Wondering if GNU/Linux is worth investigating? Check out retired educator, Bob Irving’s account:
All of my peripherals just worked, which is a far cry from what I remember about my earlier forays into linux. Wifi – check. Mouse – check. Keyboard – almost check (bluetooth doesn’t work with grub). Printer – check. Webcam – check minus. Don’t know if that’s a Firefox issue or something else, but I’ve only been able to get it reliably working (Google Meet) on the Windows side with Chrome.
Got backing up working to my Google Drive with rclone. Have to do it manually, and that’s not ideal, but it’s ok for now.
Bought a sub-$100 Thinkpad for my on-the-go machine and put LM on it. Works great, but now I have to come up with a solution for syncing with the desktop, and syncthing is next on my scary list of stuff to set up.
Although I’ve been using GNU/Linux off and on for years since a colleague introduced me as a way to rehabilitate old equipment, and run free, open source software like Apache, MySQL, PHP to host websites for work, it’s always a bit of a challenge. That’s because the experience varies from computer to computer. UEFI is a four letter word (or was for awhile), but I’ve enjoyed the experience of GNU/Linux on Ubuntu, Peppermint, and variants of those, as well as Linux Mint.
The last is my favorite OS these days, especially on an old Surface (personal) and Lenovo W540 (work, dual boot with Windows 10). While I had to buy a <$30 USB webcam, I can at least use the Surface book as my primary Linux machine.
SyncThing
I’ve mentioned SyncThing before, and it’s great. I use it to keep my iOS smartphone in sync with Windows 11 and Linux Mint machines. Set up on all of them was fairly straightforward, although I did have to pay for an iOS app to get the job done.
You know, when I started down this road so many years ago, my goal was simply to get that old HP scanner connected to my obsolete bondi iMac. I’m grateful I did.