Goodbye Vista & Windows 7. Hello Linux Mint!

[seabreeze]

For home users, this just maybe the answer that budget minded consumers are looking for...

Agreed. I've been repairing computers for 15 years or so as a part time gig and have found for many users there is no need to upgrade their computers for the next wave of MS, but keep their existing computers and put an os on it that works. While watching from the sidelines, since Ubuntu 7.04, it's been real progress.

The computer that only just ran XP Home and can't handle Vista/Win7 can run Mint (and many others) with ease.

The main obstacle to wide adoption in the part of the world I live in is that Windows here is almost "open source" by that I mean pirate version of windows can be bought openly in supermarkets ect for a 1 or 2 $ and as a result many people I know just consider windows to be in effect free !

Can't say it's the same here (Australia). The MS os has always been a considerable slice of the pie, plus licence fees for MS-Office and other software like MYOB (accounting program). A budget system here can easily cost less in hardware than in software.

I can see an upgrade path now for come clients - not a hardware upgrade, but a software upgrade. To Mint!

[ibm450]

The same goes for Open Office why on earth would anyone pay for Mircrosoft Office when Open Office can do the same for free.

Because open office is c r a p compared to MS office, there is NO way many businesses will convert over to open office as it feels, not only slow, but god damn frustrating to use compared to ms office.

i have used both versions, open source and ms office for many years and basically ms version of office suites walks all over the open office version hands down. office 07 i find frustrating as the layout is not very user friendly, but theres a simple free down load that converts the layout to look and function the same way as office 03.

my 2 cent rant

[ers1121]

While I agree that open Office isn't MS Office it isn't exactly crap either. I have Office 2000 on my desktop at home, to me it's almost the perfect office suite. I have Office 2003 at work, to me it's a bit confusing. My new laptop came with Office 2007 pre-installed (90 day demo) to me that is worse than any of them. I tried Open Office about a year ago, while it takes a little getting used to, for the average student, home user or small business it's great. And in today's economy you need to cut expenses as much as possible. To be able to save several hundred dollars I am willing to make the adjustment. I run a small computer repair service on a part-time basis and it does everything I need, it will open Word & Excel files and also save files in those formats, in case you need to share them. You can also convert documents to PDF files, readable to anyone with Acrobat Reader. For me it has worked just fine.
Ed

[colinkhalid]

The description CRAP for open office seems to lack the technical details that might enlighten me as why it is "frustrating to use". . Interested to read some specifics.

[rhY]

I like Open Office. I wish it didn't try to make you register on install (it does on Windows, its usually installed by default in Linux!), but Office Writer does everything I want, and exports to PDF. I save everything as a PDF, and just email those. Everyone can print what I send and it will look exact. That's not true of any version of MS Office, across time, etc..

[Acid_1]

I like Open Office. I wish it didn't try to make you register on install (it does on Windows, its usually installed by default in Linux!), but Office Writer does everything I want, and exports to PDF. I save everything as a PDF, and just email those. Everyone can print what I send and it will look exact. That's not true of any version of MS Office, across time, etc..

I honestly don't mind. As a matter of fact, if Mint made it optional (On first boot of install), to register, that'd be fine. I simply mean in mintAssistant or whatever pops on first boot, there was an option to put your name, optional email address, and if you're a registered member on the forums, your handle. This could just give an approximate amount of users. (Even if friends give it to friends, etc.)

[dddd]

windows just plain flat out sucks.Linux mint is by far the best OS I ever used.

[jaqian]

I like Open Office. I wish it didn't try to make you register on install (it does on Windows, its usually installed by default in Linux!), but Office Writer does everything I want, and exports to PDF. I save everything as a PDF, and just email those. Everyone can print what I send and it will look exact. That's not true of any version of MS Office, across time, etc..

It also gives you an option not to register last time I checked, which was OO3.0

[lexon]

I use to use Windows 98 some years ago and I saw the Failure comes bundled with Windows. It is not an option. I just could not get this application to work very well so I went to using Linux. Many Windows people have more success with this application from what I hear. Now failure is not included with Linux and I have used a few different distros. I guess I will just stay with Linux and forget about the Failure application. I doubt is was ever much use the more I think about it.

lex

[Ron]

Hello everyone. I'm Ron. I thought I'd post for others who may be questioning a switch from Windows to Linux.

I am not a computer geek. Well, in my house I am but if I were in yours I'd be a noob. I knew about Linux through the Web while trying to get Vista tweaked on a new computer a couple years ago. Soon after, I needed to save an old XP computer that belonged to my two sons. They trashed it with downloads from places I'd be scared to go and, in addition, lost their XP discs. They had even managed to bork the BIOS which took me quite a while to get running again. I wanted to give the computer to my daughter but in its current state that was not possible. I was going to pitch the computer but remembered Linux. I researched it for a few weeks and downloaded Ubuntu. It wasn't perfect but I was impressed with Linux, nonetheless.

I ran Ubuntu for about a year. I went through all the issues many of you did when first installing a new operating system, something I had never even thought of doing before, and quite a few others that I created myself when I broke something. I then began dual booting Ubuntu on my computer with Vista. I did use Ubuntu but I was probably in Windows the majority of the time. There was something about Ubuntu I didn't care for. As I write this, I still can't fully explain it, but it just didn't grab me. The problem was, however, Ubuntu did show me some of the failings of Vista. I had become so used to all the virus scanning necessitated by Windows that it wasn't until I began using a Linux OS that I realized I was spending upwards of 20 hours a month just keeping Windows clean. The maintenace on the Linux side was nil. This really began to bother me.

A couple months ago I came across Mint. I downloaded it on my computer first and I have not looked back. I now use it 99% of the time. I really love this OS. I cannot say enough good things about it. It now has a home on my daughter's computer and even my wife has begun using it almost 100% of the time.

I know there are a lot of threads concerning Mint's "out of the box" configuration. Did everything work out of the box on my two computers? Almost. If I had to put a number on it, for both computer's, I'd say about 95% of the stuff worked. This wasn't an issue for me. I think one operating system on two different computers varying in age working as well as it has is pretty darn amazing. The issues I did encounter were relatively minor and fixed primarily by researching this forum.

I will keep Windows. I'm not a Gates-hater or a Windows basher. There are things I don't like in Windows (I cannot, for the life of me, get into the new MS Office suite) but I live and work in the real world. I use Mint because I really enjoy it. I use it because, for me, it is a better operating system. But I will continue to maintain Vista because there are apps necessary for my job that I cannot configure correctly with Linux. I will say that as good as Mint is specifically and Linux is, in general, I do see a time when Windows will not be necessary for me. But that has nothing to do with Gates or his company. I like capitalists. I'm not trying to change the world or anyone's mind. I just like and enjoy Mint and I'm willing to support it.

So, my advise for anyone who wants to try Mint: Back everything up (a disc image is best) and load up the OS. If you break something, apply your backup and start over again. There isn't too much you can do to a computer that can't be fixed. Use this forum. There are quite a few smart people here. Hell, I'd adopt Fred if I could take him off my taxes.

To everyone on this forum and the Mint developers, thank you for a great OS.

Ron

[emorrp1]

Welcome aboard Ron, that's an interesting story.

[sellyanes]

I like windows 7 and It is really good operating systems. It is better than previous all operating systems of Microsoft. I like the most feature of windows 7 is touchscreen. It is amazing feature. It is saving our time.It is faster than windows XP and windows Vista. It is also supporting the ext2/ext3. Windows vista is failure operating systems.I strongly recommend that You must use the windows XP or windows 7 Operating systems. Linux mint is also too good.

[meskarune]

Windows 7 is a very pretty, very fast, very stable OS. The biggest reason why I can't use it as my full time OS is because it doesn't support super dark themes. I need to have dark themes with light text otherwise I get migraines staring at the computer screen. (which is basically a big bright light bulb) Also I can no longer live without workspaces. And its so much faster doing things in the terminal...like I wanted to delete all the thumbs.db files in my media share, just type "find /share -type f -name 'Thumbs.db' -exec rm {} \;" and all the thumbs.db files are deleted. No going through file browsers dragging and dropping.

I like linux mint very much, and I've been keeping an eye on it. (I've been introduced to a lot of good gnome programs) But my true love is arch linux. Its rolling release, so I never have to reinstall. It stays up-to-date constantly. My biggest annoyance with debian based distros is the reinstalling with every release.

[sqbing]

yeah,my wireless network card doesn't work well in ubuntu 9.10,too. i dont konw why...it even work well with 9.04

i am still using mint7, poor network...

&...i have to agree, win7 is a great OS. Its really diffenrent from Vista. i love it but i cannot afford its price

[thedevil]

is there any events going on that you can join?
like: show people Linux Mint, installation process etc and how easy it is to use?