Linux migration

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Summary

Linux used to be considered as difficult and only suitable for geeks, but modern flavours are very easy to use, following traditional Windows or Mac paradigms, and installation is usually trouble-free.

Linux Migration

First of all it's good to consider what sort of “flavour” you want. Linux Mint will be very easy to use for anyone familiar with Windows pre-Windows 8. Ubuntu is popular but has an interface designed to be equally applicable to mobile and touch-screen devices in the same way as Windows 8, and so may take more getting used to.

If you want the lightest and least resource-hungry system to make your older hardware really fly again, Lubuntu is a very small and effective option. Puppy Linux is still lighter-weight and suitable even for a laptop dating from the '90s. However, it does have a slight quirk in that you single-click on things to launch them where you would double-click in Windows, and hence you can very easily find yourself with two browser windows where you only wanted one!

Most Linux distributions are designed to run directly from a CD or USB stick as a “live installation”. This enables you to try out the operating system before you commit to installing it. If you have sufficient disk space you may be able to install Linux alongside your existing operating system and boot into whichever you want while you get used to things and copy across your data. Alternatively, if you have an external USB hard disk or an old hard disk which you can put in a USB caddy (from around £10 only on eBay) then you can install Linux on that, and maybe swap it for your internal hard drive when you're ready to leave your old operating system behind.

Supported applications

Different distros come with different sets of applications but the basics are pretty much always included or easily installed from a repository. Specifically:

• OpenOffice or LibreOffice (an offshoot of OpenOffice) provide word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software broadly compatible with Microsoft Office but with an interface modelled on Office2003, i.e. no ribbon. Compatibility with Microsoft Office is good for simple documents but more complex features including advanced formatting, diagrams and pictures may cause problems.
• Firefox is normally the default web browser, but Chromium (a Linux version of Chrome) is also available. BBC iPlayer works fine.
• Thunderbird is provided as the email client if you want to store email locally instead of using webmail.
• One of several media players is normally included but you're not limited to the one you're given.
• Powerful graphics editing to rival Photoshop is offered by The Gimp, but it can take a fair bit of getting used to.
• Skype is available.

Unsupported applications

The following may not be available:

• Unlike Outlook, Thunderbird doesn't include calendar and appointments functionality, and if you use another application calendar sync with a mobile device or cloud service such as Gmail may not be available.
• Not all printer manufacturers provide Linux support. The same is likely to be true for scanners and other peripherals.
• iTunes is not available.
• If you use the programs that come with cameras, satnavs, phones, these may not be available in Linux variants.
• A much more limited range of games is available.

Some simple Windows applications may run successfully under the Wine Windows emulator, but this is by no means guaranteed.

External links

• External links as bullet points