Linux Mint Cinnamon

[Jody Thornton]

So I have a small Dell notebook PC from 2005. It's running Windows XP Professional SP3 in 1 gb of RAM on a 40 gb drive. I'm looking for a no nonsense OS to run in its place come April. So after a ton of recommendations, I tried the Linux Mint Live CD which was the extended service Maya release version 13. It includes the Cinnamon desktop.

I tell ya - hmmmmmmmm, it really doesn't do it for me. Mint users recommend it due to an XP like interface, but I find Vista is even better in that respect. I just like a simpler desktop enviroment or even a window manager. I'm going to try PC Linux which is KDE based and see what I think.

I have tried Puppy Linux 4x and 5x and I like the Wary Puppy distros for older hardware. But I wish I could do a regular full installation rather than a frugal install.

What Linux distros do you find are more like say a Win9x interface (very simple)?

Edited March 11, 2014 by JodyThornton

[MagicAndre1981]

have you tried ZorinOS?

[ace2]

MY Linux Mint 16 (Cinnamon) Setup:

Start Menu:

http://postimg.org/image/9ulwzfsin/

Home Folder:

http://postimg.org/image/bkn7z9p8x/

[Flasche]

You can try Crunchbang http://crunchbang.org/ Its a super small but functional distro based of of Debian. It is very customizable

Open box: http://openbox.org/ (Open box is very customizable)

Edited March 11, 2014 by Flasche

[Jody Thornton]

Thanks for those suggestion. I shall take a serious look.

[ZortMcGort11]

Another one you might try, if you haven't already, is Lubuntu. It's a nice looking one, and it requires less resources than Ubuntu.

I have tried Puppy a few times on live CD, and I have a machine with Ubuntu installed. If I had to pick I'd take Ubuntu over Puppy, just because I think configuring the options is more user friendly in Ubuntu. I had problems detecting my Lucent Cheetah modem under Puppy.

Good luck.

Edited March 15, 2014 by LostInSpace2012

[Flasche]

You can try Crunchbang http://crunchbang.org/ Its a super small but functional distro based of of Debian. It is very customizable

Open box: http://openbox.org/ (Open box is very customizable)

If you find that this Linux distro is too large (very hard to imagine) you can also try this one. http://tinycorelinux.net/ . This amazing little distro is an amazing 12 mega bytes in size, and also customizable to your needs.

[ace2]

MY Linux Mint 16 KDE Edition Setup:

Start Menu:

http://s30.postimg.org/a3uvo5lht/start_menu.png

Home Folder:

http://s18.postimg.org/iix2p39ll/Home.png

This disc is Great, its just like Windows 7, better than Windows 8/8.1, because Linux Mint 16 KDE Edition has a Start Menu and Glass with Blur.

Edited March 17, 2014 by ace2

[MagicAndre1981]

Glass with Blur.

by default? Or what do you have to do to enable it?

[ace2]

Glass with Blur.

by default? Or what do you have to do to enable it?

YOU enable with:

Blur:

Desktop Effects / All Effects

Glass:

Workspace Appearance / Windows Decorations and Download Diamond theme BY staffck1.

Workspace Appearance / Desktop Theme and Download Diamond theme BY staffck1.

Edited March 17, 2014 by ace2

[condor]

Cinnamon has some bugs....

You can try Debian with XFCE,LXDE or Mate.

On Athlon X2 4200+, 2GB RAM,video onboard and 80GB ide HDD I use Arch Linux with XFCE4.

I have triple boot, but I show only my Arch

Start Menu

http://imgur.com/0bSqDz8

Home

http://imgur.com/eqU6VcS

Desktop

http://imgur.com/NUdlyQj

[MHz]

On Athlon X2 4200+, 2GB RAM,video onboard and 80GB ide HDD I use Arch Linux with XFCE4.

I have triple boot, but I show only my Arch

That is awesome. Is that with Compiz-Fusion installed/enabled? I currently have Fedora Linux on my laptop with Gnome 3 and well, very ordinary to use. I considered MATE on last install but the vital super key + type in what to run seemed missing so I went Gnome 3 again. I was a big fan of Gnome since using it since 1995. Before that well, too tricky for me to install and use so I went with what I knew well, Windows.

[lost_packet]

I use Arch Linux with XFCE4.

That information panel/clock you have on the right of your desktop is very handy. Does it show/hide on mouseover? I also have XFCE4 (two weeks and counting) running on Ubuntu 12.04 and love it to bits, but haven't seen that panel anywhere previously.

[Jody Thornton]

I have tried Zorin OS (not really impressed). So far I really like Precise Puppy. Apparently I can install this to a hard disk partition too, though I may just perform a frugal installation. It runs quickly and for browsing and email, Seamonkey works just fine on it.

[ace2]

MY Slax 7.0.8 Setup Booting from HDD:

Start Menu:

http://s28.postimg.org/we2nu3u8d/Start_Menu.png

Home Folder:

http://s16.postimg.org/xibbndeph/Home_Folder.png

Firefox 28.0

http://s1.postimg.org/4bvjxkj8f/Firefox_28_0.png

System updated with:

abiword 2.8.6

Firefox 28.0

Flash Player 11.2.202.346

Java Plug-in 11.02 11.02 (JRE 8)

Themes used:

Window Decorations = Diamond BY staffck1

Desktop Theme = Diamond BY staffck1

NOTES:

Slax 7.0.8 ISO is just 226 MB and it works well with the right settings.