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Post by Ratae on Dec 23, 2011 15:12:56 GMT
So...I've made my mind up. I've decided to keep my old Toshy, and I'm going to stick Linux Mint on it.
I've read some good reports about Mint, and as it's based on Ubuntu, I'm hoping that I'll get the hang of it reasonably quickly.
To be honest, it doesn't really matter anyway. It's likely that another cheap lappy will be coming my way soon, and I'll soon be running out of space for them, so if things don't go well, I'll shove XP back on it then flog it for a drink!
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chip
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by chip on Dec 23, 2011 17:27:58 GMT
Would not recommend Mint 12, radical changes from previous versions.
9, 10 and 11 for an easy life.
I use Linux Mint for 99% of the time.
Bob
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Post by Ratae on Dec 25, 2011 19:56:53 GMT
Would not recommend Mint 12, radical changes from previous versions. 9, 10 and 11 for an easy life. I use Linux Mint for 99% of the time. Bob Damn.... I've just burned the disc too! Chip..... what's the problem with v12 then.
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chip
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by chip on Dec 25, 2011 22:44:39 GMT
New "desktop environments", Gnome 3 (Mint) and Unity (Ubuntu) are dumbed down. It seems they are trying to cater for tablet use like Windows 8. www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/why-ubuntu-1110-fills-me-with-rage/19103For a desktop PC they just aren't as usable as Gnome 2 You will find yourself asking "how do I do this" all the time. Trust me. Bob
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Post by Ratae on Dec 25, 2011 23:44:48 GMT
Bob, the disc that I've burned is the DVD edition. Below is the description of it! "MATE is present on the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. Users of the CD edition can install it via the mint-meta-mate package.
MATE is brand new, it's not completely stable yet, and it's missing a few parts. It's being actively maintained and with close collaboration between the MATE developers and Linux Mint. With time the project will gain maturity and provide users with a traditional and solid desktop experience.
Eventually, MATE will be in every way identical to Gnome 2 and represent the future of traditional desktops within Linux."I think I may give it a go. Got nothing to lose anyway with the old Toshy that it's going on! I haven't got that new 'Unity' desktop on my Ubuntu (10.04 LTS) machine, it still has 'Gnome' ... I'm sticking with this LTS version on my netbook anyway!
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chip
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by chip on Dec 26, 2011 13:30:38 GMT
No problem trying anything on a dedicated machine. Looking after Windows is the main worry on a shared PC.
I think the Gnome 3/Mate combo is messy at present. I have Mint 11, 12 & Mint 11 LXDE on this machine. There are KDE (another desktop) which I can't get along with. They all sit on top of the Linux kernel.
I always have Linux somewhere and downloading and burning the disks is easy as all the tools are included.(Full Mint has a right click MD5 check for ISOs)
Having an Android phone (Linux kernel) I am virtually free of Microsoft.
I've been using Linux for years now (inspired by Penguin on tother place to persevere)
Bob
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Post by Ratae on Dec 26, 2011 15:40:59 GMT
Ah...Penguin is deffo a Linux expert. (as he would be with that name)
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Post by Ratae on Dec 26, 2011 21:45:24 GMT
Not going well so far! I wiped the drive (or so I thought) on the Toshy..... rebooted with the Mint12 disc. Damn thing stalled after about 10mins. So, thinking that I must have made a ricket burning the iso file, I tried another one, tho' this time I burned a Mint11 disc. Same thing. Naturally...I'm now getting suspicious, so I tried again with the 'Tried and Tested' Ubuntu disc. Same again! Hmmm....poured a large one and had a rethink. Can't have wiped that disc properly I thought. Put 'killdisk' back in, had a look at the sectors in the Toshy hdd. And realised that there's still partition (2.5gb) for the recovery disc there. So....'Killdisk' is now wiping that partition. Once that's done, I'll shove the Mint11 disc in and try again. Watch this space!
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Post by Ratae on Dec 26, 2011 23:55:17 GMT
Nope.....still can't install an operating system on it. Damn.... it can't be the discs 'cos I've used the Ubuntu 10.04 and the 8.4 discs to install Linux on lappies before. It's something else altogether. ATM I'm having a go at using the XP recovery disc, but as I've wiped the recovery partition.....I'm not holding out much hope for it! Ah well..........all good fun, and something to keep me occupied for a while!
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Post by Ratae on Dec 27, 2011 10:32:47 GMT
Ok then....yer boy is nothing if not persistent! Well...much to my surprise the XP recovery disc worked fine. It reinstalled XP to as when bought. I had a rethink. Thinking back, when I installed Ubuntu 8.1 on my Dell lappy, I thought that I installed it on a wiped hdd .. but I'm not absolutely sure 'cos it was a long time ago! However....when I installed Ubuntu on my netbook, I partitioned the drive and have it to dual boot with XP. So obviously I installed Ubuntu from within Windows. Anyway....I ran the Mint 11 disc from within windows.... yup, the installation ran on rails. So, I now have Mint 11 on the old Toshy. It's found my w/less network ok and it says that it's connected. However...when I click on the firefox icon, FF will not load any web pages saying "Firefox can't find the server at." Stumped! I'll mess with it later...busy right now!
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Post by Ratae on Dec 28, 2011 13:46:27 GMT
If Firefox can't find the server at.................it's probably because that site is down. Did you try any others addresses? I did read this recently.... So I'm wondering if this is summat to do with it! However....having only just installed the o/s...I don't know where or how to make any changes. But...there's a resident Linux expert over on Kitz's forum, and I do believe that he also specialises with 'Mint' I'm a member there....I may have a word!!!
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Post by Ratae on Dec 28, 2011 14:41:30 GMT
Wolfey...the Linux has it's own version of Firefox (default browser) so I assume that it's on a dedicated Linux Mint server like the one mentioned above! Not really sure what's happening, 'cos when I installed Ubuntu on my netbook, once it connected to my SSID it had no problem connecting to t'internet!
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chip
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by chip on Dec 28, 2011 16:22:01 GMT
Linux has a lot of hardware support built in but if it can't find it it will try to download it. That's the problem with a laptop if the wireless hasn't got the driver it can't download it !
This happens with "raw" installs of Windows. When installing Linux on a laptop it's best to connect it with Ethernet at first. This is just like having a driver disk in Windows.
You could try that now and go to additional drivers in control centre.
Bob
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chip
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by chip on Dec 28, 2011 16:35:39 GMT
You say it's showing connected. Left click on the network icon on the bar and "Enable Networking", also "edit connections" and under wireless make sure the connect automatically box is checked.
Bob
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Post by Ratae on Dec 28, 2011 17:08:44 GMT
You say it's showing connected. Left click on the network icon on the bar and "Enable Networking", also "edit connections" and under wireless make sure the connect automatically box is checked. Bob Yes Bob, I did all of that but still nothing happened. However....I've just connected the lappy to the router with ethernet....exactly the same. Shows my SSID ok....but not connecting to the internet!
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