Of the numerous operating systems available in the market, three are most popular. Of the three, the Windows and Mac are proprietary, meaning you will need to pay for them before you can use, and the third is open source, and free to use. All of them come in 32- and 64-bit versions, and in CD/DVDs. The Linux operating system has the additional advantage of being available as Live, meaning it can operate from the CD/DVD itself, without being installed on the system hard disk.

Installation of a computer operating system or OS, on a clean hard disk, could be taken up with or without partitioning the hard disk. All the three OSs mentioned, contain their individual tools for the partitioning job. Windows 7 is the latest of the Windows Operating Systems. It will give ample choice for partitioning the hard disk before installation, if you were to select the custom mode. The minimum configuration necessary to install a Windows 7 OS is a 1GHz Intel CPU and 1GB RAM, along with about 20GB of free hard disk space. In case you have data on the hard disk, it is wise to keep a backup. Installation is quite simple and straightforward. With the installation disk placed in the CD/DVD tray, reboot your system, and follow the instructions. You will be asked to enter your name and password, and after the installation, you will be asked for the product key.

For Installing the Mac Operating System X, much the same procedure is required. For partitioning with the Mac OS, they provide a Disk Utility. The minimum configuration necessary to install a Mac OS X is a 1GHz Intel CPU and 1GB RAM, along with about 5GB of free hard disk space. The hard disk space here is the minimum requirement for the OS alone; other applications will require additional disk space. Again, different versions of Mac OS are available. They have varying capabilities and their prices differ. Installation, in general, consists of booting your PC with the CD/DVD in the tray, and following instructions. You will have to keep an internet connection during installation. Here the product key is asked before installation can proceed. The username and password are required at the end of installation.

For the Linux Operating System, you have a choice of either using your OS straight from the Live CD/DVD, or transferring the OS to a flash disk and use without ever touching your hard disk. If you so wish, you can also install on your hard disk. The hard disk partitioning tool is named GParted, and is very easy and intuitive to use. The Live disk has the capability to select the OS from your hard disk or use the one on the CD/DVD. After the operation from the CD/DVD is completed, you have the choice of making a Live Flash disk or install on the hard disk. If you install on the hard disk, you will be asked for a username and password.

Without a computer operating system, a computer is an absolute piece of junk. There is a large variety of OS’s in the market today. The three main competitors in fray are Macintosh, Windows and Linux. Each of them has their own merits and demerits, and their own variants. Of them, Macintosh was the first to gain public acceptance mainly due to its simplistic approach of a Graphical User Interface, meaning operating with pictures rather than typing commands. Next in line was Windows, who followed suit and made GUI available to users. The last and latest entrant Linux has been making steady inroads into the market place and capturing the bastions once enjoyed by Mac and Windows.

As a computer operating system, installation of Linux is one of the easiest and less painful. This is mainly due to the selfless and tireless effort of countless community developers who make Linux what it is today. Linux is an open-source operating system, meaning, it is available entirely without any cost and can be used without the fear of infringement of any copyright, as long as the internal code is not tinkered with. On the other hand, Mac and Windows are proprietary and to acquire and use the OS, you have to pay for a license.

Linux is available in many flavors. The most popular of them are RedHat, OpenSUSE, Slackware and Debian. Some offshoots have grown for various reasons, and are also available as CentOS, Ubuntu, and Mint. The total Linux distributions number more than 500.

Linux Mint is a an offshoot from Ubuntu and currently the fourth most used desktop OS after Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu. The purpose of Mint is to provide the user with a modern, elegant, and comfortable operating system. Installation of Linux Mint is done from a Live DVD. The image of this DVD can be downloaded free of charge from the Mint servers. After downloading, it is wise to check the quality of the download by comparing the MD5 sum of the download with the one on the site. If both are matching, the image can be burned into a blank DVD. Next we look into how to install the operating system.

The DVD with the Mint image on it should now be inserted into the DVD drive and the computer booted from the DVD drive. Normally, this facility is switched off in the BIOS of the PC. Therefore, you may need to enter in the BIOS settings when starting up and make the necessary changes to allow the computer to boot up from CD/DVD drives along with the hard disk.

After the computer starts to boot up from the DVD, the opening screen asks you to select if you want to boot up from your hard disk or the DVD, or if you would like to repair your system, or you would like to do an OEM install. Since we would like to install, we may choose to boot up from the DVD. Depending on your RAM size, you will ultimately see the screen light up with the Mint Desktop. Mint Linux is now running on your system but only from RAM. An option on the Desktop will ask you if you would like to install to your hard disk. Choosing to do so, Mint will proceed to install itself.

Not much intervention is needed, except at the starting, when you will be required to inform if you want to partition the disk automatically, or manually. Automatically is preferable unless you want Linux to cohabit with another OS. Another question that you may need to answer is the file system you would want. Here ext4 file-system is the most appropriate because of its stability. The rest of the installation is rather painless, till your are again asked for your name and password. This done, you are advised to remove the DVD from its drive, and reboot.

This in a nutshell, is how to install the operating system Mint Linux on your computer.