For the past two or three years, I've been happily using Xubuntu Linux but like all good things, this too eventually came to an end.
About a year ago, I had attempted to upgrade to the next long term support version of Xubuntu and it wouldn't install. It seems my hardware was a little outdated. Since the version I was using still had a couple of years left before it reached its scheduled end of life—the point at which all development, including maintenance and security updates, ceases—I had decided to just ride it out and make a decision about what to do with the computer in a couple of years.
For better or worse, things just didn't last that long. Updates kept failing and the system was becoming more more outdated and thus more and more vulnerable. Finally, I decided I'd had enough and decided to see what else was out there. I finally settled on Linux Mint 17.1 and decided to keep the xfce interface I had grown accustomed to.
One of the things I have truly come to love about most popular Linux distributions over the years is the ability to boot from a live CD or DVD and take the operating system for a test drive without affecting anything on the computer. One of the first things I discovered in the release notes was a built-in workaround for the problem that had kept me from upgrading to the newest stable release of Xubuntu. It took a couple of tries to get the workaround to work, since you have to be pretty quick to access the Linux Mint boot menu to apply it, but once I did, it worked flawlessly and even remembered that setting when I installed the operating system on my hard drive.
The installation went flawlessly and configuration was a breeze since I was already quite familiar with the xfce interface. One of the nicest things was that almost all the software applications I needed were already included on the installation disk image. The only thing I had to add were the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client and Radio Tray, an Internet radio player I had been using.
After I ran all the updates, I found the version of the LibreOffice productivity suite included on the disk image was not only outdated but had actually reached its scheduled end of life several months ago. I've encountered this issue before as Linux distributions often don't keep the most current versions of third party software in their repositories. It's not a big deal, but in my previous experience, it has always required mucking about on the command line to set up access to an alternate repository in order to install the current version. It's a one-time thing, after which updated versions are installed automatically.
After a quick post to the Linux Mint users' forum, a helpful administrator gave me my answer and the news was better than I was hoping for. Not only was it possible to gain access to a more up to date repository, but there was a pre-installed app that let me do it without venturing onto the command line. It took me less than five minutes to access the repository and install the current version of the software. Configuring my printer was equally as easy. It took all of about four mouse clicks. That's a far cry from the first time I installed OpenSUSE Linux on an old laptop some six years ago.
I've only had Linux Mint installed on my nine-year-old HP laptop for about 24 hours, but I'm happy with it and it seems to hold the promise of keeping this particular piece of old hardware running and up to date for the foreseeable future.
Mac OS X may still be my operating system of choice, but my appreciation for desktop Linux in all of its forms continues unabated.
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