Old Guy Switching to Linux

Scratch99

n00b
Joined
Oct 21, 2017
Messages
45
Hy;
Pretty much what it says.
I'm looking at downloading 64 bit Cinnamon.
I'd like to install this on my Intel Win 7 second drive of 25 gigabytes. (also 64 bit)
This to play with prior to putting together a newer computer.
This time looking at AMD hardware.
Depending on my budget.
Any problem going with AMD this time around?
 
Hy;
Pretty much what it says.
I'm looking at downloading 64 bit Cinnamon.
I'd like to install this on my Intel Win 7 second drive of 25 gigabytes. (also 64 bit)
This to play with prior to putting together a newer computer.
This time looking at AMD hardware.
Depending on my budget.
Any problem going with AMD this time around?
Green video cards perform better in Linux. Amd has better open source support if free as in freedom of software is important to you.
Generally common hardware is well supported. But beware of you need odd or uncommon usb devices or something out of the ordinary.

Ryzen CPUs work fine at this point too, overkill for almost all things relative to what we put up with ten years ago
 
You don't need to install it, just run it live from a USB thumb drive. Especially if you are wanting to just test it out. I suggest Linux Mint or Ubuntu 20.04. Ubuntu just released 20.04 yesterday and its really good. AMD is fine, both on the CPU and GPU end.
 
You don't need to install it, just run it live from a USB thumb drive. Especially if you are wanting to just test it out. I suggest Linux Mint or Ubuntu 20.04. Ubuntu just released 20.04 yesterday and its really good. AMD is fine, both on the CPU and GPU end.

Really appreciate you checking in.
Never thought I could run it from the thumb drive.
Is it a problem that the thumb drive is 32 bit and I 'm running 64 bit on the computer?
Travm:
I'm afraid that I don't know what a green card is. In computer speak, that is...
Scratch..
 
Really appreciate you checking in.
Never thought I could run it from the thumb drive.
Is it a problem that the thumb drive is 32 bit and I 'm running 64 bit on the computer?
Travm:
I'm afraid that I don't know what a green card is. In computer speak, that is...
Scratch..

I think you are getting bits and memory mixed up. Any flash drive above 8gb will be fine.
 
I think you are getting bits and memory mixed up. Any flash drive above 8gb will be fine.
Right. Probably a 32GB (Giga Byte, no not the company...) thumb drive. 32/64 bit refers to the integer register size of the CPU instructions set (as in x86-32 and x86-64, or amd64, ia32, etc).
 
Live CD s are a thing as well. I still use them occasionally because I have a stack of blank dvds and CDRs from 15 years ago I still haven't used up
 
I think you are getting bits and memory mixed up. Any flash drive above 8gb will be fine.
Nvidia - Green, AMD - Red, Intel - Blue :)
Wow!
After all these years I never new this stuff was color coded.
Al Tabbins:
Thank you.
At my age Most things confuse me . Sometimes even buttons and zippers.
Thanks Mobu:
My brain is starting to hurt. :)
All helpful information.
Really appreciate all your help guys.
Ordering up the thumb drive today.
 
Wow!
After all these years I never new this stuff was color coded.
Al Tabbins:
Thank you.
At my age Most things confuse me . Sometimes even buttons and zippers.
Thanks Mobu:
My brain is starting to hurt. :)
All helpful information.
Really appreciate all your help guys.
Ordering up the thumb drive today.

So, you are saying you are 40 years old then? :D I personally use Ubuntu 20.04 and it works well. As for a usb boot drive, download the ISO of whatever you are going to use, download Rufus, run that program with the iso you downloaded, boot and enjoy.
 
So, you are saying you are 40 years old then? :D I personally use Ubuntu 20.04 and it works well. As for a usb boot drive, download the ISO of whatever you are going to use, download Rufus, run that program with the iso you downloaded, boot and enjoy.
Thanks for the complement ManofGod.
Actually I'm 2x40+2. Old as dirt. :oldman:
Will check out Rufus.
Appreciated.:)
 
I highly recommend Ubuntu (or lubuntu/Ubuntu mate) for a starting Linux user, heck even for most Linux users its a good option.
 
I highly recommend Ubuntu (or lubuntu/Ubuntu mate) for a starting Linux user, heck even for most Linux users its a good option.
Thanks Keljian.
Still investigating and awaiting a book on Linux.
Appreciate your input.
Scratch...
 
As a side note, have you considered getting a raspberry pi and installing linux on it, then using that as a computer? - it'd be cheaper than building from scratch and may meet your needs adequately
 
As a side note, have you considered getting a raspberry pi and installing linux on it, then using that as a computer? - it'd be cheaper than building from scratch and may meet your needs adequately
Otherwise a good idea but a Pi requires a special image etc. so it adds a bit of complication. Also it's relatively slow. I've had Pi3 and currently I have a Rock64 SBC.
 
The pi 4 is significantly faster than the 3
I know but I think it's about the same as Rock64 and that's still visibly slow compared to even an old desktop. If the OP gets a Pi, make sure you order it with the ready image (NOOBS) so it's plug and play ready...
 
As a side note, have you considered getting a raspberry pi and installing linux on it, then using that as a computer? - it'd be cheaper than building from scratch and may meet your needs adequately

Ugghh no, please do not do this. These are great little project devices or just play around devices but, compared to a properly built PC, they are dog slow.
 
I'm interested in this thread, I have had a massive amount of hassles with my Win 10 machine with audio, but only if it's via YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook. I've loaded Linux Mint 19.3 and have installed Wine so I can load some of my Windows program which has done successfully if not as feature rich on the original Widows installation. I was trying to do a virtual Win 10 machine within the Mint machine, but that's when the wheels got bent a bit. I'm not welded to Mint and I see that there has been a lot of good things said about the latest Ubuntu release. Would it be worth switching to this Latest Ubuntu version?
 
I'm interested in this thread, I have had a massive amount of hassles with my Win 10 machine with audio, but only if it's via YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook. I've loaded Linux Mint 19.3 and have installed Wine so I can load some of my Windows program which has done successfully if not as feature rich on the original Widows installation. I was trying to do a virtual Win 10 machine within the Mint machine, but that's when the wheels got bent a bit. I'm not welded to Mint and I see that there has been a lot of good things said about the latest Ubuntu release. Would it be worth switching to this Latest Ubuntu version?
Others may chime in, but mint and Ubuntu are extremely similar. You won't likely notice a difference. Main differences being the prepackaged Software like file manager, etc.
If you just want to experience all the different flavors of Linux, hey go for it.
I wouldn't expect it to solve any of your problems though. Hard to say though, what exactly is your problem?
 
Mint is based on Ubuntu so they're almost the same. However my experience has been that Mint has been more problematic than vanilla Ubuntu. I would choose Ubuntu Mate or Cinnamon over Mint but that's a personal preference.
 
Mint is based on Ubuntu so they're almost the same. However my experience has been that Mint has been more problematic than vanilla Ubuntu. I would choose Ubuntu Mate or Cinnamon over Mint but that's a personal preference.

While there are many fans of Mint I'll add my own anecdotal evidence to that it's not as stable as I haven't really had luck with it myself either. When it comes to distros built on Ubuntu the only one I generally recommend is KDE Neon. Elementary is pretty good too. Outside of that though I say stick with official Ubuntu flavors.

As for 20.04 I'm running it now on one of my Pi-holes using Wireguard to VPN back into my network so my phone gets filtering everywhere. Wireguard is the bees knee's. I was previously using OpenVPN and man it's night and day difference between the two.

I'm very pleased with 20.04 and will be upgrading the other pi-hole to it as well so that I can move it to ZFS and finally spend some time to get Bitwarden running locally.
 
Mint is based on Ubuntu so they're almost the same. However my experience has been that Mint has been more problematic than vanilla Ubuntu. I would choose Ubuntu Mate or Cinnamon over Mint but that's a personal preference.

I used Mint when it first released Cinnamon as a DE and really loved it. I wanted to keep using it but the more I did the more problems came up. I never had them on the Mate version though so I used that for a while before Gnome 3.
 
I like the regular Ubuntu the best. Tried some others, maybe I'm just more comfortable cause that is what I started with.
 
AMD has nothing bad with Linux or with itself anymore - both on the CPU as well as the GPU end.
You can trust it way more than Intel now.
I am typing this on AMD and ti si much better than Intel.
No heating issue, unlike the earlier AMD models.
If you want to use Linux then I suggest you use Linux Mint 20. It is near to Windows 10 than Ubuntu Unity.
Cinnamon is the best way you can use Linux Mint.
Run Linux Mint on a Live USB and test it out there.
Don't work on Windows 7. It is not supported anymore. You will be at risk if you use it now.
 
Just remember that with AMD you should use the open source GPU drivers, not the catalyst/GPUPRO ones.
 
Live CD s are a thing as well. I still use them occasionally because I have a stack of blank dvds and CDRs from 15 years ago I still haven't used up

I don't think i've had a disk drive in a personal PC of mine since 2008. Come to think of it, I don't own anything on optical media these days.
 
I wouldn't say AMD is better than Intel. The reality is, there are now two valid options instead of just one for high-end performance. There's no "trust" issues with Intel. Pick the one you want and enjoy using the system. Competition is always good for the consumer. Also, I don't believe Ubuntu has used Unity is quite some time. The default is Gnome. As is with hardware, choice is good, and the end user has many quality options to go with.
 
I don't think i've had a disk drive in a personal PC of mine since 2008. Come to think of it, I don't own anything on optical media these days.
Ironically I just installed ubuntu mate on my chromebook (mistake btw, 2/3 of the install is in the broken category), and it referred to my USB install media as a CD throughout.
 
KDE Neon FTW.
KDE Neon here for the last year or so also, works great on the desktop I built a few years ago (so no bleeding edge hardware issues). I left a win 7 dual boot, JIK after I got the itch to come back to linux, but I honestly haven't used it since.
 
For breaking the windows ice and getting into linux, I think pepperment is the only thing better than ubuntu or mint.
 
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