Rescuing an older desktop
by JeroenR from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5M5XH)
Hi,
(This is my first question here and English is not my native language, so bear with me and forgive me if I make any oopsies)
First of all, a disclaimer: I'm not really a Linux newbie (I have used Ubuntu and Mint in the past, I'm using WSL2 on my job (a lot of legacy .net, so Windows is necessary), I have set up a dev environment for Rust and Erlang/Elixir on my Chromebook.) I decided to put it here because I am a complete newbie when it comes to Linux as a daily driver for non-technical users and as a gaming platform.
Some background: We have an older Lenovo ideacentre desktop that my wife and children still use. It runs Windows 10, but it's very very slow. I was thinking about installing a Linux distro on it to make it a litter snappier. Getting my children (10 and 13) to experience Linux is also a nice benefit.
I have looked at Pop_OS and Zorin and tried to make a bootable USB stick. However, belenaEtcher always gives an error. I think this might have to do with the virus scanner on my work laptop (which I can't disable.) Is there another way to make a bootable USB to try this out?
And the classic question: are Pop_OS or Zorin (Education?) good choices for my use case?
Gaming: The children game a lot. But mostly Minecraft or Roblox, not AAA games. Are these supported?
Office: my wife uses Excel and YNAB on that PC. (My eldest child has an Office 365 school account, so Office can't be a real problem, even when LibreOffice sometimes doesn't suffice.
Digital drawing: my 13yo likes to draw with his Wacom tablet. Is there good support for Wacom in these (or other distro's)
The hardware:
CPU: AMD A9-9425 RADEON R5, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G 3.10 GHz
RAM: 8GB
GPU: Amd Radion R5 Graphics
What do you think? What's the big difference between these 2 distros? Are there any others I should be looking at?
Thanks in Advance.
EDIT: I also forgot to mention this rather important requirement. Since it will be used by my wife and 2 children, it needs to support multiple profiles (which I guess is standard), but I would also like to have parental control on the 2 child profiles.
(This is my first question here and English is not my native language, so bear with me and forgive me if I make any oopsies)
First of all, a disclaimer: I'm not really a Linux newbie (I have used Ubuntu and Mint in the past, I'm using WSL2 on my job (a lot of legacy .net, so Windows is necessary), I have set up a dev environment for Rust and Erlang/Elixir on my Chromebook.) I decided to put it here because I am a complete newbie when it comes to Linux as a daily driver for non-technical users and as a gaming platform.
Some background: We have an older Lenovo ideacentre desktop that my wife and children still use. It runs Windows 10, but it's very very slow. I was thinking about installing a Linux distro on it to make it a litter snappier. Getting my children (10 and 13) to experience Linux is also a nice benefit.
I have looked at Pop_OS and Zorin and tried to make a bootable USB stick. However, belenaEtcher always gives an error. I think this might have to do with the virus scanner on my work laptop (which I can't disable.) Is there another way to make a bootable USB to try this out?
And the classic question: are Pop_OS or Zorin (Education?) good choices for my use case?
Gaming: The children game a lot. But mostly Minecraft or Roblox, not AAA games. Are these supported?
Office: my wife uses Excel and YNAB on that PC. (My eldest child has an Office 365 school account, so Office can't be a real problem, even when LibreOffice sometimes doesn't suffice.
Digital drawing: my 13yo likes to draw with his Wacom tablet. Is there good support for Wacom in these (or other distro's)
The hardware:
CPU: AMD A9-9425 RADEON R5, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G 3.10 GHz
RAM: 8GB
GPU: Amd Radion R5 Graphics
What do you think? What's the big difference between these 2 distros? Are there any others I should be looking at?
Thanks in Advance.
EDIT: I also forgot to mention this rather important requirement. Since it will be used by my wife and 2 children, it needs to support multiple profiles (which I guess is standard), but I would also like to have parental control on the 2 child profiles.