Linux Mint Forums

hello linux mint society,
I am a newbie to linux mint os. always been a Windows user b4 that. I have an older pentium 4
running at about 2.8 ghz. 2 X 120 hdd. one is for doing backups. it has a creative SB sound card and a 9600pro graphics card. very old hardware. so using an OS like MINT is appropriate for this system as it uses so much less resources than Windows.
over the months I have been flirting with katya, there have been some things that crapped out...like the date in the lower right corner as well as the updating function. since I am not familiar I just left it alone. then, two days ago I saw that there was a mint 13. I didn't even realize that 12 had come and gone to show you how out of it I am. so I dloaded Mate and installed it. It installed nice and clean right over katya. I also did all updates that it offered. I do not have compiz and am interested in that, but also thinking about limited resources. I only have 4 gig memory and a 120 gig hard drive. I am having a renewed interest in getting down some of the basics such as commands and file management and basic stuff. I feel like this OS is fast, clean interface, and saves me a lot of bother over Windows because in windows the hard drive is always spinning, and you have so much anti virus, defrag, and virus attacks. LINUX mint is clean quiet stable and powerful.
I can feel it. I am looking for something new to update my skills with and linux mint is so rewarding, that I am willing to go thru the learning curve for such a great Windows replacement.

blockhead, believe it or not, the specs you gave for the computer you are running Mint on are still pretty decent. 4 GB of RAM is a lot when you are running Linux! At any rate, we are glad to have you here and glad you are enjoying Linux Mint. Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum . Compiz doesn't work great with MATE, but if you want to try it (you can always go back), follow this tutorial, and make sure to read the comments for additional info - http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/919. To get back to the default Window Manager, Marco, you have to reverse this tutorial (change settings back), although you can leave compizconfig-settings-manager installed. If you want to quickly switch between the default WM and Compiz, you can install and run "fusion-icon," although I don't know how well it integrates with MATE.

thanks for that warm welcome guys. and I did try the procedures to activate compiz. the result was malfunctioning windows e.g. the - + x in the windows disappeared and the windows were stuck and couldn't move them. so I closed the terminal window and replaced the compiz back to marco in the editor and did a soft reboot. I got back a functioning windows interface once more. my graphic card is an ati rv350 and I found out I only have about 2. 5 gig memory according to the system information. I know my graphic card does 3d really fast too. I suppose it is some consolation to know it doesn't work that great in Mate anyway. I just got a new monitor also so the display is really crisp with a IPS LED LG 21.5" monitor. any ideas about what more I can try to get compiz going.

Welcome to the Mint family forums

wizard

ATI graphics cards could possibly require proprietary drivers to use 3d. You can try installing required drivers from "additional drivers." If that doesn't work, you should probably open a seperate topic, because I don't own any ATI cards, so I can't troubleshoot for the specific card.

the ATI drivers available through the additional driver program work reasonably well, [im not a gamer though]

The-Wizard wrote:the ATI drivers available through the additional driver program work reasonably well, [im not a gamer though]

Ok. I just remember a lot of problems with ATI and Gnome Shell/Cinnamon.

Hallo!

Goo day and welcome to the Linux Mint Forums.

Hope you have a fab times,

Regards.