So like it says in the title. I’m looking to make a change. The only coding I ever did was like, some very light HTML on stuff like LiveJournal 20 years ago (because I’m ancient in internet years, haha) and even that I barely remember.
I’ve seen people talk about LinuxMint in other comment sections and how that one might be closest to something like Windows (in that a layman like myself can use it out of the box like buying a new laptop from Best Buy or whatever store). Is that actually a good one or is there something better for somebody like me?
I’ve seen enough people go ‘NO UBUNTU!!!’ to steer me away from that one, but otherwise I have no clue what would actually be good for somebody in my shoes.
I have a laptop that still technically runs Windows 8 that I just use for downloads so I’d be trying it on there so that if something goes wonky I’m not fucked. After looking at the LinuxMint website, the specs on that laptop meet the requirements for it.
Thanks so much!
ETA: Because it’s come up a few times and after the first time I didn’t want to reply the same thing a over and over, I associate Linux with coding because everybody I’ve personally known that uses Linux is a programmer by trade, by hobby, or at least has a CompSci degree and understands this stuff on a level a million times higher than I do (even if they didn’t end up in the field). Clearly I misunderstood something about what they were doing with Linux somewhere along the way. It looked like coding to a layperson at any rate so that’s what stuck in my mind.
The sound of virtual machines on my main doesn’t sit well with me. If I do something and brick my main laptop I’m fucked and I can’t replace it and some of the programs I use won’t run at all/run well on my old Windows 8 machine because it doesn’t have the processing power. (I got a gaming laptop so I could have the video processing I needed for video editors to not take a day to render a 15min video on Windows 10, never mind and older Windows 8 laptop. sigh) Experimentation and tech FAFO’ing will happen on the Windows 8! lol
I’ve seen Pop!OS come up in a few comments here, so if I don’t end up liking Mint maybe I’ll try that one out next. :)
I would ask how many times you have bricked your Windows machines in the past? That said, if you did stop it from booting it would be the same as it not booting a native Linux install.
That said, I would recommend installing first on the older machine. New life for that machine will feel good and it is very low risk. Once you have done a few installs and not botched anything too badly you could give it a go on your new machine. I find the performance boost from using Linux over Window is enough to out weight significant hardware differences most of the time.
A Windows computer I had got massively fucked once like, 15ish years ago. No idea what happened. No new downloads or installs, I hadn’t done anything different from any computer I’ve had before or since, just one day it stopped and it wasn’t even that old, two years tops. Not a custom build, straight outta the box from Best Buy (maybe even Future Shop it was so long ago). My friend couldn’t tell me what happened when they figured out how to get it at least booting up again. Only time it’s happened. It was weeeeeeeiiiiird.
Glad to know about the performance boost. :)
Yeah, I’ve had bad random things happen with tech, only with systems that are closed though. When they are more open you can get logs, see what is happening, and eventually modify things until they work again. I had a phone that just wouldn’t stay online for more than 5 minutes if the screen turned off. Screen on, internet working just fine. Screen off for 4 minutes, perfectly happy most of the time. Then suddenly around 5 minutes it would just die. It was running Android so I could see some stuff but I simply couldn’t get the information I needed to figure it out. Linux is much more forgiving with logs and such giving actual error messages which with a simple copy paste can get you to a reasonable next step.