Another Ubuntu refugee... sort of...

[mrsfixit]

Hi there!

I'm new to Mint, but have been using Ubuntu 9 + 10 for a couple of years. I still have it installed on my desktop and 2 of my laptops and use it daily.

I just got a new netbook, and decided to install Ubuntu 11.04 to a flash card and play around with it to check hardware compatibility before I committed to an install.

OMG- *what* were they thinking????

Ubuntu 11.04 is horrid. I hate it. The Unity interface is atrocious- nearly as bad as Windows 7.

I decided to give Mint 11 a try. Did the same thing, installed to flash card and used it for a couple of weeks. Today I took the plunge and installed it alongside Windows 7, which I will keep for the time being in case I have to update my BIOS.

I am married and live in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I enjoy photography, nature, gardening, I also enjoy tinkering with computers, and using Linux. Using Linux gives me bragging rights, too... LOL

My husband and I have 2 desktops, his and hers. They're networked and share monitor, mouse, and keyboard through a kvm. His runs XP, mine runs Ubuntu 10.04. I got fed up with Windows and it's constant problems, Linux is just a lot more stable and secure. Plus I feel I learn something new every day using it. It's fun.

My husband is getting used to Linux, more often than not I'll come into the room and which machine is he on- mine. I think he's starting to actually like it but he won't admit it... and in case it isn't obvious- I'm the computer geek in the family. If I'd left things up to him we'd still be using Windows 95 on a Pentium 75 with 8 megs of ram... LOL

As a new Mint user I figure I'll be looking for help at some point, so here I am. Nice to meet you.

mrsfixit

[exploder]

Welcome to the forum!

[lmintnewb]

lol ... nice digitally meeting you too.

Husbands become a closet linux fan huh ? Good ... can't see how that would hurt anybody. As for ubuntu and what they are thinking ... dunno. Thought ubuntu 10.10 was horrid too. The other release of buntu I tried, xubuntu or whichever. Wasn't so much horrid, as bloated and nothing special. Didn't keep it long enough to find out if it was as bug infested as much buntu software gets credited for being.

So doesn't surprise me to find out buntu 11.04 is also not the cats meow. Canna stand ubuntu really. Think it's the most overrated distro of nix in world history. Still scratching my head as to how they managed to amass so much popularity, shrugs. lol ... sorry cannot resist an anti-buntu commentary. LM has the rep of being ubuntu done right and based on limited experience, think they've earned that. More user friendly and seem to care more about quality control where possible. Hope you enjoy the minty experience. Welcome to the LM forums.

[tdockery97]

Welcome to the Mint forums mrsfixit. I'm sure you will also want to visit our Mint Community Website at http://community.linuxmint.com/. You will find real-time help in our IRC channels. Just go to Menu>Internet>XChat IRC and when you open it you will automatically be taken to our #linuxmint-chat and #linuxmint-help channels. Have fun with Mint.

[nunol]

Welcome to the Linux Mint Forums mrsfixit!

Cheers.

[The-Wizard]

welcome to the Mint family forums.... use your girly ways on him and you will soon make a convert


wizard

[mrsfixit]

welcome to the Mint family forums.... use your girly ways on him and you will soon make a convert


wizard

Nah, we've been together for too long. He's wise to that trick now... LOL

[mrsfixit]

lol ... nice digitally meeting you too.

Husbands become a closet linux fan huh ? Good ... can't see how that would hurt anybody. As for ubuntu and what they are thinking ... dunno. Thought ubuntu 10.10 was horrid too. The other release of buntu I tried, xubuntu or whichever. Wasn't so much horrid, as bloated and nothing special. Didn't keep it long enough to find out if it was as bug infested as much buntu software gets credited for being.

So doesn't surprise me to find out buntu 11.04 is also not the cats meow. Canna stand ubuntu really. Think it's the most overrated distro of nix in world history. Still scratching my head as to how they managed to amass so much popularity, shrugs. lol ... sorry cannot resist an anti-buntu commentary. LM has the rep of being ubuntu done right and based on limited experience, think they've earned that. More user friendly and seem to care more about quality control where possible. Hope you enjoy the minty experience. Welcome to the LM forums.

To be honest, I don't see all that much difference between Ubuntu 10xxx and Mint. It's still Gnome, and I've customized Mint to look pretty much like my Ubuntu install. I never had that many issues with Ubuntu. It's very stable for me.

I have noticed that Mint seems to install a lot more stuff by default than Ubuntu. I didn't have jump through hoops to get mp3's or video working, the codecs and VLC were installed by default.

Mint is the only distro that works with the wireless card in my ultraportable also. I had to enter a couple of commands, and blacklist a module, which was a brand new thing for me, but it's been working ever since. I couldn't get it to work in any of the other distros no matter what I tried.

Damned Broadcom chipsets...

So far Mint has been working well. I am learning, and tweaking, and enjoying using it.

[mrsfixit]

Thank you all for the warm welcome BTW. It's nice to be here and make new friends.

[Oscar799]

Hello mrsfixit,
Welcome to Mint Forum
There is a lot of useful information for new and not-so-new users here -> http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 58#p302355

[Evil-K]

Greetings to you! Like you, I started with Ubuntu 9.10. Honestly, I really dug it and would still be using it had it not been for an unfortunate graphic glitch on this old, beat-up laptop (I got it from a friend of mine with my desktop compy pooped the bed... Linux can't save a dead motherboard that isn't made anymore). I WOULD'VE tried Ubuntu 11.04, but the LiveCD wouldn't even boot.

[AlbertP]

Broadcom wireless on Linux is steadily improving; there are some chips that already work right out-of-the-box on Mint 11. But there's still much room for improvement; I still prefer Intel.

[mrsfixit]

Broadcom wireless on Linux is steadily improving; there are some chips that already work right out-of-the-box on Mint 11. But there's still much room for improvement; I still prefer Intel.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Broadcom chips are the pits. I will take Intel, or even Atheros, any day of the week over Broadcom.

But being this is a new laptop, and under warranty, I don't want to go swapping out the wifi card, especially since it's working ok in Mint. At least for now. Who knows what will happen with the next set of updates... LOL

It didn't work out of the box, but it was a simple fix by blacklisting the acer-wmi module. I'm not good at CLI stuff, but thankfully I found a set of instructions on the forums and was able to follow them and that did the trick.

Thank goodness for the really knowledgeable users. I know I would be lost without them.

[AlbertP]

If it was solved by blacklisting the acer-wmi, then your Broadcom is not to blame. It's the wireless on/off button that did not work.
It often happens on Acers that the wireless on/off button does not work with Linux, and you have to force the system to ignore that button (unload its module).

[mrsfixit]

If it was solved by blacklisting the acer-wmi, then your Broadcom is not to blame. It's the wireless on/off button that did not work.
It often happens on Acers that the wireless on/off button does not work with Linux, and you have to force the system to ignore that button (unload its module).

I rest my case about the knowledgeable users here...

I did not know that. My other Acer's both have Athero's chips, and I've never had issues with wireless before.

But this is good to know, so thank you for telling me about it.

I learn something new every day that I use Linux. I like that...

[Evil-K]

I rest my case about the knowledgeable users here...
I learn something new every day that I use Linux. I like that...

Hear hear!
~K

[AlbertP]

That other Acers are having another on/off button for wireless that works. That's it. You cannot say Acer = Acer just because it looks the same. The inside may be entirely different, and even if the model number is equal there may be differences.
Atheros or Broadcom should not matter when using acer-wmi, though both may cause other problems not related to yours.

[mrsfixit]

That other Acers are having another on/off button for wireless that works. That's it. You cannot say Acer = Acer just because it looks the same. The inside may be entirely different, and even if the model number is equal there may be differences.
Atheros or Broadcom should not matter when using acer-wmi, though both may cause other problems not related to yours.

Albert, as long as it works using that blacklist thing, I'm happy. It lasts between reboots, it is stable and doesn't drop the connection, and reconnects after resuming from suspend.

I do notice that the wifi light doesn't work though. I think I had read that before from a few others. I don't think the wifi light works on my other 2 laptops either. But I could care less. It isn't important at all to me.

[AlbertP]

The new brcm80211 driver for Broadcom (I think you're using that ?) does not yet support wifi lights. Maybe in a future Mint version it will work better.
Note that the driver is still in 'staging' which means it isn't yet declared stable by the kernel developers. Probably you can fix it by installing the STA driver from Additional Drivers.

[mrsfixit]

The new brcm80211 driver for Broadcom (I think you're using that ?) does not yet support wifi lights. Maybe in a future Mint version it will work better.
Note that the driver is still in 'staging' which means it isn't yet declared stable by the kernel developers. Probably you can fix it by installing the STA driver from Additional Drivers.

Yes, the brcm80211 driver IS what I am using.

About the lights- Albert, have you ever heard the saying "if it ain't broke..."?

I can live with it, it's irrelevant to me as long as the wifi works. I don't want to break it by trying to install something else.

I would love to be able to turn off the shadow under the cursor though. Now that annoys the hell out of me...