I'm going to try to replace windows 10.

[Vimes]

Thats it, ive had enough of windows. The latest anniversary edition turns my laptop into a hairdryer & I'm sick of the constant updates & reboots.
I'm not a linux noob. I have worked with it for the past 15 years in server environments, but am at the stage in life now where I dont want to be messing with computers when I get home. I just want them to work.
I am new to the desktop side of it though.
The machine is a clevo p170sm I think, a few years old.
I have reviewed my installed apps & to be honest there is not much on there. I use my chromebook more these days. The only thing I really need is a hypervisor to run my work virtual machine, with passthru for usb headset. I know vmware workstation works under linux, or used to anyway.
So after a few searches I've decided to try mint and elementary linux.
Criteria is reliability, speed & easy of use. I really dont care about endless customization.
Let the trials begin!

Eventually, each time that I have tried to install, run and maintain a version of Linux, Ubuntu or Mint, I have ended up going back to Windows. I had spent quite a long time trying to get an understanding to how it functions but my feeble and aged brain continues to struggle. All can seem well (and that is a relative term) and then "boom" I'm back to a non booting OS. It often fails in a very catastrophic and frustrating way.

Then again I have often found that I then very much appreciate Windows after those "testing" periods...!

 

[opethdisciple]

Windows is more simple and consumer focused, Linux is generally more hardcore in everything it does.

I'm currently a Linux systems engineer (junior one) but have worked around experienced engineers for the last decade, most would agree that Linux is for servers and Windows is for desktops.

Saying that my workstation at home is running Ubuntu. It's fine but I only use it for work not play.

 

[ScoTTyBEEE]

Sounds to me you don't know what you are talking about to be honest, You've implied that it took you half an hour to install a printer. Guess you was just trolling

I guess this is what classes as hard these days

Get off your high horse, engage your brain and read the thread

 

[Rroff]

Windows is more simple and consumer focused, Linux is generally more hardcore in everything it does.

I'm currently a Linux systems engineer (junior one) but have worked around experienced engineers for the last decade, most would agree that Linux is for servers and Windows is for desktops.

Saying that my workstation at home is running Ubuntu. It's fine but I only use it for work not play.

Depends a lot what you want from a desktop as well - some web browsing, playing some media, the odd photo adjustment, etc. you can easily get by with a Linux desktop. Throw in a bit more varied use though and it becomes a lot more complex story - for instance if you get hooked on modding a popular game you will probably find the mod tools simply don't have a Linux version/equivalent and in many cases won't play nice under stuff like Wine or other virtualisation or you spend a lot of time doing stuff with a fitness dongle or something like that where often Linux functionality doesn't exist and is exceedingly non-trivial to get working in Linux.

 

[pete910]

Get off your high horse, engage your brain and read the thread

Not horse involved
Guess I've upset you by proving that you are talking nonsense, you'll get over it

 

[ScoTTyBEEE]

Not horse involved
Guess I've upset you by proving that you are talking nonsense, you'll get over it

All you need to do, is head back a page and read what the OP was saying. For some reason you seem to think that I have trouble installing a printer in linux, which if you read the actual thread you'll see isn't the case.

The OP has stated several times that he was having printer problems, across more than 1 distribution. This is what I was commenting on.

For some reason, you've come storming in without understanding anyone's point of view, claiming I'm talking **** and kindly pointing out by a helpful video how easy it really is. I don't understand why the installation of a printer on an OS you probably have zero involvement in its creation, is somehow so important to you. Is your self worth as an individual somehow linked to a piece of software?

You could take all this onboard, and be a gentleman by admitting your mistake. Or you could act like a petulant child, which would be a continuation of your behaviour up to this point so far.

 

[pete910]

I will concede the point of it not being you, I will admit to assuming that it was you and that you also had issues like the op. And apologise.
However.
I proved the print install as false. Will you be a gentlemen admit that the generalisation of linux as being wrong, Yes Linux does have issues but lets be honest so do ALL os's

There was no storming involved, As a linux user you get accustomed to the old "server os" "No driver" nonsense. IT was you that was implying I was on a high horse and came across as being upset. Thus my reply.

 

[ScoTTyBEEE]

I will concede the point of it not being you, I will admit to assuming that it was you and that you also had issues like the op. And apologise.
However.
I proved the print install as false. Will you be a gentlemen admit that the generalisation of linux as being wrong, Yes Linux does have issues but lets be honest so do ALL os's

There was no storming involved, As a linux user you get accustomed to the old "server os" "No driver" nonsense. IT was you that was implying I was on a high horse and came across as being upset. Thus my reply.

OK, lets shake hands and make up.

 

[neodude]

Big hugs?

 

[pete910]

OK, lets shake hands and make up.

Cool

 

[Steveocee]

I'm surprised at the printer problems.

I only deal with about 3 printers (thankfully) mine, my mums and the work one and my Ubuntu picks all f them up and prints with no issues at all, it even happily scans off the 2 which are capable of it as well.

I often find myself thanking the gods for this kindness where I know with a wWindows based machine I'd usually be there for hours.

 

[SKILL]

I'm not I've got a pile of <...> Dell all-in-one printer thing, it's a re-badged Lexmark iirc, there are no Linux 'drivers' and the even the ones for the Lexmark variant have/had a 'broken' deb package and I had way better things to do with my time than hit them with a stick till they worked...

But then that printer has bloody awful Windows drivers as well, roughly 10% chance of a successful printing job, and then only ever one, reboot between each job to even get to the 10% level

 

[opethdisciple]

New version of Wine if anyone is interested.

 

[AHarvey]

I've been following this thread with interest because I've got an older laptop that I wanted to install Linux on and have a play. Last night I loaded Manjaro. Or at least I tried to, it first booted to a black screen. I finally managed to get it running and installed it all, only to get a partition error when I first rebooted.

I've never tried it but your experience of Manjaro is what I see everywhere. It seems to just be broken for most people.

 

[opethdisciple]

Stick with the top tier Linux distributions for stability Ubuntu and Centos.... then maybe Mint in third place.

You shouldn't have any problems with those. I know I never have.

 

[gemlover]

i am not happy with the windows 10's automatic update

 

[APM]

I've used Fedora 22 with a Cinammon twist as a secondary machine for a few years now,only recently realised that Fedora 25 is out now and tried an upgrade that won't work so may go for a fresh Fedora 25 install soon.

 

[UltimateBadger]

The repeated GUI changes and software updates have seen me move away from Win10 as my desktop OS of choice. I now dual boot with Mint on my main desktop with Windows kept just for the odd gaming session. Mint has been pretty much perfect out of the box with only minimal bits required for me to be productive. I am a UNIX sys. admin by trade though!

 

[InfiniteNoise]

Got my XPS 13 (9360, non touch screen model) last week, the first thing I did was go straight to installing Linux (well, after booting into ew Windows 10 to upgrade BIOS), all distros I've tried works wonderfully with the exception of openSUSE (which worked great but touchpad was jumpy)

Running Fedora 25 atm, no issues to report about, it's pretty nice to buy a new machine and have Linux works pretty much flawlessly.

In case you're wondering what distros I've tried, I've installed and tested,

Solus
Arch
Antergos (Arch based distro, if Arch works, any distros based on it should work)
openSUSE (Leap, haven't tried Tumbleweed, though I did upgrade from Leap to Tumbleweed and it failed to boot after, so I stopped bothering and just installed Fedora)
Fedora 25

I'll give Solus another go in couple of months, I'm quite fond of this distro, Budgie DE is pretty nice.

I haven't touched Windows in over couple of years, Linux on my XPS 13 and macOS on my, well, MacBook, does everything I need them to.

 

[arty]

Got my XPS 13 (9360, non touch screen model) last week, the first thing I did was go straight to installing Linux (well, after booting into ew Windows 10 to upgrade BIOS), all distros I've tried works wonderfully with the exception of openSUSE (which worked great but touchpad was jumpy)

Running Fedora 25 atm, no issues to report about, it's pretty nice to buy a new machine and have Linux works pretty much flawlessly.

I'm typing this from Ubuntu 16.10 on my XPS 15, which has been fairly smooth sailing other than a few issues with a USB Ethernet adapter, some odd headset muting bugs and a somewhat unresponsive trackpad. I've also had a few issues with the screen flickering on low brightness but I believe that's a known BIOS bug.

Out of interest, did you have to disable Secure Boot to get those distros installed? I had some problems with that. Seems like a bit of an anti-competitive feature to me

EDIT - Forgot to mention, it's really really fast!