[Coco] Linux Flavour

[Francis Swygert]

Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 23:16:05 -0600
From: Bill Nobel <b_nobel at hotmail.com>

Hey
 All.  I have a extra laptop that I want to put Linux onto.  What 
flavour should I grab. I am trying out Debian 7 right now  I would like 
to have a Drivewire client on this machine through a emulator of some 
sort

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Bill, is that ALL you want to do with it -- run a CoCo emulator and/or use it as a Drivewire client?  If so look at something like DSL (Damn Small Linux) or Puppy Linux. Those are small distros that don't include a lot of "fluff" or added programs. If you want a full featured OS complete with apps for general computer use then you can't go wrong with Mint. I'm running Mint 9 on an old laptop (Pentium 800 -- and Gene thinks HIS is "long in the tooth"!!), 12 or 13 on my main system. I also run it on my entertainment system (use it instead of a DVD player, and watch Netflix and such... Netflix through XP on Virtual Box, as it requires MS Silverlight). There are LTS releases of it also. If you have a fairly modern computer with at least a dual core processor I'd run the latest LTS release. I need to upgrade to that myself, but this will be the first time I've upgraded and I'm a bit reluctant to do it for fear of losing something... my main system is very
 reliable and I depend on it. I tried newer versions on the old laptop, but they don't run as fast. So with a single core system Mint 9 is about it. 


The main thing I like about Mint is it's more ready to go right off the live DVD than even Windows -- any version! The Mint developers mirror Ubuntu (it's Ubuntu based, as Gene mentioned), but the big thing is Mint includes ALL drivers and codecs you might need. Doesn't matter if they aren't open source, as long as they are free to use the Mint guys put them on. So no need to hunt proprietary drivers for video cards or codecs to play certain video or audio files -- it's all there. I tried several distros before settling on Mint and kicking Windows as my main OS. I have VB installed with XP on it for the few times I need something from MS (one of my bank accounts uses a system that only works on Internet Explorer, and Magic Jack only works on Windows... though I don't really use my old MJ any more... I recommend the one that doesn't need a computer if you do).  I also bought CrossOver so I can load and run most Windows programs directly from Linux and not
 use VB (I haven't tried running IE that way... maybe I should... but don't use it much). You don't have to buy anything, you can load WINE and do the same. CrossOver is a commercial version of WINE that has a much easier to use loader and some other tools -- just easier to use. I also bought PageStream DTP software. Could have used the free open source program Scribus, but I needed a DTP program that was full fledged and ready to go. I don't mind paying reasonable prices for good software no matter what the OS. Good programmers and companies that support their products deserve to get some reward from it. Big companies (like Adobe and whoever makes Quark Express) that charge big money just because they can don't impress me much. $800 or $150 for good DTP software... take your pick! I used Aldus (then Adobe) PageMaker when it was good DTP software (bought used so I could afford it), but needed something different when it changed from DTP to all purpose,
 and became much harder to use. PageStream was the answer, and I really like it! 

 
Frank Swygert 
Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service 
803-604-6548