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Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:22 am
by upd103
Hello everyone. My name is David, I'm an International Police Advisor currently working in Afghanistan, but I'm from Texas, USA. I've been over here for about 2 years, and I am scheduled to return home in about 9 days or so, so I'm sure you can imagine how excited I am.

As for Linux distributions, I have always wanted to learn. About 10 years ago or so, I thought about exploring SuSe and installed it on an ancient Thinkpad I had laying around. At the time, users really had to fiddle with wireless networking to get it to work, and it got pretty frustrating for me. I'll be completely honest, I gave up on it. I think it was more a matter of having to go back and forth between multiple computers just to figure out basic functioning and features.

Enter 2013.... Not too long ago, I decided to do some research on Linux again. This time, I think it was my transition from the iPhone to my Android phones, and my subsequent love with the Android OS, that made me want to get away from the mainstream of Windows. Having a somewhat frustrating first experience years ago, I wanted something very easy for new users, and it looked as though Mint was going to be the best distribution for me. The next problem was being able to download the distro in Afghanistan. As you can probably guess, the internet isn't the fastest in the world. Well, 2 days after starting, I can say that I am finally running Mint (even if it is Live on the disc for now.)

The only reason that I'm still running Live is because I felt compelled to log on here immediately and give all of the devs. props on this distro. Linux seems to have come a very long way over the years, and I know it is because of all of you. Thank You. This is what I have been looking for. Knowing that I can take care of my basic needs in computing while still being able to dive a little deeper into the Linux world, I can honestly say that I am hooked 15 minutes after running it.

Once again, thank you all, time to split my HDD into equal partitions so I can still use some of my proprietary Windows software that I need, and can spend most of my time here. Looking forward to learning along with the rest of the new guys and learning FROM you older (more experienced) users.

Until then.......... Stay safe and stay frosty

David

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 6:02 am
by The-Wizard
Welcome to the Mint family forums,

you have made a good choice with mint you have the choice of base system [Debian or Ubuntu] but still have the feel of the traditional desktop [or you can play around and install another of your choice] but the biggest advantage is most of the drivers needed come in the package and others are fairly easy to install,

wizard

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 7:38 am
by Macmeister
Hey David, fellow Texan here. You've made a good choice going with Linux Mint, as it's stable and low-maintenance. I've tried dozens of distros, and most all of them either require constant fiddling to keep things functioning right or have crazy user interfaces. (that would be Ubuntu) I need an operating system that allows me to get things done (I don't need another project!), and Mint does the trick. Swell folk here in the forums if you should have any issues. Welcome!
- Mark

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 12:06 pm
by upd103
Thanks guys. Well, the permanent install is done now, and I split the hard drive down the middle so that I can still have Windows. Eventually, I will get rid of it I'm sure, but for now, if it comes down to doing something in a time frame and I haven't figured it out here yet, I have a fall back solution. 304 MB of updates are just about done, and I'm looking forward to getting into it. In the mean time, it's just a ton of reading up for me. Time to search a lot of the terminal commands. I know some are similar to old MS DOS commands, but many are different too.

:D

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 7:57 pm
by dieselboyDB
Welcome to the Mint forum. Glad to hear you are up and running. I'm sure if you have questions you will find a lot of good information here, and a bunch of great people that are very helpful. I have found that out in my first week here.

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 3:24 am
by catweazel
Welcome aboard. Get home safe.

Re: Texas New Guy. In love already.

Posted: Tue May 14, 2013 7:57 am
by jesica
Hey

Welcome to the forum :mrgreen: