This time I decided to install Linux Mint Isadora KDE version. This may sound unfair based my previous review of Mandriva as I've been using Linux Mint for several releases but this is the first time I will use the KDE version, though.

I promise I'll try to be as picky and as unbiased as I possibly can.

The first thing that surprised me is that, although for the Gnome version there is a Live CD which is just 674 MB and a Live DVD which is 763, There is only a DVD version for KDE a whopping 1.3 GB. Still better than other distributions which are 2 to 4 GB.

A week ago someone at the KWLUG was talking about Mandriva, and I mentioned that I never warmed up to it.

That conversation left me intrigued so today I decided to give it a try once again.

This will be a play by play impression while I go through the install. Some of my comments may sound picky, but as first impressions count:

I'm all pumped up and ready to be wowed.

On inserting the disk I remembered why I hadn't been able to fully test it: the DVD is not a live version. No live DVD. Why? Do I need to download the CD to see if I like it and if I do then get the DVD?

-1

Maybe someone with better knowledge of USB can shed some light here:

I have an USB camera that I knew was working several Ubuntu versions ago. But under Karmic and Lucid it refused to work.

I knew that it was listed as supported; but after hours trying things I couldn't make it work.

Then I saw in a forum that someone said that as a final test he disconnected the USB hub and plugged in the camera directly to the computer. After that it worked, so he suspected the hub.

While preparing my Programming for Linux presentation I had to install the sun-java packages. I am using Kubuntu Lucid but couldn't find the packages.

I Googled and got here:

http://www.tolaris.com/2010/06/10/installing-sun-java-on-ubuntu-lucid

Besides learning how to install Java, I got a lesson in writing a "How-to".

From now on, if you see me doing it differently, just remind me of that how-to.

So, having acquired a new laptop, an ASUS Eee PC 1201N (Pros: dual core, bluetooth, hdmi out, 802.11n; Cons: not gigabit, not 5GHz 802.11n, takes 2x4GB memory but will only use 4GB of it, very poor battery life, $60 additional power adapters!), it seemed time to upgrade my wi-fi infrastructure too. Something gigabit with 802.11n and USB.

See Periodic reminder - kwlug.org has good stuff on it! for a summary.

I use Mint, an Ubuntu derivative, and every time I get a notification that there are updates available, I go check the list of updates.

I do this with several purposes in mind:

• First and foremost, I want to know what gets updated in case something stops working.
• Second, I want to see how many there are and how large to evaluate how long it's going to slow down my (old) computer
• and third, to learn a bit about the packages I have installed

In my previous post I explained how to install the Lexmark printer drivers in Ubuntu/Mint.

What I left out was how was I able to very easily identify what was the problem when all was finally installed and things weren't working.

It really came down to the Printer troubleshooting wizard included in Ubuntu/Mint.

Summary:
I've created a small script that does most of the work for me. I've used it successfully on varios versions of Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint and Puppy Linux, so I am certain that it should work in most distributions.

Here are the step by step instructions:

1. Ensure that the following commands are installed, if not, install them using your distribution regular mechanism: rpm2cpio, cpio, ldconfig. e.g. sudo aptitude install rpm2cpio