Roger: Yeah, but what software is she/can she run? -tom
============================================ Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org> - Region 9 <http://www.spj.org/region9.asp> Director Twitter: jtjohnson slideshare.net/jtjohnson/presentations http://www.jtjohnson.com [email protected] ============================================ On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 6:17 PM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]> wrote: > The best advice I ever gave about Linux was to my sister in law this > spring. I said: ¨Just buy another disk for the laptop, keep the windows > disk as a backup in case you want to go back.¨ Truth is, it takes less > time to buy a new laptop drive and swap it in than it does to explain how > to set up a dual boot system. Especially when it turns out that the > windows install is somehow mystically wired to the original disk > partitioning, as it appears to be these days. It hardly takes any longer > to buy a box that lets you mount the spare disk over a USB port, too. > > She has been a Windows user forever, happy as a clam running Linux now, > especially since it extends the useful life of the hardware by being less > of a bloated mess. > > -- rec -- > > On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 4:01 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 11:24:36AM -0600, Gillian Densmore wrote: >> > Second Question: >> > Feeling as if I've had about enough of windows, I want to consider >> > linux as a option. What's been peoples experience with it these days? >> > >> >> It keeps getting better and better. I remember the days when it was a >> right royal PITA to set up X-windows, but that was like 20 years ago. Now >> there are versions you can download onto a DVD or USB stick and run >> without installing anything. Great for try-before-you-buy. >> >> Nowadays, a linux distro will just install and work, and support the >> latest USB devices (except Apple iOS devices, *cough*). I happen to use >> OpenSUSE, but other distros I've used have worked well too. >> >> The only gotchas? If you want to preserve your windows, you can bet >> into trouble. Last time I bought a laptop and installed the latest >> OpenSUSE, it trashed the Windows 8 partition (which I hadn't even booted >> at that stage). I had to badger HP into sending me the OEM disks to >> reinstall the system (which I insisted should have been part of the >> sale in the first place). >> >> Now, of course, OpenSUSE's version has bumped, and it will happily >> install alongside Windows 8. It just needed to catch up with the >> latest UEFI shenannigans. >> >> The second gotcha is systemd. You can read a ton of vitriol about it >> on the web. Personally, systemd is not so bad, but just very badly >> documented when first released, so it did cause a lot of pain a couple >> of years ago. Now its easier to figure out how to use it. >> >> That's it. Just check whether you have any applications that are >> Windows only - if you do, you can have a dual boot setup, or use a >> virtual machine - or you can also try wine, which will run a lot of >> Windows software natively on Linux. For example, I ran Microsoft Word >> for years on Wine (MSWord happened to be a requirement for one of my >> clients as personally, I'd use LibreOffice by preference). >> >> Cheers >> >> -- >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> Principal, High Performance Coders >> Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] >> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> >> Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret >> (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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