im a linux moron so dont assume anything

[rfmjm3]

i have installed and removed various distro's of linux over the years. i don't think any lasted longer than a week. i get too frustrated. and the answers i get are over my head and its just easier to delete it. that being said I'm giving it another shot. (cross fingers) i installed mint 15 i think it is the latest version and the laptop was crawling. so i downgraded after doing a little research and found that mint 10, 11, or 12 were the distro's available when the laptop ( acer aspire one) was built. model kav10. i went with mint 11. the update manager updated some files ok but i get a message that 70 packages will be installed, i hit ok, then get apply the following changes, i hit apply, then get dowload window comes up and then goes away and i get a window that says an error occured.

w: failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/m ... 1_i386.deb 404 not found[IP:91.189.92.201 80]

there is a bunch of similar messages after this one.

it looks like the file isn't available at that ip. how do i fix it?

[xenopeek]

You only looked at versions of Linux Mint that have reached end of life, are obsolete, and no longer supported. You will not be able to update your system or install new software.

Don't understand how you ended up only looking at obsolete versions but here is the list of currently supported versions of Linux Mint: http://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php

Install one of those.

[Cosmo.]

i installed mint 15 i think it is the latest version

I wonder where you did take it from and how you came to the imagination, that it might be the latest version. You cannot have taken it from the official download page, as you can easily see on the page xenopeek linked.

[turtlebay777]

I always use the listings at Distrowatch and this is how they list Mint, http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=mint
; as you can see they are all listed in release order.

[MintBean]

You should install the latest release of Mint (17.2) from linuxmint.com. Later versions are actually better optimised so there's no advantage (and many disadvantages) to running outdated versions.

Try the Cinnamon edition, then if it runs slow, try the Mate edition.

[Shryp]

Here is a recent thread that talks about old computers and also has a couple other suggestions for different distributions aimed at older hardware.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=205166

[Jim Hauser]

I always use the listings at Distrowatch and this is how they list Mint, http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=mint
; as you can see they are all listed in release order.

I just checked that link and the first Mint versions to pop up are 17.2

[MtnDewManiac]

Try the Cinnamon edition, then if it runs slow, try the Mate edition.

Probably not the best advice for the owner of a netbook that has (AfaIK) a 1.6 gHz Intel Atom CPU, 2 gigs of RAM, an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, and - if I read the specifications page correctly - an 8 gig drive.

I'd try either Xfce (my preference) or MATE and skip Cinnamon all together. Not that Cinnamon isn't a worthy DE (which many people happily use), but I'd think the specifications for an Acer One netbook would preclude a DE that expects reasonably powerful hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities.

BtW:

You should install the latest release of Mint (17.2) from linuxmint.com. Later versions are actually better optimised so there's no advantage (and many disadvantages) to running outdated versions.

While, in general terms, I agree... all three of the Mint 17.x versions (17, 17.1, and 17.2) - along with the recently announced but future 17.3 - share the same Ubuntu base and the same support period (AfaIK). I tend to doubt that any of the latest kernel features will be especially relevant to the OP's hardware, so any of the three currently-supported (main edition) versions should be more or less equal in that regard, with the aforementioned caveat about Cinnamon (which, if what I've heard is correct, probably would be true for KDE as well). IDK if one of those three would be better than the other two on more limited hardware, but if you try one of the 17.x versions and aren't satisfied with the performance, it might be beneficial to try another (IDK).

And RAM is cheap; if you only have two gigabytes and your computer is capable of being upgraded, I suggest you do so. And you might be ahead to go with a 32-bit version of Mint instead of a 64-bit one (YMMV).

Regards,
MDM

[rfmjm3]

OK back at it. I'm trying mint 13 with Cinnamon. if it don't work ill try mate or another. what are the differences? is mate easier to use than cinn? i don't know why people suggested 17 when my tablet couldn't run 15.
the system has
intel atom 1.60 ghx processer
1 gb ram
8 mb video
cant reme the hard drive i think its 200 gb or 250.

[MtnDewManiac]

I'm trying mint 13 with Cinnamon.

8 mb video

<SHUDDERS>

if it don't work ill try mate or another. what are the differences?

Well, for starters, Cinnamon pretty much expects - or is that demands, lol? - fairly powerful hardware accelerated graphics just to run the desktop.

is mate easier to use than cinn?

It's certainly more likely to run in native mode at something other than a snail's pace on old hardware. I'd have started by trying MATE. Or Xfce, which might be a tiny amount less resource-hungry than MATE (or it might not, depending on who you ask and how serious that person is about paring down the default installation). They're both certainly fine DEs (desktop environments) in their own right. I use Xfce on hardware that is probably powerful enough to run Cinnamon (second(?)-generation Intel i5, 6 gigabytes of RAM). I do so by choice.

i don't know why people suggested 17 when my tablet couldn't run 15.

At a guess, possibly because - like 13 - Mint 17 is a LTS (long-term support) version, meaning it'll receive updates until April, 2019 (longer than 13 will, which becomes unsupported two years sooner), whereas Mint 15 has been unsupported (receiving no updates, security or otherwise) since January of last year. Additionally, since Mint 15 was not a LTS version (nor was the version of Ubuntu that it was built from), it might have been geared more towards the "bleeding edge," or at least "newest versions" end of the scale, rather than the "stable" end. Just because you had trouble with Mint 15 does not automatically mean you'll be unable to run Mint 17.x - especially if the default DE happened to be Cinnamon, lol. Try (either Mint 17.x or Mint 13) Xfce. I ran (admittedly, a couple versions older than 17) Mint Xfce on a laptop that was manufactured somewhere between 2002 and 2004 (I forget exactly when) that only had 768 megabytes of RAM, some of which was used by the graphics subsystem. It did make rather heavy use of the disk drive cache when I was using Firefox and had lots of webpages loaded in tabs, but a simple RAM upgrade would have fixed that. It was definitely usable.

the system has
intel atom 1.60 ghx processer
1 gb ram
8 mb video
cant reme the hard drive i think its 200 gb or 250.

[/quote]

The hard drive is large enough for any linux distro that I've run (or several installed side-by-side, for that matter). The RAM is acceptable for Xfce and, probably, for MATE - but it IS considered to be a bit low these days even for a 32-bit OS... and RAM is cheap. The 1.6 gHz CPU - I often run mine set at only 1.2 gHz, but it's an Intel i5 , so IDK. The video situation is probably going to be what hurts you the most. Cinnamon? <SHUDDERS again>

Regards,

[bbaker6212]

OK back at it. I'm trying mint 13 with Cinnamon. if it don't work ill try mate or another. what are the differences? is mate easier to use than cinn? i don't know why people suggested 17 when my tablet couldn't run 15.
the system has
intel atom 1.60 ghx processer
1 gb ram
8 mb video
cant reme the hard drive i think its 200 gb or 250.

Since you are using a small Atom device these directions might help:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 7#p1077411

[turtlebay777]

Cinnamon is usually considered to be more of a resource hog than Mate or Xfce, so if you are trying to run it on a low power system you are likely to have problems.

Your quoted resources of :
intel atom 1.60 ghx processer
1 gb ram
8 mb video
are very definitely low in resources so that's why Cinnamon won't work!

To explain why you shouldn't use anything in between Mint 13 and Mint 17 read this article : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Mint

Specifically : New versions of the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint have been released approximately every six months. The first release, named "Ada", was released in 2006. When the 17th version named "Qiana" was released on May 31, 2014 Mint stopped releasing totally new versions every six months and instead started giving users the choice of an optional upgrade. The most recent update to version 17.2, code named "Rafaela", was released on June 30, 2015. Support for older releases previously ended shortly after the next version is released, but there have been releases with long-term support. After version 17 came out all future versions will be based on long term support releases and will be supported for five years, while users can optionally upgrade to the next 17.x release if they chose to.