Quanta (2)

[#1]

Looks good, I am currently using mint 16 & Windows 7, If I decide to install mint 17 will it still give me the option of leaving mint 16 and windows 7 in place or could it cause me problems .?

[#2]

You can install it as a 3rd os, or replace the existing Mint 16 (you DO have a separate /home folder?)
adie:quote

[#3]

Can I install it and then delete mint 16 at a later date .
When you say Home folder do you mean the one automatically created when installing Mint that  contains all the other folders such as the downloads folder  or are we talking about the need for me to create a Home folder to put things in it . ?
Sorry to sound thick but my knowledge of Linux is about zero.
dick:quote

[#4]

Quote from: gleneagles

Can I install it and then delete mint 16 at a later date .

In theory, yes; depending on how many disks you have and where Mint 16, Win7, & Mint 17 are installed it might cause you grief if you're not careful.

Quote

When you say Home folder do you mean the one automatically created when installing Mint that  contains all the other folders such as the downloads folder  or are we talking about the need for me to create a Home folder to put things in it . ?

[waldo@archie ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
shm                    /dev/shm      tmpfs     nodev,nosuid        0      0
/dev/mapper/archie-home /home ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/archie-root / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/archie-swap swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=4a76b9f1-f697-4da2-b3d8-d78efd980839 /boot ext4 defaults 0 1

If you see an entry for /home in your /etc/fstab file, /home (where all your user settings and data are saved to) will be mounted on a separate partition.

[#5]

If you only accepted the defaults when you installed it then everything is in ONE partition of the HDD, this makes upgrading difficult, as it will overwrite the home folder.
What you can do is install it and it will do the same put everything in the one partition, a different one, but any documents you have in Mint 16 will not be readily available in Mint 17.
If you decide to use Linux regularly then it will be worth creating a separate /home partition, there is discussion on how to do it in this forum. So if you want to delete the M16 install you could use that partition as your new /home. Then when you upgrade/switch distros/install a new distro you can still have access to the documents in the /home.
I have a separate /home and when I install a test distro, I use it as my /home in it, and use a different user name for testing. This way I have access to all my files while in any distro.
E.g. I have
/sda1 30Gb my main working /
/sda3 1500Gb my /home
/sda4 20Gb my test partition
So if I install a new test distro then using the expert install, I put it in /sda6 as / and format that as ext4, then add the sda5 as /home & ext4 UNFORMATTED so it keeps the data.

[#6]

Thanks for the replies, wil have a go at that.