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Is Linux Mint right for me?

666 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  IEATFISH, 
seven9st surfer
I recently came across my old laptop from college that I stopped using due to a broken LCD. I finally found one on Ebay for a decent price, and I'm going to try to start using it again. The installed OS is XP Pro, but it barely boots, and I get countless errors on startup, so I need to wipe the HDD and start again. I figured I might as well give Linux a shot (I messed around with it for a few days in college, but not since). I just want to be able to cruise the internet, do email, pictures, and maybe watch some online videos. I'm really looking for a lightweight distro that at the same time will work "out of the box." I'm running a Dell Latitude D600 with a Pentium M processor at 1.6 GHz and 1 GB RAM (might add another gig if necessary, and $ permitting). So, is Mint pretty easy to work with, and will it run smoothly on my rig? Thanks for any tips/advice

Edit: can Mint or any other distro install off a USB drive? the lappy's only got a CD-ROM, and all i have is dvds...
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IEATFISH
Mint will probably work well. With laptops especially, however, it can be hit and miss on out of the box functionality. I would try Mint first though and if it doesn't work, try something else. And yes, it is pretty easy to do the USB boot. This is for version 5, but should work on 6 too:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-lin...-from-windows/
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SilentPixel
Otherwise if Mint feels slow then try Xubuntu, its based on Ubuntu (Same base Mint uses) but with a lighter interface (Doesn't use as many resources). The only problem with going the Xubuntu route is that you'd manually have to install the codecs in order to play movies. Although online videos(I'm guessing Youtube?) are easier to install as firefox detects that its flash and presents you with an easy install option
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IEATFISH
Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentPixel View Post
Otherwise if Mint feels slow then try Xubuntu, its based on Ubuntu (Same base Mint uses) but with a lighter interface (Doesn't use as many resources). The only problem with going the Xubuntu route is that you'd manually have to install the codecs in order to play movies. Although online videos(I'm guessing Youtube?) are easier to install as firefox detects that its flash and presents you with an easy install option
There are also other version of mint with KDE or Xfce that may be lighter for the computer.
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SilentPixel
Oh Right, I forgot about the community xfce project...


The only problem with that is that its a community based project, if you're ok with that then its fine, but some people may have better peace of mind if they know that the distro is backed by a company and the Ubuntu/Xubuntu user base is MASSIVE as seen on the ubuntu forums
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IEATFISH
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Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentPixel View Post
Oh Right, I forgot about the community xfce project...


The only problem with that is that its a community based project, if you're ok with that then its fine, but some people may have better peace of mind if they know that the distro is backed by a company and the Ubuntu/Xubuntu user base is MASSIVE as seen on the ubuntu forums
Yeah, I would agree. I'd say try the regular Mint first and then if that has problems go try Kubuntu and the Xubuntu.
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seven9st surfer
great info, thanks guys. i installed mint, and it seems pretty good. only thing is that i could not get my wireless working to save my life, and thats kind of a dealbreaker on a laptop. so im reinstalling windows, and making sure its not a physical issue with the antenna itself. if the antenna works in windows, i know it was just a driver issue and ill reinstall mint and try harder with the driver. but if it doesnt, im not sure what im gonna do. thanks again
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T
glad you're happy with it. i'm shortly going to be doing a 5/6 way distro comparison... if you hadn't already installed mint i would have recommended Puppy linux but eh... if it works then it works aii?
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IEATFISH
Quote:

Originally Posted by seven9st surfer View Post
great info, thanks guys. i installed mint, and it seems pretty good. only thing is that i could not get my wireless working to save my life, and thats kind of a dealbreaker on a laptop. so im reinstalling windows, and making sure its not a physical issue with the antenna itself. if the antenna works in windows, i know it was just a driver issue and ill reinstall mint and try harder with the driver. but if it doesnt, im not sure what im gonna do. thanks again
Wireless is probably the weakest point of Linux right now. There is usually always a way to get it working. Just google your wireless card and linux and see what comes up.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by IEATFISH View Post
Wireless is probably the weakest point of Linux right now. There is usually always a way to get it working. Just google your wireless card and linux and see what comes up.
I'll go out on a limb here and say that wireless is the weakest point of Ubuntu, and, vis-a-vis, Mint. I've never had anything but problems with wireless drivers on Ubuntu, but every other distro has been pretty much plug and play. Seriously, my Ubuntu couldn;t hold a connection for more than 10 minutes without dropping it. On top of that, It complained of signal strength when the router was 15 feet away in an open room.

I'm still not understanding where all the love of Ubuntu comes from. It's bloated and unwieldy, comparatively slow, and despite all the bloat, it's still just as difficult as other distros to configure properly.

By association, i would assume Mint is the same way, if not worse with the addition of additional software.

I'm not bashing the distro just for the sake of bashing. Ubuntu was one of the first Linux distributions that I used, and I used it for over a year on my desktop and for nearly a year on my laptop. Ubuntu gave me nothing but problems. Gentoo all the way baby. All the way...
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thiussat
Weird. I have never had wireless work out of the box EXCEPT on Linux Mint 6! It worked from the get-go.

Even if it doesn't work out of the box, it isn't that difficult to get working in 90% of cases. As was said, google your adapter and your distro name and you will likely find forum threads or blog posts on how to do it.
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H
It wasn't difficult to get it up and running, but it was sketchy. I would drop signal randomly, and I couldn't pick up signals that were definitely strong in the area.
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seven9st surfer
So when i went to install mint the first time, I had the option to install it by creating a new partition and leaving the existing OS (xp pro) on a seperate one by resizing it. after all the problems with the wireless, i just wiped the whole drive and installed xp again. finally found that illusive driver and got my wireless working. so its not a hardware issue, hooray! when i tried to install mint again (wanted to try a dual-boot) that option to just create a new partition out of the unused part of the hard drive was gone. i could only do a guided install on the whole drive, not a resize like before. any ideas there? if its gonna be this much trouble, i might just stick with xp, unless anyone can give me an easy fix. and thanks again for the advice so far
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IEATFISH
You can use GParted to do it.
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