Is Linux hard to install?
- Thread starter Vedad_
- Start date
- Jun 17, 2015
- 4,910
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- 12,990
most users will be better dualbooting, that is leaving two os on the hard disk, with a boot menu offering windows and linux, so you can select the os you like and boot to it any time, not just have windows or linux only
linux on most versions is considerably more easy to install than windows 7 or 10, thanks to the presence of most drivers already integrated on the livecd or liveusb
don't install any linux, only test it in livecd or liveusb, be sure to like what you see, not just install because a hacker had a great week using a hole in windows, panic rarely offers anything
try something like linux mint liveusb, you might like it or not, the learning curve is not big
the only bad experience with linux comes when you have bad hardware, designed for windows only and with no drivers for linux, this happens often with wifi cards on laptops, soundcard, some gpus and ethernet cards, but chances are high that your hardware will be common enough to give you a great experience on linux
linux on most versions is considerably more easy to install than windows 7 or 10, thanks to the presence of most drivers already integrated on the livecd or liveusb
don't install any linux, only test it in livecd or liveusb, be sure to like what you see, not just install because a hacker had a great week using a hole in windows, panic rarely offers anything
try something like linux mint liveusb, you might like it or not, the learning curve is not big
the only bad experience with linux comes when you have bad hardware, designed for windows only and with no drivers for linux, this happens often with wifi cards on laptops, soundcard, some gpus and ethernet cards, but chances are high that your hardware will be common enough to give you a great experience on linux
It's easy to install but not always so easy to use. There is learning involved. Stick with one of the bigger more common versions and you will be more likely to find solutions if you run into problems. Personally I agree with the linux mint recommendation, it's the most popular version of linux for a reason.
Linux mint comes with everything you need to basic tasks, and a software manager and package manager to make finding and installing software easy. However if you need a driver it doesn't have or want to set something up that's not in the software manager you will almost certainly be typing long commands into the terminal to try and fix it. It's a good OS but it's not for everrybody. Try it first as suggested before installing anything.
Linux mint comes with everything you need to basic tasks, and a software manager and package manager to make finding and installing software easy. However if you need a driver it doesn't have or want to set something up that's not in the software manager you will almost certainly be typing long commands into the terminal to try and fix it. It's a good OS but it's not for everrybody. Try it first as suggested before installing anything.
My opinion of how to get started.
Download Rufus https://rufus.akeo.ie/
Download a Linux Mint iso https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
Use Rufus to make a bootable USB drive from the ISO
set your BIOS to boot from the USB (probably show as a hard drive in the boot order - catches some people out)
Boot from the flash drive and try linux out without installing anything.
It'll put an install option on the desktop you can use if you decide to do that.
Any version is fine, XFCE is a good choice for slower hardware as it's a little lighter on resources and it still looks nice. The other 3 are really about preference and if you have the bandwidth there's nothing stopping you trying them all.
Download Rufus https://rufus.akeo.ie/
Download a Linux Mint iso https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
Use Rufus to make a bootable USB drive from the ISO
set your BIOS to boot from the USB (probably show as a hard drive in the boot order - catches some people out)
Boot from the flash drive and try linux out without installing anything.
It'll put an install option on the desktop you can use if you decide to do that.
Any version is fine, XFCE is a good choice for slower hardware as it's a little lighter on resources and it still looks nice. The other 3 are really about preference and if you have the bandwidth there's nothing stopping you trying them all.
LinuxDevice
Distinguished
- May 20, 2017
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- 19,540
If you do choose to leave windows installed and don't have an extra hard drive for Linux you might want to resize the windows partition from in windows first. Defragment before reducing the windows partition size, it will help make much more of the tail of the disk available as free space.
Rocky Bennett
Dignified
- May 25, 2016
- 3,226
- 2
- 14,015
No, it is not as easy as Windows but some distros are definitely easier than others. If you pick a Debian based distro, you should have no problems. Ubuntu and Mint are fairly easy, but definitely not as easy as Windows 10. Some are very difficult. Manjaro is a difficult one to install, but I sure do love it.
I disagree, being mostly a windows user and having recently installed windows 10 and Linux Mint on similar C2D vintage PCs from a USB stick I would say it was equally easy to install. Using it is more likely to be an issue than installing it for most people. I also reinstalled Vista on an old machine, now that was far more difficult. Things have definitely improved.
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