Burusutazu

Unplugging the 500gb hhd is a good idea if you plan on installing it for the bios option if i remember correctly.

Little update, I went ahead and install it, it was really simple. I just selected the 120GB SSD in the installation "wizard" after booting from USB, I formatted it to EXT4 and set the mount point as root "/", and it installed. GRUB was automatically installed on the 500GB SSD with Windows 10, and I can easily switch between the two.

Thanks for the help guys!

Linux isn't unfriendly, it's un-supported by most companies. Because "why would we support a platform where we can't make as much money"?
 
Want to fix Linux adoption? Get behind a bill to force all public schools to use and teach Linux and not Windows or Apple. There's actually a legal argument to be made there. "We can no longer teach Windows or iOS because they are both FOR profit corporations, and government is not supposed to pick winners and losers when it comes to businesses".
 
So, the obvious legal recourse is for all public schools to use and teach Linux.

There is both Chrome and Skype for linux.  The desktop Skype client is heavily outdated so I would use the web version. Something lightweight like Lubuntu or Xubuntu would run very well on this.

Source: http://nerdist.com/fcc-ruling-cable-apple-tv-android-tv-google-amazon/\
 
This is amazing news for those who have been thinking about cutting the cord but still want to access their favorite channels. This should also hopefully lead to the democratization of the cable box as well as some innovations in that area. I personally consume most of my television online using the service my cable provider has (Xfinity TV Home) that has allowed me to view some on-demand and live content, but this ruling will enable much more than that. 

Both are low cost chips made specifically for office and internet workloads. My father uses a celeron processor and it suits his needs perfectly and saved him from spending an extra 200-300$ to get into the core lineup.  

Both are low cost chips made specifically for office and internet workloads. My father uses a celeron processor and it suits his needs perfectly and saved him from spending an extra 200-300$ to get into the core lineup.  

Color accuracy is probably more important than power. Plus HP has a terrible rep right now.

elementary OS!

My personal experiance is that they use cheaper materials, have poor cooling, and are full of bloatware that is painfully hard to remove. This seems to couple with bad reliability and build quality from recent reviews. The value can be hard to beat though if it is your only option. They do make a few really good computers but they are more expensive.

I switched to Tixati after hearing about it here, never switching back to anything else.

I switched to Tixati after hearing about it here, never switching back to anything else.

Avermedia makes a hd dvr for under 100$ that fits what you want.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049

Well if your just using it at college, and depending on which games you wanna play, you may not even need a TV at all, the gamepad may be more than enough

Geany and GEdit are good alternatives to Notepad++. 
PlayOnLinux is what you will use to install windows games, if your game is not listed then it is probably more work than it is worth. Of course there is Steam for Ubuntu.

How about you stop trying to tell Intel how to make CPUs. Theres very good reasons why they don't allow every CPU to be OCed and despite what the tinfoil hat brigade thinks, its mostly about consumer protection. They don't want consumers overclocking products which are not suitable for overclocking and killing them off then taking to the internet to declare Intel CPUs to be bad and dying all the time.

Looking forward to this.

@airdeano 
@tobben
@WoodenMarker
 
can you please lock this thread people keep reviving it.  Clearly OP lied as well. 

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Mint might not boot at all because it needs kernel 4.3+ for Skylake and Mint 17.3 comes with 3.19. 
As for the drives... well im not an expert on this but I do know you can eject sata drives just like a USB flash drive on Ubuntu so Mint probably has a similar function.
 
Edit: If you are still interested in Linux I would try a Ubuntu 15.10 derivative. It has kernel 4.2, but from what I understand canonical made changes so that it would support Skylake.
You could also try to update the kernel without a gui, but I have no knowledge on how to do this.

Mint might not boot at all because it needs kernel 4.3+ for Skylake and Mint 17.3 comes with 3.19. 
As for the drives... well im not an expert on this but I do know you can eject sata drives just like a USB flash drive on Ubuntu so Mint probably has a similar function.
 
Edit: If you are still interested in Linux I would try a Ubuntu 15.10 derivative. It has kernel 4.2, but from what I understand canonical made changes so that it would support Skylake.
You could also try to update the kernel without a gui, but I have no knowledge on how to do this.

I would take a look at Korora (23), it's gorgeous and even has a choice for the Cinnamon desktop. It uses Fedora as a base.

I would take a look at Korora (23), it's gorgeous and even has a choice for the Cinnamon desktop. It uses Fedora as a base.

I use Ubuntu Gnome with TLP (Linux Power Management Tools) installed to improve battery life, works perfectly from my experience. Touch, wifi, ect all work.

Nobody pays attention lol.