this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Researching making the switch from Windows on my main PC and I have questions. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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This PC is basically my life, I use it for work (freelance business), entertainment, and to self host a server so I'm hesitant. I have a handful of questions for now while I look into it more:

  1. I'd prefer not to dual boo, but it might be the safest way to start? If I dual boot, get used to Linux and (hopefully) get everything I need working, can I then go from dual boot to erasing the Windows partition and recombining so I then only have Linux installed and can keep the work and programs I already installed on Linux?

  2. I do voiceover work, music production, and digital art/photography. Anyone else here do all this and what programs would you recommened to replace Audition, Photoshop, and Cubase?

--2.1. Regarding music production, has anyone successfully used vst files from Windows on Linux?

  1. The drives for my server are NTFS. Does anyone have experience with this format on Linux (I use Emby)?

  2. My bread and butter right now is voice acting so I NEED everything to play nice. I've read there might be some issues with drivers for my hardware, namely Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 and Behringer UV1. Anyone have any experience with this?

EDIT: Wow that's a lot of responses. I'd like to respond to each but I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the info haha. I think I'm gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out. Thanks to everyone, I've got a tonne to mull over now. Appreciate it!

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[–] obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 55 points 4 days ago (3 children)

"This PC is basically my life" screams leave well enough alone. I wouldn't even set up a dual boot on a machine I depended on to make my living. If you do, make sure you've got everything backed up before you start. Nothing should go wrong, but that's a very different statement than nothing will go wrong.

If you want to start using linux I'd recommend you buy a cheap second computer and start there. You can safely experiment as much as you like without risking your professional set up.

[–] bismuthbob@sopuli.xyz 16 points 4 days ago

This seems like a solid take. Never fuck with your bread and butter.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 days ago

Dual booting on separate drives is safe, especially if you unplug the windows drive while installing Linux so you can't accidentally mix them up. Just don't mess with the windows drive from Linux. It's probably encrypted if you're running windows 11 anyways.

[–] jollyroberts@jolly-piefed.jomandoa.net 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Agreed. A Virtual Machine is also an option. That's how I got started, running fedora vms on my windows laptop ten+ years ago.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It is an option to play around. But for audio production you really don't want to be trying to use a VM unless you're fiddling with USB passthrough (which is a pain). Audio latency on Windows is bad enough, adding Linux's on top is awful.

[–] jollyroberts@jolly-piefed.jomandoa.net 2 points 3 days ago

Fair. I don't do audio stuff so I'll take your word for it.