It’s been a rough summer. My laptop had started acting weird about a month ago. First, it would take forever to open a file, or reboot, and then it stopped being able to handle recording or playing video. Streaming abilities ended last week. Internet stopped working in the middle of my website updates and the laptop would power down the instant the power cord was disconnected. I finally figured out it was not reading that there was a battery to charge, would only reach 5% power when plugged in, and the processor in a bid to remain relevant had slowed to a crawl to the point where most things like internet and background processes were not running or would time out before packets could be successfully sent or retrieved.
To say this was not a good time is an understatement. This month, I was in the middle of a huge editing job and a series of small ones. I did (just) manage to complete everything on time. But today the laptop as I was trying to update my site with new pricing and editing service finally quit entirely.
So, I think to myself, what to do?
I had been looking at getting a new laptop but without a steady income, no employment myself, and the school year not yet started long enough for my spouse to bring in a first paycheck, getting a new one right now is not in the cards.
Solution forms in the brain of my problem-solving spouse. I have been “gifted” an old personal laptop because his school laptop and the desktop he has in his study are the devices he uses far more often.
Though grateful, I was a little panicked. The operating system is Linux, not Windows. I can use the system — I did IT support which included various Linux builds almost two decades ago. That’s not the issue. How much of the current work I do, apps I use, functionality I need, would be able to be done in this new environment?
It’s been a couple hours now and I can report a successful transition. Turns out I have been saving things like settings, bookmarks, files, to cloud and off-machine (server) locations that I was back “up” in under 15 minutes. I still have to test a few more things, including Zoom, the camera, the graphics program, audio and video recording, and printing, but by and large everything works so that I can do what I need to do.
All my files are accessible and even older information I have stored for years is backed up should I need it.
Whew. I will be able to work on the online graduate course that starts in 10 days. I will be able to conduct business, both professional and personal, without missing a beat.
Thank god for my spouse.
Lara Zielinsky 