Computers And Such

[monsterqueers]

With the oncoming end of support for windows 10, we are preparing instead for switching to linux. Windows 10 is already bad and filled with bloated spyware, 11 is just so much worse.

We have tried it before but that dinosaur of a laptop is pretty bricked now (unrelated hardware issues that would be more expensive to fix than just buying a new-refurbished laptop). Our experience with it was super positive though.

Weve heard mixed stuff about mint 22 (both that its very stable and very buggy) so we are debating if we want to re-burn our iso flash drive with a newer version or not for that yet.

Currently trying to cut down on all the WIP documents we have- made some headway here and there. Maybe something new will be posted to the website soon- depends on how fast we finish stuff.

Still have to make more DW Icons, also!

Comments

[lb_lee]

Sneak: We use Mint! We like it a lot, despite some of the bugs. It works well enough for us! (And we dual-boot with Windows 7 offline so we can still use our Windows-only programs.)

[monsterqueers]

Its working great for us so far! Its wonderful to have so much less popup clutter going on and slowing down everything.

[beepbird]

If you guys ever happen to need any Linux help, feel free to message me. I've been on it for the last 4 years or so and have helped a lot of friends get started, so I might know something.

(Also: there is the third option of "install 22 with the iso you have and then upgrade post-install", which usually goes pretty smoothly.)

[monsterqueers]

Thanks! Will keep that in mind!

And yeah, thats probably the best option, the iso we have is only 2 years old so its not like its from 2017 and perhaps not supported- it should do the job at minimum. Just went through and ensured all the dell driver and bios updates are current on the computer and plan to test the iso soon.
The last time we did it we didnt do that and had to connect to the internet with a cable rather than wireless because the driver for the wifi card needed to be downloaded from the internet first. Pretty sure that was why considering the youtube videos do not seem to have needed to do that extra step.

[beepbird]

I will note that drivers are software that sits "above" the kernel of the operating system for most computers, meaning that you will likely still need to use a cable to download the driver initially. Be prepared in case that is needed. Luckily, you will only need to do so once if it is necessary, and the driver does exist.

Incidentally, there may be a checkbox for downloading multimedia codexes during the install. Check it. Very few people have reason not to.

[monsterqueers]

(oops late reply)
Typing this from the linux computer now- it installed just fine and we didnt need to use the cable! Works wonderfully.
The was a bit of a freezing issue but changing the time in the BIOS as per the instructions from someone with the same model of computer and same distro version of mint xcde fixed it. Its now stuck 5 hours behind what it Actually is but its not breaking anything we are doing so we will leave it for now and tweak it later.
Ahhh its so nice to not have internet and ai garbage in the start menu!

[beepbird]

Woohoo, glad to hear it installed without issue!

Ah, time issues. I have a laptop that likes to desync its time at seemingly random intervals. If you want a way to automate fixing the time, look into NTP. It's a protocol that fixes a computer's time by syncing it with official time servers. The exact thing to install and run to make it work depends on your distribution of Linux, but I use Chrony to handle it and haven't run into issues related to time since.