I did it, thanks to you!

[andymx]

I spent the last few weeks on a big adventure. I decided to make real a life's ambition that I've had for years. That was to enter the Linux world, transferring from Windows after many decades with that OS. It was a very tiring process for me, both mentally as well as physically.

I must stress at the forefront that the help that I received from the folks on this Forum has been tremendous and without it I would have given up. I also saw a couple of videos on YouTube about customizing MX Linux 21 (I have version 23) that have been specially informative and inspiring. I made very detailed notes about what I did, mostly the sequence of events, and this was useful to understand what I was doing, to remember it and to have a record for the future. Surprisingly, the most frustrating time was spent trying to get some video management software to work, including Plex. Thankfully this was at the end of my installation and customization process. I had to make a few compromises as regards the folders where data is kept, but nothing serious.

I'm keeping my Windows installation for a while in a dual boot system, but a big milestone was yesterday when I moved my documents, spreadsheets and other files over from Windows to MX. That was a significant leap from one OS to the other and it marked my commitment to start using Linux as my main/only OS. I'm not a professional in any way, but what you may describe as an enthusiast. Indeed in my opinion you cannot be a Windows enthusiast, but you most certainly can be a Linux one!

There's still a very long way to go. I have a thousand questions in my mind and many others that I wrote down. I'm being methodical and I'll try to solve them slowly. I'm relying on you people for a good deal of help, and thank you in advance for your patience with me.

I have quite a few notes to write down about the last two days' installation effort which was hectic and I'll do it before I forget them!

I would like to end this rant with a big THANK YOU to all who helped me!

[j2mcgreg]

Congratulations.

[siamhie]

Congrats

I too am a Linux enthusiast (self taught since 1997) and I learn something new every day.
I never got that same feeling when I was running windows (3.1 thru 10).

[Stu]

andymx - just posting to echo your "Thanks!"

I am a new MX Linux user who has been at this about a year, motivated by the impending end-of-support for Windows 8/8.1 and by the urge to learn something new that I'd always wanted to learn.

Everyone here has been *amazingly* supportive and encouraging, as well as free with practical guidance and help! It has been a very refreshing and illuminating experience.

After my initial panic and a few stupid questions (that were gently handled), I decided to use the search function as well as 'just trying it' - to find out for myself, and only come asking for help when really stumped and with a list of possible solutions that I'd tried to no avail. I have not seen it happen here, but one can wear out one's welcome if one repeatedly asks for help without doing one's best before putting the problem in front of those who will know the answer.

So I applaud your approach and admire the fact that you've made so much more progress than I, in so much less time.

I'm still running on Live USB. Windows 8.1 is still on my hard drive (like a child who will not give up his blankie) but I have not deliberately booted into Windows for a year. MX does everything I want / need, and running a Live USB means that if/when my old laptop quits, all I need is another cheap laptop with maybe no hard drive or a non-functional one.

So - like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.

Congratulations!

[MadMax]

The thing with Linux is, after some time you will start to feel really comfortable with the system. You just know where everything is and how to fix stuff. Even reinstalling won't be intimidating anymore, so you don't have to feel bad when you actually break something.

With Windows this was different. Every change of a major release felt like I had to re-learn a lot of stuff. Functions and settings changed and older programs didn't work properly anymore. When I switched to Linux two years ago I kept my old Windows 7 install around, too. But I actually never booted into it once and wiped it for my Fedora testsystem after one year The only difficult thing is finding replacements for your Windows programs that don't run in Wine, but you have to do that only once.

The community here played a major role in that process for me, too. So that's a good moment for me to say Thanks to everyone here as well :)

[arjaybe]

Welcome andymx. Love your methodical approach. Just a note: you don't need to move your documents. You can access them from both OSes.

[andymx]

Just a note: you don't need to move your documents. You can access them from both OSes.

Thanks, I know that I can access my documents and in actual fact I did so several times in the last few weeks. I just wanted to copy them over to MX in order to "mark the moment" of my transition to MX. I'll probably keep Windows running especially as I'm thinking about replacing my laptop with something else. However, Windows hopefully will become my legacy OS.

[DukeComposed]

The thing with Linux is, after some time you will start to feel really comfortable with the system. You just know where everything is and how to fix stuff. Even reinstalling won't be intimidating anymore, so you don't have to feel bad when you actually break something.

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."

The Linux philosophy, insofar as it can be considered as such, was inspired by how MINIX was designed. MINIX was based on UNIX, and UNIX was based on a handful of guys who wanted to play a spaceship-flying game on a new machine while avoiding all the mistakes that a multi-user OS called MULTICS made.

One of the nice things about installing Linux on just about anything is that which installer a distro uses becomes irrelevant. Ubiquti or Calameres or what-have-you, I no longer really care. A Linux machine is (a) a file system, (b) a base install of some packages, (c) a kernel, and then (d) a boot loader. Doesn't matter what (a), (b), (c), or (d) are. They can all work together, and that interoperability of components is laudable, when even some BSDs can't mix and match these elements as easily.

[davidy]

Dual booting windows? You haven't really made the change just yet. Windows is enthusiastic simply because there is almost nothing you can't install or tweak (I remember the time I made a list of all the timeserver hosts into a registry file so I could pick between all of them right from the gui- there are a lot btw), but, I saw the writing on the wall years ago with windows and how it was slowly becoming something I did not want to attend to anymore and knew it was just a matter of time before linux was windows-easypeasy to run. The only reason I even bought a separate windows box is so I can use my xerox printer software. That's it. There are a plethora of linux os's that will boot easily but not many you actually want to look at every day.
Glad you made the switch but unless there is some particular software you must have that you can't get in linux you could easily make a sanpshot of mx and reinstall without windows. Linux is more stable than windows ever was so crashing and boot failures are nil. Backing up and restoring is easy if you use clonezilla too. Snapshots work I just like clonezilla more as it will backup any pc running pretty much any os so I can use the same flash drive image for both and don't have to mess around with this or that.

[j2mcgreg]

Dual booting windows? You haven't really made the change just yet. Windows is enthusiastic simply because there is almost nothing you can't install or tweak (I remember the time I made a list of all the timeserver hosts into a registry file so I could pick between all of them right from the gui- there are a lot btw), but, I saw the writing on the wall years ago with windows and how it was slowly becoming something I did not want to attend to anymore and knew it was just a matter of time before linux was windows-easypeasy to run. The only reason I even bought a separate windows box is so I can use my xerox printer software. That's it. There are a plethora of linux os's that will boot easily but not many you actually want to look at every day.
Glad you made the switch but unless there is some particular software you must have that you can't get in linux you could easily make a sanpshot of mx and reinstall without windows. Linux is more stable than windows ever was so crashing and boot failures are nil. Backing up and restoring is easy if you use clonezilla too. Snapshots work I just like clonezilla more as it will backup any pc running pretty much any os so I can use the same flash drive image for both and don't have to mess around with this or that.

I think that you have got that wrong. Dual booting is a great idea for novices because it affords a working internet connection when things go a bit sideways.