> As for privacy ... it's actually a real concern or remote/hypothetical issue
Trust me- privacy under Windows is definitely a real concern. Read this: https://www.fsf.org/windows. Even if it was a 'hypothetical' concern (whatever that means) the simple fact that Microsoft (or whatever organisation) has the power to abuse its users and the users are only not being directly abused because Microsoft allows it, is grounds enough in my mind to reject Windows. That is the nature of proprietary software- regardless of whether the user (the company) is selling out its useds to the NSA, the fact that proprietary software gives corporations the power to do such a thing without the user even knowing about it is grounds enough to reject proprietary software. I would urge you to, and wipe the last vestiges of Windows from your machine. >Elementary OS is Ubuntu based [concerns, etc.] Elementary OS contains non-free software, and doesn't really seem to distinguish between free and non-free software in its repos. You would be better of using an FSF-endorsed free software only distribution, such as Trisquel. Trisquel too is based off Ubuntu, but has all the non-free and ambiguous bits taken out, including blobs in Linux. > microsoft office ... (libreOffice warned me of compatibility issues on > formatting when I used MS file type Why are you using the MS file types then? For they are secret formats stuffed with evil. Use the OpenDocument formats (ods, odt, etc.) native to LibreOffice if you want perfect file creation and compatibility. Sure, there may be some minor issues when it comes to opening these files in MS Word, but it isn't the Document Foundation's fault that Microsoft uses a secret format that is fiendishly difficult to implement and for which the specification is thousands of pages long. It's Microsoft's fault that they continue to stick to their formats and have failed to implement open formats properly. ODF is an open and universal standard. If MS Word can't handle it, that just proves that MS Word is shit. I use the ODF formats for everything school-related, and have never had any problems- either on my side, because LibreOffice can create them perfectly, or on the school side, because MS Office can actually handle ODT quite well these days. At least for the few seconds it takes me to print the things. > toshiba laptop Tecra M11 almost 6y old The older the better, generally speaking. I have a 6-year old ASUS N43S. Everything seems fine with yours except > nvidia nvs with cuda card No idea what that is- but it sure sounds scary. Look up the exact model on https://h-node.org/ and see if it works with only free drivers. If not, don't sweat- it'll probably have Intel Sandybridge integrated graphics or something of the sort, which should be fine if you're willing to live without the best 3D acceleration. I use integrated graphics without any real problems.
