Mint 13 64 bit and Windows 7 32 bit?

[Empu]

Greetings people, I've got a few questions that I hope someone can help me with. I've decided to give Mint 13 a try (haven't actually tried Mint since about version 9 I believe, haha) and since I'm pretty much just a Windows user, I think mint4win might be the way to go for me right now. Will there be any problems if I install the 64 bit version of Mint if my laptop currently has a 32 bit Windows installed? Before someone asks, yes, my laptop can handle a 64 bit OS. Is there a "special" kind of ISO that I should download? If I remember right, some versions of mint4win were unable to handle large files so it was only compatible with the no-codec versions. And finally, what about that "loop0" instruction we're given on the release notes? How do I do that? Maybe this one last question might be a bit silly since I haven't yet seen the mint4win installer and the option to do that might be right there... oh well, that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

[xenopeek]

You would download any of the 64 bit editions, here http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php. Those should all include mint4win. Now, will mint4win run on 32 bit Windows from the 64 bit Linux Mint DVD? I think it would, so give it a try. Windows will inform you if it can't run the mint4win, and if it can then you should be good to go.

[Empu]

You would download any of the 64 bit editions, here http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php. Those should all include mint4win. Now, will mint4win run on 32 bit Windows from the 64 bit Linux Mint DVD? I think it would, so give it a try. Windows will inform you if it can't run the mint4win, and if it can then you should be good to go.

Alright, I'll give it a go then Download's gonna take a while though, my internet isn't all that good sadly. Well anyway, I still need to ask about that last part.

"When installing Linux Mint with mint4win, choose loop0 for both the target partition and the grub destination." <--- What does that mean and how do I do that? Thanks a lot!

[Craig_Hubley]

I don't know what "choose loop0" means either but I'm sure it doesn't belong in end user install instructions from Windows.

I attempted to install the 64 bit Linux Mint 13 Ubuntu (Cinnamon) edition from inside 32-bit Windows 8 Developer Preview. It failed, possibly for the 64 vs. 32 bit reason but also possibly because of a complex disk configuration.

There is a serious flaw in the language used by the installer in any case: It says at some point in the installation to "reboot" to continue the install, but it's unclear whether one must reboot into Windows (whcih started the install) or the new Mint install, or what. if it doesn't matter, it should say it doesn't matter. But if there's any chance of getting this wrong due to a grub issue or just putting the installer on a different disk than the ordinary boot disk, the installer must be absolutely clear *WHAT* to reboot into. In my case I attempted reboots into both but I got what appeared to be an NTFS error (it was an NTFS disk Mint was installing to) that I had the Windows 8 recovery tools fix.

So unfortunately the installer fails. Either because it's not working or because it's so poorly documented that many common cases will require fixes ordinary users aren't capable of. Ubuntu is losing ground to Mint largely because of a bad installer, I suggest this be fixed ASAP. Also, make it very easy to report bugs, using a wiki without a login, or you'll just not hear of them.