Chuck(G)
25k Member
Doesn't Linux Mint have a "boot to CLI" mode where you can remove the offending driver?
I also managed to break Linux Mint by switching from a proprietary ATI/AMD graphics driver to the "recommended" open-source driver. That totally bombed the graphics hardware, locking the GUI into software rendering mode and 800x600 resolution, with no option to revert to or reinstall a functioning graphics driver. As far as the OS was concerned, I had "manually installed" a faulty graphics driver (even though all I did was attempt to use the "recommended" driver) and it offered absolutely no logical way of getting myself out of that mess. Here was my video rant documenting that disaster:
At the very least, Linux shouldn't blindly recommend open-source drivers just because they're open-source. That is putting ideology ahead of usability, sometimes with disastrous results.
I've never had much problem with Linux.
I would probably agree with the previously expressed sentiment that your machine might just be a notch or two below what "fully caffeinated" GUI Linux needs these days.
Attracted to this thread by mention of Zorin OS which I happen to use as my main Linux distro on a Dell 1011 netbook and a pretty old self-built desktop based on a 1.6Ghz Duron. In view of the relative age of these machines, especially the desktop, I'm using Zorin OS 6, based (I think) on Ubuntu 12.04LTS.
I'm not sure that Zorin OS ever really claimed that it was a direct Windows replacement, only that it:-
a) Has a Windows XP / Windows 7 - like desktop environment complete with a 'start button' and a 'start menu' so that people forced off XP by the end of XP support would find a more comfortably familiar user interface than the only alternative being offered to them by Microsoft (Windows 8, 8.1). Why not just run Ubuntu? Because the standard 'fitted' user interface on Ubuntu (Unity) is as weird in its own way as the Windows 'Modern UI'. I don't like either of them.
b) Comes, unlike some stricter Linux versions, with whatever non-free / proprietary software and codecs are needed for features the user is likely to want to work 'out of the box', like MP3 / DVD playing.
c) Comes with reasonably solid substitutes for familiar Windows / Microsoft productivity tools, ie, Libreoffice as a substitute for MS Office, GIMP as a substitute for Photoshop. I'm aware that many, perhaps most Linux distros do the same, but there was no harm in Zorin OS in particular trying to attract displaced Windows users by talking up these points. I've personally never seriously tried to use Wine - a Windows machine is, in my opinion, the most obvious and best machine to run native Windows software on. But having used the two Zorin 6 Linux machines interchangeably alongside two Windows boxes I find myself equally comfortable using both for most general tasks. There is the occasional specialised task for which Windows / Windows software is better and there a lot of things - especially on the hackery side of things, for which the Linux tools - invariably free - are better.
When I first started trying out Linux - and that was a result of my buying a Raspberry Pi and then wanting to become more generally familiar with Linux - I tried a lot of different distros but Zorin 6 was the one I kept coming back to. I can't comment on Zorin 9, as my hardware is probably too old to support it.