Linux Mint 17
Sort of lost interest in sharing my life in blog. I put all the stuff on Facebook so people I know in real life get to know what I'm doing at the same time I can block out people that I don't know.
But is it really that important to block out those who don't know me? Not necessarily, really, most of the time people won't be able to see me in real life anyway so whatever I put in blog may or may not be material...and probably just some more digital gibberish on the Internet...
Nevertheless, Linux Mint 17 makes me wanting to write a post.
It started with MS Windows of course.
I have an old desktop. Started in 2009 with an Core-i3 first generation CPU with no external graphic card, 2GB ram, 1TB hard disk and a nice looking Silverstone GD-02 case, I thought I would just use the computer for watching video clips and viewing family photographs. Indeed that's all I was doing.
Then Star Craft II came out.
Although it's playable with older hardware, I wanted better gaming experience and ... in the end I got a second hand Core i5-750, extra 4GB ram, and a friend gave me his old video card, ATi 5870. I started with 32bit version of Windows 7 and thought might as well upgraded to 64bit. However there was Windows 8 on promotion and retail version of Windows 7 became very expensive, so I got an upgrade pack for Windows 8 Pro and upgrade my machine.
Everything went well actually. I didn't think Windows 8 was that bad, sure it's different but it's NOT that different and just work things out and everything is ok. Most of the programs have updated version that suits Windows 8 or they are compatible with Windows 8.
I had fun using Windows 8 and then Windows 8.1 came out. I didn't install it because I've read it somewhere that Windows 8.1 users have trouble typing Chinese when logged onto Battle.net. That looks broken so I didn't think about upgrades for a while until one day I was a bit bored and thought since Windows 8.1 is just a small upgrade on system responses and security etc etc, might as well install it and see how it goes.
Then it turned a lot of things upside down.
First it looked a bit weird and some setting doesn't seem to be what I set it to be. Then my Chinese/Japanese input program (Google Input) stopped working from time to time and on various programs, and that pisses me off.
Then my SC2 games started to lag sometimes, for no reason, and I have tried eliminating all factors, even changing network card from internal one to an USB dongle. Works better but still a bit problematic. Then XCOM:Enemy Unknown just crashes every time I started the game...
This and that, more problems turned up in the end I give up. I got myself a new CPU cooler and new graphic card, Gainward GTX 660. Changing new hardware so the computer becomes much quieter.
And burn myself a Linux Mint 17 and give it a try on DVD.
I have a Cisco Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter WUSB600N that supports dual-band wireless N (of course it's in the name!) BUT I've never gotten it working for 5GHz band under Windows 7 nor 8 nor 8.1.
As soon as I popped in Linux Mint 17 dvd and boot up with it, it asks me for wireless network password, and to my delight, it's the 5GHz band network! And Linksys doesn't officially supports Linux on that product...gawd...
Everything else seems responsive, so I thought...let me try it, since I wanted to get rid of Windows 8.1 and revert back to Windows 8 anyway.
Linux Mint 17 installation went smoothly even though I had to choose customised installation (still have files in the second partition of the hard disk that I don't want to lose).
So here I am after couple hours of using Mint, finding small things here and there for various programs that I am not used to, but the programs do feel quite responsive and frankly speaking looks more aesthetically pleasing than Windows....
Will I keep Mint? Probably no...since I still want to play Batman: Arkham Asylum, XCOM:Enemy Unknown, Child of Light, Watch Dog and Blizzard games...so to have minimal installation issues (I know there are lots of wine tutorials and youtube video instructions out there...), I probably will still go back to Windows 8...
But would I use Mint if I were not playing games or if I were only playing Blizzard games? I would keep Mint. My friend was playing SC2 on ubuntu and he has better frame rates on his Ubuntu than his Windows 7 (both on same hardware)...
Well Good Job to the Linux Mint people and general GNU/Linux community, such a great pleasure to see how far Linux evolved and I hope one day I don't have to choose which OS but just keep updating my Linux distro via update manager.
But is it really that important to block out those who don't know me? Not necessarily, really, most of the time people won't be able to see me in real life anyway so whatever I put in blog may or may not be material...and probably just some more digital gibberish on the Internet...
Nevertheless, Linux Mint 17 makes me wanting to write a post.
It started with MS Windows of course.
I have an old desktop. Started in 2009 with an Core-i3 first generation CPU with no external graphic card, 2GB ram, 1TB hard disk and a nice looking Silverstone GD-02 case, I thought I would just use the computer for watching video clips and viewing family photographs. Indeed that's all I was doing.
Then Star Craft II came out.
Although it's playable with older hardware, I wanted better gaming experience and ... in the end I got a second hand Core i5-750, extra 4GB ram, and a friend gave me his old video card, ATi 5870. I started with 32bit version of Windows 7 and thought might as well upgraded to 64bit. However there was Windows 8 on promotion and retail version of Windows 7 became very expensive, so I got an upgrade pack for Windows 8 Pro and upgrade my machine.
Everything went well actually. I didn't think Windows 8 was that bad, sure it's different but it's NOT that different and just work things out and everything is ok. Most of the programs have updated version that suits Windows 8 or they are compatible with Windows 8.
I had fun using Windows 8 and then Windows 8.1 came out. I didn't install it because I've read it somewhere that Windows 8.1 users have trouble typing Chinese when logged onto Battle.net. That looks broken so I didn't think about upgrades for a while until one day I was a bit bored and thought since Windows 8.1 is just a small upgrade on system responses and security etc etc, might as well install it and see how it goes.
Then it turned a lot of things upside down.
First it looked a bit weird and some setting doesn't seem to be what I set it to be. Then my Chinese/Japanese input program (Google Input) stopped working from time to time and on various programs, and that pisses me off.
Then my SC2 games started to lag sometimes, for no reason, and I have tried eliminating all factors, even changing network card from internal one to an USB dongle. Works better but still a bit problematic. Then XCOM:Enemy Unknown just crashes every time I started the game...
This and that, more problems turned up in the end I give up. I got myself a new CPU cooler and new graphic card, Gainward GTX 660. Changing new hardware so the computer becomes much quieter.
And burn myself a Linux Mint 17 and give it a try on DVD.
I have a Cisco Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter WUSB600N that supports dual-band wireless N (of course it's in the name!) BUT I've never gotten it working for 5GHz band under Windows 7 nor 8 nor 8.1.
As soon as I popped in Linux Mint 17 dvd and boot up with it, it asks me for wireless network password, and to my delight, it's the 5GHz band network! And Linksys doesn't officially supports Linux on that product...gawd...
Everything else seems responsive, so I thought...let me try it, since I wanted to get rid of Windows 8.1 and revert back to Windows 8 anyway.
Linux Mint 17 installation went smoothly even though I had to choose customised installation (still have files in the second partition of the hard disk that I don't want to lose).
So here I am after couple hours of using Mint, finding small things here and there for various programs that I am not used to, but the programs do feel quite responsive and frankly speaking looks more aesthetically pleasing than Windows....
Will I keep Mint? Probably no...since I still want to play Batman: Arkham Asylum, XCOM:Enemy Unknown, Child of Light, Watch Dog and Blizzard games...so to have minimal installation issues (I know there are lots of wine tutorials and youtube video instructions out there...), I probably will still go back to Windows 8...
But would I use Mint if I were not playing games or if I were only playing Blizzard games? I would keep Mint. My friend was playing SC2 on ubuntu and he has better frame rates on his Ubuntu than his Windows 7 (both on same hardware)...
Well Good Job to the Linux Mint people and general GNU/Linux community, such a great pleasure to see how far Linux evolved and I hope one day I don't have to choose which OS but just keep updating my Linux distro via update manager.
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