1. What is a good antivirus/security system?
2. If I buy Mint on a DVD that comes with one of those $18 magazines they sell at the bookstores in the UK and US, Can it install properly without erasing my files? Or should I save the files to another drive (or make another partition for just my files) format the drive, and install the new OS?
3. Or should I just sell the laptop before it becomes worthless?
Hmm.. laptop.. many ways to go about your situation.. BEST, is to pull your HD and put a new one in (saves your old information)..
OK... Just to let you know, you do NOT have to buy NAY Linux OS.. and Anti-virus options are always there.. but I have never had to use one (yet).. (and I have been on computers since 1980.. there are a few here that have been on them before me....)..
How do you install it? i got windows 7
1. Linux’s security features are best left to advanced users. Most Linux distributions are pre-configured so that everyday users don’t need to worry about security. No antivirus is necessary.
2. If you’re switching distributions, you should wipe your hard disk. If easy upgrades are important to you, then you may want to reconsider using Mint since, if memory serves me correctly, it cannot be “upgraded” from one version to the next. Its developers recommend wiping your hard drive and installing from scratch.
If you still want to move to Mint, copy your /home folder to a storage device and make a list of packages that are installed on your computer. Then, install the latest version of Mint, copy over your /home folder, and install the packages that were on your former system.
At work, I’m trying to push Ubuntu as an alternative to Mac. Here’s an article I saved that should go over most of what I just wrote: http://askubuntu.com/questions/111236/how-to-migrate-the-whole-system-to-a-new-machine
3. If it’s just for basic Web browsing and other trivial tasks, an HP laptop like that will be fine. You might as well try to get it work because I can already tell you that it’s worthless on the market.
Source: I’m a system administrator. Ask away.