Speaking of browsers, i thank God for Firefox-ESR (as long as i can use it) and Cyberfox and Waterfox since the extensions play is far aboiut any other for what I want it to do Anyway, I used Windows disk management to shrunk the C drive and also deleted 2 partitions and created a 118GB drive.
And (sorry) I felt Fedora KDE was the flavor I should try, if any, and I liked KDE from before, so I created a USB boot of it disk using Rufus, and just booted the laptop (next to me) into it.
Wireless setup was better than Mint XFCE, though the defualt icon is almost invisible, and it keep pestering me about setting up KDEwallet, which it should not do, and when i choose the option that it wants, then i get the error, "your system has not keys suitable..., and i had to go back and choose Blowfish.
Rather than a vertical list of items with fly-out menus, the Application/programs menu Fedora provides icons down the bottom for Applications and Computer (plus Favorites, History and Leave). Placing your cursor one moves the menu for them into view, but unlike Windows (which I am comparing here), placing your cursor on an item does not result in a fly-out submenu which enables you to see and click in the specific item that you want while not losing your place. Instead, for something like Internet (under Applications) you must click on it and it moves the menu into view from the left.
I would rather have more submenus so you can navigate faster. However, a R. click on something like Firefox does provide the location (such basic info we should easily find).
Hitting Computer only showed Fedora and does not result in showing Windows disks, much less a graphical interface showing total size and free space and many options (as in Windows).. But opening up Home with the default Dolphin manager shows the Windows disks and its partitions in the left hand pane. However, it has no location bar (not seen in setting either) by which you can see and copy the address, but which you can find by opening the disk and right clicking and hitting Properties .
I launched the Anaconda installer but which only showed the windows drive as one large (465GB) drive (sda), so i went back to Dolphin (which was open) which showed 2 partitions in windows, showing 275GB free out of 347GB drive and a empty 118GB drive. I opening the latter since that is the one that I wanted to install Windows disks to, which was listed as /run/media/live/user/118GB.
However, attempting to install via the Anaconda installer and selecting destination (Device Selction), it only showed the windows drive as one large (465GB) drive (sda), with 2.99 MiB free, which free space is obviously incorrect. A empty 15Gb SD card is also listed as having only 3.97 MiB free.
Not wanting to use the whole Windows HD, and under Storage Configuation i chose Custom and the large Windows drive. Then rather than Next, you hit Done in the top left. There is an invitation to Refresh, but what this actually does it remove the selected disks.
The next window Manual partitioning, still says only 2.99MiB free, and wants mount points. I clicked Create them automatically, but this results in the error of not enough free space.
At this point i conclude the Fedora cannot read the NTFS Windows disk correctly that I selected, or even the SD card and decide that is enough for Fedora. I go back and hit rescan disks to undo any changes but it results in Bug>Report Bug which i did not do.
Maybe Cinnamon is next.
The Programs menu was better, and as I like the All applications option, though i do not like the layout as much as i like the Classic Start Menu for Windows, but Disks suffered from the same sparsity of info (no right click menu, nor any info on how much free space) as Mint XFCE. The free space info is provided under Files and navigating to the Windows dive it showed 126GB free on the empty (118GB in Windows) partition, with a location as /media/mint. Which is the same location as the larger partition, shown as having 292GB free. "Computer" on the desktop shows the same.
Launching Install Linux Mint, the disks had to be umounted, which Fedoa never asked about. And it also proved the option to install Mint alongside the "multiple operating systems" it thinks this notebook has. I wanted to install Mint on the empty partition, and choosing the "Something else" option It wants you to choose the drive and boot loader location, and i choose the 126GB free partition. However, Mint wanted to install the boot loader on the flash drive, and fo which the installer showed no type, size, used space for, unlike the other drives and partitions, so i changed that to the Windows C drive.
However, trying to install to the empty drive resulted in the error i have had to deal with in other custom Linux installs on a drive, "no root file system is defined," and no offer is made to do so ("advanced partitioning" brings you to the same window as tye "Something else" option, so I went back and choose Mint's offer to install it alongside Windows on the large partition.
Under this option Mint enables some resizing, btwn the NTFS partition listed as "Files" and the Mint partition, so I gave about 49GB to Mint and 77 to Files. Proceeding from there, Mint created the partitions it needed that I wanted it to on the spare empty partition, and Mint was installed.
I rebooted into Mint fine after selecting it from the boot menu it made. However , now Windows 7 will not load. The files are there, and there was not options to change the boot loader location after i choose Mint's offer to install it alongside Windows, but as of now Windows is inaccessible. I will have to make a Win 7 repair disk.