Fresh Install - User ID/PW?

[RedWagon]

Hmm... that's odd, on the live disc you should automatically be logged on as some generic user with no password. I know in Ubuntu it was just 'ubuntu' but am not sure what the LinuxMint one is off the top of my head. Sometimes if X crashes it can kick you back out the the logon screen, but it should re-log you on. Try booting again and watch it this time. Let us know if you see the desktop at any point, also make sure you don't see "User 'linuxmint' will be logged on in 9 seconds'

[hamburn]

Do you have any advice re: Mint vs Ubuntu? I've heard ubuntu has the best beginner UI...really all I need to do is simple stuff like web and office applications, which Mint has also. Your thoughts?

Not what Mint has also, but what Mint Main has and Ubuntu mostly not. With Mint Main come all the codec you need for music and video and graphic and nearly all other applications you need. In Ubuntu you have to go to the "restricted" repositories and download them by hand.

What you have to install extra in Mint are the driver for the video card, but even for that you will be announced by Mint and got it presented on a silver plate, and so things like Google Earth or Opera and the games. And all that in the one click mode from Mint Install.

As a friend of me said, after I installed Mint on his desktop computer: Mint, the best Ubuntu

H.

[richyrich]

Welcome skicrazer,
I am a fairly new Mint convert too, and the best comparison I can make between the two, is that Mint is extremely polished, and even easier to use with the exclusive Mint tools & features. It includes the extra codecs for audio & video (or just a one-click install from the Universal edition). It is easy to customise for looks and feel. Easy to install proprietary drivers (my old Nvidia Quadro agp card has found new life!).
Sorry if I sound a little evangelistic, but I DO believe that Mint is the BEST distro out there! To quote from a review; "It just works!"
I still have to keep some Wind*** machines around for my computer business, but I have found I can do everything that I want to do, in Mint. My main home pc is now 100% Mint (different flavours, I do love the kde version), and I dual boot my old IBM A31p with XP and Mint Xfce (worked right out-of-the-box!).

regards, Richard

[RedWagon]

I agree that Mint is much easier to use, the only thing Ubuntu really has on Mint (in my opinion) is it's giant userbase. It is a lot easier to find Ubuntu-specific tutorials, books, and other support. LinuxMint is close enough to Ubuntu that most of these tutorials work fine for Mint, it's just that some new users who just follow things step for step and dont' understand what is going on can get tripped up if they come across a difference in Mint and Ubuntu.

[richyrich]

Running from the live cd for a while can use up the remaining ram memory, as it's running from ram, thus making it impossible to install. Try a fresh reboot. And, yes, wait until you have completed your install before running the updates.

regards, Richard

EDIT: typo

[richyrich]

uh oh . . . Mint 7 Main recommends 512 mb ram for install. There are some workarounds in recent posts, which require setting up swap on the hard drive prior to installation, which you may want to read up on.
Ram is pretty inexpensive nowadays. Or you may even want to try the Xfce CE edition! I have it on my old IBM A31p, and everything has worked flawlessly and very fast. Version 7 isn't out yet, but 6 is VERY polished!

regards, Richard

EDIT: typos

[RedWagon]

I had thought Linux had a small footprint

Linux can be many things, how small the footprint is depends on the distro. You can get some really tiny distros, but typically the lighter you go the less user-friendly it is. LinuxMint isn't heavy, but with something that slow I think you might be stretching things. I would definately reccomend the XFCE or Fluxbox version which are both lighter than Gnome. Fluxbox is the lightest, but also has less features. I would try both, and if Fluxbox will work for what you want go with that version.

[richyrich]

Uh oh! I only have 384MB RAM. I did try the install right after booting and no response.

I am trying to check on my current RAM usage, but nothing happens when I select Administration-System Monitor. Could that be because my RAM is full? ...Oh...as I type, the screen popped up.

270MB (72%) RAM used and 100% of swap (93.9MB). The CPU is chugging away at something - over 50% used. It's only a 700MHz chip. (I had thought Linux had a small footprint)

Well . . 270mb + 93.9mb . . . lets see, the live cd uses ram for the swap . . I don't think you have ANY ram left! The 16mb that is left is probably used for your video. If you really want to try the Main edition, you may have to try the alternatives that I stated in my last post, or RedWagons advice.

good luck, Richard

[richyrich]

You may have to be patient while it loads. (not much ram to work with.)
If not, while you are out getting a blank cd, buy one more . . download & burn the GParted live CD from Soundforge.net. Then you can boot directly to the Partition Editor. (that's what I did, works great!)

Regards, Richard

[RedWagon]

You can use parted, the command line backend to Gparted. Just open a terminal and type "sudo parted" then enter "help". (no quotes) It will give you a brief overview of the commands to use it. Also remember that once you create a swap partition, you won't be able to use it until you run
sudo swapon /dev/sa3
(except replace sda3 with the swap partition you created.) Hope this helps.

[rivenathos]

Other tricks I have done with the Live CD include: removing the volume icon from the panel, removing Tomboy from the panel, quitting the updater, and exchanging the mintMenu for the standard GNOME one. These few adjustments can save you a large chunk of RAM while the Live CD is running.

This works with Mint 7 GNOME running on a Pentium 3 with 256 MB of RAM.