hello from another Ubuntu ship jumper

[varonbondumb]

Hey guys. Awesome community.

I used Ubuntu since 8.04, started with Kubuntu 8.04 (boy, THAT was rough!) and dove headfirst into it. Seven or 8 reinstalls later and I finally had everything working like I wanted, then I installed Ubuntu. Loved it. It worked out of the box, whereas Kubuntu required way too much tweaking to get things like the mouseball and simple video stuff to work. Loved it. Used it for years. 9.04 crashed, 9.10 crashed, kept 8.04 until 10.04, installed 10.04, loved it. Kept it until 11.04 and then I had a crucial decision to make: stay with what worked or go with the new. I read reviews for 11.04 and they were very mixed. I read about "Unity" and at best it looked buggy and at worst it looked like poop. My computer guru said to stay away from it, it was going against the spirit of Ubuntu and Linux and to try Mint. I had heard of Mint from DistroWatch, but being happy with Ubuntu, I never gave it a second thought.

I downloaded LM 9 (LTS) and immediately fell in love with it. Everything was so much easier. Everything worked out of the box. My guru said to try 10. So the day after installing 9, I installed 10. I loved it even more. Even easier.

I've installed LM 10 on 2 other people's computers, which they love. These people are techno-weenies. With Ubuntu, my test to see if someone could "handle" it was "Do you know how to find out which driver you need and install it for a given computer component? (especially video card)". Now, I don't even do that.

I have my Firefox Google Search bar thing in the corner still set to the 'Linux Mint Google Custom Search'. I do searches on it for pages I could just as easily type into the URL box (facebook.com, linuxmint.com, gmail, etc.) for the sole purpose of helping to generate a little extra cash for Linux Mint. When I go to linuxmint.com and the forums I click on *ALL* of the banner ads I see just to help them generate cash. It irks me to no end to see selfish people who just 'can't be bothered' by the custom google search and who say "it is a dealbreaker."

I use LM 10 for my online MBA courses. I only have to switch back into Windows for using MS Access and having Centra to work properly (sometimes Centra works in Linux, sometimes not. I can't afford to play with it during class times).

Thank you for having a great community and a great OS.

[tdockery97]

Warm welcome to the Mint community varonbondumb. Glad you are having a very positive experience.

[The-Wizard]

Welcome to the Mint family forums

wizard

[BuyerBrown]

Hello Pleasure Meeting You Hope You have a Blast being Here! Very cool Group of folks

[Oscar799]

Hello varonbondumb,
Welcome to Mint Forum
There is a lot of useful information for new and not-so-new users here -> http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 58#p302355
We have a Community site http://community.linuxmint.com/
For real-time help and discussion there are IRC channels,open MintMenu>Internet>XChat and you will be automatically connected to #linuxmint-help and #linuxmint-chat
Have fun with Mint

[rhY]

Instead of dual booting you should look into virtual box and microxp. This solution is ultimate convenience for the rare occasion I still need a windows app.

[varonbondumb]

Instead of dual booting you should look into virtual box and microxp. This solution is ultimate convenience for the rare occasion I still need a windows app.

Wow, thank you for this bit of info right here! I will look into this immediately!

[rivenathos]

Welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here.