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

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 01:35:38AM -0400, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:
> 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?

I have avoided them so far by not using a distribution with such silly
additions. :)

I think even Mint Linux based on Ubuntu has removed it.

As for cloning and resizing, clonezilla should do the job well.

-- 
Len Sorensen