ooooh - it's nice ppl !
popped the disc in and opted to install alongside my mandriva setup - on the same disc. first time i've dual-booted linux with linux so i was impressed when it told me 'you've got madriva installed here' and painlessly let me resize the mandriva partitions to make space for mint. it even asked if i wanted to carry over pidgin and firefox accounts/config/settings (although sadly this didn't seem to work !doh! cause nothing was there once i fired them up in mint).
once into mint, i was online with my e220 within 10 secs... and immediately began installing the updates already available. had one *obscure* disconnect (as described in the ubuntu 'lucid lynx' thread here) but after a restart, completed the updates and have been online since without issue (as mentioned in 'lucid lynx' thread, something in the updates seems to fix this for sure).
so given these minors, whats so cool about mint ?
- it's just looks gorgeous !
- at some point it prompted me (out of the blue) to download and use proprietary drivers for my nvidia card.
- the menu is cool, in that i feel it's right well geared for a M$ windows migrant. far more intuitive than other distros i've sampled.
- re windows migrants, the 'close' button is still on the right, though i've read you can switch to the new ubuntu (mac style) left-side close button if you want).
- mp3, avi, mpg, mp4 etc plays out of the box
- skype is already *there* in the 'software manager' list. no need for xtra repos or manual download and install etc (video not working yet... but same for other distros i've sampled. i have an old an ****tY webcam).
- compiz-config comes with the default (800mb dvd for me) install. no need to get the package. (didn't use it though. i like their default selection of settings... except maybe that wobbly is not default, & i'm still wowed by wobbly
)
- common windows archives (like .zip and .rar) are handled out of the box
that's about it thus far. for those in the know, these issues may be trivial (mere 'minor configurations'), but looking at it from a *new to linux* point of view i think they're fantastic.
during install a splash bragged that mint is the 4th most used desktop, after windows, mac... and i missed the 3rd one (what was it ? suspect ubuntu ?)... not bad at all for a fairly young distro. they're doing something right, and i like it.
would not even hesitate to recommend mint9 as a first taste to *new to linux* users ! it's very nice.
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