are we there yet?  

I got several dinosaurs to play with... are we there yet?

Did you go look for the specific graphics driver for the specific INTEL GMA on-board chipset that you have?    Which one is it?   An Intel GMA 4400?

There is a Linux open source "generic driver" for Intel, and there is a Intel driver for their own specific chipsets for Linux.   Guess which one loads when you are running off the DVD ....  and it looks like it auto-detected your monitor as super VGA but it might have gotten that idea off the general XP OS defaults, instead of your monitor's real capacity.

Generally speaking, the specific Linux driver put out by the chipset manufacturer does the very best job.    But you will need to find it, generally by asking the Mint folks in the right forum question area.

If you are running a higher than normal resolution specialty monitor that came with its own drivers (that were Plug 'N Play installed when you put the monitor on the CPU box) then look for the specialty drivers for that brand of monitor in Linux.   Once again, questions posted in the correct Mint forum area.

Don't be bummed if they tell you to go ask the Ubuntu people. Remember Mint is re-skinned, tuned Ubuntu and some things really need the people that wrote the video section of that particular version to answer the questions about what to do to get where you want to go.

I got an odd situation using my new video card, when I go over to Steam and install a new game it recognizes the very highest level the new card can do -- which exceeds what my old crappy monitor can really do by a lot  --  go figure.   The monitor tries, and it does display, but just slow as shite.   So I turn the games down to super VGA (monitor natural pixel resolution & speed) and the game goes super fast and looks great.

  (my great probably simply isn't as nice as your great that you are used to)

If gaming is what is driving your need for maximum graphics, understand that Steam boots their own proprietary Intel Graphics drivers when you start Steam up.  

That is one of the things that makes Steam on Linux such a winner, they finally got all the video guys to cooperate with them.   And some of those drivers are restricted specialty items, just for Steam.   This doesn't bother me, I get them when I need them (when the game starts).

Now if I just had a better monitor ....

Using Mint 16 Mate Petra daily, took a few days to get the printer to work but all is well. Not too excited to go to 17 as I just got 16 fully functioning and I have a policy against trying to fix non-broken things

Printers, HP printers are supported by and large, even the strange all in one thingies like I had bought for myself for $29 on close out 10 years ago.

VERY VERY MODERN printers are actually sometimes tougher than old ones, and the more you get away from the HP inkjets the tougher it gets as well.

HP has declared they will driver support all their printers for Linux going forward, and they did take a break a year ago and programmed up a printer driver EACH & ALL THEIR OLD HP PRINTERS.

As Linux becomes more and more popular, expect that all other printer makers will do the same thing, right their on their install disks no less.

At least that article writer showed that he had some knowledge behind his opinions.

Win 7 won't run all that well on early XP machines, only on the later generation machines (the ones right before Win 7 came out).

Linux will run fine on all the generations of XP machines.    If you dual boot, you get to keep your XP functionality for when you need it, but I wouldn't be going on line with an unsupported, unbugfixable XP machine when every psycho out there is saving up all his nasties planning on dropping all them land mines right into your path.

Before going out there in them on line minefields, put on "the last suit you will ever need" to quote 'ol Tommy Lee Jones.

It ain't a black suit like Tommy Lee's, it is a heavy duty red suit and it doesn't have anything at all to do with Santy Claus neither.    IT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED when something wormy green & warty wants to eat your face off while you are out there on the web.

                                                                              "Geeks rule", sez Tony Stark.  "Microsoft just wants your money and they will kill your PC to get it".


To protect an XP class machine in the months to come, wear your real heavy duty Linux Malware Buster armor while you are out there zipping around on the web.    You may well step in it on occasion, and it may go bang and blow a big 'ol crater at your feet, but it can't hurt you because it simply can't REACH you.

Save what's left of your XP installation's life span for doing the things you can only do on XP.   Games (off-line preferably) and getting to all your old Word and Excel files, your picture albums, films, all the stuff that you would really really miss if it is gone etc. etc. etc.


Put some armor around your old PC, dual boot the suit.

PS, guess what happens next -- Vista dies, closely followed by Win 7.

This whole kill off the old stuff thing MS is doing isn't over yet by a long shot.

Art, you have an XP PC that you have had for multiple years.  

Believe it or not, most folks running an XP machine did so because there WASN"T anything else available at the time, 'cept a Mac and it cost too much to even be a consideration.    

They bought a powerful independent processor based computing machine with a lot of horsepower to do ---- practically nothing, really.

Most folks held down a PC and didn't do anything more than type occasionally on a word processor, fill in a spreadsheet or two and maybe play a game or two.   Going on line every day was most of the task load handed to a $2,000 PC to do.

So, look around now -- a $80 tablet can do all of that very easily except for the typing part.

A $179 chrome box can certainly do all of it, including the typing.

And so can your old hardware actually because THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR ACTUAL HARDWARE A NEW OS WOULDN'T FIX VERY HANDILY.

Can you stick a DVD in the DVD drive and reboot your machine and make a dozen clicks with a mouse?

That will set you up a dual boot machine if the new installer on Mint is as good as they say it is.