Greetings from Salem, Oregon USA. I’m grateful for this forum and the folks at Jeff.pro and the Telegram channels for focusing on FOSS. I’m so ready to dump big tech!
If you care to know, here is my background and my adventures switching to Linux:
I’m 61 and have seen (and been fascinated by) the entire evolution of PCs and the internet. I learned on DOS and thought that GUI was for losers who couldn’t be bothered to learn commands, LOL. And of course, like many I worked in an office environment where Windows prevailed so here I am!
Accomplishments so far:
*Transformed my 2016 ASUS laptop from Windows to Mint
*Set up VPN
*Completed the LMS courses to date
*Set up account with Digital Ocean
*Set up Proton Mail account
*installed Libre Office for Windows on my desktop and am using it exclusively—so far every Word, Excel and PowerPoint file I have opened with it has saved over to Libre Office beautifully. I’m about ready to cancel my Office 365 account and am confident that my files will be usable.
Am working on switching my desktop to Linux:
*confirmed that we can access my husbands work email (Outlook) . We access it through our browser and It works exactly the same on my Linux Mint laptop using the Brave browser as it did with Windows and MicroSoft Edge.
*researched replacements for the Windows apps/programs I currently use, including:
Trello
Paprika recipe manager
Roots Magic genealogy software
Canva desktop
Cricut Design Space
Several of these have web versions I can use but I did choose to switch from Trello to ToDoist because it has a Linux versión and I can sync it with my iPhone until I can switch to a ‘Libre’ phone down the road.
The apps that don’t have a web version I plan to use with a Windows VM.
My next steps:
*Install Linux on my desktop
*set up VPS to host my websites (currently on Wix)
*set up virtual cloud for files and email
When that’s all done and I’ve completely dumped gmail, Dropbox and Wix I want to get more hardware for my very own server. Easy peasy!
Thanks for reading this.