Why I moved over to Linux (Part 1)

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Ok, so this is planned to be the first in a (probably short) series of posts covering why my fancy laptop is now running Linux.

To give you a bit of background, I currently have 2 computers in current use at home: a 10 year old Dell that, with a few choice hardware upgrades over the years, is still going strong. This is running Windows 10 1903 and is currently suggesting I update to 1909. I am hesitant to do this because...

My other PC is a fairly fancy, super-slim Acer laptop that I bought about 5 years ago. This had Windows 8 point something installed on arrival, but thankfully the free Windows 10 upgrade arrived soon after the laptop did. All was well. Until May last year when Windows 10 1903 dropped, promptly disabled the audio and broke Windows Update.

Having a but of a tech background, I managed to get the audio up and running again, but Update was bust, so no security updates, etc. Far from ideal. When the 1909 update arrived in November I went through the whole manual update thing. Which broke the audio again and Update was still bust. So I left the thing alone for a bit.

Two weeks off over Christmas gives me the chance to faff around with things. So out came the laptop again and, patience with Windows long gone, I reached for a USB stick and had a look at options.

I've always had a bit if a soft spot for Ubuntu, having run it on a couple of older machines in the past. It was time to have another look and I came across a version that I hadn't heard of before: Ubuntu Studio.

This is an official version of Ubuntu that has been around for years, apparently, and it seemed like a good fit. It is aimed at creatives and comes pre-loaded with all sorts of software for audio production, graphics, video, etc, etc. I had already been thinking that I actually wanted to do something creative during 2020, and what does a techie type do to prepare for new things? Installs an operating system.

So that was that, Windows was ungraciously binned and replaced with Ubuntu Studio 19.10. It installed no problem and everything just worked, including the audio and updates.

A good start, but would it last?

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