should I upgrade, buy new hardware, or switch back to Windows? (inexperienced user)

[anotherChris]

I currently have...

(I) - Dell Inspiron 1545 (Celeron, 2GB, 150GB) that came pre-installed with Ubuntu 8.10 and has been upgraded once to Lubuntu 11.10
(II) - iPhone 4s, bought used and Wi-Fi only

These are getting out of date, and I need to upgrade.

For the phone, I could
(1) get a new iPhone
(2) try any other phone compatible with Ubuntu

I don't like using an Apple iPhone, but my camera is way better than the cameras on other phones I've seen, and reviews of the new iPhone 6 vs non-Apple seems to indicate the Apple cameras are still the best. The camera accounts for about 70% of my reason to have a phone, so I'm probably going to go with 1, getting a new iPhone.

As for the laptop, to get it compatible with the Interwebs again, I could
(A) try installing a new Lubuntu on my current laptop
(B) get a new laptop and try installing Lubuntu
(C) switch back to Windows on a new laptop

B seems foolish to me unless A fails. C seems like my best choice if I am going to stick with the iPhone because I really, really want to be able to download photos/videos from my phone to my laptop via cable. As far as I know, this would require iTunes.

So, I'd like to do 2 & A, but I'm looking at 1 & C. Can anybody explain why 1 & C is not my best option?

Thanks very much.

[Photon Blizzard]

Greetings,

I would recommend that you shop for a nice laptop(s) or desktop(s) with a minimum of 4 cores and at least 8 GB's of memory. Make sure it has an SSD, a dedicated memory card, (not common in laptops of course), minimum 2GB video memory.

Download and make a bootable DVD of Ubuntu 14.04.03 LTS, go to your local computer store and boot the DVD and go into live mode and play with it. Do understand that Ubuntu will be faster when actually installed to a SSD or other hard drive. In most cases the stores machine will have Windows 10 installed by default so you can play with that too. Of course inform the store personnel that it's a live file system on a DVD and that you won't install it lest you want to cause a mental meltdown.

I have Ubuntu 14.04.03 LTS on my main desktop and a Windows 10 partition on the same drive. With the exception of playing around a little and wanting to have a current Microsoft "OS" should I need to assist a someone else, I use TurboTax on it. Aside from that I don't have any needs that aren't handled faster, cheaper, ($0), and more efficiently with Ubuntu Linux.

Apple certainly is an awesome company although I'm not terribly familiar with the iPhones. (I do know that MAC OS-X was based on FreeBSD Unix 4.8 and is of course still Unix today).

I personally prefer a Android phone. (I know the iPhone camera is better). Android is Linux, and open source. I can't say that it is compatible with Ubuntu, but things like "dropbox" can be synced on multiple computers and my Android phone. I'm sure that is true with the iPhone too.

You need efficient hardware resources. Ubuntu is much more versatile than Windows. If the photo's are more important, buy yourself a nice digital camera.

My main desktop is a Gigabyte Motherboard with an AMD 8350 Vishera 8 core, 16GB memory, 500GB Samsung SSD, 1TB standard hard drive for backups, 2GB Nvidia graphics card, Corsair liquid cooling, Thermaltake V71 case and 750 Watt PS, etc. I've overclocked my 1866 memory on a 1333 memory bus to 1876 and overclocked the native 4.0ghz processor to 4.4ghz. I ran prime95, yes on windows 10, for 6 hours and it never got above 45 degrees centigrade. Then I undid the cpu clock. I'm not a gamer so I just left the cpu alone. There are tons of games available for Linux if that's your thing.

I also have two other machines, one with an MSI and one with an ASROCK motherboard with AMD 6300 6 core processors, 16GB memory and use the heat sink fan that came with the processors. These are awesome hardware boxes that I can throw just about anything at too. I built these for about $400 each.

I hope this ranting is a little helpful. Thank you for the invitation to say "Blah, blah, woof, woof".

Photon

[mörgæs]

I suggest that you do a fresh install of Lubuntu 15.10 on your existing computer and keep your phone as it is.

I am forced to use an Iphone but the good part is that pictures transfer to Lubuntu with no problems using the USB cable.

[anotherChris]

Really? Pictures transfer to Lubuntu with no problems via USB cable? It's the first I heard of it. I get currently get a lockdown error, but I'll try with 15.10. Thanks.

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to The Cafe.

[yoshii]

Do a Google websearch for "iTunes Linux" and read as many entries as you can. There might be an alternative to using iTunes. Also check WineHQ for iTunes to see if it will install and run on Linux via Wine.

You can sell your iPhone if you need to. I would try installing Lubuntu from LiveDVD and then do a net upgrade if you have internet access.

[grahammechanical]

Make a decision.

Are you going to buy a new computer? Yes or no? What you do next depends on that answer. If you buy a new computer, it most likely will come with Windows 8/10 pre-installed unless you deliberately search out a machine with Linux (Ubuntu) pre-installed. What do you want to do?

There is less hassle when we buy a machine with Ubuntu pre-installed compared with installing Ubuntu on a machine with Windows 8/10 pre-installed. And there is no shame in using Microsoft Windows if we paid for it when purchasing a computer. I know what my preference would be but sometimes other factors push us where we do not really want to go. That's life.

And then there is designer consumerism with planned obsolescence taken to the maximum possible. And that is where you are with Apple Corp. But it is your money. Your choice.

Regards.

[Mark Phelps]

If you check the WineHQ apps database, you'll see that iTunes runs very poorly, if at all, on Linux under Wine.

IF you are going to rely on using iTunes with your Apple phone, then you need a Windows PC. Sorry, but that's how it is with iTunes.

[monkeybrain20122]

If you can upgrade the ram you can install Win in Virtualbox and then install itune in Win. For usb support you need Oracle's VB (not the community version in the Software Centre) and install the guest additions. You need about 4 G of ram to run VB smoothly.

[stalkingwolf]

if 70% of the reason you have a phone is to take pictures logic says buy a camera. that is what they are made to do.
Most phones today have the ability to use as SSD card. if you must have a phone then use an ssd to store pictures as most computers have card readers if not a usb reader is fairly cheap