Posted on 04/08/2025 7:22:00 AM PDT by ShadowAce
I’m writing this article mainly for Windows users who’ve decided to switch to Linux. If you’re already a Linux user, chances are you’ve learned most of what I’m about to share—whether the easy way or the hard way.
The main goal of this article is simple: to help you figure out whether a “Linux for Windows users” really exists—and to bridge the gap between what you might expect and what you’re actually likely to experience.
Let’s start by taking a quick look at a niche group of Linux distributions that insistently want to look like Windows and then explain why that makes no sense.
So, you’ve decided to make the switch from Windows to Linux—first off, hats off to you! That’s a great move. By now, you’ve probably realized that Linux isn’t just one single thing like Windows. Instead, it comes in many different versions called distributions, or “distros” for short. These are all variations of what people generally just call “Linux.”
Now, if I wanted to sound super smart and technical (which I’m not—just a regular user who’s picked up some experience over the years), I’d point out that the term Linux technically refers only to the single component—the kernel—the core part of the operating system. But let’s not get too pedantic here. Since this is meant for folks just getting started, we’ll stick with the more common usage and just call it Linux. Deal?
Alright, let’s keep going. There’s a small (thankfully!) group of Linux distributions out there, since the days of Lindows (which later became Linspire)—a name I’m sure brings a nostalgic smile to the faces of longtime users, that have dedicated their existence to the idea to look and feel as much like Windows as possible. Some even try to achieve/mimic bits of its functionality—honestly, that’s not really doable.
These distros usually come with a clean and familiar user interface: a bottom panel with a list of open apps, a Start menu, and other elements that long-time Windows users will instantly recognize. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, it’s pretty cool.
However, the not-so-cool thing is that some of these projects go a little too far with flashy marketing claims (plus you’ve probably come across similar headlines online pretty often), trying to convince users they’re the perfect Windows replacement.
And here’s the truth, plain and simple: they’re not. Because here’s the big, I mean a really big, well-kept secret… ready for it? No, seriously—are you ready? Linux is not Windows! Never has been, never will be.
What I’m trying to say is that these Windows-like Linux distributions are basically selling you a “package”—one that plays on the anxiety you might feel about stepping outside your comfort zone when exploring something new (and amazing) like Linux. And honestly, that package—the look and feel—is not so hard to put together, even for an everyday home user.
Trust me when I say: the real beauty, flexibility, power, and freedom of Linux has never been about the packaging. It’s all about what’s under the hood and what you can do with it.
So, if you’re planning to switch from Windows to Linux, don’t make the mistake of choosing a distro just because it looks nice or looks like Windows. Seriously—don’t do it. Instead, I highly recommend following the advice in another article here: “New to Linux? Stick to These Rules When Picking a Distro.” It’ll help you make a smarter choice that you won’t regret.
Once again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a Linux distribution trying to mimic Windows, though, in my opinion, it’s a bit sad. The real issue is that your expectations of getting something close to the Windows experience are almost guaranteed to fall short. Why that happens? Read the next chapter.
Linux and Windows are two separate universes. Sure, you can plug in a mouse and keyboard and connect either one to the internet—but that’s where the similarities end. From a technical standpoint, they’re built on fundamentally different foundations and are designed to work in very different ways.
Because of that, it’s just not realistic to expect the same experience on Linux that you had on Windows—and the same goes the other way around.
If we dig a little deeper, the philosophies behind the two operating systems couldn’t be more different. Windows is built around profit—it’s a commercial product. On the other hand, Linux belongs to a whole different world—one driven by core human values like freedom, choice, and the power of free will.
It’s no exaggeration to say also that most Windows users are just like that by coincidence. But it’s almost always a deliberate, thoughtful choice with Linux users. It’s something they’re genuinely passionate about, something that comes from both the heart and the mind.
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and talk to as many Windows users as you want and see how much “passion” you pick up in their words. Now, find the first Linux user you can think of and ask them why they use it. You’ll see exactly what I mean. But let’s put that aside and get back on topic.
As I mentioned earlier, the two operating systems are really different worlds. Even with the best intentions and a lot of effort from developers on both sides—and there are plenty of great examples of that—it’s nearly impossible to create a fully unified user experience. But the good news is, that’s never really been the goal for either side (aside from that specific category of Linux distributions we talked about earlier).
Switching from Windows to Linux is like stepping into a whole new world—and it’s important to understand that before you make the leap. If someone tells you that you’ll feel right at home on Linux just like you’re used to with Windows, that’s simply not true.
The biggest—and really the only—thing you need to make the switch successfully is a willingness to change your mindset. With that, you’re in for a fun and inspiring journey into the world of Linux. But if you’re just expecting a Windows-like experience, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment because Linux just works differently.
And that brings me to a conclusion I believe in with every fiber of my being: If you want a Windows-like experience, stay on Windows. If you want a better experience, switch to Linux. Saying ‘Linux for Windows users’ makes about as much sense as someone trying to raise alligators at the North Pole just because there’s water there. It completely misses the point.
Linux doesn’t need to be like Windows—and that’s actually one of the best things about it. It strips away the restrictions, giving you the freedom to tailor everything exactly to your needs and preferences. It’s fast, powerful, and free of all the unnecessary “goodies” you often find bundled with Windows. That’s a big part of what draws millions of people to it.
That said, there have always been (and probably always will be) Linux distributions aimed at attracting Windows users, built around the idea of “Linux for Windows users.” Good. But the moment you try to install something by double-clicking a file—just like you would on Windows—or, more interestingly, run into an issue that asks you to open the “scary” black Terminal window and type in a few mysterious commands, it hits you: that promise of being “just like Windows” wasn’t entirely true.
It’s also important to keep something in mind—Linux isn’t usually built to give you a perfect, polished user experience right out of the box. Instead, it’s about customizing the system to fit your needs and growing your understanding along the way. And trust me, you’re going to run into some challenges. But those moments? They’re turning points in your journey.
How you respond to them makes all the difference. You can either think, “Ugh, I give up—this just isn’t for me,” or you can lean in with, “Alright, let’s figure this out.” If you choose that second mindset, I promise you—a whole universe starts to open up. One filled with possibilities you probably never even knew existed. And the best part? Every piece of it is designed to serve you and stay fully under your control.
So, if you’re not just chasing a Windows clone and genuinely want Linux for what it is, it won’t take long before you start wondering how you ever lived without it. The Terminal becomes your best friend. Boot times are lightning-fast. You get unmatched control, power, a sense of freedom, simplicity, and speed that’s hard to beat. That’s the real beauty of Linux.
The idea that some people are trying to “promote” Linux by making it look and feel like Windows is honestly kind of disappointing. Linux was never meant to be like Windows, and that’s actually one of its best things.
Switch to Linux not because it might look like Windows in certain cases but because it truly puts you in control. It’s designed to work better and better for you over time because you’re at the center of the experience. You have all the power to decide what your system does and how it works—not the other way around.
You’re not just a passive user being told what you can or can’t do—you’re the one calling the shots, shaping your own experience. So forget about Linux for Windows users – no such thing exists. Just go ahead and choose Linux.
I hope it’s becoming clear that there is no such thing as “Linux for Windows users.” The main reason for that is the deep, foundational differences between how the two operating systems are built.
From the moment you boot them up, to how you install apps, manage settings, or even use your mouse and play audio or video—Windows and Linux do things differently. On a technical level, there’s simply no way for one to replicate how the other works fully.
Sure, there have been efforts in this direction. Windows users have had WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) for years now, which gives them almost native Linux functionality right inside Windows. On the flip side, Linux users have long leaned on tools like Wine, which does a pretty solid job running Windows applications—games included—on Linux.
But at the end of the day, Windows and Linux are built on fundamentally different foundations. So, if you’re moving from Windows to Linux and want that transition to go well, it’s better not to focus on expecting to recreate the same experience.
Instead, think of it as stepping into a new world—one where things work differently, and often in ways that are more empowering and flexible for you as the user. That mindset shift can really make all the difference in having a smooth and successful transition.
To be frank, this is a load of tripe. My issues with transitioning from Windows to Linux are all about performance. I have a HUGE investment made in producing PowerPoint files published in pdf. The "picture book" about our property is some 2,300pp. The second book I wrote and published on CD is some 750pp. The latter is heavily graphical with images on 75% of the pages.
Linux pdf publications, so far, do unacceptable things to my fonts, background colors, and puts lines around image segments, that end up cutting across the photographs (at least that's how they show up in Ubuntu). Yes, those lines correspond to what Adobe did partitioning those images, but the consequences of the transition are unacceptable to me graphically. Adobe does not produce Acrobat for Linux.
This doesn't even approach the problems I've had translating my 14GB Outlook.pst file to Thunderbird so that I can even contemplate a functional transition. So effectively, Linux has me locked out from making ANY transition, and I've wasted (so far) a lot of time trying.
I was writing 6800 microcode in hexadecimal back in the 80s. I wrote all my web sites in straight HTML code on the Notepad back in 2001 and transitioned to CSS in 2010. I don't need this kind of condescension. I need performance.
What does have to do with the price of tea in China?
99% of the people that drive have no clue of the intricacies and wonders of the underlying mechanism and electronics that propels and entertains them. They just want something that’s safe comfortable, reliable and that moves them from a to b.
When it has a problem they take it to a mechanic to fix it. They don’t need to bother themselves.
The goal of end user products is to make them easy and pleasant to use and reliable enough that you don’t need to bother yourself with constantly fiddling with things. People don’t want to go back to model Ts and use a crank to start it up.
Back in the early 90s, I did a contract for Microsoft and HP to integrate the Software Process Control Daemon (SoftBench backend) with the Microsoft C/C++/C# compilers. It was interesting to work with the early C# 2.0 development team. I regarded C# as the nicest confluence of Java and C++. It was disappointing to see C# largely stuck on MS platforms. The "mono" effort was a decent attempt to bring it to Linux, but never really caught fire. Today, I'm more interested in pursuing "rust" as a better model for doing what we did with C++ in the past. Even so, I don't have customers will to pay for code built on rust. It's Java for backend web work and Python for data science.
“Then the Linux fans should change the narrative. Instead of saying “there’s no such thing” say “it’s already there”. Of course that’s hard thing for fans of anything to say, because they’re fans and want to dig into what makes it different.”
I absolutely agree. There is a strange conflict within Linux I have not been able to wrap my head around yet. There are two factions of Linux Users and Developers. And it is completely unproductive and self defeating.
There is the old guard techy types who love the command line and don’t care at all about a Graphic User Interface. And they act as if they want to keep Linux to themselves and do not want it to become a full graphical interface that “anyone” can use. They seem to want it to be a challenge for the average user to keep them away from using it. It is selfish...
And then you have the new guard who is doing their best to make it a full graphical interface that surpasses windows in use and function. And they have created the newer versions that do rival windows, and in fact even surpass the goofed concept of Win 10 and above. Especially when it comes to offline use of apps without all the Windows requirements, restrictions, and need to be hooked to the net to use apps at all.
I am personally getting tired of the old guard constantly trying to throw wrenches in the works to try and discourage new users from using even full GUI Linux versions. It is counterproductive to the Linux movement. In fact it is the most influential reason why more have not moved over to Linux. The old guard keeps talking them out of it by making it sound more technical than it really now is.
Truth is most users will never even have to touch the command line unless they want to do something more advanced and custom such as building their own VPN server/client. The most popular versions are now all point and click/drag and drop GUI interfaces almost exactly like Windows 7. But the old guard goes right to extensive command line instructions when they “help” you instead of sharing the much simpler GUI “just click here” instructions like they should for the average user who WANTS GUI.
The old guard needs to make their minds up if they want to see Linux succeed and compete or if they selfishly want to keep it just a niche for themselves. But Linux will never prevail if this division continues. This very internal division is why Linux has not already exploded in the desktop market and left Windows sitting in the dust...
There you have it. The end user has no clue how it works.They are insulated from what goes on underneath. Unfortunately, the environment still has to provide all the underlying tools so the "mechanic" can "pop the hood" and perform repairs. You can strip a deliverable down to bare bones to run a shopping center kiosk. In that form, if it fails, you have to send a complete replacement of the stripped image because all the tools are gone. UNIX/Linux flourished because all the tools were still present under the pretty veneer of the GUI environment. Building applications to run inside that veneer still requires significant knowledge of the underpinnings. If you don't care about that, run the stripped version. You'll have to wait for some "mechanic" to create the next new thing to run in your environment.
Microsoft being an Indian company now has been making seriously poor product and design choices to the point using Microsoft products has become detrimental to intellectual property protections. That, and they are losing quality of any remaining quality. Simple updates break critical functionality.
“Unfortunately for me, some of the software I need for work doesn’t have a Linux replacement.”
Well that is when Windows becomes special use for only those applications and Linux becomes the OS for everything else and peace of mind.
There is no law that you have to only use one OS at a time. Or be LOYAL to a particular OS. Linux will not tell MS you are cheating on the side... :)
But that is why quite a few Linux users dual boot, or have two PCs. They can run just those proprietary MS apps in windows and then jump over to Linux for everything else.
Tell you what... There are going to be a whole lot of fairly new computers available used pretty soon because of the new windows requirements to upgrade machines. Right now is the perfect time to load Linux on one of these and have a second computer as Linux. :)
It has become garbage... And to top it off it will soon be nothing but an interface portal to online subscription apps. You could do that with a tablet and a USB hub with keyboard and mouse.
I do use both, but less Linux because of specific software and company standard software.
I also use WSL on my Windows computer for certain programs.
My biggest reason for keeping Windows at home is that my wife is comfortable with Windows and I don’t need the hassle of getting her used to something else.
“I’m pretty sure I do NOT want to know how she figured that out.”
She is going to be a Linux whiz before too long... :)
“My biggest reason for keeping Windows at home is that my wife is comfortable with Windows and I don’t need the hassle of getting her used to something else.”
I get it... But you might be surprised if you hand her a Mint box to play with on the side. My wife was a total non techy and fell in love right away. The reason was all the offline apps she could use that were no longer available from MS offline. And using online was all the same with FF. What she really liked was the lack of “Wait while Windows is updating” just about every time she booted it. 30 seconds and ready to go... and it NEVER broke... It always worked.
You get used to switching mindsets, and it eventually becomes almost seamless, even doing highly technical work. Humans are adaptive creatures.
~~~
Yep. It’s no different than going from using WIndows11 at work and then still having Windows7 at home (most people don’t anymore) or using a different remote control in different rooms, or even driving different kinds of cars when the wiper switches, radio controls and AC controls are all different. You get used to changing cars too.
The hardest part is the very first time. But you adapt
“Building applications to run inside that veneer still requires significant knowledge of the underpinnings.”
That’s true of everything, buildings, cars, phones... That’s why they have developers and builders.
End users are different animals, they just want to use the stuff not build it. Or use it as a tool to build something they want - a tax spreadsheet, or a novel, or...
There may be a few (probably you too) that like to tinker under the hood, but they do it as a hobby or fun.
Article lost me right here: “So, you’ve decided to make the switch from Windows to Linux—first off, hats off to you!”
Why is it good for you? Meaning it depends on why you’re switching before saying “hats off to you!”.
If you’re switching because you want more control over your computer. Great. If you’re switching because you want an easier experience...damn you just screwed up.
Ever year I try LibreOffice, but it still comes up too short.
Might want to try again. From what I understand they have made some recent improvements. I have even read some say it is now even better than MS. But I can’t vouch for that, I only needed it a few times and it did fine for my uses.
Another complaint I hear is about some very minor glitches with Libreoffice-base (Excel replacement).
I've been a UNIX developer all the way back to 1981. Kernel development for CPU schedulers, device drivers for SCSI disk, X.25 L2/L3, Streams, TCP/IP network drivers,serial device drivers. It was a necessity to be a developer and system admin at that point in time. If Linux is the OS under your GUI veneer, there are still system admin tasks that can't be ignored. Ditto for Windows. Regular security patching. Checking disk capacity and ensuring log files aren't overrunning your disk space to name a couple.
I think an iPad is a good implementation of a product for the unsophisticated end user. It is a well managed ecosystem. I have one for that reason. I don't develop code for the iPad or my Android phone. Most of what I want is off the shelf. The same can not be said of my Fedora and Ubuntu Linux systems, nor of my Windows 10/11 systems. Those are my tools to earn a living. The out-of-box distribution is just barely suitable as a starting point. It has been necessary a few times to go to an Ethernet chip manufacturer website to pull Linux driver code for the Ethernet chip soldered to my motherboard. A couple hours of effort and I had the Ethernet running again after the official distro support evaporated. The fallback if you don't want to "tinker" is to purchase new hardware supported by the distro if it is available. Not an option if the Ethernet is in the middle of PC104 board with your CPU/RAM/disk/usb/serial/Ethernet.
Suffice to say, there are "end users" and developers. Linux is well suited to developers, but rough around the edges for the pure "end user".
Most people couldn’t tell a difference between Ubuntu and Windows. At my stage in life I stick with Windows. But mostly because all the software I use only runs on windows.
The Blue Screen of Death are extremely rare in modern systems, aside from lack of RAM or faulty HW, and I have had the like under Linux, but both have improved.
Meanwhile, as regards your manuscript loss was due to ignoring rule #1 in composing, which is "save and save often, and if your word pro did not have auto recovery than it must have been long ago. In any case LO would have prevented that loss via its auto recovery. I customize the keyboard shortcuts to save via pressing the Insert key.
What I "miss" most is Microsoft's we-know-best attitude toward computer usage. Recall. Co-pilot. The damn registry. Mandatory registration of a Microsoft account.
All of which, save for the last, can easily be avoided via a little research and implementation. But my major complaint is that I had to reinstall Windows (meaning lots of time regarding extensive customization) due to adding more RAM, replacing 4 sticks with those from another manufacturer. Must have affected the "hash" used for licensing. But having a MS acct can be helpful.
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