probably a lifetime of trouble shooting and asking the internet if there’s a linux equivalent of insert name software available.

I’m excited you’re giving Linux a try! There are a ton of excellent ressources online for learning about Linux, how to make it your own (a practice commonly called ‘ricing’), or fix errors you may encounter. These are explored further in the links below :)

1. Picking a distro. What I hear is that, unless you have some problematic hardware it doesn’t really matter what you pick. So if it feels overwhelming, don’t stress too much over if it’s the “right one”, you can always try different ones out. Having said that, my impression is, many coming from Windows seem to be happy with ‘Mint’. Likewise ‘Bazzite’ seems popular as of late. But ‘Pop_Os!’, ‘Debian’ or ‘Fedora’, are also all perfectly valid choices. Personally I’ve liked using Endeavour OS with KDE, for quite a while.

2. Software. There’s so much cool software out there, so maybe search around for which can solve your needs. I like browsing Flathub.org or blogs, such as, Phoronix to discover new software. There might also be a discovery feature in the distro itself. Both Firefox (and its derivatives such as LibreWolf) and Chromium (along with its derivatives: Chrome, Brave, etc.) runs well. Even the much smaller project: LadyBird, does so. I have no experience with music production software on Linux, so cannot comment on that.

3. Games. Might depend on which types of games you play. But to me it seems Steam (using Proton/Wine), Heroic Games Launcher, and Lutris, works great. The steamdb as others mention is also a super ressource!

If you made it this far through my wall of text, I’m delighted by your curiousity. Two Linux “introductory videos” I’d like to share are respectively from Nick@thelinuxEXP Linux isn’t (just) better, it’s also more FUN! and Brodie Robertson’s Linux Resources Every New Linux User Needs Odysee YouTube

I think the biggest culture shock for a lot of people is “fewer surprises, more options.” On my machine at least, updates don’t run automatically – I might get a notification that “updates are available” but that’s it, I still have to say “okay, now is a good time to update”, it won’t surprise me with them.

Similarly, if I want to set a hotkey for like “take a screenshot of the current application”, I can do that! But the downside is that it might not be set up by default, I have to go to settings -> hotkeys or something similar.

Linux “gets out of your way” and lets you solve problems, but that also means it’s not always going to solve them for you. It’s getting better at this over time – if lots of people have the same problem, the solution might get merged “upstream”, but a lot of things are still “well, how do YOU want it to work?”.

Elementary OS is beautiful, polished and easy. Maybe also check out Ubuntu Studio Edition since you do a good deal of editing? I like Pop! as well and have it on a couple of systems, but it’s nothing extremely special over others, it’s just very well-curated with regard to features and updates. They’ve tweaked a bit of stuff that’s sloppy in the main Ubuntu.

The best thing to do really is learn as you go, but definitely put some real effort into reading about the basics. The file system and the settings are both to look at first.

For good customization of your desktop if you enjoy that, go with KDE/Plasma.

You can also change later if you learn enough that you’d like to go to a more bare base system. Personally I’m on Kubuntu on my main machine but that’s only because it’s a pretty new laptop - or was when I got it - and raw Debian didn’t have the drivers yet for some of it. I’m sure by now it’s all supported and I eventually want to set aside a day to reformat and go to raw Debian. It’s my favorite distro and in the most recent version they did away with their draconic restrictions of drivers so it’s quite more accessible now.

But for a very easy and comfortable, eye-pleasing start, I’d really suggest something like ElementaryOS. It’s possibly the most beautiful looking one I’ve seen, and just jump right in and start kind of setup.

That’s my contribution to suggestions for you. Hope you make the journey easily. Linux really is phenomenal and a massive change from the disease-infested world of Windows.

I’m using areweanticheatyet.com more than ProtonDB to check if games are working as most issues I’ve encountered are due to anticheat not working on Linux. Apart from these most games just works without much tinkering.

LLMs are useful when dealing with linux. Linux works different so there is learning curve esp if you want to get most out of it.

PopOS is a decent choice, however COSMIC is in late alpha with that being said it does work overall. I would not advise 22.04 at this point.

You can install classic GNOME also.

Upon switching, what should I expect to change?

Your sexual characteristics shall grow and turn bright red, marking you as an individual that’s ready to reproduce.

I think you should try dual booting or try Linux in a virtual box just to check that you can do your work on Linux and if you can’t then you know the answer.

Something akin to what the Jews felt when they were liberated from the camps.

Be prepared to ditch a few apps when switching to Linux! Most games work great, but those sneaky, spyware-heavy ones? Not so much. (/me looks at GTA Online & League.)

People have already mentioned ProtonDB for games. Another website you can use for alternative versions of software is https://osalt.com/

Never assume Linux works like Windows. You’ll be confused.

You also do not have to use Pop because it is generally praised for its easiness. There are a few other good and easy to use distros out there, like Fedora, Mint or openSUSE.

There are also a few DEs out there, with the two most popular ones being KDE Plasma and GNOME

If you want to use KDE, I recommend you try out Fedora’s new KDE version.

While not all, you also should know a few very commonly used commands to use in the terminal and maybe some basic troubleshooting skills. You don’t need to be using the terminal all the time, if at all. Some common stuff is pretty much doable with a GUI nowadays and you’ll probably be installing your applications through the DEs builtin software center. Pop uses a customized GNOME, so you’ll be using the GNOME Software Center. KDE has Discover.

Since you do game, I suggest you check out ProtonDB. This is a database of rankings of games that work with Proton (Wine) and some even natively. If you play games from Epic, GOG and/or Amazon Prime, you should check out the Heroic Games Launcher. For any other games, check out Lutris. Do note that you might have a bad or good time depending on your GPU vendor. AMD generally works out of the box while NVIDIA might not work as nice as an AMD GPU out of the box. But I think Pop has the option to install the proprietaty NVIDIA drivers during installation, so make sure to select that if you have one. Nouveau isn’t as good as the proprietary drivers.

Regarding your other software, I don’t know whether Reaper will work with Wine. If you don’t mind switching to an alternative, we have Kdenlive and GIMP or Krita.

I hope you don’t care about functional HDR support, nor having access to the Nvidia Control Panel or Nvidia App (So no 3D Settings, no Shadowplay, no RTX HDR). Two major reasons why I’m sticking with Windows for now.

I think PopOS is a good option for gaming since ypu can get it with NVIDIA drivers included if you need them but I’d reccommend looking at Bazzite as well:

https://bazzite.gg/

Generally I’d say: Be prepared to keep an open mind, while you can use Linux like any other OS in most cases nowadays don’t get stuck on wanting to have everything, every workflow exactly like it is on Windoge. Try new things, tinker, it’s fun!

Music production is the only reason I still have a Windows installation on dual boot. My Ableton install and stack of VSTs is holding me back.

You definitely can do music production on Linux though. Bitwig is good and works natively.