Journal AmiMoJo's Journal: Switching to Linux Mint 10
I'm trying to switch away from Windows 8.1 because Windows 10 is just too much. Decided to start with Linux Mint in a VM.
Installation was smooth and easy. Went for Cinnamon because it's the recommended one. Coped with having a Japanese keyboard and English (not American) locale. Installation was very quick. On first boot a window appeared with some info, one of which was drivers. That offered to install an Intel microcode update so I went for it.
Set screen resolution. Mouse wheel seems laggy, need to look for mouse options later. First thing is updates. The update icon is in the tray area it seems. At first it wasn't doing anything... The output window said that updates were inhibited for some reason. I refreshed it a few times and it found some updates. Selected a local mirror.
Updates installed quickly and relatively easily. Only hitch was when it asked about some Gnome config file that had apparently been changed and did I want to overwrite with the one from the update. I have no idea, the diff output didn't really help so I just went with the updated file. Looked like it was just resetting some default apps.
After that it says my system is up to date (no reboot, much better than Windows) but there are two updates marked as level 5 red security updates... So not up to date? For some reason I have to manually select them, because why wouldn't I want level 5 red security updates..
I seem to be getting asked for my password a lot. Isn't once when I open the update app enough? Reminds me of the bad old days of Windows Vista with UAC prompts every 5 seconds for fairly common tasks.
The font rendering in the little "details" terminal window is crap. Linux has historically had bad font rendering... But most of it looks good. The high DPI support is a bit limited (only 1x or 2x scaling, nothing in-between) but it does at least seem to work reliably in my limited testing. No support for monitors with different scaling settings though (e.g. you have a laptop with 4k display and plug in a 2k external monitor), and lots of stuff seems to use bitmap graphics that look bad zoomed in.
Installed open-vm-tools, not sure if it actually did anything. Clipboard sharing doesn't seem to work.
Trying to get Japanese input to work is a real pain. I installed it as an input language, but it seems that I need to manually start Ibus. Found some instructions but they were out of date. The Ubuntu wiki says load it and press CTRL+space to activate, but it doesn't work. Tried changing it to CTRL+space in the prefs, didn't work. The IME switching key and the kana/roma switching keys don't work. Found a forum post that detailed how to make the daemon auto-start and suggested a restart may be required to make it work. Still did not work.
Gave up with the IME for now, but I need to get it working.
The mouse wheel is very slow. Should be easy to fix... But apparently it needs some hacking around with the command line. Can't be bothered right now... I mean, it's a basic preference. Pick this up later.
Adjust your vm (Score:2)
But before doing that, turn off virtual memory on the real machine. If you have 4 gig or more, you don't need it. Split total memory in half between the real machine and the vm (and make sure it stays that way). Ditto with the number of cores (for some reason, it reverted to 1 core for the vm instead of 4 a couple of times). That fixed the mouse.
If it's still crappy, turn off all indexing. Same as with Windows - indexing is for people who have no clue how to organize a file system. 4 gig for the host, 4 g
Re: (Score:2)
32GB RAM, 4 core CPU with 8 threads, fast SSD drives... I know VMWare disks are slow but I'm kind of amazed how long it takes to open fairly small apps. Maybe it's just the VM, which I dedicated 8GB and 4 cores to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I tried Ubuntu in a VM, wouldn't even boot. I think I'm going to have to try it on real hardware. Mint too. But I'll give your suggestions a go first. USB 3 and maybe UEFI should avoid lots of legacy issues.
How your eye gets better. I'm having vision problems too and it sucks not being able to see well.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for asking. The eyes are "interesting." The docs managed to save the vision in both, but the left is distorted from the vitrectomy. There's no more room for pan-retinal photocoagulation, and all the work has caused premature cataracts in both eyes. There's neovascularization in the angle of both eyes, so both need to be monitored every 3 months for glaucoma.
The good news is that, while I can't really read with either eye, I can read with both (bit of a pain, but hey, I'm not going to complain). It's
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, my issues are relatively trivial compared to that lot. I suffered from depression too, wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I know how you feel with the medical stuff. Lots of information, conflicting advice, people who don't seem to really understand your situation or see the whole picture. In the end the best treatment I got was when I started to just figure things out for myself and order the relevant medication online.
It does help to have a cause. Mine is my fiancee. I know, mind blown, right? I'm not actu
Re: (Score:2)
Milo deplatformed? I wouldn't bother - he's a useful idiot, same as the former governor of North Carolina with his HB2 bathroom bill that backfired on him. Same as Trump is doing more damage to the tea party in 2 months than ... well, than anyone ever. Now the party has no choice - it has to either re-invent itself as a party that actually listens to the majority, or die. Already, they've pretty much moved away from defunding medicaid because too many of the "white trash racists" who voted for them depend o
Re: (Score:2)
You make a good point. The fall of Milo did more to damage the alt-right and the asshats who follow him than any external force ever could have. He was built up as the acceptable face of it, the likeable and funny guy with a sophistic answer for everything, which just made his fall even harder and more devastating for the movement he was figurehead of.
It's hard to imagine what the next four years will be like with Trump. Having failed at basically everything so far, with little prospect of getting much done
Passwords (Score:2)
I don't know what I'm doing different, but the only times I get password prompts is when I do updates or install new software. I can't recall get them any other time.
My mouse and trackpad seem to work fine, no lag or delay that I can detect.
As for Japanese input, I have no experience in that so I don't know what to suggest there.
The other distro I would suggest trying is Chapeau (chapeaulinux.org). Seems to be optimized for user space and people who need to run Windows apps like Photoshop, MS Office, etc. I
Re: (Score:2)
Mint was supposed to be the chosen one... But I'm going to try Ubuntu and Chapeau too, because Mint isn't doing it for me.