Beginners Guide to Installing and Using Linux Mint 11

[lexon]

I've updated the link in my post. But a mod can feel free to update it whenevers. or jsut start a new sticky with the link. I don't really come here as much as I once did.

I am not sure I understand the updated PDF. My Mint 7 installation has a window that opens and shows the Manual download option when Mint gets to the desktop. Never any question where the Manual is located. . The Manual version is 1.0.7, the same as your update. My Mint 7 installation was when Mint 7 was released some time ago. I do not see an upgrade of the Manual. Any ideas? Thanks.

lex

[gcampton]

I've updated the link in my post. But a mod can feel free to update it whenevers. or jsut start a new sticky with the link. I don't really come here as much as I once did.

I am not sure I understand the updated PDF. My Mint 7 installation has a window that opens and shows the Manual download option when Mint gets to the desktop. Never any question where the Manual is located. . The Manual version is 1.0.7, the same as your update. My Mint 7 installation was when Mint 7 was released some time ago. I do not see an upgrade of the Manual. Any ideas? Thanks.

lex

The old link was a pdf of 1.0.5 I think or even earlier.

[DonnaFontenot]

I just recently moved from Ubuntu to Linux Mint (like last week), and now I'm anticipating the new version that will be out soon. The Installation Guide doesn't mention anything about upgrades but I seem to remember reading something "somewhere" that Mint doesn't recommend upgrading. True? Not? Advice on upgrading? (I don't have a separate /home partition, however, I am a backup freak, so I've got it as well as /usr, /etc, /opt, and /var always backed up).

[rich_roast]

I just recently moved from Ubuntu to Linux Mint (like last week), and now I'm anticipating the new version that will be out soon. The Installation Guide doesn't mention anything about upgrades but I seem to remember reading something "somewhere" that Mint doesn't recommend upgrading. True? Not? Advice on upgrading? (I don't have a separate /home partition, however, I am a backup freak, so I've got it as well as /usr, /etc, /opt, and /var always backed up).

The blog has a guide to upgrading from Felicia to Gloria, with the caveat that it's for advanced users only and whatnot. Similar distupgrade instructions seem likely to appear around the release of Helena. Given your backup tendencies I'd say try the upgrade since you have nothing to lose; that said, while it's somewhat good practice to backup system directories too, you wouldn't want to actually replace those having completed the upgrade, if you see what I mean.

i just change to this new system but my computer dosent make any sound, how can i fix t do i need any driver my computer is a vaio a litte old

The first thing to do is to check that nothing's muted in volume control. If you're certain that all the mixer levels are at an appropriate setting and there's still no sound, things might be a bit more involved, in which case the best thing would be to start a new thread on the appropriate hardware board, explaining the problem, what's been tried, and the output of

Code: Select all

inxi -A

[DonnaFontenot]

Thanks for the upgrade link, rich_roast. Yes, I understand about not restoring system folders. I just have them around, in case I need to grab one or two settings files from them.

[emorrp1]

where can I find it? plese tell me

If you mean the beginners guide, it's linked in the first post of this topic. It's also known as the user guide, for which there is a link on both the default homepage as well as the download page.

[farna]

So the recommended "upgrade" procedure is to backup all user data and install from scratch? That's not as troublesome as it would be with Windows, but then I would have to reinstall and reconfigure all software. I know the software is mostly free and not hard to install, but all the time and effort that could take!! There really needs to be a better upgrade path than that! Couldn't a script be written to change just the affected files? I know that would be a lot of work, but it would be a great benefit to thousands of users. If everything has to be reinstalled I'll probably just stick with Gloria for quite a while unless I see some compelling reason to change, like support drops off. I doubt that will happen anytime soon -- I still see lots of questions about Felicia (Mint 6) and even as far back as Mint 4.

[emorrp1]

Indeed, it is recommended to fresh re-install to avoid upgrade complications. The problems with reinstalling are only related to the GUI methods. The CLI is scriptable, so it's trivial to create a file that re-does all your common changes after each upgrade:

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#!/usr/bin/sh
#save this file as update.sh
#make it executable with "sudo chmod u+x update.sh"
#copy it to the new system
#run it with "sudo ./update.sh"

#install useful stuff e.g. amarok, skype
apt install amarok skype

#remove unused stuff e.g. tomboy
apt remove tomboy

#restore backed-up firefox settings (do not use between Gloria and Helena - incompatible firefox versions)
#where /media/disk is the drive where you backed it up to
cp -r /media/disk/.mozilla .

Additionally, you are correct there's no particular reason to upgrade if everything works fine for you, Felicia is still supported until Easter, Gloria for another year and Helena for 18 mths.

[farna]

I'm assuming one would have to manually enter the items to reinstall in the "#install useful stuff" area, the items come from /usr/bin/, and directory "sh" will be created? I don't know what the exclamation mark in the first line does, but I do understand the pound/number sign as marking a comment. I'll have to look up the Linux scripting language. I've never really written scripts, but it's not that far removed from the old MS-DOS batch files and Tandy Color Computer tokenized BASIC, though it's been ages since I've done either of those too!

Hmm.... for us newbies there needs to be a detailed instruction on making such a script for upgrades, assuming no prior knowledge of Linux. I think I can do it after a few question/answer sessions, but it could be a lot more trouble for others. If some kind of script could be written to check directories and create an update list that would be better. If the only upgrade route is a fresh install this would be a big help and boost for Mint use.

It's not a nice thing to find out that in order to upgrade to the next release I have to recreate the entire system. Backing up data is trivial and should be done anyway, installing 20+ software packages is another! Most are games and small things that I've found that might be useful, but if this were my main system with all my DTP software and work on it, it would be another matter! You're talking about 4-5 hours to upgrade the rather minimal system I'm on now, it would be an all day chore (8-10 hours+) just to upgrade my main computer (which I haven't switched over to Linux yet... will wait for the Mint 8 stable release on it after discovering this!). That's a big hit for Linux to us newcomers. To upgrade in an hour or two would be a lot more palatable, though I don't mind 3-4 hours -- half a day is about the most I think tolerable.

[emorrp1]

You're right about the comments, actually the "#!/usr/bin/sh" line is basically identifying the file as a script. Installing one or a hundred packages is simply a matter of listing them on the apt install line, and once you've discovered the names of the software packages you need to install, the script will install them almost as fast as you can download them. I used this method for a long time and including the system install, I could be back to normal within an hour! Try that by the GUI method! Incidentally, a similar process on Windows would take 8+ hours.

[rich_roast]

Very first day setting up MINT.Loads of questions I need answers to:How to get SKYPE for it,how to set a wireless network? Enough for now....Thanks.

At the risk of resurrecting a thread, you install skype using mintMenu -> Software Manager -> (quick search for) Skype, and you set up the wireless network using Gnome Network Manager on standard edition Mint, on the notifications applet of your panel (if Wireless is set up correctly this should be intuitive, if it isn't then it needs a thread of its own in Hardware section).

Can I use Mint on a PowerMac G4 with PowerPC™ G4 processor

I'm no expert on architectures so hopefully someone'll prove me wrong but in short, no. Mint is based on current Ubuntu and the last Ubuntu to support ppc was 6.10. See this.

[rich_roast]

HI,
I have been new to linuxmint, I have been looking for the support of linuxmint by the time I got this forum. I am having a huge collection of songs in the MP3 format, but I am not able to play any of those songs. Which plugins do I need to enable the music play to play the MP3 files in linuxmint.

That's odd, I think the default install should already have mp3 support built in. Could you please describe which edition of Mint you are using and the player that you are trying to use? Thanks.

[andrewchipka]

I find that the guide is amazing, but that cheeky remark about how mac mice are weird is unnecessary, and really ticked my friend off so much that instead of installing mint on his mac, he bought windows 7 and parallels desktop. please either remove this comment or rephrase it, thank you.-
"... everything's been thought of, apart from those weird Mac mice with only one button..." -from the official linux mint owner's manual

[uberspeed]

Sorry to be such a n00b but on page 16 of the userguide for Mint 8 it states swap should be twice the size of RAM. I have 4GB and when I installed Ubuntu (just trying to cut my teeth) I made a swap of 6GB. What would actually be the recommendation? I was thinking of shrinking it to 4GB as the first post suggested, but upon reading other posts it almost seems 2GB is the recommendation. Which is it!?
I keep reading and searching and come up with different answers all the time.
BTW looking to install Mint 8 over Ubuntu 9.10 to see if I actually use it more.
TIA

[vrkalak]

I think the amount of SWAP is really contingent on how much RAM your system has.

This 'rule of thumb' was made for people with 2 GB or less of RAM; those of us with higher memory systems, don't need that much SWAP.

I have a PC with 6 Gb of RAM and I monitor my system via Conky. I have 'never' used any SWAP -- my RAM, even on busy times, only uses from 15-20%.
If you have a lower RAM system (less than 2Gb) you probably do use some SWAP on occasion?

Even so, I only have a partition with 5 Gb of RAM, just in case.

Use the System Monitor or an App. like Conky to monitor how much if any SWAP your system uses and adjust accordingly.

[vtired]

I have read the the Beginners guide, I know how to go about most of the things because I came from Ubuntu. But I was looking for how to use APonCD. I had understood that it could be used to copy the installed packages and updates on a CD and then use the CD to install the same packages in another computer. I needed this because I was installing linux mint in a place without reliable internet connection.- But after burning the packages on a CD I wasn't able to install them in another computer. Can this be done? Or how is APTonCD used?

[hell0minion]

Hi,

I am new to Mint also. I am wondering where I can find the BBSID and the MAC address that I need to enter in order to have wireless connection.

Thank you

[Jonny87]

Does any one know of any other guides/totorials that are easy to understand that explain all that someone needs to know about Linux Mint 8 or just Linux in general for new users. Perhaps something that goes into things that aren't mentioned in this guide if there is anything. I'm looking for a complete comprehensive guide.

I plan on getting some of my family and a few friends onto a linux system and I want know all there is to know basically so that if they come back to me and ask "how do I...." or "can you tell me..." I'd be able to answer them. Also I'm still very new to linux and want know all I can about it so that I can get the most out of it.

[vrkalak]

Jonny87

A couple of the best 'newbie-friendly' Linux resources help guides available:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/
http://linuxnewbieguide.org/content/cha ... what-linux

These were most helpful when I first came over to Linux.

You might, also, try checking through the UbuntuForums >> http://ubuntuforums.org/

Since, LinuxMint is based on Ubuntu -- usually what works for one works for the other

[Jonny87]

Thanks will check them out.