NaftaLord

whisky and vodka, brand does not matter :-)

Most drivers what you need are already in the linux kernel/kernel modules, so you dont need to download drivers like in windows. Mostly everything will work after the install, but burn a live iso to cd/usb and boot with that to check if all works. If you have some special hardware then you might need to check if the manufacturer has linux drivers but most generic hardware work without issues. Although you might need to install proprietary drivers for your gpu if you whant to play games, although opensource gpu drivers are pretty good now days.

Win7 own image backup or macrium reflect or clonezilla. They all have worked without issues for me.. I use clonezilla now days as i'm 99% linux user now days, it can be hard to use at first but after you understand how it works it is very reliable image backup system, never had an issue with a restoration of a image backup, it just works. But so does macrium and windows image backup too. Personally i like clonezilla best, but it can be hard to use at first.

kde - mate - xfce in that order.

Kubuntu and Mint KDE. But if Debian stable was more up to date distro i would use that. Linux is my primary system but got win7 just for some games.

I dont any more, well i do in company when drinking, not that often but it happens. But i do miss it daily, I miss the feeling it gives, the ahhh moment when you light one up and take the first inhale, it just makes you feel so damn good. If you never have smoked, dont start, in the end it will kill you or shorten your life, so dont start. It is my advice to everyone. But god damn i hope they invent cigarettes that wont kill you :-)

If you really get into Linux it's a trial and error approach. You will most likely try many distros before you find what you like. But hey, it's all free, so no problems there, and with virtualbox it's even easier to test what you like without messing with you disks.

7z - tar and zip

To support linux i got XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Broken Sword 5 so far. And i just got to have Assetto Corsa to satisfy my driving sim needs

Always makes me in good mood..

Ubuntu based distros are good to start with, good support as most problems are common even if you dont use unity desktop. Mint is a good starting distro, they have cinnamon,mate,xfce,kde desktop environments but cinnamon and mate are the standard dekstops. Other good ubuntu based distros are Xubuntu - xfce desktop Kubuntu - kde desktop Lubuntu - lxde desktop good for older hardware. ElementaryOS

In most cases cloning linux install to other machine works fine. Clonezilla will do that (free open source) make copy of the drive and install that to the new system. clonezilla can be a bit hard to understand at first but it's a powerfull cloning system. Other one more gui oriented is Redo Backup http://redobackup.org/ It clones whole drives, it wont backup partitions like clonezilla but if you just need to clone the whole drive it will do the job. Just burn the iso's to usb drive or a cd and boot from that. Or just backup home folder and write down the apps you need and reinstall them after a new fresh install, 1-2 hour job.

I use mprime for cpu and for gpu i just run unigine benchmark. if you got intel cpu i7z is good tool to check temps and turbo frequency. http://www.mersenne.org/download/ https://unigine.com/ https://code.google.com/p/i7z/ Just make sure you got lm-sensors installed on your system. lm-sensors might work to show voltage or not, it wont on my system. Edit. mprime and i7z are cli tools.

Started with C64, had one amiga 1200 and ps1 and n64. Pc gaming after that. Not a big gamer any more, i mostly just play rpg's now days. But some good ones are coming so i might get ps4 for that.

Well thats not really true that cinnamon is just a "launcher/skin" As of version 2.0 Cinnamon is a complete desktop environment. Yes you can install cinnamon in ubuntu but mostly it is better to install Mint in the first place with Cinnamon if you like more classic style of desktop.