“Get Unbutu.”
Did it.
My HP Compaq 8710w laptop was flagging under the sprawl of Win10.
I FINALLY took the plunge, and put Ubuntu 20 on it.
Did just a couple hours of reading in advance — details how best to size partitions, etc and kept that open on my phone while I was working.
Got that up and running then went to the website for the Brave browser and followed their step-by-step instructions to install Brave. Honestly, as a LINUX noob, just sort of blindly keying in console instructions without fully knowing what you’re telling your computer to do does feel like a leap of faith. But it was a good leap.
And, and, AND I had ZERO trouble using the Remmina remote desktop client to hit my Office Windows machine, so BIG joy, there. AND I installed the Zoom client and it runs A-OK.
TRIFECTA!
My ONLY glitch was because the LINUX kernel reved from 5.4 to 5.8 and NVIDIA didn’t play along, so my video didn’t work after the upgrade.
BUT, tapping the SHIFT key at boot opens a menu where you can tell LINUX to boot using the old kernel, which it DOESN’T nuke during the upgrade process, so it’s still there and usable; and Yes, as a matter of fact this hairy eyeball IS for you, Mister Gates.
So, I just expressly directed my machine to boot into the 5.4 kernel for a couple of weeks until the argument between NVIDIA and the 5.8 kernel got patched up. ZERO loss of productivity, and nothing was at all hampered at the desktop level.
After the patch, even NVIDIA is happy, now. JOY!
So, yeah — I guess maybe set up a dual boot if you’re not sure, but I am NOT Mr. ComSci and I was able to pull it off, and my ancient laptop is happier than it’s been in a very long time; the cooling fan actually goes to low RPM much of the time, which it rarely ever did under Win10.
Thanks for that post. I keep thinking I should give Ubuntu a try...
However, pages like this have me seriously puzzled.
https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/
What if I have an Intel processor?
I do not see 4 types of images. 2 of the 3 shown are identical?
I do not know the 1st thing about “desktop images”.
For starters...
Granted I’m 1/2 asleep. :-)