Understandable, but it’s a significant diifculty in migrating fully to Linux when PDFs are used everywhere and there are solutions that work well on Windows. This is one of the few things I will get my wife’s Windows laptop for.
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Cake day: July 21st, 2023
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OpenSUSE doesn’t get recommended enough. Great distro I’ve settled with permanently after trying all the popular ones.
I’ve been through a lot of options trying to get the same functionality you mentioned. I’ve never found a single app that works particularly well. I’m surprised the state of PDF apps is so poor in Linux. Others have mentioned a bunch of apps and each fails in some major way. I’ll come back and check this comment section later for new suggestions for my own sake too.
Linux Mint is the common suggestion and a solid option.
I tried a lot of distros myself and I’m 10 months into switching to Linux. My personal suggestion would be OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
You can also have a look at suggestions here: https://distrochooser.de/
We have Linux workstations at work…and these can only be used to access a remote desktop of a Windows 10 virtual machine. 👍
My wife’s HP laptop does this as well (she is running Windows). A previous laptop did this and a BIOS update fixed it. For most laptops the official response from manufacturers seems to be: eat shit.
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”
The only way to make sure Linux works like that is to have a closed hardware environment. But it has to play nicely with other hardware and services (e.g. printers, webcams, etc + office documents, etc). It has taken a very long time for MacOS to get to this point, but people put up with Mac compromises because enough things worked smoothly.
I’ve just commented about this in another thread…but I’m pretty convinced that Linux is not close to being ready for normies.
I know it has the ability to, but I don’t recommend it. I’ve recently commented on this so I’ll paste it here:
DO NOT dual boot as a beginner. I did this when I started and would screw up something with the bootloader and be unable to boot one of the OSs (data can still be copied off, but installed app data isn’t easily recovered). Being a noob at the time, I even accidentally wiped the wrong drive during a distro hop.
For a beginner I would recommend you remove your Windows SSD and keep it safe in a drawer. Or clone the drive first. Then you can mess around all you want while keeping your original SSD safe.if the data and OS/app installs are valuable then don’t fuck around learning a new system with the drive in situ. Certainly don’t try to learn to partition and dual boot off the same drive. The noob risk is just too high.
In order to use dual boot, one must be able to set up dual boot. This guide is addressed towards people who have never used Linux.
If you’re lucky enough to have more than one device, then I’d just say use Linux on your secondary device. I used my Steam Deck as my PC for a month before I made the change.
I fully support people playing around and possibly soft-breaking their things just for the heck of it.
Search is great?
One of my biggest issues with Thunderbird is that I can never find emails I want.
DO NOT dual boot as a beginner. I did this when I started and would screw up something with the bootloader and be unable to boot one of the OSs (data can still be copied off, but installed app data isn’t easily recovered). Being a noob at the time, I even accidentally wiped the wrong drive during a distro hop.
For a beginner I would recommend you remove your Windows SSD and keep it safe in a drawer. Or clone the drive first. Then you can mess around all you want while keeping your original SSD safe.if the data and OS/app installs are valuable then don’t fuck around learning a new system with the drive in situ. Certainly don’t try to learn to partition and dual boot off the same drive. The noob risk is just too high.
I used eBay so I could get a refund if the laptop wasn’t as advertised. I spent weeks looking at new listings looking for a good deal. I eventually found an amazing deal from a hospice that was selling excess stock. I’ve worked in a hospice before and know this would have only ever been used sparingly in an office and be very well looked after.
On eBay I would avoid anyone who hasn’t written out a complete description and detailed pictures of condition and specifics. Like the other comment says, the BIOS being unlocked is very important. Read descriptions carefully. People fall victim to buying expensive things that can’t be returned because it was mentioned in the listing (e.g. buying a box only for a very expensive price). For any laptop I find, I search for forum posts from other users about how that model works with Linux and videos for a teardown to make sure that RAM, WiFi module, etc can be upgraded. Make sure the charger is included.
Search eBay for “8th Gen 13 inch 16GB”, then sort by lowest price for buy-it-now. That’s what I did for a number of weeks. Got one for myself and a great one for my dad as well. Good experience both times.
I’ve just been through the process you’ve described and bought a laptop. Your budget is way overkill for your use (documents, browsing, video watching).
I recently bought myself a “like new” second hand Dell Latitude (5300, I think), 8th gen i7, 16GB Ram for £150 and it is amazing with OpenSUSE.
I got my wife a new HP Aero 13 (Ryzen) a couple of years ago and even that was £580 brand new and has been great.
Consider the secondhand market. A lot of laptops will meet your criteria.
Synology NAS, Wifi 6 router and Plex have been a fantastic life upgrade for me.
A 128 or 256 GB SSD or NVME drive costs £10 to £15 on eBay used. I would buy one and put Windows on it when sending back for warranty repair. OP should actually just do this for the BIOS update and then swap out the SSD back to the Linux one after.
Windows 10. Last time I used Windows at home was in January. I’ve completely de-googled and was looking to get rid of as much privacy invasion as I could.
So what’s your reasoning for the change to the reliable and funni penguin OS?
I sold my laptop and was waiting for a good deal on PC parts. I was using my Steam Deck as my full time PC and had a really good experience. Decided to try Linux full time on the new PC.
Honestly, I’ve tried Linux many times previously (last was a year prior) and could never get over troubleshooting problems. The online community helped sometimes. Other times they told me go look up how to compile my own drivers and I got stuck. I would say the whole reason I’ve been able to change permanently has been down to AI. Now when I get stuck, ChatGPT just tells me how to fix a problem in 2 or 3 commands. Once the initial setup was done and I solved the setup problems, I don’t have to go back to AI at all anymore.
It might be an interesting project to hardware mod it to gut it and replace internally with an R.Pi.
Excellent choice. I did the same last year. I’m still on Tumbleweed.