Mint showstoppers

[satcowboy]

Bought a Lexmark. Couldn't get it to scan. Bought a Canon. Couldn't get it to scan. xsane didn't work.

Before purchasing it might have saved you a lot of headache to do a bit of research first to get a recommendation as to which manufacturer's are well supported with Linux drivers.

Yeah, the Lexmark said on the box it supported Linux, and the Canon model showed up in between two other models with "good" supoort on xsane's list, but that was the one the store had. Foresight rather than hindsight would've had me writing down ALL the models available in the store, and taking the list back to my computer.

Anyway, I was stuck in a hotel out-of-state and needed to get home more than I needed to be sitting around messing with it. So i just took pictures of the pictures with a camcorder.

[Acid_1]

A couple of months ago, needed a scanner to scan some family photos while on a visit. Walmart (at least in that town) doesn't have standalone scanners anymore, only all-in-one scanner/printer/fax machines. Bought a Lexmark. Couldn't get it to scan. Bought a Canon. Couldn't get it to scan. xsane didn't work. Downloading xsane support packs (whatever they're called) and executing them from the command line didn't work: no scan. Took the Lexmark back and gave the Canon to my mom. Who I also installed Mint 7 for after her Windows crashed .... so probably they will wind up hooking the Canon up to my brother's Mac ...

Brother printers work really well too...

[qbicdesign]

62 posts later and thread still going strong - showstoppers still being posted
I call that vindicated.

here's another:

Mint 7 won't run at all on many of my laptops or PCs. It just sits on the splash screen with the green line zipping back and forth...

[FedoraRefugee]

62 posts later and thread still going strong - showstoppers still being posted
I call that vindicated.

here's another:

Mint 7 won't run at all on many of my laptops or PCs. It just sits on the splash screen with the green line zipping back and forth...

ROTFL! I am surprised to see you are actually still around. I would have figured you going back to Windows months ago!

You are vindicated because you can find a few people having problems with Linux? Oh my, someone needs to clue you in that nothing is ever perfect. Maybe we should give them refunds?

[satcowboy]

62 posts later and thread still going strong - showstoppers still being posted
I call that vindicated.

here's another:

Mint 7 won't run at all on many of my laptops or PCs. It just sits on the splash screen with the green line zipping back and forth...

check that you have 1GB RAM or more.

[mDuo13]

So my install of Linux Mint went pretty well... even the second and third times. Unfortunately, the reason I had to reinstall so many times was that I screwed up my fstab (accidental tab) and couldn't manage to boot into a mode where I could edit it, and then I screwed up my X config file trying to get my ATI (fglrx) drivers to work and figured it was just faster to reinstall rather than try to manually revert. (I was right - Mint Install is quite fast, especially on SSD.)

Obviously it can't be helped if I know just enough to be dangerous, but the ATI drivers are a different story. Unfortunately, the reason my drivers didn't work is because my card is so new it's only supported on Windows or with hard-to-find beta drivers. (And I bought it because I was told this model has good drivers!) Ever since I finally figured that out and got the right drivers installed, things have been better.

So unfortunately it seems like the things that would have turned back someone else in my situation are nigh-impossible for the Linux Mint community to fix singlehandedly.

[broxen]

compaq nx6110
Intel Celeron M 1.5ghz
1.2 gb RAM
Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
Linux Mint 7, and later Linux Mint 8

During both installs...

Everything went smoothly during install. Once I booted into the OS, I found my wireless card would not connect. No apparent messages explaining why.

So, I searched through the control panel and found Hardware Drivers and Windows Wireless Drivers. Slightly confused as to why there were both, I clicked on Hardware Drivers first. This opened and I saw the option to install Broadcom b43 wireless driver. Installed. No effect. Still no wireless.

Then I tried Windows Wireless Drivers. Nothing. Asks for a location to a specific driver. Tried to download driver and point to it. No change. No wireless.

Finally I took my lappy downstairs and connected via cat-5. Installed updates. No change. No wireless. Searched google for a solution, finally found one.. opened terminal and tried:

sudo rmmod b43
sudo rmmod b44
sudo rmmod b43legacy
sudo rmmod wl
sudo rmmod ssb
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe ssb
sudo modprobe b44

Wireless working! yay! Can't figure out why... but hey...

Restarted to see if it would stick... and it does. Wireless works! yay!

Then later I reinstalled Mint 8. Upon loading the OS, the wireless wouldn't work. So this time I went straight to terminal and typed that stuff in... worked like a charm... restarted to test.. works great..

No problems since..

the end =)

Broxen

[telenux]

Mint 8 = Ubuntu clone. Why? Ubuntu 9.10 can only boot up in Safe Mode on my Thinkpad T41. As soon as I try anything or open an application such as Firefox, I get a total lockup. The mouse cursor also freezes. I need a hard restart afterwards.

Mint 8, more or less, does the same thing. There is a lockup after trying to do something typical like start an application. I figure it's an xorg problem or maybe even kernel-related, I'm not sure. I know that distros with a newer kernel work but Mandriva 2010 and Fedora 12 work so draw your own conclusions. I'm just saying I don't know what it indicates but whether it's the kernel or xorg, I'm not sure. I'm only speculating and there were some related bug reports on the Ubuntu Launchpad bug page.

[qbicdesign]

check that you have 1GB RAM or more.

that error seems to be with Sata drives.
it also occurs in Win 7 install.
there's sometimes a bios setting which can be changed to get the SATA ports working in IDE mode.
Very annoying...

[utsuwa]

Improving Mint by turning it into Ubuntu or Windows? Only GUI? No terminal? And you can't us Google? Why? Even other OS users do search from time-to-time about problems. How do you find drivers for some hardware on other OS? Sometimes CD with drivers is lost and you _have_ to go to Google.
Well, just don't use or offer Mint, offer Ubuntu. It is going into all-GUI direction so... why do we need Mint to follow? I don't get it...

[anthony2010]

This is a criticism not a question.

Ive been using mint since mint 5 and believe it to be the best there is... until tonight that is.

A friend of mine was so impressed with my OS he asked if there would be any reason he couldn't have it on his laptop. I gave him every assurance that Mint was as good as it gets.

After installation I had almost two hours of hell just trying to get his broadcom wireless / wlan to work. I couldnt get the drivers because I couldn't get on the net without them. Know what saved the day? Know what saved the reputation of linux? Fedora 15 did.

We lost a possible new member because someone hasnt thought about putting broadcom drivers on the dvd edition (Which has loads of space)

I was embarassed to say the least and must now say that unless someone thinks about the remedial idea of getting on the internet, I cannot and will not be recommending mint again. My mate drove 80 miles for that.

Personally, Im going to stick with mint but what a crying shame we lost a new member over something as bloody remedial as not having broadcom wireless drivers on the install disk, thus rendering my friends computer a useless lump of plastic.

Anyone that remembers any of my posts will know I have always supported mint, but tonight I am so pissed off and embarassed I figured a note was in order.

Anthony Hall.

[anthony2010]

62 posts later and thread still going strong - showstoppers still being posted
I call that vindicated.

here's another:

Mint 7 won't run at all on many of my laptops or PCs. It just sits on the splash screen with the green line zipping back and forth...

ROTFL! I am surprised to see you are actually still around. I would have figured you going back to Windows months ago!

You are vindicated because you can find a few people having problems with Linux? Oh my, someone needs to clue you in that nothing is ever perfect. Maybe we should give them refunds?

A somewhat smug and ill considered answer you made there. Everyone knows theres no charge for the OS but instead there is the facility to donate. As you clearly see financial contribution as being a license to register a complaint, perhaps you could re fund donations or possibly not ask for them?

People DO pay, just not by force. Please be less smug?

[MALsPa]

62 posts later and thread still going strong - showstoppers still being posted
I call that vindicated.

here's another:

Mint 7 won't run at all on many of my laptops or PCs. It just sits on the splash screen with the green line zipping back and forth...

ROTFL! I am surprised to see you are actually still around. I would have figured you going back to Windows months ago!

You are vindicated because you can find a few people having problems with Linux? Oh my, someone needs to clue you in that nothing is ever perfect. Maybe we should give them refunds?

A somewhat smug and ill considered answer you made there. Everyone knows theres no charge for the OS but instead there is the facility to donate. As you clearly see financial contribution as being a license to register a complaint, perhaps you could re fund donations or possibly not ask for them?

People DO pay, just not by force. Please be less smug?

I think FedoraRefugee's long gone.

[Oscar799]

I thought it wasn't working. None of the GUI options related to microphone volume or muting seemed to do anything. I had to use alsamixer to get it to work, which was very, very simple once I knew about it. I didn't know about alsamixergui until I found the regular alsamixer. All I had to to was arrow over, hit space, arrow over, hit space again, then use up and down arrows to set the volume to half to stop feedback. It seems to me this could be done by default, and it was very frustrating not being able to use Skype at first.

I realize it's a different project, but the GNOME panel is pretty glitchy sometimes.

[gateway67]

When running both the LMDE 11 x86-64 "Live CD", and following installation, my eth0 (wired-interface) network adapter did not acquire a DHCP IP address from my router. This was very odd since the same system was previously used with Ubuntu 11.04, and all worked well.

Anyhow, I manually set my system's wired-interface with a fixed-IP, and after doing that, I was able to ping and even connect to the router. But I still could not access the outside world... until I did a reboot of the system. Real bizarre!

Here's the h/w my system has:
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57785 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)

[DarkMatter12]

Hardware:
i7 Second Generation 3.7 Ghz
8GB RAM DDR3
NVIDIA 560 Ti 1GB of DDR5
Monitors: Two Asus 1680x1050 native resolution @ refresh rate of 60
Keyboard and Mouse: Logitech Wireless Mouse and Keyboard
Disc Burner and Player- Blue-Ray/DVD/CD Burner and Playback
Motherboard: ASUS Sandy Bridges motherboard

Installation:
1.Burned the DVD on Ubuntu 11.10
2.Burning was Sucessful
3.Restarted Computer
4.Popped Up on Screen easily
5.Detected all my Hard Drives
6.Dialog requiring me to unmount my USB 3.0 External Hard Drive and my FireWire External Hard Drive
7. Used simple installation of overwriting my Ubuntu 11.10 (instead of Upgrading it)
8.Remainer of CD Portion went off without a hitch
Notes: My 2nd Monitor was in Mirror Mode through the installation

First boot and setup:
1. Installed updates
2. Second Monitor Shut-Off
3. Found it Hard to find out where the Software Center was
4. Tempted to use Terminal to configure sound after static was heard (Realtek Audio HD Sound)
5. Tempted to use Terminal to configure 2nd Monitor for TwinView
6. Tempted to use Terminal to install Wine for World of Warcraft
7. Used Software Center to install Wine
8. Used NVIDIA-Settings to set computer to Twinview (With a lot of Dialog about unable to do something about Metamodes)


Summary: Other than my Sound and Video Card everything was plug and play and is working flawlessly I had to install restricted drivers for my sound card and use the sound option to configure my sound
It is extremely friendly for newbies but the new Menu system maxes this hard to find compared to the old Gnome Style

[fatmick]

I've been using Mint since version 9 and loved it. But Mint 12 is unusable for me.

My main laptop on which I use Mint has an ATI graphics card, which appears to be incompatible with Mint 12.

Tried using Gnome: Windows Manager restarts every 5 mins or so (top and bottom bars an all windows disappear then reappear), and every so often exits altogether.

Tried using Cinnamon: Screen keeps flickering.

Tried using MATE: Generally buggy.

I decided Gnome was the best of the bunch, until eventually the window manager died - I had windows, but no top or bottom bars or window titles!

So I tried XFCE Session and loved it! Then, about a week in the same thing happened there.

So I went back to MATE. The biggest problem I had was that Windows programs wouldn't open in WINE when launched from the mintMenu. I tried updating MATE to the latest version from the MATE repositories, to see if that would fix it (and also because the general consensus was that it was much less buggy than the Mint version). Now mintMenu wouldn't run at all. Searched the Mint forums and found a post which suggested to to an apt-get upgrade after updating MATE. I did this, and now Mint won't boot at all! Black screen.

Never had any problems like this before - Mint 12 just feels like a step backwards.

[MintyLips]

I've been using Mint since version 9 and loved it. But Mint 12 is unusable for me.

My main laptop on which I use Mint has an ATI graphics card, which appears to be incompatible with Mint 12.

Tried using Gnome: Windows Manager restarts every 5 mins or so (top and bottom bars an all windows disappear then best electric toothbrush reappear), and every so often exits altogether.

Tried using Cinnamon: Screen keeps flickering.

Tried using MATE: Generally buggy.

I decided Gnome was the best of the bunch, until eventually the window manager died - I had windows, but no top or bottom bars or window titles!

So I tried XFCE Session and loved it! Then, about a week in the same thing happened there.

So I went back to MATE. The biggest problem I had was that Windows programs wouldn't open in WINE when launched from the mintMenu. I tried updating MATE to the latest version from the MATE repositories, to see if that would fix it (and also because the general consensus was that it was much less buggy than the Mint version). Now mintMenu wouldn't run at all. Searched the Mint forums and found a post which suggested to to an apt-get upgrade after updating MATE. I did this, and now Mint won't boot at all! Black screen.

Never had any problems like this before - Mint 12 just feels like a step backwards.

Maybe it's the ATI drivers? My desktop had similar problems, but my laptop has an Nvidia card which runs fine.

[frodopogo]

I used DOS back in the early 90's, got fairly comfortable with computing from the command line.
Then, as I needed to run certain programs, I reluctantly went along to Windows 95 and 98, and finally XP.
While I am not afraid of the command line, and know how to use it, and there are ways of using it,
I have never needed to use it since using Windows... nothing absolutely FORCES me to go to the command line.
But even Linux Mint, the friendliest Linux version forces me to go to the command line... oh... maybe 3 or 4 times a year.
And I do it because I'm familiar with the idea of typing in commands precisely AND my typing skills are pretty good.
BUT Terminal in Linux is a LOT more complex and a lot less intuitive than DOS.

Anyway, if Linux terminal has ME sweating bullets 4 times a year, and I had that DOS experience and am good at typing
(and actually languages in general), I can only believe that for the average Windows user, if they experienced any of the times that Linux has forced me to use terminal, they would NOT have the ability to cope with it. For THEM, it would be broken... a showstopper that would make them go back to Windows or buy a Mac... OR... if they were a friend or family member I set up with Linux, call me over to their house to work for free on their computer.
If I'm going over to their house trying to clean a virus off their Windows computer, or if I'm going to their house installing something with on Linux terminal, if they need me for anything after installation, it's broken. Actually, if they need me FOR installation, it's broken.
Maybe not as badly broken as Windows, but still broken. If no one needs to use terminal or needs my help, then really, there is NO LIMIT to the numbers of Linux Mint disks I could pass out. If all of them are going to come back to me wanting help, at some point, it puts a ceiling on how many I can distribute, because at some point I'll be having too many people asking for computer help. Well, someone might say, you could CHARGE them for the help. Well, then, really what's the difference between a Windows consultant who makes a living off of what's broken with Windows, and a Linux consultant who makes a living off of the things that are broken with Linux?
Among other things someone who is making a living off of the fact that an OS is broken isn't going to be motivated to help FIX what is broken.