From South Carolina [USA]

[jagwinn]

Hello!! I am using and loving Mint10 Julia! I have replaced WinXPPro.

[xenopeek]

Hi jagwinn, welcome to the Linux Mint forums Thanks for joining the forums! Not wanting to trouble you already, but I suggest you upgrade to at least Linux Mint 12 but preferably to Linux Mint 13. Linux Mint 10 has been out of support since April this year; meaning you do not get security updates for the software you have installed. You can see the available versions of Linux Mint, and till when those are supported, here: http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php

Be sure also to check out the Community website (tutorials, hardware and software reviews, ideas). You can also chat in real-time with other Linux Mint users. In the Mint Menu, in the Internet section, start the application XChat IRC. You will automatically get connected to #linuxmint-chat for general chat and #linuxmint-help for support with other Linux Mint users.

Have fun with Linux Mint.

[The-Wizard]

Welcome to the mint family forums

wizard

[jagwinn]

Thanks Wizard for the welcome!
Thanks Vincent for the welcome and this concern!
I have older laptops (1999 & 2005) and find the Mint10 is great on them! I am of the age that I don't generally go after the 'latest & greatest' of these technical devices because you will never 'top-out' with the best; it, too, will be obsolete soon enough!

No, my joy with staying with something is to discover its secrets and learning to use it to its fullest. Having a new learning curve every 6 months is, to me, counter-productive. People bring to me the newest tablet or net-book or phone and ask me to teach them how to do the most basic things with them and before long they are off to something newest and best-est and are back again!

But, truly, I have been thinking of Mint13, but probably won't make a move until some trouble comes along....but no trouble yet!

John

[xenopeek]

Just be aware of the security problems. Linux Mint 13 MATE (fork of Gnome 2) will probably work fine on a 2005 laptop, though 1999 might take some convincing. Linux Mint 13 is supported till April 2017, so no need to upgrade every six months

[hoppimike]

I would heartily recommend Mint 13 Xfce! Easily the best distro I've ever used and other than a RAM upgrade the laptop I'm using atm is about 10 years old lol

Welcome aboard though! ^_^

[jagwinn]

So,
I decided to take your advice and move up from Mint10 Julia.

I have just downloaded linuxmint-13 xfce-dvd.

Is there a CD version? My IBM ThinkPad has only a CD-ROM. The Gateway with Mint10 has a DVD RW and that is where I downloaded the Mint13.

Thanks!
John

[xenopeek]

There is no CD version of the Xfce edition. (There is a unofficial CD version of the MATE edition: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=103449)

What you can do is either roll your own Linux Mint CD version (with this tutorial: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/918), removing packages from the ISO till it will fit on a CD, or you can add PLOP boot manager to your current installation. PLOP allows you to boot from USB thumb drives, even if your BIOS does not support booting that way (which I assume is your problem with not having a DVD drive?). http://www.plop.at/

[jagwinn]

Thanks Vincent,

You are correct; I don't have a DVD on the ThinkPad (just a CD-ROM).

I will certainly read the tutorial you suggested.

John

[jagwinn]

Me again,
Read the tutorial and the comments...is there a list of what can be trimmed? I have no idea what to look for.
John

[xenopeek]

Gutknecht also made a CD edition (of MATE edition), here: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=103449. The torrent is not seeding right now, which would be helpful as it included a list of packages removed to make it fit on a CD.

Alternative is to run the following command from the Live DVD or from an installation:

Code: Select all

dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-Size}\t${PackageSpec}\n' | sort -n

It lists all the packages, in ascending order of disk space (KiB) used for the installed package. I've put the list from the Linux Mint 13 Xfce DVD here: http://pastebin.com/XhPWxyPD

Obvious candidate packages to remove would be LibreOffice, which would save over 200 MiB of disk space (though not sure how much this shrinks the ISO image). See what actions it would do to remove it with:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove --simulate libreoffice-core

Take a good note of which packages are removed, and which are installed (to fill some dependencies). After installing from your CD, you'll want to install the packages removed by the above action and possibly remove the ones installed (but it looks like it installs just Python 3, which is fine). To actually do the removal, drop the "--simulate" from the command so it becomes:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-core

Another one is Thunderbird, saving 45 MiB of disk space:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove thunderbird

If you still need more, you can save 25 MiB of disk space by removing non-western fonts (unless you need those):

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove fonts-kacst fonts-kacst-one fonts-khmeros-core fonts-lao fonts-nanum fonts-takao-pgothic fonts-thai-tlwg fonts-tlwg-garuda fonts-tlwg-kinnari fonts-tlwg-loma fonts-tlwg-mono fonts-tlwg-norasi fonts-tlwg-purisa fonts-tlwg-sawasdee fonts-tlwg-typewriter fonts-tlwg-typist fonts-tlwg-typo fonts-tlwg-umpush fonts-tlwg-waree ttf-indic-fonts-core ttf-punjabi-fonts ttf-wqy-microhei

After that you can look at removing applications like Banshee, gThumb or VLC. You can easily install these later, and you wouldn't immediately need these to get your fresh installation of Linux Mint up and running (unlike Firefox and XChat, which are rather handy to have for problem solving).

[jagwinn]

Hey Vincent,

Here I am with Mint12! I found a site that had a CD size distibution!

John

[The-Wizard]

If you wish to use the latest version of mint then the best way would be make yourself a bootable pen drive, you will need a clean pen drive [recommend 4 gig] then using one of the free programs available make it bootable and install the latest mint iso image on it,, change your boot sequence to usb drive and install from there


wizard

[jagwinn]

Thanks Wizard,
I did make a USB Flashdrive, but the ThinkPad could not do anything with it. No option to boot with it in the boot menu.

I am happy with the CD ISO I found!

John

[jesica]

Good day and welcome to the Linux Mint Forums