Originally Posted By: Win
I downloaded Linux Mint last week, and I have to say it is much improved from the last time I tried a Linux distro.
For someone that just wants to surf the web, write emails, and write simple letters and make simple spreadsheets, it probably is satisfactory.
Installing it was unreasonably difficult. Installing alongside XP on the computer in my ham shack, it did not install a boot manager as the release details said it would, although it did resize and repartition the hard drive.
After struggling with that issue for a few hours, I decided to just repartition the drive and do a clean install.
The 32 bit version of cinnamon would not run on my computer. It would get to the desktop and freeze. The 32 bit version of mate took a half dozen or so tries to install as it would randomly stop reading from the dvd drive while copying files. Finally, about 2:00 AM, it ran all the way through. Mate looks a lot like the old OS/2 presentation manager.
I'm not really sure what I can do with it. I installed the FireFox OS simulators into FireFox, but I can't seem to get the computer to recognize the FireFox phone yet. I expect there is an android toolkit for Linux, but it won't run any of my other software.
I guess I can look into the emulator programs. I don't think the computer this is installed on has the power or memory to run virtual machines.
Interesting... My experiences have been the opposite. Every computer I've put a Linux distro on (either Mint MATE/Cinnamon or Ubuntu) has been incredibly easy and fast. In fact, MUCH quicker than the last install of a Windows OS. One of the times I installed Mint MATE, I timed it- from power on and beginning the install to surfing the web was 13 minutes flat.