Upgrade an "Old" Computer to Windows 11? Why not...

[MacMcMacmac]

If you are curious, you can make a live USB, boot from it, and test it out without installing it permanently on your hard drive. If you decide it's worth a go, you can install it from the USB stick. You can also install it next to Windows as a dual-boot, so you can choose which OS you want to use.

.Once you get the feel for the user interface, it's not much different than Windows. Install you're favourite browser (Brave for me), an email client (Thunderbird, but I wish I had something else as I do not want to support Mozilla in any way) , and Libre Office (free) and you're good to go. If you use a browser for your banking, there should be zero issues.

If you aren't one to get under the hood of your operating system, once you have a few key applications installed, you're good to go. I had one especially fraught night trying to upgrade a several year old install on an SSD which I had swapped into my PC from a laptop, but once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing. If you take the proper precautions like you should be doing with any OS (backups, a recovery disk), it's hard to mess things up beyond repair, barring a catastrophic hardware failure.

I keep an install of Windows on a separate drive for a tax software app that doesn't have a Linux equivalent and I am amazed at how sluggish it is in comparison.

Virus threats are pretty much nil with Linux as well.

Did I mention all of this is completely free?

 

[650Skull]

If you are curious, you can make a live USB, boot from it, and test it out without installing it permanently on your hard drive. If you decide it's worth a go, you can install it from the USB stick. You can also install it next to Windows as a dual-boot, so you can choose which OS you want to use.

.Once you get the feel for the user interface, it's not much different than Windows. Install you're favourite browser (Brave for me), an email client (Thunderbird, but I wish I had something else as I do not want to support Mozilla in any way) , and Libre Office (free) and you're good to go. If you use a browser for your banking, there should be zero issues.

If you aren't one to get under the hood of your operating system, once you have a few key applications installed, you're good to go. I had one especially fraught night trying to upgrade a several year old install on an SSD which I had swapped into my PC from a laptop, but once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing. If you take the proper precautions like you should be doing with any OS (backups, a recovery disk), it's hard to mess things up beyond repair, barring a catastrophic hardware failure.

I keep an install of Windows on a separate drive for a tax software app that doesn't have a Linux equivalent and I am amazed at how sluggish it is in comparison.

Virus threats are pretty much nil with Linux as well.

Did I mention all of this is completely free?

Thought of DuckDuckGo as a browser. They have a built in VPN, removes trackers, and doesn't hold data

They have 2 emails to choose from one is where you use it when signing up to whatever your signing into. Use a false name on the duck.com email, it removes trackers then let's emails through to your regular email.
I use it all the time.

 

[nymalo]

How easy for a non-geek to switch MS => Ubuntu? For simple stuff like, email, forums, online banking and shopping?

Browser based stuff is fine. I forget I am not running windows.

Mark.

 

[Grimly]

How easy for a non-geek to switch MS => Ubuntu? For simple stuff like, email, forums, online banking and shopping?

My favourite flavour is Mint, which just works on most hardware.
"Just works" means that it will recognise and work well, unless you have some oddball legacy add-ons which leave it scratching its head and you have to lift the bonnet and start pulling wires and hoses around.
The latter is my situation. I had Mint running on and off for a few years, but need legacy radio stuff that only has Windows drivers and patch-up solutions have their limitations.

 

[MacMcMacmac]

Thought of DuckDuckGo as a browser. They have a built in VPN, removes trackers, and doesn't hold data

They have 2 emails to choose from one is where you use it when signing up to whatever your signing into. Use a false name on the duck.com email, it removes trackers then let's emails through to your regular email.
I use it all the time.

Thanks Skull. Brave has ad and tracker blocking. It makes YouTube usable. Some sites have over 60 trackers being blocked. I'm slowing moving everything over to one Proton account.

 

[Paul Sutton]

This week I have spent many hours trying to get a successfully working dual boot Win 11 / Linux Mint system. I wanted to have each operating system on a separate drive. I successfully achieved this by following the details on the attached Video starting at 7:27 "Dual Drive Method A". Before starting I Cloned my Win 11 drive to a spare USB drive using Hasleo WinToUSB which is free for non-commercial use just in case things went bad:

 

[Paul Sutton]

Been running Mint today and now have Fire Fox setup nicely for my way of working. Next step will be to setup the Email with Thunderbird. Luckily I am a user of Thunderbird on Windows 11 so it should just be a matter of exporting my folders and then import onto Mint.

I watched an interview of Linus Torvalds last week and he said his preferred Linux release is Fedora. He said he was not indorsing Fedora, it just works very well for his purposes.

 

[Paul Sutton]

Finally sorted out my Epson printer for Linux Mint. Quite easy in hind sight. Mint is Debian based so you need the drivers ending .deb If your choice of Linux is Red Hat based then you use the drivers ending .rpm

Still haven't been brave enough to get the Email sorted...

 

[Jan_P]

Red Hat and internet was almost impossible many years ago The dial up modems was mostly for Windows
Did not work at all
Some modems did work but still was almost impossible get working.
I never managed to do it
Same with other hardware not always simple get working
But has gotten better with bigger kernels that have more room for drivers
Shifted to SUSE and it was half an hour back then
I would not try Red Hat anymore though

These days there are often fine on line descriptions on forums
Often can copy the commands from the web and paste in terminal .
run it
Not needing too think so much or at all

 

[mm1ut1]

I bought a new rig with windows 11. My old box was nine years old. I fly flight simulators and that alone was worth the purchase of a new rig.

 

[gggGary]

They finally had me cornered in a conundrum, catch 22; credit card company site, browser version no longer supported. Several browsers; cannot update any further on a win8 machine. Feck. Local one man "computer professor" shop set me up with a (gray market?) Dell, bible sized win11 box, moved my data and I'm up and running without too many glitches. Very much a dumb box I had to stick on a WIFI dongle/antenna. Bonus the vid supports my larger curved monitor so I finally get to see/use it's resolution. No doubt I'll spend some more time fighting a few programs, apps I don't often use. Minor glitch, it doesn't have bluetooth so ordered a dongle and I still need a card reader for some legacy bits of gear, a powered USB hub may be best.
All in all it hasn't been as bad as I feared. The guru did very good transferring files, Firefox and Thunderbird info.
He said He'll keep the old box for a week or so before putting a 22 through the hard drive. new box has a terabyte sordid state drive, sheesh!
This might last me til I'm off the sphere or far enough out of my gord to not need it.