My journey to Linux...

So, earlier this week I became over the top frustrated with this dinosaur of a desktop that I have and began looking into options that didn't include spending money for a replacement. I am contemplating a laptop and desktop purchase, but have yet to finalize and I would like to get them both at the same time, if I in fact do purchase both.

Here are the two options I thought I was choosing between:

RE-INSTALL A NEWER VERSION OF WINDOWS

OR

FIND A WAY TO DO A FACTORY RESET ON THIS DELL

RE-INSTALL A NEWER VERSION OF WINDOWS:

I have had a newer version of windows cd for quite sometime, which was originally intended for my old laptop that went boom 9 months ago :-( I never used it before the laptops untimely demise and quite frankly was a little afraid to mess with the desktop. I don't have a key for that version but I was figuring with the magic of the internet that really wouldn't be a problem. 

FIND A WAY TO DO A FACTORY RESET ON THIS DELL:

This would really be the best option IF this funky desktop still had a recovery option. Where the heck is it, beats the living crap out of me!! All I know, I can't do it and it highly annoys me. No point in contacting Dell, model is too old for support and I'll be doggone if I'm gonna pay someone for something that isn't worth fixing except for a geeky hobby, such as I have! 

So, where does that leave me, you ask? Leads me on a googling frenzy! Basically I looked up options for replacing desktops and options for windows replacements etc.

I had heard of Linux but really felt it was for people more familiar with "programming" per se. 

So, I decided to jump in and found a great site that gave me a lot of pointers, HOWEVER, don't I always come up with issues!?!

I downloaded Ubuntu, suggested as the easiest to get your feet wet with Linux. It took me several tries to even get it to boot. It was actually a simple solution, I had not enable the computer to boot from the CD, so...duh! LOL

But, even after it was able to boot, it was very slow and choppy and to be honesty with you was a nightmare to work with.  I loved the concept and it does appear to be very easy to learn and get used to coming from windows. 

I figured barring any hardware issues that could be causing the problem I would try another version. The second version: Fedora works pretty well, AT FIRST! Then it is a repeat of the Ubuntu. 

So, I put on my thinking cap and thought could it possibly be because I am running it off the cd as the trial, which is really a great option that Linux has. I decided Since I have C, E and F drives I would leave the windows on C and install Fedora on the F drive. Giving it more thought, I decided that I could first try live USB over Live CD. That so far has be a 4 hour mess!

I have so far encountered:

1. Can't find the usb stick
2. Computer decides it doesn't want to recognize the usb once I do find it
3. Once those were settled then I downloaded the bootcreater or whatever to the wrong place
4. Straightened that out then the version I had already downloaded would not finish loading on the usb giving the error:  Verifying filesystem... Extracting live image to USB device... Cannot find 7z. Make sure to extract the entire liveusb-creator zip file before running this program. LiveUSB creation failed!
5. Checked out the issues that could be with that and then the USB ejects itself from the computer. Fix that and try an older version to download
6. Thought that was going well till it finished and I was told the there is no removable drive attached. 
7. Fixed that then I get the error:  Downloading Fedora-9-i686-Live.iso...
   Download complete!
   Verifying filesystem...
   Verifying SHA1 of LiveCD image...
   Error: The SHA1 of your Live CD is invalid. You can run this program with the --noverify argument to bypass this verification check.

SON OF A NUTCRACKER!!!!! Now I'm annoyed!

 Last try and I'm back to the same error in #4

I'm done...going to eat, shower, get dressed and party with Dona Tink LOL