Tittypants said:

TonyVanDam said:

Linux Mint (Main Edition) is Ubuntu-based. But unlike Ubuntu, Linux Mint will notice your soundcard so you will have sound straight away. And Flash & Java plug-ins are automatically install.

I was just looking in their website [the link you posted]. Is the setup similar to a windows setup? It looks that way. With ubuntu, I think the setup threw me off a little bit

[Edited 4/15/12 21:12pm]

Are you talking about the desktop enviornment OR the installment set-up?!?

Installment set-up is pretty easier than you think. The desktop environment is not Windows and it sure as hell isn't trying to be like Mac (the same mistake Ubuntu has been making lately).

TonyVanDam said:

Tittypants said:

I was just looking in their website [the link you posted]. Is the setup similar to a windows setup? It looks that way. With ubuntu, I think the setup threw me off a little bit

[Edited 4/15/12 21:12pm]

Are you talking about the desktop enviornment OR the installment set-up?!?

Installment set-up is pretty easier than you think. The desktop environment is not Windows and it sure as hell isn't trying to be like Mac (the same mistake Ubuntu has been making lately).

I was referring to the environment. Ubuntu's desktop environment was kinda weird to me. I was pretty clueless with it. I will also say, it wouldn't run any HD videos smoothly either. The videos were skipping the whole time I was watching them & my laptop can easily watch 720p videos; Do you have that problem with Linux Mint? I'm pretty sure I probably had to download some stuff to help me out with that problem

Tittypants said:

TonyVanDam said:

Are you talking about the desktop enviornment OR the installment set-up?!?

Installment set-up is pretty easier than you think. The desktop environment is not Windows and it sure as hell isn't trying to be like Mac (the same mistake Ubuntu has been making lately).

I was referring to the environment. Ubuntu's desktop environment was kinda weird to me. I was pretty clueless with it. I will also say, it wouldn't run any HD videos smoothly either. The videos were skipping the whole time I was watching them & my laptop can easily watch 720p videos; Do you have that problem with Linux Mint? I'm pretty sure I probably had to download some stuff to help me out with that problem

I didn't have that kind of a problem. And keep in mind that I'm still using a currently 11-year-old Gateway desktop with only 512 RAM!

It takes a while to get used to the Unity environment, most def. That's the one I have on the kids' pc.

I am using the KDE interface on my laptop atm, but most Linux packages recommended to you will probably run a GNOME interface. I haven't run the Xfce setup since it was like v2.x, so I can't comment on it, but GNOME and KDE4.7/8 are not too different from the Microsoft interface that they seem strange like the Unity environment would; yet, they remain different enough to know that you're dealing with something that is it's own persona. There are a few dozen different other Desktop environments like MATE and Xfce, so there is plenty to choose from to suit your style.

If you're not interested in downloading LiveCD after LiveCD to test, try to check out YouTube and see people's reviews on a system. Here are some to look at:

Linux Mint 12

Linux Mint 12 - Debian Edition (not Ubuntu based)

ArchLinux

CentOS

If you're looking to compare desktop environments, YouTube some reviews on:

GNOME2

GNOME3

KDE 4.8

Xfce

MATE/Cinnamon

Dren5 said:

AsylumUtopia said:

I first used Ubuntu a few months ago, and I quite like it too. You don't need 2 computers to use both OS's - you can put both of them on one. Like you, I have programs that only run on Windows so I went for the dual boot option (obviously you can't actually run both OS's at the same time, but you can have both on one machine and choose which to boot).

The Ubuntu install took my computer from behind and fucked it, roughly, and I am only just now finishing the recovery process (recovering all the data from an external hard drive that the Ubuntu installer said it was not going to format but formatted anyway).

So, with some painful lessons learnt, here are some tips:

Do NOT use the Wubi-installer. It's shit, it tells lies, it doesn't work, it will fuck your machine.

If you're going to install Ubuntu but you want to keep Windows (dual boot), then make sure you install Ubuntu on a separate drive - not a separate partition, but a different physical hard drive (the only method that worked for me).

Do not believe anything the Ubuntu installer tells you. Instead, burn an Ubuntu installer disk, then remove ALL hard drives from your system other than the one you want Ubuntu to install to. If you don't do this, the installer will put it's boot loader onto the wrong disk (and the boot loader won't work).

Once your Ubuntu install is complete, you can then reattach your Windows (and other) hard drives. Your bios should then detect the Ubuntu boot loader and automatically give you boot options from then on, so each time you boot up you can choose whether to boot windows or Ubuntu.

(having said all that, I'm not sure how a laptop would react to having it's main drive removed or if it would handle booting from an external drive - I know nothing about laptop bios's. I guess if you want to mess around with different OS's the best bet is to have machine designed for flexibility.)

There are also some sandbox type packages out there that allegedly allow windows based software to run under Ubuntu, but I haven't tried any or done any research on them.

Having tried Ubuntu I have decided that although it has some nice features, there are too many things that should be straightforward and obvious, but aren't. It's a bit too much of a toy for my purposes. So I'm going to try Suze next. I'm planning on preparing for Suze installation this week and hope to do an install next weekend. If you like, I can keep you posted with anything useful I learn.

This is what I did and I DON'T recommend it. Then if you aren't comp-savvy and don't know how to get it off your hard-drive, you have all that space that it's taking up that you can't use anymore.

Even reinstalling Windows didn't give me that space back.

If you read on you'd discover that I don't recommend that either.

I recommended installing Ubuntu ON A SEPARATE HARD DRIVE. Then you have a choice of OS's.

If you don't like Ubuntu at least it hasn't fucked your machine and you still have your original OS (ON A SEPARATE HARD DRIVE).

And if you're not tech-savvy and can't format the drive back to NTFS, then you can just throw it away.

Has anyone tried Suze? And if so, how does it compare?

I didn't even think about trying Mint - on the basis that it's a flavour of Ubuntu and so would also be a bit gimmicky and crap (in parts).

A colleague at work recommended Mint - Debian today too.

So now I don't know which to go for. Fuck it. I feel a lot of reading and indecisiveness coming on.

AsylumUtopia said:

Has anyone tried Suze? And if so, how does it compare?

I didn't even think about trying Mint - on the basis that it's a flavour of Ubuntu and so would also be a bit gimmicky and crap (in parts).

A colleague at work recommended Mint - Debian today too.

So now I don't know which to go for. Fuck it. I feel a lot of reading and indecisiveness coming on.

Run Mint Live and see.... you'll like the interface also. If you burn you own, bur the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. I have no problems runnning Linxu Mint... well wait wireless printing but I just connected an older printer via USB. Once again Ubunut/ Unity WTF, talk about fucking up a progressive functional distro.

I always recommend max out your RAM... makes things run that much smoother.

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[Edited 4/16/12 13:02pm]

TD3 said:

AsylumUtopia said:

Has anyone tried Suze? And if so, how does it compare?

I didn't even think about trying Mint - on the basis that it's a flavour of Ubuntu and so would also be a bit gimmicky and crap (in parts).

A colleague at work recommended Mint - Debian today too.

So now I don't know which to go for. Fuck it. I feel a lot of reading and indecisiveness coming on.

Run Mint Live and see.... you'll like the interface also. If you burn you own, bur the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. I have no problems runnning Linxu Mint... well wait wireless printing but I just connected an older printer via USB. Once again Ubunut/ Unity WTF, talk about fucking up a progressive functional distro.

I always recommend max out your RAM... makes things run that much smoother.

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[Edited 4/16/12 13:02pm]

Are you using a desktop or laptop? I only have a laptop right now.....

Tittypants said:

TD3 said:

Run Mint Live and see.... you'll like the interface also. If you burn you own, bur the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. I have no problems runnning Linxu Mint... well wait wireless printing but I just connected an older printer via USB. Once again Ubunut/ Unity WTF, talk about fucking up a progressive functional distro.

I always recommend max out your RAM... makes things run that much smoother.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Edited 4/16/12 13:02pm]

Are you using a desktop or laptop? I only have a laptop right now.....

I'm using Linux Mint 12 on a desktop at present; when I get my recieve my new HDD I'm dual booting it on a Vista notebook also.

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[Edited 4/17/12 21:56pm]

TD3 said:

Tittypants said:

Are you using a desktop or laptop? I only have a laptop right now.....

I'm using Linux Mint 12 on a desktop at present; when I get my recieve my new HDD I'm dual booting it on a Vista notebook also.

Oh okay. I think I should get a desktop too. I was looking @ some video on Linux Mint on Youtube & it seems pretty solid in my opinion. I like the desktop environment of it much better than Ubuntu's .

I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu dualbooted on my laptop.

Militant said:

I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu dualbooted on my laptop.

Have you had any problems with the dualbooting?

Tittypants said:

Militant said:

I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu dualbooted on my laptop.

Have you had any problems with the dualbooting?

Nope. And I had the dualboot on my previous laptop also.

Militant said:

Tittypants said:

Have you had any problems with the dualbooting?

Nope. And I had the dualboot on my previous laptop also.

Okay. I should have maybe tried dualbooting myself first .

[Edited 4/17/12 20:05pm]