linux-mintUbuntu
Can someone please tell me the differences between Ubuntu and Linux Mint ?
I thought they were almost the same thing until I downloaded Ubuntu 13.10 versions of softwares for my Linux mint 16 system, and half of them didn't work.
(I did that as those are the links I got when I searched for Linux mint versions)
There's a launchpad bug about Ubuntu booting with the laptop backlight off; that might be the problem you're seeing.
I have a similar situation with my Windows 8 netbook and it actually turns out to be very easy to dual boot. This is how I did it:
Create a single ext4 partition and format it using GParted from a live Linux distro or a GParted live CD.
Install your Linux distro on that partition (Use the 'Something Else' option when installing Mint). If your drive is GPT-formatted, the installation media won't probably recognize your Windows 8 installation (So you won't get the 'Install along with Windows' option). You may also create another swap partition, which is fine. The ext4 partition is your root (/) if you are doing this manually.
To boot from external media, you must have switched the boot mode to Legacy BIOS in the BIOS. And this is the mode you need to keep if you want to boot into the Linux distro.
Switch it back to UEFI mode if you want to boot into Windows.
I've dual booted Kali Linux and Windows 8 (pre-installed) on an Acer Aspire One 725 using this method. The partitioning was automatically managed by the installation media, so there might be more to it than what I have mentioned.
This is the partitioning scheme as it stands currently:
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 2048 821247 400.0 MiB FFFF Ba 2 821248 1435647 300.0 MiB EF00 EF 3 1435648 1697791 128.0 MiB 0C01 Mi 4 1697792 151058431 71.2 GiB 0700 5 212662477 946364415 349.9 GiB 0700 6 946364416 976773119 14.5 GiB FFFF Ba 7 151058432 151060479 1024.0 KiB EF02 8 151060480 210063359 28.1 GiB 0700 9 210063360 212662271 1.2 GiB 8200
GParted screenshot:
I will recommend cloning the entire disk using Clonezilla before experimenting, just in case.
Best Answer
In short, Linux Mint does uses exactly the same base as Ubuntu. In fact, if you check the contents of
/etc/apt/sources.list, you will see that Mint uses the Ubuntu archives for most of its software.Most likely you have made an error in installing the software. Particularly when you say that you 'downloaded' the software, it implies that you didn't use
apt-getor another package manager to install the software. You should always attempt to install software in this manner as each package in the Ubuntu repository has been configured to integrate with the system (be it Ubuntu or Linux Mint), attempting to install from another source may be problematic.The difference between Linux Mint and Ubuntu lie mainly in the packages which are installed by default, the artwork which is included and the installer itself.
Linux Mint is geared toward providing a clean and easy to use interfaces for new Linux users. The Mint developers have created a number of programs/packages to that end. This includes the Cinnamon and Mate desktop environments (originally forked from parts of GNOME2/3). Other things which have been included are desktop applications such as the Mint update manager and a favourite of mine Simple Scan.
However, as all these applications are Free Software, they are widely available outside of Linux Mint. In fact the Mint desktop environments along with other Mint software are available in the Debian repositories (this is where I get Simple Scan from). As Ubuntu is based on Debian, they are also available in the Ubuntu repositories.
Since this software is available in the Ubuntu repositories (and the Mint developers do not engage in the mass packaging of software required to maintain the own independent repositories unlike Debian/Ubuntu), Linux Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories as the source of most packages installed on the system. Although Linux Mint do provide their own repositories for new releases of their own software which may still be unstable or otherwise hasn't made it into Ubuntu yet.
Update
Most of the Linux Mint developed software is actually installed from Mint repositories which take precedence over those in the Ubuntu ones. The packages in these repositories will either have a specific Linux Mint configuration or depend on another package which does. Also in the Mint repositories are packages containing the artwork unique to the Linux Mint distribution. However the number of these specific packages is tiny compared to the tens of thousands of packages available in Ubuntu. Package lists for the Linux Mint 16 repositories can be found here and here.