All I know is Windows and I want to switch to a Linux OS

[soulcity]

But there is plenty decent video editing software for linux. I've used openshot and kdenlive a lot. And I am sure there are FOSS CAD programs that can do what you need. It's a matter of googling and asking around forums (like here), trying out stuff while keeping the programs you know on your windows partition.

The problem is that I need to produce the project files in the format my job demands.

So how do I setup a windows partition?

[ill88eagle]

But there is plenty decent video editing software for linux. I've used openshot and kdenlive a lot. And I am sure there are FOSS CAD programs that can do what you need. It's a matter of googling and asking around forums (like here), trying out stuff while keeping the programs you know on your windows partition.

The problem is that I need to produce the project files in the format my job demands.

So how do I setup a windows partition?

If windows is already installed the linux installer will give you an option to install alongside windows - You then choose how much hard disk space you want to allocate for each OS.  Once the installation is done, you will get a menu on each reboot asking you which OS you want to boot up.

You should be certain which linux flavor you want before doing this though, so following BibDadE's advice about trying out different distro's as live USBs with file persistency is a good idea - unless you feel up to messing around with virtualbox (it's not that hard).

About formats - Most open source software supports a variety of proprietary formats, but you'll have to do your own case specific investigation.

[RobertX]

soulcity, for all partition needs, try tis: https://gparted.org/

Burn the image to a disc and boot from it.

To boot, just stick the readied disc into the drive and reset the system. Next, the computer should be input detecting devices for data like DVD drive, USB stick etc. and Gparted should start nicely.

[Fant0men]

soulcity, for all partition needs, try tis: https://gparted.org/

Burn the image to a disc and boot from it.

To boot, just stick the readied disc into the drive and reset the system. Next, the computer should be input detecting devices for data like DVD drive, USB stick etc. and Gparted should start nicely.

Gparted live is king. I use it whenever I need to (re-)partition drives, and also to check / repair my partitions. I've even used it when changing the size of virtual machine hard drives, first growing the virtual hard drive in VirtualBox, then booting that VM with the Gparted live ISO mounted, growing the size of the partition. It's super handy, and very reliable.

[soulcity]

soulcity, for all partition needs, try tis: https://gparted.org/

Burn the image to a disc and boot from it.

To boot, just stick the readied disc into the drive and reset the system. Next, the computer should be input detecting devices for data like DVD drive, USB stick etc. and Gparted should start nicely.

I don't have a CD/DVD drive in my computer.

[Fant0men]

soulcity, for all partition needs, try tis: https://gparted.org/

Burn the image to a disc and boot from it.

To boot, just stick the readied disc into the drive and reset the system. Next, the computer should be input detecting devices for data like DVD drive, USB stick etc. and Gparted should start nicely.

I don't have a CD/DVD drive in my computer.

You can put Gparted live on a thumb drive. That's how I do it. Just take one of your old low capacity thumb drives, or buy a cheap low capacity one. Put Gparted live on that. It doesn't even need 1GB of space. Useful tool that you can always have with you.

[ill88eagle]

Uhm sorry to interrupt - while gparted is a great tool, you don't need it for your current purposes - you might need it if you wanna change partitions later, but a linux installer will do the partitioning for you. Also a lot of distros comes with gparted bundled (anything gnome I think). So having a live stick with standard ubuntu will yeld the same advantage.

Now to make a bootable USB stick you need a program like rufus or similar, a stick with decent storage (at least 4GB) and any linux live image. These are only a select few so I'm adding Pop!_OS to the list since it gets a lot of love for being an easy just werks™ experience.

The general procedure goes like this: Run rufus (or whichever program you got for the purpose), select a linux .iso, select a drive (your USB drive), enable persistent filesystem and adjust the size to your liking (the bigger the better), hit the 'go' button or whatever it's called and wait for the program to do it's thing (takes a while).

Once done you should have a bootable live OS on a stick. You can use it to either explore the OS without installing- or install it straight on any machine, with dual boot options for machines that already have another OS installed.

[Fant0men]

Uhm sorry to interrupt - while gparted is a great tool, you don't need it for your current purposes - you might need it if you wanna change partitions later, but a linux installer will do the partitioning for you.

True. I guess I rely on Gparted live a lot because messing with partitions is such a sensitive and risky thing to do... one small error and you can lose all your data. It's true that you can run Gparted in any Linux distribution, but the great thing about their own live distro is that it comes with just Gparted and no bullshit, nothing capable of bugging out or crashing running in the background. But for Linux newbies it's not really necessary to use Gparted live, if all they're going to do is install Linux.

[hyp]

I guess I rely on Gparted live a lot because messing with partitions is such a sensitive and risky thing to do... one small error and you can lose all your data.

I agree with this. The first time I tried to dual boot I accidentally deleted my UEFI partition and didn't know at the time how to make another, so I wiped my windows installation and reinstalled. It wasn't a big deal since I keep important things backed up in at least 4 places but it was very stressful and time consuming. If you follow a guide, follow it exactly. Maybe I'll make a youtube guide for dual booting Windows and Unbuntu for Soulcity...

[RobertX]

OK, I think we're second-guessing ourselves.

soulcity, you said you want to switch to GNU/Linux, and that is clear, but you didn't get to the heart of the matter.

Please provide information about the following (even if you feel like you're repeating yourself):
- what you want to do
- what you have right now (i.e. computer hardware, Windows version)
- what you know (in case our ideas go over your head, no offence here)
- what you want your GNU/Linux OS to do
- any information that you comfortable with sharing

Do it all on your next post in this thread.