If I buy a laptop without an operating system on it how do I install one?
Does that cost anything?
If no operating system is preinstalled, you need an installation medium. This can be a DVD or a bootable USB stick.
Afterwards the installation is carried out, which is more beginner-friendly or more difficult depending on the selected OS.
On Linux based OS such as Ubuntu or Mint are available for free, a Windows 10 license costs around 15 euro at MMOGA.
Since the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft has been offering the so-called Media Creation Tool for downloading a Windows image for free.
Depends on. To install you need any medium (CD, Stick…) from which you install the operating system, this is more or less automatically done (but may take a long time).
You do not get Windows for free. On the Windows side you pay 145 euro for it, but sometimes you get that cheaper, you should pay attention to it, that you acquire a legal license.
OS X from Apple is much cheaper, since it is 20 euro, but that runs only on a computer from Apple.
You get Linux on the net for free. To be able to install it on a computer without operating system, you also need an installation medium.
Linux is almost always free. For most Linux distros you can choose between different user interfaces: I recommend Gnome, KDE or Xfce. Gnome looks very chic and minimalist and is more likely to appeal to people who v. A. Use the keyboard instead of the mouse. Unfortunately Gnome supports higher screen resolutions m.E. Bad. KDE looks more like Windows and has many features and unlimited customizability. Xfce advertises to be particularly fast and resource-saving.
But there are even more desktop environments, e.g. Cinnamon or MATE (used by default by Linux Mint).
Popular Linux distros
Manjaro is an operating system with the "pacman" package manager. It is easy to install, user-friendly and allows you to keep all software up-to-date.
https://manjaro.org/download/
Debian is a comparatively old Linux distribution (based on the DEB package format), which convinces with good hardware support and a huge selection of software in the official sources. But you have to expect that some programs are not up to date. Popular spin-offs of Debian are Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
https://www.debian.org/
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
https://linuxmint.com/...wnload.php
Other popular distros (which I do not know) are Fedora and openSUSE.
https://getfedora.org/de/
https://www.opensuse.org/
software
Important programs such as Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, Blender, etc. Are officially available in all distros. You may need to install very rare programs manually.
installation
In my experience, a USB-Bootstick works best. You just have to plug it in, boot it up, and then you can try the Linux distro without making any changes to your device. Only when you click on "Install" will it be permanently installed.
The easiest way to create the bootstick is to use a PC
Download the ISO file of the operating system
insert an empty or no longer used USB stick
Install and start https://www.balena.io/...io/etcher/
In Etcher select the stick and the ISO file
On "Flash!" clicking
