Hi I'm a complete novice

[Old n dumb]

A big HI to everyone , just introducing myself and after a few pointers. Firstly I'm a complete novice when it comes to Linux, at present I'm running a couple of laptops in the household one with windows 10 and one with windows 7 but I have a spare old toshiba that's been on Vista but keeps crashing so I've decided to start fresh and it has been formatted to ntfs standard, my question is I would like to install Linux along with a simple photo editing program and an office type program. As I'm New to Linux what version should I be looking at and the same with the other programs, where is the best source, and are there any books I should be looking at, are there any anti virus programs needed and firewalls, do i need to set up new email addresses, I would like to keep it simple as possible as I'm a complete newbie to Linux.

 

[arochester]

Hello, Old n dumb and welcome to Linux.org.

I am older than you!

We were all novices once...

Many Linux distros would suit you. The usual suspects for newbies are Linux Mint, Ubuntu and the varieties of Ubuntu e.g. Xubuntu and Lubuntu, and the distros "based" on Ubuntu e.g Linux Mint, LXDE and Linux Lite.

To some extent, it depends on what YOU like and what suits YOUR Computer. How much RAM have you got?

The old saying is if you use Ubuntu you will learn Ubuntu...if you (say) Slackware you will learn Linux. So it is a beginning, but not necessarily the end destination.

If you Google "Linux simple photo editing" you will see many choices. One suggestion is a program called Pinta.

The usual office program is LibreOffice - also available for Windows. But you may prefer Kingsoft's WPS or something else.

There are many debates about the necessity of antivirus or firewalls. Are they necessary or not? Maybe the answer is that many viruses (virii?) are written for Windows. Not so many for Mac or Linux. I have worked for quite a few years with Linux and I have installed neither.

You do not need a new email address. It will work just the same with Linux.

 

[Old n dumb]

In reply to your question about my system, I have a 1.9Ghz AMD x64 processor and 2 Gb of ram and 160Gb hard drive, so there should be enough resources there to run Linux. I have just had a look at Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" but wasn't sure wether to use the Mate or Cinnamon release. I've just mentioned to my son about what I'm going to try and he has heard about Ubunto before and mentioned a photo editing suite called Gimp so I shall also be looking at this.

 

[Old n dumb]

Just had a look at a couple of YouTube videos and Gimp and Libre office are included with Mint 18.3 ,so looks like I will be downloading tomorrow afternoon, wish me luck,

 

[atanere]

Just had a look at a couple of YouTube videos and Gimp and Libre office are included with Mint 18.3 ,so looks like I will be downloading tomorrow afternoon, wish me luck,

Hi @Old n dumb, and welcome! (I'm older than you too. ) While you're looking around, find yourself one of the free Windows programs that you can use to "verify sha256 checksum" and use it to verify that the Linux .iso file you download has no defects. This is good to help make sure that you then create a good DVD or USB to use to install Mint.

Gimp is a very powerful graphics tool, along the lines of Photoshop.... so it may be difficult to learn at first. But there are many other programs that can probably serve your needs, so you may find several that suit you once you start looking at your options.

LibreOffice is awesome, and quite similar to Microsoft Office. It is mostly compatible with MS Office too.

You'll be fine.... enjoy the experience!

Cheers

 

[wizardfromoz]

Who mentioned old and dumb?? (Wizard appears in a puff of smoke, everybody coughs)

Hi @Old n dumb and ditto on the welcomes Sorry, thought they were talking about me

Mate, I'm from DownUnder and seriously, the number of people whom have joined last 3 - 4 months who are aged 55+ through to their 80s ... I find incredibly gratifying. 98% are discontented with years spent with a certain OS (operating system), and there are even a few people who felt the same about Macintosh.

That said, we do not try to "turn people off or away" from their Windows or Mac to be exclusively Linux users, and so if you wish to dual boot, that can be shown to you if you need the help. But you've got the old "Toshi" (I am writing this from a Toshiba Satellite) and you've got a Plan - you likely know the adage "Fail to plan? Plan to fail", so you're covered for contingencies

LibreOffice, its predecessor OpenOffice, and WPS (the latter is provided by a Chinese company called Kingsoft) are all cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD) so you can try them even on your Windows. I started using OO when it first came out in around 2002/3, in preference to my owned (is there such a thing with M$?) MS Office. Used it for 12 years with nothing but praise, then converted to LO, which forked from it a few years ago, either side of the time Apache (servers people) acquired it, this being when I seriously started using Linux. Ditto praise.

Also try before you buy (into Linux) are Browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox (I've also used since nearly its inception, over Internet Explorer). Linux also has Chromium, related to Google's Chrome, and Chrome itself has a Linux version, and there are numerous other Browsers, a number of which you can try from Windows, just ask or Google/search.

GIMP also cross-platform, I have yet to try Pinta, mentioned by friend @arochester . GIMP is great for taking a picture formatted in .jpg or .png, and scaling it down to an easily transmitted (email) size or Internet posting, and losing very little resolution/clarity. I have barely scratched its surface

If you haven't already downloaded LM 18.3, get it direct from LM's website, and read and act on the suggested verification, or we can help.

'Sylvia' also ships with Timeshift, and you can read my Tute here https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/ - you may find it like Windows restore, and very useful.

Cheers, and look forward to hearing from you.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[Old n dumb]

Ok, I have tried installing Linux Mint cinnamon and had a few problems with it going into fall back mode so reinstalled it and all went well but had an issue with it being really slow, so I decided that I had pushed my luck a little due to the laptop's age and downloaded XFCE, I then installed this and it appears to be working perfectly so far. I have tried Firefox and also Google Chrome, but can't decide yet which I prefer, so tomorrow I shall be having a little play around no doubt i shall be back to pick some brains shortly.