Help me pick a Linux OS

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Weird. I downloaded each from their respective Linux sites and when I clicked the link and when it was finished downloading, it was in a winrar file? When I used the ISO burner program, I selected the rar and it burned it to disk. Review of the disk contents showed only the rar's contents and nothing else.

Maybe this is just a mis communication? I'm not terribly tech savvy, which I know may be a bad thing since I want to transition to Linux. I just know that I don't embrace Microsoft and their business practices and would like to get away sometime.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Hard drive is a Western Digital 320 gig WD3200AAKS-009K0, or at least that's what it says under properties.


You're looking at transfer rates of approximately 90MB/sec, but that's only for around the first 40% of the drive (after that, things start falling off precipitously) -- who knows what you're running at if it's all partitioned out. As I mentioned earlier, an upgrade makes quite the difference...ask ToyotaNSaturn about his read speeds with the same CPU.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Weird. I downloaded each from their respective Linux sites and when I clicked the link and when it was finished downloading, it was in a winrar file? When I used the ISO burner program, I selected the rar and it burned it to disk. Review of the disk contents showed only the rar's contents and nothing else.

Maybe this is just a mis communication? I'm not terribly tech savvy, which I know may be a bad thing since I want to transition to Linux. I just know that I don't embrace Microsoft and their business practices and would like to get away sometime.


A ha! OK, you DID get .iso files, which in Windows, with WinRAR installed, show up as WinRAR icons. Gotcha. I'll bet all file formats that WinRAR has associated itself with will show up in your file manager as WinRAR icons.

As long as everything burned to disk A-OK then I suppose there's nothing to worry about! Remember that both Mint and Ubuntu are designed for use by users, not tech-savy people. I administer about a dozen systems for friends, family and neighbours and I never, ever get complaints or questions from them regarding the operation of the OS. I have installed it and the users (non of them tech-savy) just use it without ever thinking about security, updates or how anything works. I especially like Ubuntu's unity interface for this reason: Users put the application they want on to the launcher bar, and simply know one thing: Click on the application you want to use. It's that easy!

You made a great decision. Whether you're going to end up with Ubuntu, Mint, or any of their derivatives you might also want to set up an account at ubuntuforum.org and/ or at the Linux Mint forums - Both are very friendly and extremely helpful; although you'll probably find that operating both Mint and Ubuntu to be much easier than trying to manage a Windows or Mac system.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
If I recall correctly, you need to download a special program to burn an iso image to a disk, you can't use the native Windows disc burning program.


Windows 7 and 8 both know how to correctly unpack an ISO file and write the image to a disc. If we're talking about making a bootable USB stick, that's something different, but no special software is required for writing an ISO in Windows.
 
Well I have Mint MATE installed alonside XP now. It's running way smoother than the previous versions have. Must have been a driver issue? Nothing else has changed.

A couple of questions: I noticed that during the install, a tutorial (I believe) mentioned Java and few others (I associate with MS). Will this OS suffer the same security issues that MS has been battling because of them?

My spell check doesn't seem to work in the forum reply boxes. Could this be because I skipped the language packs during install? My net speed is restricted due to bandwidth over use and after several hours, I hadn't made any appreciable headway- or is there a setting I can change?

About Firefox- In the MS version, the tools tab gives you all kinds of options for cookies and the like. I don't see that here. Also, am interested in the Better Privacy and AdBlock Plus add ons, but don't want to pile a bunch of junk on and slow it down... Thoughts?
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Well I have Mint MATE installed alonside XP now. It's running way smoother than the previous versions have. Must have been a driver issue? Nothing else has changed.


MATE does not perform any whiz-bang 3D compositing and uses no fancy transitions or special effects. It is snappier and lighter than a lot of other interfaces. Mint will also determine and prompt you to install any extra drivers that need to be installed to make best use of your hardware; and download, compile if necessary and install the drivers.

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
A couple of questions: I noticed that during the install, a tutorial (I believe) mentioned Java and few others (I associate with MS). Will this OS suffer the same security issues that MS has been battling because of them?


The folks at Ubuntu apply security patches to software they distribute ASAP and push them out as security updates. Likewise, restricted software (like a Java runtime engine directly from Oracle, as opposed to Ubuntu's/ Mint's open source alternatives) is pushed out as a security update as soon as the vendor makes it available.

I would expect that any Java vulnerabilities out in the wild affect any OS equally. There are open source Java runtimes in Ubuntu's software repositories (which Mint uses) and I do not know if they are affected by all Java vulnerabilities. Rest assured that Ubuntu makes any and all security updates available as soon as they are made available by the vendor or are compiled and packaged for Ubuntu by the security team. Mint passes these along immediately as it uses the Ubuntu repositories for software.

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
My spell check doesn't seem to work in the forum reply boxes. Could this be because I skipped the language packs during install? My net speed is restricted due to bandwidth over use and after several hours, I hadn't made any appreciable headway- or is there a setting I can change?


I'll bet this is set up in Firefox. Edit -> Preferences -> Content and check that the language(s) you want active are active and preferred. You can right-click in any text area to set up spell-check.

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
About Firefox- In the MS version, the tools tab gives you all kinds of options for cookies and the like. I don't see that here. Also, am interested in the Better Privacy and AdBlock Plus add ons, but don't want to pile a bunch of junk on and slow it down... Thoughts?


Choosing Edit -> Preferences should avail to you the same options as in FireFox versions for other OS's. Add-ons, almost exclusively, are OS-agnostic and can be installed and used in the same way as in other OS's. Using a few Add-ons is common; especially for things like Add-Block Plus.
 
Okay, getting stuff tweaked a bit. I noticed that spell check works on another forum I frequent (vbulletin), but not BITOG yet..
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Okay, getting stuff tweaked a bit. I noticed that spell check works on another forum I frequent (vbulletin), but not BITOG yet..

Just check your settings when you right click on an edit window (like when I'm typing now). It did that to me, too. I'm going to try to figure out what the real issue is, but I can give you the workaround here. It doesn't seem to be completely persistent, so you may have to fix it again if the fix reverts, as it did with me.

Right click in an edit window. You'll see that "Check Spelling" is probably checked, so you're confused as to why the typos aren't underlined. Just below "Check Spelling" is the "Languages" selection. Hit that, and click on "English (United States)" and you'll be good to go.

I don't know if it reverted when I downloaded all the updates (including Firefox) or if it's not persisting as it should be. If it's not persisting, I'll work on a solution when I have time (and get annoyed enough) and post it here.
 
Keep in mind that while you're running from a LiveCD things are going to feel awfully slow not just because it eats a bunch of RAM but also because CDs are slow so this becomes apparent on startup and when launching an application. Don't let that slowness fool you. Much of it goes away after a hard disk installation. If you're going to try a few different distros before you commit (probably worth doing) it might be more pleasant to use LiveUSB instead of LiveCD for those that give you the option. It is a little better this way because you don't have to wait quite so long for reading off a CD. It isn't hard disk fast, but not CD slow either. You can write the LiveCD .iso to a flash drive using unetbootin or, for some distros, just let unetbootin download the image on its own. Also, using a LiveUSB, Ubuntu and some of it's close relatives will remember your settings and whatnot after a reboot almost like a real installation.
 
I have found LiveLinux USB to be an excellent tool for creating bootable USB sticks. It will write an ISO file of your choosing to the stick, or it will let you select one of hundreds of distros in a combo box and will download that for you. It seems like a pretty slick tool. I cut three live DVDs of various distros until I found a 1 GB USB stick I had laying around.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Okay, getting stuff tweaked a bit. I noticed that spell check works on another forum I frequent (vbulletin), but not BITOG yet..


Have you tried Google Chrome on it yet? I type this post in Chrome on Kubuntu and the spell check works for me. I have to believe this is a browser function, and not an OS function, because it interestingly underlines "Kubuntu" and suggests that I change it to Ubuntu.
wink.gif
 
Awesome! Great stuff guys, thank you for the info. And you nailed it Garak.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Okay, getting stuff tweaked a bit. I noticed that spell check works on another forum I frequent (vbulletin), but not BITOG yet..


Have you tried Google Chrome on it yet? I type this post in Chrome on Kubuntu and the spell check works for me. I have to believe this is a browser function, and not an OS function, because it interestingly underlines "Kubuntu" and suggests that I change it to Ubuntu.
wink.gif



A browser would have to be programmed to work with the OS's central spell-checking functions; and neither Chrome nor Firefox integrate that tightly into any Linux desktop. Both use GTK to draw stuff but use their own code to keep passwords and do spell checking, etc.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
And you nailed it Garak.

It didn't revert on me this time. The typos are still underlined, so it seems to be in order. Perhaps it was something to do with the update. I will keep an eye on it though, since that kind of thing does bug me.
 
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