Need some recommendations about which edition to choose...

[gosa]

Hi All,

After reading/hanging sround/participating in these forums for about 6 months now I'm getting more and more sure about my move to the "World of Linux" being the right one. Windows 8 is around the corner, and after having payed an unnecessary huge amount of dough for Windows 7 - for one computer only - and with the rest of the computers in the household dual-booting Win XP/LMDE I realize that the free and actually also better way to do it is where I am right now. So - I'm a convert - not a 100% since I still enjoy the occasional Lightroom/Virtual DJ/Photoshop session in my Windows 7 setup - that feel a bit of pain everytime I have to boot up my Windows partitions.

Anyway - this process has also led me to recommend just about everyone around me to make the same move, and that's where today's question comes in:

The sister of my girlfriend - living about 600km from us - has a HP/Compaq laptop that's caused nothing but trouble since she got it. Something happens after a certain amount of time - don't know if it's user error or some updates that messes things up - that makes this laptop start acting weird when it comes to reproducing sound, It gets extremely slow, it gives off a faint "beep" every 5 minutes or so, etc. etc. and right now I'm in the process of reinstalling it all for the third time (using the HP recovery + reinstalling additional software).

After having her here for a week - using one of our LMDE installs during that time - I've managed to convince her that it could be a good idea to try a Linux setup alongside her Windows 7 that the laptop came with. And that's where I need some advice.

I'm thinking about one of the below options - and remember, this chick lives 600km from me making hands-on support a bit difficult....

1. Install the most recent LTS (Isadora, right?) making sure we don't have to think about reinstalling for the next two years (unless she messes up completely). This one should be quite straightforward for a "mere user", just accepting the proposed updates and live a happy life, right?
2. Install Linux Mint 10 - good until next year - so no immediate worries there either.
3. Install LMDE, change the repositories to stable and let her run from there.
4. Install - I don't know - suggestions?

I'm leaning towards Isadora, but are there any good arguments towards giving her Julia instead? Or rather - are there any reasons why Julia why Julia wouldn't be the better choice? (If I had her in town I'd give her LMDE and enjoy helping her out with issues that might appear)

Right now she runs Isadora XFCE on her netbook (don't know how often she uses that one though since she has a laptop).

So - what do you guys think? Any nice input?

Thanks in advance,
/gosa

[900i]

My vote goes to Mint 9

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[lmintnewb]

Nother vote for the/a long term support release. Could set it up nice so that she'll have to do a minimum of messing around. Though really comes down to how much support time ea of the releases has left. Mint 10 is ridiculously user friendly imo. Thanks to the magic Minty developers.

Also might not be a bad idea to send her home with a clonezilla dvd for reinstall purposes. So she won't have to bug you overmuch if something comes up.

Random thought ... Could run some diagnostic utils and checks on that comp too. Starting to beep every 5 mins isn't exactly normal behavior even for summin running M$ software.

Basically saying ... might want to see if there's issues with her comp. Esp if the thing is still under warranty etc.

[asymmetros]

3. Install LMDE, change the repositories to stable and let her run from there.

That sounds a very good choice too, supposedly you and/or the girl set it properly. Than, no worries, only security updates for 2,5- 3 years. She can even add Xfce on top of Gnome (i has tried this with success with my laptop).

Btw, my HP is running flawlessly with any Mint Editions i has tried

[gosa]

Random thought ... Could run some diagnostic utils and checks on that comp too. Starting to beep every 5 mins isn't exactly normal behavior even for summin running M$ software.

Basically saying ... might want to see if there's issues with her comp. Esp if the thing is still under warranty etc.

You're absolutely right... it's just that I'm not sure on where to start right now. One time (don't remember the numbers now) I looked at temperatures, but nothing came up that looked bad.

Entering anything related to the word "beep", "beeping" etc in a google search you get loads of hits regarding the different error codes that you can get when booting and that ain't exactly what I'm looking for in this case. It's more like the classic "EKG" beep on tv, but they come with much more time between them and are extremely faint...

Any tool you could recommend?

[gosa]

I decided to take go for the recommendation (oh well.. but it was 2-1 in favor for Isadora) and install the LTS.
(Made a clone of the drive first in case things went south)

And what can I say - It seems Isadora picks up all the hardware without problems, and after running it for some 30 minutes while downloading and applying updates I haven't heard a single beep (that shouldn't be there) from it. Kind of weird, but quite nice after all...

As someone said - LM10 is pretty nice so I would've preferred that... but 2 years are better than one, so I'll stick with Isadora on this one.

[Total AI]

Ok,I been running Linux Mint for some time now,I build computers,repair them and so on,when I build a new machine I put Linux Mint 10 on it,when I sell that machine I give the customer a copy of the system on a disk and teach them how to use the computer,with out charge,Linux is a free open source system,so I don't charge for it,and the same when I install it. I have used the "other guy" system,meaning windows,I am more that dissatisfied with it,the windows systems,I think Linux is the only way to go,it is fast,compatible with most machines,reliable and very,very secure,no crashes,no malware attacks,no virus attacks etc. It is completely user friendly and when you have the system install disk you can put it on one machine or a dozen,if you don't have the disk,you can go to Linux Mint.com and down load it,free of charge,I think Linux is light years ahead of M.S.,so,if anyone here is thinking about coming to Linux,I say go for it,you will be way ahead by doing it.