I'm looking to get a new laptop soon, which will leave me with three functioning laptops. My current main laptop will become my music studio and I was considering using the oldest one as a Linux machine. My main issue is, I have absolutely no experience with Linux outside of Android. I have many questions about this. What are the pros and cons of doing this? Which version should I use? Should I wipe said laptop before doing this? Is there a good place to learn the basics? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Dont think about it - DO IT!!!!
A good idea would be to list what exactly you want to do with it.
What programs do you use?
What programs are on your MUST work list?
Do you want to game?
What hardware are we working with?
How much time are you prepared to put into learning Linux and more specifically the command line (Terminal)
To make life easier make sure the laptop doesn't have an nvidia card, they tend to have issues in linux. Also avoid Asus, they like to block some linux features.
Ubuntu is awesome but it may run slow on an older laptop.
LinuxMint is very user friendly and many ppl enjoy that distro.
I did have Ubuntu loaded on a Core Duo laptop and it ran OK but not a great experience. If you have the Core2 or above you will be fine though. Those 2 distros are so very easy to install. Once you learn command line in Linux, Windows will seem stupid to you.
;)
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/linux/choosing-linux-distro-dont-ask-do/180332
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/linux/so-what-advantages-does-linux-actually-offer/174080
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/linux/productivity-linux-os/173231
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/linux/discovering-linux-take-it-easy/166668
Stop asking questions, just do it!
Download a bunch of different distros and http://rufus.akeo.ie/ and just try them without installing until you decide which one you like best. You can check the top 20 at http://distrowatch.com/ if you are in need of ideas for distros to try.
Thanks guys. I'm mostly waiting to get the new laptop before I do this. I'm not planning on gaming or anything on this. I really just want something I can learn how to use Linux on. It's about a five or six year old ASUS U50F and it only has an i3 330 and 4 GB of RAM. I've essentially been using it as a burner laptop.
Of course, I guess I could install it with Windows still on there.
Aye, dual-booting is also an option.
Linux is several times lighter than windows and more feature-rich, so that "old" i3 machine will definitely get some new life after the install.
You can do so much with linux! You won't regret it and if you have trouble try another distro. I've probably installed 15 different distros on my machine since I've started to mess with it.
I'm always distro hopping. I installed Manjaro yesterday just to see what all the hype was about. I think my favorite desktop environment is XFCE. I was a long time Ubuntu Unity user and I finally had enough.
Unity is a mess, so I would say stay away from Ubuntu. Ubuntu based distros are great in my opinion. I feel that the community distros put more thought into their releases. Ubuntu just gives you a bunch of crap that you have to try to figure out. Xubuntu and Elementary being my two favorites.
If you want bleeding edge while being very easy to install I would say check out Manjaro. It seemed to just work right out of the box for me. The Arch User Repository is pretty impressive.
Would it be better to do a clean install as opposed to dual booting?
+1. Try a bunch and go with what flavour tastes best.
Even on really old laptops - single core centrino's - distros like Xubuntu and Lubuntu are worth a look.
If you have nothing you want to keep in your old machine then go for it.
go for it, dont think just do it, dont think about Windows, Linux is not windows, it doesnt work like Windows and does not have the same apps, after a while you will find free-open source alternatives of your fav apps that receive much more care and attention that the retail software.
let your imagination run wild, if you can think it chances are it has been done.
Not sure how someone who has never used Linux will fair with Slackware but they have a really good book that explains a whole bunch of stuff. I'd read it even if you're not going to use Slackware. http://slackbook.org/html/book.html
I've been screwing around with Sabayon. I really like it so far.
Sabayon looks pretty nice. But I had audio problems with sound card and I couldn't fix it so I switched out. I'm actually using elementary os on my laptop and it feels really good so far.
It looks pretty interesting, but I also looks really similar to the Mac OS.
Ubuntu - Classic but now getting a bit bloaty and Amazon for some. Still good.
Linux Mint - Basically Ubuntu without some of the excess. Very nice distro.
Manjaro - An amazing underdog that is gaining popularity. Based on Arch Linux. Try it with XFCE destkop.
I suggest starting with those 3. Just play around with Ubuntu for a week. Break it. Then move onto the next. By that point you may have moved on enough to start looking into what makes Manjaro/Arch awesome and different.