From Windows to Linux

In the past few days I've made a dramatic transition from Windows to Linux. I have been a Windows user since Windows 95, and I liked Windows 7 but it just ran slower and slower until it was finally intolerable. After many tries and extra help, I could not figure out what was wrong. Probably a re-installation would have worked. But I decided to try something else first.

I have always been curious about Linux, so I installed Ubuntu 11.10. It took some getting used to. There were many positive features, but Ubuntu included some features that I could not get used to. I was not happy with the Unity desktop. The absence of a taskbar was irritating.

So I happened to see a mention of Linux Mint in PCWorld of all places, and liked what I read about it on the Internet. The installation went well but with one or two hitches. The first time I ran Mint it would not boot up. After a second installation it did. This has been a problem.

I chose Linux Mint 13 (64 bit) with the Mate desktop. Yes, one reason I like it is that it's a lot like Windows. It has the familiar taskbar. The Menu on the bottom left of the screen corresponds to the Start menu, but of course different. My Word documents work well in LibreWriter, and even my docx documents quickly load, which Ubuntu could not do at all.

I had trouble setting up network printing in Ubuntu, working on it for days. But now that I understand more about how to do it, I had network printing working in Mint right away. 

My curiosity about Linux, however, is not satisfied. I'd like to know more, and I might be willing to try other distributions. But for now I'm happy with Mint.