@Updraft102 Re: PC Updated itself last night
Thank you for your detailed response. I do appreciate the thought and effort you've put into it, but I politely disagree with you.
- I'm happy you've had no problems with installs and stability. Maybe you're smarter than I am. Maybe you put more effort into configuring and troubleshooting something that should "just work". I still maintain that a real end-user could not have got as far as I did with this setup. Maybe it's a weird Lenovo N200 hardware combo. I doubt that the hardware is faulty, as it ran XP flawlessly for years. Please, recommend a basic laptop model that you can guarantee will work, and I'll try that. I really, really want this to work!
By the way, I've installed Windows from scratch a few times (dead disks and own-builds). Yes, had problems with WiFi and displays, but always got a working wired connection to download drivers.
- (May be Mint MATE specific) You don't see a problem with menu options labelled Backup (mintbackup) and Restore (Timeshift)? Or something labelled "Software Manager" that doesn't manage installed software?
(I'm sorry, I haven't actually looked into what Timeshift does yet. And I was partly wrong about the screenshot tool - it does remember the last save location)
Maybe you _do_ need to install other FOSS software to make Linux usable. So why not include that in the Mint distro? Isn't that the point of a distro?
Teamviewer installs fine on a Lenovo N100, but breaks the PPAs on an N200 installed from the same image. Hang on, that's not a hardware or a UI problem. Delete & reinstall? Same problem.
Here's a thought, why not put the backup icon on the Start menu, to prompt people every time? Rather more useful there than, say, Software Manager. Yes, it's all configurable, but why not start with useful choices? I'm torn over the Terminal icon there - I'd use it a lot, but real end-users should not need to.
Regarding online help: It doesn't help that googling "Linux Mint 18 (problem description)" seems to ignore most of the search criteria. Hey, Google, it's about the quality of the results returned, not the number or the popularity.
Mint vs. Windows 10? Poorly designed, high maintenance software vs. a horrible UI, forced upgrades and spyware? Hmm, tough choice.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
