Managing with Mint

Linux Mint 16

For the uninitiated Windows user, the Linux operating system remains an enigma - little more than a mysterious system fraught with a seemingly unfamiliar GUI.  Incidentally, as a Windows user, this really shouldn't frighten you since Microsoft has been screwing with the Start button since Windows 7, but I digress. 

Linux also has the ever-scary command prompt.  (Cue the theme from Twilight Zone.) But this concern is negligible.  Linux has come a long way since the days of navigation exclusively via terminal. You can still use Bash to your heart's content if that's what puts you in your happy place, but as to the rest of us, contemporary distros have enjoyed a graphical user interface very similar to the Windows kind for years. 

As a young techie in 1999, I was immediately taken with the OS based on functionality alone.  Compared with Linux, Windows is positively neutered.  Now the average Windows user, who seems to be blissfully ignorant to the extent that s/he doesn't want to bother looking under the hood, but rather, simply enjoys putting gas in the car and driving away, any given Linux distro probably won't be very enticing.  That's OK, the world needs ditch diggers too! (Gratuitous Linux user barb.) But to anyone who wants to have more control of his/her operating system, as well as a much wider selection of software that is not only free, but open source as well, then Linux is yer huckleberry.

While I have been experimenting with Linux for years, it was only recently that I decided to commit to an installation of a distro on my hard drive.  To be brutally honest, this was a direct result of Microsoft's inexplicably obtuse decision to end support for XP, an operating system that has been around since 2001 and has been powering everything on the planet from individual personal computers to industry specific operations including but not limited to -ATM, POS, banking, and gas pumps.  Microsoft apparently assumed (and correctly) that it would strong-arm the world into using its spectacularly crapparific Windows 8 system, which, I suspect, most XP users would have gladly shelled out the extra jack to upgrade (if not purchase an entirely new computer) had MS offered a discount for the trouble of migrating. But lo, ever the font of consummate corporatocracy that it is, nary a discount could be had. And that's OK because for every consumer who didn't bother to check out alternatives to Windows and instead blindly consented to the shake-down, there were also those of us who extended middle finger and hopped off that carousel.

Suffice it to say, I'm still using Windows (7 to be exact) but decided that this was the year I was going to have a dual-boot box so that I could transition over to Linux and leave MS behind in the dust where it rightfully belongs.  As an aside here, I retained Windows 7 (1) because it works (compared to version 8 which doesn't) and (2) because I still have Windows-based games I am loath to give up, not to mention a dinosaur multi-function printer, the likes of which only the scanner still works but, try as I may, cannot seem to get any drivers for it to work in Linux.  And that's OK too since some incompatibility was expected.  As awesome as Linux is, caveat remains that there are still some programs/hardware that cannot be easily transitioned into a Linux environment. But don't let this deter you as Linux repositories of drivers grows exponentially daily. (This means even more drivers for formerly Windows-only supported software/hardware is boarding the Linux Express rapidly.)  As you begin to go to Linux more frequently, you'll start questioning why you ever thought staying in an abusive relationship with Microsoft was worth the effort (and expense.)

While I have evaluated several different distros, including Ubuntu, which is currently enjoying widespread usage, I chose Mint (Cinnamon edition) since it had the most resonance with me. (You can find all the latest distros here.) 

Evaluating a distro is shockingly simple.  All it takes is the ability to download a file, burn it to a CD/DVD and then boot up the computer from the CD/DVD-ROM drive (which involves during the boot up stage hitting either the F12 key (on most Dell brand systems) or for other systems the F3 key, and selecting boot from CD-ROM drive.) Voila! Then she will boot up from the disc drive and you can kick the tires and check out the upholstery.  If you later decide that you also want a dual-boot system then you have the option to install straight from the Live Demo disc, which, is also an astonishingly simple endeavor since the included software does all the work of partitioning your hard drive (once you decide how much space to allot to the Linux partition.)  **Note here that mileage may and does vary so be sure to conduct your own research OR you can just contact yours truly and I will gladly walk you through the install for an hourly fee.**  (Hey, I have to pay rent and eat too, you know.)

Good luck and enjoy your newly found freedoms from the shackles of Microsoft.


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