5 Best Linux Distros for Beginners

Thereby proving my entire point. Say that same sentence to your grandma and tell us what she says. I am not knocking Linux or its users- just the fanatics who think "Linux Uber Alles" and look down on those lesser-humans who debase themselves with Windows. I don't get the impression you are one of those, just a fan of Linux- and I am too- I just made a TON of money programming for Windows.

Yes, i can almost be like a cult. Any negative comments intolerable. Glad we have an alternative though. I runs on another PC here that is only used for the Internet, mainly conservative video and audio content.

Thanks, I’m looking into this, already have a 2nd laptop, might need to pick ip a spare hard drive though. Not sure I have the right type.

Will look into the live cd option, would like a test drive.

Partitions - other builds have used Grub, I think it is, works well. Windows can do it, but only fat32 since linux can’t read ntfs. Not sure if I want a linux specific file system. ext or whatever. Can’t remember. ext2? Have to look it up.

Been thinking about dual boot too. Might go that route, but it’s been a while. Last one I put together was win 3.11, DOS 6.22, win98. Everything ran from a DOS boot. Switch to the right folder, type “win” and you’re off and rolling. Also had a GUI script but DOS was more fun. Initial boot had win98/DOS option from autoexec.bat. I’d usually just let it time out and boot DOS. Started to put together a win98/XP machine but decided what’s the point?

Sounds great, let me know if I can help when you get caught up. And I feel your pain, we are very remote ourselves and have had no power off and on for two weeks now because of the wind. But we got internet right? :)

Trust me when I share why mess with a Pontiac Firebird when you can have a Cadillac for the same free price. Just go with the Mint Cinnamon and be topped up with all the bells and whistles right away. You will end up wanting all the stuff it comes with eventually anyhow. :)

THE DUAL boot with linux uses grub menu IF you install it after windows is already installed- you’ll get a menu that asks to boot into linux or windows- simply pick the one you want and off you go- don’
t have to enter anything- just highlight and hit enter- if you install linux after windows, it will boot automatically to linux first if you don’t choose anything at the menu- i just hit the power button in the morning, and it boots to linux- then at night, i restart, and choose windows to work on my art and photos in windows-

I use linux as my main os because it is much safer than windows online- i do all my emails, browsing, reasearch etc on linux- then boot into windows 7 which is always offline, to do anything i need to in windows- best of both worlds-

i would say my time spent in linus is about 90% of time, while windows is 10%- I love having both- the only pain is if you want to switch, you gotta reboot- would be cool if i could boot both at once, and use a switch to go back and forth instantly- but that is above my paygrade I’m afraid-

Yeah i think it is EXT2, or EXT4, can’t remember now- My windows is NTSF- I have a backup drive which i have partitioned to keep linux backups in as well as windows file in the NTSF partition on the drive— When im in linux, it reads all the files in the NTSF section ok, and i can pull files from the NTSF partition and put on my main linux HD and they are viewable fine-

Grub has a very good reputation. Have a friend and fellow geek who made the mistake of trying to install Linux first once...oops, format and start over. He kept a linux/xp system going all the time. He also tried letting the XP start up script do it, fell flat on its face. Same for DOS. Let Linux handle the boot script, it works perfect. He worked with one of the security groups, used to get me to drop viruses in a zip file and email them to him so they could dig through the code. I didn’t know that, told him I had a certain virus in my quarantine folder (on the phone) he said zip it ip and email it to me HUH??? New variant, they didn’t have a fresh copy.

This guy was a true computer expert, you do not want him, or me for that matter, going over to the dark side. We tried to intentionally find ways to trash windows, and did, so we’d know how to fix it. We could both get access to a computer for 2 minutes, next time you reboot you’d be forced to reinstall unless you knew exactly what was done, and how to use DOS pretty well. The world has no idea how lucky they are we stayed with the good guys...

I kept a computer on a table that was strictly a test bed. I reinstalled the thing 30 or 40 times, running win 98 at least 2 years before XP was released. Everything but a case. Why bother when I’m constantly swapping parts? Must have destroyed windows a dozen times. Ooops, I guess that didn’t work...now where’s that cd...

The fastest thing you could get then was the 233MMX, if you had 256MB RAM you were uptown, and that was expensive. The test box was a 166, I think it had 128MB RAM. Biggest hard drive in existence was around 2.4 GB, it had a 640MB. Those were about the only parts that stayed constant. Video, modem and sound cards were swapped out all the time, rare was the week something did’t get yanked. Even the printer never stayed put more than about a month. I worked at a repair shop, took in lots of parts.

My Mandrake 9 machine was the only one in the house allowed to connect to the internet. (2 or 3 years later) The xp machine didn’t even have a wire plugged into it. Had 3 or 4 games on xp, only thing I ever used it for was that and recording, and most picture editing.

Linux had GIMP for picture editing and it’s very good but too complicated, a lot like photoshop. I use a simple windows program, Irfan View. Handles 90% of my photo editing nicely, usually just crop and resize.

I probably spent 75% of my computer time on the mandrake box. Laser jet printer did a nice job and the word processors are hard to beat.

It would run for months at a time, never shut down unless the power went off. Up and running for over a year without any memory glitches, never bogged down at all. Try that with wondows. I’ve had to reboot windows after 2 months when it refused to wake up after overnight inactivity.
Memory management is probably windows’ worst feature.

Best thing is the only driver I ever had to install (or find) was the nVidia video card. Everything else just plugs in and works. Even an external US Robotics modem. Make sure it’s plugged in while you install the OS, you’re good to go. I spent more time looking for windows drivers than anything else. I burned a dozen cd’s with nothing but drivers on them. Probably still have a few stashed away in a box...file sizes keep growing and growing...next thing you know we’ll have to have the entire state of Maryland just for file storage. Which actually might not be a bad thing...that would fix the crime problems in Baltimore...

I’m getting to the point that I don’t have the brainpower to dig into things like I used to. Years ago it was fun, and I old remember quite a bit, but now I have to relearn things over and over again. If I’m not doing them every day routinely. So need.ess to say, I need things pretty simple now. The dual boot was a little bit of a challenge, but not too bad. Gives the best of both worlds. Though you will run into a problem with you windows system restore points getting wiped out over and over again. Guess its a known issue. So be aware of that if you do go that route

Sounds like you have a ton of experience with this stuff, but if you have questions, either I or openurmind or others can help, but really, it’s not too bad a process.

I started way after dos at about wi dows 98 se. Linux back then was a monster to deal with. Buttoday it’s way way easier. Back then I gave up on Linux, but today I love it