
Reply To: Professional Services Assistance
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Our computer runs on *goes to look* Windows 8.1 Pro. I can’t remember what the computer itself is, other than it’s a refurbished HP. A friend helped pick it out several years ago. I don’t know if it just needs a good cleaning or if it’s age but it’s starting to get slow. It boots up just fine on the rare occasion we actually turn it off (was told newer computers should be left on overnight if used daily) but it’s just not quite as speedy as it used to be. Our children like to play games on it and it simply cannot handle it as well as they’d like. Games like Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, The Sims, and various online games, just to give you an idea.
When we eventually get a new computer, I’m leaning towards a gaming computer. Supposedly, if something craps out it’s easier to fix or replace things? Idk…My main reason for leaning that way is to handle the games. I don’t do much on it other than basic internet things (email, looking things up, boring adult stuff lol) but they whine about games lagging and taking forever to load. Maybe it’s more money than we really need to spend? Idk…“Linux comes in many flavors.. they’re called distros (distributions) I use Linux Mint, with cinnamon, but there’s Ubuntu Debian, Xface, red-hat and a slew more. Linux doesn’t care which one you run or how many on the same machine either. It can also be run directly from a USB stick… which is a great way to look at different distros without committing hard drive space to another OS. I use mint/cinnamon because the desktop environment is similar to windows and can handle graphics rendering (depending on the computer’s guts)”
***Hmmmm, this is making me hungry. USB stick, huh? Interesting. I’m old enough but young enough to remember my dad going and buying Windows 95 and so forth and spending what seemed like forever in the basement installing it. My, how times change!***
“Choosing a distro is generally based on what you do on the computer. Some are better for people that write code (not me) some are light weight bare bones interfaces – just the terminal window, which is what windows machines call the command prompt window and some are very close to what we see in windows systems.”
***Yeah, no coding here, either. We’re pretty basic. Our oldest is interested in animation but at the moment, besides games, that’s as computer-y as we really get in our house LOL***
“For me, the most challenging thing was making my own bootable USB stick. it’s not a hard process but it is a pain in the tookas. First the easy part.. download the files. Then there’s what they call verifying the download.. confused the crap out of me. There’s generally a link to do that on whichever site the download comes from. I still don’t know what that does exactly.
The first time I installed linux, it was when a windows 10 machine just froze and I didn’t have a usb/stick/flash drive with linux yet and had go buy one. Little independent computer stores will sometimes make one cheap, especially if you bring your own stick. Sadly, I chose the wrong store, but water under the bridge. Since then, I have made 2 more bootable USBs. All 3 are linux mint, just different releases. It’s that prepper backups to backups thing.”
***Your own bootable USB stick? OK, I learned a wee bit of Greek back in high school but I don’t think we made it that far 😛 I know what a USB is but a bootable one??***
“One of my favorite things about Linux is that when there are updates available, they show them to you and let you decide if/when to update. Another is not needing an anti-virus program.”
***Well that sounds grand!***
By the way, any advice on an external hard drive? What to look for? Good brands? Price range? I have a buttload of pictures and videos that need to be backed up asap. Should’ve done it years ago but better late than never.
I know it’s a lot but this is how we learn, right?
Thanks,
~Kitty
PS- Oh, and I found out yesterday on accident that your reply will save if you hit the X and come back to reply.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
Tin-Foil-Tiara.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by