“In before the “You should switch to Linux” crowd.”
My hard disc crashed on my windows 10 laptop. Downloaded Linux Mint on a USB memory stick and i’m now running the laptop with that stick.
It’s surprising how usable it is.
My motherboard crashed on my Linux Mint system so I used my hard drive reader and Linux HDD plugged into a USB port on my Win 7 system. It started up in Linux with no prompting. Let me keep going like nothing happened until I could replace that broken box. Installed the Linux HDD into the new (refurbished) system I found on sale for $69 and away I went with no extra work involved.
There are many reasons so many people praise Linux. It’s what Windows should have been.
I have Linux Mint v18.3 Cinnamon on a 256GB flashdrive, and it works great; still using Win-7 Pro x64, but keeping Linux in reserve.
I have windows 7 still running and now have a dual boot to Linux Mint. Both work well.