Finally Making the switch to Linux

[maximo101]

Hi All,
Ill start with saying I had previously used a dual boot ubuntu and windows maybe a 15 years ago, since in those days at uni the astrophysics lab was running on Linux and I did like it.
After a few years my day to day needs just relied on windows systems and eventually when I did a reformat and clean boot I didn't feel the need for dual booting ubuntu.
A few years ago, after my HP proliant microserver NAS running WHS2011 died, I made the switch to building a custom server from a Frankenstein of parts, I ran UnRaid OS. Since then I upgraded that system and have slowly been re learning Linux commands in the terminal as well as running local AI models etc. Even getting sick of ollama and looking to use llama.cpp.
My current desktop PC isn't capable of upgrading to win11 even though its i7 core is still perfectly serviceable and from what i have seen with privacy and microsoft practices I thought its time to switch to Linux. (win11 on a few other devices in the household and I don't like it) I decided its time to upgrade my main desktop pc hardware and once I decided I wanted a new mb and cpu, i ended up building an entire new system minus the gpu! B650 mb, amd 9600x cpu etc.

Now to business, I understand briefly about the different distros etc, but after trying to decide what's best for me, mostly looking at stability for now and simple gui for when my family wants to use it, I decided on Kubuntu LTS. It was tricky to decide from Ubuntu LTS, Mint, Pop OS etc. then do i want GNOME or KDE etc.
I'll install this Linux OS on its own 1TB SSD and dual boot with my existing win10 500gb ssd. My data 2TB hdd will remain too.
Now days, the desktop pc is mostly for browsing websites, checking email, basic spreadsheets, and maintaining my unraid home server (running plex, ollama, home assistant, immich etc)
While I do have heaps of games on steam which I may get back to at some point, I mostly game on the ps5. All my tablets and mobiles run android.
One thing I do want to work on a bit more for fun in the future is running AI models with open interpreter to do agentic work on the pc, but it can run models from the local server.
I will look to convert the .pst from my outlooks since i have emails from over a decade there, and happy to see any suggestions for best email client.
For browser, atm I use a mix of chrome when using google gemini, brave for most browsing (and when using my server or network maintenance) and comet for ai assisted tasks. What suggestions are there for linux?

If anyone has any suggestion of things to keep in mind, or look out for, I appreciate any heads up.
(I haven't built the new PC yet or installed any OS, so if there is a case for considering any other distro, I am still open to suggestions).

Thank you.

 

[gvisoc]

Hi @maximo101 and welcome to the Forums. I think Kubuntu LTS is a fine choice, and if you have hardware predating Windows 11 you won't need to bother to seek ways to install newer kernels, etc. It's important that you begin with something you like, you feel confident with, that works for you, and that is known and with plenty community support. And I think Kubuntu LTS checks all the boxes.

In terms of email clients I use Thunderbird (any -bird variants or forks are recommended as well), and while I have seen some results I never run any PST converter.

In the browser side of things, Firefox is largely a de-facto standard in many Linux distributions. I use a fork of it, Librewolf, as I don't agree with the way Firefox ships features and changes in the configuration, putting the defaults at the service of third parties by using design dark patterns (e.g.: hey a new way of data-tracking for advertisement purposes that you can opt-out from --instead of making such choices in favour of the user and allowing users to opt-in). Brave and Chrome variants are also popular and easy to find.

Good luck!

 

[gvisoc]

I decided its time to upgrade my main desktop pc hardware and once I decided I wanted a new mb and cpu, i ended up building an entire new system minus the gpu! B650 mb, amd 9600x cpu etc.

Oh, I see now you plan to put this on a new computer.

Make sure you have a live-booteable installation medium and check bluetooth and wifi connectivity, and plan for temporary contingencies (e.g.: can you live without bluetooth for a while? Do you have a dongle? Do you have ways to ethernet your computer up?).

I built a new PC by November 2024 and even though I was on a relatively fast distribution (much faster than an -buntu LTS) my motherboard's (X870) bluetooth adapter wasn't supported in the kernel until after a few weeks. Given that I was on Fedora and not Arch, I had to be tinkering with the whole deal until mid-march 2025.

Motherboard integrated network adapters aside, AMD is a great choice if you want to focus your experience around Linux. I have a Rizen 5 9600X and works perfectly fine, and I have a RX 9700 XT as a sidekick that is amazing for both gaming and running local models (I run qwn3-coder:30b on ollama). Being both AMD, everything that comes with the Kernel makes the most of your hardware with zero terminaling. I built it myself (first build ever) and gave account of my experience, which was painful for me but hilarious to some.

 

[maximo101]

Oh, I see now you plan to put this on a new computer.

Make sure you have a live-booteable installation medium and check bluetooth and wifi connectivity, and plan for temporary contingencies (e.g.: can you live without bluetooth for a while? Do you have a dongle? Do you have ways to ethernet your computer up?).

Thanks for the heads up! Unfortunately i learnt that the hard way with my unraid server. When i upgraded that hardware, server has MB: Asus Prime Z890M-PLUS WIFI-CSM | CPU: Intel CORE ULTRA 5 245K Arrow Lake-S 5.2GHz 14 Cores
GPU: Asus TUF GeForce RTC 5070 Ti 16GB GDDR7 | RAM: Corsair 64GB (2x32GB) Vengeance 6000MHz DDR5 RAM
(complete overkill for a home server but future proofing to run local AI) and the MB was too new for the kernal and the NIC wouldnt work. Spent a lot of time troubleshooting that, bought a wifi adapter to get the Realtech drivers, then had it working. several months of working then after an upgrade i had the same issue with the NIC lost, but couldn't get it sorted so i rolled back to a backup. So my UnRaid server is still sitting at v7.0.0, but i do need to get in and update that to the latest 7.2... when i have a blank day to make sure i can get it back up and running!

With this desktop build, MB: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI AM5 ATX Motherboard | CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6 Cores 12 Threads 5.4GHz AM5 Processor and no GPU, it will basically be a new computer that i'll install a fresh boot on. I dont use BT from my pc, and its wired with ethernet to my network switch. My current desktop will sit next to it while i set it up which is nice for troubleshooting. Once the Kubuntu is all running, then ill take the data hdd and windows ssd out of it.
With this desktop, i will look at running AI agents and play around with things, but ill leverage ollama from my server which has the gpu. Maybe in future ill take the gpu from the server to put in this pc and put something with more vram in that.

 

[maximo101]

Still waiting on the last part for the new pc build, but while i have been waiting I installed AntiX on a 2008 laptop and its working great! Upgraded my UnraidOS to latest version and no issues with the NIC there!

 

[maximo101]

PC Built, updated Bios and installed Kubuntu 24.04.
All working great!
Installed cmatrix, vlc, thunderbird, brave.
I look forward to spending some more time tinkering with it to get it working how i want my workstation, then setting up the dual boot and bring my data drive over. After a while i dont think ill even use the windows boot!

 

[Condobloke]

tinkering

Now there is a much favoured word/hobby, around here !

Many Linux users stop using windows completely, myself included.

Consider putting windows on a separate drive ?

I am not sure if the firewall is on or off by default in Kubuntu

Timeshift snapshots saved to an external drive is a good move

 

[maximo101]

I have windows on a separate drive already (linux on a new nvem ssd, with new pc build, win10 boot on ssd in old pc.)
Funnily enough, just an hour ago my wife was asking me why her new (win11) laptop is out of space and runs so slow. It was out of one drive space with 5gb of free cloud used... (345GB free on hdd). after i have merged my main pc fully, i think ill be shifting both my sons pc's and my wifes laptop too!

 

[Condobloke]

Your wife would be well advised to sit at your pc (when it suits her) to at least become a bit used to what awaits her.

 

[maximo101]

I have been using linux now as my main pc for a couple of weeks, going really well.

 

[KGIII]

I have been using linux now as my main pc for a couple of weeks, going really well.

Excellent!

Are you 'just using it', or are you actively trying to learn a bunch of new things?

Both paths are fine. If you're 'just using it', then you're learning things as you need to learn them. If you don't need to learn something, that'll save you time and effort. But if you're trying to learn a lot of things, you'll come across new things that you can use even though you didn't realize you had a use for them.

 

[maximo101]

Are you 'just using it', or are you actively trying to learn a bunch of new things?

Mostly using at this stage. But i am learning bits as i go.
When i run into something, nowdays its just so quick and easy to ask an AI model (i'm mostly using gemini, but also grok, perplexity, claude and local ai models) and get the answer. Gemini is easiest as its multimodal and i can just provide a screenshot. Much easier than in the past trying to search online for the niche question.
eg yesterday I had to scan some documents and my printer was working but not the scanner. Gemini told me which driver to download, installed and all worked. The pdf i scanned was massive in file size, gemini told me to use ghostwriter, and with a single command in terminal to install then another to perform the action, its shrunk the pdf from 49mb to 3mb.
I also managed to merge in my original .pst outlook file with emails into thunderbird and the majority of this PC's use atm is just using email and everything else i need it really done in browsers.
Steam installed but i played anything on it. I havent used the windows dual boot in over a week as everything i need is done in kubuntu. I also really like the KDE connect for my mobile to it.
I did also install kubuntu onto my old pc which is slow to boot (due to mechanical hdd) but then runs great once its loaded.

 

[maximo101]

I also managed to merge in my original .pst outlook file with emails into thunderbird and the majority of this PC's use atm is just using email and everything else i need it really done in browsers.

This one i used a terminal command then some python script running in VS code. It scanned the .pst, extracted into .eml formats. Then leveraged my ollama local ai models (from my unraid server), to filter and sort the emails (there was a lot of newsletters and ones i didnt need in the 30k emails from 2010), then imported into thunderbird as local folder.
I like using the terminal as much as i can and am always looking for something new to learn and implement

 

[Condobloke]

gemini told me to use ghostwriter,

Did you mean : ghostscript? : https://www.ghostscript.com/ ?

@maximo101 .... you are doing so well !

Congrats !

 

[KGIII]

nowdays its just so quick and easy to ask an AI model

I remarked on that earlier today. My only consistent use of AI is the blurbs atop many Google search results pages.

That can be amazingly handy. It has changed the way I interact with the search engine.

But, I still have the mindset of 'trust but verify'. So, that means I don't just accept it at face value.

Mostly using at this stage. But i am learning bits as i go.

That's a perfectly fine way to go about it.

I think it's important to remember that you weren't born with an innate ability to use Windows. You had to learn how to do so. If you wanted to get more control of it, you had to learn even more. I'm so old that I never had an 'intro to computers' type of class --- not even the laughable classes offered in the 80s. I figured out how to use Windows as I needed to. It did turn into me leaning a lot, as I was heavily into tweaking things back then.

Today, I do some basic customizations that provide a degree of sameness among my varied devices.

 

[maximo101]

I think it's important to remember that you weren't born with an innate ability to use Windows.

I also started off using dos and windows 3.0 when i was younger. I remember windows 95 being game changer with the gui!
Now its just muscle memory to go to the tool i need when i want to do a certain task, its just relearning that etc.

I also wanted to quickly print a sign yesterday and had to figure out where the Portrait and landscape button was in Libre office. Similiar in Libre Calc to find the Freeze pane button.

Did you mean : ghostscript? : https://www.ghostscript.com/ ?

yes that is the one. I used to hate adobe trying to charge me for doing anything with pdf, so glad there is alternatives on linux.

 

[maximo101]

That can be amazingly handy. It has changed the way I interact with the search engine.

i actually haven't used a search engine in a long time, maybe over a year. I understand enough of how current LLM's work to know how to prompt them and check if the response doesn't pass the smell test, so always check the response. Also certain frontier labs have certain in built bias based on the reinforced learning process of those labs.
Instead of opening a search engine, just straight to the AI model of choice (dependant on the query or question). Use vision mode or just talk to it and get an answer. Obviously for simple things, anything that needs proper verification, ill use a local ai model for privacy and cross check my responses from all the AI models and with verifiable sources online.
I am very happen to be using linux and open source products.

 

[KGIII]

Instead of opening a search engine, just straight to the AI model of choice (dependant on the query or question).

At this point, I still want the search results. They're often of interest to dig deeper on my own, without asking AI for additional information. To that end, I just use Google. They spit out an AI response fairly often.

 

[maximo101]

Its been a couple of months and I havent booted into windows (dual boot option) a single time. I have been happy with kubuntu now on multiple devices.

 

[KGIII]

Its been a couple of months and I havent booted into windows (dual boot option) a single time. I have been happy with kubuntu now on multiple devices.

Stictuitiveness is an important trait if one wants to switch to a completely new operating system after having used another operating system for most of their lives.