Alternative OS

[Danny]

Well I'm back and on 7 the Ubuntu download didnt get off the ground, I even had to resort to getting the missus to download a distro........even that didnt work, so I have reinstalled 7 after Ubuntu completely trashed my laptop and somehow deleted the partition that had 7 on it and lost all my files.......great
All my photos of my son in Afghanistan wiped, all my bike photos wiped.......everything, so in future I will be sticking with 7

A cautionary tale for anyone thinking of moving away from Windows (or Mac OS).

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Sounds like user error, DM

I'm running Lubuntu, and it works very well, I haven't run windows for years.

 

[Wobblers]

A cautionary tale for anyone thinking of moving away from Windows (or Mac OS).

I think the cautionary tale is actually BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA! Stick it onto a external hard disk, or burn a few DVDs (I would advise against using USB pen drives for backup, as they have this nasty habit of just dying for no reason). Storage is cheap these days, and it's worthwhile having at least two separate copies (on different media) of really important data/files/photos.

That's something that applies to all operating systems.

 

[ian turner]

usb flash drives can be easily broken. Probably not a good idea to start installing linux variants until you've learnt such basics as how to backup your valuables

 

[Andrew_Culture]

You can't have too many backups, seriously! I still have a stack of eight or nine external drives from my photographer days.

I pondered the whole Mac / PC / Linux question when our last home computer crapped out and dumped the whole concept by getting an Ipad instead.

Only problem is that we now can't access those eight or nine external drives, well not until I get around to buying a Raspberry Pi and setting it up as a network file server anyway.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Well I'm back and on 7 the Ubuntu download didnt get off the ground, I even had to resort to getting the missus to download a distro........even that didnt work, so I have reinstalled 7 after Ubuntu completely trashed my laptop and somehow deleted the partition that had 7 on it and lost all my files.......great
All my photos of my son in Afghanistan wiped, all my bike photos wiped.......everything, so in future I will be sticking with 7

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

 

[alecstilleyedye]

as a long-time mac user (and evangelist), i must admit to quite liking windows 8. at least ms has had a go at making something different, not just playing catch-up with apple.

i'm only running it under virtualisation, so i haven't lived with it properly, but for what most folk need it for, it works fine…

 

[Seryth]

Got to say, there is almost no way that the Ubuntu install media would wipe the entire drive by itself....it just doesn't make sense!
However, hopefully now you've installed some decent AV on Windows, it won't be so slow - 4GB RAM should be plenty to run W7!

as a long-time mac user (and evangelist), i must admit to quite liking windows 8. at least ms has had a go at making something different, not just playing catch-up with apple.

i'm only running it under virtualisation, so i haven't lived with it properly, but for what most folk need it for, it works fine…

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with W8. I think it's absolutely brilliant for touch-devices, but I also think it's awful for desktop computers. Having to interrupt my workflow (by launching the metro gui, etc) just to launch the browser seems a bit counter-productive.
That said, I know there are 3rd party tools (no MS ones as of yet, afaik) that will give back the normal start menu.
Not that I like the start menu anyway.
Bah, Linux has turned me into a silly fusspot