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Linux Mint 19 Tara — 2 Comments

  1. With some help from this site’s author, after his article in that other place, I installed Mint 19 64bit Xfce in a dual boot with Win7 on my ancient Dell and I can’t fault it- well except it won’t talk to my printer (GGGRRRRRH! Really Guys? That might have been excusable back when I was using Red Hat 4 but nowadays?!). Infact I only seem to boot into Windows now for one programme which i haven’t yet wine’d . Compared to Win7 Mint 19 seems incredibly fast -especially at reading my drive- and yet my laptop runs quieter, cooler and smoother.

    Just saying. If anyone passing has been considering switching or dual booting, its worth a try. However if you’re a total linux newbie (and the chances are if you’re reading here that you aren’t) then do get someone to help, especially if you want to keep windows in a dual boot. Preferably a ‘someone’ who knows what they are talking about. Playing with your partition table is something that requires some knowledge and I was a little disappointed to find that Mint hadn’t simplified/automated the process (again, *really* guys? Gparted? Why not go full on retro and cfdisk?). Would not a 1-click ‘keep windows’ or ‘nuke everything’ install option not make the thing more appealing to Windows refugees ?

    • Actually, the installation options panel does offer the option to nuke Windows, though they don’t use that precise turn of phrase (“Erase disk and install Linux Mint”).

      I wrote a rough and ready guide to installing Mint alongside Windows some time ago.  My advice to anyone using Gparted (the tool used in Mint installation) is to firstly BACK UP EVERYTHING.  Then if you can’t get someone to help, read a few guides first.  It is simple enough, BUT it is easy to screw up your hard disk with a mistake, so double/triple check each step before you press any buttons.  Go slowly and carefully and you’ll be fine.  But did I mention to BACK UP EVERYTHING first?

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