From a recovering distro-hopping addict, there’s two ways to dip your toes in to the various Linux experiences:
When you install your distro, partition a separate /home folder that is distinct from your root and boot partitions. There are many good walkthroughs on YouTube on doing this process, it’s fairly simple. Once you do that you can keep your home folder intact as you install different distros over the top. Just make sure to mark you /home folder each time and don’t format it during install.
Like another commenter said, try distrobox. It will allow you to test out the various distro bases pretty conveniently. Another similar option is learning how to set up virtual machines. Again, sounds more difficult than it is. There’s many good videos that walk you through the process.
Aside from the mechanics of testing out different options, I would recommend KDE as a desktop environment. Cinnamon and Gnome are both flexible, but do feel more restricting than I like. You can customize nearly every element of KDE, I really like it.
Really, most distros are fairly similar, aside from using different package managers and having different sets of software pre-installed. The desktop environment is where you’ll experience the most user facing differences.
If you like to tinker, make your way over to an arch based distro at some point. I’ve really enjoyed endeavourOS, but you will need to mess with config files to get your printer working and things like that.
Step one is probably figuring out why the Mojo is turning off. If it’s the USB power going to sleep, the answer could be as simple as running the power USB cable directly to an outlet instead of the computer (which is often better for audio quality anyways). Otherwise, I’d look into the spdif link that the other person posted.
Regarding the tools, you must take into consideration the fact that you do not have Microsoft apps on Linux (unless you run them through wine or online, which is not ideal). However there are several alternative tools, either open source (libre office-imperfect compatibility, Onlyoffice desktop-better compatibility, incomplete feature set) or closed source (either WPS office or FreeOffice). PDF is an annoying one as unless you feel comfortable with libreoffice draw or you want to do more basic editing, tools for PDF on Linux are kind of lacking
In addition to using virtual machines, remember that once a virtual machine is installed, you can use 7zip (or any zipping program) to archive the whole folder containing the vm files, so if something screws up on the vm, you can reset by deleting the folder, restore it from the zipped archive, and trying again without having to do the whole installation process over and over. You can make as many of those archives as you want as you get a vm install to different milestones.
AntiX/MX Linux, I’ve had great success getting them to boot on systems that were refusing to boot anything else, AntiX is my go-to distro for bringing new life to old hardware, it works with literally anything you throw at it.
You need to try it. Don’t just roll it out in your business. Try it yourself before. Get an old/secondary computer and install it, try your templates and workflows. See which version (distribution) you like. Get your E-Mail connected and so on.
I can tell you Linux isn’t Windows or MacOS. For me, it works very well. I can do lots of things Windows users can not do or that are very cumbersome there, and I don’t have any advertisements or privacy issues. It respects my rights and freedoms as a user. And I’ve had way less issues with my printers and stuff than my windows-friends. I’ve never had a virus on my machine. I can’t tell you if it works for you.
I also don’t like selling it. It’s (arguably) better, faster and more user-friendly than Windows in many ways. But you need to find out if you can make use of it. One big factor against it would be familiarization with a different product. Except for that, I invite you to try it.
I’m also nervous about using an OS I’m not familiar with for business purposes right away.
Install the latest version of VMware Player (17.5) on your current OS, then install linux distros on virtual machines to figure things out first.
If you settle on any you like, make a full disk image backup, before repartitioning to install linux as a dual boot setup and try it on hardware that way.
Keep the Windows partition around, if nothing else just for games or apps that don’t work on linux, or as your backup working profession setup.
edit: some will recommend VirtualBox instead, but for me (on Windows at least) it always resizes on startup incorrectly and obscures part of the desktop, so I have to manually resize on every VM boot. VMware does it properly each time for me without issues.
Oh I’m aware the OS is free. The affordability I was asking for was for the actual computer to run it. I guess that part wasn’t Linux-specific. Mostly just looking for a good option for a work computer that will last a while. Will probably just get some kind of refurb laptop, I’ve always had good success with those.
But if someone has a specific recommendation I’m all ears.
If you are ever going to bring a Linux machine to display evidence, I would suggest going in and testing beforehand. Should be fine but always anticipate failures is my takeaway
The Lenovo Business Laptops always were super strong for me.
A bit on the heavy side (at least on the older models), but build like a tank and has an awesome keyboard.
But any halfway decent Laptop will run Linux fine.
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