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Well, it's Turbotax time again.

Last summer, my five yr old Dell laptop (Ubuntu) crashed.  No biggie.  It happens--I keep regular Clonezilla backuos.

Got a new Dell.  It came with the resident evil Win 10 installed.  Just did enough to get it working and registered.  Noticed the Win 10 wants to download/apply updates at will, but you can set the update window so that at least it will not do an update reboot while you are working.  Backed off the Win 10 with Clonezilla and tested a Clonezilla Win 10 restore.  All worked fine.  Then restored my latest Ubuntu backup to the new Dell.  All is well.  I like this OS shuffling via Clonezilla better than keeping the two OSs on separate disks--kinda a pain to dismantle a Dell to get to the hard drive that's kinda "hidden".  I really liked the old Dells that had the disk pop in/out on back of machine.  That way, during non tax time, I could pop out the WIndows "whatever" and lock it in a dark closet so it could not damage my machine or mylife.  Don't think Dell has made those type machines in years--now the disk is buried in the machine.

Last week, in preparation for tax time, backed off my Ubuntu and restored the resident evil Win 10.  The update process started 9am and was mostly done by 2am.  Total machine lockout and using 40Mbps cable to do these danged updates.  But then installed the Turbotax ok.  It is the one and only app on there.  I have another small Ubuntu laptop I use for travel and as backup during tax season.  Hope to be done with taxes within the week, then will get that nasty virus off my precious machine,

Now, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Bill Gates is supposed to be calling me with his apologies for his trash system and for all the hours of my life wasted on his abysmal products over the years.  But he has an awful lot of calls to make, so...

Thanks guys.

benali72, yes, think the license would be a roadblock;  Dell came from big box office supply, no license or paperwork for OS that I could find, though maybe could have pestered Dell for it--don't know.  At this point, I have the Clonezilla OS swap down so well that all that really bothers me about it is the massive Winblows updates waiting to ambush me when I put back on machine after six months or so of inactivity.  In the past, I have tried to remember to swap the Windows (7, 8.1 or whatever had been on the machine at purchase) back on every three months or so just to apply updates.  But forgot this last time on the Win 10, so there was bunch of updates waiting.

Gorn, yes, the Win 10 was moving faster than the prior Wins I've had.  Booting much faster.  I'll have to give it that.  It's just the whole deal of having no control of my own hardware, the paid antivirus "yearly tax", the updates hassle, the always imminent OS crashes, etc., that put me off. I've been using some form of Ubuntu or Mint for years, and I don't remember an update or upgrade ever having gone wrong.  They just work, and quickly, and 75% time don't request reboot to complete.  It just works.  And it's free.  On the contrary, Windows updates always seem funky, don't tell you much when they go wrong, and just leave me feeling I am working with a toy.  And the Windows always seem more prone to hacks.  I will say the government agencies and big corps I worked for had it a little better, with dedicated systems admins.  Even then, they were less stable than my home linux box.  And when Windows goes annual subscription, I'll have to pay Bill and his minions yearly for their malfeasance.

Will keep the virtual box approach in mind for future, though.