That’s pretty much what I’m doing too. Gimp replaces Photoshop and LibreOffice replaces MS Office. Gimp and LibreOffice come installed with the new Zorin (Linux) OS. My laserjet printer is on my home network hard wired in with RJ45. All I had to do to set it up in Zorin was bring up the printer window and with one click on “Add Printer” it found the network printer, loaded the drivers, and made it my default printer with no other input from me. It’s not difficult in Windows either but the point is Linux and its different distro’s sure have come a long way from using all the command line language from just 10 years ago. The CPU runs cooler because it isn’t busy with a bunch of useless commands from the OS all the time in Linux too giving the user more CPU time which also makes the machine more efficient and faster.
I still have to close the Firefox browser once in a while because FF doesn’t like to give up memory sometimes so closing and reopening it clears it from memory. Linux uses memory much more efficiently too. If I’m using half my available memory in Windows it starts to get more sluggish. In Linux it just keeps plugging along even at 3/4 memory use. I haven’t tried to go beyond that yet but will just to see what happens.
Linux really is a win, win, win nowadays. There’s very few reasons to run Windows any longer and no reasons for me.
I added the extra info for other readers because I know you know all this stuff already.
i tried zorin awhile back- maybe a year or little more ago- it ran a little sluggish i felt- compared to linux mint- which was why i chose mint- I’ll give zorin another try though see if it has cchanged
Yup- linux is way way better than it used to be- and loads easier than it used to be- everythign is almost 100% automatic as far as detection goes- I had a couple of issues i had to l ook up though- which is one of the downsides ot linux- the support is like way over most people’s heads- technogeek comments that leave a new user lost and frustrated- but for hte most part linux should run fairly simply and automatically=- I did have to find things like installing a new ppa to get my video card working with NVidia drivers- which wasn’t easy to figure out- linux mint cinnamon 17.4 was very easy- automatic- but when i went ot linux mint 18- it no longer was automatic- had to spend a few days fidnign out how to get the files installed-
As long as oen doesn’t need to know command lines, linux is easy- but a few programs need command l ine installations which can be kinda hard to figure out- still- but it’s certainly much easier these days