Quote:I've been using both Linux and Windows on multiple computers.  I just recently bought a Windows 10 netbook for the sole purpose of installing Linux on it.  Windows 10 booted extremely fast, but ran noticably slow on the hardware which was pretty much built only to run itself.  After fighting with windows 10 for hours just to make a restoration image which I have no confidence will work and don't even care, I then proceeded to spend a FULL DAY installing Peppermint Linux on the machine.  

 

So was it worth it?  Yes. Here is my opinion on the Linux vs. Windows discussion:

 

Windows is mediocre.  And if we're talking about the desktop environment, there's not a huge difference between the two in terms of usability.  Anything Windows can do is matched on any given Linux distribution.  The only thing Windows has for it is the fact that hardware is designed to work on Windows and often comes preinstalled with it (but then preinstalling it also means any amount of garbage software is installed along with it).  Another advantage of Windows is Windows-only software, which at this point isn't a huge thing since there are free alternatives to most of that.  And for me personally, there's way more software that I want to use that is Linux-only.

 

In Linux, I don't have to worry about Microsoft being Microsoft or software being pre-installed to annoy me. I'm never afraid to install or run a program like I am on Windows.  And though I was never particulary worried about viruses in Windows, that's also less of an issue.  

 

But the main reason I've been switching to Linux is becasue of the shell.  You can do magnitudes more in the Linux shell than you ever do in Windows.  For example, one of the most baffling things (out of many) to me in Windows is how bad search is.  To this day, version after version it still sucks.  grep was created like 40 years ago!  

 

Anyway, most people have no interest in typing stuff into command lines and remembering cryptic syntax.  So I don't really recommend Linux.  But I think it's just as good as Windows and just as usable for the average user once installed and any hardware issues are sorted out.   

 

I've never tried Peppermint Linux, but a full day to do an installation?

 

I personally run Linux Mint Debian Edition for desktop/laptop use, and generally use Fedora, CentOS or my own compiled versions for server purposes.  For the few programs that are Windows only that I have to use for work, I run Windows 7 in a virtual machine.

 

I recently did a fresh installation on my own personal desktop machine, and it maybe took two hours tops.  That includes a full office suite (Libre Office), programming and database software (multiple compilers, IDE's and MySQL), drafting software and multimedia editing/playing software.  Here is something that is usually not pointed out much when comparing desktop versions of Operating Systems.  With my base Operating System and all of the programs that I use installed, I am using less than 15GB of hard drive space.  My Windows 7 virtual machine with AutoCAD, Micro$oft Office and Adobe Acrobat Professional installed, as well as a few other misc. programs uses around 77GB of hard drive space.

 

What is interesting to note is that all of the software that I regularly use under Linux is free and open source.  The only software that I actually had to pay for is the software (including the Operating System) that I run in a virtual machine. 

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