Linux Mint Forums

Posted: **Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:31 pm**

Hello everyone!

I've heard about Linux for awhile now but I've been looking into it a lot more since I got a new netbook for Christmas. I've always been a Windows user and I very much want to get away from it because you get a bunch of crap that you don't need/want and some of the programs on Windows you can't uninstall and if you do, something screws up and you have no choice but to reinstall everything again.

I mainly use my netbook for word processing, Internet, occasionally for music(I normally use iTunes but I don't think it works on Linux) and very minor image editing like resizing images, etc. I watched the review of XFCE on Linuxmint's Tumblr page and I'm really drawn to it because it offers everything I'm looking for.

The netbook I have is the Acer Aspire One D270-1466. Here is a bit of info on it.
Intel Atom N2600(1.6 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache)
1 GB DDR3 Memory (I may be upgrading to 2 GB in the future)
320 GB HDD

So to the questions!

1. Would my system be able to handle this distro? When I looked up my netbook to see if others have used Linux with it, some people said it "ruined" their netbook or that it wouldn't go into sleep mode.

2. Will my Touchpad still work after installing Mint 14? Right now it uses Synaptics and I really like the multi-gesture features it has. How will this all work after switching to Mint?

3. My netbook doesn't have a CD/DVD drive so what steps do I need to take to install Mint? I've read about some people using a USB stick but I mainly came across people who use a CD.

These next questions are ones most people probably don't care about but I'm curious about it.

Do you just have to use the images supplied or can you use your own like in Windows? Another thing I'd like to ask about is the mouse pointers. Can a person customize those in Mint 14 as well? I have a few that I got online(they are .cur and .ani files) that I switch up every now and then because the plain arrow is boring. Can these be used in Mint 14 XFCE?

I know there are more questions I have but for some reason, nothing is coming to mind so I'll post others when I think of them.

Thank you!

p.s. If this is in the wrong forum, please move it.

Posted: **Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:05 pm**

1- YES. Xfce is the better to you laptop, I have something like (see my signature)

2- YES.

3- You will install using USB, I prefer cd-rom

4- Mouse pointers: there are beautiful mouse pointers for windows, not for linux, and don't works in Linux.

Posted: **Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:15 pm**

Thanks for the fast reply!

I'm getting more excited about going through with this.

I'll do a search on how to go about using a USB stick to install Mint.

It's a shame about the mouse pointers though. I'll miss my little bird mouse pointer.

Posted: **Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:26 pm**

There are anothers mouse pointers for linux, look in eye candy for gnome; eye candy for kde.

Posted: **Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:37 pm**

Dear Calypso,

I'm very new here but I'll give you my two cents worth.
It sounds like your computer should be able to run Mint Linux easily.
I have a desk top machine with about the same CPU, RAM but a much smaller HD.

Read up on the partitions here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=11872
before you start. It could save you some work later on. It's a good thread.

I don't know anything about the touchpad question.

I would guess you can boot from USB. Can your check you BIOS on start up?
Look under boot and see if you can set BIOS to boot from USB.
Likely you can load from USB stick, though I've been trying to use Mint 14 to write the .iso file to USB stick
for a couple of days and so far a little progress but still FAIL.

It's easy to change images. xfcd comes with three different arrows, but it looks like you can import all the arrows
you want.

I have spent well over 40 hours tring to get my installation of Mint 14 xfcd to work properly
and still have a long way to go. Your install might be a snap.
I hope you have plenty of time on your hands. I wish I had kept closer track of time spent.
Some of my brighter experiences are posted elsewhere on these fora.
I'm interested in hearing how it goes for you; especially about how much time it takes you.

Good luck,

Shortshift Frog

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:11 am**

Calypso7 wrote:
These next questions are ones most people probably don't care about but I'm curious about it. Do you just have to use the images supplied or can you use your own like in Windows? Another thing I'd like to ask about is the mouse pointers. Can a person customize those in Mint 14 as well? I have a few that I got online(they are .cur and .ani files) that I switch up every now and then because the plain arrow is boring. Can these be used in Mint 14 XFCE?
.

No those files can't be used but you can install cursor themes on XFCE.

http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/install_new_themes
http://xfce-look.org/?xcontentmode=36

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:50 am**

Thanks everyone!

I'll look up those mouse themes to see which ones I like.

I checked out the BIOS and I can boot from the USB. Well I'm assuming anyway because it said 'Enabled'. I've also been peaking around in the partitions thread. That's the next thread I'll be posting in because I am very new to partitions. I will definitely let you know how it goes for me and how long it takes.

I'm about to put the .iso file onto an 8 GB USB stick so hopefully that turns out okay. If not, we have an external CD/DVD drive that I can use to burn the image to disc.

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:20 pm**

I've been dual booting Windows 7 with something similar to Mint 11 XFCE (namely Lubuntu 10.10) on an Acer netbook with same specs for about two years. I use Linux mainly for secure internet browsing away from home, and enjoy it.

I'm not willing to "move up" to later versions on the netbook because the resource demands of later versions are pretty much the same as Windows 7. I wouldn't get the performance premium that I get with the older Ubuntu version. Get used to the sad fact that netbooks with our specs are old hat and operating systems, including most mainstream Linux versions, have left them far behind.

What I suggest is that using Windows you install Mint 14 XFCE on a "Live USB" using this installer:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal- ... -as-1-2-3/

You can test Mint 14 out, knowing it will run even better after installation on the hard drive, and you can install on the hard drive when you're satisfied you know what you're getting into. You should do a "Persistent" install, say using a 4 GB USB try 2 GB of Persistence, which allows you save your settings and install software between boot ups. This gives you an excellent "feel" for the operating system and available software to see if you can really get along without Windows and whether it will perform well on your Acer.

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:30 pm**

I2k4 wrote:I've been dual booting Windows 7 with something similar to Mint 11 XFCE (namely Lubuntu 10.10) on an Acer netbook with same specs for about two years. I use Linux mainly for secure internet browsing away from home, and enjoy it.

I'm not willing to "move up" to later versions on the netbook because the resource demands of later versions are pretty much the same as Windows 7. I wouldn't get the performance premium that I get with the older Ubuntu version. Get used to the sad fact that netbooks with our specs are old hat and operating systems, including most mainstream Linux versions, have left them far behind.

What I suggest is that using Windows you install Mint 14 XFCE on a "Live USB" using this installer:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal- ... -as-1-2-3/

You can test Mint 14 out, knowing it will run even better after installation on the hard drive, and you can install on the hard drive when you're satisfied you know what you're getting into. You should do a "Persistent" install, say using a 4 GB USB try 2 GB of Persistence, which allows you save your settings and install software between boot ups. This gives you an excellent "feel" for the operating system and available software to see if you can really get along without Windows and whether it will perform well on your Acer.

Thank you!

So do you think I should try to find the version you are using instead of Mint 14? Will I even notice any difference in performance with 14 compared to Windows 7? One thing is that I don't plan on dual booting. If Linux is something I like I'll be removing Windows. There's no need for me to have both.

I'll check out that link. I did make my USB into a bootable one earlier on today using Unetbooin but I can easily clear it and use the link you provided if that would be best. I really like the fact that you can test it out before installing it. So is that Persistent install an option when I boot the USB? It doesn't matter what size the USB is, does it? The only one I had available is an 8 GB.

Would you mind if I sent you a PM with a couple of more questions? Since you use an Acer too, you might be able to help me when it comes to things like the Touchpad and partitioning.

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:41 pm**

You may need to try a couple of Mint versions. Mint 12 on my kav60 acer netbooks was excellent, suspend worked, but not so from Mint 13. However on my d255e acer netbook Mint 13 xfce worked great, including suspend.
I think with bios I had the usb ready with Mint on it and plugged in, at startup hit f2 and choose the usb for first boot and it's ready to go.

Posted: **Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:26 pm**

KBD47 wrote:You may need to try a couple of Mint versions. Mint 12 on my kav60 acer netbooks was excellent, suspend worked, but not so from Mint 13. However on my d255e acer netbook Mint 13 xfce worked great, including suspend.
I think with bios I had the usb ready with Mint on it and plugged in, at startup hit f2 and choose the usb for first boot and it's ready to go.

I think you might be right. I had tried booting 14 and it said there was a problem with the 'xserver' and then it left me on a screen that had this at the bottom:

mint@mint ~ $

I didn't know what to do for it so I pressed the On/Off button to get back to the BIOS.

Posted: **Wed Jan 16, 2013 12:51 am**

Well I had my first taste of Linux! I took KBD47's advice and tried a different version. I tried Mint 13 XFCE. At first, some strange things popped up on the screen and just when I thought it wasn't going to work, it appeared on my screen.

I'm going to give it another try tomorrow. I was just playing around in the settings this time and I even lowered the screen brightness using Terminal with a code I found online. The Function keys for the brightness didn't work but perhaps it was just because it was through the USB and not actually installed?

My Touchpad worked okay and it even recognized the Synaptics that is already on there although not all of the features were available but at least the majority of it worked.

Anyway, when I went to restart it, one of the options was Suspend. I'm assuming that was Sleep. I didn't try it to see if it worked but I will tomorrow. I know there is a lot more to it but overall, it did have a bit of a Windows feel to it(that wasn't meant to be an insult!) so hopefully it is something I'll be able to get the hang of.

Posted: **Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:20 am**

Glad to hear it is working. Welcome to the world of Linux

Posted: **Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:33 pm**

...
I have an Acer Extensa w/ 2MB RAM and Vista.
I triple booted w/ 2 linux distros, one being Mint 13 xfce.
My touchpad works fine.
I haven't setup my wifi as yet. It didn't find my card automatically. Strange.
IMHO start w/ Mint 13 xfce, because it is LTS.
...

Posted: **Wed Jan 16, 2013 11:50 pm**

I now have Mint 13 up and running. So far the only problem I've had is that I have to adjust the screen brightness each time I wake/turn on my netbook and I have to find out about how to get applets for Firefox, etc. showing. Other then that, it's running fine!

Thank you to everyone for all of your help.

Posted: **Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:44 am**

I'm not using xfce at the moment, but can't you add xfce-goodies and get a brightness applet added on to the panel for quick brightness adjustment?

Posted: **Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:34 am**

KBD47 wrote:I'm not using xfce at the moment, but can't you add xfce-goodies and get a brightness applet added on to the panel for quick brightness adjustment?

I might be able to. I'll check it out tomorrow. The way i would lower the brightness is through Terminal. I found this code online.

Code: Select all

Sudo setpci -s "00:02.0" F4.B=30

Right now I'm about to start a new thread about a sound I've been hearing from my netbook since I installed Mint.

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