I want to be cool like you guys...

PMTerp · Apr 16, 2012

I see lots of Linux talk in here and I need to be in the know, I just need help getting there. I had installed Ubuntu with WUBI on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite C665, AMD Athlon II P320 Dual-core processor 2.10 GHz, 3.00GB Ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium), but without having a clue as to what I was doing, I didn't like it. Last night I was reading in a thread that suggested I do some things with restricted drivers to speed it up (slow program load times was 1 of my biggest complaints) but I'd already uninstalled.
So, I'm wanting to give it another go. I would just like some suggestions for a complete noob on how to get started. I need to have the option to boot into Windows still (for work, we use Quickbooks and a few other programs on Windows). Mainly I'll need Word Processing, Excel compatible spreadsheets, and GIMP, and I'd love it to run faster than my Windows environment. Any suggestions towards which distro, best install methods, and any tweaks that should be made are extremely appreciated.

linuxrich · Apr 16, 2012

As you're still at the stage of getting to grips with what's what, in my opinion you'd probably want to install Virtualbox or some similar virtualisation solution so you have a safe environment to mess around with. Then, spend a bit of time with Distrowatch and draw up a short list of distros that interest you in some way. Try them on for size installed in a virtual machine. Once you've found one you reckon you want to spend some quality time with, install it in a more permanent way either dual boot or on a second PC.

As far as a specific recommendation goes, I think a lot of people with expeireince with desktop Linux would currently recommend Linux Mint to anyone wanting a first distro to try.

karandpr · Apr 16, 2012

Linux Mint is a good choice .
Ubuntu 12.04 is just around the corner btw

Most Distros have Live mode and you can use the USB as bootable Linux Drive.It's much better than VirtualBox or Wubi

I would suggest getting a dedicated pendrive and using LiLi

SUroot · Apr 16, 2012

VMWare player is free for non commercial use. I find it more stable than virtualbox.

I use the latter at work as its open source, ergo - free. VMWare at home though as I have choice

PMTerp · Apr 16, 2012

I've been running Mint from a live thumbdrive for a few hours now and am pretty happy with the experience. I've read a few posts back and forth about battery consumption Linux vs Windows so I'm unplugged for now to see how I do. I've also been using utorrent and peerblock with Window's to keep my p2p transfers secure and discreet. Are there equivalents in Mint?

noonehereyet · Apr 16, 2012

PMTerp said:
I see lots of Linux talk in here and I need to be in the know, I just need help getting there. I had installed Ubuntu with WUBI on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite C665, AMD Athlon II P320 Dual-core processor 2.10 GHz, 3.00GB Ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium), but without having a clue as to what I was doing, I didn't like it. Last night I was reading in a thread that suggested I do some things with restricted drivers to speed it up (slow program load times was 1 of my biggest complaints) but I'd already uninstalled.
So, I'm wanting to give it another go. I would just like some suggestions for a complete noob on how to get started. I need to have the option to boot into Windows still (for work, we use Quickbooks and a few other programs on Windows). Mainly I'll need Word Processing, Excel compatible spreadsheets, and GIMP, and I'd love it to run faster than my Windows environment. Any suggestions towards which distro, best install methods, and any tweaks that should be made are extremely appreciated.

If your running windows install it inside windows until you decide if its what you want, it can be uninstalled like any other program that way, secondly don't go screwing around with distro watch or any opinion poll. If you have or are running Ubuntu or any debian based linux you can simply install and test just about any desktop environment. As for Linux Mint yes, it is good, but still based on and using Ubuntu repositories. My suggestion would be simply install Cinnamon/Mate on top of Ubuntu for now since your already have Ubuntu then worry about changing when your comfortable with linux as a whole...

saptech · Apr 16, 2012

I would say at this stage in its development, Ubuntu is not the best distro for someone new to linux. I would suggest some other distros such as Mint, Salix OS with Xfce desktop, Mageia Linux.

But as others have said, try some different livecds first and maybe add Virtualbox along side your current Windows without doing actual install on hard drive.

argedion · Apr 16, 2012

I agree with sapatech here I would try a few different live cd's play around in them. You will also want to start using cross platform programs like firefox, thunderbird gimp, libre office, vlc, to name a few. getting used to using alternate programs and getting away from the Standard Windows Way is a must. Also you want to find out which ways offer the easiest way for you to get codecs and stuff for playing your music / movie's in Linux and which are much harder. that would help you decided on which ones you narrow down the decisions. Also check out the forums see what kind of support they have. if its sporadic then you may want to hold of on it if its fairly active then you will want to keep that one for consideration.

9to5cynic · Apr 16, 2012

I agree with most people here, Linux Mint is the way to go for a beginner. Comes with all the plugins you'll want (though, ubuntu offers those during set up now) and it has a (IMO) better more classic desktop manager... while Ubuntu is shifting towards a different one (unity).

Though, if you are feeling really adventurous, you could give debian a while. Haven't looked back since installing it.

<3 debian <3

;D

noonehereyet · Apr 16, 2012

9to5cynic said:
I agree with most people here, Linux Mint is the way to go for a beginner. Comes with all the plugins you'll want (though, ubuntu offers those during set up now) and it has a (IMO) better more classic desktop manager... while Ubuntu is shifting towards a different one (unity).

Though, if you are feeling really adventurous, you could give debian a while. Haven't looked back since installing it.

<3 debian <3

;D

or could do like me and install Ubuntu + Mate and have the latest version of Ubuntu running with the fork of Gnome 2.X and get the best of both worlds...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
paste this at the bottom and save - deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ lisa main upstream import

then
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linuxmint-keyring
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mint-meta-mate

Log out, at the login in screen select MATE and log back in...

alextop30 · Apr 17, 2012

I personally would suggest Ubunt 12.04 - in final beta and its like 10 days away from LTS (long term support) release. It is nice and stable and it offers variety of different options - speed is substantial increase from 11.10 and drivers seem to work better with it.

Video drivers are the largest pain in the butt that I have found you have to deal if you have an NVIDIA chipset on your laptop. I don't know how Linux Mint does with those things but I can tell you that there will need to be a lot of reading with ubuntu - there are not that many steps its just a lot of trial and error with the X-server environment you want to run.

By the way welcome to the cool geeks lounge and and hope you like using Linux

argedion · Apr 18, 2012

One last thing I will suggest. That is don't do anything just because we do it. Do what makes you comfortable. Use the things you like not what everyone else thinks is "Cool" or thinks is "Crap" if you like it use it if not don't what makes us cool is we don't conform to what others think we validate and opinion and stick with it. That's why we respect each other its because we don't roll over and play dead. I personally am a Fedora guy its my thing others are Ubuntu still others are Archbang yet others are gentoo. The point is we like what we like plain and simple. Define yourself by what you like and not by what others like. Make sure your comfortable controlling the OS that your running if not get rid of it. Have questions post them, there is no dumb questions. Just Remember the Best way to be Cool is to be you.

scythefwd · Apr 18, 2012

I felt ubuntu was pretty user friendly. get into an IRC client (bitchx, ircx, whatever..) and hop into freenode.net:6667 .. join the #ubuntu room. any questions you have.. they can answer.

bylerj1 · Apr 28, 2012

Hey just a random Ubuntu question...Does anyone else have a problem with Firefox getting blurry as you use it? It starts out clear, but after about two minutes it is so blurry I can hardly read anything on screen. I am using 10.10 (I think) btw.

9to5cynic · Apr 28, 2012

^ I have never had that happen to me....

No clue. Does anything else get blurry?

Could it be a problem with your eyes??

bylerj1 · Apr 29, 2012

Haha no its not my eyes. It may just be a problem with 10.10, because it happens on my dedicated 10.10 desktop and when I make a bootable USB for 10.10 it does the same thing. I have not checked if the issue is still there in other versions, I plan on upgrading to 12.04 now that it has LTS.

I want to be cool like you guys...

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