After the myriad of researching parts and what not for my PC build, I now have some down time until all the parts come in. I have been toying with the idea of Linux for some time now, it's actually how I came to find TS. I brought some life back to this older Acer Aspire 5334 that was given to me by a family member who did not know what to do with it. I bought a new battery for it, upgraded the RAM to its max capacity of 4 GB, and installed an SSD for the hard drive. Then I updated it from Windows 7 to 10 after doing a factory reset/fresh install of Windows 7 to have a clean slate.
I'm all over the place on which distro to go with? I use this laptop to get online, check email, surf the web, watch youtube, etc. I would like to know if anyone has a recommendation on a distro that would be easy to learn with and do all of these things without (too much) hassle. I have read that netflix and what not is a pain on some distros but not sure. I use gmail and chrome a lot as well as youtube.
I was looking to get Gnome but the page for 15.04 states there is only support for 9 months, that if you want something more stable download 14.04 and that threw me for a loop. So I wanted to get some advice from the peanut gallery here on what direction to take? For the record, I am not looking to dual boot, or run a virtual machine with Linux. I want to replace/erase windows 10 with Linux on this machine. Jumping in with both feet. I want to learn and have the time and patience for it. I had been on a Macbook Pro since 2009 and hadn't touched windows until this PC was given to me about a month ago. And well Windows 10 just seems like lipstick on a pig, lol. It hasn't given me issues but I'm not wowed. Just trying to give as much info as I can for you guys to help/advise me. We still have the macbook pro as I gave it to my wife and oldest daughter and my wife has her work laptop on Win 7, so this isn't our only computer incase or when the install breaks :) I kind of took this on with Linux in mind down the road, and if feasable I will go the Linux route on the PC build too but we will see because I want to use that for gaming as well, but that's another story.
I'm here with an 8GB formatted USB stuck on the side of the laptop ready to go :)
I still have the HDD that I took out with the image that was cloned to this SSD, do I need to do another backup?
Thanks for the help
I have jumped distros a lot over the last ~5 years. My personal favorite is Mint. I like the style and ease of use. I would really like to be able to use gnome with it, but Mint and gnome don't play well together, so if you are set on gnome, then ubuntu is a good option. Ubuntu and Mint are really popular, so finding things online when you need some info will be easier than if you start off with a less mainstream distro. So yeah, if you like cinnamon, then Mint is good. If you want gnome, Ubuntu is good.
As far as the LTS thing goes, from what I understand, the non LTS versions are more like beta while the LTS is like an official, stable release. For starting out, and if you just want to do basic computer stuff, then go with the LTS (which happens to be 14.04 right now). It will have the features that you need, and be the most stable/have the least problems.
Now, from what I have been told (ie second hand), netflix works flawlessly with chrome no matter what OS you are on. Period. So Ubuntu, Windows, Mint, Debian, OSX (or whatever it is called), etc. It has to do with DRM and pirating security. I can go into more detail about this if you want, but basically, use chrome and you will be fine.
Just so you know, gnome is relatively hard to run (from a hardware perspective), so you might find that your laptop struggles with it. If that is the case (and I am not certain that it will be a problem), then you should look at light weight DEs. KDE is a really easy to use on. I know that Mint can use KDE just fine and I assume that Ubuntu can to, so feel free to load up whatever DE you want, as you can have multiples installed and then switch between them at will.
I'm not set on any particular distro just seemed ubuntu/gnome was popular so I figured there would be support for it.
But I am of course open to any recommendations.
I'm still a little confused with all the programs and what desktop you can run on them etc......
Alright, since I don't know what you know, I am just going to explain the basics. The distro is the underlying system (below what you see and above the linux kernel). You can install whatever desktop environment you want on it usually. So you can install Ubuntu and then install whatever DE you want, Unity, Gnome, etc etc etc. And then when you boot up, you can pick which one you want to use. It isn't like Windows where you are stuck with the look that came with it. Many distros will even offer different DEs preloaded. So you can download Mint with cinnamon or kde or whatever and then install whatever else you decide that you want along side it. However, Mint doesn't play well with Gnome so just keep that in mind when making your decision. Personally though, I really like cinnamon. It works really well for me.
As far as programs and stuff, if you want to use basic stuff like office software, internet stuff, email, etc, then you won't have any problems no matter which distro you use. You could be limited if you went with a different fork, but Ubuntu is the most popular distro and Mint is based on Ubuntu, you your options for software will be massive.
Ok so to install Mint with cinnamon what do I need to do. I currently have it downloading, but once it does what do I need to do with the USB stick and what not?
Is my old HDD with the Win 7 that came on this laptop good enough for a backup?
Yeah, that is fine for a backup. Just keep it somewhere safe.
To put the iso on the flashdrive use the program below. It works well enough iirc.
Then you just install the os like normal. Also, just because I like cinnamon doesn't mean that you will. You should look around and find what you like. That said, it isn't much work to swap DEs or reinstall if you find that you don't like it soooo, yeah give it a try if you want. I have been around, tried Ubuntu, Antergos, Manjaro, FreeBSD (for a very short time), and some others. But I keep coming back to Mint. It just feels like home to me. I am planning on reinstalling Mint on my laptop soon enough as Antergos is giving me a little trouble right now.
I found an article comparing ubuntu gnome to mint and I want to go with mint cinnamon for my first go around. Like you said I can always change later. Already downloaded the pendrive program waiting for the ISO to download third US link I have tried and it's SLOOOWWWWWWW.
Should I run anti-virus on the Linux setup? Right now on win 10 I use malwarebytes and Panda Free AV
Thanks for the help.
Eh. You can. I tend to not bother with any real anti virus regardless of what OS I am using. Just have some sense about you and you should be fine. Linux viruses are nearly nonexistant.
Ok thanks soon as this is done downloading I will try the install and we will see what happens lol.
Ok I'm done no issues with the install. Linux + SSD = Win! :)
The computer is so much faster and everything is so much more responsive even the touchpad for the mouse wow. And all the updates it did and how fast, that many updates on Windows would have taken all night, lol.
Now I can start messing with it, I mean learning it lol
Glad to hear it. Hope you keep enjoying it.