No luck with Mint, went with Unbuntu!

Ok, so I got sick of trying to get Mint to boot on my new laptop (MSI GT725) and tried Unbuntu 9.04. Unbuntu was so easy to install and worked right off. Im thinking it was the 4850 video card that was causing the problem with Mint. I really like the Unbuntu interface and have found it very easy to work with so far! So all worked out for the best!

 

Don't know why I want that extra 'n' in there! Pardon my poor spelling!

 

lol. You could have just hit the 'Edit' button in the right corner of your post and corrected it...

 

What fun would that be?

 

You can try mint when the next release hits based on 9.04.

Really, once you learn how to install the restricted extras and medibuntu repos, there is no real advantage to mint. It's just green vs. brown, one bar vs. two.

 

v1k1ng1001,

Actually, Linux Mint has several Mint tools that Ubuntu does not have, which makes the user experience potentially more friendly for new users (mintInstall, mintUpload, mintNanny, mintUpdate, mintWifi, mintMenu, mintBackup, etc). It is not just a themed Ubuntu with codecs preinstalled. There is a lot of extra effort and work that goes into a Linux Mint release.

 

Yeah, I've never found Mint tools to be a significant advantage, or at least not enough of one to wait for Mint to catch up to Ubuntu, especially since the OP is looking for a release that works with his hardware.

But OK, I'm listening. Assuming I'm a relatively competent Ubuntu user, what unique advantages does Mint provide? In other words, what can I do with Mint that I can't ultimately achieve with Ubuntu? Maybe I haven't spent enough time considering the latest Mint releases.

Oh, and for the OP, I recommend running through the Ubuntu guide in order to get a handle on what you can do with Ubuntu:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty

 

Im a total linux newbie....I love mint. very user friendly. and easy to use...only problem is that I dont have drivers for my pc card wireless...

can't find it anywhere

 

I had wanted to try Linux, and i thought Ubuntu was the best. Is mint more user friendly overall?

 

Depends what you consider user friendly?

Do you want to TRY Linux or do you just want something that will work with little or no input from you? (ala Windows? )

Personally I would suggest Ubuntu, moreso that you might actually have to learn a few Linux basics to get your .mp3 files running, as well as being a later release to Mint. Mint is totally based on Ubuntu and therefore is lagging behind Ubuntu releases for obvious reasons. (Jaunty being one of the best Ubuntu releases for a while)

You cannot really go wrong with Ubuntu - best thing really is to get down and dirty with command line if you want to play with Linux and get a feel for it, and there is a very active and very friendly user forum (and it doesnt seem to suffer that horrid - 'learn to use Google' attitude some *nix forums have towards new users!)

Don't be thinking that Ubuntu isnt 'user friendly' because you may have to do a few things, thats part of the fun of Linux , but if you prefer an OS just to have everything up and ready to go with no input from the user, well thats where I tell people to stick to Windows

 

Personally Mint is just a crufty rebadged Ubuntu. Go for Ubuntu for sure, it'll save you a lot of pain in the butt.

 

People are cheering them on NOT to be....they're more value added with Xfce I think than anything else....but, yes....they are Thomas and all go back to Crufty clones of Unix/GNU anyway...Mr. Torvalds didn't 're-imagine' the entire Unix kernel without a roadmap.........LOL Thomas is right IMO....really, just stick to the 'mother' 'buntu.

 

Why the Mint hate? I like it a lot, especially 7 which from watching youtube videos, looks great.

 

No, not hate, I have used Mint before but found that it was rather boring if you like! Mainly because everything was already setup. Some of the more puritan Linux user's suffer from Ubuntu hate moreso I think you will find lol

Mint is good, no denying, but if you want to LEARN *nix, you are much better off starting with the framework (Ubuntu in this case) and take it from there with regards to setting your system up and also understanding why *nix does not come with the restricted format codecs preinstalled. If you wanted to go one step further go and install Debian, and build on that. But before diving in to things like that, Ubuntu would be a better place to start mainly beacuse you do actually have to do a few things to get it to work, and it has a large user base to get help with any issues that may arise. Ubuntu probably isnt the best distro out there, but being one of the most popular gives a new user a massive support base to draw upon.

I don't get it when people say they want to 'learn' about *nix but just want to install the distro that 'just works' from the outset with little or no input from them. You don't really learn anything about *nix that way, just like using Windows lol

I still say people should go and download Linux From Scratch (LFS) and play with that if they really want to learn about *nix (never mind Gentoo, go and build your own distro from the kernel up..hehehe)

Oh yeah, Youtube videos, esp HD are looking just as fine on Jaunty as they are on Mint

 

I have been playing with Ubuntu for a bit now. I was worried, because I kept reading that Mint was so much easier and that Ubuntu required more work. I have found Ubuntu to be fairly easy to figure out. There is an enormous amount of info on Ubuntu out there that is easy to access. I found the new version install quite easy. I have all the visual effects running flawlessly as well. It found the driver I needed for my vid card and updated easily. Mint would have to be a huge improvement for me to switch. I didn't like the color scheme, but fixed that easily with a black theme. So far, I am very happy I went ahead and tried Ubuntu. I had problems with Mint on two systems not installing correctly. Ubuntu went onto my new laptop and an old PIII system without a hitch.

 

Thats awesome, glad you are happy with it - Jaunty is a really good release of Ubuntu and a great place to start