Three reasons to hold off on Windows 10

[Rob Seastrom]

Phil via Tacos <tacos at amrad.org> writes:

> Folks keep telling me of the joys of Mint Linux, so I have looked into it for
> my old Vista laptop. Trouble is, I was immediately confronted with a choice of
> four different editions (all of which looked much the same to me) and two
> documents telling me that, if uncertain, I should definitely load Cinnamon. Or
> MATE, depending on whose advice you take. Add to that some unclear
> explanations as to how I could download and install, plus several pages of
> 'simple' Linux programming for setting configurations, and I was totally
> lost. I haven't got time to read "Linux for Dummies", so if some knowledgeable
> AMRADer could direct us to "How to get Linux running usefully on an old laptop
> for complete Dummies", I guess at least two of us would be very grateful.

The people who are getting you down in the weeds on which window
manager or edition of a fringe fork of Debian/Ubuntu you want to load
are not doing you any favors as a novice.

If you:

a) don't have the time to read Linux for Dummies
b) want to maximize the number of people you can ask intelligent questions of when stuck or confused
c) are more interested in getting something that works than engaging in petty politics

then you probably want to get the most recent (14.04) LTS (Long Term
Support) version of Ubuntu Desktop, and not goof around with trying to
re-skin it or otherwise change what the GUI looks like.  You'll figure
it out easily enough.

As part of installation, you will be asked to set a password for your
default account (which you'll need subsequently to log in).  If asked
if you want to enable disk encryption or other silliness to complicate
your life, say no thanks - after all this is a toy and a learning
experience, not your office laptop.

A getting started guide (pdf format, free as in free beer) is here:

http://ubuntu-manual.org

There are plenty of us here who are willing to field questions about
Linux.  Some of us more useful than others - for my part I'm more
useful for knowledge domain stuff where there is a ton of overlap with
other Unix flavors than I am with things like device drivers.  I can
usually figure out the sysadmin stuff given a little time to fool with
it.

-r