Migrating from Windows to Ubuntu: A Step-by-Step Guide

Switching operating systems can feel like a bigger leap than it actually is, especially for people who have used Windows for years or decades. The transition to a Debian-based distribution like Ubuntu is more straightforward than first-timers expect, partly because Ubuntu is engineered to be approachable and partly because the community has spent years smoothing first-run experiences. Australians now consider the switch for reasons ranging from laptop longevity and reduced licence costs to privacy and software freedom.

Major Australian retailers including JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks and even Costco Australia stock laptops from Lenovo, Dell, HP and ASUS that can be ordered without a Windows licence. Skipping that licence typically trims one to two hundred dollars off the price. Bringing an ageing Windows PC back to life with a free operating system also happens often across the country, where households hold on to laptops long past the manufacturer's intended support window.

Before diving in, treat the migration as a small project rather than a single dramatic act. Planning the backup, choosing between a single-boot replacement and a dual-boot arrangement, and listing the everyday applications you rely on are steps that remove surprises later. The pages that follow work through that preparation in order, so a first-time switcher sitting in Adelaide, Hobart or anywhere in between can follow along at their own pace.

Planning your move before touching a USB stick

A good switch starts on paper, not on the hard drive. Begin by listing what you genuinely do on the computer each week, from email and web browsing to specific Windows applications tied to work or hobbies. In Australia, many people use the Microsoft 365 ecosystem for work email, calendar and Teams, and Ubuntu handles those services well through the browser or through officially supported clients. Banking is another category worth checking ahead of time: Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB and ANZ all run modern web platforms that work perfectly under Firefox, so Windows-specific software is rarely needed.

Decide whether you want Ubuntu to take over the entire drive or to coexist with Windows. A dual-boot setup using the GRUB bootloader gives a safety net during the early months, so you can return to Windows whenever you need a particular legacy program. A clean single-boot installation reclaims the full disk and avoids the temptation to drift back to old habits. Either way, write down which choice you made and why; future-you will appreciate the context when troubleshooting.

Hardware compatibility deserves a quick check, especially with older machines. Ubuntu offers a "Try Ubuntu" mode that boots a live environment without touching the disk, which is the cleanest way to confirm Wi-Fi, sound, webcam, touchpad and graphics drivers behave correctly. Most laptops shipped through the Australian market since 2017 work out of the box. When a component refuses to cooperate, forums such as ubuntuforums.org and the Ubuntu Discourse site usually hold a thread with a working fix.

Backing up your files safely

A reliable backup is the step most worth taking in this entire process, and it is the one that catches people out when they skip it. Move everything you would miss if the drive failed today — documents, photos, browser bookmarks, email archives and project folders — to at least one location outside the machine. External USB drives are cheap from Australian chains like JB Hi-Fi or Officeworks, and a 1 TB portable hard drive costs less than dinner for two in Sydney.

Cloud storage adds another layer of protection, and several providers maintain Australian data centres, which speeds up uploads from connections on the National Broadband Network. Services such as Nextcloud, Tresorit, Dropbox and Backblaze all work well from Ubuntu through their browser interfaces or through sync clients in the Snap Store. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes guidance on the "3-2-1" backup rule, which recommends three copies of important data on two different media with at least one copy stored offsite. Before wiping any disk, verify the backup by opening random files from it on another device, especially image files, spreadsheets and PDFs which reveal corruption that simple folder counts do not.

Creating a bootable USB installer

The actual installation media is a small USB stick that boots the system independently of whatever is already on the hard drive. You will need a flash drive with at least 8 GB of free space and a working Windows machine to build the installer, unless you happen to have a friend with a Linux laptop already. The official tools are called "Startup Disk Creator" on Ubuntu and "Rufus" on Windows; both are free, both are well documented, and both produce the same result.

Download the latest long-term support release directly from ubuntu.com rather than from a mirror that might be lagging behind. Australian users will usually find that the local mirror, hosted by AARNet or a university, delivers faster downloads than the upstream server, and the installer lets you select it during setup. Verifying the downloaded ISO against the checksums published on the website catches the rare cases of a corrupted or tampered download.

Plug the freshly written USB stick into the target computer, restart, and press the boot-menu key to enter the one-time boot selector. Common keys across machines sold in Australia are F12 on Dell, F2 or F12 on Lenovo, ESC on HP, and F9 on many ASUS laptops. From the menu, choose the USB device, and the Ubuntu live environment will load within a minute or two, ready for the next stage.

Running the installation

The Ubuntu installer uses a graphical wizard that walks through every decision in plain language. Connect the laptop or desktop to your home network during installation so the installer can pull the latest package updates, apply the correct time zone and download any extra language packs. For Australian users, the default selection of Australia/Sydney, Australia/Melbourne, Australia/Brisbane, Australia/Adelaide, Australia/Perth, Australia/Hobart or Australia/Darwin produces the right local time, daylight saving handling and public holiday calendar.

Choose between standard Ubuntu with the GNOME desktop, Kubuntu on KDE Plasma, Xubuntu, Lubuntu or Ubuntu MATE depending on the age and horsepower of the machine. Older laptops with 4 GB or less of RAM run noticeably faster under Xubuntu or Lubuntu, while modern hardware is a comfortable home for the flagship GNOME edition. The installer also offers a Minimal install option that trims shipped applications for users wanting a leaner starting point.

Decide on disk layout during the "Installation type" screen. If you opted for dual-boot earlier, shrink the existing Windows partition from within the Ubuntu installer or from inside Windows using the built-in Disk Management tool, then let the Ubuntu wizard occupy the freed space. If you chose a clean replacement, the installer can wipe the whole disk in one step. Home folder encryption is enabled by default on newer releases, but skip LVM if you want a simpler layout with one fewer moving part to learn about.

Finding replacements for familiar applications

The question most switchers ask first is whether their existing software will still run, and the honest answer is that most of it will, through a different tool. Microsoft Office documents open natively in LibreOffice Writer, Calc and Impress, and the office suite ships with Ubuntu by default. Adobe Photoshop can be replaced for most editing tasks with GIMP, while Premiere users often find DaVinci Resolve — a free, professional-grade video editor — does much of what they need without subscription fees.

For Australian-specific software, look first to community-sourced equivalents. Mapping is often covered by OpenStreetMap, abc iview streams locally produced video through the browser, and AFL and cricket content runs through the official streaming sites. Banking apps and the myGov portal all work fine under Firefox, though energy retailers such as AGL or Origin occasionally point users toward a browser experience rather than offering a native Linux client.

A handful of Windows-only programs remain hard to replace outright, including some professional audio plugins, niche engineering tools and certain games. Valve's Steam client runs natively on Linux and supports a large portion of the Steam catalogue through Proton. The remaining gaps are worth listing honestly before the switch so nobody is surprised on day three.

Settling into daily use

After installation, take an hour or two to personalise the desktop. Set the correct keyboard layout (Australians typically use English (US) with dead keys, English (International) with dead keys, or plain English (US) depending on the labels printed on the physical keys), enable Firefox's built-in tracking protection, and sign in to the Snap Store to install the few extras you want. Connecting an Android phone over USB or wirelessly for file transfer is straightforward through the built-in GNOME Online Accounts integration.

Consider joining a local Linux user group for ongoing support. Sydney Linux Users Group, Melbourne Linux Users Group, Brisbane Linux Users Group, Perth Linux Users Group and the Adelaide Linux User Group all run regular meetups, mailing lists and online chats where new users can ask questions in person. Subscribing to community forums such as Linux.org.au and joining the relevant subreddits complement those in-person connections for users in regional areas around Ballarat, Wagga Wagga, Cairns or Alice Springs.

Within a week of daily use, the rhythm of the new environment generally clicks. Backups through Déjà Dup, package updates through the built-in Software Updater, and the occasional sudo apt upgrade in the terminal become automatic. Ubuntu's LTS releases receive five years of security updates under Canonical's public roadmap, meaning a single installation made today will receive protection well into the 2030s.

The most useful habit any new Ubuntu user can build is to keep notes on what they configured and why. A simple text file in the home folder titled "setup-notes.txt" or a private Git repository full of dotfiles makes future reinstalls, new machines and the occasional "why did I do that?" mystery trivial to solve. Saving those notes means the next Windows-to-Ubuntu migration, whether for yourself or for a friend in Perth asking for help, becomes a much smaller task than the first one was, and that compounding knowledge is the real reward of switching operating systems.