- 16 Dec, 2025 *
I first tried Linux end of October 2024.
Zorin OS 17.2 was the first one and I really liked it.
I installed it on my 2 older laptops - a 17 year old Dell and a 10 year old MSI.
Having been a Windows user for the past 25+ years, I was surprised at how good Zorin OS actually was! 🤯
I tested many other fairly lightweight distros, including Linux Mint Cinnamon and Xfce, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Lite, Q4OS, MX Linux, Bodhi Linux and Peppermint OS.
I chose Zorin for online activities requiring the most security and I chose Mint for everything else.
Normally, I bought fairly expensive gaming laptops with dedicated NVidia GeForce GPUs.
This time I wanted something different. 😁
I checked Amazon for weeks focusing on budget gaming laptops because …
- 16 Dec, 2025 *
I first tried Linux end of October 2024.
Zorin OS 17.2 was the first one and I really liked it.
I installed it on my 2 older laptops - a 17 year old Dell and a 10 year old MSI.
Having been a Windows user for the past 25+ years, I was surprised at how good Zorin OS actually was! 🤯
I tested many other fairly lightweight distros, including Linux Mint Cinnamon and Xfce, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Lite, Q4OS, MX Linux, Bodhi Linux and Peppermint OS.
I chose Zorin for online activities requiring the most security and I chose Mint for everything else.
Normally, I bought fairly expensive gaming laptops with dedicated NVidia GeForce GPUs.
This time I wanted something different. 😁
I checked Amazon for weeks focusing on budget gaming laptops because I think nothing more is needed.
I had read that AMD provides the best experience with Linux, so I decided to go that route.
The 16" laptop I got is a WVX - a brand I never heard of before.
Price $520 - it has a high-power Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU with Radeon 680M iGPU - yes no dedicated GPU. 16GB RAM.
On September 17th, without ever booting into the pre-installed Windows set up... I installed Linux Mint 22.2 using the Erase drive option.
So Windows 11 was completely wiped and Linux Mint was installed! 😊
This laptop has been the one I use EVERY DAY from that morning on.
NOTE: Using a 2022 17" MSI GeForce Gaming laptop with Zorin OS only as needed for secure online activities seems like a real waste. So I consider getting a 14" budget laptop, and installing Zorin OS, for this purpose.
Anyway... I’m typing right now on this WVX budget gaming laptop running Linux Mint 22.2 Xfce.
I now have 3 user accounts - currently I am logged into my Blogging account.
Later I might log into my Gaming account.
And then there is the main account used for everything else.
It has been a fantastic experience so far and...
I do NOT miss Windows at all! 😎