Got an old laptop from a friend I’d like to rejuvenate, the plan is to set up a light distro so it wouldn’t be as slow as it is right now with windows 10.

Now, I’m aware windows updates can fuck up a dual boot system, so i have a few questions about how to minimize the threat of that happening.

What i think of doing is running a few scans to check the disk, then setting up Linux Mint, because it is beginner friendly, and (relatively) light weight.

What I’d need help with is trusted guides and also tips for setting up dual booting, I’m sure I’ll need to do disk partitioning and I’ve done that before but I’d still want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.

Any help would be welcome.

  • Danitos@reddthat.com
    1·
    1 month ago

    Thanks for telling me lol. I remember sharing your enthusiasm when I started.

    If you don’t mind me sharing, here are some tools I use the most in the console:

    • htop: resource monitoring and process killing. Mint has a GUI alternative
    • btop: better resource monitoring, but worse process killing than htop.
    • lazygit: amazing interface for git. Seems hard to get started, but IMO, not at all. There are GUI alternatived.
    • tmux: multiple consoles and console manager. A bit hard to get started.
    • nano: text editor. Reeaaaallly simple to use, prefer it over emacs and vi/vim.
    • grep: you already know this one.
    • cronjobs/crontab: allows you to run periodical commands. Say, a cleanup script all days at 7:08 AM.

    Also, some GUI programs I love:

    • KDE Connect: device pairing with your cellphone and PC. Includes remote mouse input, multimedia control and file sharing.
    • Steam: Almost all the games I play on Steam run flawlessly on Linux.
    • Stellarium: astronomy/planetary app.

    Pick your poison lol. If you don’t mind, we can start talking via ptivate message.