Well, it certainly wasn't an easy decision to make, but...

lehnerus2000 said:

@LittleJay
MATE has similar operating principles to earlier versions of Windows (W7 and earlier).

Cinnamon seems similar to MATE, but apparently it uses hidden hotspots (corners?).

XFCE is also supposed to be very similar to earlier versions of Windows (but requires less resources than other desktop environments).
I haven't played around with it (although I pinched an XFCE theme to use in MATE).

KDE is also supposed to be very similar to earlier versions of Windows (but requires more resources than other desktop environments).
I played around with it for a couple of hours, but I didn't like it.
The latest version (Plasma) looks nice (I haven't tried it).

Thanks for the info. It's been a while since I last used Linux Mint and I don't recall there being as many choices at that time. I started out with Ubuntu 8.04, which I rather liked. It was only about a 600 Mb download and easily fit on a CD. But just like Windows the download size just kept getting larger and larger and since I have a metered internet connection, I just don't have the data available to download Distros to try out like I used to.

LittleJay said:

Thanks for the info. It's been a while since I last used Linux Mint and I don't recall there being as many choices at that time. I started out with Ubuntu 8.04, which I rather liked. It was only about a 600 Mb download and easily fit on a CD. But just like Windows the download size just kept getting larger and larger and since I have a metered internet connection, I just don't have the data available to download Distros to try out like I used to.

It looks like you can directly download LM17.1 ISO versions using:

• MATE
• Cinnamon
• KDE
• XFCE

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Small download quotas suck.

We have a 200GB/month download quota, but our speed is limited to 6Mb/s (750 KB/s) on a good day.

lehnerus2000 said:

It looks like you can directly download LM17.1 ISO versions using:

• MATE
• Cinnamon
• KDE
• XFCE

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Small download quotas suck.

We have a 200GB/month download quota, but our speed is limited to 6Mb/s (750 KB/s) on a good day.

I was at the Mint website the other to check out the available downloads, but didn't download anything when I saw Mint MATE 64bit was almost 2 Gbs in size. That is almost 1/2 of my monthly data allowance, which is 5 Gbs. One of the drawbacks of living out in the country is that wireless internet and satellite are the only available options and both cost an arm and a leg for very little value.

LittleJay said:

I was at the Mint website the other to check out the available downloads, but didn't download anything when I saw Mint MATE 64bit was almost 2 Gbs in size.

Interesting.
The version I have, LM17.1 MATE (64 Bit) is ~1.52GB according to Windows Explorer (Windows 10TP is twice that size).

Although that doesn't really help you.

lehnerus2000 said:

Interesting.
The version I have, LM17.1 MATE (64 Bit) is ~1.52GB according to Windows Explorer (Windows 10TP is twice that size).

Although that doesn't really help you.

Maybe you are right about the size of the download. I thought I saw it was 1.8 Gbs, but my memory isn't what it used to be, so I'm not going to swear to it.

I gave up on Mint a couple of weeks ago as I just can't get a 1920x1080 resolution in a VM no matter what I try. Shame, it looks decent.

whs said:

LJ, that is too bad. If you send me an empty SD card, I load anything you want on it and I send it back. Send me a PM if that sounds like something you might want to do.

Thanks a lot for the offer whs, I really appreciate it! BunnyJ has already kindly offered to burn DVD's for me, so I will have what I need at the present.