Linux Mint 7 is the latest incarnation of the Ubuntu based distribution. Read on to find out why it might just displace Windows as my primary OS.
I have tried dozens of Linux distributions over the years, and very few have been installed on my system for more than a few days. Once the novelty of a new interface, a new bunch of applications and that warm glow that comes from being just a little bit geekier wears off I find myself facing the same dilemma: Windows worked, and the applications I was used to were mostly Windows based. It's not that I couldn't learn to use, or even love, Linux; it's just that I didn't have time.
Linux Mint 7 has been gaining some press lately, and I found myself once again curious to see if I could actually make the move from Windows. I wasn't expecting much. For all of it's popularity, Ubuntu always had some deal breaking issue that I just couldn't be bothered fixing which meant that it was removed in favour of Windows within a few days.
I was pleasantly surprised when Linux Mint 7 first booted up. The interface was clean and unobtrusive: I never much cared for the two bars that Ubuntu defaults to. I especially like the Mint menu. It has everything you need right there in the favourites, and the same search functionality that, since Vista, I can't live without.
The real test, and one that Ubuntu has failed so far, was getting connected to the Internet. I have a 3G wireless connection, which I have never gotten to work properly in Linux. So I plugged in the USB adapter and expected the worst. Imagine my surprise when a dialog box popped up asking me to set up a connection. Hell, it even had a list of network providers, with dial up numbers and APN's already set.
The shine came off when, after establishing a connection, I couldn't open a web page or ping a site. It was one of those fatal flaws that has inevitably led to Linux being removed in favour of Windows again. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to spend a few minutes trying to solve the problem. After some mucking around I eventually worked out the the static DNS servers that were specified in the connection were incorrect. After adding the OpenDNS servers (I keep the IP addresses of the OpenDNS servers in my mobile phone for just such an occasion) I was up and running.