Wanting to try linuxmint

[rivenought]

Welcome to the forum!

I believe that if you are wanting to clean your drive of any other operating system and install only Linux Mint, the Live CD should give you that option during the partitioning phase. Good luck and have fun!

[rivenought]

Well, the stable version of Linux Mint is the Main Edition (Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna GNOME). Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop, so you should be familiar with Linux Mint's slightly modified version of it. I really do not suggest you attempting the BETA version at this time since it is still in testing. You can easily upgrade to Mint 5 once it is released.

[kayakaholic]

I believe the partitioner is set to automatically format the root partition. You just have to make sure you choose manual instead of guided mode for partitioning during the installer. It should be roughly the same as the installer you used to install Ubuntu as well.

[MagnusB]

You will have issues with booting the live CD with only 256 MB RAM. It is possible, but be prepared to use some time for it. After installation it is possible to do some optimization, to make it run better... I would rather recommend using Xubuntu alternate install CD, or Mint XFCE CE.

[MagnusB]

Alternate installer does not load up a live session, which requires allot of RAM, and XFCE DE is much more lightweight and should run pretty good on your system. I had a desktop with 256 MB RAM and each live session I ran was buggy and unstable, but I usually managed to install. I would suggest to try a live CD first, if that fails, go for the alternate installer.

[Lantesh]

whats the difference?

Welcome to the Mint forums. Let's see if we can answer your question with a little Linux vs. Windows information. Windows is Windows, in that the entire operating system from the core kernel to the command line to the window manager is all one big system. A Linux operating system is broken down into parts. First there is the base code or kernel, which is actually the part known as Linux. On top of that runs x-windows, which is a basic set of instructions that the window manager uses to talk to the kernel. And finally we have the windows manager, of which there are three main choices you will typically find. These are Gnome, KDE, and XFCE. The distribution, in our case Mint, combines all of these. The reason someone else here has recommended Xubuntu or Mint XFCE is because each of these use the XFCE window manager, which uses the least amount of resources of the three main window managers. A distro that uses XFCE is better suited to an older slower computer. Anyway I hope that helps you, and again welcome.

[Husse]

You could download the gparted live CD (small download) and create a swap partition if you don't already have one
The Mint live CD uses a swap partition if it finds one - things get a lot easier

[Lantesh]

You could download the gparted live CD (small download) and create a swap partition if you don't already have one
The Mint live CD uses a swap partition if it finds one - things get a lot easier

That's good info. I didn't know that.

[Husse]

Not quite sure but I think it started with Cassandra (Feisty)