Finally got Linux Mint Downloaded

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ndfergy,

It's a laptop. I apologize for being technically deficient. I honestly had no idea what you were asking me to do as far as the drive info you were asking me about. I'm embarrassed because I don't know how to do a screenshot either. I do appreciate your willingness to help me though. I was able to turn off Fast Start, with Hybrid disabled. I rebooted into Mint and went to the terminal, changed the efibootmgr to show Ubuntu loading first and Windows Boot second. I rebooted again and it loaded straight to Windows again. So I reset everything that I changed back to the way they were.

The Audacity things that were appearing on my screen saver have finally disappeared. I have no idea what I did (or if I did anything) to get rid of them. All I know is I was clicking everything I could think of. What ever it was worked. I just don't know what it was.

i have had absolutely no luck with adding Gmail, or Yahoo Mail, to Thunderbird. I tried the link you provided. I got excited thinking that this might be the ticket. No such luck.

I tried the restart vs shut down, as suggested by terry274. No luck. Thanks for the suggestion.

So I've come to the conclusion that I've had it with Windows. The Linux Mint that currently is installed on my computer appears to be working fine. I've been working with it for the last week. I'm using it now to type this post. WiFi, printers, mouse etc.. all work fine. Mint does everything I did with Windows. I"m going to take the chance that reloading Mint as the only OS on the computer will work just like it does now while sharing the computer with Windows. Then dual booting won't be an issue. Any last concerns that anyone can think of before I do this? I have copied files that I might need in the future to my external Seagate drive. I know I won't miss Windows. If all goes as planned, I'll probably be back for some help with Gmail and Yahoo Mail if it's still a problem. Wish me luck and thanks for all the help.
 
Hi Sierra048,

You're good to go. My main concern was bricking your windows OS. That's why I wanted the partition and installation media details before we go down any rabbit hole. To remove windows from your machine you're going to have to delete the windows partitions, resize then cleanup the bootloader.

Here's a link to that process: Dual boot windows removal

As far as your Gmail and Yahoo accounts: open and sign into your accounts from your web browser. From there you can make any changes in your settings preferences like allowing cookies. With Yahoo try changing your password that might affect any updates to their authorizations/protocals.

Note: You don't have to only use Thunderbird. You could add a Gmail icon extension in Firefox. You could also link your yahoo account to it.

Good luck
 
"So I've come to the conclusion that I've had it with Windows. The Linux Mint that currently is installed on my computer appears to be working fine. I've been working with it for the last week. I'm using it now to type this post. WiFi, printers, mouse etc.. all work fine. Mint does everything I did with Windows. I"m going to take the chance that reloading Mint as the only OS on the computer will work just like it does now while sharing the computer with Windows. Then dual booting won't be an issue. Any last concerns that anyone can think of before I do this? I have copied files that I might need in the future to my external Seagate drive. I know I won't miss Windows. If all goes as planned, I'll probably be back for some help with Gmail and Yahoo Mail if it's still a problem. Wish me luck and thanks for all the help."

You're where I was after about a week of dual booting. It was "why do I want to keep Windows around?" Reinstalled and clicked Linux only when I wanted to dual boot. Four years and I haven't looked back. I'm about to ditch Linux Mint Mate 17.3 for Ubuntu Mate 18.04, but Mint has served me well. I did go from Cinnamon to Mate to get a little more oomph from my not very high powered computer.
 
I too have Yahoo mail (for quasi-spam and backup only) and Gmail and have never used Thunderbird. Chrome has gotten larger and larger over the last few years but I use it so that Gmail updates, along with my bookmarks and history and universally available on every computer, chromebook, tablet and phone.
 
I would also recommend that you set updates for Mint all the way down to level 1. The Mint folks kind of scare you into limiting updates to level 3 and up, but in doing updates on my GF's Ubuntu Mate and my (now) Peppermint Mint machines for years, I've never seen any troubles in doing full updates. With some of the recent malware at operating system scares, I would probably update my Mint all the way back to level 1 but it would mean several years of updates all hitting at once. Think I'll wait to the long term release of Ubuntu Mate in April and start all over again. The other advantage of Ubuntu Mate is that you can easily change the look and feel to about seven different variations without doing a complete install.

Good luck with your Linux Mint. One of the best, most stable distros and so, so much better than Win.
 
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Hi again Sierra048,

If the above removal of the windows partitions is too complicated for you then maybe the better option is to do a complete reinstall from the live bootable usb. Once you get your email accounts sorted I would enable the built in UFW (uncomplicated firewall). Just type firewall in search and it should come up. Click enable then restart. Now recheck the integrity of your email accounts that all is well.

Good luck
 
OK. So my removal of Windows and subsequent installation of Mint off of my bootable USB appears to have been a success. My worst fears didn't materialize. I have some work to do getting Mint back to where it was before I reinstalled it.

Ndfergy,

I didn't do anything to prepare for the removal of Windows. I assumed, maybe wrongly, that since it wasn't dual booting anyhow it wasn't an issue. I just used the bootable USB and loaded up a live Mint session and chose the install option, then chose the option where the install program would erase the hard drive and I'm guessing reformatting it. If there is something you think I should do after doing what I did, and it's not too late, please let me know.

I haven't spent a lot of time on the new install yet but I know right up front that my Canon wireless printer doesn't work. It worked fine when it was sharing the computer with Windows. I haven't tried my Gmail and Yahoo Mail problems yet. I hope to spend some time on it tomorrow getting it back where it was.

As happy as I am that Mint is the only OS on my computer now, and dual booting should not be a factor going forward, I'm even happier that Windows is gone.
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Congratulations, you got it!!

You're printer issue is probably not having it turned on to be discovered during the install process. Turn your printer on then open the printer folder. Look under network and find your printer model to add. Once you add,Linux should look for and install the drivers.
 
Thanks. Sitting here reading Bitog and munching on some breakfast. After my "honey do" list, prepared by Ms. Sierra048, I`m going to spend the rest of the afternoon working on it.

Maybe a silly question but, this thread is getting kind of long. Should I still come to this thread with any problems or should I start a new thread specifically for that problem?
 
Well, I spent the whole afternoon getting Mint back to where it was before I did the permanent re-install. I was finally able to get the Canon wireless printer hooked up. An article I Googled suggested hooking up the printer with a cable first so the computer could see it and load a driver. I did that and then went to the add a printer section, it searched and found the printer and enabled it for wireless usage. I was able to get my Hotmail accounts, and finally my Gmail accounts to work. No such luck with the Yahoo mail accounts. That's of no concern since I really don't use them anyhow. Well I guess I'm good with where I'm at now. Any other questions I can't figure out, assuming I can't find help online, I'll get back with you all.

Thanks for the help and encouragement to get this done.
cheers3.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
...
I was able to get my Hotmail accounts, and finally my Gmail accounts to work. No such luck with the Yahoo mail accounts. That's of no concern since I really don't use them anyhow.
...

You can access yahoo from a web page.
Then somewhere in yahoo settings you can forward the whole account to your gmail.
 
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Well, I spent the whole afternoon getting Mint back to where it was before I did the permanent re-install. I was finally able to get the Canon wireless printer hooked up. An article I Googled suggested hooking up the printer with a cable first so the computer could see it and load a driver. I did that and then went to the add a printer section, it searched and found the printer and enabled it for wireless usage. I was able to get my Hotmail accounts, and finally my Gmail accounts to work. No such luck with the Yahoo mail accounts. That's of no concern since I really don't use them anyhow. Well I guess I'm good with where I'm at now. Any other questions I can't figure out, assuming I can't find help online, I'll get back with you all.

Thanks for the help and encouragement to get this done.
cheers3.gif




I hear complaints about Yahoo mail often. For what it's worth, here are their instructions: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN4075.html
 
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Thanks for the help and encouragement to get this done.
cheers3.gif


Glad it's all working! Personally, I use Thunderbird on occasion, particularly for ISP mail. Now, using Gmail and Hotmail and Yahoo as webmail has the advantage of not messing things up if you're accessing from various locations, which I do. If I use Thunderbird to view my Gmail, the default settings (assuming I could improve my settings, which I haven't bothered with, it being redundant) would cause all the emails to be downloaded, and then not readily visible when going to Gmail's website on another computer.

I tend to use Thunderbird with the ISP email, as I mentioned, and it's good if using GPG encryption in concert with that. That's not as seamless a procedure with webmail.

As for adding the printer, you used my preferred method, which works best for me.
 
Sorry for the late response. We were out of town for a week visiting our grandchildren.

Garak, what is ISP mail? I assume it's different from webmail from your post above. For that matter, what is webmail? I didn't know there was a difference in email. But that shouldn't be a surprise either.
 
ISP = Internet Service Provider
ISP email = email account given to you by your ISP, such as @comcast.net, or @att.net.

Webmail just means ability to access your email account through your web browser. The alternative way to access your email is through an email client - a dedicated application that you install and use for managing all your different email accounts in one place. An example of such email client is Thunderbird. It should have come preinstalled standard with your Linux distribution.
 
Originally Posted By: Sierra048
Garak, what is ISP mail? I assume it's different from webmail from your post above. For that matter, what is webmail? I didn't know there was a difference in email. But that shouldn't be a surprise either.

Quattro Pete covered most of it. These days, the lines can be blurred. I get an email account (well, several) from my ISP at home. At the outset, those would only be accessible from the predecessors to Thunderbird and related software. Now, the ISP has web access to one's email, and most are like that, so it's also webmail. It's just that one likely can't apply to get mail access from an ISP they don't have service with, whereas anyone can go and get what I'd call "regular webmail" from Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, and so forth.

For business email, I tend to access that email account from the web, since it works at home, the office, anywhere I need it, and it looks the same no matter where I access it. With my personal ISP email, I use Thunderbird, since it will download the mail and I won't access it anywhere else, and it's seamless if I wish to use encryption.

Don't worry about not knowing the difference. Hardly anyone these days has any idea that ISPs provide an email server. With the ubiquity of webmail, the actual need for ISP email has essentially disappeared, except, perhaps, by use of the employees themselves.
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I would probably just buy a 40$ 120gb ssd and install linux on it. disconnect the windows hdd/ssd until you need it again.

Its what I do usually about 50% of the time the people keep linux the other 50% they run back to windows as soon as they have issues..
 
QP, Garak,

Thanks for the clarification. My Hotmail, which I use for important, recurring, contact is working fine now. My Gmail account, that I use for anything else, is also working so I'm good. Yahoo mail I don't really care about and is a non-issue for me.

Hey Rand,

For what it's worth, I doubt I will ever go back to Windows. Just too many knowkedgeable people here on BITOG, willing to help tech-deficient members like me, for me to do it.
 
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