Installing Mint 18
1. Boot the LXFDVD Ideally, starting your computer with the DVD in the drive should bring up the stylish menu pictured below. Unfortunately there’s a lot that can go wrong here, you’ll need to make sure Secure Boot is switched off and also that your machine will boot from the optical drive before other devices that have operating systems on them. There are some pointers at https:// help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD. 2. Choose your poison We’ve provided the two most popular versions, Cinnamon and Mate on the disc. Mate is more suited to older hardware (it’s also your only choice if you have a 32-bit CPU), but it will work just fine on newer machines. It’s ideal if you yearn for the simpler days of Gnome 2. Choose your version and press ‘Enter’. Start it from the next menu, if you run into problems try again in compatibility mode. 3. The Live Environment You can get a feel for Mint from the live environment. This is a complete edition of Mint that looks and acts exactly like a proper install. It will be much more responsive when it’s installed on your machine though, since at present everything is running from the DVD and potentially without graphical acceleration. So once you’ve familiarised yourself with the layout, hit the install icon on the desktop.
4. Language and codecs You’ll first be prompted to choose a language, one reason for Mint’s popularity is that localisations and language packs for so many different locales exist. You may wish to read the release notes too. Next you’ll be prompted to install proprietary drivers, codecs and the like which you should certainly do if you plan on gaming with a modern graphics card or your wireless card needs extra firmware to work. 5. Installation Type The first option here is the simplest, but also the most destructive: Mint will take over the whole target drive. Make sure there’s nothing you care about on here before choosing this option. Those wishing to dual-boot with Windows should install that OS first (it’s very rude about overwriting boot sectors) and choose ‘Something else’ here. If you want to use LVM, see the main feature ( above). 6. Hit the button Click the ‘install’ button and you’ll be informed of any changes the Ubiquity installer will make. Once you’re sure everything is as it should be (and do make sure—it will be difficult, if not outright impossible, to recover data from a device after it has been overwritten) click the ‘Continue’ button. Depending on the speed of your machine there may be time for a wellearned LinuxFormat Cup of Teatm at this point.