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Linux install on laptop for a complete noob (feddit.nl)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/linux

59 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi there!

Seeing the enshittification of Windows unfold, I'm curious about trying out Linux.

I don't want to move over my main machine just yet, but I've got a 9 yo HP Pavilion 15-e001ed spare laptop I want to experiment with. Eventually I want a gaming laptop that can run steam games.

When I googled I found a plethora of pieces of advice, but seeing the proselytizing for Linux here, maybe I could get a bit more personal advice as a potential conscript.

So what advice would you give me to start my journey into Linux?

UPDATE: Ok my cherry is popped, writing this from a fresh Mint install. It's suprisingly smooth sailing. Only thing is somehow software gets installed on my root partition instead of the home partition I made because people told me so.

But overall not nearly as dounting as I thought it would be. Thanks for the help everybody!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I have few advice for you:

for your old laptop you should install Linux Mint. What I have seen is that LM works better for slightly older laptops.
if you are using linux, you will definitely face problems, and most of the time other people has faced the same problem and there is a solution of it online.
if you can't find it online, ask about it in forums. Many will try to help you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Thanks, Mint seems the consensus here, so I'll roll with that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Also, I know people love to hate on AI here, but ChatGPT has proven invaluable to me in troubleshooting any issues.

It's not always right, but it's far more responsive than forums and often does have good advice as long as it's a simple problem (and as a newbie user, most of their problems will be simple).

Examples of things it has guided me to fix:

boot drops me into a grub prompt instead of starting the OS
I enter my password on the lock screen and it thinks for a moment and then drops me back at the password prompt.

Not sure how long it would've taken on forums and documentation, or how much worse I'd have screwed up my system, but I fixed both of those in about 30 minutes without a lot of pertinent technical knowledge.