will never regret the move to Linux!!!

Just Do it !

If you are willing to spend some time because something is not working on the first try, go ahead.
I personally like Linux mint

IMO, if you're in web dev and you already have production environments that are LAMP/LEMP, then I would use the same distro as those.

If you need the same environment as your web servers then you should use something like Vagrant. That way you can use a more modern distribution which for consumers makes more sense. I don't think that you want to run extremely old software just because your servers are using Debian or rhel

I've just got to laugh at the fact that Windows users here are constantly complaining Linux users "don't respect their choices" yet the first comments on here are from a Windows user offering a lot of sarcasm and not much else to a question that has nothing to do with him

@TheCrashman: as others have noted already, make a list of apps that you absolutely *need* to use, and see if there are compatible alternatives in the Linux environment. Things which don't have a good analogue in Linux are Photoshop and MS Word (yes, I know there's OpenOffice or what have you but I've never been satisfied with the formatting differences between the two... If you need to write a document, it won't matter, but if you need to collaborate on something, chances are other MS Word users are going to be pissed if you screw with their formatting). And gaming. Keep Windows if you like gaming, gaming on Linux is doable but (according to gamers) not really satisfactory.

If you have none of the restrictions above, feel free to wipe you partition and just install Linux. Otherwise, I'd recommend dual-booting (probably what you want unless you're super-confident). Finally, try out 'live versions' of the OS you want before hand, or run it on a VM

@TheCrashman: I recommend Ubuntu to start. Hands down.

I would suggest Arch Linux, people will probably call me crazy for suggesting this to someone new to linux.

The reason I suggest it is because it forces you to learn how your system works and provides only what you need.

I can understand the temptation to use something like Ubuntu that has everything out of the box but all the decisions have been made for you. With Arch you can have a greater amount of control over what makes up your system.

You'll also learn so much more about what linux is and how it works.

The Arch wiki is excellent as are their forums and I rarely face an issue that isn't covered in either.

Others have recommended dual booting with Windows. I'd discourage this, the temptation will be to fall back to Windows all the time and you'll eventually just uninstall linux. Try linux exclusively and if you get stuck try to learn how to do the task under linux instead.

Good luck with linux, even if you don't stick with it at least you'll learn something new.

Thank you all for your input. I will definitely give Linux a try on a VM. I've just heard that the command line is very useful and that Linux can be very beneficial to programmers and I just needed some tips on where to start. I'm guessing I'll start with Linux Mint or Ubuntu!!