With Windows 10's end-of-life date fast approaching, it's time we made a choice as to what to do with our older machines (that is, unless that one guy's lawsuit manages to win). If you're like me, you've decided that you want to ditch Windows 10 and go with Linux instead.

The cool thing about moving to Linux is that you have the chance to experience the new and unfamiliar. The bad part is...it's all new and unfamiliar. Like, really new, and really, really unfamiliar. Fortunately, there are some really nice apps that make Linux look more like Windows, thus removing the need for us to grow and develop in a new environment and retreat back to the old and familiar. It's kind of like going to a fancy Italian restaurant and asking if they sell burgers, but hey, it works.

So, if you're looking for a Windows-like environment on Linux, I really recommend KDE Plasma. I, myself, am a recent escapee from Windows, and while I'm no Linux guru, I'd like to share my thoughts on moving from Microsoft to open-source software. So, here's what KDE Plasma is and why you should grab it.

You can easily try out, disable, or remove KDE Plasma if you don't like it

It's not a big commitment

Okay, so here's the thing with KDE Plasma. You may know that Linux comes in what's called "distros," which are essentially different flavors of the operating system. Some are based on Debian, some are based on something else, and some are just doing their own thing. However, KDE Plasma is not a distro; it's what's called a "desktop environment." In fact, KDE stands for "K Desktop Environment," so you know what you're getting into.

Describing a desktop environment to a Windows fan is a little tricky, but here goes. Essentially, a desktop environment is an additional layer that goes over the OS. This layer can drastically change how your system looks and feels, to the point where it feels like you've changed distros. However, don't get it twisted; the core in the middle of the system is still the same. In fact, you can usually change the active desktop environment pretty easily. I haven't used a ton of distros, but the ones I have let you change the desktop environment via the login screen.

As such, you don't really need to do a lot to give KDE Plasma a try. Install it, change your desktop environment, and give it a spin. If you like it, great. If you hate it, change the desktop environment back to default and uninstall it if you like. Easy peasy.

The default layout is very Windows-esque

Just like home

One thing you'll learn very quickly when you're looking at different distros is that the layout can be very different from what you expect. That's not to say that they'll all be different; there's a good reason why people recommend Linux Mint to Windows users, after all.

However, some distros use very different default desktop styles from what you'd expect. Take Ubuntu, for instance; if you install that on your system, you'll have a dock-like menu on the left, and a strange bar along the top. You can tweak the dock to your liking, but the last time I used Ubuntu, the top bar was totally immutable. I don't even know if it had a proper name; people just referred to it as "the top bar."

Remember what I said about desktop environments above? If you don't like how a distro looks and feels, you can use a desktop environment to make it suit you better. Fortunately, KDE Plasma looks and feels very much like a Windows desktop from first boot, with a Start-like menu, apps along the bar, and a clock on the right. You can then tweak the bar as you like it, move it to any side of the screen, and clone it to other monitors.

For my dual-monitor setup, I like to keep things simple. On first boot, I tweak the taskbar to only feature the apps I want by right-clicking the default ones to unpin them, then booting my preferred apps, right-clicking them, and pinning them to the taskbar. Once I have it all set up as I like it, I enter the bar's settings and clone it to the other screen. Note that when you clone a bar, it takes all the attributes of the original one, copies them, and then becomes its own entity. If you modify one bar, it won't reflect on the other, which can be an annoying quirk or a really handy feature, depending on how you use it.

You can grab a distro with KDE Plasma pre-installed

You don't even need to install anything manually

The final reason I recommend KDE Plasma to Windows escapees is that, if you want, you can grab KDE Plasma as part of the distro from the get-go. While you could add the desktop environment to Ubuntu to make things more Windows-like, you can skip that step and just grab Kubuntu, which comes with KDE Plasma as a default. My personal awakening to the desktop environment was via Fedora KDE Plasma, which takes the Fedora base and adds KDE on top of it.

KDE Plasma is a nice starting point for newcomers

So, that's why I recommend KDE Plasma for people coming over from Windows. Its look and feel isn't too unlike Microsoft's operating systems, you can find distros with it pre-installed, and if you end up hating it, you can just swap environments or uninstall KDE and use something else. It makes creating a new home with Tux a ton easier.