Help me install Linux for the first time please!!!

T

TTrevorBacon

Guest
Hello there,
My name is T Bacon and I just picked up a new Asus ROG G750jw laptop and to my dismay it does only come with windows 8. I have a lot of friends who have only good things to say about Linux and I would like to take this opportunity to make the switch over with this particular machine. This is the part where you (hopefully) come in and save me. I have a fair deal of computer knowledge and I am fairly certain I can do this on my own however I value the input of more experienced people over my own fumbling around with a new operating system. If you you have any helpful data, advice, warnings or if you would like to hold my hand while I go through with this I wold be more than happy to hear anything that any of you have to say on the subject! Thank you for your time.
Specs: i7-4700HQ
8 GB ram
64-Bit Windows 8
Nvidia GTX 765M
 


Do you want Linux AND Windows, or Linux Only?

I would suggest that you use Linux AND Windows . You should keep Windows until you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you don't want it. You can then restore Windows if you want to.

With a new, up-to-the-minute computer you will have to contend with UEFI secure boot. Look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Quite often computers have a repair/restore Windows partition and no CD/DVD. If you tell a distro like Ubuntu to install to the whole Hard Drive it will do exactly that and overwrite and repair/recovery Windows partition.

You can just try Linux, to find out if you like it, without messing up your hard drive. Look at : http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2012/09/5-ways-to-try-linux-without-messing-up.html
 
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Adding to what arochester was saying about Windows recovery. Often new machines have that silly little recovery partition (one of the most stupid ideas ever in my opinion) but what people often don't notice is that most also have an option to burn recovery disks.

To do this take some time and look at the pre-installed programs on your machine. I can't give you the exact name because it changes some, but look for something about restore disks. You should then be able to take a few blank DVDs and burn recovery disks.

I highly recommend doing this before anything else as it will allow you to take the machine back to how it was straight out of the box. This will come in very handy if you make any mistakes or later just find out you would like to go back.
 
Do you want Linux AND Windows, or Linux Only?

I would suggest that you use Linux AND Windows . You should keep Windows until you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you don't want it. You can then restore Windows if you want to.

With a new, up-to-the-minute computer you will have to content with UEFI secure boot. Look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Quite often computers have a repair/restore Windows partition and no CD/DVD. If you tell a distro like Ubuntu to install to the whole Hard Drive it will do exactly that and overwrite and repair/recovery Windows partition.

You can just try Linux, to find out if you like it, without messing up your hard drive. Look at : http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2012/09/5-ways-to-try-linux-without-messing-up.html


Thanx for the input. I talked to a buddy of mine and he suggested that I run windows and linux. All in all it seems that running the both of them is definitely the safest rout. Thank you for the links and I will post my progress!
 
Do you want Linux AND Windows, or Linux Only?

I would suggest that you use Linux AND Windows . You should keep Windows until you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you don't want it. You can then restore Windows if you want to.

With a new, up-to-the-minute computer you will have to content with UEFI secure boot. Look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Quite often computers have a repair/restore Windows partition and no CD/DVD. If you tell a distro like Ubuntu to install to the whole Hard Drive it will do exactly that and overwrite and repair/recovery Windows partition.

You can just try Linux, to find out if you like it, without messing up your hard drive. Look at : http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2012/09/5-ways-to-try-linux-without-messing-up.html



I feel I must ask... Which version of Linux do you think I should go for. I keep seeing mentions of Ubuntu and mint and fedora. Is there any reason I should avoid any of these or lean toward one in particular. I do a lot of gaming and graphic art with photoshop and illustrator (i don't know if that matters or not). any way I was hoping you could point me in the right direction on that. Thank you agian for you help here!
 
I don't have an easy answer for this. The "best" distro for you is the one YOU like and which suits YOUR computer. Fanboys will tell you the distro THEY like.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. It has the "restricted" bits of Ubuntu added so it is extra easy.

Ubuntu is based on Debian. It is easy to add the "restricted" bits.

There are hundreds of distros to try. Have a look at distrowatch.com (the table on the right titled "Page Hit Ranking") which gives SOME indication of popularity.

One benefit of the big hitters is that they have good install packages, whereas some of the smaller distros have none and depend on you manually installing.

I don't use Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Fedora. I don't know that I should tell you what I do use. They are all OK. I have used Kubuntu (KDE Desktop), Xubuntu (Xfce), Lubuntu (LDXE) and so on. I tried many before deciding.
 
I feel I must ask... Which version of Linux do you think I should go for. I keep seeing mentions of Ubuntu and mint and fedora. Is there any reason I should avoid any of these or lean toward one in particular. I do a lot of gaming and graphic art with photoshop and illustrator (i don't know if that matters or not). any way I was hoping you could point me in the right direction on that. Thank you agian for you help here!
Ubuntu is the most widely used. Mint is a remix of Ubuntu (in my opinion the worst. But please do not hesitate from at least trying it, many users love it). Fedora is a community project by RHEL, so Fedora is more business oriented. I used Fedora for a little while. I found the system tailored for intermediate users, not beginners.
Photoshop can be run in wine, however I recommend a free alternative called GIMP. Maybe Inkscape as an alternative to Illustrator.
I recommend two systems which are both remixes of Ubuntu.
Oz Unity
and
Ultimate Edition
 
Ubuntu is the most widely used. Mint is a remix of Ubuntu (in my opinion the worst. But please do not hesitate from at least trying it, many users love it). Fedora is a community project by RHEL, so Fedora is more business oriented. I used Fedora for a little while. I found the system tailored for intermediate users, not beginners.
Photoshop can be run in wine, however I recommend a free alternative called GIMP. Maybe Inkscape as an alternative to Illustrator.
I recommend two systems which are both remixes of Ubuntu.
Oz Unity
and
Ultimate Edition


Great thanx. I have decided to go with Ubuntu. It seems to the best starting point for me. I am currently putting together a bootable usb drive so i can take it for a test drive. Thank you for your input and your suggestions on the comparable software. I will check out OZ and Ultimate edition.
 
I don't have an easy answer for this. The "best" distro for you is the one YOU like and which suits YOUR computer. Fanboys will tell you the distro THEY like.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. It has the "restricted" bits of Ubuntu added so it is extra easy.

Ubuntu is based on Debian. It is easy to add the "restricted" bits.

There are hundreds of distros to try. Have a look at distrowatch.com (the table on the right titled "Page Hit Ranking") which gives SOME indication of popularity.

One benefit of the big hitters is that they have good install packages, whereas some of the smaller distros have none and depend on you manually installing.

I don't use Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Fedora. I don't know that I should tell you what I do use. They are all OK. I have used Kubuntu (KDE Desktop), Xubuntu (Xfce), Lubuntu (LDXE) and so on. I tried many before deciding.


Hey thank you for your straight up answers about what I should use. I will be trying to use ubuntu first and trying new things out from there. I will most likely be asking for advice and info on the correct installation procedures. please keep my thread in mind as I will be needing help.
 
I would definitely recommend Ubuntu to begin with. Since you are mostly interested in gaming and graphics editing Ubuntu is recommended by Steam as the best linux distro to run (although others do work) and it also comes with a great variety of pre-installed (or easy to install) packages for graphics viewing and manipulation. Its also very user-friendly and compatible with a wide range of hardware out of the box.

Like ryanvade said, GIMP is generally the most popular. I would also recommend wine if you like to game but truthfully if you're keeping windows I'd stick with gaming on your windows OS and everything else on the Linux partition.

One last note, make sure you install Windows first. This is probably a non-issue since its already pre-installed but just in case you wipe the HDD or something.
 

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