Linux New-Bee

I made the jump to Linux after thinking about it for years.
I had this fear that it was all command line based stuff and after some research I still had doubts.
Due to Windows 10, my drive to leave MS overcame my reservation about Linux.



Today I downloaded Mint 18 to a USB and was up and running in a few minutes.
Not hard at all.



I installed it on one of my old Vista PCs as a dual boot. This computer has 2 hard drives and Linux sees my second drive without me doing anything.
Using Wine I’m running some Windows Portable Apps from that drive with no issues.



Why did I wait so long?



I’m sure I may have some questions/issues but this is for anyone who has doubts about Linux… Do it!

 

Till you come across some exotic hardware which are poorly supported in Linux

No kidding, I've encountered these bastards before, e.g. Broadcom Wi-Fi cards (was very true before, now kinda hit or miss), Realtek USB Wi-Fi dongles (hit or miss), National Semiconductor/AMD Geode graphics and chipsets (dropped support in newer kernel), integrated graphics from VIA and SiS (historically bad, VIA being a bit better), and of course the infamous GMA 500

And my tc1100 oddly doesn't play well with Linux: Whenever I remove the keyboard dock the fan spins at full speed, apparently it's a "thermal event" stuff as it also happens in Windows, though less severely. Obviously I can't use it like that in public.

On the flip side, my equally old Latitude X1 does run the latest Zorin OS well.

 

Lol, I thought about that.
I thought I was going to be looking for drivers all over the internet. I thought there would be problems with sound and track pads and graphics cards but everything just worked.
I’m using an 8 year old Vaio AW.

After I do some more testing/research/learning, my plan is to do a full install on my MSI GS 70.
I won’t dual boot that one… Bye, bye Windows [If everything works as planned].

I’m sure I’ll run into some issues but I’m pretty much ride or die at this point.

 

Welcome to the club!

Personally I haven't had any issues with running various Linux distros on my laptops or desktops. IIRC Broadcom wifi has gotten better support, though generally Intel wifi is better anyway, both in terms of Linux support and overall quality of the wifi chip.

 

Welcome.

My first foray into Linux required me to download 0.10 alpha drivers for my university-provided FORE Systems ForeRunner ATM fiber optic Network adapter, which didn't work. So I spent the next 5 days emailing the developer to hack and patch the drivers between the two of us to get them to compile during a kernel recompile. It sounds like you had a far easier time getting your system up and running.

Stick with it. Linux is worth it.

Welcome!

 

I like elementary OS, but I need it dual booted with windows 10 so that I can run it at full speed and full resolution.