Greetings To You All - New To Linux

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!:relaxed:

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!

:wink:

12 Likes

Welcome @Methusela

@lah7, let’s nuke it already.

2 Likes

Welcome to the ubuntu mate life Methusela! We hope you enjoy it! :innocent:

2 Likes

Alright, Opera's had enough time to fix their typo (that's all it is, but only they can fix it) so it's getting yanked out for the next update. :clear: :bomb:

But other than that, welcome to the community! :wave:

3 Likes

Thank You.

I have just sent Opera an email requesting they fix the bug.

Here’s the page I found that identified it. Being new, I spent hours trying to find out why the update manager would not work.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1663523

2 Likes

Opera is now owned by a Chinese private-equity consortium, so it will interesting to see if they care about Linux support going forward :confused:

1 Like

Welcome to GNU/Linux family !Ubuntu/Debian Home and the great Ubuntu Mate ! :grin:
Feel free to ask things, just put them in the right places :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
regards

2 Likes

@Methusela

I am 65 and now you make me feel like a pup! I wouldn’t say you wasted your years on Windows. Up to and including Win7 (apart from Vista), it was a good OS. With Win8 and now Win10, I think they dropped the ball and have lost their way.

I have just ordered a secondhand Lenovo X230 on eBay and it has an SSD, something I’ve never dealt with before. I hope to make it my first “Linux Only” computer.

One thing I’ve learned using Linux is freedom. The freedom to try things and if I don’t like them, to try something else. Between distro hopping and installing software I didn’t like, I have learned much along the way. Us oldies need to keep our minds active and playing with Linux is a great opportunity to do just that.

As you have said, as long as you have a current backup, you can always do a restore if things go wheels up. Just like your experience with Opera, Linux will throw you some curved balls. There will be times when you wonder if you made a mistake choosing it, but then you have a win and you’re off again.

Enjoy the ride and don’t get all fired up when something doesn’t work. Life’s too short and you will soon find which software you like and which you don’t. Linux tutorials have their place, but nothing beats hands on experience.

Welcome to the world of the Penguin!

4 Likes

Well first I like to welcome you to the Mate community and second I commend you for making an effort to learn Linux

Just by reading your post I can see you are a head of the game and you should have no problem learning how to use Linux it’s a much easier desktop experience all the way around

Linux / Ubuntu mate is a great os and I’m sure you’ll learn it in no time

Welcome my friend

1 Like

As with everyone else - Welcome to the community!

I’ve been using linux for about 10+ years - and I still feel like there is so much to learn!

But you have the right mindest! Enjoy your new experiences!!

1 Like

Howdy there @Methusela and welcome. I’ve only been using Ubuntu-MATE for a short time and this forum is even newer to me. Let’s see, if you’re turning 80, you’d have been like one of those Old Guys that i worked with fresh out of college almost 50 years ago, who showed me what software was like in the real world.

I went through a place similar to you and @cobber, what might be called The Last Windows Straw, when ubuntu-oneiric was current, 2012-2013 maybe. Started with Ubuntu, went to Debian, now back to Ubuntu… tried lots of distros. Ubuntu-MATE is the best i’ve tried so far, and it’s way better than ubuntu-oneric was imo.

Anyway welcome home. I’ve been telling people for years now that one of these days a bunch of retired guys are going to come crawling out of the woodwork and kick some a…ction into gear, maybe i was right. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Great googleymoogley! I am 68, and feel heartened to see someone 11 years older than I who’s in love with Linux and Ubuntu MATE!

Linux does throw some curves, but I’ve been using it for 9 years and will never go back to Windows. There is a learning curve, but there is this forum and the Ubuntu forums to answer nearly any question a user (new or otherwise) may come up with. Keep at it and don’t ever be afraid to ask questions.

4 Likes

Hello, guys !
I’m not new in Linux ( user for over 10 years now…) But I decided to try Ubuntu Mate after hearing so many good things!

The distro seems very stable and appeals to a wide variety of users. Great!
I’m particularly interested in the HUD function to search filter functionalities and optimise the workflow.

I used Arch Linux for the longest time, then migrated to something completely different like Elementary OS, and now trying Ubuntu MATE 17.10.

Hope to have a long and happy stay ! Wish you the best!

Everyone, please enjoy ubuntu MATE, make the next release for the raspberry pi,(if possible :wink:), and keep supporting!

It’s great to have you with us, welcome aboard! :slight_smile:

Hi Methusela

Welcome to the Ubuntu Mate community. Congratulations on having enough courage to try something new and to break away from MS dependency. Why the masses stay with that OS when Ubuntu Mate is so great just puzzles me.

Anyway you’ll have fun with this one…it’s a customizable OS with many great features and best of all it’s Linux and to me and many others in the community that means freedom and taking back control…feels so good man I tell you…jumping ship…like paying off and cutting up your credit card lol…

This forum is also a great place, friendly vibe all around and really helpful techs and contributers ready to address any problem…I can only speak highly of them cause they really helped me out with some issues when I jumped ship and was getting started.

There are so many new things to discover…new terminology, new architecture, new way of doing things and all very intuitive as well, the command line…if you want to build more Linux muscle, and a whole new computing culture…the way computing was meant to be.

Welcome to the world of the penguin…free at last.

2 Likes

Continuing the discussion from Greetings To You All - New To Linux:

Greetings all, I am new to the forum but have been playing around with many Linux distros for years. I am looking for a way to get Micro$oft out of my life. I think UM is going to be the distro for me. I am running it on a couple of older laptops (dual core/SDD drive 8GB Ram) and an HP client PC. (M.2 drive/ Quad Core/16Gb Ram) My experience with the dual and quad core machines is awesome. I am also running the 32bit version on an older Toshiba Laptop with an SSD, single core cpu with 2 GB of ram with some issues. I have a lot to learn. I am glad I joined this forum and enjoy reading of the many experiences posted by a lot of really sharp folks. Thanks all for your posts. Cheers!

2 Likes