Lasted 2 days with Mint KDE. I see I could get used to it, but after Cinnamon, Xfce, it seemed Less intuitive then the others. I just did a clean install of Mint Xfce.

Would it be best to run sudo apt-get install audacity, or through Package Installer, Packager Manager or Software Manager? And why do they have so many? What's the difference?

Thank you,
Chris.

Did you see that Mint 18 Xfce has just been released?

For the Ubuntu family:

The idea for applications is that those available through the official repos have been tested by the distro developers and/or the community for use with the specific distro/version and thus should be more stable.

However, sometimes the version of the application available through the official repos may be out of date, and you would like a more up-to-date version. In this case you can either (generally) (i) get the application source code and compile/build it for your system; (ii) install a packaged form of the application supplied by the application developer; (iii) add a PPA repository maintained by someone who packages the application for your system each time a new version comes out.

The disadvantage of (i) is that it requires the command line and *may* get complicated. The advantage of (iii) over (ii) is that the Update Manager will continue to check for updates in the PPA as for any other repository, so you don't have to keep checking back to the application's web site to see if it has been updated. You have to, of course, trust the PPA repository (which generally you can). Some PPAs are pretty quick in packaging applications after a new version is released, others less so.

Application/package installers and managers are like ogres - they have layers. Low-level package management is done by dpkg. On top of that, apt provides through the command line the fetching of packages, complex package relations with dependencies, higher-level versioning decisions etc. On top of that, Synaptics Package Manager essentially provides a GUI for apt, while Software Manager provides a simpler GUI focussing on the graphical selection of various chosen applications. In addition, Update Manager provides a GUI focussed on updating existing applications.

In general, I personally choose the following in order of priority:

(i) repo version of an application.
(ii) PPA version of an application (if I need a more up-to-date version than (i)).
(iii) packaged version (or some other install method) supplied by the application developer.
(iv) compile and build source provided by the application developer.

I wouldn't touch software that doesn't come from the distro's official repos, the application developer, or a PPA. Even then, you have to exercise good judgement as to the source of any application and whether it may pose any threat to your system.

Kind of unbelievable after all I've been through. I install Mint late last night, get it all set up, go to bed and wake up to a new release of Mint 18.
I tend to follow the rule, "If it ant broke, don't fix it-unless it's Mint 18"

What makes you like Mint KDE over the other Mints?

Thanks for all the help,


Chris.


P.S. Off to try out Mint 18 Xfce!

I hear Mint 19 is out next week! (only kidding ;-))

I like the KDE look aesthetically (well v4 anyway, we'll see what I think of Plasma 5 under Mint). I also really like using Kate, Dolphin, Konsole, and the KDE Kickoff Application Launcher (although I use Cairo for my main application launcher). There's also the aspect of configuration - it has been easy to add service menus of my own and also to set Windows rules for specific applications (I haven't done a lot of this but it was easy to do so when I needed to). Downsides? The frenetic KDE development cycle, and the inadequacy of Firefox's file chooser (only designed for Gnome it appears, not KDE).

Screwed up. I updated to Mint 18. Computer only works with one monitor hooked up. When I hook up the second monitor, none work. Both black.

Chris.

Open a new thread for this problem Chris.

When I first had problems with Linux monitor problems, I checked the BIOS and it was set right. After all this, I went back in and it was set wrong. I got reminded to RE-check your work, even if you already looked at it. I can't believe I didn't think about this earlier.

I can't remember, but after I checked, I may of set it to "fail-Safe Defaults" to check on a different problem, or "Load Optimized." When I do that, I always go back in and set some that need to be changed. I missed the video.

You'll never guess what I did? I wiped my drive (18), and reinstalled 17.3 right before I found it. :0


Chris.

Well you're certainly getting good practice in installing Mint. ;-) So, are you going to go back to 18 or stick with 17.3?

Tried one of the Live CD's and it still opened up on the other monitor with a blank screen on the desktop. I thought for sure it would fix it. Debian Live did start for a while (not fully booted) and was in "software rendering mode" until the screen went blank (shows on TV tho).
The Debian Live gave some sort of video error during the live boot up. "Radeon failed."

Only one that works is still Windows.

Chris.

1) fglrx kernel module - designed by AMD for relatively old kernels. Fortunately, source code is available, so community is able to patch the code to make it usable for the newest linux kernel.
2) fglrx xorg driver - designed by AMD for old xorg version. Unfortunately, source code is not available, so community is unable to patch the code to make it usable for the newest Xorg server.

Summary: you can still use fglrx with the newest kernels, but you must downgrade your xorg server.

That's it!

.