[PLUG] I have no experience with installing Linux, can anyone help?

[Vedanta Teacher]

Greetings,


  After cursing MS since 1985 (?) I'd finally like to completely drop
all MS products as far as is piratical. I may keep one isolated MS
machine for applications that will run no where else.

 I just picked up a New In Box ASUS laptop 15.6' , Pentium, 4 gigs ram,
500 gig hd. I'd like to completely strip off the factory 8.1 O/S
and install a clean copy of Linux O/S but I don't know how.

I have been reading that I can download Ubuntu Linux and Ubuntu
desktop for free and burn them to a CD but I'm not quite sure of which
version or source.

 I already have an HP desk top, Lenovo laptop in 7.0 (?) and an old
iBook G4 so its no tragedy to strip this HD clean. I'd later like to
convert the iBook G4 too.

I already use Open Office, Opera, Firefox (I deleted Google chrome)
so any other suggestions would be helpful.

Note: I am quite literally up at 03:00 hours for work so I cannot make
the 7:00 pm meeting but I can make the meeting Sunday the 20th
@ 1:00 PM  at Free Geek in S.E. Portland.

Om,Tat,Sat,
Paul W.
OreVedantaTeacher at gmail.com