Tips on moving to Linux?

[Bif]

Didn't read the whole thread but my advice would be to get whatever Linux you want running off a USB stick first if you can. This way you can see if it even works as well as you like before you go permanently messing with your partitions or whatever. This is really about the same thing as dual booting because if you want to boot XP, remove/deselect USB, if you want Linux boot off of USB. I've been running Linux Mint off of USB for about 6 months now and have no immediate plans to even install it on the HD as I don't really see any advantage to that yet. I can still access all the data on my HD partition anyway. If I want to try some other Linux distro I'll throw it on another USB and away I go, nothing to even mess with if I toss my previous distro away.

I did previously try Linux distributions over the many years but I never had much luck due to hardware incompatibilities. This was the first distribution that ran on a computer I have with no problems. So for me running Linux has a lot to do with will it actually work to your satisfaction, at least with USB drives it's pretty painless to try for a while.

[Bif]

2. installing Windows alongside Linux isn't possible at all - so far Linux beats Windows hands down, as far as you are concerned

To play devil's advocate I was going to say exactly the same thing, you beat me to it. I don't even know what all the versions of Windows installs allow, but if anything I might guess MS would go out of its way to find and erase the competition off the drive .

If anything I think Linux probably has had to go out of its way to handle multi-boot as possible given its circumstances. That said I agree it does seem a bit confusing for your situation, which is a bummer. That's why I'm just sticking with running it off a USB stick, I see no disadvantage to it so far for what I need.

[Bif]

This is  now the fourth (and definitely the last) time that I tell you I'm talking about the other case where one is trying to install Windows after Linux.

Please read what you're replying to, it would have saved both of us quite some time.

Take at least some solace cgutjahr that I understood what you were talking about. I felt for you getting trashed by the same camp you were trying to stick up for in multiple posts :confused:. Indeed sometimes people must just scan a few keywords in a paragraph and not be clued in to what they are responding to :rtfm:. I was guilty of something similar on another board recently that looked like someone was rewriting quotes of mine and I went off, boy did I ever feel stupid and bad and apologize profusely after I went back and read everything correctly . I'm just going blame that on gettin' old and dense in the head ...

[Bif]

What if I'm not using Ubuntu? Is it the same in all the other distros?

I'm on Linux Mint 16 here. I was curious so went to look. You can find the "task manager" at "Menu -> Administration -> System Monitor". Took me about 5 seconds to locate it, seemed logical enough of a place, I'd hope other user friendly distros would take about as much time.

Over various versions of Windows various tools/utilities/apps have also moved around, but it's usually pretty similar to find what is needed. The exception for me was Windows 8, takes me forever to intuitively find a damn thing on that OS.

There's 3 reasons I am running Mint right now:

1) My experience with Windows 8 was extremely annoying. Why do I want to use something that annoys the hell out of me?
2) Both my Windows 7 and Vista computers stopped working after a bad automatic update from MS.
3) With the above I thought lets give Linux another try since my laptop wasn't booting anyway. Linux Mint has been working just fine for what I need a computer to do for several months now. Not once have I gone into a command line, nor have I messed with a single damn config thing. It just works. And it doesn't annoy me. So why wouldn't I use it?

Keep in mind I have nothing against Windows in general, I've been a happy Windows user over the years, just at this point Mint is making me happier. If it doesn't work in the future for some reason I'll drop it and move to something that works better, I'm not that attached. These days I just need a good web browser, music player, editor and a few other things, it's very easy to move around.

[Bif]

Uh oh.   I can't hep myself.... :griping:


Man, what is the fear of command line and config files in this world.. ;-)

And I'm not talking Linux..
I was just on an interview panel for a Windows "server tech" and most of the applicants seemed afraid of Powershell.
(I love Powershell!!)

Don't get me wrong, GUIs are great.  
One of my favorite parts of the Amiga was the GUI.

But if I can do something faster and more efficiently with text, why wouldn't I want to do that?

When I want to send a quick message to someone, I don't call them or skype them.  I TEXT them..
Sometimes, even today, text is still better!!!


:lol::lol::lol::lol:

desiv

You're ranting at the wrong guy. I love command lines. I've spent 20 years programming for a living. I automate all sorts of stuff with complicated batch files, feel more comfortable finding files via command line than GUI, etc. There are those things GUIs are great for and those things command lines are good for, I take advantage of each as appropriate.

What I was replying to was an earlier post that stated you could not get Linux working at all in many cases without having to drop to the command line to execute some cryptic commands to config something. I think that's a very fair point if it comes to that, and has probably been more true in the past. My latest Linux experience was just plug in USB stick, and use it, no fiddling needed, thus no drop to command line needed to make it work.