Before & After & Inbetween

I finally leaped the (OS)- divide and installed a Debian-based Linux Mint on my old work laptop [Samsung Q45, approx. 5-6 years old, former WinVista machine].
Installation went smooth, all important features work, and the experience on program level is good (though admittedly the Q45 is the oldest & most harmless of my machines). I set it up with three partitions (system, data, swap). My more "exotic" periphery - such as printer/scanner combination, graphics tablet, etc - took a little more figuring out, mostly due to an unfamiliar interface and mismatching documentation. However, I got everything working in less than two hours. Decidedly nice when compared to the time it takes in Windows when "plug&play" and "out of the box with driver" fail you there! The books "Linux 2013" by Kofler and a very easy introduction "Linux Mint System Administrator's Beginner's Guide" by A. F. Montoro were very helpful, the first containing the knowledge, the latter the easy example.

Since every important bit of hardware is running now, all that's left to do is figuring out how to secure the system and operate it safely (basically, learn what I do), and hunt down the software alternatives for the (very few) proprietary programs I'm still using.

Annoyingly, there seems to be no way for Amazon's kindle app (though Calibre works like a song!). Maybe I'll look into Wine later (and the presentation laptop will stay Win for the time being, anyway.) ;)

Anyway, overall: a solid "THUMPS UP" so far. :)

current chapter word count: 6433
because of extensive tinkering in the first third of the chapter
resulting in better read, more liveliness of the plot
amount of chapter in continuous text: 75%
amount of chapter considered done: more than that, but there are fat gaps and skeletal scenes in between
research of the day: kamidana equipment
quote of the day: "Jasmine doesn't suit you."

Unrelated: Starting tomorrow (or probably Saturday, depending on exact time of arrival and amount of time moving takes) this shiny black'n'red baby is going to take a central place in my writing environment. Say "hi" to my new Samsung R560 Aura laptop, replacing my old (beloved) silver Samsung P30, which is facing retirement at my mom's desk after having been my companion for over five years. :)