Install Linux

I've never noticed any delay in your response. Sorry that you are not notified properly.

Anyone know how to get the screensaver right in Mint Cinnamon 19.1? I would appreciate a hand here.

Hate to display the ignorance, but how do I install VLC Media Player, please? I downloaded a tar.xz for VLC Media Player--but don't know how to "DeTar" it and install it. I think Mint 17.3 came with it installed or installed it easily.

With Mint 19.1 Cinnamon I dunno how to install it. Please help!
The Media Player that I have doesn't work worth a hoot. It asked me to search for something marked as a BAD choice. WTH?

I installed the "bad choice" but avoided the ""worse choice.""

VLC seems to be a bridge beyond attainability. Sure would love some help with this everyone! Being able to watch DVD's on my PC is important because Mr Sun can play meanly when I want to see a DVD on my big tv.

At this point I'm contemplating a Mint 17.3 installation just to watch DVD's with. Maybe having that old Mint 17.3 would be easiest on its own SSD? Maybe.

Seems like a step backward though.

Mint 19.1 does NOT play fair With VLC Media Player. And the built in so called Media Player is plain useless.

Help needed all y'all. I've worked on this problem for days but simply can't install VLC Media Player. It would be a cinch to install as it's already an "easy" install. If only.

Mint's USP originally was to make it easy to install media codecs (less significant as the most common are now out of patent), the Cinnamon desktop (now repackaged and made available on other distros, from Arch to Ubuntu), and simpler driver installation (which other distros now also do) there's no real reason to cling to it.

I played with various distros before going back to Gentoo, and was pleasantly surprised with all of them. While I might not always like everything about them, it's no longer a case of some distros simply failing to install* or being bad, wrong and stupid once running, so much as whether the minor differences between how I want the system to work, and how it actually works, are tolerable. For me, this means Gentoo, as I then have the flexibility to close that gap between expectation and reality. For you, maybe another system - if you're still KDE-minded, consider KDE Neon.

Thank you very much for your suggestion Kaitain. I used to like KDE a lot. But it's been many years so I'm now trepidatious about the change.

Can anyone recommend a Media Player program that will let me see my DVD player in Mint Cinnamon 19.1?
Used to love VLC but a substitute would be great.

Thank you for your reply! I did not know that it was, but I'm happy to assent to your opinion!
Dang, it's important that I be able to watch DVD's with my PC. I hate to upset the apple cart that runs so well, Mint Cinnamon 19.1 that is. The folks that made Mint 19.1 are to be greatly commended!

But this inability to install VLC brings slings and arrows of disapproval! Big ones!

Read the same thing, thanks for the warning. I use Chrome to visit four sites and that's it. Will this cause the "keeping tabs on everything" problem? Netflix works fine with Chrome, other browsers? Not so much.

It's a waste of time worrying about that. Even if you avoid Google, your activity on the internet leaves footprints - between browser fingerprinting, IP geolocation and similar methods, advertisers and others can still identify users reasonably accurately even using a nominally secure browser with all the right extensions enabled.

Well! Whadaya know, Firefox seems to run Netflix with no trouble at all. Thank you Dan!

And thank you for the clarification Kaitain. Just pining for that third, Microsoft supplied rectal probe. Oops, Win10 has two all by itself.

Well, it's not quite as bad as I've made out above. Browser fingerprinting is hard to spoof, but also not as precise as obtaining the user's consent (express or implied) by setting trackers and cookies.

You can have a look at how you might be identified through this: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

You can also muck about with geolocation by using VPNs to other locations, or Tor, but then doing what Tor et al expressly tell you not to do, by signing into your Google/Farcebook/Amazon/whatever account. You'll appear to be jumping around all over the place, which will give their algorithms a bit more of a headache trying to sell you goods based on region*.

You can also muck about with your profiling information. On the Political Compass I sit firmly in the bottom left hand quadrant (left/libertarian), and have some level of education, so it amuses me to read the gutter press on the authoritarian right. When Google Discover starts suggesting to me articles from the likes of Breitbart, or their UK equivalent, then I know I'm on to a winner. Similarly when they start giving me local news articles from Fiji or Senegal, then I'm pretty sure I've messed up their geolocation.

* That said, my geography is messed up anyway, as I'm physically located in Iraq, with ISPs routed through either Russia, India or Korea, depending on the whim of the IT manager here, and occasionally using my VPN (which routes through home) or my own company's VPN (which routes, alternately, through France and Japan).

Good luck with that one, advertisers!

90 Gig drive? Where on earth did you find that? Yes, I was surprised that Mint 19.1 chose the xserver.org driver. It tried to during the first installation, but I was "smarter" and chose an nvidia driver. That messed up the installation badly. The next time I let it choose the one it wanted, xserver works fine. Still no VLC though.