I signed up here 15.5 years ago because I needed a little help with a server for a fairly new business. 3 years later, I don't know what happened, but apparently I haven't logged in here for the last 12.5 years.

I will be here a bit more now because a week ago I took a big step.
I finally installed Linux (Lubuntu to be exact) on my laptop. I've been sick of Windows for a few years, but kept holding off on the jump. I finally jumped.

Now that I have things running the way I want, I wish I would have done this years ago. I've been having fun playing with my Linux server since 2000. Now I can start having fun playing with my Linux laptop too.

Welcome back, and welcome to Linux as a home distro!

I enjoy having both my server & desktop run linux; makes things so much easier to comprehend. also i can use NFS instead of samba.

Welcome back Mike -- that's one hell of a gap between logins.

Surprised you remembered your login credentials after such a long time...... :lol:

So....you finally made the right decision....

Welcome to the 'family'.

Was definitely a good choice. I installed Lubuntu as a 2nd os so I could switch over and still use "the other OS" if I need to. 3 days later, I had everything set up and haven't had to switch to Win 10 since then. The only thing I might have to boot into Windows for is graphical stuff, Paint Shop Pro and my negative scanner. I'm going to install wine this week and see if that works for them. If so, I'm going to erase Windows.

I couldn't possibly remember my password from that long ago. I have so many passwords that I need to keep them somewhere. If someone ever breaks into my home, passwords will only be a minor concern.

I wanted to install Ubuntu, but had to start with smaller and add to it. My laptop can handle Ubuntu, but it won't boot from a stick to install anything. I don't know the bios password, and tried resetting via battery removal and jumper shorting, and it doesn't appear to be resettable. To install anything on my drive, I had to put it into another laptop, but it doesn't have what's needed to allow installation of Ubuntu, so I had to start with Lubuntu, then started adding lots of packages.

On old computers, it is often del or esc keys to get into the BIOS, when you start your computer it is usually shown at the bottom of the screen, but it's not there for long, might take you a couple of start ups to be able to read it.

F2 gets me into bios, but I bought it used and the person I got it from doesn't know the bios password. I found, from the Acer website, 2 ways to clear the password, but they didn't work, so I had to just put the drive in an older laptop to be able to install Linux. I'm thinking maybe the password did get reset, but rather than being blank, it's reset to a default one. I searched for and tried many default ones, then gave up and just put the drive in my older laptop for the install.

One of the many good things about linux. It's not so fussy if you install in one computer, then put the drive in another.

Now I'll never get to sleep at night.

After playing with my Linux laptop and getting everything I want installed, I went back into my Windows OS and uninstalled many of those programs, then shrunk my Windows partition. Now Windows is only using a fraction of my drive, and the rest is Linux and partitioned the way I want. Now that I'm done all the major work in my laptop setup, yesterday I also added openssh-server, then the fun began.

I am used to doing a lot of things from shell, so now when I go to bed at night, I can continue working on my computer right from my cell phone. Now I have to learn how to put that down and get to sleep.