The Document Foundation and LibreOffice support the international campaign @endof10 https://endof10.org/ The countdown has begun. On 14 October 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. This will leave millions of users and organisations with a difficult choice: should they upgrade to Windows 11, or completely rethink their work environment? The good news? You don’t […]
I recently jumped on pure Mint after buying a new desktop PC with no OS pre-installed. Within a week I was dual booting it on my laptop too. It’s so much faster and efficient. Battery feels like it lasts 50% longer.
And the control is amazing.
I was very skeptical of Linux, as I had a shitty experience previously with OpenSUSE where nothing worked. Mint is the way to go tho, been so smooth.
I would give that a shot. The full guide is install ‘wine’ and ‘winetricks’ the same way you install any other software you use. Then in winetricks, select ‘default prefix’, then ‘run arbitrary executable’, and point it to your .exe installer. After that, you just open the program like any other program on your system.
You generally don’t need to do more than that and might let you forgo ever dual booting again.
Haven’t booted windows in over a month now. If I want to play pubg or bf1, thats about the only reason I need windows. And I do a lot of gaming, just not aaa multi-player. But I am enjoying computing again just like when I was younger and computers were interesting and fun and not corpo ad stations on your machine.
I’m between living locations and can’t carry my desktop around.
So I grabbed an old laptop and put Linux mint on it. It’s been near perfect. Extremely smooth experience.
It detected my printer and auto installed. I installed steam and played Terraria without issue. Small performance problem but I don’t have a GPU. Even works good with my docking station.
My only complaint is the audio device doesn’t switch automatically when I dock/undock.
I’d recommend making a USB and boot into it for a test drive.
Rufus is great and I still keep a copy around, but I haven’t gone back since I found Ventoy. You just run Ventoy on your stick, and then drag and drop any and all bootable ISOs into it. When you boot it, you get a list of all the ISOs to work with.
The only caveat is that you absolutely have to eject the USB, or else Ventoy probably will corrupt. That’s a small price to pay to have Arch, Mint, Fedora, NixOS, and Win11 all on one OS ISO toolkit drive, plus I always eject my drives as a rule of thumb. Then all I have to do is update them every couple months.
(Kinda unrelated side note: Nobody around me is getting that all these apps are STUPID and MAKES YOU THE PRODUCT. Just why are they critisizing without even trying them?)
That’s reasonable; I just wouldn’t have called my wife’s laptop my laptop I guess. It was either that or there was probably an interesting story behind it.
I end up with all the “broken” laptops my family replaces after they buy new ones.
I’ve got like 9 laptops. Active ones are my Linux one, work one (windows 11) and my wife’s school one (windows 11). We both have win 10 desktops still.
I really need to stop putting it off and install Linux on my PC and laptops
I recently jumped on pure Mint after buying a new desktop PC with no OS pre-installed. Within a week I was dual booting it on my laptop too. It’s so much faster and efficient. Battery feels like it lasts 50% longer.
And the control is amazing.
I was very skeptical of Linux, as I had a shitty experience previously with OpenSUSE where nothing worked. Mint is the way to go tho, been so smooth.
I dual booth Win11 and Fedora Desk 42. It feels gross starting windows but there are 2, TWO! Apps that don’t have Linux version that I still need.
When Linux wizards figure out a way to use win apps without the intimidating complexity of installing Wine or virtualization, more people will switch.
I would give that a shot. The full guide is install ‘wine’ and ‘winetricks’ the same way you install any other software you use. Then in winetricks, select ‘default prefix’, then ‘run arbitrary executable’, and point it to your .exe installer. After that, you just open the program like any other program on your system.
You generally don’t need to do more than that and might let you forgo ever dual booting again.
Haven’t booted windows in over a month now. If I want to play pubg or bf1, thats about the only reason I need windows. And I do a lot of gaming, just not aaa multi-player. But I am enjoying computing again just like when I was younger and computers were interesting and fun and not corpo ad stations on your machine.
I’m between living locations and can’t carry my desktop around.
So I grabbed an old laptop and put Linux mint on it. It’s been near perfect. Extremely smooth experience.
It detected my printer and auto installed. I installed steam and played Terraria without issue. Small performance problem but I don’t have a GPU. Even works good with my docking station.
My only complaint is the audio device doesn’t switch automatically when I dock/undock.
I’d recommend making a USB and boot into it for a test drive.
Awesome, thanks for the insight. I was actually looking at Linux Mint myself. I need around 4Gb on a USB to boot it, correct?
That might do it. I don’t own anything smaller than 16 GB sticks. I used Rufus on windows to make my stick.
Rufus is great and I still keep a copy around, but I haven’t gone back since I found Ventoy. You just run Ventoy on your stick, and then drag and drop any and all bootable ISOs into it. When you boot it, you get a list of all the ISOs to work with.
The only caveat is that you absolutely have to eject the USB, or else Ventoy probably will corrupt. That’s a small price to pay to have Arch, Mint, Fedora, NixOS, and Win11 all on one OS ISO toolkit drive, plus I always eject my drives as a rule of thumb. Then all I have to do is update them every couple months.
Yeah I should switch to Ventoy.
Yes, exactly.
(Kinda unrelated side note: Nobody around me is getting that all these apps are STUPID and MAKES YOU THE PRODUCT. Just why are they critisizing without even trying them?)
How many laptops do you own lol?
Families exist. I’m the “IT guy” for 3 people using laptops
They are all my personal laptops from different parts of my past, that I just never threw away when I upgraded
If you keep forgetting them for another ~15-25 more years they might have value in the retro space.
Shadow retirement fund
That’s reasonable; I just wouldn’t have called my wife’s laptop my laptop I guess. It was either that or there was probably an interesting story behind it.
I end up with all the “broken” laptops my family replaces after they buy new ones.
I’ve got like 9 laptops. Active ones are my Linux one, work one (windows 11) and my wife’s school one (windows 11). We both have win 10 desktops still.
2, though they are both quite old