I suppose I should introduce myself... :P

[affirmedatheist]

I've already posted in a few places, but thought it mightn't hurt to at least introduce myself.

I'm a fairly long-time linux user now. I'd call myself at an 'intermediate' level of knowledge (I know about acls, the setguid and setuid bits, and such, but not much of the really higher level stuff). First tried Ubuntu back with 6.06, which didn't like my computer at the time, so I let it be. then tried 7.04, which sorta worked... It wasn't until 8.04 that things became truly usable. I tried Kubuntu at this stage (of course, this naturally was one of the more hellish releases for Kubuntu).

I've moved around a little, trying Fedora (which wouldn't see my Windows boot), openSUSE (which was nice, but I learned quickly that I don't like RPM-based packaging), I've booted Slackware in VMs a few times (and been impressed - it really is a well thought out distro), PCLinuxOS, and a few others. I kept coming back to apt-based distributions though.

Then came Ubuntu 11.04. Unity breaks too much, so I installed KDE, which I like, but it was glitchy (regular KWin crashes). That's basically why I'm here - I decided to move to something more grounded in Debian (LMDE). I'm impressed so far. Aside from some issues with PulseAudio (not the first time, I'll add. This was a constant issue when I was using openSUSE for a while) and initial issues getting NVidia drivers to work (smxi/sgfxi fixed this - what a great bunch of scripts!) Everything's pretty much been smooth sailing so far - and I'm tracking Sid!

I expect breakage at some point of course - I'm no fool. But I really like the setup here - the theme was almost exactly the look i was after, nearly all the apps I use were installed as default (VLC, etc.). About as close to perfect. That LMDE's a "rolling" release suits me better as well. No more pulling an ISO every six months (fingers crossed).

[BuyerBrown]

Nice to meet you - I'll have to go check out your other post - Looking forward to some good info -

[Habitual]

Wow. that's 2 former OpenSUSE distro users today.
I hope it's not a trend...
12.1 isn't due out til Nov. so I suspect that migrations will be up around then.

[rivenathos]

Welcome to the forum and Linux Mint!

[affirmedatheist]

Wow. that's 2 former OpenSUSE distro users today.
I hope it's not a trend...
12.1 isn't due out til Nov. so I suspect that migrations will be up around then.

I should point out that most of my experience with openSUSE was with 10.1 (the one with the hopelessly sluggish YaST - and I was learning about Linux at TAFE on this version!) and 11.1 (which wasn't too bad but KDE4 was still pretty buggy then). There are definitely things I like about openSUSE - I'm a HUGE fan of the SUSE studio idea and have used it a couple of times to build an install with only the stuff I need - very handy).

It's a good distro; I just don't like RPM package management; I find APT much better at preventing you accidentally hosing your system (it can still be done, however. I'm living proof! ) . I hear zypper has made things easier for openSUSE, but apt-get/aptitude and synaptic (for a gui app, synaptic's great) do the trick for me.

[tdockery97]

Welcome to the Mint Forums affirmedatheist. Sounds like we've had pretty much the same Linux experiences so far. I fully agree with you regarding apt vs. rpm package management. While I haven't really had rpm hose my system, it runs at a snail's pace compared to apt. If I'm going to install something from the repo I don't want to wait for 3 minutes for the package manager to refresh. Have fun with LMDE.

[affirmedatheist]

Welcome to the Mint Forums affirmedatheist. Sounds like we've had pretty much the same Linux experiences so far. I fully agree with you regarding apt vs. rpm package management. While I haven't really had rpm hose my system, it runs at a snail's pace compared to apt. If I'm going to install something from the repo I don't want to wait for 3 minutes for the package manager to refresh. Have fun with LMDE.

Probably due to my relative n00bness at the time tbh. apt's syntax is also much less arcane than rpm, but perhaps I'd better keep this as a welcome thread and not a debate on apt vs rpm.

[Oscar799]

Hello affirmedatheist,
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

[Habitual]

... There are definitely things I like about openSUSE - I'm a HUGE fan of the SUSE studio ....I hear zypper has made things easier for openSUSE, but apt-get/aptitude and synaptic (for a gui app, synaptic's great) do the trick for me.

SUSEStudio Rocks!
zypper rocks (I'm a c-li kind of guy anyway) GUIs are just Lipstick on the Pig)
I mess with about 1\2 a dozen distros every day (Cloud SysAdmin)
yum/apt-get/zypper - it all starts to look and behave the same after awhile.

[The-Wizard]

Welcome to the Mint family forums

wizard

[nunol]

Welcome to the Linux Mint forums affirmedatheist!

Cheers.