Oh, I didn’t mean to be mysterious with shit, lol. Just basic torrents of TV shows and movies, haha. (Never went the streaming route, kept sailing the high seas.) I might download a book once in a while, but that’s actually on my main.
I use VLC and Media Player Classic as my main video players on Windows, so VLC should be ok and if it isn’t I’m sure I can find something else (I know MPC is Windows only).
I only do mobile games, not PC games, so not a concern for me there.
I don’t trust myself with swapping out hardware, but maybe one day that might be an option for me, lol.
Why would it be an issue to download a program if it’s not for Windows or Mac? So long as there’s a Linux-based option that works with your version, that is. There is one program I use multiple times a week that I doubt would be on any basic install package and the only place to find it is online. (Not an issue for the computer I’ll be trying it out on as it’s not my main, but if I find a version of Linux I like a put it on my main then it’s something I’d have to consider.)
The sound of virtual machines on my main doesn’t sit well with me. If I do something and brick my main laptop I’m fucked and I can’t replace it and some of the programs I use won’t run at all/run well on my old Windows 8 machine because it doesn’t have the processing power. (I got a gaming laptop so I could have the video processing I needed for video editors to not take a day to render a 15min video on Windows 10, never mind and older Windows 8 laptop. sigh) Experimentation and tech FAFO’ing will happen on the Windows 8! lol
I’ve seen Pop!OS come up in a few comments here, so if I don’t end up liking Mint maybe I’ll try that one out next. :)
Right now that laptop is just being used to download stuff and on occasion I connect it to my TV to play a video, but it’s really not often I do that. I’d still download stuff and then play around with basic everyday stuff on it to make sure I’m happy with it since that’s mostly what I do on my main.
End game would be to switch my main to Linux if I like it. Beyond basic, everyday stuff that most people do, I edit videos on my main. That’s about it.
Omg, Tremors…I haven’t watched it in years. That was such a good movie.
A Windows computer I had got massively fucked once like, 15ish years ago. No idea what happened. No new downloads or installs, I hadn’t done anything different from any computer I’ve had before or since, just one day it stopped and it wasn’t even that old, two years tops. Not a custom build, straight outta the box from Best Buy (maybe even Future Shop it was so long ago). My friend couldn’t tell me what happened when they figured out how to get it at least booting up again. Only time it’s happened. It was weeeeeeeiiiiird.
Glad to know about the performance boost. :)