Through sheer persistence and with help from here I've managed to come a`ways with the ASUS' Bionic Beaver Linux (as always it's a chimera "throwaway" ASUS).
However- and I've noticed this is often a problem with both Linux and Puppy Linux- on the ASUS' touchpad right-clicking does not work, it acts as if you were left-clicking. Thus without a mouse plugged in there are a number of things you cannot do. Puppy Linux 6.3.0 does have a Settings screen that allows you to decide what tapping does, so you can have a sort of right-click, functional enough- but I do not see any such thing here.
Another problem was the fact that the distro did NOT come with the necessary codecs to run things like, oh, MP3 and MP4 files. Puppy Linux does, so why not Linux distros? Why not just include them rather than requiring people to go online and install them, which is something of a hassle.
As much as Windows does deserve the flack and mocking it gets there is no doubt they got one thing absolutely right- the new Dell came with Windows 10 installed, 64-Bit of course. With very few exceptions it runs 32-Bit software quite well. Given that most games and programs someone who has been computing for a long time are likely to be 32-Bit making 64-Bit Operating Systems backward-compatible with 32-Bit is absolutely vital. I seem to recall that Apple didn't do this, which was a HUGE advantage in Microsoft's favor.
Therefore why not just include 32-Bit compatibility with the distros themselves? This would save a lot of hassle and make it ready to go for such things even if someone went home and installed the distro from a DVD, as I did. No, I do not have the Internet where I live.
I like Linux, more so as I learn more about it, but these are flaws that need to be dealt with.
However- and I've noticed this is often a problem with both Linux and Puppy Linux- on the ASUS' touchpad right-clicking does not work, it acts as if you were left-clicking. Thus without a mouse plugged in there are a number of things you cannot do. Puppy Linux 6.3.0 does have a Settings screen that allows you to decide what tapping does, so you can have a sort of right-click, functional enough- but I do not see any such thing here.
Another problem was the fact that the distro did NOT come with the necessary codecs to run things like, oh, MP3 and MP4 files. Puppy Linux does, so why not Linux distros? Why not just include them rather than requiring people to go online and install them, which is something of a hassle.
As much as Windows does deserve the flack and mocking it gets there is no doubt they got one thing absolutely right- the new Dell came with Windows 10 installed, 64-Bit of course. With very few exceptions it runs 32-Bit software quite well. Given that most games and programs someone who has been computing for a long time are likely to be 32-Bit making 64-Bit Operating Systems backward-compatible with 32-Bit is absolutely vital. I seem to recall that Apple didn't do this, which was a HUGE advantage in Microsoft's favor.
Therefore why not just include 32-Bit compatibility with the distros themselves? This would save a lot of hassle and make it ready to go for such things even if someone went home and installed the distro from a DVD, as I did. No, I do not have the Internet where I live.
I like Linux, more so as I learn more about it, but these are flaws that need to be dealt with.