Originally Posted by
johnwash1
Hampshire used to have very enthusiastic meetings, attended by real experts who were also welcoming to beginners. In recent years they've gone very quiet, sadly. However there's a Portsmouth LUG that meets every 3rd Saturday and is well attended. You would certainly get help installing there.
Really, installing on a laptop is much the same as on a desktop. But some laptops do have proprietary hardware that is difficult for Linux to support (though it's getting better all the time). So the first thing to do is to boot from a DVD, not install anything on your laptop's hard drive, and check whether you can access all the devices. Of course it will be slow (a DVD is many times slower than a hard drive, which is in turn 100s of times slower than an SSD), so don't be put off by the tedium of such a trial. You may find problems with your wifi or a webcam, but often there are workarounds.