I’ll confess. I fear all this monkeying with my working computer. What I know about all this Linux, Wine, Mint, Win7 Pro/Ultimate, etc is what I just wrote in this sentence......nothing more. Life is so nice turning the computer on and happily and effectively using my functional XP, Office 97, Firefox or IE, Photoshop, a half dozen weekly hackercrap-finding, and a dozen or so old very useful and functional programs. Right now my life does not need this frustration and assured outrage.
What do I fear? I try to load some major brain content transplant and the computer boots to a blue screen with lines on nonsensical words and numbers. Then as I load the programs I love, they won’t work. In comparison to the average person, I’m probably have good technical abilities but the years of experience practicing those abilities have established my FEAR.
“I’ll confess. I fear all this monkeying with my working computer.”
One nice thing about Linux is that you don’t have to install it to try it out. You can run it off a CD or DVD and it won’t make any changes to your computer. It can also run off a USB memory stick.
If you try it out and like it, Linux can install onto your hard drive alongside Windows. When you turn on the computer it will ask you if you want Windows or Linux.
It’s always a good idea to back up everything before you install anything to a computer. (I’ve been bitten in the past, too!) But, generally, Linux is safe and easy to try out.