SO17
Linux Mint OS

An operating system is the foundation on which a computer’s hardware can execute applications.  Although Microsoft Windows dominates the installed base of personal computer operating systems with about 90% of the worldwide market share, there are worthy alternatives.

One OS that has gained favor is Linux, an OS derived from Unix, whose kernel was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in 1991.  When it became a part of the GNU Project, Linux was made freely available and open to further development in the open source community. 

Linux is used in cell phones, routers, PCs, mainframes, and supercomputers.  Indeed, over half of the world’s web servers use the Linux OS to run the Apache web server app.

For the desktop space, there are several Linux “distros” available such as Mint, Fedora, Gentoo, and Linux Mint that effectively replace Microsoft Windows OS.  These distros combine all the features of a modern GUI based OS and are free.  They support the execution of other open source applications to perform all the common PC operations such as web browsing, email, office suite, and much more.

Linux Mint OS

1.  Boot the PC from your HDD.  On the internet, go to www.linuxmint.com.

2.  Download the latest desktop LTS version of Linux Mint 64bit.  The downloaded file is an .iso
     image used to create a bootable OS install DVD.  The file size is about 1.5 GB.

3.  Use Windows Disc Image Burner to burn the image to a DVD+R disk.  Label the disk
     appropriately.

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Play Around

With the installation complete reboot the computer from the DVD you just created. 

Linux Mint Linux behaves similar to Windows and most users quickly become familiar with it.

?Firefox web browser
?LibreOffice office suite (similar to OpenOffice)
?Thunderbird email client
?RhythmBox Music player
?Shotwell photo editor
?Linux Mint Software Center for much more

Shut down the PC.  Remove you CD.
Checkout

1.  Restart the PC to boot from the internal Windows 10 SSD HDD to make sure it is OK.

2.  Instructor check point.							____________