How is Linux as a computer operating system
 

I will never purchase another Microsoft based product again, but I don't like Apple. How is Linux?

It is different.

If you like having to figure things out, and learning it can be great. Most of the instructions are written for someone that has used Linux for years, so they can be clear as mud.

Everything you need for day to day ordinary life is available. Email, web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and the other mainstream stuff.

I'm on a Linux Mint right now. I built this laptop about 2 years ago and I've had virtually zero issues. (very rare lock up with powering off the only way to fix it) There are always updates coming down but otherwise it seem almost bullet proof.

The only reason you'd stay with windows IMO is if you had an app that doesn't run on Linux.

Latest version here: https://linuxmint.com

Download a copy, load it on your hard drive in separate partition or create a bootable thumb drive and run it from USB. What I'm saying is, you can give it a test drive on the system you currently have.

I've run Ubuntu on a few different laptops. Also did Chromium on another old laptop.

Just another flavor of Unix... so ask Thom ;). Unix... a lean & mean OS (I have no favorite), but used it on many high end servers ($250K +), including $10M big iron for much of my career. They all have pros & cons....but if your're not inclined to be a "geek", and want off the shelf.... Apple and Windoze are still the lessor of the evils imo.

And they are evil :D

+1 for Linux Mint. I do have both Mint and Win 10 computers (have several CAD applications that won't run on Mint). Mint runs great on older hardware and is quite stable.

Linux is pretty mature. It'd be a bit of a learning curve coming from Windows, but I'm sure nothing that you can't handle.

I'm an IT nerd and have been tinkering with various operating systems since the late 80s. Many, many years ago, I tinkered with Linux. It was OK then, but is much, much better these days.

I've been a Microsoft/Windows guy since I started, but liked to tinker with other stuff. I stopped the Windows stuff at Win 7, and just replaced a 9 year old Win 7 PC with a new iMac 27". I bought my wife a Macbook Air many years ago, and took the first two weeks that we owned it to learn it so I could provide her with tech support once she started using it. After that two weeks, I determined that my next PC would be an apple. They are excellent.

I'm voting for the bootable USB or CD/DVD. I wouldn't recommend that most folks start screwing around with the partitions on a working PC. I've done it in the past.

Didn't the mac os grow out of unix?

Also... If you have an older LT that runs like a dog on Windows, using Linux Mint instead is a good way of speeding things up.

It's a less than 10 second from boot up to password screen on my 4 years old laptop. And another 5 or 6 seconds after entering your password to the desk top. There's no going back to Windows IMO.

Yep. MacOS is based on Unix. You can get to terminal and look at a pretty standard Unix OS.

I run Ubuntu on one of my laptops. I use it for web-browsing and word processing. It's pretty intuitive. I've never had to "figure anything out". I just let it run updates a few times a week.

Linux rocks. Its free. It can do as much or as little as you need. I can have a fresh install running on my laptop in 5 minutes. I prefer Puppy Linux. If yo go to Distrowatch.com you can find a lot of info and and download a variety of linux distributions. Easy to load on a bootable flash drive and run. Then decide if you want to install.

What's the advantage of Linux over Windows?

1. Uses way less system resources. I run Ubuntu on a Celeron with 2GB of ram and it performs similar to Windows 10 on my i5 with 8GB of ram. It's also a great way to make old hardware useable again.

2. Doesn't constantly send information about you back to Microsoft. Doesn't automatically download software you don't want or need.

3. It's free. It's stable. It is actively improved.

Big disadvantage is if you need to use software that is only available on Windows. You can try to fiddle with emulators and other things to try to make it work, or you can keep some Windows machines around (my solution). Like I said, it's a great OS for web surfing and light use of office productivity applications (word processor, spreasheet, etc.).

centos, mint, ubuntu, etc are all good. Install OpenOffice for your docs, spreadsheets, etc. Install your favorite browser, and you should be 90% set depending on what you need to do. There is HUGE community support as well. I remember a former CEO proclaimed in 2009 or so that Linux and UNIX were dead. He did not last long. LOL I would recommend taking a basic Linux course and learn basic terminal commands. Oh, and never run the command rm -rf /

I will have to speak to the electronic health records people and see if it will fly. Might have to keep this laptop on windows, and migrate everything else over.

I think the 2 primary reasons that most folks use Linux is #2 and #3 above. It's free, and there's no "Big Brother" aspect.

Or you could potentially (depending upon how savvy you are) create a partition on your hard drive to install and dual boot windows. I haven't done that in probably 15 years. It wasn't hard then, but it wasn't simple either. I assume it's much easier now than it was.

A long time ago we had a windows server in our office, set up by a small company (tenant at the time of set-up) who 'kept the secrets'.

A few years later it crashed (well, it was hacked as a mail relay server because of my idiot brother-in-law)

Knowing nothing about linux, or email/file servers, I picked up a 'server' distribution of linux they had on the shelves at Barnes & Nobles, and figured I'd give it a go. I was able to replace the functions of the windows server on a spare PC in a weekend.

A few years later, (against my protests) My brother/partner was sold on a 'Professional Server' Windows based Dell system.

Rinse & repeat.

Now I use a Synology box (linux based)

tl;dr - A linux set up will be faster and more reliable. There will be a learning curve. The biggest change will be learning the linux equivalents of any software you use, and if you 'need' a specific program, you may not find an equivalent that runs on linux.

The real power behind Linux is when you work from the terminal. I had a Linux box as my office workstation for 15 years, with a copy of Windows 7 in a VMware environment for the one single program that we needed which was Windows only.
I don't think I ever used the workstation outside of the terminal. SED, AWK and VM are incredibly powerful for file manipulation.