The H
General discussion about the site and its contents
Re: Linux Mint 11/ Ubuntu 11.04 17 May 2011 03:31
Hi there and welcome! I'm new to this site and have been dabbling
with Linux for about two years. If you want to try the latest Ubuntu,
you could download and burn it to disc and then run it live to try
it. You could also install it on a new partition (try Gparted) and
have a triple boot PC.
I have used Mint 9 and although I liked it, I stuck with Ubuntu and
recently upgraded to 11.04. However, my Nvidia-based PC did not like
11.04 and even when I did get the Unity GUI to show, all the windows
I opened from the toolbar were blank. Reverted to 10.10. I next tried
to get 11.04 on my laptop - upgrading from 10.10 via Update Manager.
Worked a treat, until I tried to activate the Desktop Cube effect and
the thing crashed, leaving me with no usable interface. Had to
reinstall from a downloaded iso and it is fine. Never had so many
problems with a Linux upgrade before - too many serious bugs that are
difficult to avoid even if you read other people's sob stories first.
Still, I got there in the end...
I don't think Unity is available for Mint; I like it a lot because it
frees up so much of the screen. It's true that some procedures take
an extra click or two, but that's outweighed by the neatness of the
whole thing. I think people should give it more time before ditching
it. At least you do have the option of switching to Gnome if Unity
really doesn't suit.
You will have to do a new install to get 11.04, so may be best to try
the live CD version, and you can check to see if your graphics card
is suitable at the same time. You could explore the idea of putting
your Home folder on a separate partition if you haven't already; this
allows you to keep custom files and settings after you've upgraded or
installed a different distro.
I also have Windows 7 which is my master OS on a laptop. I also have
Puppy Linux on a USB drive - handy as it's portable.