Bobert, I am proud of both you and your wife.

It is a mental leap of faith to kill Microchoke.  

I remember back when I did it (with fear and trembling).   Back then it was a good bit harder to do, now-a-days it is a piece of cake comparatively.

All you "maybe, someday" folks need to jump in now and TALK to Bobert, not only did he just do it, he gave the sole piece of what his wife wanted back to her using Wine.

As such, he is our star right now -- talk to him.

Yep, I track the upswing in Chrome/Andromeda vs the failures of Win 10 -- but I do it on an old converted Dell box running Linux Mint Mate 18.

So yeah, there is a reality split between the tracking and the doing, even for me.

Nobody can even get real numbers on the folks going over to Linux Mint, as it is all hidden by MS decree and can only be reported if it is a "pure Linux install" because if you leave Windows on your machine anywhere,  even in a gaming partition, you get counted as a Windows machine.

Linux installations are admitted to have doubled in the last year, but that is held as all smoky and dubious as the tracking companies do a big business with MS and they get paid Micky dollars to report things Micky's way because Micky is paying for the reports.

I wouldn't attempt a full linux install on an important computer that you can't immediately live without. For sure, all your data files need to be backed up, as a full install (not a dual-boot install) will WIPE your disk of all data. I would suggest starting with a dual-boot install to get your feet wet. You can choose how to install linux on your disk during the install.

The wife's laptop has the UEFI secure boot feature, the first time I have had to mess with this. It is on newer computers and it locks out the capability of booting from alternate devices like a DVD or USB stick, which is how you begin a linux install. You would need to research how to bypass UEFI to allow an alternate boot. It can vary from vendor to vendor. In my case, with a Linux MINT install USB stick in place, I could hold the shift key down while clicking on "restart" while in Windows. I THINK I could have also allowed an alternate device boot from a cold start by holding down the shift key while pressing the power button. Your mileage may vary.

Once booted from the Mint 18 USB and running the Mint install, it knew that UEFI was there. It asked if I wanted to turn it off after the install was complete and asked for a password. Later in the install it asked to turn it off and asked for the password before doing so.

Other than the UEFI thing, installing linux is simple, just following prompts.

As I said above, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND installing as a dual-boot first. That way you can play with it while still being able to boot to Windows to get your normal work done. This also allows you to play with the linux applications that are alternatives to Windows programs for office, music and multimedia apps. Be aware that there will be work to do to migrate things like music libraries to the new apps. One cool thing is that linux (at least Ubuntu) mounts your Windows partition as an external storage device so can access files on your Windows filesystem.

You can also see if you can run any must-needed Windows-only apps under the Wine emulator.

Just a note. I use Apple iTunes to back up the family iPhones offline. iTunes does not run under Wine. That is why for now I still need either a Windows or Mac computer and cannot go full linux on all my computers.

When I reinstalled from dual-boot to Ubuntu only, I backed up all my data files to an external USB hard drive using the supplied backup tool. After reinstalling linux, I used the backup tool to restore my data files. BAM!, that was simple.

Just to reiterate, you may need to be a little geeky to pull this off. If your computing needs are mostly web surfing and web email, migrating is simple. In a simple case like this, going to a Chromebook might be a better option. If you are doing this to an important computer, I would certainly go dual-boot first until you are comfortable with linux. I ran dual-boot for a year just in case until I discovered that I hadn't booted into Windows for over three months. And I didn't do this on my most important household computer. I would still be hesitant to do this if this was my ONLY computer.

Sorry to be ramble so much in this post. I have found out with computers that there are always a multitude of maybes, "in this case" and exceptions to be aware of.

IF YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF A WINDOWS MACHINE, YOU CAN LOAD A LINUX.


Isn't the Reason for loading Linux pretty much Because the Windows machine is
Pardon the pun
Such a pane?