The Perfect Desktop - Linux Mint 9 (Isadora)

Version 1.0

Author: Falko Timme

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This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 9 (Isadora) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Linux Mint 9 is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 10.04 that has lots of packages in its repositories (like multimedia codecs, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth, etc.) that are relatively hard to install on other distributions; it therefore provides a user-friendly desktop experience even for Linux newbies.

I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

To fully replace a Windows desktop, I want the Linux Mint 9 desktop to have the following software installed:

Graphics:

The GIMP - free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop

F-Spot - full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop

Google Picasa - application for organizing and editing digital photos

Internet:

Firefox

Opera

Flash Player 10

FileZilla - multithreaded FTP client

Thunderbird - email and news client

Evolution - combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions

aMule - P2P file sharing application

Transmission BitTorrent Client - Bittorrent client

Vuze - Java Bittorrent client

Pidgin - multi-platform instant messaging client

Skype

Google Earth

Xchat IRC - IRC client

Office:

OpenOffice Writer - replacement for Microsoft Word

OpenOffice Calc - replacement for Microsoft Excel

Adobe Reader

GnuCash - double-entry book-keeping personal finance system, similar to Quicken

Scribus - open source desktop publishing (DTP) application

Sound & Video:

Amarok - audio player

Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio editor

Banshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats and synchronize music with Apple iPods

MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA

Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apple's iTunes, with support for iPods

gtkPod - software similar to Apple's iTunes, supports iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod mini

XMMS - audio player similar to Winamp

dvd::rip - full featured DVD copy program

Kino - free digital video editor

Sound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various audio codecs

VLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)

RealPlayer - media player

Totem - media player (video/audio)

Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs

Brasero - CD/DVD burning program

K3B - CD/DVD burning program

Multimedia Codecs

Programming:

KompoZer - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver, but not as feature-rich (yet)

Bluefish - text editor, suitable for many programming and markup languages

Quanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG editor

Other:

VirtualBox - lets you run your old Windows desktop as a virtual machine under your Linux desktop, so you don't have to entirely abandon Windows

TrueType fonts

Java

Read-/Write support for NTFS partitions

All desired applications are available in the Linux Mint repositories.

As you might have noticed, a few applications are redundant, for example there are two CD/DVD burning applications in my list (Brasero, K3B). If you know which one you like best, you obviously don't need to install the other applications, however if you like choice, then of course you can install both. The same goes for music players like Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox, XMMS or browsers (Firefox, Opera).

I will use the username falko in this tutorial. Please replace it with your own username.

2 Installing The Base System

The installation of the base system is easy as 1-2-3 because the Linux Mint installer doesn't offer a lot of options to choose from, so you cannot go wrong.

Download the Linux Mint 9 Live DVD iso image from http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php, burn it onto a DVD, and boot your computer from it (please note that I used the Live DVD iso image instead of the Live CD iso image; the Live DVD comes with some additional software such as Java, VLC, F-Spot that get installed by default, whereas they are missing if you install from the Live CD; if you use the Live CD, you must install these applications from the Synaptic Package Manager):

The system boots and starts a desktop that is run entirely in the RAM of your system (the Linux Mint installation DVD is also a Live-DVD) without changing anything on your hard disk. This has the advantage that you can test how Linux Mint works on your hardware before you finally install it.

This is how the Linux Mint desktop looks. Double-click the Install Linux Mint icon on the desktop to start the installation to the hard drive:

The installer starts. First, select your language:

Then choose your time zone:

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Change the keyboard layout, if necessary:

Now we come to the partitioning of our hard disk. Usually Erase and use the entire disk is a good choice, unless you need custom partitions and know what you're doing. Erase and use the entire disk will create one big / partition for us:

Type in your real name, your desired username along with a password, and click on Forward:Advertisement

The next screen shows us a summary of the installation settings. Click on Install to start the installation:

The Linux Mint system is being installed. This can take a few minutes, so be patient:

After the installation is complete, we must reboot the system to use it. Click on Restart now:

The Live-CD desktop shuts down. At the end, the Linux Mint CD is ejected. Remove it from the CD drive and hit the <ENTER> key to boot into your new Linux Mint desktop:

Your new Linux Mint system starts. Log in to the desktop with the username and password you provided during installation:Advertisement

When you log in for the first time, you will see the following help window. Click on Close:

This is how your new desktop looks:

Now the base system is ready to be used.