Continuing my Linux education. (SOLVED)

[Wallfisher]

I have became a big fan of Linux Mint, presently have 5 computers loaded with Mint 9 Xfce and/or 10 Gnome for a total of 7 running Mint installs.

Unfortunately, I recently had to give up my Compaq Presario 1800 to my brother who happens to prefer the MS branded OS (I haven't been able to understand that) In place of it I now have a Compaq Presario 1670, which is an older model laptop. I can load LM 9 LXDE just fine but the updates take forever (over 24 hrs) to complete. All the other versions of Mint won't boot because the kernel does not have cmov.
Then it won't restart after the updates.
It presently has Debian installed. I started with just the base install for a laptop.

Now I want to Mintify it. Is it possible to add Mint packages to a base Debian install using aptitude? Thanks, in advance for your suggestions.

BTW I even tried to install Mint 7, and that didn't work.

[wayne128]

It presently has Debian installed. I started with just the base install for a laptop.

Now I want to Mintify it. Is it possible to add Mint packages to a base Debian install using aptitude? Thanks, in advance for your suggestions.

BTW I even tried to install Mint 7, and that didn't work.

Well, it is nice to know Debian installer works for you.

You can follow tutorial by vincent to mintify your Debian base install

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/197
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/198

[Wallfisher]

It presently has Debian installed. I started with just the base install for a laptop.

Now I want to Mintify it. Is it possible to add Mint packages to a base Debian install using aptitude? Thanks, in advance for your suggestions.

BTW I even tried to install Mint 7, and that didn't work.

Well, it is nice to know Debian installer works for you.

You can follow tutorial by vincent to mintify your Debian base install

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/197
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/198

Thanks, Wayne. I have found a lot of distros just aren't as user friendly as Linux Mint.
After the base install I added Xfce and have a pretty quickly laptop for work I only need to have Internet and a browser or 2 for setting up and testing satellite Internet.

[Wallfisher]

Actually, Vincent's tutorial works. I only had to make minor changes to how I did the repository update. I am guessing this is different from user to user, machine to machine. This is an excellent way to get Mint on older computers which are of low resources. My Compaq Presario 1670 is maxed out with 192 mb of ram, it only has a 4.3 gig hd, pcmia ethernet card. This actually gives me a fairly fast OS on my old laptop. It wouldn't take a live cd of Linux Mint not even Mint 9 LXDE edition.

My only recommendation for the older computers after being Mintified. When you restart the update manager will show 2 updates available, if you don't want to reinstall the system (Like I'm doing again) don't take them, they modify your Xorg and disables the x window.

I'll post the packages when I get to that step again. I haven't learned to use command line well enough to feel comfortable with it, at the moment. That is another part of my continued education I am working on.

[wayne128]

Now that you have it working, from walking a very long path due to old hardware, two things I would do if I were in same situation
1. Avoid update, just use what is working.. like you mentioned. update sometimes can break thing.

2. clone your installation. Keep the clone on another USB drive or USB flash.
If something went wrong, such as hard disk suddenly had hard error etc, you know you can always reformat the hard disk and copy the clone image back to the hard disk, install grub, and get back the original working OS.

[Wallfisher]

Your suggestions are valid and appreciated. Thanks again for the link to Vincent's tutorial. I now have a Minty Debian LXDE on a 4.3 GB hd with 1.2 GB of free space. My next one to learn to configure will be a Debian e16 environment since Debian doesn't have e17 in their repository. I have tested Bodhi Linux.

I know not to upgrade these 2 packages with a Debian based system (libcairo2) & (libpixman-1-0) both are Ubuntu based builds and don't seem to be compatible with Debian. I've been told that Ubuntu isn't backward compatible with Debian.