Hello from S W Scotland

Expert Novice

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Hello everyone, I've been doing a bit of reading on the site for a few days so thought I'd register and say hi.
I have a little previous experience with Linux but only to a very basic level. I tried playing with dual booting Ubuntu (I think it was v10.xx or something) on my windows 7 equipped HP laptop quite a while ago. My enthusiasm for breaking away from Ms tyranny was soon dampened when I ran into issues with which I'm sure many here will be familiar. The screen brightness control didn't work and was set to full and the cooling fan seemed to run at full speed all the time so consequently the battery would struggle to last any more than 20 mins or so. It might have been ok if I hadn't ever wanted to run on battery and was happy to wear sunglasses to counteract the excessive glare but after a lot of messing around trying to find drivers that might address the issues I realised perhaps my HP machine was not the best arena in which to display Linux at its best. When running Win7 it did everything I wanted it to and not wanting to spend money on a new machine I lost interest in Linux.

The old faithful laptop is now over 10 years od and still works reasonably well but has developed an issue with the screen which will necessitate spending money to remedy so rather than spend it fixing such an old machine I thought I'd be better putting it towards something more up to date and Linux friendly. Hence I have found my way here in search of info on suitable hardware and education into the ways of Linux.

From my reading so far I can see there's a wealth of good info here so I'll keep reading and post back again when a plan for a laptop/distro combination begins to form. I'll welcome advice and opinions on my choices and will be happy to post up and let everyone know how they work out. Hopefully it'll help someone else arriving here in a similar position in the future.

See you soon

:)
 
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Hello Expert Novice! Welcome to the forums here :) What kind of distribution are you looking for, do you have any requirements?
 
My requirements these days are quite lightweight, mostly websurfing, youTube and the like (watching rather than compiling video content), occasional torrenting, a bit of word processing/scanning/printing etc. The most intensive use I've put my old machine to is running a Digital Audio Workstation (CoolEdit Pro and more recently Reaper) working on multitrack recordings, recording bass guitar and mixing multitrack sessions. I'm sure there are Linux based equivalents although I see Reaper have released an experimental build running on Linux so that'll be something to investigate.

It would be nice if my HP printer/scanner and Focusrite audio interface would work. I also have a Seagate external hard drive so need to investigate whether that would be compatible but I think these will be more dependent on compatibility with Linux rather than individual distros.

I'd like to make the switch from Win7 as painless as possible giving myself a gentle a learning curve as I dip my toe back into the Linux water. From what I've read so far it seems MInt and Zorin are among the most user friendly with Zorin being the most similar in feel to Windows so I'm edging towards that at the moement.
 
Hello from (West) Central Scotland.

Mint is ok, but don't use a distro because it LOOKS like Windows. It might LOOK like Windows but it is still Linux and acts like Linux.

HP is the best for Linux.

I would suggest Linux Lite.
 
maybe then try Linux Lite AND Mint.
If you want a light learning curve go for getting a distro up and running live by booting up live from a usb. The live OS will be using whatever the usb is attached to and thus will give you a clue how it will handle wifi card graphics etc.

There are about 4 or 5 alternatives for that :

rufus
Ventoy - needs formating but you have choice to boot several iso's.

dd command etc

Just to clarify your going to get a new laptop and will nit be using your old laptop so don't need a light distro , in which case no need for Linux lite , did i get that right ?

For printer scanner definitely go for HP most distro have hplip ; its even default on Slackware.

Before you even bother to put on a usb stick you can play live courtesy of : https://distrotest.net/



Also from way up North by the way but not quite as far as Scotland
 
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I love it, a rant in an Intro ;)

not wanting to spend money on a new machine

What, a Scot not wanting to spend money? Can't believe it o_O

:)G'day @Expert Novice and welcome to linux.org

I run 56 Linux on 2 rigs - a Dell Inspiron laptop and a Toshiba Satellite laptop, so chances are I am already using anything you think about trying and will have an opinion.

When you are ready, start a Thread in Getting Started or General Linux (perhaps General Linux for advice on a Distro, and then Getting Started if you have problems), and tell us the specs for your computer, or the brand name and model number and we can go from there.

Enjoy

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Thanks, nice to get get so many replies. I can see I've come to the right place.


Mint is ok, but don't use a distro because it LOOKS like Windows. It might LOOK like Windows but it is still Linux and acts like Linux.

Ok, point taken. I know there's going to be a learning curve whatever distro I end up with. I guess for the time being I feel more comfortable with something that looks familiar. One of the attractions of Linux is if you don't like what you've got you can easily try something new. Just make a bootable USB and off you go.

HP is the best for Linux.

I'm guessing you're talking peripherals here. As far as I can tell HP are not the best fornLinix support on their computers.
 
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Just to clarify your going to get a new laptop and will nit be using your old laptop so don't need a light distro , in which case no need for Linux lite , did i get that right

Yes that's right. The old laptop is destined for the graveyard I think. I might try fixing the screen issue myself and use it as a dedicated machine for the diagnosis software I use on my car but as far as Linux goes I'll be looking at an all new machine.
 
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What, a Scot not wanting to spend money? Can't believe it

Lol, just to clarify, not that it really matters, I'm actually English by birth and 'emigrated' to Scotland a few years ago. It doesn't make me any more fond of parting with hard earned money though :eek:


When you are ready, start a Thread in Getting Started or General Linux (perhaps General Linux for advice on a Distro, and then Getting Started if you have problems), and tell us the specs for your computer, or the brand name and model number and we can go from there.

I will, thanks. There are a couple of options, and then options within options. I'll make a new post 're possible laptops soon once I get things narrowed down further.
 
I'm guessing you're talking peripherals here. As far as I can tell HP are not the best fornLinix support on their computers.

I think we all have our fave and "not so fave" computers. Arochester and I agree on so many things, but in this area I agree with Expert Novice. For my money Dell are ever so user friendly for the actual Linux Distros, but HP have the best support for Printers/Scanners and they at least have been proactive in providing the device drivers in that respect.

so don't need a light distro , in which case no need for Linux lite , did i get that right

On that subject, certainly don't rule out some of the lightweights, they are not necessarily lacking in features, some are simply light in terms of memory usage, and can get up and fly on a good machine.

Peppermint Linux, MX-19 and others, including Linux Lite, fit that bill.

Anyway, we can talk about that more ...

...soon once I get things narrowed down further.

:)

Enjoy, and we'll try to help.

Wizard
 
G'day @Expert Novice.
Welcome to the community.
I agree with @wizardfromoz in regards to HP printers as I have a HP printer and they have the drivers for it on their site as a DEB package, for when I started using Linux Mint I went there to see if they did support Linux. My printer is around 10 years old.
 
For what it's worth, I'm using a Lenovo ThinkPad for running Fedora at the moment and it all plays quite nice.
 
For what it's worth, I'm using a Lenovo ThinkPad for running Fedora at the moment and it all plays quite nice.

I've just taken delivery of a refurbished Lenovo T400 Thinkpad today and am playing with Ubuntu 20.04 booted from USB. So far so good.

G'day @Expert Novice.
Welcome to the community.

Thanks. I think my printer is around 4 years old. It has wifi connctivity and once prompted the laptop saw it, found the drivers and connected easily. I still have to try printing something but it's looking good.
 
Welcome to the Forum and the wonderful world of Linux.
 
Welcome and so far for me Peppermint has had no issues on drivers and would do what you want. Have it on 2 laptops. 1 Alienware 11.5 inch and 1 Dell 11.5 inch touchscreen. Peppermint installed on the Dell complete with working touchscreen drivers, Bluetooth and Wifi works fine. Have a wireless Cannon printer works fine. I am really liking Peppermint so far after 1 year with it. Have Mint on 2 other laptops like both for their ease with updates. And with Peppermint I LOVE MintStick (formats and recovers usb drives even from Windows recovery.) Peppermint boots quick, and shuts down quick.
 
Welcome and so far for me Peppermint has had no issues on drivers and would do what you want.

Thank you. After seeing it mentioned elsewhere on the forum I made a Ventnoy USB drive to facilitate playing with different distros and will eventually gravitate to whichever one suits me best. Ubuntu 20.04 seems perfectly fine for my needs just now but I'll have fun playing with some others.
 
@Expert Novice , just a quick hello and a reminder ' Linux is not windows and windows is not Linux'. I migrated to Linux from Windows 7. I was caught in the Msoft force to move to windows 10. I have never dislike a software package so much as I disliked windows 10. I have linux on all my platforms except one laptop which I need with Msoft for a specific software need. I use 6 different Linux versions each has a specific use or they have a specific part/performance I like. I specifically use the Dell platform and Toshiba Laptops. No problem with those two manufactures. As the @wizardfromoz mentioned in his post HP printers are top notch and have a lot of Linux driver support from HP.
 
I have a win 10 drive in the firesafe somewhere, for updating my GPS. But, then I also have a DOS 6.22 drive on the desk beside the lab computer. It sees a lot more use than the win 10 drive, don`t ya know!
Oh, Yeah, I maintained the robots that made those floppies.... back in the day:eek:
 
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I have a win 10 drive in the firesafe somewhere, for updating my GPS. But, then I also have a DOS 6.22 drive on the desk beside the lab computer. It sees a lot more use than the win 10 drive, don`t ya know!

Hehehe... I still have 5 and 3 inch Floppies with DOS on them. Still have some PC's with the drives. And an 8086 MB with 640k ram. Ran at a speedy 12 mhz.....
 

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