Mint 18.3: The best Linux desktop takes big steps forward

zdnet. ^ | 12 12 17 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[Bob434]

[[I have a 240GB Silicon Power SSD.]]

Oh ok- thought you were looking for a 240 or so- I’ll probably get the SP one myself this Christmas- or maybre a little larger one- 500 maybe- have a backup dual boot drive incase my current drive poops out- that way i can be up and running as quick as plugging the new one in- Takes me about 1 hour to install Linux and tweak it how i like it- and over 3 days to install windows 7 and update it and tweak it and secure it somewhat and and and. But once it’s done i am good to go

[[Amazon reviews are a great resource no matter where you end up buying an item from. I like to add the two top numbers (4 and 5 star) and the two bottom numbers (1 and 2 star) and see what that ratio is. Then do the same for another item if I am having trouble making a choice, which one to buy.]]

Yup me too- i just use as a general guideline as sometimes the reviews are salted- but all in all i think most are honest

[Bob434]

[[One terabyte SSD is about $300. Last time I looked a 500GB SSD was around $250]]

I’ll have to cdhe3ck that out- I’m willing to spend $50 more3 for twice the capacity- definitely- great bargain-

[Westbrook]

> yeah i did- still wouldn’t run games well

Yeah. Most games want to be the only car on the road.

[TomGuy]

I bought a Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon about a year ago. I find it rather clunky. When I really need to do a serious task, I return to Win7 laptop or desktop.

Wine — a complete waste. Every program I tried in it would either not load at all or only load part of the GUI. And these were programs designed for Win98/XP/Win7.

I could no see the advantage of using a VM to run old programs. It is much easier just to use the Win7 laptop or desktop.

I have thought about updating to Mint 18.3, but have read some commentaries that the upgrade could be problematic.

I still list Linux and Mint in the hobbyist category.

I have an extra hard drive with the original Win10. I did not like the GUI and it seemed very limited in allowing the users to make their own choices. I have no intention of switching to Win10 as long as my Win7 laptop and desktop are still running.

[DaxtonBrown]

I’m on Mint Cinnamon 18.2 now, will upgrade to 18.3 shortly and I think it is the best as well. As simple as the old XP, but everything works. Tried Fedora and it is solid, but a lot of problems with video and audio drivers.

[DaxtonBrown]

Yup, the Ubuntu strains will do all the video permutations. Just went through that learning process. Fedora won’t necessarily.

[markomalley]

Beersmith 2 runs just fine in Linux (no VM required):

[Bob434]

[[I bought a Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon about a year ago. I find it rather clunky.]]

Did you install it or run from CD? From CD it’s kinda slow and clunky like you say- installed it runs super fast-

wine is pretty bad- but they supposedly have wine 2.0 or something supposed to be better- i haven’t tried it- don’t care to as i dual boot windows 7 and linux for best of both worlds

[[I could no see the advantage of using a VM to run old programs.]]

I thin the advantage is you can fire it up- leave it on all day- use as needed- and just use linux for safer Internet experience and you don’t have to go through hassle of dual booting that way-

[[I have an extra hard drive with the original Win10.]]

You could try the dual boot- but you’ll need to find out how to reallocate space- which isn’t super hard, but not exactly easy either- but fun to try if you are4 doing it on an extra hard drive- if things go sour- just redownload windows 10 and use your key again- You could also load your windows 7 on it if you have a D key retail- but not if you have preinstalled windows 7- they don’t allow download of windows 7 ISO if you have preinstalled version

[adorno]

If you've ever used Windows XP, you'll feel completely at home.

Sounds like Linux if finally catching up to the 2001 Windows. In another 16 years, it might finally catch up to Windows 10.

Windows XP? That's the Windows version which Munich was converting to LiMux (their own home-grown version of Linux), but finally gave up, and is going back to te current version of Windows, that being Windows 10. Guess being compatible with the rest of the world, and with most applications, was more important than experimenting in the open-source environments.

Anyhow, the OS won't matter much in the near future, since the "underlying" OS for all or most future computing will be the browsers, aka: Edge, Chrome, Firefox, etc.

[familyop]

"I want to install Linux Mint on a separate SSD (desktop computer) to test and experiment. What size SSD should I buy? 60GB is enough?"

"To test and experiment," yes. 60GB is more than enough to do that and quite a bit of file space. 120GB will go further if used much and run faster with more files stored on it. Either way, you'll be glad that you tried it.

Then later on, if you want to try something even faster and less bulky to use with fewer extraneous simultaneous processes running, try Debian, the system that Mint and Ubuntu are based on. It will be more customized for you that way.

[markomalley]

Ok a better question, what CANT it do that windows can?

(Caveat: I am still on Mint 17.3 -- haven't bothered to upgrade to 18 yet)

Literally the only things where I need to use Windows are:

• Turbotax (there are Linux packages that can help with taxes, but I've been using Turbotax for so many years, I just don't want to switch)
• Office 365 (I use LibreOffice for my personal stuff, but for work, I need to actually run real MS Office). Wine will support up to Office 10, but the Office 2016 that is sent out with the current Office 365 isn't supported through Wine yet)

When I'm in the mood for games, I run Steam (which is perfectly supported in Linux, so no need to mess with Windows there).

For the Windows software needs, what I do is run a virtual machine using Oracle VirtualBox. I dedicate 4 GB of RAM and 3 computer cores to the virtual machine and that seems to be plenty. Since I have 16 GB of RAM and a 6 core processor, I can basically run both simultaneously. And both do perfectly OK.

[butlerweave]

you can install it on a USB drive and run it from that

[butlerweave]

I use Linux Mint 18.2 xfce on the Desktop computer and all my games run natively or on Playonlinux

[butlerweave]

VLC player can convert them

[markomalley]

"I want to install Linux Mint on a separate SSD (desktop computer) to test and experiment. What size SSD should I buy? 60GB is enough?"

"To test and experiment," yes. 60GB is more than enough to do that and quite a bit of file space. 120GB will go further if used much and run faster with more files stored on it. Either way, you'll be glad that you tried it.

When I built my current computer, I got a 240GB SSD for my OS and software (my bin, boot, dev, etc, lib, mnt, opt, run, srv, sys, usr, var directories...my home directory is on a spinning disk because of the size). I've got a lot of software installed on it on top of the operating system and I'm not anywhere close to 14GB. And as I say, that's with a whole lot of apps installed on my system.

[familyop]

Disregard what I wrote here -——> “120GB will go further if used much and run faster with more files stored on it.”

I haven’t run an SSD, yet. Looks like it’s going to feel good, though. ;-)

Running a laptop that’s about 10 years old with an old, platter type hard drive at this time. It’s fast enough.

[Bob434]

[[In another 16 years, it might finally catch up to Windows 10.]]

Good golly i hope not- I’ll have to find another os then

[butlerweave]

Windows XP? That’s the Windows version which Munich was converting to LiMux (their own home-grown version of Linux), but finally gave up, and is going back to te current version of Windows, that being Windows 10. Guess being compatible with the rest of the world, and with most applications, was more important than experimenting in the open-source environments.

you need to read the truth about this story , they used very old Distros of Linux and never upgrade their equipment

[familyop]

Notice what I wrote in comment #56, right after your reply. I had failed to notice that part about “SDD.”

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3612936/posts?page=56#56

[Bob434]

mark- i have steam on my windows boot os- how do i get it on linux? Do i need a special version of linix? I’d like to play my games on linux (dues ex- F.E.A.R- etc not too taxing older games) if possible- be much easier rather than dual booting- and i can finally almost get rid of windows altogether (expect for photoshop- need to run photoshop for photography- doesn’t run well in VM or wine-)