You guys are really good with this so I would like to get your opinion on something I am going to start today.

Ready to power up my machine tonight and test Linux Mint Debian Xfce, or should I try one of the many other distros? We will soon find out. I would like to hear a basic description of how to install Linux Mint Debian. I am still fairly new to Linux. I struggled with Ubuntu only because it was on a netbook. Still I am a Linux fan. This will now be on a PC.

If someone could give me a quick break down of the installation. Such as for Ubuntu it is easy to understand as>

1. Ubuntudownload
2. PentestLinux.com
3. Download onto 8GB flashdrive
4. Restart computer
5. Boot into BIOS
6. Set Sandisk at the top
7. Exit BIOS
8. Install Ubuntu

If I remember right this is how installing Ubuntu went basically.

I tried watching a video on Youtube, but they were on virtual machines I think except for one, but I would like to hear your advice as well.

If you want to install a good distro go for DebianLive in either i386 or amd64 as an iso-hybrid. Iso-hybrids can be burned to a disc or placed onto a usb drive. When you start it up you will get a selection to boot to either Live or Install. Boot to Live and try it out. Then once you are happy with it click on the Debian Installer icon that is on the screen. That will initialise the installation in a graphical environment. After that it is all pretty simple just follow the prompts and answer questions when asked.

I know this isn's a step by step but without doing it at the same time it is hard to remember every detail so have another computer ready when you are doing it and ask any questions you need to.

P.S. The links I gave above are for Squeeze (Stable), Mint Debian is based on Testing which is currently Wheezy. If you are at all unsure about your ability to deal with breakages I'd recommend you take a look at this thread about Linux Mint breakages and it is 80 pages long. I'm not trying to put you off but I am trying to show you what you are up against if you don't know what you are doing. My advice would be to learn on a Stable version then start experimenting with testing versions.

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Either Mint or Debian, if you're new with this and have important data on your machine, remember to back it up somewhere else before installing, just in case something goes wrong. Other than that, the installation of Mint is very simple and straightforward, just be careful on the partitioning part; you will have 3 options: 1) Installing aside the other OSs on your machine, 2) Erasing everything and installing only Mint (something you probably don't want to do) and 3) Manually partitioning the hard drive to make room for Mint. What I usually do before installing any OS on my computer is to download something like gparted or parted magic (from distrowatch), boot it and partition the hard drive (it's very easy to do with these tools), then on the installation I just select manual partitioning, choose the partition(s) I want to use for my new install and assign them the mount points.

Other thing that might be confusing for you is where to install the boot loader; just choose to install it on the MBR (or /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1, or sda2, etc., just /dev/sda).

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The above is all good advice the only thing I can add is if you want Stable with Xfce then us SalineOS.( http://www.salineos.com/ ) It's just as easy to install as Mint has a Install Manuel on the Live DVD so you can follow along instead of guessing. And unlike Debian it has scripts to install all the stuff you will need for flash Music and DVD players right from the Debian repositories. In Debian you have to know what to install but Saline and Mint does it for you.

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Those are bomb a$$ instructions. I think you guys have me covered completely. Will follow up with an update on my installation status.

I installed Linux Mint Debian yeasterday.

1. Download appropiate iso (32bit or 64bit) using mirror or torrent. I used torrent. 64 bit didnot work for atom processor.
2. md5sumcheck download.
3. Since I was installing on netbook i created liveUSB pen drive using unetbootin.
4. Boot using live USB or CD to check if hardware works ok.
5. Backup any critical data on the computer that you are about to install.
6. Install process is little confusing since i was doing dual boot keeping existing XP. otherwise its simple. I created swap, / and /home partitons.
7. Once install you will have 2 update packs which has total about 600 package to update.

It is working great on my netbook. Much more responsive then ubuntu 11.10 which it replaced