Post by mslo79 on Jan 14, 2020 11:18:50 GMT
gameboy
I guess I tend to favor a bigger screen/more power/usability as using a touchpad on a laptop is a pain in the ass vs a mouse. so while a laptop beats a smart phone for general use, I think a desktop easily tops both overall especially if your using the touchpad on a laptop which is a chore to use. like a little use here and there is okay, but since I tend to really use my computers, a desktop is flat out superior. but I guess one could always get a actual mouse for their laptop and that would solve most of the issue and make the laptop close enough to the desktop then lacking screen size and probably less powerful to.
like outside of very basic stuff, I always prefer a proper desktop over anything else because they tend to be more powerful and you can really use them without it being a chore as typing on a smart phone is a pain in the @$$ vs a keyboard and a bigger screen is much easier on your eyes etc and with a laptop, while it mostly solves the typing issue on a smart phone, without a mouse, it's still mostly a pain to use unless your use of it is fairly brief.
Thanks for the Linux suggestion. My old desktop is in the garage. I used to think I would retrieve all the old info from it but it's been years and it's too much hassle now. I find a laptop is fine for around the house. You have mobility and you're not tied to a desk.
I guess I tend to favor a bigger screen/more power/usability as using a touchpad on a laptop is a pain in the ass vs a mouse. so while a laptop beats a smart phone for general use, I think a desktop easily tops both overall especially if your using the touchpad on a laptop which is a chore to use. like a little use here and there is okay, but since I tend to really use my computers, a desktop is flat out superior. but I guess one could always get a actual mouse for their laptop and that would solve most of the issue and make the laptop close enough to the desktop then lacking screen size and probably less powerful to.
like outside of very basic stuff, I always prefer a proper desktop over anything else because they tend to be more powerful and you can really use them without it being a chore as typing on a smart phone is a pain in the @$$ vs a keyboard and a bigger screen is much easier on your eyes etc and with a laptop, while it mostly solves the typing issue on a smart phone, without a mouse, it's still mostly a pain to use unless your use of it is fairly brief.
but yeah, you can even use a Linux Mint bootable USB stick (or DVD (if your old school 
)) to retrieve any data on your computer before you wipe the drive and install Linux to it. basically it's good for those situations where if someones Windows installation is totally out of whack but you still have important data you want to get off the hard drive before wiping it as you can boot with the Linux Mint thing, plug in another USB stick (or external hard drive etc) to it, then transfer important data to it before wiping it.
)) to retrieve any data on your computer before you wipe the drive and install Linux to it. basically it's good for those situations where if someones Windows installation is totally out of whack but you still have important data you want to get off the hard drive before wiping it as you can boot with the Linux Mint thing, plug in another USB stick (or external hard drive etc) to it, then transfer important data to it before wiping it.hell, at the very least... putting Linux Mint on your desktop would be good for situations where your doing higher sensitivity stuff online like banking etc as it's more secure than just about everything else be it Windows or Android/iOS or even Apple desktop computers (just about everything attacks Windows since it's dominate as it's roughly 87% of the desktop/laptop market share where as Linux is only around 2%). hell, you don't even need anti-virus software on Linux which says a lot and will free up resources especially if your CPU is a bit weak etc. NOTE: hell, for even extra security on Linux (it's already quite good by default though) one can run a program called 'Firejail' which is a sandbox program. so even if you got hit by a drive-by download (i.e. can infect your computer just from visiting a website), it's damage would be quite limited since even once it by-passed the browser, it would be pretty much stopped by the Firejail sandbox program as it would have to escape both your browser and the sandboxing program to gain access to anything sensitive on your computer and that's quite unlikely to happen. but anyways, you can keep your laptop/smart phone for lower sensitivity stuff and use the Linux computer for banking or credit card related etc. I also strongly recommend you never use the same password for multiple sites, especially higher sensitivity sites and especially be careful with your email since it can be used to reset a lot of your password for other accounts if some shady cyber criminal ever compromised it. that's why with a password manager, since it generates random password for each site you use, even if one site became compromised, your other sites would be uneffected. because with a password manager all you have to do is remember the master password and once you enter that it gives you access to a file stored on your computer which stores all of the other passwords to websites you use. but if you do use a password manager I strongly recommend you make backup copies of your password database file so if your computer's hard drive ever dies you won't be screwed as it would be a major chore to lose access to your password managers database file.
p.s. but if you do clean install say Linux Mint v19.3 it's a good idea to change from the default v5.0 kernel back to the v4.15. because v5.0 is only supported til Feb 2020 where as the v4.15, which is a LTS(long term support) kernel, will be supported for the life of Linux Mint v19.x, which is til the year 2023. but I won't explain how to do this for now as if you went to v19.3 I would tell you how to do it which is not hard. in Mint v19.2 and a bit prior, the default kernel was the LTS one. but they mostly shipped it with a newer kernel for those who use Mint on newer hardware since more recent hardware might not be supported by the v4.15 kernel where as with v5.0, like say ones hardware did not work with v4.15, and it does work with v5.0, in this case one can just upgrade to a newer kernel after Feb 2020. so even though that would work it's more of a pain because you got to keep up with the stuff where as if you can run v4.15 you ain't got to worry about it basically and just apply any updates as they come in the 'Update Manager'. because all system updates, your web browser and general security updates for the OS etc, all come through the 'Update Manager' and you have to manually allow them to install.