Best version of Linux for me?

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After reading Aunt Blabby's post about having Windows 10 forcing itself on his PC after he told it not to, I think I will get Linux before my PC suddenly downloads Windows 10. (I'm currently using 7.) I have a couple legacy programs that I need to know if they will work.

1) It needs to be able to read *.docx Word files. This extension was used by Word 2007. I have craploads of Word docs formatted in .docx.

2) It needs to be compatible with my old Olympus FE-210 digital camera from 2007, and the legacy downloading program that comes with it, Olympus Master 2 (version 2.01). I don't have the money to buy a new camera, and all point-and-shoot cameras are going the way of the dodo because of smartphones. I really like this camera and want to keep using it.

3) I have a really cheap HP printer, a Deskjet 1000 that's maybe a year or two old. I rarely print, but I need this printer to work with Linux.

Any recommendations? I will likely be getting rid of my HP hard drive and getting a brand new drive, then paving it with Linux. My PC is a HP 635 laptop made for niche markets, I got it off the big computer parts site Tiger Direct. It has a AMD Vision chip. It was made in 2011.

You can try some of the many Linux live discs to see which distribution you like best.

See: https://livecdlist.com/

I personally like Ubuntu for desktops and Debian for servers.

OpenOffice can open docx documents, I don't know about the specific hardware support.

Install this on windows http://www.libreoffice.org/ or open office like mentioned and see if your word documents are ok. If they look ok they should be fine on linux as well if not you have a problem but you could try saving from word in the open office format not 100% if your version has it. Another possibility is that version of word actually works on linux with wine. (check the wine website)

Ubuntu based distros seem to be best for desktop use from what I have read.

Get a Live disk and boot your pc from it and give your camera and printer a try at least you will have an idea what to expect. But if your planning a new hard drive just put one in and give it a try will do no harm you can wipe the drive if you don't like the distro you try.

(I am making the assumption the live cd will load other drivers available not 100% on that)

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I would recommend Mint or Ubuntu as these are the distros that cater for mainstream users. You're more likely to get the driver support you need from them than you are from the tech heads on Arch or the open source fanatics on Debian.

Just checked my Libre Office and I can confirm that it supports the .docx files you need. You just need to choose that file extension when saving.

People are saying that Ubuntu is a good distro. I disagree, it was a good distro circa 2008 or so but I would strongly suggest a distro based on Debian stable. If you're coming from the world of Windows, I would suggest also using KDE for a Desktop Environment, as the workflow and layout of the KDE desktop is similar to that of Windows. As other have said, Libre Office will open .docx files, the HP printer module (that allows you to use HP printers) is usually included in the default kernel. --If it is not, open Synaptic, (The package manager that you use to download software) and searh HP Printer, and download the module. The HP Printer module works with HP Printers.

As far as the Olympus camera is concerned, hook the camera up to the computer. --The file manager will probably identify it.

.docx is no problem for LibreOffice (as noted it's available for windows and linux, so you can try it out).

HP Deskjet 1000 is no problem, as Frogman explained. On Debian, Mint & Manjaro Linux my HP's have long worked right out of the box.

Olympus Camedia 2 *might* be a problem. It requires something called, WINE which allows you to run windows programs on Linux. Supposedly v2.20 runs okay. I'd google a bit and read some of the digital camera forums to see what snags people have run into. It *should* run okay, as all it really needs is file access & USB control. I also remember hearing that Camedia 4 runs natively on Linux, but I've not tried it (I've had several Olympus cameras over the years, including a E-500 I bought to use my old Minolta 4/3 lenses on & for astrophotography. Another is a nice little waterproof camera that failed in the market & picked up cheap due to it only using xD cards, but it works fine with an xD to micro-SD adapter. Wine can do wonders, but sometimes you have to do some digging and tinkering to get it to do it's thing.

Honestly, I'd probably keep using Windows 7 with GWX Control Panel, to keep Win10 from installing itself. Switching over completely to Linux is NOT something I'd recommend to a non-technical user, especially if you've never had any experience with it beforehand. I use Manjaro Linux as my day to day OS, but I also have a few years of experience on my plate, and I do still deal with a number of annoyances I wouldn't be dealing with if I just ran Windows.

You can get GWX control panel here: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
Be sure to read this once you install it too: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/0 ... emove.html

If you're still curious about Linux, I'd definitely recommend trying a LiveCD first, and then dual-booting once you're comfortable with it (but make backups first in case anything screws up!) Manjaro is my fave, but Ubuntu is often recommended for newbies because of the amount of information available for it, as well as the amount of polish it has in its user interface. Unity is fairly different than Windows, and KDE is much more similar to Windows out of the box, but Unity also has the largest userbase and overall amount of support.