Stand under bridges much? "What is your favorite color?" Seriously, in addition to Roger's excellent idea of swapping hard drives, I always recommend installing VirtualBox (open source and pretty darned good) and trying various distros out as virtual machines. That way, you can see what software is actually available and how well it works as a Windows replacement, without a lot of commitment.
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Tom Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 - Region 9 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 > > > > ============================================================ > 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
