Every other forum has rules about these posts because there’s such a glut of them, and yes, I could go read a stickied thread elsewhere, but here I am not doing that.
How would someone with no computer skills get acquainted with the OS? What version would you recommend to the hopeless novice? Can I keep windows on my PC and run the new OS or a practice version of it in a partitioned space while I learn? Can someone with minimal skills/time/patience be happy with a unix-like OS?
Update on my linux journey:
Tried ubuntu, mint, and zorin in a live environment, they all had features that I really liked, and perhaps more importantly lacked features that I really hate. Can’t remember the last time I set up a bloatless device! I could see myself using any of them, but zorin had two advantages, the lowest learning curve and it worked with more of my peripherals and apps than the other two.
I have it dual booting on my desktop, but I have audio issues there (desktop is really my tv/gaming/media center) as it’s hooked up to a big cheap tv and soundbar, and I suspect that it doesn’t recognize them as hdmi enabled audio devices. I tired some commonly recommended fixes but no avail yet, might have to wire audio a different way. I didn’t have trouble getting games running in zorin but the performance was half that of windows. Tried updating the video driver (only a week out of date) and I need to research how to install drivers that aren’t listed. Seems like it might be a set of terminal commands. But I’m saving that for later and focusing on the laptop instead, where I have lower demands and can get more day to day use in.
Every app I use on the laptop is functional with live environment zorin, but I am again having an audio problem. No issue with the integrated speaker, but bluetooth would not connect (device not set up) which I resolved with bluetooth adapter - and now I according to the pc I am connecting and pairing, but no device will pair.
Overall I’d say it’s not a bad start considering my lack of pedigree, but I’ve got a long way to go.
Update on my update re: Sony wh1000mx3 headphones and Linux Bluetooth failure to connect: got it working, didn’t need any extra software either. The Sony’s will prompt themselves into pairing mode if another device tries to connect and they aren’t paired with another device, so I’ve never activated pairing mode on them before. The Linux (zorin) bluetooth software won’t try to pair with a device not in pairing mode, so they were like shy kids who want to dance with each other but won’t ask. In short, like the overwhelming majority of my problems: user error.
Hope my verbose incompetence saves some future googler a few minutes of frustration.
How did you arrive at zorin? Not knocking it my first Linux instead was lindows… How’s it working out for you are you still using it?