Hi there!

Seeing the enshittification of Windows unfold, I’m curious about trying out Linux.

I don’t want to move over my main machine just yet, but I’ve got a 9 yo HP Pavilion 15-e001ed spare laptop I want to experiment with. Eventually I want a gaming laptop that can run steam games.

When I googled I found a plethora of pieces of advice, but seeing the proselytizing for Linux here, maybe I could get a bit more personal advice as a potential conscript.

So what advice would you give me to start my journey into Linux?

UPDATE: Ok my cherry is popped, writing this from a fresh Mint install. It’s suprisingly smooth sailing. Only thing is somehow software gets installed on my root partition instead of the home partition I made because people told me so.

But overall not nearly as dounting as I thought it would be. Thanks for the help everybody!

  • naeapEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    I just upgraded a laptop of a friend with a bit of RAM and an SSD instead of the 5400rpm drive, and put Linux Mint with Cinnamon on it.
    Took all the data, obviously scattered around on the desktop and where not, and tried take a more sane approach in restoring here data, and put them in the corresponding folders in home, I seemed fit.
    Installed a few graphics programs, and pretty much handed it to her, and never got the chance to show her around.

    She really seems to like it still and haven’t had much questions - but maybe they will come in the future.

    I now plan to move my mother’s old laptop to Linux Mint on my Christmas visit as well.

    As she only browses the web and answers mails, she mostly uses her tablet anyway.
    We will see how that one goes…

    Edit: btw, the installation process was a breeze. And as it comes as a live Linux image, you can already look your way around a bit, to decide, if you like it. But most user friendly distributions also provide the same nice installation experience. Linux really leads the market, when it comes to installer and live media - imho