Replies

“Happily don’t care. Been on Linux for years. Hope M$ crashes and burns.”

There was a thread here on Saturday that addressed the topic of switching from Windows to Linux because of the M$ nagware forcing people to upgrade to Windows 10 whether they wanted to or not.

In response to that, I submitted the post I made below for anyone that might be interested in trying Linux without making a commitment to it before trying it to see if it was right for them. I offer it again for those who might not have seen it.

“Is it a difficult task to change from Win 7 to Linux ?”

Some 20 years ago, I started running Linux as a hobbyist. It was somewhat difficult and time consuming to configure, so as I replaced my computers, I abandoned Linux and went back to Windows simply because of it’s ease of use.

When all this controversy with MS forcing upgrades to windows 10, I decided to give Linux another try. I was happy to learn that in the years since, Linux has become as easy to set up and use as Windows, for what I do.

If you have a spare USB flashdrive an easy way to find out if Linux is right for you is to go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/ and download unetbootin. Once you have it, execute it and it opens a dialog to allow you to choose the distribution you want to try. Choose the USB stick as the destination to install the files for the distro you want to try.

I chose Linux Mint 17.2_Live_x64 and was very pleased with it. Unlike the old days, the installation was automatic and found all my hardware without issue.

Once the download is complete and you’re ready to reboot, just do so, and when your computer starts, press the esc key, F8, DEL key, or whatever your particular system requires to allow you to select which OS to start.

Like I said, the installation process is almost completely automatic but most questions are multiple choice. Just choose the ones that apply to you as to timezone, authorization info if you have a wireless connection, etc.

The best part is, doing it this way you never touch your existing Windows system. The Linux OS runs entirely from the files on the USB stick. Any changes you make to the system like screensaver, applications you install, etc last only until you reboot the computer. Once you turn it off, it reboots as if it’s the first time and you start again.

The default installation comes with firefox browser, but if you prefer chrome, you can download and install the appropriate package from google.

In my case, almost everything I do is done in the chrome browser so I can’t really address issues like photoshop and other apps.

If your computer activity is mostly web browsing, Linux is a very good alternative to Windows. Hope this helps.