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Which *nix distro for this thing?

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  • Which *nix distro for this thing?

    I'm (hopefully) getting an Asus 2-in-1 laptop over the weekend, the R518UA-RS51T. It's got Windows 10 on, which I dislike intensely...I likely can't downgrade, so at the least I plan to dual-boot some flavor of Linux and keep anything important on that OS. Any thoughts on distros? (and what I can do to minimize Win10 shenanigans)

    If there was a way for me to set up a triple-boot setup with Win, a 'consumer' *nix and Tails, that would be ideal....doubtful about that though.
    "I am quite confident that I do exist."
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  • #2
    Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
    I'm (hopefully) getting an Asus 2-in-1 laptop over the weekend, the R518UA-RS51T. It's got Windows 10 on, which I dislike intensely...I likely can't downgrade, so at the least I plan to dual-boot some flavor of Linux and keep anything important on that OS. Any thoughts on distros? (and what I can do to minimize Win10 shenanigans)

    If there was a way for me to set up a triple-boot setup with Win, a 'consumer' *nix and Tails, that would be ideal....doubtful about that though.
    What about Ubuntu or Linux Mint? I've run both of them. And even after a few years, I'm still finding my way around, but I've discovered that I can do almost everything I can on a Windows machine on Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

    The great thing about Ubuntu and Mint is that when a "new" OS comes out, the OS lets you know (if you're connected to a network) and you can upgrade from there.
    Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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    • #3
      I used Ubuntu for years, until I got my new laptop and it worked great for me. A small hiccup every now and then but nothing unreasonable.

      My parents just got burned by the "Microsoft Support" scam yesterday, so once I get ahold of their laptop this weekend, I'm purging it with fire (or a strong format at least) and putting Ubuntu on it. They only use it for Web browsing so the Linux experience shouldn't be too difficult for them to handle. (Passwords are changed, Credit Card was cancelled, Laptop is powered off and offline until I get my hands on it, so they should be fine, other than being 100$ poorer for the experience)

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      • #4
        I use Ubuntu myself, but I've idly considered hopping to one of the distributions that still has individual daemons.

        Ubuntu, among other distros, has switched to bundling most of the system daemons into an arch-daemon called "systemd". This is controversial among unixheads -- on the one hand, systemd means fewer targets for attack, but on the other hand, that's one big target, with much potential for single-point-of-failure problems.

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        • #5
          Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
          If there was a way for me to set up a triple-boot setup with Win, a 'consumer' *nix and Tails, that would be ideal....doubtful about that though.
          You have a few options on how to do it. Google "how to triple boot". The big catch may be reinstalling Windows. MS has bone some funky stuff with the licenses on pre-installed systems. Our Windows experts may be able to advise on that.

          As nor Nixs, this is what I have heard from people.
          Ubuntu is probably one of the more popular distros for desktop users.
          Debian is probably next.
          Mint seems to have an interesting following base. I hear about a lot of cool stuff being done, but it sound like it could be more bleeding edge. Anybody else hear that?
          I use Fedora. I started using Fedora when I started working with RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE. As Fedora is the playground for RHEL development, it tend to be a quick changing environment. Not what most End-Users are looking for.
          Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
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          • #6
            (and what I can do to minimize Win10 shenanigans)
            I can help you with that much. Go snag "OOShutUp10" -- It disables many of the wee little bits of Winten (and some of the biggies such as Cortana) that tend to "phone home" whether you like itor not. As with any such tweakiness, use at your own risk , of course.
            Last edited by EricKei; 01-29-2018, 11:03 PM.
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            • #7
              Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
              I'm (hopefully) getting an Asus 2-in-1 laptop over the weekend, the R518UA-RS51T. It's got Windows 10 on, which I dislike intensely...I likely can't downgrade, so at the least I plan to dual-boot some flavor of Linux and keep anything important on that OS. Any thoughts on distros? (and what I can do to minimize Win10 shenanigans)

              If there was a way for me to set up a triple-boot setup with Win, a 'consumer' *nix and Tails, that would be ideal....doubtful about that though.
              Linux? Well, unless you have something against rolling releases, I'd recommend any of the Manjaro family (manjaro.org) or its cousins (MaBox and KiboeJoe[this is the one I use]). Whatever you want, they prolly have it between the official releases and community releases, and it has a huge forum for support.
              Seph
              Taur10
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              • #8
                I liked Ubuntu up until 11.04(i think) when they added in the Unity desktop, then i hated it. i have heard rumblings that Unity is dead and they are going back to Gnome. if that is the case then i agree that Ubuntu would be a great os to use. i havent played with mint yet, but from everything i have read about it, it sounds alot like Ubuntu but a bit slimmer resource wise. SUSE on the otherhand is the *nix version of windows, "full featured with productivity software and useful tools" (tranlation: Full of Bloat!!!)

                regardless of which flavor you get, with the exception of SUSE, you will need to get Wine so that you can run windows based programs on it. the last time i played with SUSE it came with wine as part of the distro.
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                • #9
                  Another Ubuntu user here... User friendly and stable (I use the LTS releases only)

                  Even when it went to the Unity interface as a default, Gnome was still available as an .option at login.

                  Lubuntu (a.k.a. Ubuntu Lite) is a good option for laptops.

                  BSD variants like Gentoo are also worth considering. They've seen a lot of benefit from Apple's OSX releases.

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                  • #10
                    Yeah, many of us use Ubuntu 12 or 16 at work, and they all have gnome desktops.
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