Overview
This last week was like a roller coaster ride for me lol, why? cause I actually tried to dual-boot Linux with my Windows 10 and Believe me this was a fun ride.
Xubuntu on VM
So I was using Xubuntu on my VM before because it was suggested by The Odin Project to use Xubuntu which is a fork of Ubuntu (Debian-based distro) that is very lightweight on resources due to its Xfce desktop environment.
It was a fine experience but I wasn't feeling it. I mean using Linux on a VM is a pretty good option, especially for beginners who don't have any idea about the nitty-gritty of the Linux OS but I wanted to feel superior (lol). Ah yes, my curiosity made me try other OS before actually dual-booting.
I did some research on Linux and I found that the most stable distro of Linux is Debian and of course Ubuntu(LTS). So I searched more about Ubuntu and I found the perfect distro Zorin OS which is a fork of Ubuntu and is a beginner-friendly OS for people who are shifting from Windows or macOS to Linux.
Experience with Zorin OS
Went to the official website of Zorin OS and read their documentation to install Zorin OS. Made a bootable USB with balena etcher, created a partition using the partition tool in Windows, and then started the installation.
Everything went smoothly. it was a very fast installation process and finally, it was time to restart the system and use this fresh lovely OS.
I restarted my computer and was expecting the grub to load and show me the dual boot menu but nothing showed up Instead Windows got loaded.
Now, this was the time for me to panic that something has went wrong for sure. I mean grub did not load that means either the grub is not installed or there is something wrong with my life :).
But anyways after doing some googling I found a way to fix it.
Grub was installed but Windows Boot manager was on the top of boot settings in Boot Menu settings. Windows was trying to be the boss here. So I fixed it by putting the Grub on top thus giving it the first priority to load the OS and Finally I was inside the Zorin OS 🎉 Les gooooo.
Zorin OS is one of the most beautiful Linux distro I have seen after deepin. If I had a desktop PC and not a laptop then Zorin OS would be my first choice.
Battery Issue
I installed my Nvidia drivers, and I installed other software too and started using it. The next day I realized that my battery is getting drained like someone is sucking the soul outta it. I mean I know gaming laptops are bad at giving a good battery backup but this was way worse than I have imagined.
Some computers appear to have a shorter battery life when running on Linux than they do when running Windows or Mac OS. One reason for this is that computer vendors install special software for Windows/Mac OS and the Second reason is that Not all the Distros of Linux are much Optimized for laptops.
For this reason, I had to remove Zorin OS (sad crying noises) and I did some googling to find which distro is best for laptops (Better optimized for laptops) and the answer internet gave me was Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Pop_OS, and 2 other distros.
Went to the official website of Ubuntu and downloaded it. Made a bootable USB again and installed Ubuntu.
Experience with Ubuntu
I have been using Ubuntu for 3 days now and I must say it's a great distro and OS.
I customized it according to my needs and looks and it looks pretty decent now.
Overall I think if someone wants to use a stable OS with optimized drivers out of the box then the Ubuntu OS is a good choice. I haven't installed Linux Mint yet but in the future may be I will.
Customizations
I installed an extension manager to install some extensions like Tiling and Blur my shell.
This is what Tiling Assistant does 👇️
Looks super cool right? 😎
Conclusion
So far my experience with Linux was great. I love how much customization can be done in Linux including all these and others like using different desktop environments can be installed as well. The best thing about Linux is that it is Open Source.
If someone is coming from Windows and macOS I would suggest them these distros:
Linux Mint (For both PC and Laptop)
Ubuntu (For both PC and Laptop)
Zorin OS (For PC)
For now, I will be using dual boot but hopefully, in the future, I might permanently shift to Linux and will remove Windows.