Beginners Guide to Installing and Using Linux Mint 11

[AbeFreeman]

Someone needs a beginners guide to spelling Anyway, I'm wanting to install Mint 9 and the guide tells me that the installer can resize my existing partition WITHOUT LOSING DATA. Is this for real? There's no big chunk of contiguous space on my (NTFS) partition, there is no unpartitioned space on my drive, and if I use Windows disk manager, there's no way I can add a partition in already partitioned space without wiping out all the data. So I'm more than a little scared of just trusting the installer to do this. Should I be?
Also, people have complained on other sections of the forum that Mint doesn't support their scanners, webcams, etc. Is there a way I can check if there are drivers for my hardware before I take the plunge and put Mint on my hard drive? I can't seem to get it to run properly on live CD mode (I get a gnome interface (or sth. like that) error) and then I can't even get the main menu to come up.
I'm REALLY tired of virus and corrupted installation problems in Windows and am eager to switch to Linux, but want to be sure which one will work for me. The Mint interfaces look very sensible (like an earlier Mac OS) and it's a pretty mainstream distro, so I'm looking at it as my first choice if it will be compatible with my hardware.
Thanks to whoever can answer these questions.
Abe

[AbeFreeman]

Anybody out there? I posted on Wednesday and still haven't heard anything. Since then, I downloaded the liveDVD and that worked better (no more "Gnome applet" error) and I can get to the menu. But my original 2 questions remain, so here they are again, with another one added :

1. I'm wanting to install Mint 9 and the guide tells me that the installer can resize my existing partition WITHOUT LOSING DATA. Is this for real? There's no big chunk of contiguous space on my (NTFS) partition, there is no unpartitioned space on my drive, and if I use Windows disk manager, there's no way I can add a partition in already partitioned space without wiping out all the data. So I'm more than a little scared of just trusting the installer to do this. Should I be?
2. Also, people have complained on other sections of the forum that Mint doesn't support their scanners, webcams, etc. Is there a way I can check if there are drivers for my hardware (card reader, webcam, printer, etc.) before I take the plunge and put Mint on my hard drive?
3. My current computer is threatening to die of old age (lots of lines on the screen, hard drive occasionally makes bad noises, etc.) but I want to choose a new one that has hardware compatible with linux mint. Any way to know in advance? Specifically, I'm considering a Dell Studio One 19 (here in China they call it Inspiron One 19 -- has an Intel e5500 CPU) or a Dell zino HD (AMD X2 CPU).
Thanks to whoever can answer these q's.
Abe

[vincent]

1. When it comes to critical tasks like disk partitioning, there is absolutely no way to guarantee that you will NOT lose data in the process. However, I find GParted to be extremely stable and reliable; I've personally never had any data loss due to disk partitioning. There are some ways you can minimize the slight risk of data loss though, e.g. make sure you have a steady power supply, don't interrupt GParted or the Ubiquity installer, backup your files (which you should do anyways on a regular basis, even if you weren't planning to partition your hard drive)...oh, and don't forget to defragment Windows first. The reason you need to defrag first is because you don't have any unpartitioned space in your hard drive at the moment, and thus you will have to shrink the NFTS partition that Windows currently resides upon to create a partition (or several, e.g. /, /swap, and /home as separate partitions) for Linux, and shrinking a fragmented NFTS partition is just asking for trouble.

If you're really paranoid, just do a full image backup of your entire hard drive, so you'll be able to restore everything if something goes wrong. Again, both GParted and Ubiquity are highly reliable, stable, and mature programs, so if anything does go wrong...it's probably your own fault, i.e. user error.

2. Plugin all your peripherals and test them out in a Live CD session. For example, if you want to see if your webcam works, just open up Synaptic and install "Cheese". You can install applications in a Live CD session, but do keep in mind that none of the changes you make to the Live CD environment will stick after a reboot...so have fun in your Minty sandbox while you test out your hardware. Some things may not work out-of-the-box and may require extra drivers, or may simply not work at all, but chances are that most of your peripheral devices will work.

3. If you want to know whether hardware you plan to buy is compatible with Ubuntu/Mint or not, just Google it. Or look them up in sites like:
http://www.linux.org/hardware/
http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/
http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware/search
etc.

[AbeFreeman]

Thanks Vincent,
Um, I　ａｓｓｕｍｅ　ｔｈａｔ　ＧＰａｒｔｅｄ　ｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　Ｕｂｉｑｕｉｔｙ　ｉｎｓｔａｌｌｅｒ　ａｒｅ　ｗｈａｔ　Ｍｉｎｔ　ｕｓｅｓ　ｂｙ　ｄｅｆａｕｌｔ？　　　　Ａｎｄ　Ｉ　ｄｉｄ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ　ｄｅｆｒａｇｍｅｎｔ　ｍｙ　ｄｉｓｋ，　ｂｕｔ　ＡＦＴＥＲ　ｄｅｆｒａｇｍｅｎｔｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｉｌｅｓ　ａｒｅ　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ａｌｌ　ｏｖｅｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｐｌａｃｅ　（ｊｕｓｔ　ｎｏｔ　ｆｒａｇｍｅｎｔｅｄ）　ｓｏ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｉｓ　ｎｏ　ｂｉｇ　ｂｌｏｃｋ　ｏｆ　ｃｏｎｔｉｇｕｉｏｕｓ　ｆｒｅｅ　ｓｐａｃｅ．　　Ｔｈａｔ＇ｓ　ｗｈｙ　Ｉ　ｗａｓ　ｎｅｒｖｏｕｓ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｌｅｔｔｉｎｇ　Ｍｉｎｔ　ａｕｔｏｍａｔｉｃａｌｌｙ　ｃｒｅａｔｅ　ａ　ｎｅｗ　ｐａｒｔｉｔｉｏｎ．　　　Ｗｉｌｌ　ｉｔ　ｈａｎｄｌｅ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｏｋａｙ，　ｏｒ　ｄｏ　Ｉ need some kind of a file 'packer' in addition to defragging?
Abe

[AbeFreeman]

Whoops, I just realized I have to add some more info. to my question: My drive is currently partitioned into C: and D: Windows is on C:, and that's almost full, so I'm wanting to put Mint on D: (where my data resides, and where I still have 17GB of free space). Will that work?
Abe

[vincent]

Yes, Mint uses Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer, as do a ton of other distributions. However, I believe the in-built partitioner in the Ubiquity installer is a bit different from GParted (which is another program you'll find by default on the Live CD/DVD). They're just slightly different front-ends for the same operation, just like, for example, apt-get, aptitude, and Synaptic are all different front-ends for APT.

I'm not sure you get what "defragmenting" your hard drive means. It does not create a block of contiguous free space as you seem to think it does. It just reorganizes files on the partition being defragmented, so that resizing the actual partition will be safer and somewhat quicker as well. You might find giving this a quick read to be helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

Linux does not use the same Windows notation for denoting partitions (C:, D:, etc.). Here, it's /dev/sda# (e.g. /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2). The reason has to do with the fact that everything has to be mounted somewhere under / in Unix-based systems...if it doesn't have a path under /, it doesn't exist in *nix. You'd better get used to this soon otherwise you're going to run the risk of screwing up big-time during the installation process. For the Windows-to-Linux convert who struggles with this notation difference at first, I suggest identifying your partitions by their size/their filesystem at first.

Anyways, what I recommend is shrinking the "C:" partition (formatted as NFTS), and adding a new [logical] partition with the freed space (formatted as ext4) for /, or adding an extended partition with several logical partitions inside for /, /home, /swap. I would not recommend mixing up your existing Windows partitions with Linux...primary reason is that they use different filesystems. WIndows (XP and later) uses NFTS, Linux users tend to use ext2, ext3, ext4, or reiserFS (there's also JFS, XFS, brtfs, etc.). You probably don't care about why these filesystems exist and their differences (if you do, it's beyond the scope of this discussion here, so Google it ), but what does matter to you is that Linux is perfectly capable of reading and writing to Linux filesystems as well as Windows' ones (FAT32 and NFTS primarily), while Windows cannot read or write to ext2/3/4/reiserFS/brtfs/etc by default (there are third-party utilities that can accomplish this, but again, beyond the scope of this discussion...it'll take me forever to explain every possible aspect of this to you).

Point is, unless you know what you're doing, keep WIndows and Linux on seperate partitions and use the default filesystems offered for each OS (NFTS for Windows, ext4 for Ubuntu/Mint). It's safe to keep a separate data partition formatted as NFTS if you want both Windows and Linux to be able to access it.

[vincent]

By the way, this is worth a read: viewtopic.php?f=90&t=11872 (note that this is a bit old; ext3 was the default when this was written. Stick with ext4 for now. brtfs is going to be the next "default" filesystem for Ubuntu, but for now I recommend sticking with the ext family of filesystems simply because they've been tried and tested again and again and found to be reliable)

[AbeFreeman]

Thanks so much Vincent. I think I'm good to go now, as soon as I find a partition shrinker/resizer for windows. Now if only I could get my adsl modem to connect in mint I'd be a happy camper (tried sudo but still no luck) and wouldn't have to keep rebooting to go back to windows so I can google for linux answers or read this forum. Not out of the newbie woods yet.
Abe

[vincent]

You should not use a partition resizer in Windows to resize your WIndows partition...it's rather unsafe to resize a partition that is mounted and is being actively used by your OS. GParted already does an excellent job at resizing partitions (including NFTS-formatted ones, and a host of other filesystems), so just run GParted from the Mint live CD and you should be fine. If you insist on using some other partitioning software, at least try to find one that you can dump onto a bootable CD, and run it with your hard drive unmounted.

As for your ADSL modem, create a new thread about that and provide some more information to help us troubleshoot the issue ("ADSL modem" is extremely vague).

[AbeFreeman]

Thanks Vincent! And I wasn't expecting you to solve my adsl connection problem without giving any details (like a math prof. I had once that was always telling us to "solve by intuition") I actually did start a new thread about that problem, under networking/ethernet, but am still waiting for someone to come up with an answer. Is adsl not a common way to connect to the internet in the rest of the world? It's about the only way here in China.
'Nother installation problem though: running live DVD (off a usb drive, written to with unetbootin) , compatibility mode, it just freezes every now and then (completely -- have to turn off computer), and it doesn't seem like there's anything I do that consistently causes this, it's kind of random. I'm assuming (hoping) this is just related to trying to run off a usb drive rather than being properly installed. I did find this on google, which worries me: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-58963.html [I'm running an m2000]. Could any of this (it's all Greek to me) be causing my freezup? And what do I do when I get a freezup? ctrl>alt>delete does nothing. Does linux have an equivalent? I hate to just hit the "off" button, but that's what I've been doing.
I'd be happy to just read a comprehensive manual, rather than asking you all these dumb questions, but I don't know of one.
Abe

[vincent]

It'd be nice if you could provide me with the link to that other thread of yours in your post, you know. After all, if you make it easier for me to help you, I'll definitely be more inclined to do so.

Could you try running the Mint live session from an actual burnt DVD instead of Unetbootin, and see if that works any better? That thread you link to isn't all that applicable any more...it's over 4 years old, and the OP there talks about using a 2.6.13 kernel...a lot of changes have been made between then, and now, with Lucid/Isadora's default 2.6.32 kernel. More hardware support is being added into the kernel all the time. Oh, and you can use the "Magic SysRq keys" to turn off your computer if it's frozen, e.g. Left Alt + PrtSc/SysRq + REISUB (hold down the left alt and print screen keys, then type R, E, I, S, U, B in succession). Explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reisub#.22Raising_Elephants.22_mnemonic_device

[AbeFreeman]

Honestly, if I wasn't so tired of windows giving me "the blue screen" or getting infected with a virus every time I stick in a usb drive or SD card that's been in someone elses machine, I'd have given up trying to install linux by now.. So here's where I'm at now: I switched to an actual DVD, instead of the usb drive written with UNetbootin, to try to install Mint. But then I got a few error messages: "The panel encountered a problem while loading "OAFIID:Gnome_NotificationAreaApplet do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?" (or sometimes "OAFFIID:Gnome_ShowDesktopApplet" ). I choose the "Don't delete" option. Then when I tried to run GParted it let me resize my drive but when I hit "apply changes" the GParted window just disappeared, along with everything else on the desktop (except for the green background, if I remember correctly), and I couldn't get the menu to come up. REISUB didn't even do anything. So I shut down. Then I tried resizing the partition using 2 other programs, but they didn't work. So I went back to the usb drive again. THis time GParted worked and I unallocated 10G for my mint install, but then when I went to install mint it got stuck on the "choose your keyboard" section ---- I was unable to input any text. Well, I chose "forward" anyway (with the default USA keyboard chosen) but when I got to the "Who are you" section I was unable to input text into any of the windows. I tried to open gedit and input text there, and sure enough I couldn't (I had tried gedit previously and it worked fine, but now after starting the installation program it wouldn't let me input text). Restarting and just running the installation program first thing (just in case GParted messed something up) gave me the same result.

So, here are all the relevant facts:

1.I've done an integrity check on both the usb drive and the DVD and they're fine
2. I start in "compatibility mode" --- if I use regular mode I just get a black screen after the green dots at the beginning
3. I hit "install mint" (left clicking on this just highlights it, but does nothing else, so I right click and choose "open")
4. If I use the DVD I get those "problem while loading xxxapplet" error messages (incidentally, I tried another ubuntu based distro live DVD, Zorin OS, and got the same messages) but the installation proceeds after I choose "don't delete"
5. Regardless of installing from DVD or usb drive I am unable to input text in any of the relevant windows on install, so am unable to complete the installation
6. We have a large, swiftly flowing river less than 50m from our house which would be happy to carry my laptop to Thailand if I just heaved it in that direction.

So, what do I do now? If you say that option 6 is my best one, I'll totally understand and stop asking these questions, but if you aren't ready to give up yet, I won't either.
Thanks.
Abe

[vincent]

Did you check the md5sum of Mint's .iso file prior to burning it to disc? If it's corrupted, that would easily explain why you're facing all these weird problems.

About Gnome panel problems you seem to be having, try restarting gnome-panel to see if it functions properly:

Code: Select all

killall gnome-panel

I was going to suggest that you burn a separate GParted live CD (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php) if you couldn't get Gparted in Mint to work for some reason, but since you've already partitioned your hard drive successfully, then I suppose there's no need anymore.

And as for your keyboard problems...I've honestly never heard of that before, and I thought I've heard it all when it comes to troubles with Ubiquity. You say that you are unable to type with your keyboard while running the installer? Hmmm...Ubiquity isn't supposed to break your keyboard or anything. Can you open Gedit and type stuff before you initialize the Ubiquity installer in a live CD session? If you can, I have absolutely no idea what's going on, since Ubiquity isn't supposed to stop you from being able to type...if you can't, then maybe your keyboard is somehow incompatible with Linux? That would also be new to me...I mean, I've heard of wireless not working in Linux, of printers/scanners not working, of audio not functionning correctly, of other peripherals not being recognized, etc., but I've never heard of a keyboard not functionning in Linux. The keyboard works in Windows, right?

[AbeFreeman]

Regarding my keyboard: it does work fine everywhere else (in windows, with gedit BEFORE starting the installer, etc.). The problem is that the keyboard doesn't get a chance. In other words, there's that capital "i" shaped mouse pointer that appears when you drag the mouse over a window where you're supposed to input text, but if you click on the window it remains an "I" mouse pointer, and won't become a flashing cursor that lets you input text. Same thing happens with gedit. Does that make sense? And it doesn't seem to be a problem with the mouse, because if I click somewhere else (like to change the default location on the map in step 2, or to change from usa keyboard to some other type) everything responds normally. Weird, huh? Maybe I'll try ctrl>C'ing some text before I start the installer, and then just pasting it in to each window (for name, password, etc.) just to see if the installation can finish and if things improve after that. Or would that be a bad idea?

Oh, and while i was looking for the correct md5 sum on the mint webpage, I came across the system requirements which tell me that I need 512MB of RAM. I checked and I only have 224. Could that be causing these problems? Should I just give up?
Thanks for your patience.

[AbeFreeman]

Oh, I did check the md5sum of the iso file, and it's fine.

[vincent]

Lack of RAM could explain all these weird occurences...the manual is right though, 512 MB of RAM is needed to have a decently comfortable experience in DE's like Gnome or KDE (but I'd actually recommend at least 1 GB, once you factor in the RAM that other applications use up...). Either go with a more lightweight version of Mint (e.g. Mint LXDE/Fluxbox) or upgrade the amount of RAM in your computer (RAM is dirt cheap nowadays, especially DDR/DDR2). Heck, with just 224 MB of RAM, even Windows (XP) would be considerably slow, and Vista/7 would be completely unusable.

[AbeFreeman]

Well, Vincent, thanks to all your help I'm closer to having a working mint system now, but not quite there yet. I installed lxde and it got through the install just fine (no keyboard problems). Able to get ADSL connection running. Yay! 3 problems still:
1. SO SLOW! This is weird, because since I've started looking at mint, I've generated some interest among friends, and having installed gnome mint on 3 friends' computers, it makes windows (both XP and 7) look poky (especially web browsing) in comparison. But on my machine even LXDE is running like a snail. The harddrive is running constantly, like it's really busy doing something in the background, even when I'm not doing anything. It runs about like windows when my antivirus is scanning the hard drive
2. When I move the mouse (touchpad), I often get a "desktop 1 2 3 4" icon on the screen, and it happily switches between them. Don't know how to stop this.
3. The welcome window (grey window that comes up at startup and offers the mint manual, tutorial, etc.) appears blank after another window (eg. firefox) has covered it and then been closed again. Not a huge problem, but if there's a way to either restore or delete this window it'd be nice to know -- and if others have this problem then it's a bug that should be addressed.

[kai3345]

Thanks for the guide, It helps! I had no problem downloading it. I already knew most of the stuff in their anyway. Thanks anyway!

[kai3345]

Someone needs a beginners guide to spelling Anyway, I'm wanting to install Mint 9 and the guide tells me that the installer can resize my existing partition WITHOUT LOSING DATA. Is this for real? There's no big chunk of contiguous space on my (NTFS) partition, there is no unpartitioned space on my drive, and if I use Windows disk manager, there's no way I can add a partition in already partitioned space without wiping out all the data. So I'm more than a little scared of just trusting the installer to do this. Should I be?
Also, people have complained on other sections of the forum that Mint doesn't support their scanners, webcams, etc. Is there a way I can check if there are drivers for my hardware before I take the plunge and put Mint on my hard drive? I can't seem to get it to run properly on live CD mode (I get a gnome interface (or sth. like that) error) and then I can't even get the main menu to come up.
I'm REALLY tired of virus and corrupted installation problems in Windows and am eager to switch to Linux, but want to be sure which one will work for me. The Mint interfaces look very sensible (like an earlier Mac OS) and it's a pretty mainstream distro, so I'm looking at it as my first choice if it will be compatible with my hardware.
Thanks to whoever can answer these questions.
Abe

I don't know if the guide as been updated for the most latest version of Mint. So I'm not sure.

LOL, Yes, Someone does need a beginners guide to spelling.

[proxima_centauri]

*Updated the Link for latest version.*