Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.
As a quick catch up for others:
Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).
Just skimming the surface
Opinions/guidance expressed are intended to benefit the reader (mostly) but no responsibility should be assumed for the accuracy and no warranty is implied/expressed or given - so eBay may pull this post
As a quick catch up for others:
Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).
Just skimming the surface
Opinions/guidance expressed are intended to benefit the reader (mostly) but no responsibility should be assumed for the accuracy and no warranty is implied/expressed or given - so eBay may pull this post
I've not used PCLinuxOS for a while. The GNOME version seemed to fade away, and the rather attractive KDE version tends to be a little heavy on my computers.
They recently brought out a MATE version. Having greatly enjoyed MATE on Mint, I thought I'd try it out. The victim is an old Toshiba L100 (I think) with a 1.6 GB Celeron M and 1 GB of RAM.
Really very nice. There are a couple of oddities/problems. An annoying one is a tendency for windows to vanish from view when minimised, with no inication of their existence on the task bar. They're still running, though, and I couldn't figure out why memory use was so high. Turned out that I had a couple of instances each of Firefox, LibreOffice and the System Monitor running - didn't think that was possible.
After a restart, I think minimised items are visible in the taskbar again - interesting to see how long this lasts.
Updating seems more manual than in Mint, but is simply a matter of running Synaptic from time to time. If there's an update manager like Mint's, I've yet to find it.
A minor irritation is having to add LibreOffice via an installation manager instead of Synaptic. The manager was a little cantankerous, but I got there in the end. (At least the basic installation iso fits on a CD.)
It runs very nicely on this elderly machine, and could be a real possibility for people upgrading from XP. Personally, I still prefer Mint - but PCLos might run better on more machines, if its reputation for providing drivers for just about anything is justified.
@otherego wrote:Mint 17 Release Candidate is now available:
Thanks for the 'Heads Up' OE
Am preparing for a new install [Time permiting] and was all set to use Petra - after some drastic rm -rf - Cheers 
Oxie...
I've yet to try Sabayon, or anything Gentoo-like.
Mint 17's looking nice, so far. I think once they've had a little more time to debug it, the time has come to rescue the data on my main desktop and start from scratch. The current installation of Mint 13 works fine, but I've messed it about and cloned it a few times and odd things are starting to creep in. The most worrying is an occasional message about a missing drive during startup. So far, it's always recovered itself.
The release candidate is running nicely on an even older desktop with a 2.4 GHz P4 and 1GB of RAM. Generally pretty responsive. I expect that it will gradually update to the distribution release once that is out without needing to reinstall - but will wait and see. This machine is subject to pretty frequent distro-hopping, anyway.
A happy snap:
1024 X 600 seems to be the MSI Wind U100's lot - best I could get under either XP (ugh) as installed, or with Mint 17 MATE.
I suppose Mint 17 would look better with a higher resolution screen, but the same might be said of most operating systems. I'm posting this from the live session, and will see whether it will let me add a screenshot:
Quite usable, to be honest.
Bed time - I might give Cinnamon a try later in the day, if I remember - although I generally find MATE better on lower powered machines. Having said that, the little MSI does have 2GB of RAM and a dual core processor, even if it is an Atom.
Mint 17 Cinnamon seems quite happy on the U100, too. It does look as if 1024 X 600 is about it.
The small screen is definitely less than ideal, with some windows (eg the system settings window) falling off the bottom of the screen and having to be dragged up in order to get at any buttons etc along the lower edge of the window.
This could be a "deal breaker" for some.
YouTube seems to be fine.
You can see how disappears from the lower part of the window.
For a live session, all quite pleasant - might even try installing it sometime. At the moment, the little MSI is host to Zorin - which I don't like as much, but can't quite bring myself to remove just yet. I can understand why it might appeal to newcomers to Linux, but honestly can't see any real advantages over Mint.
Dearest OE ❤️
You wouldn't believe the times I've come here to thank you, I keep getting waylaid!
Fancy you having an MSE U100 😮 As you know, mine's the Advent 4211 Curry's equivalent. It's in excellent condition, having had a new keyboard. It's been upgraded by A.N. Other from XP to an illegitimate Windows 7, which I can't live with.
I'm used to 'things' falling off the bottom of the screen, as my main laptop is only 11.6" (but it's quite hunky and cumbersome). I was concerned that when Mint said 1024x768 minimum, they meant that the distro would not even install on a lesser resolution.
Almost everything I've read has seeped out thru the holes so now I'm starting again. What a lot of choices Mint offers 😮 Too many, IMHO.
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I don't suppose I'd be able to see/use my Windows network?
@otherego wrote:
I don't suppose I'd be able to see/use my Windows network?
Short answer - shouldn't be a problem.
If experience so far is anything to go by, it probably will be a problem. I downloaded Cinnamon and copied it to a USB stick and set netbook to boot from USB, plugged in the stick, booted... "no operating system". So I expect I've got to "do something" to make it bootable.
Never mind, I've got lots on my plate and there's no rush.
I remember now that I used Unetbootin years ago. I saw something about a version of Mint that has bootin' built in, but couldn't find it when I next looked. That's the trouble with Googling, one needs to leave a paper trail - but mine would be a terrible tangle 😮
