Greetings from another n00b

[maxheadway]

Earlier this year, I tried Linux Mint 8, and had weird things happen, such as programs not appearing in the window list when I minimised them. So I used Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala for a few months. As it turns out, this was most likely to be a problem with my hard drive - especially since it has a dodgy sector - not the software! I guess the HD didn't copy everything correctly when I was installing Mint.

More recently, I ended up mongrelising my Ubuntu OS, eventually trashing it in my attempts to remove a particular desktop environment, after much DE hopping. Since then, I've learned two things: 1. To work around my hard drive's problem by installing another distro I don't really need on sda1, setting up Mint with a dual-boot setup; and 2. To be much more cautious about what I cut and paste into the terminal, and why. (Not so much a danger of malicious code as of choosing inappropriate commands for the task at hand. No good fooling yourself that you're more clued-up than you really are.)

So here I am with Mint 9, still impressed at how user-friendly it is. Perfect for those of us coming across from Windows (or using Mint alongside). The aesthetics don't hurt, either (unlike Ubuntu 10.04 Lurid... er, I mean Lucid Lynx). What can I say? It just works... it's there in the background, functioning well as a means to an end.

[tdockery97]

Ahhhh, the freshness of Mint. Welcome back. If you ever have that problem with your windows behavior again, just right-click the panel and select "add to panel", then select window list. They will show up on the panel again. Have fun with Mint.

Tom

[Oscar799]

Hello maxheadway,
Welcome to Mint Forum
There is a lot of useful information for new and not-so-new users here -> viewtopic.php?f=60&p=302358#p302358
We have a Community site http://community.linuxmint.com/
For real-time help there are IRC channels,open MintMenu>Internet>XChat and you will be automatically connected to #linuxmint-help and #linuxmint-chat
Have fun with Mint

[jesica]

Mint friendly welcome, just shout for some help