Windows 7: Want to completely remove Windows 7 Starter and install Linux

Start point for research ....

24/7 Online support for HP's Home and Home Office Products - HP technical support (United Kingdom - English)

You should be able to obtain the manual for the HP Mini you have which should guide you through re-install process

This is the UK page, you may need to go to your HP site for your region

Indeed, thank you Barman58. I'm on there now. I expect everything will be pretty straight forward from this point on (famous last words, right?).

Thanks everyone for your help.

Couple of words of advice before actually proceeding.

Make backups of any personal files before you start, no matter what the manual says about retaining user files.

make sure you understand exactly what you need to do, print out or write down the instructions, once you start you will lose the instructions, as the pc is reformatted

Yes, certainly. I am backing up as we speak, twice for really important files.

The point you raise about getting a had copy of the instructions is a good one, and taken on board.

Cheers.

You'll do better with the clean start since HP's have the worst load of bloatware and useless factory utilities which have better versions built into Windows 7.

Everything you need is here to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

However if you want to try recovering to factory condition the steps are here: HP Recover Windows 7 Operating System Using HP Recovery - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

Then you can try to Clean Up Factory Bloatware - Windows 7 Forums

Hi gregrocker,

I agree that HP is terrible for so-called "bloatware". I have already restored my computer to factory settings, and chose to do a minimal image (or something like that) installation, which, HP tell me, install only the essential software and leaves out much of the bloatware. So far, it all looks pretty trim.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I agree that HP Minimal install is as close to a Clean Reinstall as Factory Recovery gets.

I would select to use "Independent Wireless Manager" in HP Wireless preferences to release it then after defaulting to Windows 7 built-in wireless uninstall it since it can add time to Startup and interfere with Windows 7's superior built-in Wireless management in the bottom right System tray.

Hi David, Sorry I was AWOL for a while - other tasks were calling. Follow the advice of Greg. He is the installation expert.

And when you are done installing, you must make images. Then you are safe for whatever happens. Any event from which the system can go on the blink (simple crash, a virus, a damaged disk) and you can restore the system from the image. An image can be restored in 20 minutes - beats reinstalling and all the hassle.

You do, however, need an external disk, but it is worth it. I recommend free Macrium. Here is a little tutorial I made: Imaging with free Macrium When you are ready, post back and I will help you set it up.

Marketing.

I don't think so. I use several Linux distros and get along with them. But getting serious work done in Linux is more complex than in Windows.

Linux is for academics and hard core geeks - in my opinion. Some distros like Mint look easy at the surface, but as soon as you want to do things outside the basic setup you have to really know what you are doing.