On the top of my head
Linux Mint 13 Maya is the current LTS (Long Term Support) version. It has full support for 5 years. Still quite some time left on that
Normal versions like the current 15 Olivia, which I'm running, have 1,5 years support.

I'm using LXDE as my desktop environment. After trying Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE. LXDE is a lightweight one, like XFCE. Also like XFCE after booting the computer it just uses over 400 MB RAM. While other DE's are pushing close to 1 GB already. Just for themselves.

Updating and installing additional software is very easy.

The system itself checks automatically if there are updates available. And will notify you if there are. In the tray you have a shield icon. Normally it should have a green V icon. Meaning the system is up to date. If it turns into a blue one, Linux has updates for you. Not only for it's system files. But programs, such as for example Firefox, as well.

Just click on the icon. Enter your password, and Linux will show you the updates. After that just click install everything. And Linux will download and install the updates for you. No reboot required afterwards.

Installing/removing software goes very similar. Start up Software Manager. Which you will find in Preferences in LXDE. Similar in XFCE. Mint and Cinnamon have an extra link straight on the main start menu panel.

Again Software Manager will ask for your password. The manager is easy to use. Programs are sorted into categories. And you can also search for a program if you know it's name. It has a Featured category as well, where the most used programs are conveniently listed, including Wine.

Doubleclick the program you wish to install from the list. Then press the Install button. Linux will download the program and required extra files. Install them and place a new icon in the start menu. Depending on the category the program is listed in. It will have a link there. For example. Install a game, and Linux will place that game under Games subfolder in your startmenu.

Oh and before I forget. People can rate software in the Software Manager. Or leave a comment why they like/hate a program. Top rated programs are always listed first in the categories. Making it quite easy to look up the most popular ones

Mint itself installed with codecs and all the software that comes along with it uses around 6 gb of hard disk space. With some additional software like Wine you should still be at 10 gb max. So your hard disk size, although it is pretty small, should prove sufficient. Depending on the extra files you have on it of course. Like documents etc.

Happy Linux-ing

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Going from version 14 to 15 is different than the updates you get in windows. You get applications and security updates in Linux once a week as well.

And for you to decide to stay with LTS or a testing release will depend on what you will do with this installation. If you will install in an office and will be used for production then you need to be with LTS. But is you are a developer and you want to make sure your codes work with the later software, then a testing release (normal) is the way to go.

I should mention I have never used Linux Mint so I am not in knowledge of what number of release they are and how long is supported, but what I posted above is the main idea and you will find that pretty much in all Linux base distros
Good luck to you

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I also think that Mint 15 is only supported for 6 months. (At least I know that that's what Ubuntu did.)
Definitely go with LTS to avoid having to reinstall every 6 months to keep the computer secure...

As to your other question: A rolling release is one that gets updated "forever" rather than having a fixed release cycle. Typically these distros require a bit more user experience to deal with occasional breakage.

For the desktop environment it would be worth trying them all from live systems to see which one works best with your hardware (especially peripherical hardware such as printers, scanners...).

I have found this to vary quite a bit on Mint between Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE and KDE.

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Basically, the philosophy used by Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and other 6-month-release distros, is that the operating system is a disposable consumer product with a short lifespan. An analogy: DVD players, iPods, cell phones, etc. have become so inexpensive that users do not generally bother to tinker with them to get the latest features; rather we just throw them out and buy the latest. Well, Linux is free. It takes about 1 hour to download and install a new version of Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora. So you spend 1 hour every 6 months to get the latest & greatest software in a pre-tested stable "bundle." If you think about it, Windows users probably spend at least 2 hours/year administering their system (virus scan, defrag, etc.) so it is not a particularly onerous burden.

Of course their are also the Long Term Support (LTS) releases that are supported for many years. These would be Ubuntu 12.04, Mint 13, and (from a certain perspective Fedora's LTS is) Red Hat Enterprise Linux. So users who don't want to do the 6-month dance, don't have to.

It is all about choice. And the question "why are there so many distros? is it really necessary?" gets asked every day on some forum somewhere; for example here is a thread from CrunchBang forums: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=27947

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Well although I generally agree with what you are saying I think this is a bit optimistic. Every user I know, no matter how inexperienced, will do some basic customization to their system. Install software, set themes / background ... etc. This can quickly sum up to a day or so until you more or less have everything running as expected again.
I personally would find it rather painful to go through this every 6 months...

But then I would also argue that windows requires significantly more than two hours per year... :-)

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Agreed. The Mint site has some tips/instructions to make this process as painless as possible: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2

I personally have never messed with themes/background in my 5 years using Linux. If a distro is attractive to me (and why would I install one that isn't?) then I use it as-is. Also, if you use a separate /home partition, then most of your customizations are intact when you install the new release. If you didn't set up a separate /home when you installed, then here are some instructions to move it (or just wait until the October release and create a /home partition when you do your fresh reinstall):
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pa...ng/Home/Moving

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Wow. Then your are probably as geeky as I have always wanted to be an never managed to actually become ;-)
In my 4 years of using linux I never managed to free myself of want for eye candy, as superficial as I find this myself...

Reusing the /home for another distro scares me. I prefer to copy the configuration back in manually, but we are also getting a bit off topic I am afraid... :-)

Ubuntu non-LTS releases from 13.04 onward have 9 months support-

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Mint non-LTS relases from Mint 15 onward (those based on 13.04 or new) will have 9 months support as well.

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php

IMO for most normal users a LTS release makes more sense than doing the update/dist-upgrade dance every 9 months. While it can be [painless, its still takes time and there is always the risk that something will be borked, no matter what way your choose to update the OS.

o.O. Wow. I can see never playing with themes.....for myself the only 'stock' background that has lasted longer than 1 day was one of the aptosid backgrounds.

I run all my apps fullscreen, so I don't really care what the background looks like. But if changing the wallpaper takes you more than 30 seconds, time to find a more user-friendly distro IMHO.

Thanks so much everyone. I'm going to start a new thread about my Two Epic Fails trying to install Mint, since I that a new thread will be more appropriate. Thanks again for all the info and help!

Steve

P.S. I created the new thread in the Laptop and Netbook forum.

Steve,
how long will microsoft support win7/8? You will possibly get up to 10 years on one distro out of Debian, alright XP has lasted for 13 but only from pressure from industry.
If you want wine to run Office (that is what it was originally designed for, I think) you might be better off with libre office or open office apache. I think wine needs a genuine version of office to install from, incuring costs so what is the benefit if another progam does what you want? That depends, of course, on what you want to do on office/word.
Gnu/Linux can be set to do automatic updates or not, as winxp lets lets you set, when you install or alter settings.
backups can be done in various ways.
Perhaps, choose one varient of GNU/Linux (I recomend Debian for stability, Mint for windows familiar users..but Mint is based on Ubuntu which is reliant on Debian) and perserve with that.

Fred.

GAME CHANGER! I finally figured out that the primary problem (I'm sure I'll find more problems now but at least I can move forward) was that the DVD-ROM drive in this laptop will not read newer DVD+R disks that I've been using to create the Linux installations on! On a whim, I decided to dig out an old external USB DVD-RW drive, put the Linux DVD in this external drive, rebooted, and much to my surprise, it saw and started loading Linux!

Now I've got to keep testing from here to see which distro and desktop works best (or at all) with the old hardware in this Acer Aspire 3000 laptop.

That's weird that you're having problems with newer DVD+R discs. I don't think that too much has changed with the DVD+R standard, and I know that the Acer Aspire 3000 series reads DVD+Rs without a problem (That's what I used to primarily use). I'd recommend that you try cleaning the laser with rubbing alcohol and a cue tip.

Probably the laser is simply starting to die, and the DVD+R discs are what require the strongest laser to read (of common media that it can), so it's not reading it anymore. I've had it happen before to my older laptops.

I know this is an old thread, but there's so many of these old Aspire 3000 machines around that still are running. Not very powerful, but solidly built -- they just won't die. I hope this will help with countless people out there who still use them.

First. The 3000 DVD drive does read DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, & dual layer DVDs of all kinds. It will only burn CD-r & CD-rw though.

Microsoft lied to you. XP is supported until 2019. I just got 6 MS updates for XP on my Aspire 3000 last night. To many govenments, military, corporations, & labs are still using XP, so they couldn't cut them off. Windows 7 will be supported at least until 2020.

However, you may want to do reformat your drive into NTFS instead of FAT32. Then re-install XP from your recovery discs. If you don't have the discs, just borrow or burn an XP disc from somewhere else. Copy the Microsoft license number on the sticker on the bottom of your machine so you can type it in during the installation. You need the number to prove you legal have a license for windows. If you disable unnecessary services in windows, any version of windows will fly on it.

I find most newer Linux doesn't like older AMD processors, & the associated mobo architecture, especially on the Aspire 3000. You'll be lucky to get past the installation stage, before for it just mysteriously stops, fails, or locks up - - including the ones suggested here. Then you're stuck with a screwed up MBR, & irretrievable disc space that you can't get back without some tricks. With the MBR screwed up, you can't even boot back to windows until you fix it.

I used to have Crunchbang Linux on a partition on the Aspire 3000 alongside of Windows. But now Crunchbang has shrunken down the text on the screen so small you need a microscope to see it. Why is it every time Linux come out with a neat OS, they have to throw some totally ridiculous flaw in it that really ruins it, & makes it a deal breaker? Then they never bother to fix it, but offer tons of trail & error fixes that will take you weeks or months to go through only to find none of them may fix it well.

Hey, if I'm gonna re-write a substantial amount of an OS or software just to get it to work or iron out the bugs anyway, why would I bother downloading it in the first place?

I find except for Crunchbang, the only other Linux that actually installs & runs well on the Aspire 3000 is Xubuntu. But after a few Linux updates for it, it slowed down to a snail's pace. I ended up re-installing it & avoiding any Linux updates for it anymore.

I too am using the original 4200rpm drive in it, but only 1.5gb of ram. I took a larger 80gb laptop drive out of my old ibook that needed some bad solder joints fixed on it's logic board. After a little tweaking & hacking I was actually able to get OS X Leopard to run on the old Aspire laptop fine!

But last year I put Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 on that drive for the Acer laptop. I don't tighten the hard drive door screws tight so I can quickly open it up when I want to switch drives. So I run the drive with XP & Xubuntu on it when I need the Aspire fast, like to play HD video connected to my HDTV, but I put the drive with W7 & W8.1 in it when I want more modern apps, or choices. W7 will play most 720p HD video on the Aspire too. I have tested Windows 10 on it, & it worked. I just didn't like it & all of it's spyware, so removed it.

Also the Aspire 3000 has the Broadcom WIFI chipset, the most common wifi chipset in the world. But Linux don't support it. They say they support it & it works, but after weeks of hacking trial & error, you might be able to get it to work marginally, for a little while. But after a few updates, or reboots, the WIFI will be dead again because all the fixes don't work or are unstable. So keep your windows on another partition or kiss your WIFI goodbye.

On my primary PC, I have 2 7200rpm hard drives in it. I'm running Windows 7, & Linux Zorin. But you'll need a machine a lot more robust than that old Acer to run Zorin. Mine is clocking in at 3.51ghz (single core), & 2gb of RAM. I just removed the Nvidia card out of it though because I got tired of paying for the 90 watts of electricity the card sucks up. But it will still run circles around most new PCs today. It was built in 2007.

The trick to having Windows run fast & well (any version) on the Aspire 3000 is to disable all the useless services you don't need, Windows 8-10 spyware, bloatware, & Cortina.

I think it's odd that the Aspire will run any version of Windows (from W98 to W10) right out of the box flawlessly But only 2 versions of Linux are passable on it. Broadcom WIFI never worked in Linux, or only barely... intermittently. It's one of the most common Wifi chipsets it the world. They had 10 years to work on it, how much longer do we wait?

No Wifi or only getting it to work poorly a little while after weeks of work, scares a lot of people off Linux.