[GTALUG] Advice -- Building Debian 8 PC To Replace Win XP PC;

[Loui Chang]

On Mon 25 Jul 2016 10:47 -0400, Steve Petrie, P.Eng. via talk wrote:
> I'm working to replace an old Dell Windows XP SP3 PC with a new PC, booting
> Debian Linux 8 as the primary OS, with Win 7 set up to run under QEMU / KVM
> vbirtualization under Debian. A multi-boot setup will allow booting Windows
> 7 (OEM) on bare metal, if required for occasional use.  I definitely am NOT
> going to use MS Windows as the primary OS in my new desktop PC !!
> 
> I have almost no Linux / Unix experience.

After reading this thread for awhile I feel like I need to be some kind of voice
of reason here. I think it would be unwise to replace your main PC by struggling
with a new OS, struggling with hardware/build, etc.

My advice:
 - Get yourself an inexpensive off the shelf Windows 10 computer.
   Windows 10 isn't really the nightmare that Win 8 was in terms of UI.
   You should do just fine with it.
 - Use free and open source software on Windows as much as you can.
 - Here you can figure out how to export your emails into a free/universal format
 - If you still feel like trying Linux, then make yourself some Live USB flash
   drives to play around with.
 - etc...