Linux Mint Xfce: Moving From Maya to Rebecca

Dammit, Clement Lefebvre, you and your team at Linux Mint have gone and done it. Y’all, and the folks at Xfce too. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone? I was perfectly fine and dandy with Maya and now you’ve gone and ruined it by coming out with something five times better. Thanks for ruining my Saturday. Thanks a lot.

Here’s the problem. For the last couple of years or so we’ve been using Mint’s Xfce edition of Maya (that would be version 13 for those who read the box scores) on nearly all of the machines here at FOSS Force. As Maya will be supported until 2017, we had absolutely no plans to make any upgrades until then, as taking time out for the tedious process of upgrading our machines isn’t one of my favorite things to do — and I’m the one who’d be doing the upgrading.

When the folks at Mint released a new LTS Xfce version (Qiana) in June of last year, followed by another LTS (Rebecca) in January, we didn’t much care. We were more than happy with Maya, and following the age old philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” we decided to stay the course and keep using what we had until its sunset year arrived. As far as I was concerned, although approaching obsolescence, Maya was damned near perfect. How much better could the latest and greatest be?

However, you might notice that I write about Maya in the past tense. I confess. I killed her.

Early this year we were gifted a new-to-us Dell laptop, a sweet little 32 bit machine with the best sounding and loudest laptop speakers we’ve ever heard, making it the obvious candidate to be the machine we’d use for watching Netflix, hardworking folks that we are. So I downloaded and installed Rebecca, loaded it up with Google Chrome (the easiest way to use Netflix in Linux) and now fire it up late at night, when the moths and I are the only ones around, to watch The Fall, The Killing or Lily Tomlin drinking peyote out of a mason jar on Grace and Frankie.

Guess what? I quickly discovered that as good as Maya is, Rebecca is a quantum improvement, with many new functions and increased ease of use. In fact, I found myself running to the Rebecca laptop during office hours to handle chores such as formatting thumb drives and creating bootable ISOs. So I spent Saturday afternoon and evening downloading Mint twice — both in its 32 bit and 64 bit incarnations — and upgrading both our HP 32 bit desktop and our Gateway 64 bit laptop.

Rebecca doesn’t come with the most current Xfce desktop, 4.12. That came out about a month after the release of the Xfce edition of Mint. However, the default, 4.10, offers a much improved user experience over 4.8, which was Maya’s default — and which already didn’t need improving. I shudder to think what I’ll feel when I see 4.12 in action married to Mint. Something tells me that’ll prompt another one woman installfest.

OMG! Linux Mint Xfce Edition has turned me into one of those fangirls I so dislike.

Upgrading Mint

For newer Linux users, I’m going to explain the steps I took for this upgrade (oldtimers can skip the next few sections), hoping this will be a help to those wanting to upgrade their machines, whether from an earlier version of Mint or from any other distro.

To my way of thinking, when I’m moving from one release to another, I like to do a clean install. Although most distros offer some kind of upgrade path, I think it’s a good idea to occasionally do a complete install from scratch — to fix any misconfigurations that might have occured over time if for no other reason. Besides, installing a clean version of a Linux distro is easy peasy these days — sometimes easier than any upgrade path baked into your distro.

Backing up the Home directory

No matter what distro you’re currently using, you will most likely find more than one backup application installed, and any one of them will do the job for you, some better than others. However, in this day and age of automatically mounted thumb drives, I no longer see any need to use a backup program. I just insert a thumb drive into a port, open up a file manager and copy everything from the home directory I’m going to want to keep on the new distro.

In my case, this meant copying everything from the Documents and Pictures directories only. I don’t ever save anything to the desktop, I don’t have any videos or music stored locally, and my downloads folder is filled with nothing but gigantic install files from distros I’d downloaded for testing and will never need again. If you use Firefox, you’ll also want to backup your settings and can find information on how to do this on Mozilla’s site.

You’ll also want to backup your email client. For Thunderbird this is very easy: In your file manager make sure you’re able to see hidden files (usually through the View menu), then navigate through the Home directory to your user directory and copy the .thunderbird directory. Once you have your new distro installed, you merely need to open Thunderbird and close it again immediately (which will create a .thunderbird directory on your new install), then replace everything inside the newly created directory with the contents from the .thunderbird directory you saved from your old install.

Downloading and installing Linux Mint 17.1

First you’ll need to download Linux Mint 17.1 from Mint’s Rebecca download page, choosing whether you need the 32-bit or 64-bit version (there’s an article on How-To Geek explaining how to find out if you’re not sure). The Mint download page will also let you choose versions with desktop environments other than Xfce if you wish. After making your choice, save the download to your Downloads directory.

Now you’re ready to create a bootable USB drive using Unetbootin or some other utility designed to create bootable drives from downloaded ISO files. Most likely, your distro will already have something installed for this purpose (I used Mintstick, which I now prefer after years of using Unetbootin). If you don’t find anything installed, install Unetbootin either through your software manager or the command line. Make sure that you don’t use the same storage device that you used to backup your Home directory, as making the bootable drive will erase everything already on the thumb drive.

If you know that your computer isn’t using UEFI (pretty much meaning you’re installing on a computer more than a year old) and that it’s set to boot from a USB drive, then you’re good-to-go. If your computer uses UEFI, then you’ll have to make sure that the “secure boot” function is disabled (see your computer’s documentation). If it won’t boot from the USB drive, you’ll need need to break into your BIOS and set the computer’s boot order so that the USB drive tops the list, ahead of the hard drive. Entering and configuring the BIOS varies from machine to machine, so again, if you don’t know how to do this, see your computer’s documentation.

Now all you have to do is shut down your computer, stick your thumb drive into an USB port and hit the power button. You’ll soon be greeted with a screen offering you some boot options, which you can ignore. In ten seconds or so, your machine will boot automatically into a “Live” image of Linux Mint Xfce running from the thumb drive you created.

After you’re up and running live, make sure you can connect to the Internet. If you can, you’re ready to bite the bullet and click the Install button, located in the upper left part of the desktop. Right away you’ll be clicking through some screens relating to time zones, languages, etc.

To partition or not to partition…

Early on in the install, the Mint installation program will name all of the operating systems that are on your computer and offer you three options: a) Share Linux Mint Rebecca with what’s already on your machine. b) Wipe whatever’s on your machine and install Rebecca as your standalone OS. c) Something else. Unless you have experience with disk partitioning, you should’t choose the last option.

In this day and age of gigantic hard drives, I usually choose the first option on important production machines — as an added safeguard, so I’ll have the option to boot into the old distro to easily grab files and directories should something go awry with my backup or if I find that I forgot to backup something I need, which is always a possibility. This actually came in handy today, when I needed some specs from the old distro to use in this article. All I had to do was reboot the computer and choose Mint 13 when the GRUB bootloader popped-up.

Immediately after choosing to share the new install with whatever’s already on the computer, you’ll be taken to an easy to use partitioning tool where you can reduce the size of the old distro down to just above minimum, leaving the rest of the disk available to the new distro. This screen offers a graphical map of your drive, which is actually a slider, indicating the space that will be allocated to each distro after partitioning. By default, the allocation will be about 50/50.

By moving the slider all the way in the direction of the already installed distro until it stops, you can determine the amount of space being used by that distro. In my case, the Maya install was using about 16GB, so using the slider, I allocated it 20GB, giving it a little breathing room, which left well over 200GB available for Rebecca.

If you choose the second option, to wipe everything and install Mint 17.1 as a standalone distro, you’re pretty much done with the partitioning process and your entire hard drive will be reformatted after you click through a warning that the process is irreversible and will wipe everything on your machine

Finishing the installation

After partitioning your drive, you’ll want to have a book or some other distraction handy, as your computer will be busy installing Rebecca for the next 20 minutes or so, depending on your Internet connection speed. You’ll want to stay close, however, as you’ll eventually be prompted to create a user account and decide on whether to encrypt your entire drive, your home directory, or nothing at all.

My rule of thumb on encryption? For a desktop, as long as it’s not going to have any extremely sensitive data on board, I don’t encrypt it at all and set it to boot completely without prompting for a username or password, so I can hit the power button, walk away from the computer to grab a cup of coffee or something and find it ready for action upon my return. Of course, this means never letting a browser store a password for the likes of online banking or PayPal, which I don’t do under any circumstance anyway. For a laptop, which is easily stolen, I encrypt everything.

If you do encrypt, make sure you choose a strong password. But beware: If you forget the encryption password, unless you know someone at the NSA, you’ll never recover your data — and probably not even then.

After that, you’re done. It’s time to hit Restart, pull your USB device and boot from the hard drive. In other words, it’s time to take your shiny new Linux installation for a spin.

A few things to do after first boot

The first thing to do after booting into your new Linux Mint installation is to run the Update Manager to apply all bug and security fixes. After my installation on Saturday, Update Manager told me that there was a new version of…well, Update Manager, which I installed by clicking Install Updates. After that, I hit Refresh, to bring up a list of needed updates, followed by Select All and then, again, Install Updates.

Usually, the first time you run the updater you’ll be presented with a long list of fixes that’ll take a half hour or so to download and install. You won’t need a book, though, as your computer will still be available to you.

The next thing you’ll want to do is to enable the firewall, which is not enabled by default in Mint. In past versions, this could be done through the GUI, but evidently that option is no longer available. Not to worry, this is easy to do via the command line. Simply open the terminal and type “sudo ufw enable” without the quotation marks. This will enable the firewall, configured to default settings which are usually sufficient. To make sure the firewall is up and running, type “sudo ufw status verbose” and make sure that the lines returned includes the phrase “deny (incoming).” To disable the firewall, type “sudo ufw disable”.

Some Xfce tips

One of the reasons I like the Xfce desktop is because it’s not only relatively lightweight, therefore pretty easy on system resources, but it’s fairly configurable too. Here are some hints to get you started:

To place applications in the panel for easy access, simply right click in the panel to bring up a context menu, hover over the word “Panel”, select Add New Items, and then Launcher. An empty launcher will appear on the right side of the panel. Right click on it and you can add an application. You can then place the launcher wherever you want on the panel by right clicking and selecting Move.

You’ll pretty much need to add a separate launcher for each application if you want to see separate icons for each application. However, you can create launch groups (maybe grouping all of your browsers together) by placing several applications within a single launcher. In this case, only one icon will show up on the panel until you expand it by clicking an arrow next to the icon, revealing the other applications within that launcher. You can also choose which icon in a group you wish to display by default on the panel — the one at the top of the list displays by default.

Icons are placed on the desktop in much the same way: Right click anywhere on the desktop and choose Create Launcher. Type the name of the application to which you’d like the application to point, select Create, and you’re done. As far as I can tell, only one application can be included in each desktop launcher.

To change the wallpaper from Mint’s default, in the menu go to Settings>Desktop, where you’ll find many images from which to choose. Linux Mint Xfce also comes preloaded with lots of screensavers, with plenty of options on how to use them. In the menu go to Settings>Screensavers.

A couple of recommended Xfce applets

Xfce comes with many applets you can use to enhance your desktop experience. All applets are applied the same way as Launcher (which is also an applet), by right clicking in the panel and selecting the applet. The applet can then be moved by right clicking the applet and clicking Move. Although I usually eschew whistles and bells, there are a couple of applets I find useful and recommend that you investigate.

Weather Update: This applet puts a small graphic image signaling the general weather for the day (sunny, partly cloudy, rainy, etc.) on the panel. In addition, the applet scrolls the temperature, wind direction and wind speed — in the measurements of your choice. Clicking on the applet brings up a five day forecast.

The applet automatically preconfigures to your location. However, it’s easy to change the location (by right clicking and selecting Properties), in case it guessed incorrectly or if you need to check the weather in another region.

Dictionary: As a writer, I’m constantly opening new browser tabs to check word usage and spelling (sometimes spellcheck can’t figure out what the hell I’m trying to type). With this applet, that’s not often necessary any longer. I just click on the open book icon, type the word in question into a text box and presto, I’m given definitions from various dictionaries, along with other information on how the word is best used. A very convenient time saver.

Is Linux Mint Xfce Edition right for you?

No one but you can decide whether Linux Mint is right for you. You know the way you use a computer, and what works best for you.

As for me, I require a computer that’s stable and easy to maintain. I also need an operating system that pretty much stays out of my way and doesn’t bother me. As something of a power user (I often have eight or nine programs open, with ten or more open tabs in one or more browsers), I also need a system that doesn’t bog down under a heavy load. For the past couple of years, the combination of Linux Mint and Xfce has worked well for me. I have no complaints. Maybe this combination will work well for you; maybe it won’t. You decide.

Thankfully, I’m no longer cursing Clem and the Mint team — or the folks developing Xfce for that matter. In my mind, I’ve made peace with them and can now thank them for doing the impossible by making my already fantastic Linux experience even better.

Dammit, I’m beginning to sound like Ken Starks. That’s okay, I guess. It gives me something new to cuss about.

You can help FOSS Force grow our coverage by making a contribution during our May Pledge Drive. If you enjoyed this article, please help us by making a contribution. Get all of the details on our Indiegogo campaign page.