How to make your transition from Windows to Linux smoother

From ArticleWorld

When moving away from a Windows environment, no matter what you choose, things are obviously going to be different and, we may say, more difficult at first. Any change involves learning some new things, and forgetting some old ones.

The transition to a Linux environment sometimes seems rather difficult to do, due to the fundamentally different approach the two systems have regarding not just the user, but also the applications and the operating environment. Nevertheless, you can make this transition smoother.

Seven easy points

1. Read, ask, try. It probably took you some time to master Windows to a competent level, so it would be unfair to expect Linux to be instantly usable at its full potential. Do not be afraid to ask when you are stuck, but it is imperative that you read before you ask. Search the web, look through the documentation and search the forum where you are posting before asking. The open-source community is huge, and it is bound by the Internet, so there is a very high chance that someone got stuck in the same place before you.
2. Linux is not Windows. This is where many people simply fail, trying to take familiar concepts like C:\ or disk defragmentation from Windows to Linux. Linux is a different operating system; maybe not better (this is up to you to decide) but certainly different. Be prepared to accept these differences and treat them accordingly.
3. Pick an easy desktop. There is a reason why everyone recommends KDE and Gnome as being easy to use: they are. And they are very similar to a Windows desktop. If you plunge directly into a weird FVWM config or even something more obvious, but less Windows-like, like WindowMaker, you will probably have no clue about what to do.
4. Pick an easy distro. Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora... everyone is talking about them. Do not be afraid to experiment with these either. Stick to the one you like best, but try not to bring the heavy artillery like Gentoo. Installing and using such "advanced" distributions, while providing you with more flexibility, also requires some more knowledge.
5. Pick a good book. O'Reilly's Linux in a Nutshell is a good starting point
6. Learn the basic jargon. You do not have to be a computer geek and understand things like IPC or BSD sockets, but knowing what the kernel is and what it does, why you need X11 and what mounting a filesystem means is surely useful.
7. Use Wine. Wine is a tool that lets you run many Windows programs in a Linux environment. While sometimes unreliable, it can prove extremely helpful if you still want to use familiar applications.