I want to dive into Linux. I have a few questions I was hoping someone could answer...

• I have a few laptops. Should I be worried about WHICH one to choose to install on? The reason for this question is compatibility - like if I install and some drivers are missing or something - so better to use a laptop that has more wider support. I have HP, Lenovo and Acer laptops.

• Dual Boot - I heard if you get this wrong... then you could screw up your entire system? Please comment.

• Antivirus? Firewall? What do you use?

• Printers. I guess it's not the same as for Windows and not as widely supported? Are there any considerations for this? Like are some Linux versions better than others when in comes to supporting printers (or do they all use the same code?)

• Other programs:
Word and Excel - like it or not, Microsoft are the BEST (I hate saying it!) for these programs. Everyone else is pants. LOL.

Any other considerations for programs I would be missing out on?

• Super dumb question: What's it like to use in terms of CPU and disk hogging? Windows 10 - no problem - except when I startup and my resources are sucked dry for 5 minutes.

• Lastly: can someone give me suggestions on which Linux versions to try. I know this is a how long is a piece of string question... but I wanted something that looks good... but not lacking in other areas.

Thanks.

Have a look at "Hardware Compatibility Lists", a quick Google search is usually a good way to check for compatibility. Can you post the model of your laptops?

Depends. You would need to be more clear about "screw up your entire system".

While I do have some anti-virus software installed on my machine, it's never found any. So it's up to you. What risk do you think you're at there? Have any Windows machines hooked up to your network, for example?

Have a look at LibreOffice - it comes with most mainstream distributions.

Have a look at this.

I'll leave the rest of your question to others.

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Not really, but I'd avoid 'server class' distros like RHEL/CentOS/SLES, and focus on consumer distros like Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, or Ubuntu. Support for things like wifi/bluetooth/sound are all pretty good these days. However (just like Windows), you can always run into a snag with a particular device.
Well, you're partitioning your hard drive, messing with your MBR, and loading a new boot-loader. So yeah, you COULD hose your entire system. But you have backups, right? NOTHING you do is going to be 100% risk-free. Worst case scenario? Reload your OS, and start over. If you want to dual-boot, be SURE to load Windows FIRST.
Linux comes with iptables and a pretty decent firewall built in. Clamscan is a good anti-virus, but you probably won't need it, since most viruses are for Windows, and won't work on anything else.
Wrong; printer support is VERY robust, and most any of them are going to work fine. You can even install the .PPD file from a Windows driver in Linux, and it'll work just fine.
No idea what you mean by "Everyone else is pants", but if you're set on using MS, then don't bother with Linux. LibreOffice is 99% of what MS Office is...there are SOME features you'll miss if you're a VERY advanced user, but for daily use you'll have zero problems.
How would we know, since you don't tell us what programs you want?
FAR less resource intensive, and your machine will run faster.
Read the "Question Guidelines" link in my posting signature. Questions like this have been asked and answered a LOT of times, and you'll get different opinions from everyone. If you're learning, get something that loads easily, like Mint, Ubuntu, openSUSE, or Fedora (as mentioned before).

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Have you ever installed any operating system? The primary cause of this is USER error meaning people who have never installed any operating system on any computer try to install some version of Linux or another OS without doing even minimal research on how it is done. Posting here and asking is a good first step and doing some research after getting responses would be the next step.

You can go to sites such as the one below which have a list of the most frequently used Linux systems along with links to their home page which give detailed information on them so you can decided which best fits your needs.

https://distrowatch.com/

Another option would be to install virtual software on windows and test your Linux systems on it as well as testing them from a Live DVD or flash drive.

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Hi enginestar,

All the advice you've gotten above should prove useful. The quote I've repeated from yancek's post contains particularly useful suggestions for trying out various distros (versions) of linux before deciding to natively install on one of your laptops, either as a dual-boot scenario or not. They represent risk-free methods of trying out linux.

Cheers.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the awesome replies guys.
I was going to jump right in and install on a dual boot.
But... I'll not do that as a first step.
I'll try the virtualbox + CDs mentioned first.

After a vm test you may wish to try a usb install.

Probably IF you got an issue it'll be specific hardware like wi-fi, bluetooth, trackpad. Only if you have extremely bad lucky you'll have more than one hardware problem on laptops. But, nothing that google and forums can't solve. So try to find specific 'LAPTOPNAME linux' problems. In most cases you will found the answers.

Yes, of course, you are partitioning your hard drive, which already has a system running, anything wrong YOU do, can damage the pre installed systems. As yancek and TB0ne said. So be sure of what YOU do. As the first one, nothing that a google can't solve.

Again, google it, but you really has to think in your scenario. What are you needs? How is your network? This is mostly a personal issue.
Can't answer that.

Totally disagree. Have you ever tried iWork? For me is the best, and of course you can't have it on GNU/Linux. But even on your Windows systems, you should REALLY give a try to LibreOffice, but a REAL try. I don't even know what kind of use you have, but for me, everything I had on MS Office, I have on LibreOffice.
And now, has Office Online, I don't know if it has all features, but, is an option.

As I said, I'm not as old on Linux as I wanted, but I think that will depend on your Distro.


Try the link jsbjsb001 told you. And just install it on a virtual machine to SEE. Don't think that you have a nice experience this way. See how will be your general work-flow, how will be your daily tasks, etc. For just a few hours and install it on one of your laptop. You have 3, so, let one just for this. And be aware that some distros has ONLY free software as you can see here in these cases, probably your life will be more difficult, because if you want even watch Netflix you'll have some difficult on first times, because installing software with drm enable like firefox is just a little bit more complicated for new users. Sorry about my English and I hope that this was useful.

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I'm not aware of any distro that doesn't include non-free packages in the repos somewhere.

these don't. https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

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> Antivirus? Firewall? What do you use?

It depends who you TRUST. if you run Windows 10 your trusting every company that has a hardware driver. if you have %100 intel (unlike unless maybe it's an imac or you built it), then your trusting intel. if you have a dell you very likely have asian parts: your trusting asia.

if your running linux: a firewall is no good unless your %100 sure ipv6 (and all else) is configured correctly - which is not easy. but perhaps ubuntu does a job of configuring. do you trust germany/asia (ubuntu) to not spy on you? in liinux your also trusting hardware driver submitters: but you have the choice "not to use any particular hw driver" in linux kernel

if your running apple - i can't say. they update everything seemlessly so your basically trusting apple has no "spy employees" that put back doors in (some release).

if your considering making your own: i'll warn you it'd take most people quite some time and if you succeeded - they might change the standards before you finish (making all your work useless).

AFTER ALL THAT: your forced to trust the hardware - what is printed in silicon. moreso than ever it's quite possible that there are backdoors "in silicon" in chips. the first evidence of this came out in the 1980's - chinese keyboard chips had been shipped to USA (used in off-brand PCs) that allowed "rooting the system" by users privy to the silicon hack. basically you have no idea what is "really inside" your network card - who could control your PC remotely if they wanted to risk exposing their "back door"

SUMMARY: the worst virus is a PC that is always broken needing re-configuration and fixing and "strange things happen" (stops working after upgrade). pick a distro where users seem happy with reliability

think 2x about using financial information on an "open source" computer because there is no-one to blame but yourself if it gets stolen

i once built a "perfect firewall" for some version of linux kernel. not long after the kernel writers changed all the kernel code. i had a choice: read all the kernel code again to insure there were "no bypasses", or run a sloppy firewall i know is likely broken in many ways when ipv6 came out: my opinion was ipv6 isn't really manageable by individuals.