Tips on moving to Linux?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I love Windows 7 (hate Windows 8, but that's a different story), properly configured it's what I install on all our business PC's. That being said, for older systems that can't run 7 I install Ubuntu. It's the easiest to setup, most user-friendly (in my experience), and has the best online support forums for when you need help. A basic Ubuntu install will give you everything you need (latest versions of LibreOffice, FireFox, music & media player software, the only thing I install on top of that is a screensaver package since the default install includes no screensavers. Throw GIMP and VLC on there and most users won't need anything else).

Your mileage may vary.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Have to say I like Unity and the Ubuntu app store. Much better than how Windows 8 implements it. Again, this is something I set up for people who don't want to muck around a lot, I've installed it on everything from laptops to old decommissioned Dell business-class PC's, no problems with drivers. One guy wanted to add a wireless PCI card to his and I was pretty nervous, but open the case, plug in the card, power it up, and the card was automatically detected and the correct drivers installed. Nice!

Geeze, some of you guys, just negativity, negativity, negativity. Instead of bashing everything, how about suggest another operating system he could try?  :angry:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I hope the malware onslaught is over-rated, though, like Y2K was.

The "malware onslaught" is Microsoft FUD. As long as you use a modern browser and don't visit any "bad" sites, you should be fine.

Also, this:

https://www.malwarebytes.org/

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

So far no votes for Solaris? Doesn't anybody use that big ball of joy anymore? Tried it, even wrote a paper about it for school many years back. They actually had a list of hardware it would work on, and if you didn't get a system off that list you were SOL, lol. :rtfm:
 
 I think the best thing to come out of Solaris was ZFS.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Ten years my ass, these issues were as bad as ever as recently as November 2011, when I finally threw up my hands after some seven years of periodic migration attempts and gave up on Linux altogether.

I'm sorry.  It just sounds to me like you don't know what you're doing.  I've had zero problems installing the latest version of Ubuntu even on 10-year-old Pentium 4 Dell Dimensions that people were throwing away.  Good luck to the OP, I trust they won't have nearly so many issues as you claim to have had.  I know things can be frustrating, but if they approach it in a less negative manner they'll be more likely to receive any help and support they need.  Have a good day!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I have here a Windows XP partition I can't boot any more, even in fail safe. All I did was play with some BIOS settings and juggling some hardware. An OS should be able to withstand such things IMO. Didn't bother to reinstall the OS and just kept Linux.

FYI I've seen this problem before. If the drive controller is set in IDE or ATA mode when the OS is installed, a reduced subset of drivers is loaded along with the OS. This affects Windows XP, 7, and probably 8 as well. If you then change the drive settings in the BIOS to AHCI (or RAID) the system will refuse to boot. Blue screen every time. Trick is to set it back to original, install the AHCI drivers, then flip the switch in the BIOS again.

Other than that there's not really much you can screw up in the BIOS that would only affect Windows. Good luck, or just forget the Windows partition, lol.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

One other tip that helped me with Ubuntu:

Instead of downloading one of the "Live CD's", I'd download the mini-CD installer, or whatever it was called.  The one that was only like a 20 megabyte CD .iso image.  It would load up into an OS install routine that instead of loading drivers from the CD, would download everything over the Internet.  Obviously takes longer than just installing off a disc, but it's the best way to make sure you get absolutely the latest drivers for your hardware.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I like the Ubuntu "Studio" version because it included GIMP.  Definitely a great program if you plan on doing any photo editing at all.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

One of the thing that bugs me about Windows, is that if your motherboard dies, you cannot just take the hard drive out and put in in a different computer and keep going.

Not that this helps your question at all, but when I have a motherboard failure in any of our systems, I just go on ebay or amazon and purchase an identical replacement motherboard.  Just my .02 cents from someone who's replaced hundreds of motherboards over the years.  

Glad you're enjoying Linux so far!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Irony is, I'd be willing to wager fair money you wouldn't know the difference between a desktop-only W8 setup (again, ONE CLICK REQUIRED! for boot to desktop mode, avoiding your Pure Evil aversion to Metro) vs. a Windows 7 box if you plunked yourself in front of each of 'em.

Windows 8 desktop is flat, dull, and lifeless, and is missing many of the advanced desktop customization features of Windows 7. Just look for right-click -> Personalize -> Window Color -> Advanced appearance settings, which gives you a whole host of customization features, and have been stripped from W8. Personally I like the 3D, transparent look of Aero, and all its associated features. I would think as an Amigan the first thing you'd notice is the lack of customization in W8. But to each their own, I suppose.

...we actually use this at our office, as part of standard setup for all workstations the appearance is tweaked to best benefit of icon spacing across our multi-monitor desktops. I'm sure this functionality could be duplicated by a 3rd party add-on in W8, but why strip basic features from the OS like this?