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!

  • ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    3 months ago

    There is software for all your uses on linux, but I would start by using those apps on your current setup to get used to the workflow.

    Changing from windows to linux can be really tough but it can be made a lot easier if you are already using programs that work on linux before you switch.

  • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip
    2·
    3 months ago

    “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.

  • folkrav@lemmy.ca
    1·
    3 months ago

    Audition, Photoshop and Cubase you’ll probably have the hardest time to truly replace. Even more if you rely on third party plugins for either of those.

  • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
    1·
    3 months ago

    2: I’m a Bitwig fan-boy. Buy this great piece of software, have tons of fun and never use third party VSTs again. Sound design, modulate everything, wow! You can run many Windows VSTs using yabridge. Reaper might be a good choice for a DAW as well, it’s a little more classic and has plugins and scripts for everything.

  • vala@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    Ok so I’ll just focus on dual booting since there are other thorough replys here.

    I really recommend that you DO dual boot but only in a specific way.

    When people say “Dual Boot”, this can mean two very different things.

    A common way to dual boot is to have windows and Linux exist on the same drive by partitioning the drive and installing a boot manager. I strongly advise against this. It’s not worth the risk and pain.

    Just install linux on a totally new drive and select it as the boot drive from bios. Leave you windows drive untouched.

    Linux is much better than it ever has been. There is a very good chance it can do everything you want. But, especially as someone running a business, there will be times when you just need to get something done and will want to fall back to what you know. These times often lead to people giving up and rolling back to windows in a panic.

    Just leave yourself a way to instantly and effortlessly fall back into windows as needed and eventually you will end up doing that less and less. Until you don’t do it at all and the windows drive gets wiped for more Linux storage.

  • dun_fionn@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 months ago

    Quick response:

    1. Yes, what you suggest is possible, but just be careful to backup your date. Burn the Gparted ISO onto a USB and then boot from it. You will then be able to use this tool to delete the Win partition and resize the Linux one. For complete peace of mind in case something goes wrong, I suggest using CloneZilla to create an image of the drive for backup purposes before messing around with the partition. Of course, you will then need a spare internal or external drive of the same size, or larger, onto which you will save the image… Grub will easily cope when the Windows partition is removed, but I also suggest installing Refind, which provides a nice interface at boot-time to choose which system to use and also recognizes any changes when partitions are added or removed. You should find the package in the repositories of most distros.

    2. I cannot help with this.

    3. Linux can handle NTFS. On my Linux server I used Samba to share files on NTFS drives over the network because those drives were removed from my Windows PC at the time . Most Linux distros will handle Samba shares through the CIFS-utils package. I read that there is no great performance loss between sharing Linux’s EXT file system over a NFS network share from a Linux box , and NTFS over a Samba network share from a Linux box, but there is one potential issue as I see it: Linux distros do not have the tools to check NTFS drives for errors. Therefore, if a powercut was to happen, then you may then have to remove the NTFS drives from your Linux machine and go find a Windows machine to check the disks and correct any errors. I coped with this for a few years before deciding to create new EXT4 partitions and copy the data across from the NTFS partitions. I recommend that you employ a similar migration strategy.

    4. I cannot help with this.

    Good luck! The learning curve is steep and somewhat mindblowing, but very satisfying too - and you’ll maybe catch the Linux server admin bug (disease?) and want to go deeper into that rabbit hole…