[GTALUG] Back to basics: upgrading from Windows to Linux

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hi all.

This topic is one I hope will be on many peoples' minds as they encounter
frustration (and in some cases a dead end) moving their Windows 10 systems
to Windows 11. This may soon become the source of a multi-stakeholder
public campaign, but that's just in the planning stages.

Now for the personal angle.

Some ago I installed Windows on a desktop I use a lot. It replaced Linux
because that was incapable of running the one game I like playing. I even
gave a talk to GTALUG about that move, about Windows Subsystem for Linux
and the things I thought were better about the Windows desktop.

Turns out I was wrong. So very, very wrong. And now I can't wait to go back
to my Linux desktop, especially since there's a recent LTS release of
Kubuntu, my traditional distro of choice. Plus, according to ProtonDB, my
game might just run well natively on Linux
<https://www.protondb.com/app/255710>!

But it's been a long time since I've done this so I have some remedial
questions to ask from this group's wisdom ... to help me change from a
Windows install to a dual boot, priority Kubuntu:

   1. My motherboard takes a single M.2 SSD for my one and only drive. I
   have a larger M.2 card that I'd like to replace it with, cloning my
   existing setup to the new drive (in a temporary USB enclosure) then
   installing and shrinking the Windows partition in anticipation of the Linux
   dual-boot install. Can anyone recommend a good tool for doing the disk
   clone? Or am I better off to just fresh-install Windows on the new drive,
   and restore my data from the old one?

   2. I want to have one partition for data that is visible regardless if I
   boot Linux or Windows. Previously the most reliable filesystem readable by
   bothwas FAT32. Should I still do that? Is Linux support for NTFS good
   enough now? Even better, can Windows be taught to read ext4?

   3. I've never used snap or flatpack before. Others have told me to
   install as much native (ie, .deb packages) as possible, use flatpack when
   it's the only option and uninstall snap. Any comments or caveats here? And
   why did app installation sources become needlessly complex?

Thanks for any advice.

- Evan
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