Here goes!

So the first thing I needed to do was move all my files (music, documents, etc.) to my external usb hard drive because I would need to reformat that drive in order to install linux. As I did this, I found that several of the folders with music files in them would not copy or even open. Luckily, I had most of that music saved somewhere else, but it did show me that the drive was in need of some work anyway, so this linux install was looking like a better idea already.

One thing I'll mention right now that I didn't know when I started is that windows and linux use different filesystems. Chances are any newer windows drive is formatted NTFS, but linux uses ext3. As of right now, linux (without some help from some software) only mounts NTFS drives as read-only, which means that you can open the files on the drive, but no changes can be made to any of the files and no new files can be saved to the drive. Linux Mint (available at linuxmint.com) is one version that comes with a utility for mounting NTFS drives read-write right out of the box if this is especially important for you. As far as I can tell (although I'm not totally sure about this) windows doesn't recognize the linux filesystem at all.

I had installed ubuntu on a different computer and couldn't figure out how to install some drivers necessary for viewing web pages (java, flash, embedded windows video.) This was totally unacceptable to me and fed my fear of switching, as everything I saw on the web about it was command line stuff with lots of sudo's and such. I envisioned hours of searching the web for the appropriate commands and endless frustration when it still didn't work.

Then my computer programmer friend sent me a link to the Linux Mint website. Mint is an altered version of ubuntu that includes all of these drivers, as well as the NTFS and FAT drive mounting utility I mentioned above and even some common wireless drivers. We installed it on the machine we on which had previously put the ubuntu, and it worked great right out of the box, so I decided to use it for the family computer at home.

Just a moment to assure you that I'm not a Linux Mint salesman. Lately, ubuntu has released their new feisty fawn version that has made installing plugins, drivers, and codecs easier, and I'm a big fan. I'm also a very big fan of the xubuntu version which uses the xfce desktop instead of gnome. I recently installed the alternate version of xubuntu on a machine with only 128mb of ram that I friend gave to me and was watching streaming video on the web in less than 45 minutes! You couldn't even wipe your ass running windows with 128mb ram!

I'd speak about installing the linux mint on the family machine, but there's really not much to say. It was pretty easy; since I was just going to erase the whole drive, I could use the guided partitioning using the entire disk (the partitioning seems to me to be the hardest part of the install.) Everything went smoothly and in about twenty minutes, I had a brand new linux mint os. I plugged in my ethernet cable, opened firefox and checked my email.

It was a beautiful day.