Linux Mint 9

Discussion in 'GNU/Linux' started by Wild Trapper, May 21, 2010.


  1. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Anyone going to install Mint 9 on their computer?

    I've downloaded and burned the iso file. In the process of testing the live dvd now. Wireless Internet works right off the live dvd. Looks like a very nice OS to me so far. I've got an old desktop in the garage, think I'll load it on that later on, maybe on my laptop next and if all goes well, on my netbook. I'll Duelboot for that as I use some of the windows xp programs. Going to check out wine on that first.
     
  2. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Install Virtual Box in Windows and them install Mint ( and anything else you want) as a virtual machine. You can then boot Mint right inside windows and it runs in a seperate window. You can even do a desktop merge that allows you to have both taskbars on the same desktop. No need for wine. You can also run this the opposite way with Windows in a VM environment. This give you a shared clipboard with cut and paste between MS and Linux.

    Great way to test out many OS without dedicating a box or a complicated dual boot. Don't like it- just delete ghat particular VM from Virtual Box

    Oh yeah, it's free.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  3. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Melbo, thanks for the tip on VirtualBox. I downloaded both the windows and Linux versions. Not sure about their use, but my test machine is already set up with an older version of Mint 7 and WinXP. The HP laptop that I've been using since my conversion to Linux is running Linux Mint 8, so I may test the Linux version of VirtualBox on it before upgrading to Mint 9. If I don't like or mess it up, I can just start over with a fresh install.

    I still have Mint 9 loaded as a live DVD on my netbook. It has WinXP on it and I can run wine on the DVD and run some of my windows programs through it, with mixed results. Dos programs that run in windows, don't work in wine. Surprise! No matter, I rarely use them, just like to keep them around. Setting up VirtualBox on the netbook might be a good thing for how I use it. The netbook has to use an external DVD writer as the small size doesn't allow an internal.
     
  4. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Finally did the upgrade to Mint 9 last night, well, and this morning. It took about three hours start to finish with all the normal updates and software downloads to get everything up to speed. I like it so far, not a big change from Mint 7 or 8 that I can see. It's Linux after all, so what's not to like?

    I did try the Virtual box install on the Linux laptop, something didn't go as planned with the copy of XP and one of the files wouldn't install, said it was bad. Well, I didn't need windows on my laptop anyway, just thought it would be something to try.
     
  5. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Update to Mint 9

    It has been a while since I installed Mint 9 on this laptop now and thought I could give a user report.

    All in all it works better than any past installs. I did have one lock up today in Firefox. Actually do not know what caused it. I was in an edit box on a forum and tried to type and no type showed up on the screen. I then tried to shut down and nothing happened. So I gave it the 3-finger salute and it shut down. When I booted back up everything worked normal. I'm wondering if I had just allowed some updates through the manager that could have caused this. I hope the old laptop is not getting ready to bite the dust.

    Also, I tried a duel boot on the Toshiba Netbook with XP and Mint 9. Linux worked fine, but the install messed up XP and all I got was a blue screen of death. I have the disk, so I reinstalled XP and for now will leave it at that. Most of the same programs I use in Linux have an open source windows version that I can use, so there is little difference in the way I use the two computers. I do have a few programs that will only work right in windows. Tried wine to get some of my programs working without worrying about repairing windows but it just didn't work right with some of the registered stuff not recognizing the reg numbers or whatever.

    I'm wondering if virtual box will work in windows to run Linux on the Netbook. Got a question about that. If I load Linux in virtual box, will it remain there if I shut down, or will I have to reload it every time I start back up? Anyone have any knowledge about that? Other wise I'll have to try it myself to know, not like I am a rookie at messing up computers. [rofllmao]
     
  6. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Anything you load in Virtual Box will stay there. It actually installs the OS as if it's installing in a real machine. It's persistent and only needs to be powered on and off like a regular system.

    One tip I learned on a dual boot is to be very careful where you let it install grub (or other bootloader). It wipes out the Windows MBR and you need to do some digging to fix it. Very easy to repair and then your boot comes back fine.

    If you are ever playing around with a Linux install to a USB drive, take out your HDD first. Trust me, it will save you lots of headaches and force the installer to write grub to the USB drive.
     
  7. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Thanks Melbo,

    I tried installing Linux again on the netbook and this time I messed up that install. It worked and so did windows, except had a huge dead place in the HDD. Almost 40 gig. So, now I've started all over with a complete reinstall starting with windows. I will be going with ubuntu 10.10, a switch from Mint.
     
  8. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    You need a dedicated play box for all these tests...
     
  9. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    All my computers are dedicated play boxes. My wife's computer doesn't get messed with, as far as experimenting goes. I have trouble enough keeping it running right for her. It's the only vista machine in the house. I use mostly open source or free programs on my windows play boxes, then of course Linux. I keep all my settings and personal stuff routinely backed up on externals. I'm ready to change OS's in a few minutes.
     
  10. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Well, I finally gave up on trying to get both XP and Linux working right on my netbook and went back to Linux Mint 9 as ubuntu 10.10 just isn't ready for me. Maybe better put, I'm not patient enough for a pre-release. It did some strange things on me. I had moved the menu panels around so the one from the bottom that shows which programs are running was on the right and was hidden, that stayed put. The one from on top I had on the bottom and showing, for some reason moved itself back to the top and would not allow me to move it back to the bottom. Several other issues with the way its updates didn't update properly were also frustrating. So, for now I'll stick with Mint, as I don't have the time right now to mess around with starting all over. Mint just works.

    If I get more time later, I might try virtual box in mint and see if I can load windows that way. The live cd of ubuntu allows you to install it so you can run linux inside windows. I did try that and when I went to ubuntu, all I got was command line in linux. I didn't know how to get the graphics to load. I know a few linux commands, but for some reason I was under the impression that I was going to see a graphic interface.
     
  11. Lynn_A

    Lynn_A Monkey+

    I've used Ubuntu since back in the days of Feisty. About 6 months ago, I flipped two of my desktops over to Mint 9 and I feel it is running a bit faster. (Now I wish I had bench-marked Ubuntu before overwriting it.) One machine runs Windows 7 and GRUB2 didn't want to play well with Windows, so I had to wipe GRUB2 and go back to GRUB. That machine is also 64 bit and the Flash issues were a pain in Ubuntu. Other than the GRUB issue, Mint 9 fell onto the box and worked.

    It will sound sacrilegious to the Apple fans, but my iMac runs on Ubuntu Lucid. I don't have a lot of money to splash around, so I shop for new things very slowly and deliberately. About the only item I own I have any buyer's remorse over is that iMac. What a wonderfully-built computer, but beyond that, I have never cared for it.

    Wild Trapper, it sounds like you were trying to do a Wubi install of Ubuntu. I used Wubi several years ago and it always booted up into Ubuntu like a regular dual-boot. Wubi will give you a pretty good sense of what Ubuntu is like, but I like doing a regular install with a /home partition, so I can keep my data.
     
  12. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    I'm with Mint 9 on my laptop, but reverted back to XP on my netbook. I have some ham radio software that has to run on windows or I'd probably have switched it to Mint as well. Fact is, I had Mint on it and had to put windows back on it because I couldn't get windows to duel boot. Mint worked, but windows gave me a blue screen right before it died. After working on it for about a week i just gave up and decided to live with windows.

    I use firefox and thunderbird in both windows and Linux and just save all my settings and personal files to an external. So, when I want to install a new distro or test one out, I just let the install run, then reload the settings, etc. into the proper location and I'm up and running again. It seems I never install all the same programs anyway.
     
  13. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    You come a long way over the years WT
     
  14. Wild Trapper

    Wild Trapper Pirate Biker

    Thanks, I credit you for making a convert of me. [bow] I even have a USB stick I can run that has an earlier mint distro on it, either Mint 7 or 8. I can run Linux on my netbook with it if I want to, Can't get it to work with wireless on it though, the live CD in a external DVD drive will work wireless, kind of crazy if you ask me. When I had Mint 9 on it, for a couple days, I could go online wireless with no problem, just not if I use the USB stick, I have to be wired with it.
     
  15. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    I never got around to posting a screenshot of VirtualBox in action. Here's a quick snapshot of me playing around with 'seemless' mode. Notice the Mint and Windows 7 taskbars at the bottom. You'll see I have both Linux and Windows apps open in the same monitor.

    VBox is really cool and it's even better for testing.
    and it's free
    vbox (Medium).JPG
     
survivalmonkey SSL seal        survivalmonkey.com warrant canary
17282WuJHksJ9798f34razfKbPATqTq9E7