Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.
I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I'm already obsessed. I haven't had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it's just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.
Now 76% of all the posts in the Fediverse are about Linux!
Welcome!
Wait until you need to back it up or move the drive or something. The difference is mind boggling.
I asked the community if there were tools. And they basically said "tools to direct copy the /home folder to an external drive?.." and I was like WTFitcantjustbethateasy
Nah. No "backup" or "timeline" or "restore point" or other BS. You just back it up, reinstall, and drag it back over (you can do this LIVE even).
One restart will fix out any kinks and you're basically good to go.
Linux Mint is one of the best ways to take an old business laptop from a few years ago and turn it into a nice, functional and smooth running device. I have been doing this myself too.
I'd recommend you to install Timeshift. It automaticaly creates backups of your system. Just in case, you'll need it if you break something. It has a GUI and is easy to configure.
Yeah. Timeshift is good. Fortunately, it is part of the default Mint install, and the Mint 'getting started' instructions say to set it up.
I personally needed Timeshift on my second week of using Mint. What happened was that I was that I saw some setting somewhere for linking a google calendar to the calendar app or something like that; and I thought "I don't really want to see any mention of Google anywhere in the OS, even in a setting that I can just not use"; so I uninstalled the thing that lets you link those accounts... what I didn't realise is that uninstalling that also uninstalled a heap of critical parts of the Gnome desktop. So after restarting, I had no desktop or anything.
Fortunately, Timeshift is super easy to use, and I fixed it in a few minutes. Easy to break, easy to fix.
Haha, I previously broke my mint install multiple times due to nvidia drivers... Now I just have timeshift backup to an internal hdd two times a day, just in case. I use Artix btw.
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welcome to Linux. yer a Penguin now, Harry! Yeah, I remember the whole "kid in a candy shop" feeling I got when I first started lol
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hope you have better luck with your Dell than i did. Treated mine like a baby, and suddenly? The shell around the screen and board cracked. Ya think repairing it would be easy/cheap, but alas, somehow....(not trying scare you just, becareful with it, cheap or no)
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Awesome! I'm one of the guys peer pressuring you in the other thread, and I'm glad to see it worked.
It also just so happened that you went for the same distro that I use on my desktop.
What's going to be the primary use of this laptop other than having linux installed? Any projects or use cases in mind? I'm asking because I found out some time around the turn of the century hat the best way to learn linux is to use it for something one would otherwise do in Windows.
If you really want your mind blown, try setting up Steam and playing a Windows game.
It doesn't have to be fancy as long as you have a practical use case. And it's worth mentioning that the "fancy" stuff is often easier on linux than on windows.
