Now you've tried Mint, you'll want to install it properly. If you're currently running Windows, there are two ways ...

The really easy way

Pop in the bootable download disk you created last time and wait for AutoPlay to start.





Choose Run mint4win.exe and and click Install inside Windows. (You'll need 4GB of free disk space.)






Enter your password, click Install ...





... and you're away.





Once the files have been copied, you'll be given the option to reboot. Choose Yes and the installation will complete.

After that, each time you boot you'll be given choice of which operating system to run ...





... followed by the usual Grub / Linux menu.





If you later want to remove Linux Mint, boot into Windows and remove the program via Control Panel in the usual way.

As you'll note from the Linux Mint Menu (above), the only downsides to this method are that Hibernation won't work and there's a slight disk performance hit. To do a 'proper' install, you need ...

The easy way

Insert the bootable download disk (or USB) you created last time and reboot the machine. (If you have trouble getting a USB stick to boot, check out these links.)

Wait till Linux Mint starts, then click the Install Linux Mint icon.





Work through the first couple of screens headed Welcome and Preparing to install until you come to one headed Installation type. Hopefully you'll have an option like this ...





Obviously, Install Linux Mint alongside Windows is the option to pick. Click it, and you're away.

However, if Windows is occupying all of your hard disk space, you'll only get a choice of two items ...





You can choose Something else and work through repartitioning the disk yourself, but if you're new to all this and are currently running Windows 7, there's an easier way. Try this: Making space for Linux Mint in Windows 7.

If you're using Windows XP, you have a little more work to do. Try this: Making space for Linux Mint in Windows XP.

The rest of the installation is very straightforward and will take around 10-15 minutes. At the end you'll be prompted to reboot, and when you do you'll see a menu like this allowing you to choose between Linux Mint and Windows ...



Select your desired operating system and you're away!

Making space for Linux Mint in Windows 7

In Windows 7, making space for Linux Mint is easy.

Click the Start button, type "partitions" in the Search panel and choose Create and format hard disk partitions.






Right-click the C: drive and choose Shrink Volume ...





The system will check to see how much space is free ...






... and you can then enter a suitable shrink value. Linux Mint will run in as little as 4GB but I'd suggest using at least 10GB.





When it's done, you'll have a new partition containing unallocated space.





You don't need to format this. Linux Mint will spot it and sort it out when you next boot from the LM boot disk. Do that and head back to The easy way.

Alternatively, you might want to install LM with full control over the partitions it uses. In which case, go here.

Making space for Linux Mint in Windows XP

First off, defragment the disk and check it for errors. In Windows:

• Start My Computer or Explorer, right-click the C: drive and choose Properties.

• Click the Tool tab and choose Defragment Now.

• When that's done, click on the Check Now button under Error Checking. This will require a reboot.

• When XP restarts, it'll do the error-checking then open normally. Shut it down again and boot the Linux Mint installation disk.

While that's going on, make a few notes. How much RAM do you have? And how much disk space do you want to give to Linux Mint?

Controlling the partitions used by Linux Mint

Whether you install alongside Windows XP or Windows 7, you may want to work through a "full" installation where you control which partitions LM uses. Here goes ...

In the example below I have 4GB of RAM and have decided to split my 100GB disk in half. Although LM will run in 4GB of disk space, you'll probably want room for your files and to install other stuff so I'd recommend at least 10GB.

The ideal way to install Linux is to spread it over three partitions: a root partition (/) to store all system and program files, a swap partition (/swap) for temporary storage, and a home partition (/home) for all user files. This isn't compulsory. You can install it all under a / (root) partition and ignore the swap file, but the three-partition split recommended.

Calculations I've decided to split my disk between Windows and Linux. The current size is 107,373MB (107GB) so that's 53,686MB (53.5GB) each operating system. I'm going to give / (root) 15GB of space. I have 4GB of RAM so that's what I'll allocate to /swap. And the remaining space can go to /home.

Boot the Linux Mint disk, choose Install Linux Mint and work your way through to the Installation Type screen. Here select the option Something Else.





This will display of your current disk(s). Linux uses a more logical disk labelling system than Windows. All disks are prefixed with /dev (for "device") then either "/sd" for "SATA drive" or "/hd" for a regular hard drive followed by a letter: "a" for the first drive, "b" for the second, etc. The partition number then follows. Primary partitions are numbered 1-4 for historical reasons, and so-called "logical" partitions from 5 onwards.



In this case we have one single 100GB partition (/dev/sda1) occupying the whole disk.



Select /dev/sda1 partition and click Change.





This will open the Edit a partition window.



All we want to change here is the size of the partition. I've decided to split my disk in half so 107,373 divided by 2 is the figure I enter here. Don't click on anything else apart from OK as we don't actually want to use the Windows partition, just resize it.



Ta-da! We've created some free space!





Let's split that up as per our calculations. Select free space and click Add.




Enter the size of the / (root) partition -- in thousands of megabytes. Click the arrow head beside Mount point and choose /. Then click OK.





Done. We've added a 15GB logical partition.





Scroll down, select the remaining free space and click Add.





This time we're adding the /swap partition (4GB). Simply select swap area in the Use as dropdown and click OK.





Done.





All that remains it to set the remaining free space to /home. Select it and click Add.





We want to use all the remaining space so simply select the /home Mount point and click OK.





All finished. Here's how the new partition layout looks:



Click Install Now and continue.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:38 AM | Comments ( 0 )

Now that you've acquired Linux Mint, you have a number of choices in how you install and/or use it. We'll look at the pros and cons of each.

Booting from CD (or DVD)

If you have a magazine cover disk or have burnt a CD/DVD from your download ISO, it's just a a matter of slipping in the disk and rebooting your PC. This is often touted as a great way to try out Linux. I disagree. Optical drives are just too damn slow. Unless you're merely booting the disk to actually install Linux on a hard drive, I don't recommend it.

Pros

• Simple: just pop in the disk and reboot.
• Non-invasive: There's nothing to install.
• Compatability: A good way to check your basic hardware will work with Linux.
• Installation: A very easy way to install Linux to a hard disk drive.
  

Cons

• Speed: It's slo-o-o-ow! Running for CD will give you nothing like the performance of a hard disk-based installation.
• Saving: While you can save data to your hard disk or USB drive, you can't update the OS itself.

Running from a USB drive

This is a much better option than running Linux from a CD or DVD -- especially if you're using USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 -- but it's only available to file downloaders.

You need two things to create a bootable Linux USB drive: the downloaded ISO image file and a copy of the Universal USB Installer from Pendrivelinux.com. Creating a bootable drive is a simple, two-step process and it's fully documented on the Pendrive website.




Pros

• Quick: Close to hard disk drive speeds.
• Portable: You can carry it with you and use it any PC.
  

Cons

• Reboot required: You'll have to reboot the PC to use Linux.
• ISO required: You need an ISO image first, and that means a download.

In a virtual machine

Virtual machines are a great way to try Linux. In fact they're a great way to try a variety of Linuxes!

What is a virtual machine? It's a piece of software that runs on your computer and simulates ... a raw computer. A more formal definition is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". What that means in practical terms is that you can do stuff like this ...



Yes, that's Windows 7, Android and Pinguy Linux all running inside my regular Kubuntu Linux distribution courtesy of VirtualBox --  a free  virtualisation program for Linux, Mac and Windows machines.


Pros

• Easy: You can try out a variety of operating systems to see which you prefer.
• Multiformat: Build virtual machines from disks or ISO images -- without having to write them to disk first!
• No reboot: Virtual machines run inside you running OS so there's no need to reboot.
  
• Full-screen: VMs can run in a window or full-screen.
• Fun: You can mess about with a VM and try things you wouldn't normally risk on a regular install.
• Speedy: Depending on what else you're running, a VM can perform almost as fast as your regular machine -- dependent of course on good hardware.
  

Cons

• Hardware: You need plenty of RAM and plenty of disk space and fast CPU for good performance.
• Graphics: Graphics drivers in VB are good, but they don't handle all the fancy stuff many modern graphics cards are capable of.
• A little too easy?: See below ...
  

Installing as alternative operating system

The real way to try Linux is to install it in parallel with your current operating system. That way you'll give it full access to all your hardware and allow it to fully exploit the capacity of your PC. But there's another more subtle reason I suggest a multi-boot installation. It involves a bit of psychology.

More than a decade ago I set myself the task of using nothing but Linux for a month. The long-term result surprised even me: I've used little else ever since. It's that good (and was, even back then). But Linux is different. There are things that will seem strange at first -- but only because they're new -- and there is a learning curve. By immersing yourself in it, you'll soon learn its nuances.

Running it as a VM is fine, but the moment you encounter something a bit tricky, the temptation is to flip back and do it in your old OS. Result: you learn nothing. I don't know about you, but if I'm faced with a reboot I tend to think "I'll just try googling for that first ..."

That was the way I learned Linux ... and came to love it!




Pros

• Hardware: It fully exploits that capacity of your hardware, at full speed too!
• Full immersion: The best way to learn Linux.

Cons

• Reboot required: You'll have to reboot the PC to use your other OS.

I'll be stepping you through a full Linux Mint installation next time.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 7:31 AM | Comments ( 0 )

It's deja vu all over again! Yes, I know I started a Beginning Linux series a short while back, but I realised part way through that I'd made a mistake: I used Ubuntu. I don't really have anything against Ubuntu. In fact I've been using one variety of it, Kubuntu, for years. But Ubuntu changed to the Unity interface last year and it hasn't been popular. That may be coming right with this month's release of version 12.4, and there are indications that Canonical are moving the same interface to smartphones and tellies, but the fact is that most people are used more tradtional menu-driven interfaces on the desktop. Expecting them to embrace a new OS and a new GUI paradigm might have been a bit much.

So, allow me to introduce Linux Mint 12.



LM is based on Ubuntu, it's been No. 1 on the DistroWatch downloads list for some time now, and print mag users will find a copy on this month's (April's) cover disc.

For everyone else, you have a choice of downloads.

32-bit or 64-bit?

Well, what can your PC handle? Linux, unlike Windows, has had wide-ranging support for 64-bit PCs for some time, but if you're in doubt, go for 32-bit. To be honest it doesn't make a huge amount of difference, except that you won't be able to access more than 4GB of RAM. (Note: the cover disc distro is 32-bit.)

CD or DVD?

The difference here is one of download size. Here's the summary;

CD (32-bit)	620MB
CD (64-bit)	634MB
DVD (32/64-bit)	1GB

Note that the CD doesn't include multimedia support and a few extra applications. That's because support for some of that stuff is restricted in the US and Japan. But adding them is only a matter of a single click, and we'll be covering that ...

KDE or LXDE?

KDE and LXDE (like Ubuntu's Unity) are essentially different graphical interfaces that sit on top of Linux, giving it a whole different look and feel. They also have different applications associated with them, giving them different download sizes.

KDE (32/64-bit)	1.1GB
LXDE (32-bit only)	657MB

We'll stick with LM's default GUI for the time being (Gnome 3), but later on I'll show you how you can add other GUI front-ends to your installation and try them out.

It's worth noting that LXDE (and it's suite of applications) is aimed at older, less sprightly PCs.

Download via torrent or mirror?

That's up to you. You'll find a ton of seeders for the main (CD, 32-bit) download, so that should be quicker. With my fairly snappy cable connection, the torrent took 5-7 minutes whereas a mirror invariably takes 20-25. If you use a mirror, choose a nearby one like Australia.

Check what you've got

Check the MD5 signature to confirm you've got a valid download. If you already use Linux, that's as simple as opening a terminal window, changing to the directory containing the download and typing md5sum filename.

Windows users should visit etree.org and download md5sum.exe.







If you get a match with the MD5 figure published on the site, we're ready to rock!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:33 AM | Comments ( 0 )

How can a company you've never heard of know about your browsing habits? One way is via what's called a "cross-site request". Visit website X and they in turn call on items from sites Y and Z, effectively giving them access to your browser. I recently wrote about Collusion, a natty little add-on that highlights these some of these hidden linkages. Now programmer Tom Anthony has "found a way to abuse the login mechanism for both Twitter and Google to detect whether a user is logged in to that service."

In a post entitled "Detect if visitors are logged into Twitter, Facebook or Google+" he details how you can do the same on your website and provides a simple demonstration of what he calls his Social Network Login Status Detector.





Should third-parties be able to tell where you're logged in -- and even that you even actually have these accounts? I don't think so. Yet another reason to use add-ons such as NoScript or RequestPolicy!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:46 PM | Comments ( 0 )

Did you miss our April fool's roundup? Well here's a few more you may have missed ...

Google's new Really Advanced Search form gives you a multitude of new options including:





Software freedom activist Richard Stallman is to launch his own fashion line.



”Walking down the halls of MIT, I’d often see my colleagues dressed rather shabbily, and it was then that I decided to do something about it. I’m not an expert when it comes to fashion, but people have always loved my dressing style, and it’s about time I shared my expertise with everyone.„



How about the new Justin Bieber Linux distribution, Biebian?



It includes ten of his latest chart-topping tracks and a hand-picked collection of Justin Bieber wallpapers, emoticons, and icons. I can't wait!


There's new eyeware from Canonical.



A groundbreaking face-mounted productivity solution.
"Don't call it an interface. Call it an inter-FACE."


And speaking of Canonical, apparently they're teaming up with Microsoft to combine the Windows Metro interface with Ubuntu's Unity to create a new UI called iMeUnity. It'll make its first appearance in the Ubuntu release code named Tortuous Terrapin. (The announcement contains plenty of links, including an almost obligatory rickroll. Yeah, they got me!)


Wow! You don't need the internet to watch YouTube any more. It's all now available on DVD. Yes, every YouTube video uploaded, ever!



Order your boxed set today!



And finally, have you tried out Chrome's brilliant new way to multitask yet?



Watch the video then try out Multitask Mode for yourself. Awesome!
Remember, "More mice, more friends, more fun!"

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:03 AM | Comments ( 0 )

Issues with iPad 3's overheating are getting a fair amount of coverage — see here, here, here and here — and this has prompted a couple of nice spoofs. There's this from MaximumPC:


We Heard The New iPad Has Thermal Issues, But Ours Seems Just Fine

And under the headline "Apple to charge iPad owners for central heating", the UK's Daily Mash "reported" the words of Apple chief Tim Cook:

"Because automatic downloads are secretly impossible to prevent, we can effectively control the temperature of your home. This gives you the exciting choice of giving us more money or living in a pizza oven."

They reckon that:

Apple will shortly release a heat resistant mat for iPad users that want to play Scrabble over the internet for more than 30 minutes without having to wear ceramic trousers. Called the 'iSbestos', it will come in a range of sleek, funky designs and retail at £1200.

But all is not lost of Apple avoiders:

Meanwhile, Samsung's rival Galaxy Tab will come with a free set of curling tongs so that people who cannot afford an iPad can still burn themselves really badly.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:08 AM | Comments ( 0 )

With a sound like a pistol shot, Collusion tracks another tracker ...



If you have the slightest interest in your online privacy, then Collusion is a must-have add-on for Firefox. It tracks, in real-time, who's watching you as you browse.

Unveiled a couple of weeks ago, it's "an experimental add-on ... [that] allows you to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web. It ... show[s], in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers," according to Mozilla.

Not only that, but they plan to build a database of the worst offenders and make it available to privacy campaigners.

Installation

Installation's a doddle. Just visit the add-on's homepage, click the Add to Firefox button and then Install Now. Once it's downloaded it'll add a tiny icon to the bottom right corner of your browser window ...



Click it and a new browser window will open, showing how you're being tracked.



Hover over a link to highlight its connections ...




If you click Site Info on the side panel, you'll get more details ...




It's fascinating -- and disturbing -- stuff. Oh, and beautifully implemented too!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:53 PM | Comments ( 1 )

The US government are apparently spending US$8 billion a year on those controversial full body scanners. Here's a simple way to hack them ...



More details here.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:44 PM | Comments ( 0 )

Okay, you've tried it but you just can't abide Ubuntu's Unity interface. Not a problem, this is Linux. You can change practically everything!

But before you ditch it completely, you might be interested in an addition that allows you to make some quite extensive changes to the interface. It's called MyUnity and can be installed with the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:myunity/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install myunity

Run it from Dash and it will allow you to;

• resize the Unity Launcher
• show devices on the Unity Launcher
• adjust the transparency of the Unity Launcher
• change behavior of the Unity Launcher
• change the display method of the Unity Launcher
• change the Backlight settings of the Unity Launcher
• change the Unity Dash blur
• adjust the transparency of the Unity Panel
• show "Home" folder on the desktop
• show "Networking" folder on the desktop
• show devices on the desktop
• show "Trash" folder on the desktop
• change the system font
• change the document font
• change the Monospace font
• change font's antialiasing settings
• change font's hinting settings
• reset all settings to default

Still hate Unity? Okay, let's move on.

Technically, Unity is known as a window manager, which is simply a system for placing and arranging windows on a graphical interface. You can add a number of window managers to Ubuntu, and they'll all happily co-exist side-by-side. All you'll need is a bit of disk space and broadband connection.

To install Ububtu's former interface -- Gnome -- just type the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

It'll download around 40MB of data.

To use it, click the gear in the top right-hand corner and choose Log Out.



Then simply log back in again, but before you do so, click the gear on the login panel and choose "Gnome Classic".



Done. A whole new inteface to explore!



When you reboot, Linux will remember whatever window manager you selected last and treat it as the default so there's no need to repeat the above if you log out and log back in again.

It's technically possible to install other Ubuntu-based window managers such as Lubuntu or Kubuntu in the same way, simply doing sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop or sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, but this is not something I'd recommend if you're just starting out with Linux. Not only do they each require downloading an extra 300-400MB of applications and data, but they should really be run from different display managers too -- which can all get a bit confusing. Let's stick with what we've got for now!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 11:50 AM | Comments ( 0 )

Ubuntu's Unity interface is a step away from traditional graphical user interfaces. The intention is to make it the basis of a standard interface for everything from PCs to tablets to phones, and it's implementation has been somewhat controversial. It's predicated on two main ideas; that most users only ever use a handful of applications, and that people prefer to search for things by typing -- as they do on the web -- rather than going through going through arcane menus and clicking on drop-downs. I take issue with the second of those, but before abandoning the interface entirely -- this is Linux, after all! -- it's worth exploring Unity to see what it has to offer.

Unity vs Unity 2D

There are two distinct forms of Unity -- Unity and Unity 2D -- and they look almost identical, but they are built very differently. The default, Unity, (sometimes called "Unity 3D"), uses the Compiz window manager and your fancy 3D graphics card to add all sorts of eye candy like translucency and cool 3D graphical effects. It's really designed for modern hardware. Older gear will perform better with Unity 2D.

The easiest way to tell what you're running is to move your cursor over the Dash button:




But that may change in future versions. A more reliable way is to type this command in terminal window:

echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

A return value of "ubuntu" means Unity (3D), while "ubuntu-2d" means Unity 2D.

You can select which version to run at login. Just click the gear icon before you enter your password.



Whatever you select will automatically become the default, so there's no need to repeat this process every login.

Unity's Launcher

The Launcher -- that icon bar on the left -- is Unity's most obvious feature. Click on a button and the application will start. Running apps get a little arrow head on the left, while the one currently in the foreground also scores an arrow on the right:



Left-clicking a Launcher button will bring an already open application to the foreground, but what if you want to open a separate copy? Easy, just click it with the middle button of your mouse instead. (If you only have a two-button mouse, right-click the Launcher button and choose New.)

Unity will track each separate opening of the same application by adding a check mark to the left ...



... so here I have three instances of Terminal running

The exception to all of the above is the Dash button at the top of the Launcher. This is the place you search for and start apps not already on the Launcher. Once an app is started, if you want to keep it there for easy access in future, just right-click it and tick Keep in Launcher:



To remove an item from the Launcher, right-click it and untick Keep in Launcher.

To re-order items, simply left-click the icon and drag it to where you want.

As the Launcher fills, items on the bottom will stack. Just move the cursor over them and they'll unpack.



With items unstacked, use the mouse's scroll wheel to move through the list, or left-click and drag to move quickly up and down the list.

Unity has a number of nifty screen-space saving features like hide-away scroll bars that only appear if you need them.



One initially confusing aspect for many new users is the apparent absence of menus. (This is even more disturbing if you maximise an app because the Exit, Maximise and Window buttons disappear too!) To find them again, just move the cursor to the Status Bar at the top of the screen ...



... or press the <Alt> key.


Unity has a heap of keyboard shortcuts built-in. Here are some of the most useful:
(Note: The Meta key is the one with the (shudder) Windows logo on it.)

Meta	Tap to open the Dash. Tap to close it again.
Meta	Hold it down to reveal the Launcher and number launchable applications. (See below.)
Meta + 1 thru to Meta + 0	Start Launcher item number n or switch to it if it's already running. (Hold down Shift to open a new window.)
Meta + A	Open the Application selector.
Meta + F	Open Files and Folders.
Meta + T	Open Trash.
Ctrl + Alt + T	Open a Terminal window.
Alt	Reveal the Application menu.
Alt + Tab	Switch between windows.

Hidden Linuxy Goodness

There are a few other things you may not be aware of -- what I like to call hidden Linuxy goodness. For example, you actually have four separate workspaces available by default. That means, for example, you could do word processing in workspace #1, email and web browsing in space #2, programming in space #3, etc. and simply switch between them.



This is where the next set of shortcut keys kick in:

Ctrl + Alt + Arrow keys	Shift between workspaces
Meta + S	Activate the workspace switcher, zooming out on all of them.
Meta + W	Show all windows from all workspaces.
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Arrow keys	Move the current window to a different workspace.

Another way of performing that last command is to right-click in an application's Title Bar and choose Move to Another Workspace.

Perhaps you're now thinking that Unity's not so scary after all. Personally, I rather like it. But if you'd like to try something more conventional, tune in next time. Complete reconfiguration is only a few commands away ...

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 11:04 PM | Comments ( 3 )