I recently partitioned my hard drive to dual boot the existing Windows 7 with Linux Mint because I am tired of using Windows, especially the lack of terminal. I want to eventually remove Windows 7 and just run it from a VM within Linux Mint, but I want to make sure that I like the Mint before going all in.

I ran Linux Mint on a VM inside Windows for a while, enjoyed it, and never had any issues with it. Since installing on my hard drive it has started freezing every 5-10 minutes, and the only way to get it back is to either power down, or close the lid and reopen once it sleeps. I've also tried running Ubuntu on dual boot in the past, and while it never froze, the battery life was terrible, and the fan was constantly running. I'm experiencing the same battery/fan problem with Mint, which doesn't make sense to me, as Linux should be lighter on the CPU than windows.

If I had to guess I'd say it's probably a driver thing, with my video card or fan or something. My battery life in Windows is ~2 hours and its about 40 minutes in Linux. At this point, that is even if my laptop doesn't freeze before then.

On a less important note, I also have an intel Centrino 6150 WiMax card that I'd like to be able to use, but that won't register on the Linux system either. I have tried downloading drivers for both of these, but neither have solved my problems.

I'm definitely getting frustrated and am getting close to giving up on Linux even though I dread working on a Windows machine.