Users are discovering that Windows 10, among its many annoyances, doesn’t work well if you can’t get reliable Internet download speeds of 10 megabits a second or better without a data cap. Macs are better in some ways (I’m using one right now), but they’re expensive. A lot of writers would just like a reasonably priced laptop that doesn’t make unreasonable demands on their connection.

Some writers consider a Chromebook a reasonable solution. It’s cheap and it doesn’t have ridiculous bandwidth requirements. You can use it in a library or a coffee shop. All your documents are online, so if you have a desktop machine at home, you can easily move documents between it and the Chromebook. But it means handing all your documents over to Google. I like having my files on my own computer, thank you. If Google locks you out of your account (I’ve had that happen temporarily) or terminates it for any reason, everything is gone. If you don’t like other people reading what you write before you submit it, how confident are you that Google doesn’t?

Your computer belongs to you

Another alternative is Linux. Your files are on your computer. You control what software you install. It represents an antiquated idea that needs reviving: that your computer and what’s on it belong to you.

You can get software tools for just about any need, and for the most part you aren’t required to pay for them. Several good Web browsers and email clients are available. For writing and spreadsheets, you can use OpenOffice or LibreOffice. The two are nearly twins, with LibreOffice somewhat better updated these days. Both will open most Microsoft Office files. If you want Photoshop-like image editing, there’s GIMP.

Getting Linux

Linux comes in various “distributions” or “distros.” Linux properly refers to the Linux Kernel, the low-level operating system. Developers have wrapped many different APIs, command shells, and user interfaces around it. If you have an Android phone, you have a machine that runs Linux, though it’s at a layer which is invisible under normal use. Some distributions are optimized for servers, some are for developers’ desktops, and some put an emphasis on being user-friendly. If you’re a non-technical person who’s new to Linux, you might want to look at Ubuntu or Mint. Mint is derived from Ubuntu, so if you know one, you won’t have much trouble with the other. Within a distribution, you can choose from competing desktops according to your preferences.

An Internet search turns up a distro called GhostWriter, which is targeted specifically at writers. Ignore it. I think support for it died years ago. Writers’ computational needs aren’t that different from everyone else’s.

The simplest and most economical way to get Linux is to buy it pre-installed on a used machine. New computers with pre-installed Linux are strangely expensive, and Linux doesn’t need nearly as much memory as Windows, so a computer that’s three or four years old is fine. Just be careful about where you buy it. A machine which you buy on eBay from a seller with no established reputation could have anything pre-installed on it, including spyware and worse. A seller with a good reputation shouldn’t cause any problems.

Installing Linux yourself isn’t that hard, but you could run into compatibility issues. Getting Wi-Fi to work is especially likely to be tricky, and it’s hard to finish the installation on a computer that can’t connect to the Internet. When you’re installing Linux, it’s almost a necessity for the machine to have a wired Internet connection till you complete the installation. Getting a pre-installed system or having a professional install it for you gets around this problem.

You can install a dual-boot system that runs both Linux and Windows (or Windows and Mac OS). That gives you the best of both worlds but also the worst. Your Windows installation will still download huge chunks of software at inconvenient times without your consent. Some people have a good reason for keeping both, but a dual-boot system won’t get you the leanness of a Linux-only machine.

Why shouldn’t you have control of your own computer? Linux lets you do that.

Resources

There’s no shortage of information on how writers can use Linux. Here’s a sampling:

• How to get started with Linux: A beginner’s guide
• Ubuntu vs. Mint: Which Linux distro is better for beginners?
• Moving to Linux: Tools for writers
• Top Linux tools for writers
• 4 open source tools I used to write a Linux book

Update 30-April-2019: Here’s another useful link, courtesy of Tom Schwing: How to install and run Linux on a Chromebook.