Mint 9 Discussion

I thought i'd start a thread if you all don't mind on Mint 9. As I previously discussed in the Ubuntu 10.4 thread, I feel Ubuntu is a step down in terms of performance from 9.10 and 9.04

The GUI felt overly laggy and while I liked Ubuntu 10.4, I just couldn't deal with the performance hit. And others felt the same way. Thanks to others it was suggested to give Mint 9 a go and honestly I was hesitant but I figured what the heck. I am now a fan of Linux Mint and it is by far my favorite version of Linux. Why?

Simply because it fixes the performance issues that were in Ubuntu 10.4 and Mint 9 is built from 10.4 so go figure. Also more importantly Mint 9 is tailored to Linux Noobs like myself who want to experience Linux with a training wheels. Ubuntu is not that, as you need to at least be somewhat proficient to really enjoy Ubuntu. It maybe a slight exaggeration but in any event Mint 9 gives you more to experience Linux a lot more and provides enough extras that you can get around it with some familiarity as in Windows XP as the GUI has some similarities.

One other thing I like about Mint 9 is that it includes Flash, yay. Now I can listen to my internet news talk radio.

One thing that's weird and maybe you guys can help me figure it out is I was listening to a local radio news talk show based in Tampa, FL in Firefox. I went to minimize the pop up window and I couldn't get it back. I tried the Show Desktop button, Show Hidden Windows and nothing.

I had to call up the Mint 9 version of Task Manager and kill off the FF processes and it closed all FF windows. So my question is, is that normal and is there a way to get them back in the future?

Anyway for anyone on the Linux fence, try Mint 9 it works well for noobs.

 

Yeah, as said in your previous thread, I'm going to try out Mint. You make it sound so good! I've been meaning to test out different Linux distro's anyway, and I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu anyore, 10.04 is really laggy and has a slow UI.

I tried out ArchLinux once, but downloaded the wrong version and got the command one, doh. Oh well, I have a huge list of distro's to try out, but, I think I'll take Mint off the list and use it as my main Linux OS.

Searching pictures on Google make Mint even better, it looks similar to Windows and seems easy to navigate around; making it a good replacement for conscientious Windows switchers.

Thanks to you, I'm going to install Mint 9! THANKS! I'm sure I'll like it though, and if not, well, I will.

 

Enjoy Mint 9.

I like Mint 9 so much that i'm going Mint 9 100% on my Vostro 1500. Windows 7 is getting removed. The Link that was provided in the Ubuntu thread, make sure you download the Live DVD i386 version. That's the one I got.

Going off of their website the DVD version includes OpenOffice, Flash, MP3/MP4 compatibility. They also mentioned unless you need to address more than 4GB of memory stick with the 32bit version.

To everyone who mentioned and suggested trying Mint 9, thanks !

edit: One other thing that's slightly different with Mint 9 is that you are not given the option to Install Mint 9 at startup. You have to wait to get to the Desktop to do that.

 

You probably sent the window to a different workspace by accident. ctrl-alt-[left/right arrow] to navigate. You can also add a workspace switcher in the panel, but that eats up space. Firefox should remember where you were and restore you windows and tabs

 

That's exactly what happened when I rebooted. I'll try your suggestion next time.

 

Non-noobs appreciate Mint 9 as well. To heck with reinventing the wheel ....I appreciate the smooth fast stable function of it all. I'm even tired of installing codecs....

 

OK guys I have one of those classic questions where did my disk space go?

My Vostro 1500 has a 160GB HDD. I first selected 'use the entire disk' on the install page. And to my chagrin I was left with 131GB of free space, even Windows 7 doesn't take that much space.

So I wiped the hard drive again and reinstalled and this time I chose manual install. I selected ext4 as my primary partition and chose 159GB and 1GB for my logical swap file. Now here's where it gets weird. I ran disk usage analyzer and my 159GB partition reads 145.8GB with a total file system usage of 2.5GB

Now I ran system monitor and it says 145.8GB total space for this partition. It tells me 143.3GB is free and 135.8GB is available.

Does this make sense to any non noobs? Also when doing a fresh install should I do manual or select format and install entire disk?

 

160 Gigabytes turns into roughly 149 Gibibytes. Mint itself probably ate maybe at least 4 gb once you start installing updates and various packages. That probably leaves you in the mid-140s for free space.

Probably 3-6 GB was dedicated to swap the first time around, but it should just be 1GB the way you set it the second time around.

As far as system monitor is concerned, it might be counting files differently for the purposes of free space vs. available.

Generally, setting things manually is best, but doing it automatically works just as well. Most people will set the swap to either equal or double the system memory even though it's never really used, primarily to make sure hibernate won't break.

 

call me crabby, but i dont like that i cant ctrl+alt+bksp out of the GUI...

 

Yep, don't forget that hard drives are really advertised based on a decimal number and not on a computer understood number. When they say 160GB, they really mean 160 Billion bytes. Where as your computer under stands a 1KB as 1024 Bytes, 1MB is 1024KBs and 1GB is 1024 MB.

So 160,000,000,000Bytes/1024Bytes/1024KB/1024MB=149GB.

 

Ctrl + alt + f1-f6 to get to console, ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to gui

sudo gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section “ServerFlags”
Option “DontZap” “false”
EndSection

to make ctrl-alt-backspace restart x. It was disabled by the guys who do xorg, not ubuntu or mint to be noob-friendly so people don't freak out. well, not so much disabled as obscured (right alt + print screen + k (think - alternative kill screen))

 

aww thanks I guess slackware 13 just added that dontzap part in before distribution.

 

same here...I'm used to ctl-alt-bksp too....

 

Guys i'm totally loving Mint.

This is the version of Linux that should be pimped to Noobs. It has pretty much everything you need to get up and running. Oh and thanks for the explanation regarding "where did my disk space go"?

Is it possible to delete the hibernation file in Mint like you can with Windows 7?

 

This is why you make a huge bash script to install everything for you!
*coughs*

 

LOL...........hehe

 

Can someone tell me how to get my sound icon back in my system tray? I don't know if it's called that in Linux. I stupidly removed it and decided I wanted it back. I checked desktop, sound settings etc. I can't find anywhere that says enable icon in taskbar.

 

Did you find it? Just right click the panel and select 'add to panel'...there will be a volume icon there somewhere I'm booting up my Mint Machine now....on Win 7 (blah) now on Precision

 

Thanks Zoid but would you believe it out of all the icons there I couldn't find one for the volume control. In the process I discovered some cool settings for uber noobs like myself.

I found Mint's version of MSConfig which is Startup Applications. I also found Mint's Bootloader which allows me to set the resolution of the bootscreen and time to make a choice.

What I haven't figured out is why Ubuntu and Mint have a propensity for overwriting Ricoh card reader drivers and controller drivers in my Windows 7 partition.

I have to resort to uninstalling the remaining Ricoh drivers and reinstalling them from my Dell drivers disk. That gets them back. Only happens after the initial installation of Linux.

 

You need to add the "indicator applet" to the panel.
As for your second issue, I'm not sure but I can't think of linux being the cause of that.

 

1) Thanks Thomas i'll check that when I boot into Mint.

2) Linux is definitely messing with the drivers because it happens every time I install Linux in a dual boot config with W7. Maybe it's because I installed Linux after W7 but it's overwriting my Ricoh drivers in my Windows 7 partition.

I fixed the problem by first uninstalling all of my Ricoh drivers and controllers then reinstalling my Dell Ricoh drivers while in W7. Everything is ok until I boot back into Ubuntu or Mint and then my Ricoh drivers are rewritten because I see a popup saying Windows has found these new drivers.

The other issue that comes up is an error every time I boot into W7 saying that "rimmptsk service failed to start due to the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it".

But once I do the above that error in my event log goes away until I boot back into Linux then it rewrites those drivers and i'm back to square one.

 

Thanks Thomas I got my sound icon back. I had a scare in that I started messing around and inadvertently deleted my main panel at the bottom of the screen.

So I remembered you guys talking about the Ctrl+Alt+BckSpace command. I got logged out and when I logged back in I saw a blank panel on the top of the screen. I was then able to add my Clock, Shut Off button, Sound Icon and the Advanced Gnome Menu Icon to the panel. It looks like normal, I even added a few separators.

Is there anything else I may have messed up by accidentally deleting the main panel?

 

no, you put everything back easily to a panel including the panel itself

 

That's odd, but it still sounds more like a Windows OR BIOS issue is possible. But Linux will not overwrite anything on your Windows drive.

 

Nothing you can messed up by deleting the main panel. In terminal:

gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel && killall gnome-panel

probably should reset the panel to default. If it's not quite right,

gconftool –-recursive-unset /apps/panel;
rm -rf $HOME/.gconf/apps/panel;
pkill gnome-panel

in terminal one line at a time should should take it a bit further. Those are for Ubuntu though, so I'm not whether it'll reset to Mint defaults or what.

 

Thanks Guys !

Two things:

1) Is there a guide on the net that helps explain Linux? I'd like to dig a little deeper other than just messing around.

2) What's the terminal code to enable Compiz Config?

I remember back in the late 80's early 90's messing around with Dr. Dos, does Unix or Linux have anything in common with Dr. Dos?

edit: I decided to pull the plug on Windows 7 on my Vostro 1500. It's Mint FTW !

 

you could download the mint users guide (1.5mb pdf), or check out the mint forums. For everything else, I usually just google (if I need a terminal command, etc..)

 

I just booted up Mint 9 on my Precision m6500 and everything worked great OTB.....it was blazingly fast too....think I'll put it on the Hard Drive....

 

I told you !

Sometimes it's best to listen to ultra noobs, we can spot those things.

 

Hey fellas is there a way to keep from getting logged out, then having to enter my password? I checked in User Groups but didn't see anything that would affect this.

I also went to Power Manager and made some default changes and didn't see anything to getting logged out.

 

Go to Preferences>Screensaver and uncheck the Lock the Screen option at the bottom

 

Thanks Zoid, I forgot I did that on a previous install but I forgot how I did it.

edit: Is there a way to delete the hibernation file since I will never use it?

 

Going to give mint a go. Thanks.

 

Cool, let us know what you think.

 

Is there a way to minimize an open Window to the panel? If I minimize a Window it disappears and the only way to get it back is to call up the program again or to kill the process and run the program again.

The Show Desktop is an all or nothing solution.

 

You need to re-add the "Window List" applet to your panel.....I just moved my main panel to the top, added a bottom panel and moved the window list down there along with trash and show desktop....I use NO desktop icons and it's keeps the main panel less crowded...ala Ubuntu except I keep the Mint Menu.

 

Mint is definitely mint. Have to say. Much more polished than Ubuntu. Love the layout plus better fonts.

Going to play with it a bit more.

 

Clutch, thanks

I'm not one to judge Ubuntu since i'm still in the ultra noob category but i've found Mint much easier to move around and experiment, it supports Flash so I can listen to talk radio and watch TV in Firefox. So yeah I would say it's more polished from my end too.

Has anyone tried the Arora browser? I did and I like FF better and i'm waiting for Opera 10.60 for Linux.

 

I made a new panel but it's invisible. I know it's now on top because I can't stretch my browser to the top. How do I get it to show on my desktop?

edit: I made two more panels and now I have a left, right, and top gap around my browser.

double edit: I Googled the problem and by creating a launcher all three panels appeared and I was able to add to them. Is this the way you add and view a new panel?

 

Rodknee,
log out and back in and it should be there. If not, restart

 

Thanks but I found the solution and edited my reply.

I created a launcher and all three appeared. Then I was able to delete them.

 

Holy Weather Channel Batman, the weather applet is mega cool. It even gives you up to date radar for my local area.

And the CPU Frequency Scaler is pretty sweet.

 

Sounds like your panels are back in order. I did the same series of adding and removing panels and applets when I started on Ubuntu, but i's ultimately easier to just reset the panel to default and customize it again than to try to fix it. The panel system is wonky at best and mostly best left alone in favor of a competent dock and the terminal. It will not obey you.

re: the CPU Frequency scaler, it's typically best left on powersave to keep the heat down on laptops. That's addon is unfortunately pretty much the full extent of ubuntu power management.

 

Yeah my panels are back in order and i'm using two now, bottom and top. Last night I thought I messed up the OS when I tried to do a Hibernate and the OS just stared at me and was locked when it said the Swap File size was wrong, so I held down the Power Button and shut off my laptop. I rebooted and no issue so yeah Linux appears to be rock solid.

The more I mess with Mint the more I prefer this over Windows 7 even though I like the eye candy on Windows 7 more. My laptop also seems to be running much cooler now that i've put both CPU cores in power save mode.

 

Had some problems at first installing prop Nvidia drivers. Everything is sorted out now.

Mint9 is definitely faster/snappier than Ubuntu 10.04. And the Compiz desktop is pretty sweet.

It's a keeper. Thanks Rodknee for pointing this out.

 

Glad you like it 2.0

I also had problems with the Nvidia drivers when I chose the latest 173 drivers. I had problems with not being able to access PowerMizer as it wasn't there. When I chose the (Recommended) Nvidia drivers I got PowerMizer.

 

Similar issue here also. AT first I couldn't get any driver to install. Error kept coming up. So I started all over again, clean. All it took was a reboot even though the error came up. Upon reboot, everything was fine and working perfectly.

I'm running off Live USB with persistence.

The other issue I have which also applied to Ubuntu 10.04 is that the thousand separator in the calculator app doesn't work.

 

[Why can't we delete posts again?]

Meh. Since I have a post here, might as well say that I think I'll download the ISO and give it a try. Everyone says it's snappy, Compiz works, and I now know how to enable Ctrl+Alt+Bkspace.

 

Mint9 was one of the ones I've tried after Ubuntu decided to left-hand their browser minimize/restore/close buttons, as well as other problems/crashes/performance etc.

One thing that really bugs me about Mint9 on my laptop is how the keyboard would stop responding if you toggle the enable/disable button for the touchpad(on the computer hardware). (I have 3-4 year old HP laptop and linux mint on a USB install).

 

That bugged the heck out of me as well. They tried to go after the OS X layout and I didn't like it either.