A new operating system

I've got a touch of Blackbird's trouble. I woke up at 2.00am for a comfort break & couldn't get back to sleep because my brain wouldn't switch off (or go to sleep anyway) so I got up at 4.30 & here I am.

I've been thinking about installing Linux for a while because Windows continually gets up my nose. This new computer is Windows 11 & I set it up to my satisfaction but not to Microsoft's apparently so it regularly tells me to finish the installation by joining the cloud & sharing everything amongst all my devices of which I only have one - this one!
It obviously wants to know what I'm doing.
When I got this one I decided to clean up my old Windows 7 machine which still works as well as it ever did & reinstall Windows 7. A couple of years after I got it, it picked up a virus or something which no anti-virus software could clear so I bought an installation disk & reformatted the hard drive & reinstalled windows. So I reformatted it again & reinstalled Windows 7 from this disc. Everything went OK until I tried to register it with the code that came with it. But now of course Microsoft have dropped Windows 7 so it keeps telling me the code is invalid & the phone service has been dropped.
Now it keeps telling me I may have pirated software & am at risk! Of course everything works but I keep getting a warning message. I looked on the internet & found a command to disable it but that command cannot be found on my computer.

So I intend to install Linux on it when I have established that LaserGRBl will work on it as I now only use it to run my laser cutter. My son uses Linux at work so I'll have him for help.

EDIT
I've quickly looked into running LaserGRBL on Linux & it appears that it can but it won't generate the G-code file for cutting, that still needs to be done in Windows, so it appears to be a non-starter.

 

As someone who has been running various Linux & Mac mostly for years with the odd hours on Windows...

I have gradually moved to running Windows (W10 mostly) as a 'virtual computer' on my Linux or OSX main
computers.  Within that virtual instance of Windows I do the few things that only work on W.
Installing W is essentially the same except that I don't tend to register the W or tell it I have a MS account.
Once up and running I use the virtual machine software to make a 'clone' of the working Windows and put that
huge file somewhere in case W gets corrupted or MS changes the rules of the game.

Virtual W is slightly slower.  It takes up disk space but for the 95% of the time I don't need it, it is not running.
It is minimal hassle getting files between the Windows and the main operating system your computer normally runs.
The virtual W does not have to be connected to the web, or can be connected only briefly.

Might be something to talk to you Linux savvy friends about.  There is some investment of time getting
used to Linux (just as there is getting used to a new 3D printer or getting used to a different Tx.

For context: Most of the time the 'virtual machine' software I use is called "Parallels" and I use it to host guest W10 and Linux
operating systems on my Mac.  There are several free virtual machine software options for a computer running Linux to
host Windows.  But you can flip the idea... if you want to 'explore' Linux you could setup of Linux virtual machine on
your W computer and see what that is like.  If it irritates you then you can get rid of it and try a different Linux.

I bought this W11 machine because the graphics card I bought for my Flight Simulator wouldn't work on the W7 machine, otherwise I would have just stuck with it.

My M.O. is to design the part on LibreCad then export it as an SVG file which I then pick up in LaserGRBL, & there I save it as a G-code file. I then transfer it to my W7 machine for the cutting. When it is saved in LaserGRBL the feedrates and laser intensity are set in the F & S values. Before the burn I set the S value down to S100 in notepad to prove the program then up it to the cutting value. I can also turn the feedrate down if something is not right & see where it is happening as the laser scampers all over the place & not in a predictable order.
To get the SVG & G-code files into the W7 I can either carry it down on a USB stick or email it to myself there.

I program my Raspberry Pi in Ubuntu. It is abit peculiar but I was reared on DOS & have done machine code & android programming in the past so it is quite nostalgic.

There is another tool to put on your Linux computer.... TIMESHIFT.  It allows you to get your computer back to some prior state e.g. before you made it just a bit more perfect....

It is a fast backup system - plug in an external disk that is a bit bigger than your internal drive, click a few options and it will backup your files.  Similar to Windows system restore.
It can be driven via a command line or there is a graphic interface (which I use).

First time it copes everything, subsequent runs it only copies files that have changed.  You can set a schedule, mostly I just run it manually.  

Each 'shapshot' is in a folder named after the date, in that is the OS and your 'home' folder and files. If you want to recover your Linux computer to a prior state it brings up a list of 'shapshots', select it and go and make a coffee.

If the external disk starts getting full you can delete older 'snapshots'.

A summary can be found at:  computingforgeeks.com/timeshift-backup-restore-linux/

 

Surely you have some spinning rust somewhere in your collection of shelves in the workshop? But not one of the 5 1/2" floppy drives that would be seriously slow....