Pureos download to a dell

Software
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Hi,

I have a Dell laptop I’d like to switch out the microsoft operating system to Pure OS or something else… is it easy to do.. a techie but learning…. I’m worried I will lose the ability to edit and create digital content…

I guess that is a second question about which apps will work.

Has anyone converted a dell or the like to pureos.. how did it go, any tips, etc… TY

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Which Dell Laptop, if I may ask?

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I had a Dell laptop and what I did was to clean up Windows stuff, back it all up to another external HDD, then create a small partition for a dual boot.
Installed PureOS. and I could boogie between the two until I was OK with just the PureOS version.

It worked fine, but installation and drivers was hard part. The pro’s here might be able to tell you more if you give them the style and model number of the laptop.

BTW, I used it for about a month sans important stuff but because it was a experiment, I rarely use it. It’s just a slow system not designed for a old Dell. It was Windows 7. RIP Windows.

~s

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About a year ago I installed PureOS on a Dell G5 5000 gaming pc bought at a best buy down the street. This was a little bit more involved than reinstalling PureOS on my Librem 14, or installing PureOS on the PC tower that I built with parts from Micro Center several years back.

I think I had to go into the BIOS settings and turn off the Secure Boot, as well as a few other things, that Dell and Microsoft sort of conspire together to use to make it harder to put Linux on a “standard issue” machine.

In my particular instance, I also chose to swap out the hard drive for this, so that I was not nuking the original Windows install and could go back to it if the need arose. However, I later found that when I finally did put the Windows nVME chip back into the machine, the Windows nVME chip went into a very haywire state that I know from experience with other machines has nothing to do with PureOS so I am uncertain what caused it. It might’ve been Dell but it might have also been user error.

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I recommend that you do a Linux Live Boot. That will enable you to

  • verify whether any particular distro of Linux will work at all on your chosen hardware, and
  • understand what limitations, if any, might apply, and
  • gain more experience with Linux

all without stuffing up or changing in any way your existing Windows install.

If that looks promising then I would install Linux on an external disk unless you specifically need to use the laptop running Linux while out and about. After a while, if still satisfied, I would then swap the roles of Windows and Linux i.e. change to Windows on external disk and Linux on internal disk - assuming of course in this paragraph that your laptop only has one internal disk.

PureOS may not be the best choice of distro for random unspecified hardware because the hardware may require drivers or firmware that are intentionally excluded from PureOS for security reasons.

What kind of digital content?

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As far as making “content,” I have done the following with my Librem 14 using software readily available in PureOS package managers:

  • Changed desktop display environment to my liking (MATE desktop)
  • Recorded videos using obs (camera, audio, activity on the computer screen recorded to video)
  • Edited videos using kdenlive (videos originally recorded from OBS)
  • Edited audio using Audacity - the PureOS package managers ship an older version from before the software was bought by the Muse Hub and contaminated with bad licensing and/or spyware, so unlike what you might find if you download “new” versions of Audacity, the one on PureOS Byzantium worked great for me. Unsure if this will remain true in Crimson or Dawn
  • I edited CAD files using FreeCAD in order to 3D print custom stuff for my phone.
  • Image editing and easily playing with 2D graphics using GIMP
  • Developing and playing 3D game experiences using “open source” tools that are maybe not “up-to-par” with PureOS freedom and security goals, but which were long running projects I had started in my life on other operating systems prior to my move to PureOS (for example, LibGDX game engine for rendering and Eclipse IDE for code editing)
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If you want to try anyway, I recommend to install the necessary packages from Debian. With a few tricks (mainly adding the necessary Debian repository to a sources.list file (basically a file where you tell your OS “that’s where I want to get my software from“)), things should also work on a Dell Laptop.

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