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last updated
9/23/20
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if you're looking for "leck linux" i stopped supporting it. i plan to work on artificial intelligence, but i've been focusing on work and other areas of my website. here is my ai page
http://www.lecksite.com/artificialintelligence.html
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"what is the best free operating system for what i will use my computer for and the best free operating system for my computer's hardware?". finding a balance between these took a lot of effort and time with a surprisingly simple solution. note that these instructions are for desktop and laptop computers only. if you want to install a free operating system on a mobile device, i do not have instructions on my website to do this. you are better off using a non free operating system on a mobile device anyway.
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dos is definitely the fastest and easiest of the free operating systems to install and use, but dos is extremely limited in what it can do. it's also very easy to install dos as your main operating system. i don't suggest using dos though. still i have installed dos as the only operating system myself, and you can see instructions at the bottom of this page if you wish to do dos, as well as more information about what dos can and cannot do.
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1. the first option is windows or mac. if you have one of these installed already, you probably want to stay with your operating system. if you don't consider yourself computer savy, or you already have windows 10 installed, look no further. you can save a lot of time and effort without trying linux and realizing it's better to know a lot about computers before using linux. linux does run faster than the leading operating systems, but even the best linuxes have slightly more bugs than the leading operating systems. linux is more secure from hacking and viruses than windows and macintosh, probably because the linux kernel is maintained by world class hackers with the intent to prevent hacking. windows cares about its servers being hacked, but not so much about its operating system being hacked. with the leading linuxes, even someone who is not a computer expert could install linux and use it competently. linux has made astonishing advancements in the last 2 decades from when linux became popular. linux is not text based anymore. less than 10% of computers use linux, so it's best to stay with windows if you have windows. i suggest linux over mac though.
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1. if you have the option between linux or a leading non free operating system there are 2 things to consider. first, are all the programs (applications) you want to use available for that operating system? just about every application is made for windows. for mac and linux you want to make sure the most important things you use your computer for can be used before you go through the trouble of installing an operating system. if you go to the website of each application you want to use, it will tell you somewhere on the website if it is designed for windows, mac, or linux. even though you can run old windows programs on linux, i would suggest not relying on this. there is a word processor which is free and better than microsoft office, so don't pay for windows simply for microsoft office. you can install linux for free and it will take less time to install linux and install linbreoffice than it would take to install windows and install microsoft office. there are comperable applications for everything in linux. every operating system is able to browse websites, watch youtube, look at webmail, and even use skype. video games or unusual application you want to make sure is designed for the operating system. generally adobe products do not work on linux, and are not free either. photoshop's alternative is gimp. the free and legal alternatives to paid software are almost exactly the same, so you couldn't tell if you were using the paid version or the free version for most software unless you look at the splash screen.
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2. assuming you are still interested in linux, there are 2 options in my opinion. i'm oversimplfying this explanation, so if you are a linux expert understand i am not clarifying everything i'm writing here. your choices in this order are
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1. linux mint (not the debian version)
2. ubuntu
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i used to have debian on this page, but i removed it. i don't suggest using debian anymore for several reasons.
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3. you need to check if the graphic's card will work with the linux you selected. the best way to do this is to go to the graphic's card's website. if it's an old computer you don't really need to do this. even the generic graphics driver should be fine with older computers. if it's a computer made in the last 5 years you want to check to make sure the graphics card is supported in your version of linux by going to the graphic card website (nvidea, radeon, intel, etc)
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4. download the free operating system you decided upon
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Linux mint (32bit last version is 19.3)
http://www.linuxmint.com/
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ubuntu
https://www.ubuntu.com/
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Dos
http://www.lecksite.com/linux.html#dos
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5. burn the .iso installer to a cd or usb.
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linux installers are designed to be burned to cds or dvds and installed to computers that way. unless otherwise noted, assume install isos are for a cd or dvd. cdburnerxp http://cdburnerxp.se is easy software which works on every version of windows every time to burn bootable images (isos) on cds or dvds. if you want to use a usb flash drive to install linux, you can use an iso designed for a cd and use 'rufususb' to switch out the boot sector in the iso and put a boot sector which boots the usb flash drive. make sure you select the option to switch (download) the boot sector when rufususb prompts you, or it won't work. again this is for isos (cd images) not designed to be booted from a usb. 90% will still work if you overwrite the boot sector. linux mint works this way. debian might or might not work this way. debian may have instructions how to create a bootable usb. it's easier to use a cd or dvd if you have access to one. not all computers have the ability to boot from a cd or dvd.
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6. install linux. i'm not going to go into detail about this. generally you want to have a connection to the internet via a wire when you install linux, but if the linux recognizes your wireless card and connects you to a wireless network, you don't need a wire. less people use wires for interenet every year. there is no danger installing nonfree software at all (there is a security risk installing ppas, but you will be warned by linux before you install ppas). i don't really need to explain what to do after linux is installed. if you are installing debian it usually requires additional drivers to be downloaded and installed manually after you install debian.
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if you get the 'not a com32r image' error when you try to boot from the usb or cdrom, simply type 'live' after 'boot:' you can install via the live linux session.
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7. assuming everything works, you are a linux user! you don't need to input commands in text form like you had to in the 1990s. since 2005 linux has been able to use a mouse and keyboard without inputting any text commands. of course it's nice to know how to know linux commands when using linux, but it's not neccessary nowadays. if something goes wrong with linux you can simply reinstall linux to fix it. most people don't know dos even though windows pretty much does everything in dos, and the same is becoming more true with linux as time goes on.
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linux mint
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i'm not sure how many people actually will read this, so i'm writing this section in a way more for myself than others. if it's difficult to understand or incomplete, that is why.
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if you get gconf errors after installing linux mint when using sudo apt-get update, try
sudo apt install gconf-defaults-service
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install pavucontrol if audio stops working in linux pauvcontrol allows you to change audio settings graphically add to linux page
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all you have to do is install samba and file sharing will work.
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to remove the password when logging on you go to 'menu, administration, users and groups' and add your account to all the groups.
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if a package isn't in .deb you need to do this to change it to .deb
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install "alien" with synaptic
close synaptic and in root terminal copy and paste below
alien "package path and name without quotes"
example alien /home/fedoraprogram.fed
look in your "\home" folder for the .deb package
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to install a .deb package
dpkg -i "package path and name without quotes" example dpkg -i /home/fedoraprogram.deb
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sometimes you need recursion to download a package or you need to compile with the instructions included within the package you downloaded. i am not going to explain how to do this, because it is way too complicated to explain. most software you need to compile manually comes with instructions. you need to use recursion if the person who made the application does not package it.
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vlc is the only thing you need to play audio and video files. vlc will also play music cds, video dvds, and video blurays.
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install vlc. i suggest uninstalling all other media players so debian doesn't get confused. you can use synaptic to uninstall.
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to take a screenshot. i think the application to take scdreenshots is included in mint, but if not, install screenshot
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brasero or k3b will burn cds dvds and blurays.
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kdenlive will edit video
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pinta will edit pictures.
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to install and uninstall software use synaptic package manager. you can alternatively use the command line if synaptic does not have the software you need in its repositories.
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playonlinux allows you to play almost any game made just for windows on linux. most of the games have preinstalled versions you can simply select and playonlinux installs for you. steam has a few games made for linux, and steam is easy to set up for linux mint. you don't need to pay for anything. it just takes a few minutes of searching if something isn't working, on websites and forums how to get it to work in linux.
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DOS anchor link
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dos is the best and most popular text only operating system. almost every computer made from 1990-2010 has dos as the "parent" operating system (after 2010, computers and mobile devices use proprietary text based oses or C in the boot process instead of dos). probably the best use for dos is the ability to format hard drives in any way (wipe hard drives and set them up). windows usually does not let you do this except in the "windows" file format (ntfs) unless you download additional software. dos seems to avoid a lot of the other problems with formatting hard drives and flash drives too.
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dos is not owned by microsoft anymore. if you use dos you will have virtually your entire computer's speed. dos is really only useful if your computer is too slow to use debian/mint, or you are unable to install any other operating system. you will not be able to use over 90% of the programs made for windows and you cannot browse the internet using a web browser (you can't use google but you can use the internet in other ways). initially dos can only use a keyboard. you only have about 100 commands initially with dos. running dos as your main operating system would only be good for a few purposes. you can connect to the internet using dos, but it would be easier just to use linux. see below for instructions to install dos. (yes you need to "install" dos as your operating system unless you are using a very old computer)
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to install the ms dos operating system as your only operating system you will want to download a full installer from the link below. to just try dos you can use a windows vista/7 or xp installation cd. for a vista/7 cd, press shift+F10 as soon as it loads. for windows xp, there are a number of different ways to access dos, the easiest being a full install of windows xp, and use a command prompt after you start up the operating system. the link to download a full installer of ms dos is: (you'll need to burn the iso to a cd or make a boot usb) http://www.syschat.com/download60.html&act=down (latest version 7.1)
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dosbox is the preferred way to run dos inside another operating system
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