A few days ago I had a friend that wanted to install Linux on her new (<1 yr. old) computer. It came with Windows 8 pre-installed. ANY NEW MACHINE WITH WINDOWS 8 OR HIGHER CORRUPTS THE MOTHERBOARD (firmware) at the BOOT processs to make it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to load a different operating system!

I use Debian on my desktop (no windows on that machine) - I split my time between that and my Windows10 laptop - so 70% Linux, 26% Windows, 4% chromeOS.

Desktop: Linux (Mint XFCE) with WinXP in a vmware virtual machine when needed (about once a month).
Laptop: Dual boot Windows 7 (60%) and Mint/XFCE (40%). This one is used for public workshops where PowerPoint is a requirement.
Server / media center: Mint/XFCE
Fleet of embedded systems: Debian/Jessie

Hi NCDavies, I am still on XP because my P.C.'s are too old, too slow, not enough memory to run even Windows 7 (that's according to window's suitability scan). Besides that Windows is too invasive now, I've heard that they check your hard drives to see if you have illegal software.

theob

You must be an Apple idiot.

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Linux, Mint (Mate) is #1. OSX is #2 and I run Windows 7, 10 and a couple of servers in VM's to support clients and test software I write.
We run Centos 7 for NAS's.


Louyo

Using the "multi boot option" works fine for me so you have a choice of both OSs. Remember to put the Windows stuff on first then install Linux though.

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My primary desktop is indeed windows as provided by the company I work for. That said, I have installed cygwin as a must have and probably do about 75% of my real work via a putty session to Suse Linux.
It would be quite a pain to use a non-windows desktop just because of the company tools I need to use sometimes.

LINUX (Ubuntu 16.04 primary has been ubuntu 12 to 16)

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Hey, Very happy running Mint full time.

I run Ubuntu server 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.04 both on separate hard drives in the same machine. I also run Ubuntu 16.04 dual booted on a Macbook.

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I recently have installed 10 of the most popular Linux distributions for testing purposes. I expected to find something different - a lightweight robust systems that give me full control of the computer and obey my commands - that's how I remember Linux from 20 years ago, and that's how my old Linux boxes still work.

What I found is that most distributions are simply mimicking Windows or Mac, often including the worst parts. Ubuntu, for example, downloaded bunch of language packages (which I don't need or want) over my metered connection. Most of the distributions eagerly try to download updates. All (except Linux Mint) have very slow DNS lookups on my ipv4 network. Many distributions flash red alerts that I shouldn't run text editors as root. Why? If I like being told what to do I already have Windows (or Mac).

Hi there , try going to motherboard bios settings and enable legacy. I also think you might have to change UEFI ?? Settings. Then you can boot from cd or usb an install away.

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Have you tried installing any Linux operating system on a newer machine that came with WINDOWS 8 OR HIGHER?

Yes , installed mint on windows 8 preinstall machine.