Much has been said about what the best alternatives are to Windows. With Windows 10 being officially unsupported for most people, users have been forced to ponder whether to stay on an unsupported OS, upgrade to Windows 11, or switch to Linux, and a lot of people have chosen that last option.

Through recent reports, we've learned that a Linux distribution called Zorin recently had over 780,000 downloads in a single month, and Bazzite — a more gaming-focused distribution — recently pushed past 1 petabyte of ISO downloads in a similar time period, which equates to over 100,000 downloads.

But for as popular as those options are, when it comes to replacing Windows, I still have a clear favorite, and it's neither of those. AnduinOS is the option I'd go for as a Windows convert, and I stand by that recommendation. Why? Let's take a closer look.

AnduinOS feels familiar

And it's based on Ubuntu

Zorin gets a lot of attention because it offers an experience similar to Windows, with some of the same design paradigms. But the actual design language of Zorin feels quite a bit far from the Windows look, and that can be a deterrent for some. Personally, I often felt like I was running something closer to ChromeOS than Windows, which wasn't really what I wanted.

AnduinOS offers an experience that tries to more closely replicate the look and feel of Windows 11, even down to the wallpaper featuring a similar color theme that really does make it feel like you're back on Windows. The app launcher also bears a striking resemblance to the Windows 11 Start menu, so you're eased into this experience before you're introduced to a lot of foreign elements.

Underneath that familiar surface, though, it's still Linux, and AnduinOS is largely based on Ubuntu. In fact, much of it is Ubuntu, down to using the GNOME desktop environment. Using a very popular backbone makes this an easier distro to use since you can easily find apps that are compatible without requiring too much hassle. It's a great blend of elements that aims to make the transition to Linux as smooth as possible, and it does that exceedingly well.

Building on a great foundation

It's not just the basics

While familiarity is a great case for AnduinOS as an alternative for former Windows users, what makes it even more compelling is how it goes beyond that. Yes, it's based on Ubuntu, and that means it supports Canonical's Snap packages for app installs. But if you don't like Snap packages (which I don't), AnduinOS also ships with Flatpak package support out of the box, so you have another great option to get apps without having to use the command line. Flatpak packages are very widely supported, so it greatly increases the options available to you.

Likewise, AnduinOS also improves upon the aspects of it that resemble Windows. The app launcher may be very similar to the Windows 11 Start menu, but it removes the pointless Recommended section Microsoft has traditionally forced on users. But more importantly, it offers a range of customization options that Windows can only dream of having.

When you dive into the settings for this menu, you're greeted by dozens of layout options that give you tons of control over how the Start menu looks. Some options resemble the Start menu in Windows 7, others are closer to Windows 11, and others still are more original, combining elements from different versions of Windows, Linux distros, and more. You have an incredible degree of flexibility here, and it's still just the beginning. Once you select a layout for the launcher, you can choose things like padding, spacing, and colors to make the menu truly your own. The options are never-ending, and it makes Windows feel so restrictive in comparison.

And all that is while still sticking to the elements designed to make AnduinOS more familiar. As with anything Linux, you eventually have the freedom to achieve the exact look and feel you want through different extensions and even desktop environments, if you want to.

The risks of AnduinOS

Niche distros come with caveats

As much as I love AnduinOS, there are some problems that naturally come with using a very niche distro like this. You'll find a ton of small-scale projects like this on the internet, and the problem with many of them is that they're designed to satisfy one very specific need, often for a small subset of users. Many times, these developers don't have much sway in the direction the underlying distro goes, which may influence their ability to maintain a certain project.

Perhaps more importantly, some of these projects might just be abandoned when their original creators stop having time to work on them and there's no one to take up the mantle. There's always some risk that you'll be left on software that's no longer supported, so you have to be ready to part ways with that operating system if it comes to it.

Since it's based on Ubuntu, AnduinOS does thankfully get updates for all the Ubuntu packages in much the same way, so for core functionality, you shouldn't be dependent on support for AnduinOS specifically. The typical upgrade methods for Ubuntu still work for those packages, and you'll get the same goodies as every Ubuntu user. But packages specific to AnduinOS could be abandoned at some point and leave you without support.

On the bright side, once you get your foot in the door with Linux, it becomes much easier to hop around to other distros if needed, so this is something you may be able to work around if and when the time comes.

I'd still recommend it

Even with those caveats, I'd still say AnduinOS is a fantastic option if you're looking to move from Windows to Linux. For some people, that familiarity goes a long way in making you feel comfortable, and AnduinOS does it better than any other distro and desktop environment, in my opinion. Desktop environments like KDE Plasma (seen in Fedora) and Cinnamon (seen in Linux Mint) also do a solid job of feeling like windows, but the approach in AnduinOS remains my favorite.