Complete idiot newbie needs enlightment from pros

[guanyu210379]

Halo guys,
I have just seen some screen shots of Linux Mint and I have decided to try it also...it is very interesting..
I have never used Linux before and I just got my first copy of Linux Mint 9 x64 from the net.
Before I start the installation, I have one big question.
I am worried about my GPU, printer, my scanner and my WLAN, Is there any problem regarding the drivers for those things?


My system is :
Q6600 @3GHz
4GB RAM DDR2 1000 CL5 Mushkin
500GB 7200.11 Seagate
Linksys WMP600N (Set to WEP to match the available network)
HIS ICEQ3 HD3850 512MB
HP Officejet K5400n printer (via USB)
Canon LiDE200 Scanner

[guanyu210379]

Almost forgot...
Another stupid question.
How do you make a dual boot of Linux Mint 9 and Win 7 pro both are x64?

[jesica]

if windows is already on your system, boot into the Mint cd, it will ask you what to do, just click the option that install them side by side

don't worry about your hardware, I reckon all of it will work fine in Mint

[Erinsfan]

You can always boot the Live CD and check-out Mint before installing! It is shockingly good.

[guanyu210379]

- OK. I have an empty 70GB partition to try it anyway (Vista ultimate x64 was there untill I killed it about 6-8 months ago, something went wrong by formating the vista partition, but it was fixed) .
-Live CD? OK, I will try that first before installing.
Thanks everyone.

[SMT]

I hope everything is going will with your system build. Running the Live CD is a GREAT way to determine your hardware compatibility, It not necessarily the end all of tests, but it will give you an idea of what will work out of the box and what you may need to tweak. This way you can also search the mint and ubuntu forums, before you even install.

Looking at your spec's i dont think you will have an issue. You didnt list your video card so I am not sure about any video issues that you might encounter.

Dual Booting is not too much of a problem, With the empty space on your disk you may have to manually specify that mint install there, you will need to format it to ext3 / 4 / xfs / whatever and give it a mount point. most likely / (or root) unless you are creating multiple extended partitions for /boot and /home.

There are several great instructions on how to do this on the forums.

check out
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=11872

Also download and take a look at the user guide for the edition that you are installing. This has dual booting information and considerations.

there are some great tutorials that you may want to look at on the community site
http://community.linuxmint.com/index.ph ... al/search/

Hope this helps and happy minting.

[thebeav]

Greetings!

For some reason that is baffling me when I installed Mint 9 in the same partition as Mint 8 it left Mint 8 and Grub now offers a boot into either and the used disk space increased from from ~10 Gb to ~45 Gb. Why? The "install side by side" radio button was not filled since I chose the "Advanced" button. How can I rid myself of Mint 8 and the now bloated consumption of hard disk by files? The install said a number of directories would be over written and the backup of new "stuff" was only ~2 Gb. As far as I can tell I lost a few programs but most were installed in the "/home/me" sub and reappeared. And I understand that a FORMAT would wipe the drive clean, not really what I want to do. So the final result was not quite what was expected.

Thank you.

PS. Why is there no "easy" way to uninstall Grub? I've looked at what it does to the boot sector and such and don't understand why it can't back that up first and make a return to no Grub easy. Just wondering.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
I discovered the source of the disk bloat. Somewhere during the repartioning of the HD a logical NTFS partition being used with VirtualBox was "magically" converted to a file in the Linux partition. GParted did not exit cleanly and boogered the Windows 7 chainload Both have since been repaired.

Still wondering about removing 8 and leaving just 9. As simple as removing the six boot/grub/ *2.6.31-14* files? And always about Grub.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[guanyu210379]

Hmmm...the installation for dual boot with win 7x64 is not as hard as I tought it would be and I have all my hardwares working...
Now let see, I will do some more reading and perhaps I can optimally re-install/install Mint in dual boot with windows...and some tuning for Mint..
For the installation I have picked the first option...the one goes something similar to "get it run together with other OS and let me choose which one for each booting"...
It will then choose my biggest partition...
I was aiming for the 70GB empty partition I have...but it went to my new empty 1TB HDD...Mint automatically make a 250GB and a 10GB partition for it...hmmm....250GB is a little unpolite...As I then read some ebooks...ups...I have made a mistake! ...I should've not chosen the first option...got to re-install it again tonight..hehehehehe...

I have a question :
My boot manager is originated from VISTA...alone..than dual boot with Win7...than I killed Vista....got problems with the boot manager...got it repaired...now Mint joined the group...
I want to put Mint in the 70GB partition, where VISTA was...I have a guess that my boot manager is there...If I formate it...the boot manager will be gone...
Is there a way to edit it, to know where it is and to move the location of the boot manager?

[guanyu210379]

Or is the windows bootmanager already got replaced by grub from Mint?
hmmm...I am totally confused?

[guanyu210379]

OK... I have destroyed Mint...will install it again later after putting my files and partition in order.
After some searching in the net :
Just returned to windows bootloader using the repair command prompt with windows installation dvd...meaning just destroyed grub..
Just moving the bootloader to to win7 master partition.

Now...I will rearrange my files allocation first and then install Mint again...this time the correct way..
Since I got an empty 1TB HDD, All the data will put there and the OSs will be on my old 500GB.
Moving the data is my next step.

Wow...there are lots to read..

[guanyu210379]

Just in case someone has same problems :
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-sup ... linux.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-disc ... drive.html