Greetings All

[afineman]

Well the title says it all, Greetings

To quickly explain how I got here (I'll make it short) about 4 months ago I had 2 computers on XP and 1 on windows 7, with the end of XP support I decided to give Linux another try. I put Ubuntu 14.04 on the wifes laptop, this was the easiest install I had done to date, it was so easy I then did the PC in the living room (surfing and some media use). so the 2 computers that had XP were running 14.04 like a champ and fully functional for all their needs.

I was so pleased, not only did I put Ubuntu on a computer at work I removed Windows 7 and rebuilt the HTPC in the family room, this took a little longer because of the blu-Ray player and the tuner cards and various media operations, but in the end it all worked.

I decided to put together a low power always on hub/recorder with all the external storage going to it, I went with a GIGABYTE GB-BXBT-2807 Mini-PC Barebones system (4 G ram, 128 G SSD) and try out the various distributions on it, and that is how I ended up here.

After trying the various distributions and trying to get ether XBMC or Myth TV to work with them (I was unsuccessful at getting ether to work on the HTPC too with Ubuntu) I gave up (for now) because I had no luck (this is most likely due to me being a beginner).

I was impressed with how Mint 17 Cinnamon looked and felt, I grabbed a new SSD to see how well I would like it on my HTPC.
Well, Me Likey Very Much, I like the task bar being at the bottom, I like being able to add Icons to the desk top, and I find it much more pleasing to the eyes than Ubuntu and as a windows user I also found it to be a bit more intuitive too.

My HTPC is an AMD A8-3850 CPU, and MSI mother board, 8 G RAM 259G SSD and 2Tb storage with a WIN TV 1600 tuner card and a wired network. Netflix went in without a problem using Firefox (pipelight and user agent switch) Amazon Prime video works great too.

Again couldn't get ether XBMC or Myth TV to work so went back to Kaffeine for the tuner card and recording TV shows. I even found a nice network monitor that resided in the task bar (I like to know if/how much is uploading/downloading).

I am NOT qualified enough to say what distribution is better (they both do the exact same functions, and do it well) in my set up, but I can say, the look and feel of Mint is much better (for me) than Ubuntu.

So for the basic home user (like myself) Mint 17 is a great choice (my opinion) to replace Windows.

Thanks for reading and nice job Mint team

AFM

[ClutchDisc]

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Mint forums! I too started with Ubuntu and then came to Mint. I like both, but overall much prefer Mint to Ubuntu. I just switched my laptop over (from Ubuntu) to Mint 17 Cinnamon.

[daveinuk]

Welcome to Mint ,

I also started out on Ubuntu before discovering Mint, I still look in on it from time to time and distro hop with a spare laptop drive when anything new takes my eye that I want to give a whirl, but I stay with Mint on my desktop and main laptop, I have XP jailed in a virtual machine on my Mint 13 desktop but I haven't even looked at it for months, just don't need it now, and am a MS free zone, I even have a Jolla phone running Sailfish OS so I'm google free too . With mint being based on Ubuntu, if you're ever searching for an answer to a question, you can search Ubuntu forums and search results as well as mint which makes life easier now and again.

Above all, Enjoy !

[The-Wizard]

Welcome to the Mint family forums

wizard

[Crewp]

Welcome to Linux Mint, and the Mint forum.

[vrkalak]

.
..:: Welcome to LinuxMint ::..

Read everything you can -- Forums - Wiki - IRC

Linux: Tricks of the Trade > http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=38355
"All Linux OS-Distros" Forums and Tutorials > http://linuxquestions.org/questions/
What works for Ubuntu, usually works for Mint > http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/
Linux Alternative to Windows > http://www.linuxalt.com/
LinuxMint Community Forums - Tutorials > http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/welcome

** Remember, all OS-Distro, Apps, DE/WM are Open-Source and have a Help-Forum

[jesica]

Welcome to Linux Mint

A Quick internet search, is the answer to success.

Linux Mint Community http://community.linuxmint.com/
Linux Mint Donor http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
Linux Mint Store http://www.linuxmint.com/store.php
Linux Mint Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/linuxmintmembers/
Linux Mint Twitter https://twitter.com/Linux_Mint
Linux Mint Blog http://blog.linuxmint.com/