That isn’t quite true. You see, Windows has more bugs, more flaws, and more security issues than a Linux distro. I don’t mean to beat on you, but I find that statement to be quite false.
Could I ask when you last tested Linux Mint? (Which year?)
You see, since around Ubuntu 10.10 things have been pretty solid and stable. Ubuntu 11.04 was the big change when Unity was introduced, but since Ubuntu 12.04 it has matured a lot, in just little under a year.
Ubuntu has some AMAZING things going on, Steam For Linux is coming, Lightworks is coming, Ubuntu is being sold on OEM computers, Dell, ASUS, etc, so as you can see, Ubuntu is no slacker.
A little history lesson, Ubuntu is based on Debian however, Ubuntu now has “more” newer technologies than Debian, which is why Debian is rock solid. Debian of course are trying to get those newer technologies into the upstream repository, which is where programs, libraries, etc, are.
Linux isn’t an OS, it’s a kernel. The distributions, or “distros” are the OS’s. Android, is a Linux distribution.
Linux distro’s for the PC however are usually split into two categories.
Debian/Ubuntu based = .deb files
or
Redhat/Fedora based = .rpm files
Both have different package managers, which is how they handle applications, BUT, ALL applications WILL work on any distro. You may just have a little more work on another distro because of some packages you may have to install and the like.
I personally use Ubuntu & SolusOS. SolusOS is very stable, it’ll be hard to try break it, however, it isn’t as up-to-date with Ubuntu. You’ll be able to tell this from the Gnome 2 desktop environment. Where as Ubuntu, it uses the new Gnome 3 libraries and if you want, the Gnome 3 desktop environment now named “Gnome-Shell.”
Installation is pretty straight forward.
You burn the ISO to a CD/DVD or a USB. These are either called a LiveCD or a LiveUSB. The reason for this you’ll find out in the next point.
Boot from your selected device, and then select either “Try [Linux distro name]” or “Install [Linux distro name].” This is the reason the CD/USB has “Live” infront of it’s name. As you can test the distro of choice before you even think about installing it. So if it isn’t for you, you just shut down like normal, and the CD/USB will be ejected.
If you like the distro, you can click the “install” icon on the test desktop environment, and it’ll walk you through the installation and whilst it’s doing that, you can browse the internet whilst you wait. Now OS X or Windows don’t give you that! The installer will ask you if you want to dual-boot, wipe Windows completely, or do something different. If you want to install to a second drive, then select do something different, this will give you the control to install where you like.
For example -
Say my first HDD has 3 partitions, all full, and the HDD is named “sda” and my second HDD has 2 partitions, not being used, is named “sdb”, but I’m also booting from a LiveUSB which is name “sdc”.
So; Harddrive 1 = sda
Harddrive 2 = sdb
LiveUSB Stick = sdc
So I would ensure I select drive “/dev/sdb” and then I could set up the partitions as I like.
Say, 50GB for an Ubuntu install and 150GB for a SolusOS install.
But then you need to think about a “/home” partition. Having a “/home” partition means, you’ve got one centralized “home” folder on it’s own partition, this is where configuration files are, personal files, etc. So this has it’s advantages, it gives you one place you can use between any given number of Linux distro’s, however, the downside is, there could be some collisions with config files between the same/similar programs on different distros.
You’ll also need a “swap” if your under 8GB of RAM. The swap acts like extra RAM, but also makes switching/dumping files the computer has to use, faster, speeding up read/write times, making Linux distro’s faster. Rule of the thumb with a swap is to make it double your RAM, so if you have 256mb of RAM, you’ll have a 512mb swap, if you have a 3GB of RAM, you’ll have a 6GB swap, and so on.
You’ll also need to install the “/boot” partition on the FIRST harddrive, so that when you install GRUB, it can load ALL the OS’s over the two harddrives. So for instance your GRUB layout may look like this;
Ubuntu 12.04 Linux_86-3.2.0-36
Ubuntu 12.04 Linux_86-3.2.0-36 (Recovery mode)
SolusOS 1.1 Linux_86-2.6.38-51
SolusOS 1.1 Linux_86-2.6.38-51 (Recovery mode)
Linux Mint 3 Maya Linux_86-3.0.0-28
Linux Mint 3 Maya Linux_86-3.0.0-28 (Recovery mode)
Windows XP
Windows XP bootloader
As you can see, you have a lot of options, but it’s clear which you can pick at start up.
I hope this helps.
You’ll find the ISO files for the distro’s your looking for below:
Ubuntu 12.04 “Precise Pangolin” 32-bit
SolusOS 1.1 “Eveline” 32-bit
Linux Mint 13 “Maya” 32-bit [Mint comes in two flavours, with MATE desktop environment or with Cinnamon desktop environment.]
You can install any Linux distribution using pendrivelinux on Windows, which you can find below.
Pendrivelinux Universal USB installer 1.9.0.4
The steps are simple, you pick the location of where you downloaded your .iso file.
Select the distro of choice.
pendrivelinux does the rest of the work.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is based on Debian. SolusOS is also based on Debian. So they’ll all use similar package managers.
Good luck!
