A couple of days ago, I installed Linux Mint 3.0 (came with a Aug 2007 magazine) on my system(AMD XP 2800+, Radeon9600 GFX, 512MB RAM)... Earlier, a few months ago, I had installed Vector Linux SOHO on another system, and so, thought I would submit my initial reactions and comparisons to the Mint OS, and clarify some doubts in the process...
1. Installation:
The installation of current Linux Distros is typically a breeze, and Linux Mint was no different... Popped the bootable DVD, chose to boot from DVD, and the Live version came up with option to install... After setting up the basics (keyboard layout, etc), the matter of where to install came up... I had two HDDs, and I had created a empty space at the end of the second hard disk... However, the default choice of the Mint Installation came up as the first HDD... May be a small issue that they can work on (choosing to install in the best location should be defaulting correctly)... However, it was quite easy to set up the partitions the way I wanted it... After that, the OS installation began and went very smoothly... Sometimes, I wish that Windows could have simplified its installation process by getting all necessary inputs at the initial stages instead of bugging users at a couple of intermediate stages...
2. Co-existance with Windows:
The system already had Win XP on it... No problems were encountered retaining the old OS and its partitions... During bootup, Linux Mint comes up first with a number of options and the last entry is the Windows OS... I want to edit the bootup menu to default to Windows, but I am not sure how to do it... Looked around in the Control Center, System Preferences, etc, but could not find it...
DOUBT: How to edit boot menu to default to Windows? Any GUI or is it editing of some config file...
The OS recognises and mounts the existing Windows Partitions automatically, which is good... Seems to use ntfs-3g... For some reason, Vector Linux did not detect the partitions and I had to manually edit a config file after googling to set it up...
DOUBTS:
A) does Linux retain the user rights given to folders in NTFS Security settings? and
B) Is there Read-only access setting by default and how to set Read-write access? (I was unable to delete a redundant file)
3. General System Performance:
I was slightly disappointed with the performance of the Mint OS... I had already heard that it was a slightly bloated OS, but I was a bit surprised that it made my system slow down much more than XP (which I admit required some general tweaking initially and regular maintenance/registry cleaning)...
DOUBT: Are there any tweaks to make it leaner? I will be using the system for light gaming, office use, and internet mainly...
4. Games:
I play computer games a lot during my spare time... Even in Linux, there are some games that I like a lot (the classic xbill and Chromium come to my mind immediately) which I used to play once in a while during my college days... While I knew that Mint was primarily a Multimedia distro, I was surprised that not even a single game was installed... Tonight, I will be downloading all the preferred game packages through synaptic (God I love unlimited night time browsing addon for 50 a month with Airtel)... Will post some comments on the newer Linux games I havent played yet...
5. Synaptic
This is a very good way to manage installation of various software in the OS. Makes managing the software so much easier... Software updates after installation was there, left Linux to download them last night and it was over without any further interaction... However, some improvements can be made in its user-friendliness...
Following features I feel will be helpful (if these features are already present please let me know...)
A. I wanted to install Opera 9.26 and Opera 9.50 beta side -by-side so that I can use both depending on the site, etc... (on Windows, Opera 9.5 was faster, but 9.26 was more stable). But when I tried to install both one after the other, the second overwrote the first... Whats worse, I had Opera running during the second installation, and it seemed to have corrupted the files or something... It should warn and close any running instances of the software during installation... Now, even after complete uninstall and reinstall, I am unable to browse with Opera (clicking on Opera icon does nothing)... Please let me know what to do... I like Firefox okay, but I prefer Opera much more... And is there any setting that allows me to install Opera beta version separately through GUI (not by gunzipping, and running make/make install, etc)...
B. Is there an option that will automatically accept that I will install all needed packages to install any package I select... There are many packages that have dependencies, and every time I select to install such packages, a warning that the other packages will also be installed comes up... This is quite annoying....
5. Beryl and other things:
Beryl is nice... But strange thing I noticed... I am not getting the top menu options (minimize/toggle maximize/exit) buttons during first login... Then, after I run Beryl manager, it comes up... Any ideas why?
Also, default there was no workspaces... Then, I went through some websites and found how to add it to the main panel...But even then it did not respond... Finally, when I started Beryl, then I got 4 workspaces and it was working...
DOUBT: How to make Beryl start automatically on logging in?
Internet connection is great... I have a modem that doesnt need username/password to enter; just switch it on and it starts.... With VectorLinux, if my net connection was not started during bootup, I had some scripts to run to get the net connection working after I switch on the modem... With Mint, it automatically detected the connection and set it up...
DOUBT: Also, is it possible to set the Windows key to open up the main menu just like in Windows it opens the start menu?
Please post your comments and clarify my doubts....
Arun
1. Installation:
The installation of current Linux Distros is typically a breeze, and Linux Mint was no different... Popped the bootable DVD, chose to boot from DVD, and the Live version came up with option to install... After setting up the basics (keyboard layout, etc), the matter of where to install came up... I had two HDDs, and I had created a empty space at the end of the second hard disk... However, the default choice of the Mint Installation came up as the first HDD... May be a small issue that they can work on (choosing to install in the best location should be defaulting correctly)... However, it was quite easy to set up the partitions the way I wanted it... After that, the OS installation began and went very smoothly... Sometimes, I wish that Windows could have simplified its installation process by getting all necessary inputs at the initial stages instead of bugging users at a couple of intermediate stages...
2. Co-existance with Windows:
The system already had Win XP on it... No problems were encountered retaining the old OS and its partitions... During bootup, Linux Mint comes up first with a number of options and the last entry is the Windows OS... I want to edit the bootup menu to default to Windows, but I am not sure how to do it... Looked around in the Control Center, System Preferences, etc, but could not find it...
DOUBT: How to edit boot menu to default to Windows? Any GUI or is it editing of some config file...
The OS recognises and mounts the existing Windows Partitions automatically, which is good... Seems to use ntfs-3g... For some reason, Vector Linux did not detect the partitions and I had to manually edit a config file after googling to set it up...
DOUBTS:
A) does Linux retain the user rights given to folders in NTFS Security settings? and
B) Is there Read-only access setting by default and how to set Read-write access? (I was unable to delete a redundant file)
3. General System Performance:
I was slightly disappointed with the performance of the Mint OS... I had already heard that it was a slightly bloated OS, but I was a bit surprised that it made my system slow down much more than XP (which I admit required some general tweaking initially and regular maintenance/registry cleaning)...
DOUBT: Are there any tweaks to make it leaner? I will be using the system for light gaming, office use, and internet mainly...
4. Games:
I play computer games a lot during my spare time... Even in Linux, there are some games that I like a lot (the classic xbill and Chromium come to my mind immediately) which I used to play once in a while during my college days... While I knew that Mint was primarily a Multimedia distro, I was surprised that not even a single game was installed... Tonight, I will be downloading all the preferred game packages through synaptic (God I love unlimited night time browsing addon for 50 a month with Airtel)... Will post some comments on the newer Linux games I havent played yet...
5. Synaptic
This is a very good way to manage installation of various software in the OS. Makes managing the software so much easier... Software updates after installation was there, left Linux to download them last night and it was over without any further interaction... However, some improvements can be made in its user-friendliness...
Following features I feel will be helpful (if these features are already present please let me know...)
A. I wanted to install Opera 9.26 and Opera 9.50 beta side -by-side so that I can use both depending on the site, etc... (on Windows, Opera 9.5 was faster, but 9.26 was more stable). But when I tried to install both one after the other, the second overwrote the first... Whats worse, I had Opera running during the second installation, and it seemed to have corrupted the files or something... It should warn and close any running instances of the software during installation... Now, even after complete uninstall and reinstall, I am unable to browse with Opera (clicking on Opera icon does nothing)... Please let me know what to do... I like Firefox okay, but I prefer Opera much more... And is there any setting that allows me to install Opera beta version separately through GUI (not by gunzipping, and running make/make install, etc)...
B. Is there an option that will automatically accept that I will install all needed packages to install any package I select... There are many packages that have dependencies, and every time I select to install such packages, a warning that the other packages will also be installed comes up... This is quite annoying....
5. Beryl and other things:
Beryl is nice... But strange thing I noticed... I am not getting the top menu options (minimize/toggle maximize/exit) buttons during first login... Then, after I run Beryl manager, it comes up... Any ideas why?
Also, default there was no workspaces... Then, I went through some websites and found how to add it to the main panel...But even then it did not respond... Finally, when I started Beryl, then I got 4 workspaces and it was working...
DOUBT: How to make Beryl start automatically on logging in?
Internet connection is great... I have a modem that doesnt need username/password to enter; just switch it on and it starts.... With VectorLinux, if my net connection was not started during bootup, I had some scripts to run to get the net connection working after I switch on the modem... With Mint, it automatically detected the connection and set it up...
DOUBT: Also, is it possible to set the Windows key to open up the main menu just like in Windows it opens the start menu?
Please post your comments and clarify my doubts....
Arun