I just installed Mint 18 Cinnamon 3.0 and I have to say that overall I'm disappointed. It's very slow to boot and load apps when compared to Win 10 which was previously running on the same hardware (Intel DuoCore 1.8GHz w/4GB RAM). Also, there's precious little available for customization of the desktop.

Maybe there's another distribution that's more suited to my needs. I'm a complete noob when it comes to the command line but I am willing to put in the time and effort to learn at least the basics. I want stable, lean, light, fast. I don't need or use the latest bleeding edge bells and whistles.

Browsing, email, music tablature, audio editing, Libre Office, simple basic photo manipulation is what I do 99% of the time on the computer.

Suggestions? Maybe Debian?

Welcome to the forum!

What do you want to do to your desktop? If you look through the menu you should find tools to do lots of customisation, without resorting to the CLI.

Where does the slowness occur? Is there a long gap between switching on and logging in, or between logging in and getting access?

In the second case, you could try running the tool to control the start up applications and making sure that nothing is being started that you don't need. If you don't need a lot of special visual effects, disable them. Cinnamon is never fast, and you might be happier with Mate. Debian will come with Gnome, which may be even slower!

If it's the actual boot before you log in, you could run the logfile viewer and look at the messages. This lists all the things done during the boot, timed by the second. If there's a long gap between two events, that shows a problem.

Welcome to the forum. I would gladly recommend Debian, very stable, comes with Libre Office.
The installation process is more complex than Mint though, I would recommend some reading.
https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual

AntiX will run snappy fast on your gear.

If wanting a Live Desktop version instead of using Window Managers.

MX linux should fit your requirements.

Latest monthly updated snapshots of current isos for MX are at

http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/?C=M;O=D

Edit: both of my recommendations are Debian based distros.
AntiX is systemd free though.

For fast boot, I would recommend Elementary. It boots faster than anything I've tried. Next would be Solus. Ubuntu and Mint are a bit slower, being more robust systems. I'm waiting for Zorin 12, but I expect it will be similar in boot time to Ubuntu and Mint. Another distro I like is Deepin. It boots about as fast as Ubuntu and Mint. I just tried the live DVD's of Ubuntu Mate and Manjaro, but neither recognized my audio interface. This has been a problem for me with any Mate system I've used. Elemntary is, in my opinion, the easiest Linux distro to navigate, coming from a Windows experience. It's fast, attractive and intuitive. I would give it a try.

Hello and welcome to the forum

If you have at least 2 GB's of memory, another option would be Lubuntu.

Regards...

Thanks for all the replies, comments and suggestions. I hope that I didn't leave the wrong impression. I'm discovering that there's a lot to like about MInt. I was just surprised at how comparatively slow it is to boot. I didn't expect to find that Win10 boots faster on my hardware. (BTW the slowness seems to be both before and after the login screen).

I will explore some of the other distributions mentioned but first I have to fix my computer. I somehow managed to mess up the BIOS when I was monkeying around and now I can't get it to boot from a live USB.

Will report back if I find something that seems better for my application (described in OP).

Welcome!
Here's an idea for quick&EASY/safely trying many DistroWatch.com .iso's: VirtualBox.org
*BUT* (since VM) it would be [a lot?] slower (which is your main objection!)
BUT it'd be only to *try* a lot of distro's, 'quick&easy', before *installing* one!

Love to hear about your journey! (maybe post some specific elapsed-time #s)

btw, I Goo...'ed: music tablature linux (because I didn't know tablature) & got interesting ...

p.s. *maybe* it's a 'graphics card' 'issue': what's your [model]...? [Goo...]

llewellen,

Welcome to LQ.

You should find that the MATE or Xfce editions of Linux Mint are faster than Cinnamon.

Failing that, you may need to try something lighter such as MX-15 or antiX.

There is no need to do a fresh installation unless you prefer to do that.

First, you need to log in as root, not as the normal user.

(For MATE).
Open a Terminal (Menu > System Tools > Terminal) and type:

Press Enter and type your password (which is not displayed for security reasons).

Press Enter again.

Then type:

(Alternatively, for Xfce):

Press Enter.

Now log out from your current user session.

Menu > Logout > Log Out

You will then see the login prompt.

Switch the session there from the previous one to MATE (or Xfce).

You need to click the lambda icon (λ) in the top right corner of the login prompt to select the session.

Click the MATE item. The letter will be changed to "M".

Then sign in to your new Linux Mint MATE.

Useful link:
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-insta...namon-edition/

2 members found this post helpful.

Not that you haven't already gotten many fine suggestions in alternates if you can't get Mint working, but I think a good alternative would be Manjaro. Bear in mind that comparisons to Win 10 are deceptive, as (1) windows may not be all the way shutdown when you think it is, leading to apparently miraculous start times (behavior started in ver 8), and (2) win login appears well before the system is actually ready for you, with possible race conditions (started in vers ... XP?)

After the boot slowness might be improved with a better and/or proprietary graphics driver for your hardware.

1 members found this post helpful.

I might add that there will always be some overhead in Linux that Windows doesn't have, as it has more flexibility. To take just one example that I actually know about, Windows assumes a PC keyboard, but Linux checks during the boot so that it can cope if you're using a Mac or Sun one. The Windows keyboard driver(s) is compiled when the system is installed or reconfigured, but when you log into Linux, it checks the driver(s) wanted by you (as opposed to any other user) and does the compilation there and then!

2 members found this post helpful.

For some reason Mint can take a while to boot, perhaps, because you have Nvidia hardware or it just takes a while to configure graphics when it starts. It might also be something to do with the change from systemV to systemd but that is speculation (and fairly wild) but I am surprised it takes longer too boot than Windoze.

Once it is running, I take it, it responds well?

Fred.

@Fred Caro: it's not mind numbingly slow to boot, just slower than what I expected (and I don't why or how I formed expectations). But, as someone said, I only boot it once a day anyway so it really isn't much of a bother. And once up and running it is very pleasant to use.

As a newbie in Linux world, I'm enjoying the refreshing change. There's certainly a learning curve but I like the control that Linux affords.

You're welcome, let us know how it turns out.

Regards...

Welcome to the club!

Try this: Salix Xfce 14.2. A derivative from Slackware. Uses sys5 init --very transparent for learning. Clue for installing the first time: UNLEARN AND FORGET what you know about microsoft windows. Read the instructions given in simple to the first-timer.

Salix defaults on Xfce4 window manager. Quiet, stable, mature.

All is ready after install --one app for each need, though you are offered hundreds of choices to install more from repositories online. I run two installers the "Gslapt Package Manager" and "Sourcery" all good; comfortably quick and easy installing on a GUI dialogue.

Debian is good and pure, far better than than what is currently poor showing about Mint and Ubuntu. But it takes few commands to change Debian's init from systemd to sys5 (officially *sysV* from Unix)

If you want to boot, run and shutdown without problem just install Salix in local. I don't recommend running anything on virtual.

NEWS: There is report from my contact/user (I have no time yet to try this) that for a lighting boot and shutdown by the switch you can have it by installing Void Linux. I was interested on this because it is running runit an init I wanted to try using to catapult my Slackware.

Hope that helps. Good luck and enjoy!

m.m.