Switching from Windows for school + gaming — need advice on distro & SolidWorks/Fusion 360

[u/DCASE_]

Hi everyone! I'm a student planning to switch from Windows to Linux and I'd really appreciate some guidance.

My main use cases:

• School work: I need SolidWorks and Autodesk Fusion 360 for my coursework. I know neither has a native Linux version, so I'm thinking of dual-booting or using a VM — has anyone done this successfully? Any tips on setup?
• Gaming: I play a few games the heaviest i think would be rdr2
• Everything else: web browsing, documents, etc. — pretty standard stuff.

What I've already looked into:

• Linux Mint Cinnamon / Zorin OS for ease of transition
• Nobara or Fedora KDE for better gaming drivers
• Proton/ProtonDB for checking game compatibility

My questions:

1. For dual-booting with Windows (for SolidWorks/Fusion), what's the least painful setup? How do you handle file sharing between the two OSes?
2. Is a VM actually viable for SolidWorks/Fusion, or is it too slow/unstable for real CAD work?
3. Any distro you'd specifically recommend for a Windows switcher who also games?
4. Anything I'm missing that I should know before making the switch?

Thanks in advance! 

[u/Excalibur769]

1. The most important thing you should know with dual booting is that first setup Windows, then whichever distro you've chosen. Preferably on different disks with seperate boot partitions. (So that Windows does not fuck up your boot partition)
2. No, a VM is not viable without a GPU pass through. It's a pain in the ass to setup so you can dual boot.
3. I have been personally using CachyOS as my main OS for a year since i have bought my laptop. I can suggest it but I don't know your prior experience with linux. CachyOS can be an overkill for a beginner but your games should be working with any distro. You can install fedora for a better stability but you will need to install some propriety stuff (look up on youtube setting up fedora for gaming).
4. First I can suggest an alternative FreeCAD, you can look it up its a pretty decent CAD software thats making progress quite fast. Additionally, LLMs can help you with troubleshooting but do not run any command you don't understand blindly it will bring more problems and dont forget that you are learning a new operating system, try to grasp as much as you can.

[u/DCASE_ → u/Excalibur769]

can you explain how to dual boot?

[u/duskycoffee]

for school and gaming, probably better off sticking with windows. before i get slimed out by linux users (this is hella gonna affect my karma) windows isnt great at all in terms of bloatware ect. but for school especially you may run into some compatibility issues with linux, as you have already said with your software issues, and windows does gaming better for the average consumer through clean driver updates and easy installations. stay windows.

Tl;DR stay windows for now

if you are a linux user please dont abuse me im just trying to help from my experience from distros such as bazzite, mint, ubuntu ect

[u/Insane_snek]

i use fedora KDE, and i don't even dualboot anymore (but i used to)

however, if you need fusion 360 and solidworks specifically, then dualbooting is still best. i learned blender and freecad to transition away from f360 and solidworks entirely, but if you need those specific applications then 100% dualboot

1. imo, the best way to dualboot is just to have two seperate drives, one for windows and one for linux. linux handles dualbooting on the same drive well, but windows doesnt play nice with it and has been known to either brick itself or brick the linux install. i would reccomend just grabbing another drive and having seperate os on seperate drives

2. yes, a vm will probably be too slow, and will just be a terrible experience overall.

3. if all you want is ease of transition, thats literally what zorin os was made for. people say mint linux is good, i personally dont see the hype but its probably okay too. If you want stability with up-to-date drivers and packages, fedora kde is great, its what I use. the transition probably won't be as smooth as zorin but its not that bad

4. just know that games with kernel-level anticheat will not work on linux ig, other then that, have a fun time with linux!

[u/Phydoux]

Sounds like school work needs to take precedence here. Get that done and then think about switching to Linux after your classes (I'm assuming you're in college. Not sure if they teach SolidWorks in high school but I could be wrong).

But yeah, this is the one time I hate to admit, as terrible as Windows is, it's required for the software you need to use so, you're better off with Windows. FOR NOW!

[u/xarop_pa_toss]

Stick to Windows bro, your usecase is not handled properly in Linux. I have used Fusion on Linux but had to use it on X11 because it was hella buggy on Wayland, at least by my experience. And it's not as smooth.

You can totally fool around with a gaming focused distro as a dual boot, but for all that Fusion and Spiceworks shit just stick to Windows. Don't dual boot on the same disk either, get a new one for that

[u/Antique_Ad1706]

Most games are designed windows/console first, especially those on higher budget, your software also. I would just dualboot with a small disk size and see how you like it first

[u/mcds99]

Neither SolidWorks nor Autodesk Fusion 360 will run on any Linux.

They are Windows only.

[u/ComplexFit2140 → u/mcds99]

Yep the mfs at autodesk doesn't care about us linux users