Test driving Linux Mint
Discover how to road-test Linux Mint quickly, easily and without putting it anywhere near your hard drive and all your data – unless you ask it to.
One of the big pluses of any Linux distribution is its ability to be run directly from DVD or USB flash drive without installation. This so-called “live environment” enables you to preview different distros without having to commit to installing them first (as an aside, it also provides you with a familiar recovery environment should you ever need it). When running from DVD, any changes you make are lost when you restart, so you can experiment without worrying.
The live environment is a good place to start your tour of Linux Mint as a whole, because it’s virtually identical to what you’ll get when you install Mint proper. Place the LinuxFormat disc in your drive and boot from it (see www.linuxformat.com/dvdsupport if you need help booting your PC from CD or DVD), selecting the Linux Mint option followed by Start Linux Mint 19 MATE.
After a few minutes – remember this is booting from DVD, so much slower than running from your hard drive (or even a flash drive) – you should find yourself at Mint’s Cinnamon desktop. It should feel familiar to any Windows user following the classic layout of a desktop with just a taskbar (Mint refers to this as a panel) along the bottom, containing all the navigation tools and aids you need. The taskbar is identically laid out, too: the Menu button on the left opens Mint’s Start menu, while there are system notifications on the right, with pinned application shortcuts and tiles for switching between open windows displayed in-between.
Next to the Menu button is a button that minimises all open windows to leave the desktop beneath, followed by three shortcuts. These point to the Firefox web browser, Terminal (Linux’s command-line environment) and the Files tool, Mint’s equivalent of FileExplorer. Click the latter to explore the file system. What you’ll find is that none of your hard drives have been ‘mounted’. This is deliberate, but if you want to access your files, then click the drive as it appears under Devices in Files. Proceed with caution. Not only can you browse and open your files, but you can make changes and delete them, too. To unmount a drive and put it beyond the reach of the Mint live environment, click the eject button next to its entry under Devices.
Mint’s Menu button provides shortcuts to all preinstalled applications as well as system preferences and Mint’s two “stores” for installing more programs:
Software Manager and Synaptic Package Manager. You’re free to browse these and install additional apps in the live environment, but they’ll all be wiped when you shut down. There are plenty of pre-installed apps to try too, including LibreOffice, GIMP, MediaPlayer and more. If you’d like to be able to experiment with the Live environment in the longer term and preserve certain settings and installed programs between reboots, you’ll need a USB flash drive (8GB or larger) and the services of the box ( opposite).