Ditched windows 7 in favor of Linux mint,

Hi,
Seeing as the new year is approaching ,i thought a fresh start in terms of how i use my laptop would seem appropriate.

Now after trialling linuxmint for several weeks i have decided to totally dump windows 7 altogether and use linuxmint 16.
Im thoroughly impressed by this distro,im a newbie when it comes to linuxmint and i was wondering if any members could perhaps give some advice on which security measures i need to be taking.?

Any useful links for guidance on the use of linuxmint would be very much appreciated also.

Hope everyone had a wonderful xmas and i wish you all a happy new year.

 

no offense, but you'll probably need Windows and Office if you have the need to exchange word/ppt/excel files with others.

 

LibreOffice supports those formats fine in most cases. Kingsoft Office is also being developed, and it has even better compatibility. Then there are services like Google Docs. And lastly, there is Wine. No need for Windows at all for office work.

 

for simple style of these documents, yes;
for the new office 2013 format with macros and scripts, or just some complicated styles, no you still need MS office.
Office 2013 can not run on Wine yet.
In fact, ms office is the major reason I still keep Windows as a dual boot entry on my computer.

 

Real world usage of those fancy stuff? Not to the extent of needing Windows just to exchange office files. If you must, there's always the option of a virtual machine.

 

Last time i tried, it was possible to easily run Office 2007 from Wine.

It's also possible to use a limited Office suite for free through an outlook.com mail account.

edit: sorry didn't realized you guys were talking about Office 2013. As for the OP question i don't think you "need" any special security measure.

Install updates, avoid installing software from un-trusted sources (in other words, be careful if you decide to install something from outside the repositories), backup your stuff. Mostly common sense.

 

dual boot with widows always great option rather than removing windows go for dual boot you never know when you need of windows that time you feel frustrated and then blame linux

 

On Linux Mint you do want to disable some stuff for security actually. If you don't use SSH or Samba, you should disable those services; especially for a laptop that might be connected to public wifi networks.

 

I'd also check out http://www.linux.org/ btw I think you've made the right decision ditching Window 7 for Mint. All the best with it

 

Thank you kindly everyone for the helpful and informative responses.
I had been tinkering with the idea of ditching windows for quite a while and when i take into account how i use my laptop then linux mint seemed to be the next natural step.

Its a huge learning curve but so far my experience with mint has been very positive.

 

Another good source of info and help are the Linux Mint forums:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/

If you encounter a problem, chances are you will find someone else there who has had the same issue and solved it somehow or other.

 

Yes you've got the point.
Linux has its strength, also has its shortcomings at the moment. Even when Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop and MS Office all ported onto Linux, I am sure there are still other things we need from Windows. That's why I always use Dual boot of Windows and Ubuntu for quite a few years now.

 

I moved several months ago due to personal reasons and privacy concerns. However so far i still keep around a cheap netbook for just in case moments.

 

I just half moved to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from win 8.1... and its amazing like i was buying a new strong pc ... all run fast as hell especially chrome (also FF).

i dont understand why ppl still fight their way with windows ? its not worth it!.

and YES i need some software in windows so i installed in Ubuntu virtual box (free ) and load windows (xp is enough) over there .

 

Yeah I did that for awhile but I wanted to have a pure Linux box, purely sentimental reasons and I had a spare laptop. But for OP VM is way to go, especially if he only needs Windows for Office applications.

 

Interesting, most people still report Firefox for Linux being slower. It's gotten better than it used to be; but then, computing power has increased absurdly in the last few years.

Anyway the answers are
a) better compatibility with weird/legacy hardware (though that's changing)
b) better coverage of niche market needs (though that's also changing)
c) better support for games (also changing, probably in a big way)

 

I am using linux mint 16 which i have installed on my laptop now and im very satisfied so far.
I was running linux in a virtualbox for several weeks just to get a feel of this new operating system and a couple of days ago i made the valiant decision to install it completely and it suits my needs perfectly.

There is nothing on windows that i particularly need and linux has libre office pre-installed if i wish to use office software.

Im finding mint far more customizable than windows and the software packages available are absolutely astounding.

So far im thoroughly impressed.
Not certain though if i should enable levels 4 and 5 to update the kernel.Upon research it would seem a dubious operation to carry out and as of now i have not made any system image of any kind ,this is something else which i need to discover how to do amongst several other things with linux mint.

 

What kind of laptop?
Problem I always run into is getting everything to work well (fans, touchpad, etc).
Ever since I switched to macbook laptops, linux has become a distant dream. Apple has nice hardware but it's extremely difficult to run linux on them.

 

Im using a toshiba satellite laptop.Im not experiencing any issues with the fans.They are running like they normally do.
Toshiba laptop fans are notorious for being noisy.