Should I wait?

I'm going to be purchasing a new laptop, and I will be installing Linux on it. However, should I try and install it on my current laptop as well for practice?

I have heard a lot about it being quite tricky, so I've been considering throwing it on this laptop, but it's a bit old and full already.

 

i think that's a good idea. Not all Linux distros are the same some of them you have to create the different sectors manually but fortunately most of them do this automatically. I think you will find that it's no more difficult installing Linux then it is to install windows.

 

Yes, why not? I always do that when I want to try something new, my older laptop is my guinea pig I've always believed is better to be be safe than than sorry. Nothing wrong with wanting to be ready and practice a little.

 

If you have to keep your current system for work or personal use as-is or only have one system, the best way to get your feet wet would be to install virtualbox (free) on your existing system and then try linux out on that. You can just download the ISO for installing linux and use it as a virtual CD or DVD file without ever changing anything else about your existing laptop until you are ready to.

You can try out other forms of linux too and erase the old ones since they are only files on your PC emulating a full computer operating system for you, and find the one that is best and most comfortable for you.

Depending on how you configure them they can be slower than your real machine, but it gives you a chance to see how it works and whether or not you will like one over the other for free without making a decision until you're absolutely ready to.

95% of what you do when installing linux to a virtual machine on a standard PC or laptop hardware will be the same as it is when installing it to a virtual machine. The other 5% are UEFI differences (if that), VESA graphics adapter differences, and little things that most users seldom if ever have to worry about. There are switches that you can use before booting and ways to save the changes to the configuration that can be practiced with the virtual machine too, so even if you encounter those when installing linux to a real hardware or bare metal system, you'll know what your options are and what to do.

 

You can try Linux without installing anything and without compromising your old data, simply boot from a live CD, give it a test drive and when you get tired simply reboot your computer and remove the CD to access your old operating system. You can even install and use programs and drivers while using a live CD, naturally all that will be lost once you reboot, but you are going to get the gist of it all and it is an easy way to practice how to do this since that's going to be the tricky part, the hunt for drivers, not so much the installation process itself since modern distros make this a very easy process with sensible defaults pre selected for you if you don't have a clear picture of what you are doing. That being said, since it is going to be hardware dependent there is no guarantee that you are going to face the same problems, if any, on the two installations, maybe installing on your old laptop becomes a pain yet the process on a more modern hardware is a breeze.