Earlier today, I decided I wanted to have my Windows 7 laptop dual-boot with Linux Mint. Riza, who is quite a bit more experienced in matters of Linux, mentioned that Mint isn't actually that great at dual-booting. Plus, there was that whole "manual partition" thing I couldn't quite get my head around. So, I asked myself how married I am to Windows 7.
The only reason I was keeping Windows 7 on that computer was because of emergency preparedness. Namely, FL Studio. If anything bad happened that resulted in the destruction of my studio computer, I could pivot over to my laptop in mid-stride. I even got a USB type-B cable to connect it to my Fantom-X and other MIDI controllers that use that standard. Yeah, music-writing was why I was keeping Windows 7 around. I certainly can't connect to the internet with it, which has been a point of contention between me and Mozilla for a while now. I wasn't using this computer for literally ANYTHING else. In fact, I haven't even turned it on for almost 3 months. So, why keep Windows 7 around on this computer?
TL;DR, My Windows 7 laptop is now a Debian laptop.
The experience installing Debian was a bit different than Linux Mint, but not so much so that it would trip you up, even if you're completely new to computers. The only thing that I found confusing was passwords. There are 2 separate passwords for Debian, and one of them is optional. In fact, if you set the first one, you make your UX more complicated. The first opportunity you get to set a password, it's for the superuser controls. "Oh, I'm a superuser!" No, you're really not. I'm not. Even Riza's not. The only time this would be beneficial to set is in a server environment where you needed to keep absolute control over software. For the average person, you don't need to set the first password. The second password is the one that you will use to log into your user account whenever you turn on your PC. You want to set that one.
In order to actually get Debian running on this, I used Ventoy. This is not required, but since Riza had a Debian ISO on there already, we just used it instead of my Linux Mint boot disk. Further to passwords, I accidentally wrote my first one down wrong, so I couldn't actually log into Debian once it was installed. Easily fixed: I just re-installed the OS. You can do that, you know-- re-installing operating systems. Microsoft, Apple, and all the computer makers make it sound like it's a terrible, complex process that you'll fuck up immediately and brick your computer forever and ever, but it's not. It's true that you can accidentally fuck something up, but you can do that with Windows and MacOS too. I say again, modern Linux distros are NOT universally technical. Some are, like Arch Linux, which is geared more toward people who like pain and suffering. But, most distro developers are trying to attract people who are tired of Microsoft and Apple's home computing duopoly.
Another potential vector for confusion is the large number of options Debian gives you when it comes to pre-installed software. Do you want GNOME? Do you want Xfce? MATE? Cinnamon? KDE Plasma? I used Xfce because I'm used to it from Linux Mint. Admittedly this version is different than Mint's but it's similar enough for me to have most of it figured out already. GNOME is the default selection.
Also, it gives you the option of automatically partitioning your hard drive for dual-booting with Windows (or another Linux distro) or completely overwriting the existing operating system. Like I said, I don't need Windows 7 on my laptop anymore, so I didn't do any partitioning. Technically, Linux Mint does this too, but you have to partition your disk manually. Some people are ok with that. I'm not.
I still have some more stuff to test and install, but hey! I have internet access on something that isn't my HP craptop now!