VNC is 'such fun' :-)

[rossdv8]

I have been getting lazy since my second lot of brain injuries (3 abscesses in the brain in 2011, 3 brain haemorrhages - stroke - in 2017).
Things that used to be a 'no brainer' these days seem to require one

I know I should consider myself lucky, and I know there are a lot of people worse off, and I can handle the physical injuries (mostly spinal related neuro stuff) but sometimes I'm just very aware of how useless i am these days.
I sit behind a VPN anyway. Not sure that a firewall is all that much more useful.

Anyway, the VNC thing has been a bit of an adventure. I'm knee deep in samba at the moment trying to find an alternative to Warpinator (which also seems not to work). Currently writing custom actions for Thunar on the other computer through the VNC.
I used to do this for a living - on mixed Windows / Unix networks.
Why did it all seem so simple in the 90s?

[rene]

You poor chap. I mean, brain injuries all good and well, but samba!?

Warpinator really should be easy to get going. Step 1, disable and purge all sorts of system-local firewalls, step 2, see it Just Work (at the very least between two copies of it at the largely same version of Warpinator). Just in case: note that you need Warpinator running on both systems, and that it is mostly meant to be used interactively, i.e., with by default prompts setup to allow/deny incoming files.

[rossdv8]

Ha, samba!!,

As much as I used to hate having to set up customers' networks in the 90s (especially travelling an hour or two at 3am because some newsagent's Xenix POS was down and I was the only Unix person in a 300 kilometre radius) 2007 when I got out of computers after 35 years. , during most of the early days there was no such thing as a 'training course' available. You might remember that while some people had the privilege of a University degree that included computing, most of us were taught 'on the job' where it was a matter of 'learn by touch and feel, especially in the 70s.

So when local businesses suddenly wanted this new thing called Networking, someone leaked the word that I could make and run coax cables. When we got Cat 5, I had to transition all my customers to the new system, fix the messes some new 'computer guys' had made and try to teach them. And somewhere along the way we stopped using the screechy whiny things with a telephone stuck in them, for long distance messaging. No more typewriters clattering away, no more punched tape, punched cards.

In 1980 when my wife met me, she was surprised that I had a TV on the desk in my bedroom. It was a computer that I'd had in the late 70s when I was writing a program to manage finance and leasing in car dealerships. That computer had been retired by a customer when they upgraded and nobody wanted it because 'Personal Computing' was not big in this country yet.
By 1984 we had several computers including an Epson QX-10 running cp/m, and a colour printer (that we used to print 15" high, by several metre long signs that could be used outdoors in the rain.

That's why the 'brain thing' is so annoying. I 'used to' be able to do stuff. I've been using Linux since 1997 or 1998, and there are days when I can't remember simple stuff - as can be seen sometimes when I post things here. Although mostly I try to only post somethign if I KNOW' I have just tried it successfully.

Anyway, I was lucky. The Samba stuff just walked into my brain at the right time and it took almost no time to get the mixed wireless and wired network up and running and sharing files. I've still got no idea why the only VNC client that would see any, let alone all of the computers, was vinagre but there it is. As a matter of fact I am typing this on the BRIX via vinagre running on the Lenovo, and I keep forgetting I am in what is essentially a graphical Terminal. It is that good.

The only thing that does not work well through the VNC so far is video. For that I have to switch to the the HDMI port. Maybe one of the other viewers would work faster. Tigervnc Viewer is supposed to work well with tigervnc-scraping-server. But until it can actually 'see' the server, I can't test that. SSL/SSH VNC Viewer is supposed to work, but like the Tiger Viewer, no matter what settings are selected - it cannot see any computers that are runnign servers. The fact that Warpinator cannot see any comnputers on the network, suggests it is a problem in my network. The fact that vinagre is working seamlessly with all the computers and openig all of them concurrently, suggests otherwise, and the fact that samba is sharing to the computers and allowing right click file sharing across the network also suggests the network is working.

So it is a problem specific to the Linux Network setings. Once I remember what has to be done to enable Linux computets to see each other across a Linux Only network, I should get the rest of the VNC viewers to work. It is still odd that vinagre worked without samba, but network file sharing didn't work until I set samba up . .

So VNC really 'is fun - it's like being on a big roller-coaster . . Has its ups and downs !

[rene]

I looked at Vinagre to try and see what the difference could be and still can't find any. In theory Vinagre supports Avahi for discovery which could've accounted for an e.g. non-standard port but certainly the TigerVNC server doesn't advertise itself through Avahi here. And you in any case from earlier posts seem to be using the 5900 default port server-sides anyway, so still can't even guess at what the issue is that you are having with anything other than Vinagre.

I did see Vinagre was rather convenient in the sense of rescaling display when local and remote resolutions differ so explicitly added in to my tutorial post --- only to a bit later remove it again after seeing that Vinagre has some SSH-tunneling bug that's seemingly been reported as far back as 10 years and which then only obscures that issue. <sigh>.

As to video; yes, as far as I'm aware you may never expect that to work (well). Not fully familiar with VNC but as far as I've read things it's fairly explicitly a differential protocol, in the sense of it by default/design only sending differences from the previous "frame" rather than said previous frame itself across the network; while that works great for a mostly static desktop it does not for dynamic video. I suppose you can experiment with different output drivers for your video player on the server, i.e., specifically elect the dumbest, non-accelerated X11 output driver for the server-side video player to see if that's actually in this case any better...

But I'd not use a remote access protocol for video, period; would use a local player such as VLC with CIFS/NFS access to the remote video file or for a "home theater" type of setup something like Kodi; it's not what VNC/RDP is good at.

[rossdv8]

I agree.

I mentioned in probably the first post, that the reason I started setting up the VNC was that my main computer (Lenovo m93p) was doing everything well until the Realtek ACL283 (I think , reom memory) died on one channel.
I remembered I had my old Gigglebite BRIX sitting a metre and a half away at the other end of the screen, next to the Raspberry Pi (also unused).
The BRIX has a Realtek ACL255 and sound had been OK, so I decided to try using the BRIX as a Media player.
Mostly for music, and the VNC using Tiger server and vinagre Viewer is excellent now.
It was just a pain having to use the TV remote to swap to the BRIX to adjust the volume of my music, then back to the main computer - so I suppose the VNC to the BRIX is really just a volume control / stereo system.

Watching a video though, I can use the remote to swap HDMI ports because I'm watching the one thing for an hour or more so only the BRIX is being 'used'.

Adding the Pi to the VNC was done just as an exercise to see if it was easy, and to see if there was something in Mint 20.1 and the BRIX stopping the other viewers from finding it.
As it turns out, neither the Tiger viewer nor the SSL/SSH viewer see the BRIX or the Pi. Both are on Wifi and Both are working using vinagre.

In the meantime it was an interesting exercise and I'm happy with the VNC as it is
All my file sharing is working both ways across the network.
That only vinagre sees the other computers is baffling, as is Warpinator not seeing either the BRIX or the m93p.

I'm sure it is something odd in Mint's 'native' Linux Network settings, because Samba is working fine, and I haven't played with anything except opening a few ports like 5900 and 42000 in the firewall and allowing openssh.

For now I have excellent HiFi sound with the Parallel Logitech Sound System. Really amazing sound ! Although I had tweak the priorities of a couple of programs to stop the audio skipping.

Thanks, by the way, for mentioning Kodi. It is on the BRIX, but I had forgotten about it.
I can set that up for Video because that Video won;t be running over the VNC - I only need that for Audio

[rossdv8]

I just discovered something else in the vinagre Remoter Desktop Viewer. Bookmarks.
Last night before I eventually disconnected the BRIX and the raspberry Pi, I saved both connections as Bookmarks.
Just now (next day) the Lenovo fired up with Borg Calendar as usual, and with Remote Desktop, ready to go.

The Pi and the BRIX were both booted earlier and running, but I hadn't opened the BRIX HDMI screen on the TV / monitor to check it. I had however opened the HDMI screen for the Pi because I still haven't got the server running automatically (editing the relevant rc file nor the systemd files works and I have to click my bash script). Out of curiosity, I clicked the Bookmarks for each of them and the desktops came up in tabs.
Not only that, but because the BRIX is running Mint 20.1, the windows for Smplayer and the playlist were open. As soon as I clicked the link for the external USB drive, I had music playing where it left off yesterday.

It is getting to be quite useful. Sort of like a VM, but real..

Funner and funner ! I'm getting way too old to begin enjoying computers instead of 'having to work' on other peoples' systems

[rossdv8]

It is Monday of the Second Week and i had another 'Win' with VNC.
The SSL/SSH Viewer in the Mint Repos still doesn't see the BRIX or the Raspberry Pi 4
The TigerVNC Viewer in the Mint Repos just hangs and times out

The GNOME vinagre Remote Desktop Viewer works perfectly and loads the BRIX and the Raspberry Pi 4 in Tabs
(like a Browser)

But I had read (I think in a Reply in this post) that RealVNC had a free version of their Viewer available for Linux.
It is available in this link:
https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/
and it seems to be an Appimage or something, because it is a single executable.

Clicking on the executable it found both computers immediately and clicking either of them opened in Vew that was scaled to my desktop.
Once I knew it worked I wrote a quick '.desktop' file so I could use it by dragging the .desktop file to a Panel:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Start-RealVNC
Comment=Open alternative VNC Viewer
Type=Application
Exec=/home/ross/Applications/VNC-Viewer-6.21.406-Linux-x64
Icon=/home/ross/Custom Icons/RealVNC.png
Categories=Other;
Name[en_AU]=Start-RealVNC.desktop

It really is dead easy to use and has the advantage of providing a bigger screen view than vinagre, even when the vinagre View Toolbar is unchecked.

vinagre Remote Desktop Viewer still has the advantage of allowing multiple remote computers to be open in it at the same time. Because i have not been able to get TigerVNC Viewer or SSL/SSH Viewer to work, I can't compare them.

The other 'Win' was working out how to get the Pi 4 to run the server automatically on boot.
I tried systemd, and rc.local, both of which should have worked - but neither did.
In the end I used the same method I used to do in Mint. An 'autostart' directory in /home/.config, and a .desktop file in there with the command to Execute the tigervnc-scraping-server (similar to the .desktop file in the code above, but with a differnt command).

Now I can just turn on the BRIX and the Pi and the m93p finds them after a minute or so

'I'm still feelin it' . . .

vinagre VNC Viewer running on the m93p Mint 20.1 Xfce Desktop into the BRIX running Mint 20.1 Xfce



RealVNC viewer running on the m93p Mint 20.1 Desktop into the Raspberry Pi 4B running Raspberry Pi oS

[rossdv8]

Another Update on VNC in Mint 20.1

I got the Networking sorted out on the Pi4B and now it is sharing files like the other two computers.
The problem was that once I could share them, I couldn't really use any media stuff on anything but the BRIX, because it had the speaker system plugged in. Then I had one of those Homer Simpson moments. . I have a Bluetooth doovermebob that I used to use when I had a nice speaker system about 8 metres from my work desk computers when I had my business.

Sure enough, it still works, so although I can't use it with the Lenovo because of the dead Realtek chip, the Pi and the BRIX both found it. Video 'playing' on the Pi or the BRIX is lousy through the VNC windows, but sound via Bluetooth is excellent.

I 'might' be able to set up some way to Stream video to the Lenovo (so I can watch smoothly Full Screen) and at the same time, still get the Audio form the BRIX or Pi via Bluetooth. I don;t think it is viable, but who knows?

So switching Audio in each VNC window is simply a matter of using the Icon in the Panel.

[rossdv8]

A month later and 'VNC is still 'fun'.
I have never used it for my own personal stuff before. It was always just a long distance tool to help get my customers and friends out of a hole.

Latest fun is that:
Audio on the m93 is fixed (it was the jack, not the chip).

File sharing between the two Mint 20.2 computers is working (SLOW, but working). Warpinator last time I tried it was still not seeing either of the Mint computers. I'd hoped Warpinator might be a little quicker, but I guess it is the same 'network' and would also be slow - if it worked.

File sharing between the Raspberry Pi and the two Mint computers is fine (SLOW, but working).

So, VNC?

It is great to be able to control all three computers through a single screen and a single mouse and keyboard.
I can have the computer with the best Audio, set to play my music collection. (I always wondered when I would find a use for an old 8 stacker CD player)
I can have the main computer for video when I want it.
I can 'mess around with' the Pi - just for more fun

Each displaying in its own workspace in Mint on a single monitor.
Each with its own collection of workspaces.
All without having to constantly swap between 3 desks, screeeens, mouseses and keyboardses.

It is a bit like 'Computer Heaven' - only smaller . .

[darkstrike]

Surprised at the trouble you're having. I've been using VNC with 'vino' as a VNC host and 'remmina' as a viewer for YEARS now with almost no issues so I can access my home computers remotely when necessary.

Vino is a bit finicky these days and I had to configure some things in my router (port forwards, dedicated IPs) so I could always get the connections to find the right computers, but otherwise it's been very reliable? You do need 'dconf-editor' to easily adjust settings though. ***one major caveat, I could only get Vino working with encryption turned off! Otherwise, I would just get a black screen and then a disconnect soonafter***

My method to get vino working over a local network from a fresh install of Mint:
On host, connect to WiFi first, then:

1. Open terminal - type: sudo apt-get install vino dconf-editor
2. Once installed, open dconf-editor and browse to /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access
3. Set 'require-encryption' to false (as mentioned above, I can't seem to get vino to work without disabling this)
4. If you'd like, set 'prompt-enabled' to false (this is the command that means when you connect to a remote host, the user gets a pop-up prompt and the connection won't go through unless they allow it from the prompt - if this is disabled the connection goes straight through if you know the password [if there is one])
5. To set a password on the connection, edit the 'vnc-password' field.....BUT....Vino stores passwords in dconf-editor in base64, so you'll have to convert it somewhere online (https://www.base64encode.org/). For example, 'testtest' (without the quotes) becomes: dGVzdHRlc3Q=
6. Make sure the 'authentication-methods' parameter is set to: ['vnc']
7. Adjust any other custom parameters you want (I use custom ports, for example) in dconf, then close it and start vino in terminal (or create a system startup entry) using: /usr/lib/vino/vino-server --sm-disable

That's really it! You SHOULD be connected...?

[rossdv8]

Surprised at the trouble you're having

I'm not having 'trouble'. The first few posts were about getting VNC to work together on two Mint systems and a raspberry Pi, and what VNC Servers and Viewers 'worked' and which ones 'didn't work' for me. That hasn't changed. The ones that worked out of the box, still do. The ones that didn;t work at all, still don't.

The last few posts were exploring more about what 'is' working nicely, and what is not much use over VNC, like trying to play video in a VNC window (so far) on low spec hardware. Just in case other Minties are curious, or find something like TigerVNC viewer not working, even though the Tiger Server is installed.

Added to that were a couple of references to Warpinator not being very happy with my network.

As far as things go here, VNC is still 'such fun', to the extent that I wonder why I used it for years to get other people out of trouble remotely, but never bothered setting all my computers to use it in my office / workshop.
At present I only have three of them set up for VNC, because most of the others I simply don't use these days.

[ivar]

Why did it all seem so simple in the 90s?

I think maybe because security wasn't so much of a concern back then...?

I used VNC some years ago on windows stuff and it was always straightforward to set up. Then fast forward to 6 months ago, I got a Pi 4, enabled VNC in raspi-config and it worked with no fiddling at all. But IIRC, I had to try a couple vnc viewers on my win10 laptop before I found one to work properly.

Then, a month ago, I tried getting some remote capabilites to a small server running Mint 20.1. Fiddled around with VNC and reading online tutorials with not much progress. Didn't have the patience you've shown here , so ditched the vnc and found xrdp to work quite easily, with remmina on a laptop running mint 20.1 as the viewer. Only to find out that I got a new session - not the current session. Got to give it another look some rainy day, lol.

[darkstrike]

Surprised at the trouble you're having

I'm not having 'trouble'. The first few posts were about getting VNC to work together on two Mint systems and a raspberry Pi, and what VNC Servers and Viewers 'worked' and which ones 'didn't work' for me. That hasn't changed. The ones that worked out of the box, still do. The ones that didn;t work at all, still don't.

The last few posts were exploring more about what 'is' working nicely, and what is not much use over VNC, like trying to play video in a VNC window (so far) on low spec hardware. Just in case other Minties are curious, or find something like TigerVNC viewer not working, even though the Tiger Server is installed.

Added to that were a couple of references to Warpinator not being very happy with my network.

As far as things go here, VNC is still 'such fun', to the extent that I wonder why I used it for years to get other people out of trouble remotely, but never bothered setting all my computers to use it in my office / workshop.
At present I only have three of them set up for VNC, because most of the others I simply don't use these days.

I think part of the reason you might've used it to help people remotely is that (and I could be wrong as I don't use RDP), RDP creates a new session, but VNC is a 'physical display' in the sense that you see exactly what that user is seeing. So, if somebody was confused with a certain program or something, RDP would be useless as you couldn't see what they are looking at? But with VNC, you would?

And again, I could be wrong, but that is why I've always used VNC rather than RDP, at least...

[ivar]

a little OT, but RDP on windows is console-capable - just start mstsc /admin

[ivar]

Well, it rained yesterday night so I fiddled a little more, just setup a "new" intel nuc with mint to replace the old "media center" pc.

Found a tutorial for setting up Vino , gnomes vnc implementation. Reported to work fine on mint 20 too. Well, no such luck , some more googling and I found vino was abandoned and no longer maintained. Sudo apt remove again, lol.
Then read a post on here somewhere, recommending to try out Nomachine. The hardest part was to copy the download link so I could download it to the headless (for now) machine.
And - it just worked - no fiddling at all (now - where's the fun in that? )

[rossdv8]

Fiddled around with VNC and reading online tutorials with not much progress. Didn't have the patience you've shown here , so ditched the vnc and found xrdp to work quite easily, with remmina on a laptop running mint 20.1 as the viewer. Only to find out that I got a new session - not the current session. Got to give it another look some rainy day, lol.

Oddly enough, this is why I started this Topic. So I could share what happened with my VNC, and what worked 'for me' on Mint as it progressed onto the 20.2 update on one, then both Mint computers and including the Pi as part of the hookup.

I still find it odd that the tigervnc scraping server works great as the Mint Server, but the tiger VNC viewer does not work for me. Weird, but useful to know for anyone that finds the same problem. I was just lucky the old GNOME vinagre viewer is still in Mint repos.

[rossdv8]

Another milestone for MINT and my VNC exploration.

I've had the Raspberry Pi 4B connected through VNC since the first post ion this Topic, but there hasn't been a lot happening with it, because setting up printer drivers to work with the ARM based Pi has always been a hassle.

However, I noticed when I set the BRIX up to connect via VNC, that Mint picked up and installed the Brother MFC-J6520 Inkjet and installed it 'driverless'. And when I had updated the Thinkpad Yoda it also found the Brother across wireless, and connected it.

So while I was in the Pi via VNC, I wondered. and installed CUPS. I clicked the Add Printer button and my Brother showed up in several ways, some of which were ipp protocol, and two that mentioned 'Driverless'. I chose one of the Driverless options, and sent a Test Page. and waited, and waited.

I chose the Modify Printer option, and swapped it to the other Driverless option. Sent a Test Page, and waited . . And heard the printer start. And a few moments later I had a nice colour CUPS / Debian test page.

The driverless thing is a welcome option. I wonder if it is something that is now automatically available in Linux for most brands, or if it is a Brother thing?

Whatever it is, VNC is now even more fun - because it just gave me something else useful. I can swap between my 'real' computer, my 'media' computer and my 'play' computer - all though a window in my real one. Seamlessly.

A month or two ago I had to use 3 monitors and three keyboards and three mices to do that !!

B O N U S !
I just now discovered that copy – paste works both ways on the VNC from the Pi4B to and from the host Mint Desktop machine using the RealVNC Server provided with Raspberry Pi OS, and the vinagre VNC viewer I am using on Mint 20.2 Xfce.

Another barrier smashed. This, plus swapping to a 5 Amp USB C input for the Pi4B makes the Pi even more useful as a backup machine if a main machine dies. Or realistic to use as an ‘only’ computer for day to day stuff for some people. Except of course that I can't use Mint on the Pi4B.

Oddly, copy and paste between instances of RealVNC on different VNC connected machines like the BRIX (using RealVNC Viewer) does NOT work at present. Only Pi to Host to Pi.
That would probably be solved using the RealVNC Server on the BRIX instead of using TigerVNC Scraping Server.

It also means that VNC is becoming a more and more useful and fun tool on a daily basis.
Now, if i could only get smooth video playback over VNC . . .

[rossdv8]

And back again !!

I just discovered that my Gigglebite Bricks that I installed Mint 20.2 on, and am using via VNC, automatically found both my Brother MFC-J6520DW and the neighbour's HP inkjet, both of which are connected to my Wireless Router.

I haven't tested the neighbour's printer, because she's on another floor of the building, but I did open a document in LibreOffice on the BRIX through VNC, and forgot I was using VNC. So I selected Print, saw the two printers there, as usual and hit the Brother and Print again. Nothing happened. I looked across the room at the LED screen on the Brother and waited, then just as I was about to investigate it printed - perfectly.

No Intervention, no setup, no drivers to install. Just install Mint and go!

I wish computery stuff was this easy years ago when I had to make my living as a computer tech / programmer / salesy person.
But then I probably would have been broke, because everybody's kid could do my job for free . .

[darkstrike]

Glad all is working well for you! I'm glad gaming support is improving on Linux....I actually don't mind Windows at all, but I love the customizability of Linux, and generally, things are less complicated on my Mint machines than on Windows, so when prices come down for parts (video card prices and availability! Man, it's nuts!) and I eventually build a replacement desktop gaming PC, I might just do a Linux-only build...

[rossdv8]

Glad all is working well for you! I'm glad gaming support is improving on Linux....I actually don't mind Windows at all

I've never been a gamer. I played Doom on DOS (probably on MS Dos, but I was mostly using Digital Research Dos (DR DOS, which people annoyingly kept referring to as 'Doctor Dos'). I liked Digital Research stuff because it had a lot of features Microsoft Dos didn't have. Probably because I was playing with it in 1984 on our Epson QX-10 'I had it in the spare bedroom to run my Colour Printer in 1984) as an alternative to cp/m.

The QX-10 was a bit like a very large raspberry Pi, and swapping Operating Systems was as simple as pulling out a 400Kb floppy drive and replacing it with another. Just like swapping out a Micro SD card on a Pi.
The colour printer at the time would only run using cp/m, but in 1984 there was so much happening in computers that playing with another OS was a fun challenge.

Anyway, the early Digital research DOS (Mine was 1984) was based on Concurrent cp/m (about 1980 or 82 from memory), and likewise allowed us to run more than one program at a time.
IBM machines didn't have that capability with their own DOS, and Microsoft Dos and even Windows didn't have multitasking until, I think after Win 95, while we had it in DR DOS from the beginning.
DR DOS also had a Graphical User Interface early, something Microsoft didn't introduce until about a year later in MS Dos 4 from memory.

Once I began working with IBM and supporting their hardware and software, I got access to some interesting new things. Early OS/2 was an eye opener, and one of my favourite things was to demonstrate a version called OS/2 'Warp' with a WWI flight simulator running in one window, and a WWII flight simulator running in another window, and have the audio from both coming through the speaker.
Switching between full screen windows was interesting, because I would have the person who was playing the sim looking around for the attacking aircraft, and seeing nothing. Because it was the aircraft in the 'other' full screen window being shot at.

By 1994 OS2/Warp was going to be the great new thing in computing. We had Internet well established, we had full multitasking and Windows compatibility, great multimedia support - what could go wrong?

Microsoft was what went wrong. For years Microsoft and IBM had been working together on operating systems for what had begun as the IBM PC. Microsoft apparently decided to take what it had learned from IBM plus what it had developed and put into the OS/2 project and release Windows 95. A 'brilliant' licensing deal was struck with major PC builders, and over about 2 or 3 years, and definitely by 1998, OS/2 was more or less done for.

For some of us though, we had found something on a bulletin board (BBS was like an Internet without being an Internet) called Linux, and by about Mid 1998 a distribution called Red Hat seemed to be the way to go.
Suddenly we had another 'genuine' multitasking networkable Internet capable operating system that was sort of free.

GAMING SUPPORT was always the big thing holding Linux back from being used on the Desktop, and is probably the biggest reason Linux users still dual boot Windows. The improvements to Virtual Machines has helped.
VNC doesn't really help, unless you are on a Windows machine using VNC to do odd stuff on your Linux machine, in between games.

The huge thing keeping Linux out of some of the bigger games is probably still that a lot of games rely on 'proprietary stuff' that Linux can't truly provide using Open Source equivalents. Things like Steam, and games played online using code on distant servers (now that the Internet sometimes delivers reasonable speeds) seem to be closing that gap though.

In the meantime, I am glad Linux was emerging when it was. And that people like Clem and his support team have put so much work into weeding out the Linuxy bits that make a great Operating Environment, and putting them all into the big Mint composting bin, so we get something rich and nutritious to grow our computing experience.

(A good reason to find the 'Donate to Mint button)