anyone mess with linux

[bergoff]

i'm tired of my laptop having issues with viruses and crap so i'm trying to install linux mint. i have a friend that runs it and loves it. but i'm having issues with the video drivers not letting the page refresh. does anyone else use linux? the one thing that i like about it is that if your pc is low on resources it still runs smooth. my laptop is a total turd with 512mb of ram 1.3gz processor.

 

[neobart]

Try getting Ubuntu, they have a really nice package and everything works out of the box. And it's still free.

 

[WoodiE]

I've never used Linux Mint before as well. In all the times I've played with Linux ubuntu was the one I've always used or some flavor of it - never had any problem with it.

 

[bergoff]

well i figured it out. mint 8 doesn't have drivers for ibm thinkpads. so i installed mint 9 and it works great. i wanted to use mint because it the closest thing to windows as i can go. so far so good.

 

[olds97_lss]

I'm thinking of installing it on my backup PC, 512M 2G P4 desktop... A buddy of mine at work is toying around with it on an old laptop, but he's using ubunto. He has 2G of ram and it uses almost all of it... I have to say, the interface/gui is pretty cool looking though. Might be something I'd toy with over a vacation.

What's the benefit of mint over ubunto? Both appear to be opensource and free. We use sun solaris at work and I've been using it for 14 years. Still use it a lot to write up quick scripts to do raw file manipulation, chron jobs and whatnot. Some of the stuff would be handy to have at home.

 

[WoodiE]

What's the benefit of mint over ubunto?

Mint is Ubuntu with extra's pre-installed more or less. The Mint project has taken a version of Ubuntu for it's base then have installed extra such as Adobe Flash, multimedia codec's, etc - it's purpose is to make it as easy as possible for users without any linux experience. A works right away out of the box type distro.

The side effect is that it's not always the latest greatest version of Ubuntu - when a new version of Ubuntu is released it might be several months before the new version of Mint is released.

All in all they are one in the same, it's just a matter of do you want cutting edge OS and are comfortable with linux and installing software etc - if so then use Ubuntu. If you're just getting started and want everything/ or most everything to work right out of the box and don't care if it's the latest greatest as of 10mins ago - then Mint is what you want.

 

[olds97_lss]

Thanks for clearing that up. Then mint is probably the route I'd take.

 

[bergoff]

i really like it so far. the thing i like the most is that it will automatically get the drivers for what ever i plug in. my friend has a patch to make it look and act totally like a mac. i will have him show me how to do it. now i have to redo my primary pc some day.