[Fiddlstix]

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[dennisw]

MY BIG QUESTION

How much space does a Linux Mint installation take? 20GB?

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?
120GB?

(I am a Windows user)

[brianr10]

Will it play wmv files?

[Billthedrill]

I finally got torqued off at yet another Creator's Update that failed late last week, sucking up all my high-speed bandwidth for the month (second time in a month, incidentally, both 1703 and 1709 took a dump on one of my four computers and not the same one) - anyway, slid a new SSD into the smaller box and installed 18.3 Mint last night. Flawless. Within one hour I had a new OS from scratch, functioning email, word processing, music, and YooToob on a functioning browser (I was a little worried about the codecs but it was perfect). That's it. I don't have to spend days troubleshooting Redmond's screwups four times a quarter.

The downside is that I have to give up certain games that I enjoy. These don't like VirtualBox so I'm going to have to play with WINE, but it's a small price to pay.

I've used other Linux implementations but this one seems as smooth to install and with the lowest learning curve I've seen to date. So far very impressed.

It really didn't have to be this way. I like Windows 10 if they'd just leave it alone. Mint will be fine for 80% of what I want to do and that's going to have to be enough. When I finally do get decent bandwidth, and it's coming, I'm really not sure it will be worth going back to Windows.

[Bob434]

[[If you’ve ever used Windows XP, you’ll feel completely at home.]]

Except when you have to install something not in the software distribution menus- then nope- it’s not like windows- it’s quite hard infact. and when a problem arises trying to find help that isn’;t written in super uber geek speak is difficult at best- but thankfully those two scenarios do not come up for casual users often if at all

[[Run the Driver Manager Choose the NVIDIA drivers and wait for them to be installed Reboot the computer]]

The nivida drivers were not listed in my driver manager in linux mint 18.1 are they listed now? - had to go through some other ppa to finally get them-

I do love mint linux, but at times it can be incredibly frustrating if a problem arises to those of us not familiar with using the terminal commands, or used to installing programs from scratch which is quite hard to newbies- like myself- one progam i will wholeheartedly recommend is easystroke- it takes a little finagling to get it installed, but it’s a supremely helpful program i can’t live with out- it’s like mouse gestures- and makes navigating and opening programs very simply with a mouse gesture- i navigate back and forth between tabs, between pages, close with a quick downward swipe \ and close down my computer with an S curve gesture- open notepad, terminal etc all with gestures- navigating pages and very very quick now with swipes up and left \ up and right/

Well worth the effort to install

[Billthedrill]

You asked about room at a good time - fresh install, less than 100 MB of personal data, looks like this:

219,147 items
5.8 GB used

I used a Samsung 850 256 GB SSD - they're pretty cheap these days - and it's rattling around in there.

[Pollard]

I’m running the latest KDE Neon on 2.53GHz Intel Core Duo

Runs just fine on this 12 year old Thinkpad but it’s almost a nightly build sort of thing so I’m thinking about swapping to kubuntu. I’ll still get the Plasma 5 desktop but it would be based on ubuntu 16.04 LTS so there would be way less updates.

Neon has 260 updates right now - been a few weeks since I updated. Still, it will sit there in the background and update away. If the kernel needs updating, I may have to restart but it will be a quick restart, pretty much a normal restart.

When/if I go with kubuntu, all I have to do is back up my home folder and then restore it after install and it will be like nothing ever happened.

I’ve tried 20 or so flavors of linux, all ubuntu based and liked mint well enough but it ran a little slow on my last machine which was under 2GHz. Another one I liked was ubuntustudio. I could create screen casts and edit the resulting videos on this 2.53GHz processor. UbuntuStudio runs in low-latency mode which allows it to just chug along with heavy applications like that.

[Varmint Al]

Linux Mint 18.3 is Great! Here is my desktop with a view of the Software Manager with all the free software.

Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

[wyowolf]

Ok a better question, what CANT it do that windows can? I run 7 now, basically surf the web, and run my synology disk station from it... dont play any games, the only real software I run from time to time is a brewing related software called Beersmith...not sure if it will run in L or not...

All my movies/music/photos are all on the synology and streamed to whatever...

[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.

[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.

[butlerweave]

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

[goodnesswins]

what I want to know is...can I as a non-techie make this happen on my Dell Inspiron laptop, bought March 2017, Core I7??? I’ve allowed some Win10 updates....but am hesitant to continue for fear it will screw up my laptop...

[Fungi]

download from where? Forgive my ignorance.

[fuzzylogic]

As a fan of Linux, please take these claims with a huge grain of salt. Over the recent past we’ve seen some significant vulnerabilities found in Linux components. It’s a poor claim that none can affect the desktop. Linux is used on a large scale in servers and embedded devices. The chance of somebody attacking a given OS is directly proportional to the number of instances of that OS running. Linux is everywhere now so there’s far more hackers attacking it.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I use Mint 17 Cinnamon.

How does one upgrade to Mint 18.3 without affecting ANY of the settings, installed programs, etc. Is it possible?

I've always taken a Laissez-faire attitude toward Linux upgrades but if there are significant improvement, I may consider it.

[Bob434]

Anyone use yahoo search? When i did the upgrade- for some reason the font looks blockier- harder to read in the search results now that firefox has upgraded to 57.01- most other pages look fine- like the search results in free republic and such, but for some reason yahoo search results page is harder to read now? I’ve messed with font settings, zoom etc- but the font just appears different for yahoo search now-

[TheStickman]

I’d love to run Linux.

I run a small project recording studio. There’s not Linux alternative to Logic X, Cubase, Pro Tools etc. Not to mention none of the 3rd party plugins I use will ever be ported to Linux.

I’m pretty happy with macOS on my aging iMac. It just works for me.

[novemberslady]

bkmk