Running 10.10 on 3 notebooks and 2 desktops and I continue to be more appreciative of these fine builds. It loaded right up on my sons old Gateway, an older Dell latitude which I am using right now threw a few bootloader errors but on the third try it loaded up successfully and I loaded it on a third for a friend's Compaq and he has nothing but praise. I will have to keep a Bill Gates machine for company use but I seem to love Linux more with each new build.
It's a difference in Operating Systems. Some people like Microsoft Windows, others like Apple Mac and still others prefer Linux. Those who prefer Linux tend to like the fact that it's very fast, very secure, and very free.
You will not get a virus or need to even have anti-virus or antispyware running on a linux system. You will also never need to 'defrag' your hard drive.
Wow, I feel stupid just using whatever I was given and not even questioning it. So if I wrote a letter in this operating system would it still be in word because I would need business type items in that so it could be opened by other people at work. Sorry to be asking what I am sure are elementary questions, but I think I want to switch to that operating system because it seems much better.
The beauty of Linux is that you no longer need to purchase Word. You would now be using something called Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/ which is free, and can open and save documents to Word. I just used it tonight to open an excel file. I'd really recommend you not make any drastic changes without making sure you can get to us for help if you need it. Do you have an old laptop or other computer you could test on?
I will try to see if the hubby will let me try it out on his old laptop which he pretty much doesn't use. I am up with a sick little one and saw a previous thread in which you and a few others were discussing this same thing so I have been reading trying to get the lay of the land if you will
Good, try to grab his old laptop for testing this out. Linux is very easy to use but does have a little learning curve if you are not as you say 'good with computers'. It's actually a good way to become 'good with computers'. Let us know how we can help. Did you read this? http://www.survivalmonkey.com/forum/linux/8218-taking-linux-out-test-drive.html
Lol. I have opened a can of worms here . I have started reading, but it is going to take a while...thanks for all the help, my little one is back to sleep and that is where I am going too, 5 am comes quickly.
I've wanted to try it for some time now. Since there are people here who can help, I need to look for an non essential computer to try it. Glad I found this thread.
I use Ubuntu 10.04 and love it. Got tired of Windows crashing all the time. Go to Ubuntu.com and download for free. Takes 3.5 hrs on DSL. Ubuntu Studio rocks.
I prefer Linux Mint to Ubuntu, I've tested both, but end up back to Mint. Mint 10 is out, I've just today tested this out on this laptop on the live cd - actually it requires a dvd as it is too large and loaded with all kinds of stuff for it to fit on a cd - I tried. You do not have to install it to test it out as long as your computer has a dvd rw drive. those two links will get you to the download page. I have an older laptop and so I grab the i386 architecture and use a torrent downloader so I can close the browser to do other things. Once you get the iso file you'll need a way to burn that to a disc. Melbo has a link here somewhere that tells of a windows program for that. Once you burn it to your disc, you are ready to play with it all you like and no need to install it unless you like it.
OK help please. Downloaded image by torrent, burned to disk and tried to run it. Here's what I got. First I guess I should say that for some reason my laptop will not boot from CD, not sure why. Tried to run from disk then tried to load it in Windows
OK, solved that one, Now I just have to figure out how to get wireless to work. Working thruogh the manual...
Do I need to download a driver or something for wireless? Release notes really didn't help me much on that unless I missed it. Or do you have to load it on hard drive? From cd I got no internet or wireless capability so far.
Up and running with Mint 10 on the hard drive. Like what I see so far. Hardwired in though. Still need to figure out what driver to load to go wireless. Dell Inspiron laptop. The rev. notes have me kind of confused. Guess I'll finger it out but meantime restricted to hardwire unless I come back to Windows. Oh well. Press on I shall.
Go to the menu, click on 'System' then to 'Administrator' click on Additional Drivers' and select the one that seems right for your laptop. After it downloads and installs the driver, you should be able to view any available wireless connections. If you have a secure router you'll have to enter the pass-code. Hope that helps. FWIW, I just installed Mint 10 on my HP.