Comments on Profile Post by Lyander

Laptop is earning its retirement and I'm definitely going desktop now cuz price/performance ratios. Not gonna build given my history with electronics but for some reason it's kinda just a given that if you buy from an independent dude here they just load cracked versions of software and I'm not really into that.

Win10 ain't cheap so I'm either gonna be saving up for longer or giving Bill Gates the finger with my wallet. Not like he'd give a damn about $100+ I guess.

I haven't properly evaluated how reliant I am on MS ecosystem but apart from Outlook and OneDrive, which I'll be decommissioning soonish, nothing comes to mind much.

My mother was a Ubuntu Linux user from age 90 to 99. Her arthritis kept her from using a computer in her last year. Ubuntu is the most common and I think easiest to install. Plenty of how to videos available.

The migration process may take a while, but seems well worth it. I'm just looking into whether I'll be losing the capacity to use certain MS services I forget that I rely on once I make the move.

I could always run Win10 in a virtual machine but then that'd defeat the purpose of cheaping out, haha. Thanks for the encouragement :)

It depends entirely on how hooked you are to software that only runs on Windows.

If, for instance, you cannot live without photoshop, and are not prepared to try the Linux solutions, then you can't live without Windows. You might also have spreadsheet stuff that depends on real Excel, or that you don't trust to the Libre Office equivalent.

I detest Libre Office, by the way... because it's too like Microsoft!

Also I just namedropped Mint since it's apparently more For Dummies^TM than Ubuntu, but I _was_ trained to use the latter... back in 2005 or so. Been a while.

What the underlying operating system is is not as important to you as the software that you run.

Haha, I've been on GDocs for a while now, @Thad E Ginathom, though I have to admit that being unable to run them offline has been a massive inconvenience given my internet quality, thereby necessitating fallback on my MSOffice subscription (courtesy of family).

Dammit yeah I kinda need PS, but I'll look into how hard alternatives will be to adapt to. I've been on CS2 cuz it was legally free on GOG.com ages ago

I use Mint. With smatterings of KXStudio for audio stuff.

I use Mint with MATE desktop, because, much as I hate Microsoft, I think that the user-interface principles of W2K didn't need any improving. And I use a window manager called Compiz, which does lots I don't want but one or two things I can't live without. And a window decorator called Emerald, which tweaks the aesthetic.

If all that sounds complex... it is, a bit. But I've developed it over a decade or so of Linux use. Bit by bit, it wasn't complicated. But I do scratch my head if I have to rebuild my environment from a clean slate.

Yup this is what I was concerned about, how much tweaking would be involved. I'm reasonably sure I'll be able to learn once I dedicate enough actual brainpower to it, but I'm a creature of habit and Big Corp releases seem to lend themselves to laziness, crap as they can be about security.

As for the program compatibility... yeah I might just run Win10 off an ext drive once I can afford a copy I guess.

I use GIMP for image editing. Along with the G'MIC plugin. Good for editing cover art scans. G'MIC has good descreen and content aware fill. GIMP and G'MIC will work on Linux or Windows.

"how much tweaking would be involved." With a linux distro like Mint, as little or as much as you want to do.

"I use GIMP for image editing." So do I. With occasional RawTherapee. Which reminds me: I should be "working!"

I would keep one Windows machine for "corporate use" and the few things that are still worth keeping. Make sure it is easy to work on like a Lenovo T/W-series or HP-business laptop. Just update it regularly and it should be fine...