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6 months agoI’ve recently been working on this kind of migration as well (but to Fedora instead), so I can speak from my own experiences:
- Cloud storage: I’ve heard fewer issues with Google Drive and Dropbox, but I had tried syncing OneDrive and ran into some issues. I ended up purchasing a license to Insync a while back, which was a bit overkill for what I needed it to do. I’m still working on weaning myself off OneDrive entirely and instead going to self-hosted cloud sync.
- Software installs: there are a ton of different methods to do software installs on Linux these days. I think Synaptic only does apt (it’s in the name!), but a lot of apps are distributed through flatpak, AppImage, or even Snaps.
- Native packages tend to work better with your desktop environment in terms of theming but any library dependencies will get installed with them, while the others are easier to distribute and include the dependencies with them.
- Other advice:
- Play around with different distros and desktop environments until you find something you’re really comfortable in.
- Make a list of your required apps and verify which distro’s native capabilities may or may not meet your needs.
- It took me a few tries before settling on Fedora KDE spin, particularly because KDE had a feature I really wanted: per monitor wallpaper settings without having to install a separate app. I’ve found that many other KDE apps are really nice too, so I’m sticking with it. KDE also puts me in a familiar desktop environment coming from Windows as well.
- One irritation I’ve experienced: gaming-centric hardware is designed for Windows and if you have stuff designed around that, it’s going to become very obvious. Yes, there’s open source projects that help adapt them for Linux. But they are nowhere near equivalent and generally they lack maintainers to keep them going.
- I have a Stream Deck that on Windows, I used it for monitoring hardware temps. On Linux, you get app launcher buttons at best.
- My mouse is a Logitech G604 Lightspeed. Piper + libratbag does a pretty good job at trying to support it, but it’s middling at best and unfortunately looking at the repo, they’re in pretty desperate need of maintainers.
This is my own personal (and recent) experiences and I’m pretty new to using a Linux DE for a main OS too, so anything I say could be incorrect and I welcome suggestions/corrections.
I did not, had no idea about it. Unfortunately the mouse started to fall apart a bit and Logitech has very few MMO mice meeting my needs, so I decided to switch to Razer Naga Pro V2. I haven’t tried configuring it on Linux yet, as I’m pretty sure the major supporting app doesn’t have V2 support yet.
I might actually contribute back based on the steps listed in the open issue for it. It just requires time, effort, and motivation I don’t have right now.