Q4OS Forum

gettingintolinux

Member

Registered: 2018-06-27

Posts: 1

Installing Linux for first time, some novice questions

I have never installed Linux before and have a old Vistas Computer that still works but is used for mainly email, web.  It has a lot of old data that I have backed up but would like to keep it on this computer for some time if I need it for old records if possible.

While there are many choices out there, one person recommended Q4OS so I am interested in trying this out as my Firefox browser will not support Vistas any more, but have some novice questions
1) Do I need to clean out all the hard drives, ,make sure I have another back up and then install Q4OS?
2) Following up do I need to remove Windows or will Q4OS just write over Windows or do they co-exist?
3) Can I down load and install or should I burn a CD and then try the install.

Thanks, any suggestions will be appreciated

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,992

Re: Installing Linux for first time, some novice questions

1. It is always best advice to perform a backup and an extra one might be useful (just in case) You do not need to clean all the HDD's (see next point)

2. Q4OS can co-exist with Windows (and other Linux distributions) without problems (usually) but if you intent to remove Windows anyway it would likely be easier to do this beforehand.

3. I always advise downloading the Live-Cd image (it's the one I always use) as you can test it out to ensure your system will function properly before committing to a full install. I use usb sticks for this as it is much easier (IMO) than burning CD-Roms/DVD's.

I would probably advise keeping Windows for now as you will need to make sure you can import all of your data to Linux before removing windows and then finding out there is some application or file that has been forgotten.

There are a couple of things I will mention for you to do/check before re-sizing Windows or installing Q4OS.

1. Remove any old applications from Windows that you do not use and generally strip out anything you don't need.

2. From Windows perform a disc cleanup and full defragmentation, this will make it much easier/quicker to get everything else done, especially resizing your HDD partitions to make room for Q4OS.

This may take some time and I can understand if you do not want to go through all that (I remember how long it used to take back in the day) but it can make quite a difference later on. Obviously if you are going to simply remove Windows then these steps are not going to be useful.

I also have a guide to instaling Q4OS which you might find useful to look through.

Oh, just one more thing, Welcome to the Forum