Linux - teach me the current state of the art

I have dabbled before, and run live CDs and such occasionally, but it's always been a bit of a struggle, and Tunawife never bought into the finished product, so with Windows, we remain.

It's a standard cheapo lappy running Windows 8. Its use is just internet/spreadsheet/document/occasional kid game.

I have used Ubuntu, and played with Mint once, but am open to whatever the flavor of the day is. Basically, I need someone telling me how to easily create a bootable USB key (not sure I even own blank CDs anymore) and load it with the required stuff somewhat quickly. I'd love to keep the touchscreen too.

For the Tunakid robotic project, I got the little NOOBS microSD card and I can totally handle that.

Use Mint (I recommend MATE desktop), their ISOs are a hybrid image that you can write directly to a USB drive with dd. A GUI tool to create bootable USB drives is on the Live CD.

I put Mint w/ MATE on my mom's laptop, she can use it and she's only barely computer-literate.

This post is coming from Xubuntu. Lightweight but still nice enough.

I'd be careful with Mint right now, with the recent backdooring of one of the ISOs and various other security issues the project has had.

I've used Mint a lot of the last few years but these days I'm going back to stock Ubuntu instead.

Mint's break-in has already been taken care of. I use Xubuntu on my home server, but these days if I was installing fresh I'd probably go with Mint w/ XFCE. The big differences between Mint and Ubuntu are GUI philosophy and package choice. Ubuntu likes their wacky new mobile-on-desktop interfaces, Mint likes more traditional desktop-oriented interfaces, and Ubuntu likes trendy new packages while Mint sticks to the tried-and-true staples. In other words Ubuntu has become a bit of a wandering hippie who wants to go out and try new things, while Mint is the reliable handyman with good communication skills that Ubuntu used to be

So what's going to give me painless change over from Windows 8, something that a kid can tap away at the screen and make the right stuff happen?

I put MINT on our "family" laptop and even my wife has had little trouble with it. Biggest annoyance is some network hard drive mounting I need to take care of to work more seamlessly.

neverware?

I've used a few linux distros, and none of them have been as trouble free as Windows or Mac.

https://www.linuxmint.com/

BTW, now that Netflix runs on Chrome on Linux... I don't have a compelling reason not to run it on a HTPC.

HTPC?

Also, can you address this?

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=127598

That's a couple of years old, Linux moves pretty fast so it may be much better these days. If you know the exact model that you're installing this on, it might be possible to find out whether the touchscreen works...otherwise you'll just have to try it to find out.

Edit: BTW, HTPC = Home Theatre PC

tuna55 wrote: HTPC?

HTPC => Home Theater PC

If you're looking to use a touch screen, you might want to try Unity.

Yeah unity is a good touchscreen environment but is resource intensive. I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 with the lxde environment. When I overhaul the system again I'll probably switch to mint.

No love for Fedora guys? Guys? ... < crickets >

scardeal wrote: BTW, now that Netflix runs on Chrome on Linux... I don't have a compelling reason not to run it on a HTPC.

I run OpenElec Linux w/Kodi front end on several Raspberry PI Single Board Computers ($35/ea with HDMI out, 1GHz proc, 1GB of RAM, etc.)

I don't have a Netflix account, but there are tons of Video streaming add-ons available as well as the capability of playing many local media solutions.

http://mymediaexperience.com/raspberry-pi-xbmc-with-raspbmc/

http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php/Raspberry_Pi

tuna55 wrote: HTPC? Also, can you address this? https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=127598

https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_rosa_mate_whatsnew.php

LinuxMint said: The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.

Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote:

tuna55 wrote: HTPC? Also, can you address this? https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=127598

https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_rosa_mate_whatsnew.php

LinuxMint said: The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.

Perfect!

I have Mint 17 on a HP Touchsmart TM2 - it has a full touchscreen and also has a neat little pull-out stylus. It works fully perfectly, the touch input is accurate and responds like it shoud everywhere.

I prefer the Cinnamon desktop or KDE to Mate, but use what you like the looks of. Cinnamon has an on-screen keyboard that puts a little icon in the notification panel - just tap it to bring up the keyboard. Perfect for using in tablet mode.

BTW everything worked instantly on install, even the notoriously finicky to set up Broadcom wireless chipset. The touch/stylus screen technology is by Wacom FWIW.

Sweet. Will try soon.

Been running Ubuntu since 2009. At that time it was touted the most "user friendly" and easiest to transition to from Windows. It has been just that and I have never looked back. Also have played with Mint and Bodhi, but currently using Ubuntu 14.04LTS.

slefain wrote:

I ran into that guy in real life last week. He looked like Santa Clause in person, but his T-shirt had "I'm a NERD!" in big letters on it. My first thought revolved around Unix/linux as well.

Kylini wrote: No love for Fedora guys? Guys? ... < crickets >

I run CentOS 6 for Hadoop/Solr/NiFi/etc. in a VM