First try

Well, I am a software engineer for years, and I'm used to Microsoft technologies. During 2016, I decided to migrate to Ubuntu from Windows. Mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to diversify my tech stack, and add non-Microsoft technologies to my portfolio. Secondly, because I was in the belief that stacks like Python, Ruby or Node enable developers to make things more rapidly.

I did the migration but never was successful on migrating to development stacks other than Microsoft. It was due a fact that my startup at the time failed and I joined a company with a die-hard Microsoft only boss! Finally, I gave up and switched back to Windows after a so 1.5 years. During that period I leaned many thing about Linux and Ubuntu. More importantly, I gained enough confidence on daily usage of Ubuntu.

Second try

Years passed and I felt love of Django/Node in my heart again. As same as the first time, my reason was increasing the diversity in my resume. In addition to this motivation, I had another factor to make another move toward Linux. Yes, it was performance. My new Laptop which is an AMD A9-9425, is not fast enough to run Windows 10. In other words, this time I was forced to install Ubuntu on my machine because of its poor performance.

After all, I gave in to the temptation and made my machine a dual boot of Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04. I'm now happy with the performance. And fortunately, .Net has a far better support of Ubuntu that its early days of .Net Core 1.x. Now, I am getting used to PostgreSQL which runs smoothly in the Ubuntu. Also, I am getting more comfortable with LibreOffice. Thanks you Visual Studio Code, I wish no other IDE here. I have both FireFox and Chrome on my machine as same as on Windows 10.

Tricks that worked

In addition to PostgreSQL, I did another change in my habits which let me be more successful in this migration. I am still dual boot and time to time run Windows. I have put all my documents, source codes, videos, music files, etc in a NTFS partition. As Ubuntu can read/write NTFS partitions easily, I have access to all my files from both OS easily. Before this, I was forced to consider one the operating system as the main one. So does not have access to the filer in another OS.

As the third trick I can mention the same tool policy across two parts. I use Visual Studio Code, LibreOffice, GIMP, FireFox, Chrome, Skype, Thunderbird, Kdenlive and DropBox (in the first try) in both Windows and Ubuntu. Many other services are same as they are delivered via web not desktop.

Unresolved issue

By they, I still have some unresolved issue with Linux/Ubuntu:

• Network configuration in Ubuntu is different than Windows. Whenever I am in need of configuration of a VPN, I burst into tears. More of guides and tool are Windows based and I have not enough to master network in Linux.

• I have a HP LaserJet M1212nf MFP printer-scanner which is not working properly in Ubuntu. Some it prints a page full of black and white bars instead of the image I have to requested to be printed. Unfortunately, I have found no more than one driver for it. Also I am restricted to USB gateway only.

• I have not found a free alternative to Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio tool yet. Once I explored DataGrip, but it is not as good as Management Studio. Still missing my huge friend.

• As far as I'm doing development tasks, everything is almost OK. However, once I try to use other tools, I bang to the wall. I can not run many tools which other people run as non developers. For example, I can not easily utilize Adobe Connect or AutoCAD.

I would be very glad if some day I can resolve the remaining issues.