Completely done with Linux forever

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Its always been about more than escaping for me(and a lot of people). Its also about contributing, and I think you did that.

A fellow cab driver many years ago once said, "Windows *is* a virus!"

A couple of weeks ago, my older daughter gave me her old laptop with a broken hinge in return for making its drive into an external storage device for her, and that cost me all of about $10.00 (including postage and after several hours spent backing up her stuff and getting it back onto the cleaned drive). The laptop had been running Vista and I already had everything needed to re-install that, but I was not at all excited about purchasing a license for Win7. So, I began taking a fresh look at Debian and Mint, and right now I am here on the laptop in Mint 16 Cinnamon and I love it! The installer is much-improved (in my own opinion) over how things were when I first tried, and I finally got the multiboot stuff all figured out a couple of years go. Other than Windows Live Mail for handing a dozen-or-so accounts quite easily, I no longer have any real need for Windows if I can get Audacity working well on my desktop that now has LMDE (since it cannot handle Cinnamon) installed and along with everything else I already had. I do have the same previous problem of Debian (rather than Mint this time) resetting my system clock to five hours later than my actual time here, but I have found some info about how to change that to local time.

Q: Why make the switch to Linux?
A: Window$!

Mint is actually pretty good. Updates for Ubuntu may leave the system in such a condition that it won't boot properly (i.e. it needs to be reinstalled) or may delete drivers without your consent, but these mistakes are avoided in Mint. Mint also runs well on slow hardware, something other feature complete distros won't do.

Most open-source applications will run in Wine (including the Windows version of Audacity), but you may want to update this. The version included with Mint is outdated (sudo apt-get install wine1.61). If it won't update (which may be the case if you're running the 64 bit version), download the 32 bit libraries as well.

I am currently running Manjaro Linux. This is based on Arch Linux, but has a much more user friendly installer than all the Arch command line stuff.

If anyone is curious about breaking away from the Debian/Ubuntu world, Manjaro is worth a look.

So what is included with Manjaro? Does it come with a desktop environment? I really like Arch because of pacman and the fact that it's rolling-release. And also AUR is pretty nice.

My father has also had troubles with updates breaking the system, like the case for NVIDIA and his Macintosh that's running Debian ... This what my dad loves thought, he likes trying to figure out the problem and solve the puzzle

I was maybe the updates/upgrades are from an unstable repository ? ...

Is there no way to learn Linux in Virtual PC like what I'm doing with WIndows XP in Virtual Box on my Debian machine ?

Just install Linux inside Virtual Box; it's fairly straightforward. I used Virtual Box to learn FreeBSD--and I used it to program modules for Linux. If you want to experiment, Slackware is a really good choice. It's stripped down to the very basics (fewer lose parts means fewer problems), so it's faster and more stable than most distros out there.

I like figuring out solutions as well, but not if it interferes with my work or studies. Luckily, my previous computer was a dual boot; I didn't lose any work despite Ubuntu's f*ck up.

Yes, and that is how I ended up with LMDE. I tried Mint (Ubuntu) 16 Cinnamon on my desktop that is about 10 years old, and if gave me some kind of "Opps, Cinnamon crashed! Click to restart..." message.


I will look into that in a few weeks when it is too hot to be outside here in Louisiana!


Same with my Mint Debian, but I hope it does not roll on past me and my old machines...

Manjaro includes ISO pre-packaged with Xfce, KDE, or OpenBox.

Fans of Arch Linux might like the Manjaro command line installer. It uses Ncurses menus and simplifies things like partitioning, but after that you get a base command line install that you can build up a desktop with using Pacman.

Also, Manjaro can use Yaourt or the AUR.

Good to hear you didn't give up on Linux! It has more of a learning curve however worth it in the long run. The great thing about Linux is the huge variety of distros so you can choose one that has all the features you want. I like a debian base and a nice clean desktop so I use the Ubuntu based Elementary OS!

Last edited by digitalb0y on 02 May 2014, 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And this is potentially its drawback. To many choices, everyone reinventing the wheel, major changes and forks no one really wants eg gnome 3. I only use Linux, (presently back on Ubuntu) but I do wonder how much further Linux would have travelled if there was less division.

My development machines are all OpenBSD. Since Linux handles dual monitor setups better, my main workstation is SuSE Linux. The workstation is basically just used to display windows from the various OpenBSD servers and development machines at the office.

Also, I have a VT-100 compatible monitor connected to the Linux workstation as well. I actually get more done with that because I don't have the distractions from all the graphics.

Perhaps, however I think division/diversity in many ways can be a good thing. If there were only the oldest still active distro and no new forks we would all probably be using Slackware. Thankfully many people have different needs or different tastes and didn't like Slackware (me included) and made their own distributions. I think distros don't reinvent the wheel they take the best parts from different distros to make a distro that is more preferable and with this new distro sometimes creates new utilities that in turn get used by others. For example without YellowDog Linux (A PPC Redhat derivative), Redhat Linux wouldn't have YUM and we would probably still be in RPM dependency hell. Lack of diversity for example having only one mature TLS SSL implementation(OpenSSL) used by all Linux's\ BSD's caused the heartbleed bug.

Just my 2cents

It seems to be getting less and less divided. Most distros are in a decline, with a few (Arch Linux and Mint, mostly) gaining popularity very rapidly.

Slackware is excellent for low-level/module programming and server use, btw. It's just not that good for everyday purposes.

What kind of computer do you have? Not to mention what kind of printer?


Linux, ESPECIALLY Ubuntu, seems to have some major problems in terms of its device drivers when it comes to hardware compatibility. You *could* be a bit less lazy and use google to find a suitable driver for your printer model...........BAH! I'm just pullin yer chain.


Linux is not for everyone, but for those of us who have managed to get it working it is vastly superior to Windows and MAC-OS. I use Linux Mint 15 on my Toshiba Satellite C875(64bit). Tried Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 but gave those up cuz of driver problems.

I abandoned Ubuntu for the same reason. Nice software, pity about the lack of drivers - which made Ubuntu useless from a usability point of view.