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Linux Mint 12 Released Today
An anonymous reader writes "Linux Mint 12 was released today. It includes the new 'MGSE' (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions), a desktop layer on top of Gnome 3 that makes it possible for you to use Gnome 3 in a traditional way. MGSE's Gnome-2-Like experience includes features such as the bottom panel, the application menu, the window list, a task-centric desktop and visible system tray icons. MGSE is a 180-degree turn from the desktop experience the Gnome Team is developing with Gnome-Shell. At the heart of the Gnome-Shell is a feature called 'the Overview': 'The Shell is designed in order to minimize distraction and interruption and to enable users to focus on the task at hand. A persistent window list or dock would interfere with this goal, serving as a constant temptation to switch focus. The separation of window switching functionality into the overview means that an effective solution to switching is provided when it is desired by the user, but that it is hidden from view when it is not necessary.' The popularity of Mint 12 with MGSE may be an excellent barometer as to whether users prefer a task-centric or application-centric desktop."
will it offer any benefit over just using GNOME 2?
"I still have to ask the general public whether, desktop Linux still matters. Does it?"
The general public has no clue linux actually exists. But there remain a part of the population (0.1%) that never use anything else than linux. I do not recall when was the last time I used a windows machine for more than an hour. I think it was somewhere in 2006.
Most likely that part of the population read slashdot :)
Why do people make a big deal about a distro's default desktop? You can install whatever you want.
Yeah, I could just 'apt-get install gnome-2' on the latest Ubuntu.
Oh, no. I can't, can I?
Most people just want a distro that doesn't suck out of the box.
Seems to me that a combination of XFCE and KDE cover about 90% of the bases. XFCE if you want lightweight and minimal footprint, KDE if you want the power-user desktop with bells an whistles and customizable to hell and back.
Why is everyone re-inventing the boat, poorly? There *IS* a loss associated with having too many choices, no matter what some people will tell you. It fragments the market, fragments the resources spent on making each one solid, leads to end user confusion so people go back to the nice simple worlds of OSX or Windows where they don't have to think about such choices.
It's just a huge drawback and detriment to the Linux community to say, "Hey! You can pick from any one of these 68 different desktop environments - of course, every one of them is halfassed and has a crapton of problems because the community is split into tiny little fragments. But hey, you've got CHOICE! If you don't like one of the buggy 68 ones you picked, just pick another! It's all up to you!"
Well, the desktop in general, Windows included, is rapidly becoming inconsequential other than for business use. The non-business computer market is rapidly moving to smartphones, tablets and laptops - all smaller screen devices where a traditional screen-real-estate-hungry user interface isn't the best option. This is the market that Ubuntu is obviously targeting with Unity, and Android and Windows also appear to be moving in the same direction - Windows 8 and Ice Cream Sandwich UIs both are geared towards small-screen appliance-type use.
But, that said, there's always going to be a demand for a more traditional general purpose compute devices, for development work if nothing else, and for that use Linux always has been a great option, and only getting better with age, even if the path it's taking is a little uncertain. RIP Ubuntu. Long live Linux Mint!
To the general public? No, I doubt desktop Linux matters much at all. For those of us that prefer to use a free, open, secure, stable and efficient OS though, it matters quite a bit.
'The Shell is designed in order to minimize distraction and interruption and to enable users to focus on the task at hand. A persistent window list or dock would interfere with this goal, serving as a constant temptation to switch focus.'
Jesus Christ, GNOME! You're not my boss and you're definitely not my wife. So, unless you're willing either to pay me or put out, kindly stop trying to tell me what to do.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Well, there's probably more people using Linux on the desktop now than there were people using computers 20 years ago. 1-2 percent is a LOT of people (millions). If I publish a piece of software and millions of people use it, I'd say it is successful. Who cares about what percentage of the entire market it is. In absolute terms, there is an assload of desktop users.
Does anyone know why the default menus are so oddly organized - such as the catch-all "Other" sub-menu being in the middle of the menu, and containing important stuff like the Update Manager and Synaptic Package Manager?
Is this menu organization something Mint is inheriting from GNOME 3? In Mint 11 the system stuff was in some System menu where you more expect to find it.
I was expecting the menu to be cleaned up during the Mint 12 beta, but it's still there know in what appears to be the release version.
If you have one visionary with great tech skills and average taste, you get an average desktop with hundreds of millions of users - Windows. If you have a visionary with average tech skills and great taste, you get a great desktop with tens of millions of users - Mac OS. If you have a hundred visionaries with great tech skills and varying tastes, you get a hundred different desktops with quality all over the map, each with dozens of users - Linux.
This is quite an interesting phenomenon to me. It seems like with the whole "cloud" business, we're going back to a client-server computing approach; the servers and clients are just a shit-ton more powerful than anything 20-30 years ago.
Don't worry, ten years from now everyone will remember that the thin-client model sucks and we'll be back to building powerful local systems again.
In all honesty, have you actually tried to use GNOME 3?
I've used all sorts of desktop environments over the years, and GNOME 3 is by far the worst I've ever used. I'm not even joking when I say that CDE from the early 1990s was easier to use, more efficient to use, and provided a much more enjoyable user experience.
If there are performance improvements in GNOME 3, I sure as fuck didn't experience them. It was noticeably slower on my system than KDE 4 is. It wasn't just one or two apps, either. Everything about GNOME 3 feels so much slower.
The desktop search is useless, just like it is on Windows and Mac OS X. It's a stupid paradigm. It takes the worst of shell auto-completion, and tries to make it act like a web search engine, with spectacularly shitty results.
The themes support is a step backward. It has only made it easier for theme designers to use crap like gradients, curved corners and transparency. While these may help make GNOME 3 more hipster-compatible, they do absolutely nothing to make the resulting UI more effective in any way.
It's also a royal pain in the ass to develop for, although this has always been the case for GNOME. GObject is a pathetic hack. If you want object-oriented C, then just use C++ or Objective-C. But that was apparently too sensible for the GNOME developers.
XFCE is where it's at. It hits that sweet spot between functionality, simplicity, and excellent performance. GNOME 3, on the other hand, manages to be the worst at everything possible.
web 2.0 can suck it until these snake oil 'cloud' asps and coders can ensure access and legal protections for users that prevent abuse. computers are great because they're empowering, but if the new model is to make me dependent on a hierarchy of trolls guarding various bridges, I'll abandon it as quickly as I took to it. if i'm to depend on a tool for livelihood, then I want it stored and executed locally.
Compiling a full Gnome 2 desktop from source is an exercise in masochism.
Yeah, I could just 'apt-get install gnome-2' on the latest Ubuntu.
Oh, no. I can't, can I?
I believe the problem is that the GNOME 3 libraries don't co-exist well with the GNOME 2 libraries. Given the way Linux handles libraries with versioning, I don't actually understand why this should be such a problem. But in the Linux Mint blog, they said that MATE (the fork of GNOME 2 that is in Linux Mint 12) has renamed all the GNOME 2 libraries so they can install side-by-side with the GNOME 3 libraries with no problem.
It's still early days with MATE. Once they get MATE really sorted out, then it will show up in Ubuntu (either officially or as PPA) .
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
> There *IS* a loss associated with having too many choices, no matter what some people will tell you.
There is, balanced by benefits that outweigh the costs IMHO. Having multiple desktops and distributions means we can survive one going mad. Compare and contrast what is happening with GNOME3 and Unity with what is going on in the Windows and Mac worlds. When Win8 ships, those people have no choice, they get a tablet interface and it matters not if they like it or not. Eventually the Mac peeps know they get iOS and there ain't nothing they can do. On the other hand we told Fedora and Ubuntu to FOAD and picked something else. Most fedora users seem to be going with XFCE, Ubuntu users appear to be migrating in mass to Mint. Because we had a choice.
Imagine instead developers had listened to the siren song some people have been singing for a decade now, that GNOME and KDE had long since merged into one 'perfect' desktop, the small fry had folded up shop and got on board the One True Desktop. Then that One True Desktop caught tablet fever. Our options? All bad.
Right now we have multiple options in every major category of Free Software. Linus goes mad we adopt one of the BSD kernels. We have multiple web browsers, email clients, desktop environments, plumbing layers. About the only part that isn't redundant is X, no real options for that currently, but Wayland is under development.
Democrat delenda est
I can't comment on Fedora, having not used it seriously for a few years now, but from my own personal experience of using various Linux distros over many years, it beats Windows hands down in terms of stability. But then, that's pretty anecdotal as I'm just going by personal experience. Maybe I've just been very lucky and you've been unlucky?
As for efficiency, maybe I should have worded that differently as I actually meant in terms of my work flow. This is going to be different for everyone but for what I do on a PC, GNU Linux allows me to get more done in less time. Having said that, on the same hardware (dual boot), general file and network operations amongst other things are definitely quicker than my Windows install.
I'm really not trying to do a 'my OS is better than your OS' although it probably does come across as that. The point I was originally trying to make is that different people have different requirements and preferences and we choose different tools for the job based on them. I really can't imagine myself being as productive using Windows than I am in Linux but I know many people who would have exactly the opposite experience.
Choice is good.
This link just floored me.
https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/FAQ#Why_no_window_list_or_dock.3F
"A persistent window list or dock would interfere with this goal, serving as a constant temptation to switch focus."
Who wrote this? How did this become the official position of GNOME 3 officially?
On the one hand, I sort of respect that they aren't letting tradition shackle them. They are trying to boldly change things, to make something really new and really better.
On the other hand, they have changed a bunch of stuff and made it worse!
They got rid of some stuff that takes up space; and I always use GNOME on a giant desktop display with lots of room to spare. Even my netbook has a 10.1" screen and I don't begrudge a few pixels for a window list.
They got rid of the window list, it seems, because it is a distraction. But I am used to it being there and I don't notice it when I'm working; whereas with GNOME 3 I have no option but to have a distracting animation of windows flying about and arranging themselves any time I want to change apps. I have to hit the logo key, watch a dazzling display, find the window I want, click on it, and watch it zoom to full size. This is less distracting than clicking on the button for the window I want, and having it instantly be the topmost window? (Answer: no, it's more distracting, not less. At least that's true for me. But GNOME gives no option; this is the new One True Way that we must all use.)
If the GNOME 3 developers ever build a car, it won't have a steering wheel, a brake pedal, and a gas pedal. They will boldly re-engineer the driving experience. There will probably be a miniature replica of the car mounted on a joystick; you will twist the little car right to turn the real car right. So intuitive! Of course those of us with many years of experience, expert car drivers, will not be able to apply our experience; and if we are recommending a GNOME car to our friends, they will ask us "why is this different from every other car I have ever seen?"
The really frustrating part is that this is a total replay of what happened with the "object oriented file manager". Originally, the GNOME file manager worked pretty much the way it works now. Then they decided that this is overly complicated for newbies. There should be only one window for any one directory, and that one window should remember where it opened last and open in the same place, to build a sense of persistence and make the file system seem more like a real place. (This is similar to how the original Mac Finder worked, I believe. But the Finder in Mac OS X doesn't work that way anymore, and I believe didn't work that way when the GNOME guys made this decision.)
In true GNOME style, they didn't provide a convenient option to turn this off; why would you want to turn it off? It's better. And that is why I, and so many other people, first learned how to use gconftool, to find that option and turn it off.
The very next release of GNOME they changed the default back to the original behavior, and never changed it again. But for GNOME 3, they are sticking to their guns.
In some ways GNOME 3 is nice, but I bitterly resent the amount of control the GNOME guys are trying to assert over how I use my computer. I'm going to try Linux Mint 12 on a spare computer and see how I like it. From what I have seen, MGSE is a giant step up over either of Unity or GNOME 3 Shell.
One of the core goals of GNOME Shell is to provide the GNOME desktop with a consistent and identifiable visual identity.
Why isn't the core goal "make the user be happy and productive"? How does this "visual identity" thing help me? Why should I cooperate with this?
P.S. GNOME 2.x is my favorite desktop environment ever. The GNOME guys have really squandered all the good will I used to have toward them.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Actually, it isn't. The only time I've ever seen tablets in the wild (very rare) have always been stand-alone. The most often case for people using their devices (at least in public) have been:
1. Laptop toting coffee shop junkies, almost 99% laptop based, and 50-60% lean back in posture (AKA, not real work)
( Once ever have I seen a tablet at a coffee shop, and it was a guy flashing up some pictures for sales/marketing it seemed. )
2. Cell Phones (all), for the ones that have user interfaces, I've recently seen a large number of people texting one another (IMHO not likely business), ~10% playing games?, and maybe 10% surfing for pages in some degree
3. E-paper devices - 99.999999% lean back
Of all examples cited, most people doing any sort of real work were the laptop toting junkies. Unless we move very far into the utopia of nobody needing to do real work, your argument seems flawed. The fact is that REAL work cannot and frankly is not done on the go.
Laptop rant: Our office has a policy of using laptops instead of desktops (who knows why?) and probably 20% of the coworkers that have and use laptops tote the beast between work and home (the rest don't even bother taking them home) and even then, the benefit of having a device on the go becomes pretty much irrelevant since its only used in fixed locations that could've been using cheaper equipment to begin with. Outside of the rugged road warriors who'll always be working from planes, trains, and automobiles, who needs portables (for work)?
Bye!
Is this a misguided attempt to emulate the meteoric success of iOS and Android by just copying the Apple/Google/Microsoft corporate control over how users use the desktop?
Let me put it this way: when the Gnome team introduced marketing videos for the new Unity interface, the speakers wore black sweaters and talked with their hands while standing in front of stark white backgrounds. I am not making this up. They really and genuinely are trying to do everything like Apple.
Of course, I remember when early distros of Red Hat were pixel-for-pixel copies of the Win95 interface.
It's a damn shame. The "Blue Ocean Strategy" and the "Next Big Thing (Just Like Everyone Else)" has always been the staple of the tech industry. In manufacturing, you need to make your product stand out. With software, your product is just like familiar Windows/OSX... but better.
I'm not a hardcore geek, but I am a power user, and I can honestly say that Linux has been the biggest disappointment I've ever seen in the computer industry. Coming from an ex-Amiga user, that should mean a lot. It's either dumbed down or hardcore, with little in between. I try to like it and use it, but I just can't. Every distro I've tried over the last 10 years has let me down. The community just can't get its stuff together and venture into that large grey area.
Windows is much more stable baked and less buggy than Linux on a desktop. It is very sad but true due to alpha quality software. Windows stopped blue screening when XP came out and got rid of dos underneath that kept conflicting with win32 code. Windows 7 can stay up for years without a reboot now.
http://saveie6.com/
Katya is my wife. I don't think I'm allowed to upgrade to Lisa.
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