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Thursday, 31 July 2014

Introduction

This will be my third review of the core version of Zorin OS.

I first reviewed Zorin 6 in July 2012 and looking back on that review it is clear that my posts were much shorter then than they are today.

One of the questions asked in that review was whether there was enough space for Zorin OS as it occupied similar space to Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

Zorin has survived a further two years since then but I find myself asking the same question because if anything there are more and more distributions with very similar offerings. Off the top of my head there is Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Netrunner, Kubuntu and PCLinuxOS.

I reviewed Zorin OS 8 back in February and the review covers most of what I will also be covering in this latest review such as the software and the look and feel.

I will also highlight the differences between Zorin OS 8 and Zorin OS 9.

About Zorin OS 9

Click here to read the Zorin OS 9 release notes

Zorin OS 9 is based on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 which is the long term support release and this means you will get software updates until 2019.

The unique selling point for Zorin OS is that it is has multiple themes which make it look like the operating system that you are used to using. For instance if you are used to Windows XP then you are able to switch to an XP style interface and if you use Windows 7 you can switch to a Windows 7 interface.

In the core version which is free the available interfaces are Windows XP, Windows 7 and Gnome 2. If you upgrade to the premium version you will get the user interfaces for Unity, Mac OSX and Windows 2000.

Zorin OS Website

Click here to visit the Zorin OS Website

The website lists the following advantages for switching to Zorin OS:
  • No risk of getting viruses
  • Superfast and light on resources
  • Easy to use and familiar desktop
  • Customisable user interface and look changer
  • Stable as it is based on Linux
  • All the software you will ever need out of the box
  • Extremely versatile and customisable open source software
  • Available in 55 languages 

System Requirements

The following minimum system requirements were found on the Zorin OS website at http://zorin-os.com/faq.html.
  • 1 GHz x86 processor
  • 5 GB hard drive space
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Graphics card capable of 640 x 480 resolution

Installation

The Zorin OS website has a link to installation instructions, however they are not exactly extensive and so if you are a newcomer you might find them confusing.

I have written an installation guide showing how to install Zorin OS 9. The guide also has links to other articles which shows how to set up Linux distributions in a virtual machine and how to dual boot Linux with Windows.

First Impressions





















The default look within Zorin OS 9 is the Windows 7 interface and so if you are coming from Windows Vista or Windows 7 then you will find this an easier transition than perhaps using Ubuntu which comes with the Unity desktop.



The screen shows the main desktop with a panel at the bottom.



In the left corner of the panel there are icons for the menu (the big Z), Firefox web browser, the file manager and the Rhythmbox audio player.




In the right side of the panel there are system tray style icons for bluetooth connectivity, network settings, power settings, audio settings, a clock and user settings.

Clicking on the "Z" icon in the bottom corner brings up the menu. On the left is a list of categories and if you click on the category a list of applications appears. You can also search for an application by title or keyword.

The right side of the menu gives you access to folders such as the home directory, documents, pictures, music and videos.

Connecting to the internet


Connecting to the internet is fairly simple. 

Click on the network icon in the system tray and a list of wireless networks will appear.

Choose the network you wish to connect to and if required enter the security key.

To start using the internet use the Firefox Web Browser which can be started by clicking on the icon next to the "Z" in the bottom left corner.


Flash and MP3

Flash is becoming less and less important as the years go by but they said the same thing about JavaScript a few years ago and look how that has turned out. JavaScript is more relevant now than it has even been.

The average user who likes watching videos and listening to music doesn't care about file formats and multimedia codecs nor whether they are proprietary. The average user just wants their computer and operating system to work.






















Zorin OS is made to work out of the box and so users will be able to watch Flash videos and listen to MP3 audio files without installing any further software.

Applications

Zorin OS 9 comes with a really good complement of applications which should get the average computer user up and running. There are more default applications installed with Zorin OS 9 when compared to a purchased version of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Accessories

  • Archive Manager
  • Backup Tool
  • Calculator
  • Disk Manager
  • File Manager
  • Screenshot Tool
  • Terminal Emulator
  • Text Editor
One of the things I bang on about in my installation guides is the importance of backing up and I am pleased to say that Zorin also takes this subject seriously because shortly after booting for the first time the above message is displayed asking you to think about backup strategies.

The backup application is easy to use. Set up the folders you wish to backup, the folders you wish to ignore, where to back up to and how often the backups occur.

Games

  • Solitaire
  • Mahjongg
  • Mines 
  • Quadrapassel (Tetris)
  • Sudoku

Graphics

  • Document Viewer (PDFs)
  • GIMP (Image Editing)
  • Gnome Image Viewer
  • Shotwell Photo Manager
  • LibreOffice Draw
  • Simplescan






















There are graphical tools for everyone, whether you enjoying looking at your photos in an album or you see yourself as an amateur photo editor.

The GIMP is a great tool for editing images and is seen as the free equivalent to Adobe's photoshop.

Internet

  • Desktop Sharing
  • Empathy Instant Messenging
  • Firefox Web Browser
  • Remmina Remote Desktop
  • Thunderbird Mail Client
  • Zorin Web Browser Manager
If you prefer to use a mail client as opposed to webmail then Thunderbird is a good alternative to Microsoft's Outlook.

 
There was a stage a year or so ago where many Linux distributions had switched from Firefox to either Google's Chrome or the Chromium web browsers but most of them appear to have switched back and for good reason. Firefox has improved immensely.

If you don't want to use Firefox you can switch to another browser by running the Web Browser Manager. There are four choices available: Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Midori.

Office

  • Document Viewer (PDFs)
  • LibreOffice Writer (Word Processing)
  • LibreOffice Calc (Spreadsheets)
  • LibreOffice Impress (Presentations)
  • LibreOffice Draw (Drawing)
The LibreOffice suite of applications gives you access to full office applications and the document formats used are becoming more and more widely acceptable including many governments.

If you prefer to use proprietary Microsoft formats then you can create documents using LibreOffice and save them in Word, Excel or Powerpoint format.


Sound and Video

  • Brasero Disc Burner
  • Cheese Webcam Viewer
  • Openshot Video Editor
  • Rhythmbox Audio Player
  • Totem Video Player

Zorin OS 9 includes the Rhythmbox audio player. Rhythmbox is a great application and is far better than the Windows equivalent.

The obvious functions are available such as the ability to import music into the library and the ability to create and edit playlists.

Rhythmbox also works well with many audio devices and worked perfectly with my Sony Walkman and my Samsung Galaxy S4.



Rhythmbox is the one stop shop for audio and includes the ability to listen to podcasts and a number of internet radio stations.




























Nearly everyone creates videos nowadays. If you own a smartphone with a camera it is highly likely that you have recorded video content at one time or another.

Not many Linux distributions come with video editing software included yet more and more people would find it beneficial to edit their videos in order to add titles or to mix content.

Zorin OS 9 comes with the excellent Openshot Video Editor. I am nothing more than a complete amateur at video editing but I found it very intuitive when creating a video loop for my daughter's birthday party which was highlighted in a subsequent blog post about screencasting and videoediting within Linux.






























For simply watching videos Zorin comes with the Totem video playing software which is more than adequate for most people's needs.

Running Windows Applications


























Former Windows users may have applications that they might not be ready to give up on.

Zorin includes WINE which enables Windows applications to run within Linux.

Generally speaking WINE has improved immensely over the years and a great number of Windows titles now work incredibly well.

PlayOnLinux is also included which provides a more user friendly experience for interacting with WINE. You can use PlayOnLinux to install games from various sources such as online or from DVD.

GOG.com has recently announced that they are releasing games for Linux but they also have a large Windows only library that generally run well within Linux using WINE. PlayOnLinux makes it easier to buy, download and install GOG.com games.

Zorin Look Changer



















I mentioned earlier in the review that the unique selling point of Zorin is it's ability to morph itself to look like other desktop operating systems.

In order to change the theme there is a tool called the Zorin Look Changer which is available under the System Tools category.

The functionality couldn't be easier. Simply click on the interface you wish to use.

Again, as mentioned earlier, in the free version you get the choice of Windows 7, Windows XP and Gnome 2 and for the the premium version you will also have Mac OSX, Unity and Windows 2000.

The Windows themes are obviously going to be a draw for Windows users and I can see the temptation of using the Mac OSX theme.

The Unity theme is a strange one as Zorin is based on Ubuntu. If you want to use Unity why not just use Ubuntu? Similarly the Gnome 2 desktop style interface can be achieved by using Mint with the MATE desktop.

Zorin Theme Changer



















The Zorin developers have worked hard on the visual elements that make up Zorin and as well as making a customised desktop experience they have provided different themes as well.

The themes available are Zorin Light, Zorin Blue and Zorin Dark. As mentioned on the Dark Duck blog there doesn't appear to be much difference between the blue and dark themes.

To be able to change themes you have to use the Zorin Theme Changer tool which is available under the system tools menu.

Desktop preferences





















In order to change the desktop background all you have to do is right click on the desktop and choose the cryptically titled "Change Desktop Background".

Zorin provides a number of different backgrounds and they are all nice in their own way. If you prefer to use your own then all you have to do is click the plus symbol (+) and browse to the location of the image you wish to use.

Gratuitous Kitten Picture






















Desktop Effects





















As mentioned before, the Zorin developers have worked extensively on the visual side of things and there are a number of desktop effects provided. Switching between applications for instance can be achieved by holding the super key (Windows key) and the tab key, providing a three dimensional tiled window effect.





















Other effects include the ability to snap windows so that they appear side by side.

You can also switch between applications by pressing Alt and Tab which provides a preview of each application in a row.

Pressing Alt and F7 gives you the ability to move the current application around the screen and it snaps and twists as you do so.

CTRL and S zooms out showing multiple desktops.

The effects can be managed and changed by accessing the Compiz settings manager.

Software Centre

























The default tool in Zorin OS for installing further applications is the Software Centre.

I find the Software Centre limited, painful and frustrating and this is not limited to Zorin but to Ubuntu as well and to some extents Mint (although it is much better in Mint).

























This is why I find it frustrating. In the above screen image you will see that I have searched for Steam (because it is a glaring omission).

The Software Centre has provided 2 options. If I click on the top option it gives me a "More Info" option. Clicking on the "More Info" returns "Not Found".



Clicking on the 2nd option gives me a "More Info" option as well. When I click the "More Info" button I am now provided with details of the Steam Launcher which is used to install and update Steam.

Great!?! Except there is no install button. There is a "Buy" button however. To install Steam you have to log in to a Ubuntu One account and then you are able to download the application.

The Software Centre is also annoying because it never really appears to return all the available software from the repositories and seems to be more interested in trying to sell you stuff than actually delivering the goods.

Whilst I can see the point of an all singing, all dancing software centre with free software and non-free software it would be good if it did the basics right all the time.

I still find that Synaptic is the best go to graphical package manager. It may not be pretty but it sure is effective.

Issues

Zorin was in the main fairly stable but there are a couple of mentions in the issues section.



I will start with the live session. After opening a few windows and playing around I noticed that all the icons had disappeared from the system tray.

This was easily remedied and hasn't happened in the installed version.


I also had a couple of these type of messages pop up. Bizarrely the errors appeared but there didn't appear to be any obvious problem.

Now as a developer myself, what I should really have done at this point was hit the show details, take a screenshot, copy the message and raise it as a bug report because I get users telling me about these sort of errors in the current application that I am developing and it is frustrating when they say "hey I got this message but I just hit close". Unfortunately I didn't do this and so can't adequately say why these errors appeared.





Finally whilst running Rhythmbox the above message appeared. Again there wasn't really an issue at all. The music was coming out of the speakers just fine but Rhythmbox was determined to ask me what was wrong. Anyone know what "Apport" means?

Summary

Zorin has a lot of good things going for it. Visually for instance it is extremely good and the effects are quite nice on a modern machine.

The Zorin Look Changer is a nice feature and will certainly aid Windows users thinking of using Linux or people who just happened to like that interface but don't like using Windows for other reasons. The "other reasons" are listed on the Zorin website including things such as better security and less chance of contracting viruses.

The choice of applications has been well thought out. GIMP, Thunderbird, Rhythmbox, Firefox and LibreOffice are all pretty much Linux standards and Openshot is a welcome inclusion.

WINE and PlayOnLinux will be attractive for Windows users as it means they can continue to use some of their current applications if they choose to do so.

I was slightly disappointed that STEAM wasn't included but among the premium versions there is a gaming option which may well include it.

The Software Centre is also a bit disappointing. I get the concept but I would recommend Synaptic or if you are willing to learn just one command line tool then apt-get would be a great choice.

There were a couple of minor issues that didn't interfere with my Zorin experience and are only mentioned because they happened and not because they will destroy your opinion of Linux if you happened to stumble across them. You will receive far scarier errors when running Windows 8.

So where would I place Zorin when compared to other similar distributions? I'm afraid that is an article for another day (coming very soon).

Thankyou for reading.











Zorin OS 9 - Linux for Windows users

Introduction

This will be my third review of the core version of Zorin OS.

I first reviewed Zorin 6 in July 2012 and looking back on that review it is clear that my posts were much shorter then than they are today.

One of the questions asked in that review was whether there was enough space for Zorin OS as it occupied similar space to Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

Zorin has survived a further two years since then but I find myself asking the same question because if anything there are more and more distributions with very similar offerings. Off the top of my head there is Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Netrunner, Kubuntu and PCLinuxOS.

I reviewed Zorin OS 8 back in February and the review covers most of what I will also be covering in this latest review such as the software and the look and feel.

I will also highlight the differences between Zorin OS 8 and Zorin OS 9.

About Zorin OS 9

Click here to read the Zorin OS 9 release notes

Zorin OS 9 is based on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 which is the long term support release and this means you will get software updates until 2019.

The unique selling point for Zorin OS is that it is has multiple themes which make it look like the operating system that you are used to using. For instance if you are used to Windows XP then you are able to switch to an XP style interface and if you use Windows 7 you can switch to a Windows 7 interface.

In the core version which is free the available interfaces are Windows XP, Windows 7 and Gnome 2. If you upgrade to the premium version you will get the user interfaces for Unity, Mac OSX and Windows 2000.

Zorin OS Website

Click here to visit the Zorin OS Website

The website lists the following advantages for switching to Zorin OS:
  • No risk of getting viruses
  • Superfast and light on resources
  • Easy to use and familiar desktop
  • Customisable user interface and look changer
  • Stable as it is based on Linux
  • All the software you will ever need out of the box
  • Extremely versatile and customisable open source software
  • Available in 55 languages 

System Requirements

The following minimum system requirements were found on the Zorin OS website at http://zorin-os.com/faq.html.
  • 1 GHz x86 processor
  • 5 GB hard drive space
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Graphics card capable of 640 x 480 resolution

Installation

The Zorin OS website has a link to installation instructions, however they are not exactly extensive and so if you are a newcomer you might find them confusing.

I have written an installation guide showing how to install Zorin OS 9. The guide also has links to other articles which shows how to set up Linux distributions in a virtual machine and how to dual boot Linux with Windows.

First Impressions





















The default look within Zorin OS 9 is the Windows 7 interface and so if you are coming from Windows Vista or Windows 7 then you will find this an easier transition than perhaps using Ubuntu which comes with the Unity desktop.



The screen shows the main desktop with a panel at the bottom.



In the left corner of the panel there are icons for the menu (the big Z), Firefox web browser, the file manager and the Rhythmbox audio player.




In the right side of the panel there are system tray style icons for bluetooth connectivity, network settings, power settings, audio settings, a clock and user settings.

Clicking on the "Z" icon in the bottom corner brings up the menu. On the left is a list of categories and if you click on the category a list of applications appears. You can also search for an application by title or keyword.

The right side of the menu gives you access to folders such as the home directory, documents, pictures, music and videos.

Connecting to the internet


Connecting to the internet is fairly simple. 

Click on the network icon in the system tray and a list of wireless networks will appear.

Choose the network you wish to connect to and if required enter the security key.

To start using the internet use the Firefox Web Browser which can be started by clicking on the icon next to the "Z" in the bottom left corner.


Flash and MP3

Flash is becoming less and less important as the years go by but they said the same thing about JavaScript a few years ago and look how that has turned out. JavaScript is more relevant now than it has even been.

The average user who likes watching videos and listening to music doesn't care about file formats and multimedia codecs nor whether they are proprietary. The average user just wants their computer and operating system to work.






















Zorin OS is made to work out of the box and so users will be able to watch Flash videos and listen to MP3 audio files without installing any further software.

Applications

Zorin OS 9 comes with a really good complement of applications which should get the average computer user up and running. There are more default applications installed with Zorin OS 9 when compared to a purchased version of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Accessories

  • Archive Manager
  • Backup Tool
  • Calculator
  • Disk Manager
  • File Manager
  • Screenshot Tool
  • Terminal Emulator
  • Text Editor
One of the things I bang on about in my installation guides is the importance of backing up and I am pleased to say that Zorin also takes this subject seriously because shortly after booting for the first time the above message is displayed asking you to think about backup strategies.

The backup application is easy to use. Set up the folders you wish to backup, the folders you wish to ignore, where to back up to and how often the backups occur.

Games

  • Solitaire
  • Mahjongg
  • Mines 
  • Quadrapassel (Tetris)
  • Sudoku

Graphics

  • Document Viewer (PDFs)
  • GIMP (Image Editing)
  • Gnome Image Viewer
  • Shotwell Photo Manager
  • LibreOffice Draw
  • Simplescan






















There are graphical tools for everyone, whether you enjoying looking at your photos in an album or you see yourself as an amateur photo editor.

The GIMP is a great tool for editing images and is seen as the free equivalent to Adobe's photoshop.

Internet

  • Desktop Sharing
  • Empathy Instant Messenging
  • Firefox Web Browser
  • Remmina Remote Desktop
  • Thunderbird Mail Client
  • Zorin Web Browser Manager
If you prefer to use a mail client as opposed to webmail then Thunderbird is a good alternative to Microsoft's Outlook.

 
There was a stage a year or so ago where many Linux distributions had switched from Firefox to either Google's Chrome or the Chromium web browsers but most of them appear to have switched back and for good reason. Firefox has improved immensely.

If you don't want to use Firefox you can switch to another browser by running the Web Browser Manager. There are four choices available: Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Midori.

Office

  • Document Viewer (PDFs)
  • LibreOffice Writer (Word Processing)
  • LibreOffice Calc (Spreadsheets)
  • LibreOffice Impress (Presentations)
  • LibreOffice Draw (Drawing)
The LibreOffice suite of applications gives you access to full office applications and the document formats used are becoming more and more widely acceptable including many governments.

If you prefer to use proprietary Microsoft formats then you can create documents using LibreOffice and save them in Word, Excel or Powerpoint format.


Sound and Video

  • Brasero Disc Burner
  • Cheese Webcam Viewer
  • Openshot Video Editor
  • Rhythmbox Audio Player
  • Totem Video Player

Zorin OS 9 includes the Rhythmbox audio player. Rhythmbox is a great application and is far better than the Windows equivalent.

The obvious functions are available such as the ability to import music into the library and the ability to create and edit playlists.

Rhythmbox also works well with many audio devices and worked perfectly with my Sony Walkman and my Samsung Galaxy S4.



Rhythmbox is the one stop shop for audio and includes the ability to listen to podcasts and a number of internet radio stations.




























Nearly everyone creates videos nowadays. If you own a smartphone with a camera it is highly likely that you have recorded video content at one time or another.

Not many Linux distributions come with video editing software included yet more and more people would find it beneficial to edit their videos in order to add titles or to mix content.

Zorin OS 9 comes with the excellent Openshot Video Editor. I am nothing more than a complete amateur at video editing but I found it very intuitive when creating a video loop for my daughter's birthday party which was highlighted in a subsequent blog post about screencasting and videoediting within Linux.






























For simply watching videos Zorin comes with the Totem video playing software which is more than adequate for most people's needs.

Running Windows Applications


























Former Windows users may have applications that they might not be ready to give up on.

Zorin includes WINE which enables Windows applications to run within Linux.

Generally speaking WINE has improved immensely over the years and a great number of Windows titles now work incredibly well.

PlayOnLinux is also included which provides a more user friendly experience for interacting with WINE. You can use PlayOnLinux to install games from various sources such as online or from DVD.

GOG.com has recently announced that they are releasing games for Linux but they also have a large Windows only library that generally run well within Linux using WINE. PlayOnLinux makes it easier to buy, download and install GOG.com games.

Zorin Look Changer



















I mentioned earlier in the review that the unique selling point of Zorin is it's ability to morph itself to look like other desktop operating systems.

In order to change the theme there is a tool called the Zorin Look Changer which is available under the System Tools category.

The functionality couldn't be easier. Simply click on the interface you wish to use.

Again, as mentioned earlier, in the free version you get the choice of Windows 7, Windows XP and Gnome 2 and for the the premium version you will also have Mac OSX, Unity and Windows 2000.

The Windows themes are obviously going to be a draw for Windows users and I can see the temptation of using the Mac OSX theme.

The Unity theme is a strange one as Zorin is based on Ubuntu. If you want to use Unity why not just use Ubuntu? Similarly the Gnome 2 desktop style interface can be achieved by using Mint with the MATE desktop.

Zorin Theme Changer



















The Zorin developers have worked hard on the visual elements that make up Zorin and as well as making a customised desktop experience they have provided different themes as well.

The themes available are Zorin Light, Zorin Blue and Zorin Dark. As mentioned on the Dark Duck blog there doesn't appear to be much difference between the blue and dark themes.

To be able to change themes you have to use the Zorin Theme Changer tool which is available under the system tools menu.

Desktop preferences





















In order to change the desktop background all you have to do is right click on the desktop and choose the cryptically titled "Change Desktop Background".

Zorin provides a number of different backgrounds and they are all nice in their own way. If you prefer to use your own then all you have to do is click the plus symbol (+) and browse to the location of the image you wish to use.

Gratuitous Kitten Picture






















Desktop Effects





















As mentioned before, the Zorin developers have worked extensively on the visual side of things and there are a number of desktop effects provided. Switching between applications for instance can be achieved by holding the super key (Windows key) and the tab key, providing a three dimensional tiled window effect.





















Other effects include the ability to snap windows so that they appear side by side.

You can also switch between applications by pressing Alt and Tab which provides a preview of each application in a row.

Pressing Alt and F7 gives you the ability to move the current application around the screen and it snaps and twists as you do so.

CTRL and S zooms out showing multiple desktops.

The effects can be managed and changed by accessing the Compiz settings manager.

Software Centre

























The default tool in Zorin OS for installing further applications is the Software Centre.

I find the Software Centre limited, painful and frustrating and this is not limited to Zorin but to Ubuntu as well and to some extents Mint (although it is much better in Mint).

























This is why I find it frustrating. In the above screen image you will see that I have searched for Steam (because it is a glaring omission).

The Software Centre has provided 2 options. If I click on the top option it gives me a "More Info" option. Clicking on the "More Info" returns "Not Found".



Clicking on the 2nd option gives me a "More Info" option as well. When I click the "More Info" button I am now provided with details of the Steam Launcher which is used to install and update Steam.

Great!?! Except there is no install button. There is a "Buy" button however. To install Steam you have to log in to a Ubuntu One account and then you are able to download the application.

The Software Centre is also annoying because it never really appears to return all the available software from the repositories and seems to be more interested in trying to sell you stuff than actually delivering the goods.

Whilst I can see the point of an all singing, all dancing software centre with free software and non-free software it would be good if it did the basics right all the time.

I still find that Synaptic is the best go to graphical package manager. It may not be pretty but it sure is effective.

Issues

Zorin was in the main fairly stable but there are a couple of mentions in the issues section.



I will start with the live session. After opening a few windows and playing around I noticed that all the icons had disappeared from the system tray.

This was easily remedied and hasn't happened in the installed version.


I also had a couple of these type of messages pop up. Bizarrely the errors appeared but there didn't appear to be any obvious problem.

Now as a developer myself, what I should really have done at this point was hit the show details, take a screenshot, copy the message and raise it as a bug report because I get users telling me about these sort of errors in the current application that I am developing and it is frustrating when they say "hey I got this message but I just hit close". Unfortunately I didn't do this and so can't adequately say why these errors appeared.





Finally whilst running Rhythmbox the above message appeared. Again there wasn't really an issue at all. The music was coming out of the speakers just fine but Rhythmbox was determined to ask me what was wrong. Anyone know what "Apport" means?

Summary

Zorin has a lot of good things going for it. Visually for instance it is extremely good and the effects are quite nice on a modern machine.

The Zorin Look Changer is a nice feature and will certainly aid Windows users thinking of using Linux or people who just happened to like that interface but don't like using Windows for other reasons. The "other reasons" are listed on the Zorin website including things such as better security and less chance of contracting viruses.

The choice of applications has been well thought out. GIMP, Thunderbird, Rhythmbox, Firefox and LibreOffice are all pretty much Linux standards and Openshot is a welcome inclusion.

WINE and PlayOnLinux will be attractive for Windows users as it means they can continue to use some of their current applications if they choose to do so.

I was slightly disappointed that STEAM wasn't included but among the premium versions there is a gaming option which may well include it.

The Software Centre is also a bit disappointing. I get the concept but I would recommend Synaptic or if you are willing to learn just one command line tool then apt-get would be a great choice.

There were a couple of minor issues that didn't interfere with my Zorin experience and are only mentioned because they happened and not because they will destroy your opinion of Linux if you happened to stumble across them. You will receive far scarier errors when running Windows 8.

So where would I place Zorin when compared to other similar distributions? I'm afraid that is an article for another day (coming very soon).

Thankyou for reading.











15 comments
Posted at 23:13 |  by Gary Newell

15 comments:

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Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Introduction

Zorin OS 9 takes Linux and makes it accessible to Windows users. With well designed interfaces, a familiar look and feel and the best desktop software pre-installed it really is a good way to dip your toes into the Linux pool.

This quick guide shows how to replace your current operating system with Zorin OS 9.

How to get Zorin OS 9

To read all about Zorin OS 9 visit http://zorin-os.com/.

To download Zorin OS 9 visit http://zorin-os.com/free.html for the free version or http://zorin-os.com/premium.html for the premium version.

There are links available to download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Make sure you choose the correct one for your machine.

After downloading the ISO file follow this guide to create a bootable Linux USB drive but choosing the Zorin OS 9 file that you just downloaded.

With the drive created reboot your computer with the USB drive still plugged in.

A menu will appear with a list of options. Choose the "Default" option.

How to install Zorin OS 9






















After booting into Zorin OS 9 you should feel pretty much at home if you are a Windows user.

The desktop has been specifically designed to look and feel like Windows. Note that even though the above image looks like Windows 7 there is a setting available that makes the desktop look more like Windows XP if it makes you feel more comfortable.

To install Zorin OS 9 click on the "install" icon on the desktop.






















If you have prior experience of installing any Ubuntu based Linux distribution then this guide will be familiar.

First of all choose the installation language.





















You can now choose whether to connect to the internet or not.

Connecting to the internet makes the installation take a bit longer because it installs updates as it goes along. Obviously this time is offset against having to download and install the updates post installation.

If you have a slow internet connection I would recommend not connecting now but to install Zorin and then connect after the installation is complete and install the updates.

Make your decision and click "Continue".





















Ideally to install Zorin you will have a great internet connection and be plugged in to a power supply.

Realistically though as long as you have enough battery power and enough disk space you will be fine to install Zorin.

I would recommend plugging your laptop in if you are going to replace the operating system, otherwise there is no telling what state your system will be in if the power dies.

The "Preparing to install Zorin" screen shows you how ready you are to install.

Click "Continue".





















The "Installation Type" screen will be slightly different depending on what you already have installed.

In the screenshot above you can see that I already have Netrunner installed and therefore I have the option to install alongside, replace Netrunner or something else.

If you are running Windows then you will have the option to install alongside Windows or replace Windows.

Note that these instructions will not work with Windows 8. That is a guide for another day.

Select the "Replace with Zorin" option to replace your current OS with Zorin OS 9 and click "Continue".





















A big warning message will now appear stating that everything will be wiped. This is your last chance to change your mind.

If you are sure you want to do this, click "Install Now".





















The next screen asks you where you are in the world so that your timezone will be correctly set when you use Zorin for the first time.

Click where you live on the map and click "Continue".





















Select your keyboard layout from the aptly titled "Keyboard Layout" screen by choosing where you are and your language and then click "Continue".





















Finally create a default user and define your machine name.

Simply enter your name, a descriptive name for the computer, a username and a strong password.

Click "Continue".



























The Zorin OS files will now be copied across and the system installed.

When everything is done you will see the following screenshot.











That is it. All you need to do now is restart your computer and remove the USB drive.

Other useful links

Now obviously this guide was quite quick and quite specific.

Maybe you wanted to dual boot Zorin OS with Windows 7 for instance or maybe you wanted to try Zorin OS out in a virtual machine.

Whilst the following links were created for other versions of Linux all you need to do is replace the version of Linux used in these articles with the Zorin OS ISO downloaded earlier.

Summary

This article was created in advance of the upcoming review of Zorin OS 9.

If you have any questions feel free to use the comments section below.

Thankyou for reading.

How to replace your operating system with Zorin OS 9

Introduction

Zorin OS 9 takes Linux and makes it accessible to Windows users. With well designed interfaces, a familiar look and feel and the best desktop software pre-installed it really is a good way to dip your toes into the Linux pool.

This quick guide shows how to replace your current operating system with Zorin OS 9.

How to get Zorin OS 9

To read all about Zorin OS 9 visit http://zorin-os.com/.

To download Zorin OS 9 visit http://zorin-os.com/free.html for the free version or http://zorin-os.com/premium.html for the premium version.

There are links available to download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Make sure you choose the correct one for your machine.

After downloading the ISO file follow this guide to create a bootable Linux USB drive but choosing the Zorin OS 9 file that you just downloaded.

With the drive created reboot your computer with the USB drive still plugged in.

A menu will appear with a list of options. Choose the "Default" option.

How to install Zorin OS 9






















After booting into Zorin OS 9 you should feel pretty much at home if you are a Windows user.

The desktop has been specifically designed to look and feel like Windows. Note that even though the above image looks like Windows 7 there is a setting available that makes the desktop look more like Windows XP if it makes you feel more comfortable.

To install Zorin OS 9 click on the "install" icon on the desktop.






















If you have prior experience of installing any Ubuntu based Linux distribution then this guide will be familiar.

First of all choose the installation language.





















You can now choose whether to connect to the internet or not.

Connecting to the internet makes the installation take a bit longer because it installs updates as it goes along. Obviously this time is offset against having to download and install the updates post installation.

If you have a slow internet connection I would recommend not connecting now but to install Zorin and then connect after the installation is complete and install the updates.

Make your decision and click "Continue".





















Ideally to install Zorin you will have a great internet connection and be plugged in to a power supply.

Realistically though as long as you have enough battery power and enough disk space you will be fine to install Zorin.

I would recommend plugging your laptop in if you are going to replace the operating system, otherwise there is no telling what state your system will be in if the power dies.

The "Preparing to install Zorin" screen shows you how ready you are to install.

Click "Continue".





















The "Installation Type" screen will be slightly different depending on what you already have installed.

In the screenshot above you can see that I already have Netrunner installed and therefore I have the option to install alongside, replace Netrunner or something else.

If you are running Windows then you will have the option to install alongside Windows or replace Windows.

Note that these instructions will not work with Windows 8. That is a guide for another day.

Select the "Replace with Zorin" option to replace your current OS with Zorin OS 9 and click "Continue".





















A big warning message will now appear stating that everything will be wiped. This is your last chance to change your mind.

If you are sure you want to do this, click "Install Now".





















The next screen asks you where you are in the world so that your timezone will be correctly set when you use Zorin for the first time.

Click where you live on the map and click "Continue".





















Select your keyboard layout from the aptly titled "Keyboard Layout" screen by choosing where you are and your language and then click "Continue".





















Finally create a default user and define your machine name.

Simply enter your name, a descriptive name for the computer, a username and a strong password.

Click "Continue".



























The Zorin OS files will now be copied across and the system installed.

When everything is done you will see the following screenshot.











That is it. All you need to do now is restart your computer and remove the USB drive.

Other useful links

Now obviously this guide was quite quick and quite specific.

Maybe you wanted to dual boot Zorin OS with Windows 7 for instance or maybe you wanted to try Zorin OS out in a virtual machine.

Whilst the following links were created for other versions of Linux all you need to do is replace the version of Linux used in these articles with the Zorin OS ISO downloaded earlier.

Summary

This article was created in advance of the upcoming review of Zorin OS 9.

If you have any questions feel free to use the comments section below.

Thankyou for reading.

3 comments
Posted at 23:58 |  by Gary Newell

3 comments:

Feel free to comment on any of the blog posts. Please try to be constructive.

Offensive messages will be removed as will blatant adverts for misleading products and sites.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Sunday, 27 July 2014

Introduction

This article will show you how to install Linux Mint 17 side by side with Microsoft Windows 7. The desktop environment that will be installed will be the “Cinnamon Desktop”.



It is imperative that you follow every section especially the part about backing up your Microsoft Windows files. If you fail to back up your system and something goes wrong with the installation you run the risk of losing data.

Don’t let the last paragraph scare you. Installing Linux Mint is not that difficult and the rewards are incredible.

Linux Mint is currently the most popular version of Linux and boasts an impressive user interface and a great range of software and it can be installed and used for free.

Click here if you just want to get rid of Windows 7 and replace it with Linux Mint. 

Reviews 

If you are unsure whether Linux Mint is for you here are some reviews which might help:

Backup Windows 7

Whether you intend to continue installing Linux Mint or not it is very important for you to back up your system regularly.

Your computer may well be equipped with the best Antivirus software and the best Firewall software but one careless click on a link in an email could cause Malware to be installed on your computer which may trash your system rendering it useless.

Sometimes things go wrong. What would you do if your hard drive failed? First of all you would lose access to Microsoft Windows and more importantly all of your photos, videos, music files and documents would be either lost or very difficult to recover.

Before installing Linux Mint it is imperative that you backup Windows 7 in case something goes wrong with the partitioning of the hard drive or the installation of the “GRUB” bootloader which enables your system to dual boot between Microsoft Windows and Linux Mint.

Create a recovery disk

The recovery disk is used when you don’t have access to Windows 7 at all. It provides a way to boot so that you can recover from your system image.

To create a recovery disk:

  1. Click the “Start” button.
  2. Click “Control Panel”.
  3. In the “View By” drop down in the top right corner select “Large icons”.
  4. Click the “Backup and Restore” icon.

  5. There are three options in the left hand pane. The first option if you have never created a backup before is to set up backups. The second option is to create a system image and the third is to  create a system repair disc.
  6. Click “create a system repair disc”.

  7. A screen will appear asking you which drive to use to create the disc. Select your DVD writer.
  8. Click “Create disc”.


  9. After a short period a message will appear telling you to label your disc which is a good idea.
  10. Now place this disc somewhere safe and memorable

Create a system image

The system image will take a full copy of your Windows partition (and any other partition you decide to backup)
  1. Click the “Start” button.
  2. Click “Control Panel”.
  3. In the “View By” drop down in the top right corner select “Large icons”.
  4. Click the “Backup and Restore” icon.
  5. Click “Create a system image”.

  6. The “Create a system image” dialog will appear and will ask you where you want to create the image. You should choose the location you wish to save the image. Make sure you have enough disk space.  Read the section “Backup Media” if you are unsure where to backup.

    The options available are “on a hard disk”, “one or more DVDs” or “On a network location”.
  7. Once you have chosen where you want to create the image click “Next”.

  8. You will now be shown a screen asking you which drives to backup. You should leave the C drive and the System partition checked.

    You can optionally choose to backup other partitions if you have any.

    Note that in the screenshot above I have chosen to backup to a different partition on the same machine and I am warned that this is not a good idea.

    Ideally you should backup to an external hard drive or network drive or at very least DVDs.
  9. Click Next to continue.
  10. You will see another screen which asks you to confirm your backup. Click “Start” to backup the image.

Backup files and folders

You should consider backing up important documents and family photos to another device just in case the system image has not been created correctly and the more copies you have of something the less likely it is to be lost forever.

Copy the images and documents to a DVD, USB, external hard drive or via a service like dropbox.
If you have an iPod synchronise your music so that all your music is both on your computer and on your iPod.

Consider backing up your music to a series of DVDs, USB drives or an external hard drive.

For videos you will also need to back them up to DVDs, USB drives or an external hard drive.

Summary

Before continuing it is definitely worth trying your recovery disk out to make sure it loads to the recovery screen. Simply reboot with the DVD in the disc drive.

System Requirements

The following is a list of requirements that your computer must meet in order to be able to run Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.
  • x86 processor (32-bit) or x64 processor (64-bit)
  • 512 megabytes RAM (1 gigabyte recommended)
  • 10 gigabytes disk space
  • DVD or USB support

Shrink the Windows partition

This section shows you how to shrink the Windows partition in order to make space for Linux Mint.
To be able to shrink the Windows partition you will need to run the "Disk Management" tool.

To start the disk management tool click the "Start" button and type "diskmgmt.msc" into the search box and press return.



As you can see the my computer has a busy looking disk layout. The operating system is on drive C and is called OS.  This is the partition that needs to be shrunk in order to make space for Linux Mint.



Right clicking on the relevant drive brings up a context menu and on that context menu is the option to "Shrink Volume". When you click on "Shrink Volume" a box appears asking you how much disk space you want to shrink the disk by.

 

The Shrink utility helpfully sets up the amount of disk space that it can comfortably spare. Unless you have a reason to choose otherwise it is generally fine enough to accept the default options. Click on "Shrink" to start the process. Unlike the backup process this bit is quite quick.

How to get Linux Mint

The options available are as follows:

1. Download Linux Mint and burn to a DVD or USB drive
2. Buy a Linux DVD or USB drive

Downloading Linux Mint

If you have a good internet connection, a DVD writer or a USB drive, and you have no download limits on your internet connection then you can get Linux Mint for free.

The best place for information on downloading a Linux Mint image is the Linux Mint website.

Linux Mint comes in a number of varieties.

First of all you can choose to install a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Linux Mint.

Obviously you should only choose the 64 bit version if you have a 64 bit computer. You can however choose to install the 32 bit version on a 64 bit computer if you wish to do so. I'm not sure why you would want to do this though.

There are also a number of different desktop choices such as MATE, Cinnamon, KDE and Xfce.

Ideally you should choose the Cinnamon desktop as this is the ultimate desktop for Linux Mint. It has all the whizzy effects, gestures and style required of a top operating system.

If your graphics card is not up to running Linux Mint Cinnamon or you need something a bit more lightweight then you should consider the MATE desktop as an alternative as this will run on pretty much any machine.

This guide assumes that if you are running Windows 7 then your computer is probably more than capable of running Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.

Another thing you will notice on the download page is the option for no codecs and this goes hand in hand with the “Multimedia Support+” heading.

Basically whilst Linux is free some of the components that are installed aren’t. If you want to use Flash or play MP3s then these require non free components to be installed. This doesn’t mean that you have to pay for them but some people would prefer not to have proprietary software installed on their machines.

Personally I think it is a good idea to install everything you need to get the job done and in that regard I would choose the option to have multimedia support.

As mentioned before this guide is written for Windows 7 and Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop so find that option and click the link (either 32 bit or 64 bit, depending on your machine).

The next screen provides two ways to download Linux Mint. The first way is to use a bittorrent. Many people think that torrents are only used for downloading illegal software but torrent software is just as useful for distributing legal software such as Linux Mint.

You can either choose to download from a download mirror or from a torrent. A download mirror will give you the download speed made available by the server that it resides on at that download mirror.

A torrent will enable you to download the file from as many people as are serving the software. If there are 100 users with the Linux Mint software available as a torrent then you can download from all 100 people.

If you do not know how to use torrents then it might be a good idea to just choose the mirror that is closest to you geographically. 

Burn the Linux Mint image to a DVD

If you would prefer to use a USB drive skip to the next section as this section deals with booting and installing from a DVD

To burn the Linux Mint image to a DVD you will need a CD/DVD disc burning application such as Nero Express.

It is highly likely that you will already have a disc burning application on your computer but if not you can download a 15 day trial copy of Nero from http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads/.

This guide assumes you are using Nero Express. If you know how to use another application already feel free to use that application to burn the image to a DVD. If you don’t have Nero Express download it from the link above.

To burn the image to a disc:
  1. Open Windows Explorer (Press Windows button on keyboard and E on the keyboard or press “Start” and type “Explorer”, then click “Windows Explorer”).
  2. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the Linux Mint image. 
  3. Right click the image file with the mouse and select “open with” and then “Nero Express”.
  4. Place a DVD into the disc drive.

  5. Check that the “Current Recorder” dropdown list is set to your DVD drive.
  6. Check that the “disc type” is “DVD”.
  7. Check that the “Image File” is the Linux Mint image that you selected.
  8. Click the “Burn” button.
  9. When the process has finished, click the “Next” button and then click the “Close” icon.

Make a bootable USB Drive

If you have already created a Linux Mint DVD to boot from then you can skip this section.

To burn the image to a USB drive you will need:
  1. A blank 2gb USB drive (or larger)
  2. UNetbootin
If you have a USB drive but it is not blank first of all make sure that there is nothing you need on the drive. If there is something you need on the drive copy it to another drive or a disk.

IMPORTANT: Remember that if you back up your USB drive to your Windows partition that your backup image will not contain these new files and so if something goes wrong you will lose these files. You should either copy the files to another drive, to a service like Google Drive, Dropbox or to a DVD.

Formatting the USB drive

  1. Insert the USB drive into your computer.
  2. Open Windows Explorer (Press Windows button on keyboard and E on the keyboard or press “Start” and type “Explorer”, then click “Windows Explorer”).
  3. Find the removable device that relates to your USB drive.
  4. Right click with the mouse on the drive and select “Format”.

  5. Make sure the file system is set to “FAT”.
  6. Check “Quick Format”.
  7. Click “Start”.
  8. A warning will appear telling you that the data on the drive will be deleted. If you want anything on the drive copied off then you should cancel and backup the data otherwise click “OK”.
  9. A message will appear telling you that the format is complete.

Get UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a free application that enables you to create bootable USB Linux drives.

To get UNetbootin:
  1. Open your web browser and navigate to http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
  2. Click the “Download (for windows)” link.
  3. The sourceforge downloader will start and UNetbootin should start downloading.
  4. If you have a download blocker installed then you may need to authorise the download by clicking the yellow bar at the top of the page and allowing downloads from this site.

Burn Linux Mint to the USB drive using UNetbootin

To burn the image to the USB drive:
  1. Run UNetbootin by double clicking on the executable that was downloaded.
  2. If you have user account control set to on then you will have to authorise UNetbootin.

  3. The UNetbootin application has two ways to burn an image to a USB drive.

    a. Select a distribution from the list
    b. Select an image from your computer

    I think it is always a good idea to download the image from the place that the distribution links to as you are guaranteed to get the latest version and you can be sure that it is a good image.
  4. Click the “Disk Image” radio button.
  5. Click the button marker with “…”.
  6. Navigate to the folder with the Linux Mint image and select it.
  7. Ignore the “Space used to preserve files across reboots (Ubuntu Only)” as this install is for Linux Mint and not Ubuntu.
  8. Make sure the “Type” dropdown is set to “USB Drive”.
  9. Select the drive letter that corresponds to your USB Drive. Be careful to get this right so that you don’t accidentally overwrite the wrong device.
  10. Click “OK”.
  11. After a while the process will complete and you will have a bootable USB drive with Linux Mint.

Buy a DVD or USB drive online

You may not want to download an image of Linux Mint because you have download limits set by your internet service provider or because you have a poor download speed.

You may also prefer to buy a USB drive or DVD as you are then guaranteed to get media that works.

Click here to buy a Linux Mint USB drive or DVD visit

Try Linux Mint in Live Mode

Linux Mint runs in Live Mode.

What this means is you can test Linux Mint out by running it straight from the DVD or USB drive.

There are two real advantages to this:
  1. You can make sure the DVD/USB drive works correctly
  2. You can test all the features to make sure that you can connect to the internet and play music/videos etc.

Boot from a DVD

  1. Put the DVD into the DVD drive.
  2. Reboot the computer.
  3. A message will appear stating that Linux Mint will boot in 10 seconds.
  4. If you press “enter” on the keyboard the boot will start straight away.
  5. If everything is ok then after a minute or so Linux Mint will have booted.

Boot from a USB Drive

  1. Put the USB drive into the drive.
  2. Reboot the computer.
  3. A menu should appear with options to try Mint or install Mint.
  4. Choose the default option which loads Linux Mint from the USB drive without installing anything.
  5. If everything is ok then after a minute or so Linux Mint will have booted.
  6. If your computer booted straight to Windows 7 then your hard drive is set to boot before a USB drive.

    If this is the case you have two choices.

    The first choice is to boot from a DVD and the second is to go into your computer’s BIOS and change the boot order of devices.

    You will need to read your computer’s manual or search online to determine how to change the BIOS settings as they are different for each make of computer.

Install Linux Mint

If you are happy that you have adequately backed up your Windows files and any other important files and you are suitably pleased with the Linux Mint live run then now you can install Linux Mint.
  1. Boot into the live version of Linux Mint 17.
    Click on the install icon on the desktop.


  2. Choose your installation language and click "Continue".

  3. You will be asked to connect to your wireless network. This is optional and to be honest I always choose not to connect.

    The installer will use your internet connection to download updates as it goes which means when you boot Linux Mint 17 for the first time after installation it will be completely up to date.

    If you have a slow internet connection this can take ages and if your connection drops then it is hard to know the state of your installation. I prefer to get the installation done first and then apply updates later.

    Select your preferred option and click "Continue".

  4. The next steps shows you how well prepared you are for installing Linux Mint. If you have three green ticks then you are good to go. (The only one you really have to worry about is disk space and if you are not using a power source make sure your battery is charged).

    Click "Continue".
  5. The next step is very important. You basically get three choices when it comes to installing Linux Mint:

    a. Install Linux Mint alongside Windows
    b. Erase disk and Install Linux Mint
    c. Something else

    For this installation I will be advocating choosing the option “Something Else”.

    The “Something Else” option allows you to choose how to partition your disks and because of this you can choose how much disk space to give over to the operating system and how much to keep for your own personal data.



    Look at the image above. This is an image of my disk before I installed Linux Mint. As you can see I have 4 partitions.

    The partition called “/dev/sda1” is a Windows system partition and should not be touched. The partition called “/dev/sda2” is the actual Windows partition and again should not be touched. When you run the Linux Mint install these are likely to be the only two partitions you see.

    In my case there are two other partitions. The partition called “/dev/sda3” is a backup partition. I use this to store a system image. It is not the only place I store the system image but it gives me instant access in case something goes wrong. If I happen to lose this partition then I can always go to my external hard drive to restore the image.

    The fourth partition on my drive is a data partition. I learned a long time ago to separate the operating system from the data on a drive and as such I created a data partition for storing documents, images, photos and videos.

    What you will also notice if you look at the image above is that there is a lot of free space. Over 100 gigabytes worth. This is the space I managed to retrieve by shrinking the Windows partition and this is where Linux Mint will be installed.

    At this stage it is important to talk about disk partitions. Each hard disk within a computer can have 4 primary partitions. Windows needs to run off a primary partition. Each primary partition can have logical partitions. Linux can run from logical partitions.

    If you look at the disk layout on my computer you will have worked out that I already have 4 primary partitions set up. The plan therefore is make logical partitions within the 4th partition.

    The setup will be as follows: Partitions 1 and 2 are for Windows and are primary partitions. Partition 3 will also be a primary partition and will remain as a backup partition. Partition 4 will be an extended partition and will contain 4 logical partitions.

    The logical partitions will be the existing data partition, a partition for Linux Mint, a partition for storing data and a swap partition.

    In your case you might only have 2 primary partitions set up as you may not have the backup or data partitions. This does not matter. You will be creating your logical partitions in the 3rd primary partition.

    Creating the root partition

    Select the “Free Space” and click “Add”.

    A screen will appear asking you to create a partition. In this step you will create the partition that will be used by Linux Mint.

    Initially the box marked “New partition size in megabytes” will show the full amount of free space. Realistically you only need around 20 gigabytes for the operating system allowing for software installations and so overwrite this field with 20000.

    Leave the radio button for “Location for the new partition” as “Beginning”. This will place the Linux Mint partition at the beginning of the disk.

    The “Use as” dropdown allows you to choose the file system that will be used by Linux Mint. The most commonly used file system in Linux is EXT4 and so I would always recommend using this type of partition.

    Change the mount point to / to make this the root partition. 

    Click “OK” to continue.

    Creating the home partition



    Now we are going to create the data partition or as it is called in Linux, the home partition. Consider the home partition to be the same as “c:\users\username” in Windows.

    Select the free space and click the “Add” button again from the “Installation Type” screen.

    The data partition will use up the rest of the disk space minus the amount you plan to use as a swap partition.

    How big should your swap size be?

    Now that is a really good question and everyone has differing opinions. If you plan to hibernate/suspend then consider using at least as much disk space as RAM.

    In the box marked “New partition size in megabytes” enter a value which is at least the mount of RAM less than the amount of remaining disk space.

    Again set the “location for the new partition” to “Beginning” and set the “Use as” to “EXT4”.

    You should set the mount point to “/home”. 

    Click “OK” to continue.

    Creating the swap partition

    The final partition to be created is the “Swap” partition.

    Select the free space and click the “Add” button again from the “Installation Type” screen.

    Enter the remaining disk space in the “New partition size in megabytes” box.

    This time change the “Location for the new partition” to be “End”.

    Within the “Use as” dropdown select “Swap area”.

    The “Swap area” is used when your machine has memory hungry tasks.

    The memory hungry tasks will start using disk space to store and swap memory. This is of course inefficient and if you hear a lot of disk activity when doing simple tasks then it probably means you don’t have enough memory in your machine.

    The “Swap area” is used by Linux Mint for hibernation purposes. If you don’t care about hibernation then you can make this partition a lot smaller.
  6. Now that all the partitions have been created the last thing to do from the Installation Type screen is to choose where to install the bootloader. This usually defaults to the correct place and should say “/dev/sda”. It is important to make sure this does not have any numbers at the end. (for example /dev/sda2).

    The bootloader determines the boot order of operating systems.

  7. The rest of the steps are very straight forward. Choose your location.

  8. Choose your keyboard layout.

  9. Create a default user and a name for your computer.

  10. Wait for the installation to complete which for me took less than 10 minutes

Test it out

Before booting into Linux Mint for the first time it is worth checking whether the Windows partition is still working properly.

To boot into Microsoft Windows reboot your computer (remember to remove your installation media) and a menu will appear with various options including “Linux Mint”, “Linux Mint (Recovery)”, “Windows 7 (sda1)” and “Windows 7 (sda2)”.

Press the down arrow until “Windows 7 (sda1)” is highlighted and then press “Enter” on the keyboard.

If everything has gone successfully Windows 7 should boot up without any errors. If Windows 7 doesn’t boot up then reboot and try the “Windows 7 (sda2)” option on the menu and press “Enter”.

If Windows 7 refuses to load then there is a problem and it is not now worth continuing with booting into Linux Mint until the issues have been resolved. Feel free to leave a comment and I will try and troubleshoot your problem. The worst case scenario would be reverting to the backups you made earlier.

if you are reading on it is assumed that you have a working Windows partition. Now it is time to try Linux Mint.

Reboot your computer and from the menu press the down arrow until “Linux Mint” is highlighted.

Now press “Enter” on the keyboard.

After a short period the Linux Mint login screen should load.

Logging in to Linux Mint

If you chose not to login automatically then a login screen will appear.

You can login by clicking the username at the top of the screen.

Enter the password that you set up during the installation phase and press “enter” again to login.


Summary

If all has gone to plan you should now be able to boot into Windows 7 and Linux Mint.

I hope you have found this guide useful but if you spot issues along the way please leave a comment so that I can update the guide and so that other people can see how you worked around potential problems.

Thankyou for reading.

If you found this guide useful consider using one of the share buttons below to share the article so that other potential Linux Mint users will know where to go.

How to install Linux Mint alongside Windows 7

Introduction

This article will show you how to install Linux Mint 17 side by side with Microsoft Windows 7. The desktop environment that will be installed will be the “Cinnamon Desktop”.



It is imperative that you follow every section especially the part about backing up your Microsoft Windows files. If you fail to back up your system and something goes wrong with the installation you run the risk of losing data.

Don’t let the last paragraph scare you. Installing Linux Mint is not that difficult and the rewards are incredible.

Linux Mint is currently the most popular version of Linux and boasts an impressive user interface and a great range of software and it can be installed and used for free.

Click here if you just want to get rid of Windows 7 and replace it with Linux Mint. 

Reviews 

If you are unsure whether Linux Mint is for you here are some reviews which might help:

Backup Windows 7

Whether you intend to continue installing Linux Mint or not it is very important for you to back up your system regularly.

Your computer may well be equipped with the best Antivirus software and the best Firewall software but one careless click on a link in an email could cause Malware to be installed on your computer which may trash your system rendering it useless.

Sometimes things go wrong. What would you do if your hard drive failed? First of all you would lose access to Microsoft Windows and more importantly all of your photos, videos, music files and documents would be either lost or very difficult to recover.

Before installing Linux Mint it is imperative that you backup Windows 7 in case something goes wrong with the partitioning of the hard drive or the installation of the “GRUB” bootloader which enables your system to dual boot between Microsoft Windows and Linux Mint.

Create a recovery disk

The recovery disk is used when you don’t have access to Windows 7 at all. It provides a way to boot so that you can recover from your system image.

To create a recovery disk:

  1. Click the “Start” button.
  2. Click “Control Panel”.
  3. In the “View By” drop down in the top right corner select “Large icons”.
  4. Click the “Backup and Restore” icon.

  5. There are three options in the left hand pane. The first option if you have never created a backup before is to set up backups. The second option is to create a system image and the third is to  create a system repair disc.
  6. Click “create a system repair disc”.

  7. A screen will appear asking you which drive to use to create the disc. Select your DVD writer.
  8. Click “Create disc”.


  9. After a short period a message will appear telling you to label your disc which is a good idea.
  10. Now place this disc somewhere safe and memorable

Create a system image

The system image will take a full copy of your Windows partition (and any other partition you decide to backup)
  1. Click the “Start” button.
  2. Click “Control Panel”.
  3. In the “View By” drop down in the top right corner select “Large icons”.
  4. Click the “Backup and Restore” icon.
  5. Click “Create a system image”.

  6. The “Create a system image” dialog will appear and will ask you where you want to create the image. You should choose the location you wish to save the image. Make sure you have enough disk space.  Read the section “Backup Media” if you are unsure where to backup.

    The options available are “on a hard disk”, “one or more DVDs” or “On a network location”.
  7. Once you have chosen where you want to create the image click “Next”.

  8. You will now be shown a screen asking you which drives to backup. You should leave the C drive and the System partition checked.

    You can optionally choose to backup other partitions if you have any.

    Note that in the screenshot above I have chosen to backup to a different partition on the same machine and I am warned that this is not a good idea.

    Ideally you should backup to an external hard drive or network drive or at very least DVDs.
  9. Click Next to continue.
  10. You will see another screen which asks you to confirm your backup. Click “Start” to backup the image.

Backup files and folders

You should consider backing up important documents and family photos to another device just in case the system image has not been created correctly and the more copies you have of something the less likely it is to be lost forever.

Copy the images and documents to a DVD, USB, external hard drive or via a service like dropbox.
If you have an iPod synchronise your music so that all your music is both on your computer and on your iPod.

Consider backing up your music to a series of DVDs, USB drives or an external hard drive.

For videos you will also need to back them up to DVDs, USB drives or an external hard drive.

Summary

Before continuing it is definitely worth trying your recovery disk out to make sure it loads to the recovery screen. Simply reboot with the DVD in the disc drive.

System Requirements

The following is a list of requirements that your computer must meet in order to be able to run Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.
  • x86 processor (32-bit) or x64 processor (64-bit)
  • 512 megabytes RAM (1 gigabyte recommended)
  • 10 gigabytes disk space
  • DVD or USB support

Shrink the Windows partition

This section shows you how to shrink the Windows partition in order to make space for Linux Mint.
To be able to shrink the Windows partition you will need to run the "Disk Management" tool.

To start the disk management tool click the "Start" button and type "diskmgmt.msc" into the search box and press return.



As you can see the my computer has a busy looking disk layout. The operating system is on drive C and is called OS.  This is the partition that needs to be shrunk in order to make space for Linux Mint.



Right clicking on the relevant drive brings up a context menu and on that context menu is the option to "Shrink Volume". When you click on "Shrink Volume" a box appears asking you how much disk space you want to shrink the disk by.

 

The Shrink utility helpfully sets up the amount of disk space that it can comfortably spare. Unless you have a reason to choose otherwise it is generally fine enough to accept the default options. Click on "Shrink" to start the process. Unlike the backup process this bit is quite quick.

How to get Linux Mint

The options available are as follows:

1. Download Linux Mint and burn to a DVD or USB drive
2. Buy a Linux DVD or USB drive

Downloading Linux Mint

If you have a good internet connection, a DVD writer or a USB drive, and you have no download limits on your internet connection then you can get Linux Mint for free.

The best place for information on downloading a Linux Mint image is the Linux Mint website.

Linux Mint comes in a number of varieties.

First of all you can choose to install a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Linux Mint.

Obviously you should only choose the 64 bit version if you have a 64 bit computer. You can however choose to install the 32 bit version on a 64 bit computer if you wish to do so. I'm not sure why you would want to do this though.

There are also a number of different desktop choices such as MATE, Cinnamon, KDE and Xfce.

Ideally you should choose the Cinnamon desktop as this is the ultimate desktop for Linux Mint. It has all the whizzy effects, gestures and style required of a top operating system.

If your graphics card is not up to running Linux Mint Cinnamon or you need something a bit more lightweight then you should consider the MATE desktop as an alternative as this will run on pretty much any machine.

This guide assumes that if you are running Windows 7 then your computer is probably more than capable of running Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop.

Another thing you will notice on the download page is the option for no codecs and this goes hand in hand with the “Multimedia Support+” heading.

Basically whilst Linux is free some of the components that are installed aren’t. If you want to use Flash or play MP3s then these require non free components to be installed. This doesn’t mean that you have to pay for them but some people would prefer not to have proprietary software installed on their machines.

Personally I think it is a good idea to install everything you need to get the job done and in that regard I would choose the option to have multimedia support.

As mentioned before this guide is written for Windows 7 and Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop so find that option and click the link (either 32 bit or 64 bit, depending on your machine).

The next screen provides two ways to download Linux Mint. The first way is to use a bittorrent. Many people think that torrents are only used for downloading illegal software but torrent software is just as useful for distributing legal software such as Linux Mint.

You can either choose to download from a download mirror or from a torrent. A download mirror will give you the download speed made available by the server that it resides on at that download mirror.

A torrent will enable you to download the file from as many people as are serving the software. If there are 100 users with the Linux Mint software available as a torrent then you can download from all 100 people.

If you do not know how to use torrents then it might be a good idea to just choose the mirror that is closest to you geographically. 

Burn the Linux Mint image to a DVD

If you would prefer to use a USB drive skip to the next section as this section deals with booting and installing from a DVD

To burn the Linux Mint image to a DVD you will need a CD/DVD disc burning application such as Nero Express.

It is highly likely that you will already have a disc burning application on your computer but if not you can download a 15 day trial copy of Nero from http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads/.

This guide assumes you are using Nero Express. If you know how to use another application already feel free to use that application to burn the image to a DVD. If you don’t have Nero Express download it from the link above.

To burn the image to a disc:
  1. Open Windows Explorer (Press Windows button on keyboard and E on the keyboard or press “Start” and type “Explorer”, then click “Windows Explorer”).
  2. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the Linux Mint image. 
  3. Right click the image file with the mouse and select “open with” and then “Nero Express”.
  4. Place a DVD into the disc drive.

  5. Check that the “Current Recorder” dropdown list is set to your DVD drive.
  6. Check that the “disc type” is “DVD”.
  7. Check that the “Image File” is the Linux Mint image that you selected.
  8. Click the “Burn” button.
  9. When the process has finished, click the “Next” button and then click the “Close” icon.

Make a bootable USB Drive

If you have already created a Linux Mint DVD to boot from then you can skip this section.

To burn the image to a USB drive you will need:
  1. A blank 2gb USB drive (or larger)
  2. UNetbootin
If you have a USB drive but it is not blank first of all make sure that there is nothing you need on the drive. If there is something you need on the drive copy it to another drive or a disk.

IMPORTANT: Remember that if you back up your USB drive to your Windows partition that your backup image will not contain these new files and so if something goes wrong you will lose these files. You should either copy the files to another drive, to a service like Google Drive, Dropbox or to a DVD.

Formatting the USB drive

  1. Insert the USB drive into your computer.
  2. Open Windows Explorer (Press Windows button on keyboard and E on the keyboard or press “Start” and type “Explorer”, then click “Windows Explorer”).
  3. Find the removable device that relates to your USB drive.
  4. Right click with the mouse on the drive and select “Format”.

  5. Make sure the file system is set to “FAT”.
  6. Check “Quick Format”.
  7. Click “Start”.
  8. A warning will appear telling you that the data on the drive will be deleted. If you want anything on the drive copied off then you should cancel and backup the data otherwise click “OK”.
  9. A message will appear telling you that the format is complete.

Get UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a free application that enables you to create bootable USB Linux drives.

To get UNetbootin:
  1. Open your web browser and navigate to http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
  2. Click the “Download (for windows)” link.
  3. The sourceforge downloader will start and UNetbootin should start downloading.
  4. If you have a download blocker installed then you may need to authorise the download by clicking the yellow bar at the top of the page and allowing downloads from this site.

Burn Linux Mint to the USB drive using UNetbootin

To burn the image to the USB drive:
  1. Run UNetbootin by double clicking on the executable that was downloaded.
  2. If you have user account control set to on then you will have to authorise UNetbootin.

  3. The UNetbootin application has two ways to burn an image to a USB drive.

    a. Select a distribution from the list
    b. Select an image from your computer

    I think it is always a good idea to download the image from the place that the distribution links to as you are guaranteed to get the latest version and you can be sure that it is a good image.
  4. Click the “Disk Image” radio button.
  5. Click the button marker with “…”.
  6. Navigate to the folder with the Linux Mint image and select it.
  7. Ignore the “Space used to preserve files across reboots (Ubuntu Only)” as this install is for Linux Mint and not Ubuntu.
  8. Make sure the “Type” dropdown is set to “USB Drive”.
  9. Select the drive letter that corresponds to your USB Drive. Be careful to get this right so that you don’t accidentally overwrite the wrong device.
  10. Click “OK”.
  11. After a while the process will complete and you will have a bootable USB drive with Linux Mint.

Buy a DVD or USB drive online

You may not want to download an image of Linux Mint because you have download limits set by your internet service provider or because you have a poor download speed.

You may also prefer to buy a USB drive or DVD as you are then guaranteed to get media that works.

Click here to buy a Linux Mint USB drive or DVD visit

Try Linux Mint in Live Mode

Linux Mint runs in Live Mode.

What this means is you can test Linux Mint out by running it straight from the DVD or USB drive.

There are two real advantages to this:
  1. You can make sure the DVD/USB drive works correctly
  2. You can test all the features to make sure that you can connect to the internet and play music/videos etc.

Boot from a DVD

  1. Put the DVD into the DVD drive.
  2. Reboot the computer.
  3. A message will appear stating that Linux Mint will boot in 10 seconds.
  4. If you press “enter” on the keyboard the boot will start straight away.
  5. If everything is ok then after a minute or so Linux Mint will have booted.

Boot from a USB Drive

  1. Put the USB drive into the drive.
  2. Reboot the computer.
  3. A menu should appear with options to try Mint or install Mint.
  4. Choose the default option which loads Linux Mint from the USB drive without installing anything.
  5. If everything is ok then after a minute or so Linux Mint will have booted.
  6. If your computer booted straight to Windows 7 then your hard drive is set to boot before a USB drive.

    If this is the case you have two choices.

    The first choice is to boot from a DVD and the second is to go into your computer’s BIOS and change the boot order of devices.

    You will need to read your computer’s manual or search online to determine how to change the BIOS settings as they are different for each make of computer.

Install Linux Mint

If you are happy that you have adequately backed up your Windows files and any other important files and you are suitably pleased with the Linux Mint live run then now you can install Linux Mint.
  1. Boot into the live version of Linux Mint 17.
    Click on the install icon on the desktop.


  2. Choose your installation language and click "Continue".

  3. You will be asked to connect to your wireless network. This is optional and to be honest I always choose not to connect.

    The installer will use your internet connection to download updates as it goes which means when you boot Linux Mint 17 for the first time after installation it will be completely up to date.

    If you have a slow internet connection this can take ages and if your connection drops then it is hard to know the state of your installation. I prefer to get the installation done first and then apply updates later.

    Select your preferred option and click "Continue".

  4. The next steps shows you how well prepared you are for installing Linux Mint. If you have three green ticks then you are good to go. (The only one you really have to worry about is disk space and if you are not using a power source make sure your battery is charged).

    Click "Continue".
  5. The next step is very important. You basically get three choices when it comes to installing Linux Mint:

    a. Install Linux Mint alongside Windows
    b. Erase disk and Install Linux Mint
    c. Something else

    For this installation I will be advocating choosing the option “Something Else”.

    The “Something Else” option allows you to choose how to partition your disks and because of this you can choose how much disk space to give over to the operating system and how much to keep for your own personal data.



    Look at the image above. This is an image of my disk before I installed Linux Mint. As you can see I have 4 partitions.

    The partition called “/dev/sda1” is a Windows system partition and should not be touched. The partition called “/dev/sda2” is the actual Windows partition and again should not be touched. When you run the Linux Mint install these are likely to be the only two partitions you see.

    In my case there are two other partitions. The partition called “/dev/sda3” is a backup partition. I use this to store a system image. It is not the only place I store the system image but it gives me instant access in case something goes wrong. If I happen to lose this partition then I can always go to my external hard drive to restore the image.

    The fourth partition on my drive is a data partition. I learned a long time ago to separate the operating system from the data on a drive and as such I created a data partition for storing documents, images, photos and videos.

    What you will also notice if you look at the image above is that there is a lot of free space. Over 100 gigabytes worth. This is the space I managed to retrieve by shrinking the Windows partition and this is where Linux Mint will be installed.

    At this stage it is important to talk about disk partitions. Each hard disk within a computer can have 4 primary partitions. Windows needs to run off a primary partition. Each primary partition can have logical partitions. Linux can run from logical partitions.

    If you look at the disk layout on my computer you will have worked out that I already have 4 primary partitions set up. The plan therefore is make logical partitions within the 4th partition.

    The setup will be as follows: Partitions 1 and 2 are for Windows and are primary partitions. Partition 3 will also be a primary partition and will remain as a backup partition. Partition 4 will be an extended partition and will contain 4 logical partitions.

    The logical partitions will be the existing data partition, a partition for Linux Mint, a partition for storing data and a swap partition.

    In your case you might only have 2 primary partitions set up as you may not have the backup or data partitions. This does not matter. You will be creating your logical partitions in the 3rd primary partition.

    Creating the root partition

    Select the “Free Space” and click “Add”.

    A screen will appear asking you to create a partition. In this step you will create the partition that will be used by Linux Mint.

    Initially the box marked “New partition size in megabytes” will show the full amount of free space. Realistically you only need around 20 gigabytes for the operating system allowing for software installations and so overwrite this field with 20000.

    Leave the radio button for “Location for the new partition” as “Beginning”. This will place the Linux Mint partition at the beginning of the disk.

    The “Use as” dropdown allows you to choose the file system that will be used by Linux Mint. The most commonly used file system in Linux is EXT4 and so I would always recommend using this type of partition.

    Change the mount point to / to make this the root partition. 

    Click “OK” to continue.

    Creating the home partition



    Now we are going to create the data partition or as it is called in Linux, the home partition. Consider the home partition to be the same as “c:\users\username” in Windows.

    Select the free space and click the “Add” button again from the “Installation Type” screen.

    The data partition will use up the rest of the disk space minus the amount you plan to use as a swap partition.

    How big should your swap size be?

    Now that is a really good question and everyone has differing opinions. If you plan to hibernate/suspend then consider using at least as much disk space as RAM.

    In the box marked “New partition size in megabytes” enter a value which is at least the mount of RAM less than the amount of remaining disk space.

    Again set the “location for the new partition” to “Beginning” and set the “Use as” to “EXT4”.

    You should set the mount point to “/home”. 

    Click “OK” to continue.

    Creating the swap partition

    The final partition to be created is the “Swap” partition.

    Select the free space and click the “Add” button again from the “Installation Type” screen.

    Enter the remaining disk space in the “New partition size in megabytes” box.

    This time change the “Location for the new partition” to be “End”.

    Within the “Use as” dropdown select “Swap area”.

    The “Swap area” is used when your machine has memory hungry tasks.

    The memory hungry tasks will start using disk space to store and swap memory. This is of course inefficient and if you hear a lot of disk activity when doing simple tasks then it probably means you don’t have enough memory in your machine.

    The “Swap area” is used by Linux Mint for hibernation purposes. If you don’t care about hibernation then you can make this partition a lot smaller.
  6. Now that all the partitions have been created the last thing to do from the Installation Type screen is to choose where to install the bootloader. This usually defaults to the correct place and should say “/dev/sda”. It is important to make sure this does not have any numbers at the end. (for example /dev/sda2).

    The bootloader determines the boot order of operating systems.

  7. The rest of the steps are very straight forward. Choose your location.

  8. Choose your keyboard layout.

  9. Create a default user and a name for your computer.

  10. Wait for the installation to complete which for me took less than 10 minutes

Test it out

Before booting into Linux Mint for the first time it is worth checking whether the Windows partition is still working properly.

To boot into Microsoft Windows reboot your computer (remember to remove your installation media) and a menu will appear with various options including “Linux Mint”, “Linux Mint (Recovery)”, “Windows 7 (sda1)” and “Windows 7 (sda2)”.

Press the down arrow until “Windows 7 (sda1)” is highlighted and then press “Enter” on the keyboard.

If everything has gone successfully Windows 7 should boot up without any errors. If Windows 7 doesn’t boot up then reboot and try the “Windows 7 (sda2)” option on the menu and press “Enter”.

If Windows 7 refuses to load then there is a problem and it is not now worth continuing with booting into Linux Mint until the issues have been resolved. Feel free to leave a comment and I will try and troubleshoot your problem. The worst case scenario would be reverting to the backups you made earlier.

if you are reading on it is assumed that you have a working Windows partition. Now it is time to try Linux Mint.

Reboot your computer and from the menu press the down arrow until “Linux Mint” is highlighted.

Now press “Enter” on the keyboard.

After a short period the Linux Mint login screen should load.

Logging in to Linux Mint

If you chose not to login automatically then a login screen will appear.

You can login by clicking the username at the top of the screen.

Enter the password that you set up during the installation phase and press “enter” again to login.


Summary

If all has gone to plan you should now be able to boot into Windows 7 and Linux Mint.

I hope you have found this guide useful but if you spot issues along the way please leave a comment so that I can update the guide and so that other people can see how you worked around potential problems.

Thankyou for reading.

If you found this guide useful consider using one of the share buttons below to share the article so that other potential Linux Mint users will know where to go.

76 comments
Posted at 07:30 |  by Gary Newell

76 comments:

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