Hello and fond greetings to you all!
This is my first post and hopefully in the correct section. In a few months I’ll be 80 years of age. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but I disagree. I may be a bit slower but in the end I get there.
Why am I here? I have wasted too many years of my life using Windoze. Before that I used to use Macs and had great fun using Res-Edit - much to the annoyance of my colleagues who kept finding their screen had changed!
In the past few weeks my Windoze 8.1 died. I’d had enough. It is one thing to have to buy the flipping machine with MS software and it is another to waste valuable hours trying to work out why it is dying. Not only that I lost an awful lot of programmes which I had bought as well as personal files. Yes, yes, I know about back ups but…! And so it was decision day. Goodbye MS and everything to do with MS. I have come to detest it. I thus bought a new hard drive and started to tinker with Linux. I’ll spare you the essay.
I first tried Linux Mint and it was sort of okay but I had a heck of a time trying to get it installed. I even bought a CD. After three desperate attempts I gave up and tried Mate. I downloaded the iso and booted from a usb stick. A Lenovo Z710 is not the friendliest to work with. After two attempts I succeeded! Hooray you say! My first attempt was crippled because it kept saying you can’t update. After poking around I found out that it was caused by Opera which I have read has a bug which has not been fixed - so I believe. It left me wondering why it is in the software boutique if it is causing problems? For a newcomer to Linux, it is difficult to understand all the language/jargon let alone assuming that an item in the boutique would work correctly.
Enough of the gripes. I think Mate is superb! It is lightning fast and as for appearance, it takes minimalism to a new art form. I love the simplicity of the menus. Kind of like a more modern version of the much loved XP. I am equally impressed with all the software that is available. Needless to say, I am very appreciative of all those who give up their time to create such operating systems and the software.
I also like the Linux community. Lots of helpful people who likewise give of their time generously.
Finally, I will have many questions to ask. I hope you will be patient with me. What may be glaringly obvious to you will probably be obscure to me - isn’t that how we all learn?
Thanks for letting me join the community.
Best Wishes To You All
p.s. There are some terrible YoofTube videos out there on Linux. Some seem to think they are making a Hollywood film rather than offering a good tutorial!