Has anyone regretted migrating from MS Winows to Linux?

Mmmm, not quite. Downloaded Ubuntu ISO file and wrote it to DVD. Stuck it in drive and answered a few questions yes but then on the compulsory restart it all fell apart leaving an error message. I then spent nearly 2 hours searching for help on the error message and got nowhere other than a few references to a very similar error message that was constantly referred to as a 'bug' but with no further help apparent.

Like any operating system, Linux is great when it works when it doesn't it is quite as bad as any other OS that is giving trouble.

Hi, Nige,

As a long time (over 10 years now, I think) user of Linux (now aged 75) ihave to agree with you, but urge you not to give up. I always thought of myself as a 'user', because I wanted a useable operating system so I could use the computer as a tool - I was originally horrified at at the remarks about linux users having to be nerds, because the last thing I wanted to do was faff around for hours with the software.

That said, I persevered, first with all sorts of differnt linux dialects, then settled on Ubuntu, then moved to Linux Mint when I found that Ubuntu was moving away from the desktop menu 'usage' I was used to - I have just installed Linux Mint 18.3 Beta, and have had no trouble whatsoever.

But all this isn't helping you ... On the occasions I have had simialr problems as yours, I have almost always traced it to a corrupted download. ON the site of most distros, you will find a checksum published which applies to the download you have made. (I assume you know what these are) - after downloading the .iso file for the distro, then you should check that the checksum of the downloaded file is the same as that which was published. It occurs to me from what you have said, that you may have already tried to install it, and ended up with a non-working computer, so this suggestion is no use (sorry).

If that is the case, hopefuly you have a friend who can do the download again for you. When you finally have a distro, I strongly recommend you burn it as a Live copy onto a USB. (this is again explained on most distro sites - it is a bootable USB stick, and the computer can be booted from it into the OS, and all its functions checked before you do the installation. Mint and UBuntu is particularly good for this.

If these steps don't work, then you probably have a more serious problem, and will nned to post again, to get more advice - hope this helps, because it is worth the trouble - there are lots of people on this forum who would never go back to Windows.

Thanks all. No horror stories about migrating, so I shall go for it.

The last straw for me with Win10 was not really Microsoft's fault - I suspect the dog did it. My laptop refused to connect to the wireless router and despite much Googling I couldn't fix it. I mentioned to my daughter that the incident coincided with a dog jumping on my desk and she said she'd had something similar when the beast trod on her keyboard, pressing buttons at random.

It's been niggling me for years though - in my work life I used Unix almost exclusively, so I'm OK with the terminal interface and the sometimes arcane shell language. In fact ls -la /home/robin/images/engineering_stuff/lathe* is easier and more natural for me than clicking on a MyPictures icon and working through the thumbnails. Daughter can do stuff which baffles me on Windows and Android by clicking buttons though, but she couldn't write a bash script to save her life! Horses for courses I guess.

Dog has turned up with swarf in her hair - if that bag of pork scratchings isn't on the desk. it must be in that other place he goes to. I've outwitted her by eating them all myself though.

Rob.

Sent via my Realtek 8723be using ant=1.

Started using fredora early 2000 migrated to debian and ubuntu 2008 Use both, debian on desktop ubuntu on laptop, very happy only revert to ms for some printer functions.

Debian is a little bit stricter on priority software but much stabler with releases every 2 years, whereas ubuntu every 6 months. Ubuntu is the easiest for those transferring from MS. Both support dual boot so you can have a foot in each, Linux can see the win partician MS does not see linux.

Plenty of free software for all the linux derivativs.

Just to point out that "MS dual boot" is not necessarily synonymous with "W-10 dual boot". I haven't actually tried that combination but did have some trouble with a Win8.1 dual boot. MS seems to have steadily made this more demanding after XP and W-10 is a whole new animal in many respects. If you are going to use dual-boot, I would definitely base it on the Linux version rather than the MS.

This is why I suggested the separate, drive-swap arrangement earlier.

No!

Bandersnatch,

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS dual booted with W10 on 2 machines - so no problem.

Tom

Still on XP....

Seems to be amazingly stable nowadays, perhaps because MS have stopped messing about with it

Edited By Ady1 on 19/11/2017 12:23:03