Hi, newbie here

[JDuran]

Hi, nice to meet everyone. I'm an old time windows guy, been using it since 98se. Always built my own machines and am a tinker. I remember setting motherboard jumpers with tweezers. Consider myself middling to advanced user. Now that 10 is dead I'm very unhappy with the things MS is currently pushing. And am seriously considering coming over to Linix or staying with 10. 11 is off the table. I'll probably be here for the next few months asking stupid question. While MACs are very nice they lack ports and wont work with my existing fully functional hardware and I'm not interested in scrapping working systems to buy overpriced proprietary systems. That and since I am tinker I want something I can work on.

I tried linix around 2003 or so and had a very bad time of it. I'm mildly dyslexic and have a hard time with command line interfaces. DOS used to get me very frustrated. I could make it work but is was a struggle. I tried again around 2015 and had a bad time mainly because of audio issues.

My other concern is audio, it is very important. I want to install linix as a test on one of my PCs. I have an AMD based mini pc that is running a 5700g apu system attached to my TV that servers as my entertainment system. It's an asrock motherboard with a realtek audio chipset. With wireless keyboard and mouse. The keyboard is semi custom mechanical and the mouse doesn't offer anything for linix. Can I expect my dongles to work or possible complications. I currently use wireless dongles instead of bluetooth. I have much beefer desktop an AMD 5850x with a radeon 9060tx and an old dell laptop. If thing work out well I would also like to change them both. The laptop is only firefox and vlc player. The desktop is mainly steam gaming. I recently picked up a steamdeck and like the OS.

I have a NAS that works as media and file server with quite a lot of music and movie files. The other thing is I'm very much into game emulation. PS3 back to DOS box.

For audio I replaced the native MS basic sound setting with an aftermarket EQ program named fx sound, it controls several audio out lines, realtek which is attached two satellite speaker and a subwoofer, the HDMI tv speakers and a pair JBL headphones. I use musicbee for playback, and VLC player for video. I know none of my current software will work and will need equivalents. I know JBL doesn't make Linix software. Which is unfortunate because I do like it. But what are you gonna do.

That is my story and nice to meet everyone, I hope to not be too much of a pain in the ass with stupid questions.

Jerry

 

[Condobloke]

Welcome to Linux.org
Newcomers and stupid questions are our bread and butter.

 

[Brickwizard]

and an old dell laptop.

Welcome to the forums

the Dell Lappy would probably be the easiest to start with, but may have some component problems to fix what's the model and full model number that should tell me all we need to know.

 

[theLegionWithin]

welcome. questions are how we learn. lots of good stuff on this site so be sure to search for previous threads about any given topic. I also run a mini pc (ryzen 7 8845HS) as my entertainment center - it's also my main rig and I havent experienced any real issues with audio/gaming/etc - my audio setup is a 5.1 system run through a usb audio adapter (cubilux). I run vanilla Arch but if you dislike using the terminal then you may want to use a different distro - mint seems to be very common here. cant speak to using wireless mice/keyboards mine are wired but on usb extension cables.

audio apps I use at the moment: vlc (mp3's), shortwave (internet radio) - and of course browsers for youtube, I listen to quite a lot of music that way.

https://alternativeto.net/platform/linux/ is a good place to start to look for apps

 

[JDuran]

I am not sure of the make and model of my laptop. I use wireless on tv mini because it easier from the coach then running 15 foot usb cables. I really like the AMD APUs. Then again I've been a AMD fanboy since the k6-233. I've been lusting after a 8845 but just can't justify it with the current economy. That and the 5700g does everything I want and more. Being old school my attitude is keep what you have as long as it dose what you want. Truth be told I haven't turned on my desktop in over a year and am afraid of the hours of forced MS updates. My speakers are edifier r1280dbs with a subwoofer. with fx sound they sound really nice and easily loud enough to have the cops called. They're more for music then movies or games. I used to use clementine but it has been discontinued and not updated in a long time. Musicbee is really good for large music collections. I've been collecting/ripping for more then 25 year and have close to 200,000 songs. VLC player on windows doesn't like large collections.

sorry for frequent post edits. like i said i'm a little dyslexic and often confuse words.

thanks for warm welcome.

 

[Brickwizard]

I am not sure of the make and model of my laptop.

you said it was a Dell in which case there should be a plate either on the bottom of the machine, or if it has the slip out battery on the back of the machine, the plate will be under that [if you take it out] the modle will look like Insperon 1545 or
latitude 5080 or similar

 

[JDuran]

The dell is latitude e6530, thanks.

 

[Brickwizard]

that is a 2012 machine, I would expect it to have a BCM45 wi-fi in which case you would need Ethernet or tethered mobile to download the drivers from the distribution repository, it should be UEFI enabled, if it has a USB port on the rear RH side as you look at it, that will be the primary USB port and the one to use.

I suggest on a machine of that age you stick to a medium weight distribution such as Mint-LMDE7, Parrot Home, MX-linux Peppermint Linux, or similar.

 

[JDuran]

Thank you for the advice Brickwizard. I have a spare 500 gig SSD that I am going to change out, this way I can easily go back if there are to many problems. I have a switch in living room with a few open ports. It's easily enough to make a short patch cable and connect there.

Thank you Sir, You are a Scholar and a Gentleman

 

[KGIII]

Also, just so you're aware, it's Linux (with a U, not an I).

Other than that, I pretty much second the above comments. We spend some of our time here just for people like you. We're here because we like Linux a great deal. To that end, we also want other people to enjoy the benefits of using Linux, which means we're here to help people get started, fix problems, and encourage exploration and understanding.

 

[kc1di]

Hello @JDuran
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy!

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

Welcome Aboard!

 

[wizardfromoz]

Jerry, ditto to all of the above from another Aussie DownUnder.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz