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Linux Mint 13 (Maya) Has Arrived
New submitter OceanMan7 writes "Linux Mint 13 (Maya) has just been released. DVDs come in four flavors — MATE (with and without codecs) and Cinnamon (with and without codecs) — in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The codec-free versions comply with U.S. and Japanese IP regulations. MATE 1.2 is Linux Mint's community-powered extension of Gnome 2. Cinnamon 1.4 is built upon Gnome 3, but has a more traditional look and feel. As with Ubuntu 12.04, upon which Linux Mint draws, all editions come with Long-term support (LTS) until April, 2017. The release notes provide a list of changes.
Yes I use it all the time.
Yes.
Every end has half a stick.
but isn't that 8 flavors? (2+2)*2? Or does processor architecture not count as a flavor?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
It is a good alternative to Ubuntu for anybody who is sane.
(Only people that it isn't suitable for is people with enterprise server software explicitly certified for Ubuntu)
What about those using MythTV? Is there an equivalent of MythBuntu? Or is Mint just for basic desktop/server installs?
Why would I want to use GNUlinux Mint instead of the standard Ubuntu? Or Lubuntu (lightweight variant that fits in my laptop).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
To clarify, it more-or-less is Ubuntu.
From TFA:
--
Important info:
Boot hangs on systems with b43 wireless cards
64-bit only for Mint4win
Windows popping behind the installer in MATE edition
Desktop icons in Cinnamon
Make sure to read the “<a href="http://linuxmint.com/rel_maya.php">Release Notes</a>” to be aware of important info or known issues related to this release.
--
Maybe one should stick to <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php">Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE)</a> (a rolling distribution based on Debian Testing, available in both 32 and 64-bit as a live DVD featuring a Gnome and an Xfce edition), if Mint is an option?
I lag
Mint, to me, is still a buggier and less supported version of Unbuntu.
Not to say I'm that pleased with Ubuntu but every time I've tried Mint I've come away with two hard realizations
1. If you have problems, they are harder to fix and it's harder to get support for them. /lot/ of reinstalling when it comes time to move to a new release.
2. I have more showstopping bugs than Ubuntu.
3. You end up doing a
I'm not a moron and I've deployed mint on Good hardware that run both windows and other distros just fine. Mint just has a very vocal fanbase that I don't happen to agree with.
That said, Ubuntu's not very useful to me either. It's UI has taken a trip to lala land and isnt very useful anymore. I'd accuse them of copying microft's new UI efforts.. Except that Ubuntu's breaking of the UI predates both win phone 7 and windows 8. Go fig.
I suggest that everyone go check out Fedora. No, it's not very romantic or cutting edge. But it does work. Very well. It's also very well supported.
Check out the "spins" where you can download an iso customized to the UI of your choice. I'm a fan of xfce, which makes even gnome3 look bloated and slow.
apt-get install mythtv
MythTV through a package manager really is not that daunting. Even building it from scratch is not that hard since you can use the package manager to sort out dependencies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's precisely why it's so popular.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I'm currently on Linux Mint LXDE 11, or Linux Mint 11 LXDE, or whatever it's called. I love that it's so extremely fast to start stuff up, much more so than my previous some-other-distro with KDE4.
Is there, or will there, be an LXDE release for Mint 13? I can't figure it out from the site. (Yes, I'm bad at reading, apparently.)
"Good news, everyone!"
I just finished downloading and installing Lisa(version 12) last week...
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
I have used Linux for 13 years now. I don't want to build stuff myself like when I was running Gentoo. I don't want to "./configure && make". I have contributed to mythtv code myself and like to have nightly/binightly builds so I can contribute to the testing for the developers.
MythBuntu provides more than the mythtv/mythbackend/mythfrontend packages. It provides a decent configuration UI and other minor integrations/apps that I don't want to deal with. Some of it is useless to me, since I have been running the same basic MythTV configuration for 6/7 years now.
I just tested out 32-bit linux mint cinnamon in VirtualBox.
Most of the text is missing!
http://i.imgur.com/F0af2.jpg
I tried Mint as a distro for a few of my relatives. I never really 'got' Mint but other than some codecs that are installed by default I don't think the newbie experience would be much better or worse than Ubuntu or one of the Ubuntu flavors. I believe that if you try to play something in Ubuntu it will issue a message that you don't have installed and do you want to install it yes/no... Really it comes down to if you prefer Mint's custom Gnome 3 desktop environment (I don't) or would prefer Ubuntu's Unity (I don't), Xubuntu (I do) or Kubuntu desktop environments. In short they're basically all the same with the same Debian style package management so burn a few livecds and see which graphical environment you like. If you want an everything works distro go with any of either of em. If you want to learn about Linux.. install Arch.
Mint has now come full circle: It was originally rolled up when Ubuntu stopped distributing codecs, now it has a codec free version. In other words, it's a distro based on a distro based on a distro that no longer has a purpose. Contribute upstream.
My laptop was dual-boot Win7 and Mint 12 (Ubuntu-based). What I noticed during installation / use:
1) Installed left me with an unbootable system. GRUB had the right menu items, but none worked. I needed to boot from the live Mint 13 installation CD, install a package for repairing the boot loader, and run the program that came with it. Worked pretty well, but not sure if it's fixed yet. And even now, I have two GRUB entries for Win7. Only the first one works.
2) Screen locking doesn't work, at least for me.
3) Sometimes when I log in, wifi is disabled. I have to manually enable it from the icon, then it works fine.
4) As with the previous release, the built-in installed for the proprietary ATI graphics driver didn't work. I had to manually download ATI's script for building the approPriate .deb packages, and install those. Not the end of the world, but a bit of a hassle. Prior to doing this, my desktop graphics worked okay, just slow as you'd expect from the open-source driver. I've got a Dell M6500 laptop, and the chip is a ATI FirePro m7740.
Anyway, maybe these things are fixed in the final release.
It's ubuntu, which is basically polished debian, without the seriously buggy 'I'm suited for touch screens, honest guv' new Unity interface. I tried out 12.04 the other day - I used to use SuSE/KDE then gentoo then debian as my primary desktop for a number of years; gave up after the KDE4 migration disaster and went to windows, and fairly recently to OSX; I tried it on a clean drive on my hackintosh (I have a real mac in the office, a somewhat elderly mac mini, and my own copy of Lion) which is a fairly bog-standard core i3 gigabyte system.
I got as far as getting dual screen working with X.org tweaks via the closed nvidia driver (have a geforce 210 in that rig) though it wouldn't stick past a reboot, which takes me back, then fixed sound as per usual. Then I discovered that clicking on a side-launcher button doesn't raise an active window up to the top; it just spawns a new one. In fact, I couldn't find anyway to bring a window to the top of the stack without manually shifting everything else off the top of it and gave up, it just wasn't worth the effort. So based on my admittedly short trial, Ubuntu isn't ready for the novice user any more. It's as hard as hacking OSX to work on my PC, and while the UI is pretty, it's just not very, well, functional.
So Mint is basically Ubuntu where they don't hate the user, and have stuck with gnome but with a decent amount of polish. I used to really like ubuntu, and still use their server platform as the LTS approach is a bit more modern than good old debian (so I get updated supported packages like node.js and nginx and php-fpm) while still offering a known long timeframe for support. But the new unity UI makes windows 8 look good, and that's saying something. You basically have a choice of the stable aka old gnome 2 MATE version, or the new shiny but not necessarily rock-solid gnome 3 Cinnamon version.
give it a try, and see how it copes with your hardware...
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
I ran Mint for a while, but eventually went back to Fedora with KDE installed. Never thought I'd see the day when I considered modern KDE a 'sane' GUI. The latter comment is just me getting off on a tangent though, really Mint didn't have any major issues; my big driving factor for going back is that I do so much work through the day with RHEL/CentOS that I got sick of seeing "yum: command not found" messages every time I try to install packages. Muscle memory on that stuff is actually kind of tedious sometimes. I create batch scripts for 'ls' on any Windows box I have to spend an extensive amount of time with also.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Hmmn
Under important info: Boot hangs on systems with b43 wireless cards.
Guess it won't be going on my laptop anytime soon..
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
Mint replaces bloat (like Unity) and adds needed features (like non-free codecs) missing in Ubuntu in an attempt to make a better desktop OS. There is also a focus on making it usable by those new to GNU/Linux without sacrificing any high level usability.
IMO it's the best to step into from Windows or Mac. One of the main reasons for that is you won't get to a point where the OS seems dumbed down. I don't think that's true for Ubuntu.
I don't want to build stuff myself like when I was running Gentoo. I don't want to "./configure && make".
So you were running Gentoo before Portage or something?
There is no linux for a novice.
There is only linux for people who want to learn the nuts and bolts of linux at a slower rate than others.
I've spent the past few months giving several different distros a week or so each on my laptop (a standard Dell lattitude e6400, circa 2009. nothing exotic at all) to make an impression on me.
I'll admit I haven't played with Maya yet, but I spent a week with Lisa & cinnamon, which is easily as broken on install as any other linux distro I've ever used. Cinnamon was like a slightly prettyed up version of gnome 2, which makes me wonder why they even bothered to switch to gnome 3. Of course, it was just as broken as unity, if not moreso. the taskbar was "refreshingly" retro, circa windows 2000. in all the worst ways. i ditched the stock application manager applet and downloaded one that would stack open windows under a single taskbar icon, like a modern GUI... and it worked at least 2/3 of the time. Sorry, but a 2/3 success rate on -clicking on a taskbar icon- is a little much to swallow, so I ditched that and got the stock one back, except now if I opened more than 7 windows, they would scroll the "start" button (sorry, don't know the linux name for it) off the left side of the screen. what the hell? I couldn't make this up! Oh, did I mention that after I changed the default icon and name of the "start" button, it would never display the entire name again, putting "..." at the end instead? google told me that had been a bug since the -previous- version of Mint. That's crazy. Nobody thought to fix that? it's a simple pixel offset based on the size of the icon!
Tip of the iceberg here.
by the way, LM:Debian Edition was so broken as to not even be worth discussing.
by comparison, ubuntu 12.04 was, of course as I expected by this point, broken upon instalation, but after several hours of googling, some time in irc, and a lot of console commands later, I've got a mostly working install. some stuff is still screwed up (like the apps that -are- running but don't show up on the launcher bar), but I've learned to just deal with it for now. I've had it going for 3 weeks now and it's useable. putting it to sleep is a gamble, but this thing isn't mission critical so I just roll the dice every time.
I'm curious how long I can stick it out before I give up and go back to windows 7, which I'll freely admit does everything I need an OS to do, and has no major or even minor bugs that impact me on any sort of regular basis.
I'm no fanboy, of any OS, or any distro. I call it like I see it, and Linux (really I should blame it on the GUI, as the linux kernal itself is stable as a rock for the most part) is for people who like to work the nuts and bolts of their OS, because you pretty much have to. even the most "beginner-friendly" distros like Mint and ubuntu seem to require time spent at the terminal just to do stuff other operating systems consider basic functions, like say disabling a touchpad (no, touchpad-indicator applet does NOT work, as you should well know if you've actually used it).
then why did you downmod it?
put your fanboyism away.
I'm describing the modern linux experience the way it actually is, not the way you want to pretend it is.
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Short: Yes, it really is a good alternative to Ubuntu for a novice. Slightly longer: Yes, it is based on Ubuntu and has many similar features and functionality. As far as 'ease of use' I would rate it in the same category as Ubuntu. If you are feeling slightly more adventurous and/or want to try a non Ubuntu based distro, I'd suggest trying Crunchbang (the xfce version).
Well, /why/ does this novice need an alternative to Ubuntu?
If [1] to play. Sure, then. Few distros would actually bite you. Get curious and try lots. Nearly everything has a LiveCD. And they're all Linux underneath.
If [2] because Ubuntu is broken, somehow, then maybe you'd better stick with fixing that. If you have trouble with Ubuntu, you'll have trouble with Mint.
[3] Is this just about Unity again? Sure, go with Mint if you want but Canonical has Lubuntu. It'll be totally familiar if you're just pining for old-style Ubuntu.
[4] Bonus: Work on learning to ask specific questions before you go any further.
Yea ok I used to like mint when ubuntu went "pants on head retarded", but I havent been lately
10 and anything before it works fine
11 constantly fucks up something on the desktop with a "your taskabar (or clock or whatever) has stopped working, would you like to delete it?" trap
12 ships with gnome 3 AND their clunky menu system, really how many start menus do I need ... MS apparently says zero so it could be worse
12 with gnome 2 suffers the random thing is going to break and you should delete it syndrome as 11
LXDE versions of them all plain suck, I view LXDE as a half finished pain in the ass version of XFCE that requires me to do dumb shit like open a file explorer to empty trash, or fart out a regular expression just to set the fucking clock format
so now that 13 is out, I say "not for me", too much trouble, xubuntu is doing great, thanks, and they just released a new LTS
Is it a good alternative to Ubuntu for a novice?
I would say yes.
I recently got a new computer and didn't want to spend the extra money for windows (the computer was a gift and the extra windows money would have made it hard to get a decent graphics card, a must for me.) I am a long time windows user and dabbled in Linux here and there throughout the years (as far back as early slackware) but no real experience and never for any reasonable length of time. I do have some experience from unix systems from way back though.
I installed Debian because I wanted a super stable system and it has a rep. for being just that. I however found that some things are a real pain in the ass because the Debian people are (damn near) zealots when it comes to open source (this is not a knock against them or that). After I spent a couple days trying to work them out and some I could not I looked up what other current distro's there are. I am not really a fan of Ubuntu so I was looking for something else. I noticed that Mint was "rated" pretty high from a usability standpoint and decided to try it.
Installing was easy (most Linux installs are easy now days though). Getting the device drivers all working most notably the proprietary Nvidia gfx drivers was actually painless. Getting Steam up and running was painless (mostly because of the great WineHQ pages on it) The software management tool is easy to use and I haven't had any problems with it. I use vim for programming so that was a non-issue anyhow.
Not having some of the more familiar and polished windows programs that I am used to using on a daily or weekly basis is a pain but I am working my way around that through time and experience with Linux. (I have resisted the urge to install a bunch of programs through wine beyond a few games I enjoy).
I have been using it for a few weeks now and so far my experience from a Linux newbie prospective has been very favorable in Mint.
thanks, Feltope
I have never used Mint for any long period of time, so I may not be as experienced as many others here.. The most I've done with it is run it under VMWare just to play around. I quite liked it, and didn't experience a single problem. Whereas it seems as though Canonical has lost the plot, I think that the Mint folk really care about user experience. Out of any Linux distro I have tried, Mint could do the most "out of the box," and with the fewest hiccups. I don't want to use it myself, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the product, merely personal preference.
Wow...
I am not even sure where to start here except:
Linux Mint just works for me.
Ubuntu just works for me.
I have never had any problems with either, even running things like java applets, my web cam, music or... Yahoo Games when I want to play Cribbage with my sweety.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
What are these constant headaches with Windows?
you'd think so, but it's pretty hard to dismiss the problem as somehow being cause by me when:
A. I list the exact workflow, and at no time am I doing anything out of the ordinary
B. The bugs are confirmed in offical tracker logs.
That's the thing that gets me. I'm listing known and documented problems with the operating systems, and I'm getting downmodded like I'm making shit up.
Also, I'm curious to know which headaches you're running into with Windows 7, because I can't think of any offhand. XP? sure. Vista? Of course. 7? nothing comes to mind.
Sorry to read of all the difficulties you've been having. I've had my own small share of annoyances or breakage here and there; some combos of hardware seem to be idiotsycratic viz. a particular OS.
Yet I think it might be more fair to say that you're describing the modern Linux experience that _you_ have; it may not be valid to extend your experience to that of all users.
I suppose much boils down to what you need and how you want it. I've been lucky, the several desktops and laptops have been vanilla hardware; Ubuntu's been working well enough to be my host OS for going on five years.
I like and admire what the Mint folks offer; they've put a lot of work into providing choice. I've found no compelling reason to switch but I could just be getting old and more lazy.
WIndows is sold with computers. The computer maker ensures drivers and everything else work 100%. I have a dell too and even with its crappy i915 graphics things are flying in mint 13. Cinamon was lacking but Mate is perfectly fine. I tried kubuntu 11.10 wasn't too bad... though I did manage to uninstall their stupid akondai and broke KDE. Also learned there is "classic menu"... yay like the old days where you would crash pieces of the OS and sometimes had to reinstall.
You're right... you have to love to tinker with the OS because you have to play tester & OEM. Now try installing OSX on a PC and see macs become hard.
There is no linux for a novice.
You have to work for Microsoft.
Hmmm...more like there is no Linux for morons. I've installed Linux on my mother's and an ex-girlfriend's computer and both love it. The ex-girlfriend even installed on someone else's computer when it was so infested with viruses as to be unusable. Just had to explain to her how to burn an ISO and she did the rest on her own. Because, you know, it just works. Unlike windows where you have to spend hours finding drivers and anti-virus and digging up all your CDs and keys so you can re-installing applications...
Both are very much novices. But neither is a moron.
Who is John Galt?
Don't get me wrong.
I like Mint. Just like I like Ubuntu, I like Debian, and a lot of other distros. I just find that major releases of them often have some pretty substiantial problems, and like any fanboy war, linux distro fanboys all tend to defend their distro of choice while ravaging others, and the only thing that makes them band together is somebody wandering into the room and saying "why don't you all just switch to OSX and be done with it" or something like that. Often even that doesn't do it.
I'd like to think that maybe I've just been unlucky, but I've installed a ton of different releases of different distros and they've -all- had something wrong with them. The best out-of-the-box experience I've ever had is ubuntu 12.04 and I've even documented the issues I ran into with it elsewhere in these comments. If any distro of linux had ever "just worked" for me, I'd be using it this second. I know people want to blame -me- for it, but as I've pointed out, the problems I'm having usually have documented tracker entries when I google them. It's -not- just me. The only linux distro I've ever had do exactly what it says on the tin with no tinkering, finagling, and headache-based-acceptance was Tails, and that's a fairly limited and focused distro.
I really wanted to like Mint. the stated design goals, an ubuntu-based OS (with all the benefits of a large-ish installed base of users) that focused on stability and user experience? sign me up! I just didn't find the experience to be anything like the advertising. It didn't even stand up directly out of the box before I started trying to customize it.
I think most people are aware that Linux Mint is just a customized version of Ubuntu. Nothing special in that regard. However, the reason Mint is so popular is because it has something very important that a lot of people desire - sensible defaults.
Sure, you can take a stock Ubuntu installation and replace Unity with MATE/Cinnamon, install additional codecs, move the window buttons to the left so that you don't have to readjust your muscle memory and so on, but Linux Mint has this performed for you out of the box. It also has other changes like an absence of purple in the GRUB, Plymouth and login/desktop screens, which might seem petty but the Mint color scheme whilst grey and somewhat boring, feels far more professional and less garish. Once again, chances you can make if you know how with Ubuntu, but Mint is already preset with them for you.
Mint feels like a distro where the developers aren't interested in futzing around with challenging traditional UI perceptions, and would instead rather provide a distro based on a (reasonably) solid foundation which anyone can use which still looks nice and doesn't force you to relearn how to perform efficiently in a foreign UI. The motivation for Canonical is to be on as many devices as possible - the motivation for the Mint team is to make a usable Linux distro for computers with as few hindrances as possible.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I never understood sports fans. I watch a baseball for football game, this team wins, that team loses. I don't give a fuck, but some people REALLY take it serious. I find Linux zealots/fanboys/nutballs to be sadder still.
Where in his post did GP complain about drivers? All bugs that he specifically mentions sounds like they're general code defects in Gnome and/or Cinnamon.
you're not allowed to have a negative opinion of something unless you work for the competition?
you must work for red hat? see how silly that sounds?
I'm not sure what kind of OS you are trying to classify as an operating system for a moron, because I've had to support users who can't use any operating system, no matter how simple. they break everything they use. you wouldn't think they'd be able to screw up something like iOS, etc, but they do. you can't design an idiot-proof OS because the world will make a better idiot.
If all you want out of Linux is an OS that will launch firefox and thunderbird, maybe print or open a flash drive, then there are dozens (maybe hundreds) of distros that can do that without a problem. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual computer enthusiasts. People whom I assume you count yourself among, those who are spending several hours in front of their computer per day by choice, and not spending it all on facebook. People who are installing emulators, installing programs that aren't in the default repositories, customizing the interface to any degree beyond changing the wallpaper. adding a piece of hardware that doesn't have an apple logo on it. These things are very often broken in linux distros, and while you can often get them working, at least well enough to get by, it requires knowing the operating system very well already, or meticuliously following instructions that found on google and hoping that it is the correct fix for your problem, and not knowing why it worked if it did or didn't work if it didn't.
That's why there is no linux for novices. Eventually if you do anything other than web browsing, you're going to find yourself at a terminal prompt typing in sudo and hoping the line you're cutting and pasting after it won't hose your system.
Also your description of windows sounds suspiciously like XP, not 7.
Not to make light of it, but reminds me of the line from a song on "Hee Haw": "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all..."
Sorry I don't know enough to be of help. Curious if same or similar problems on only the laptop or on any other systems you have.
Since I don't follow best practices on my personal machine, a given install can stray a bit as I change things more to my liking, and I also turn on backports. Since upgrading to 12.04 I get several "Ubuntu has encountered a problem..." or some such per day; it reports, the box keeps running, I ignore. I suppose I should turn on some more logs and find out what the problem is but if stuff works I'm too lazy to care. Also, my needs are very simple - surf, read, play Civ V, watch some TV and listen to music, crunch for worldcommunitygrid.
To paraphrase a wise man, "All operating systems suck, each in their own way."
Tails looks interesting, btw. I've been liking Zorin for those coming directly from Windows who want or need the comfort of look and feel.
I did make the mistake once of complaining about my experiences with ubuntu 9.04 (which I used for a year and a half) and my nvidia card. I then proceeded to have several back-and-forth posts with a brick wall of a linux fanboy who insisted that each and every single problem I encountered was nvidia's fault and not linux's, despite my repeated attempts to explain that I didn't -care- whose fault it was that the flagship (at least by # of users) distro couldn't work properly with the #1 (at the time) video card line on the market, because as an end user that shouldn't be something I had to worry about... having to reinstall driver from command prompt every time my kernal updated (note I didn't point out that was the problem, he did. he knew what my problem was without me even mentioning it, it was -that- common). He didn't seem to think that mattered. He was arguing from some philosophical point of view where I was trying to point out that as an actual user, who knew what he was doing and -could- fix the problem (or at least work around it), I just didn't want the hassle of having to do so when I had other options that weren't such a pain in the ass.
his end recommendation, and I'm not kidding, was to avoid using my $300 video card and use onboard intel graphics instead.
A good makefile is hardly a burden.
Perhaps Gentoo is just more painful than it really needs to be.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It uses Openbox which is lighter than LXDE and XFCE, not to mention Gnome, KDE...
Since anybody with unresolved problems is incompetent by your book, please explain why haven't you fixed the bug with ubuntu where running programs don't always show up on the unity launcher or in alt-tab?
Because it happens.
It's documented.
get off your high horse and admit that your golden OS has flaws.
Windows 7 and any Windows can be a problem if you insist on making it do exactly what you want and in that respect fiddly with Windows implies much friction. That OS fights back modifications. Because I end up heavyly configuring all my systems I rarely bother with Windows 7. I admit my perceptions are skewed, but my experience with "basic" users is that they will always struggle with computers and will always request my help, hence my low understimating of any Windows "magic ease".
But... the future refused to change.
For those wondering about Cinnamon vs Mate vs Unity vs KDE vs LXDE vs XFCE vs whatever, there is a new distro out called Hybryde. From the distrowatch announcement
Olivier Larrieu has announced the release of Hybryde Linux 1, a desktop Linux distribution with one unique feature - the ability to switch rapidly and fluidly between a number of desktop environments and window managers without logging out and without having to close open applications first. The list includes Enlightenment 17, GNOME Shell, GNOME 3 "Fallback" mode, KDE, LXDE, Openbox, Unity, Xfce and FVWM. The switching between desktops is achieved via a customisable Hy-menu which also allows launching applications and configuring the system. The project's website is in French and by default the distribution only supports the French language, but extra language packs can be installed from standard Ubuntu 12.04 repositories.
Okay, MATE and Cinnamon weren't among the listed options, so it might have been good had they forked off Mint, as opposed to Ubuntu, so that they could have included that as well. I'm guessing that they probably only offer liberated software, which is why complete GNOME 3 is not offered, since it requires 3D accelaration to work, for which liberated drivers are not available. Unless they're trying to get the FSF seal of approval, they might as well offer a full GNOME3, w/ an advisory that it's not a fully liberated DE.
Oh, and then there are all the other Ubuntu derivative Linuxes, such as Comice, dyne:bolic, ExTiX, gNewSense, LuninuX, Trisquel and Zorin.
If I download and burn the installer DVD, can I just boot the DVD and click something to upgrade the machine's original Ubuntu (v11.10) to Mint, with little or no further intervention? Which will let me reboot and launch Evolution and Firefox with all my configs and data intact?
And if I don't like it, can I boot from an Ubuntu installer CD to revert? Or maybe something even easier?
--
make install -not war
From what I understand, Ubuntu does offer GNOME 3 as an option, w/ or w/o fallback mode. What Mint does is somewhat different. Mint offers the GNOME 2 fork called MATE, and it offers Mint GNOME Shell Extensions (MGSE) under GTK3, which is what's called Cinnamon. Essentially, Cinnamon is GNOME 2 implemented under GTK3, while MATE is the old GNOME 2 implemented under GTK2.
Yup, this is how linux will get fixed. Deny there is an issue, call your users stupid and post anecdotal "evidence" that "i have no problem" thus there is no problem.
Its been like this for the past 10 years or so, and hasn't worked so far.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Your sample size of 1 is statistically insignificant.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Also, I'm curious to know which headaches you're running into with Windows 7, because I can't think of any offhand. XP? sure. Vista? Of course. 7? nothing comes to mind.
OK, I have one, but for me, it's a doozy. Searching for contents of a file doesn't work the way I want by default. Mainly because if you're searching in a non-indexed directory, there's no option to search the contents of a file. Even if you're in an indexed directory, only files with known AND selected types are searched. And if you want to search PDFs, you have to install one of two 3rd party iFilters (1 of which costs $600 if you want to search PDFs on your Win Server). WTF? No PDF search in Win 7? Even Vista allowed you to search ANY file. Changing the settings doesn't make it work even as well as Vista. Some people have VMs running Vista just so they can do better searches. I use a 3rd party app to search for contents of a file in Win 7, which is beyond irritating.
And MS hasn't addressed or fixed the search UI since people started complaining about it in 2009:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/ecbecc00-f3e7-429f-87cd-8900fc313add/
Other than that, I actually like Win 7.
passetspike!
edit: make that 20 years. brain fart, getting old and senile, etc...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Really, I don't see the problem with the user interface, certainly not in Mint : everything is neatly ordered, I find everything instantly.
However, it's true that if you come from a Windows background, then anything 'not windows', will seem difficult. I recon it's the same the other way around though.
Point is , Mint has one of the friendliest GUI i have seen, and it's not that hard to learn how to use it.
Infact, that's one of the reasons I switched from Ubuntu to Mint, because the Ubuntu desktop is horrible to me.
So, to answer the GP : yes, Mint is a very good alternative to Ubuntu, certainly for a novice.
But it's not Windows, so don't expect it to be.
Slipping shoelaces ?
What about those using MythTV?
I'm doing that.
It was pretty easy to set up, just type "myth" in the software center and select MythTV plus all the add-ons you'll be using.
You do need to configure your capture cards and storage in the MythTV backend (shows up under the Administration menu), but most of the defaults work well enough to get you started.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Lying wanker.
1. Dell laptop with W7, keeps forgetting it has a mouse. When the mouse dies, I can use the trackpad for a while before that stops responding, but after that it's reboot time.
2. GF's W7 desktop keeps losing copy/paste buffer. It'll randomly stop working and need a reboot to get it started again.
3. Copying files between them (with a Gigabit switch) takes forever. It's quicker to sneakerware a USB drive of videos or photos than it is to copy direct.
4. Sessions vanishing overnight. Occasionally, we'll leave one or the other of them with documents or web pages open overnight and come back to a blank desktop,
Indeed, but his sample size of 1 is just as statistically insignificant as GGP's.
I hate printers.
Lubuntu is Ubuntu w/ LXDE. Xubuntu is Ubuntu w/ XFCE, while Kubuntu is Ubuntu w/ KDE. Ubuntu itself now offers Unity, or one could opt for GNOME 3.
Mint is different from all of the above, in that it offers you the non-GNOME3 choices - MATE (GNOME 2 on GTK2) and Cinnamon (a fork of MGSE written in GTK3). Neither of these are offered by Ubuntu, so what Mint offers is unique.
Note that Mint also has KDE, LXDE and XFCE versions as well. From what I understand, they are just Mint w/ these DE's thrown in, wheras the *ubuntus above are all separate distros fine tuned towards their DE. Kubuntu, for instance, uses the KDE specific apps that are there e.g. prefering Rekonq/Konqueror to Firefox, and so on.
by the way, LM:Debian Edition was so broken as to not even be worth discussing.
Try it now, the latest version really gets it together.
Having cut my teeth on Red Hat and Mandrake over a decade ago, I'm not a Linux newbie. That said, I don't tend to compile kernels or, these days, build much software from source. Earlier Ubuntus, with their Gnome 2, became my workstation operating system of choice. I stopped tinkering with the OS internals because productivity was more important and *things* *just* *worked* - until Unity.
I still liked Ubuntu's lack of hassle and the Debian roots, but was disappointed with Unity (it might be OK for craptops and netbooks, but it's awful on dual monitor rigs...assuming it bothers to detect the second monitor.) The Unity workflow is broken and I felt that it was less of a work platform (i.e. somewhere where I could run the handful of apps I require.)
I installed Mint on my laptop and liked it. Then I read about LMDE and live-booted it on my workstation. I installed it right away - hassle free, runs my apps and disappears into the background (as all good operating systems should.) I update it when I need to and it has the reassuring Debian feel (but it's suitably different from Debian.) I don't know why I like the fact it's different from Debian, but I do.
Anyhow, dear readers, LMDE - I heartily recommend it to you. It's beautifully uncomplicated and a joy to use.
GGP is referring to known bugs in the bug tracking system.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Also, I'm curious to know which headaches you're running into with Windows 7, because I can't think of any offhand. XP? sure. Vista? Of course. 7? nothing comes to mind.
The window Z-layering is frequently idiotic. I don't care one way or another how anyone feels about "click to focus" vs. "focus follows mouse" but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that if the DM is raising a window to the to top, it should, maybe, give it focus, and if it's going to raise it behind other windows, it shouldn't.
Of course, the apparent decision making between which it chooses seems to border on the non-deterministic. And, for added lulz, the windows "stick". Alt-tabbing or clicking on another overlapped window will give it focus, but NOT raise it. The fix I've found is to have to minimize it and re-raise it.
Total PITA. I would have thought it was my PC, but it happens on both mine and my machine at work.
this is a massive problem for desktop linux, and i don't see an easy way around it - the end user doesn't care who's fault it is - if their $300 graphics card doesn't work in linux, but works with other OS, then guess what OS doesn't get used?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
There is only linux for people who want to learn the nuts and bolts of linux at a slower rate than others.
In other words, a novice.
I've played around with Mint before. It is probably the cleanest, most professional looking Linux distro out there, but it still has similar problems as the others. I was never successful at getting full hardware support each time I installed it on a number of PCs and on at least a couple of them, I had to spend quite a lot of time looking up information, downloading individual files and manually configuring stuff to get things like video or wireless networking going. On of the PCs I installed it on was nearly working, but each time the system is rebooted, the video driver defaults back to some standard VGA and I have to go through the whole driver installation and configuration process again.
I can see Linux Mint one day becoming a daily driver, once all of those issues are sorted. I do like the UI appearance (the dark grey one from past versions and from the new "Cinnamon" variant) and that items seem to be logically ordered.
I have never had any of those problems. In fact, I've never even heard of those problems before now.
Maybe you have failing hardware or you trashed some important system files.
What's your point?
Release notes: Boot hangs on systems with b43 wireless cards WHAT??? This is a very common set of cheap broadcom wireless chips used in tens-if-not-hundreds of 2-5 year laptop models. What a particularly strange thing NOT to fix before you ship a release to the public. Of every laptop I "refurbish" and install Linux Mint on, 1 out of 3 has the B43 chipset. I can't believe it. I have to see this with my own eyes. ... Ship a release that doesn't support the ess1869 of wireless chipsets
>> Then I discovered that clicking on a side-launcher button doesn't raise an active window up to the top; it just spawns a new one
I use Unity on several computers and I can't say that I've ever seen that behavior. Weird. Clicking on the launcher always brings up the latest window for the application. If there are two or more windows open for that application, clicking again on the launcher presents you with a view of each window and the option to choose which one you want. I find opening a new window for an application sort of a pain, as you have to go into the file menu -> new window or right click on the launcher (not sure if that works for all applications, though).
Both of you are using Dell. Maybe the problem is there. I never had those kind of problems on HP, both Windows and Linux.
One question - does Mint have Ubuntu's software center, which I hear is much improved over synaptics and other package managers? How about Kubuntu, Xubuntu and so on? That is one of the few good things Ubuntu has, and it would be a shame to lose it while going to Mint.
I recon it's the same the other way around though.
It is. I used Windows from 1995 to 2008, Win95 and WinXP. Then I switched to Ubuntu. When I have to use Win7 on somebody else's PC I realize I'm not as effective as I was with WinXP because many things have changed and I'm not familiar with them. When I have to use a Mac (rarely) sometimes I just don't know how to do some basic things and I have to ask or wander at random among windows and menus. The only easy interface is the one you know well. If you're a novice and don't know anything, every OS is difficult.
Uh, that I have never had any of those problems. I thought that was quite clear. I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was responding to the mentally challenged. I will try to include some pretty pictures and drawings next time.
I agree with most of what you wrote but the part about Unity and touchscreens. I installed 12.04 on my netbook and I can tell that Unity without a keyboard is unusable. Without a keyboard the lenses and the HUD are useless. Only the left side launcher can work on a pure touchscreen device but that gives access to only a small number of programs. On the other side, you can access all the installed apps with your finger on any touchscreen phone/tablet. I'm just curious to see how Canonical will tweak Unity to make it work on TVs and tablets. They'll add an Android/iPhone like launcher?
BTW, I think I'll go with MATE after updating my 11.04 primary laptop. I didn't update to 11.10 because I was waiting for a more robust version of MATE and maybe of Cinammon but time has come.
Here's one thing that drives me fucking nuts. Windows 7--also Windows Vista I recall. My cousin is running it connected to a ~40" HDTV. Any way to adjust INDIVIDUAL font sizes? You know, the way it was possible probably since Windows 95, and maybe earlier? And don't say DPI: I increased the screen DPI as much as it can comfortably be increased. I'm talking individual font sizes here. I don't want everything else to blow up with the size of the fonts as if the resolution is going down, just the fonts themselves.
And that's just one thing that really grates on my nerves in Windows still. And ironically, this irritation didn't exist in Windows XP. Now that this kind of functionality would actually be useful since TVs are being equipped with computer inputs and people are starting to use them, Microsoft fucking takes the functionality out.
And no, it's not my genious idea to connect a computer to a bigscreen HDTV, avoid the keyboard like a computer-illiterate idiot, and just use the mouse. IMO, the only way to use a "general-purpose" computer these days is with a decent size 16x10 computer monitor, a keyboard and a mouse on a desk. Leave the HDTV to specialized systems.
I didn't realise I was responding to the mentally challenged.
Good way to announce that you've lost the argument.
Just taking issue with your touchpad problem maybe you are looking too hard. To disable touchpad in Mint 11 , Mint 12 or Ubuntu 12.04 (just examples of versions I have recent experience with)
Fn key F7 enables and disables the touchpad that is on an aspire one but I would be surprised if most laptops didn't have similar keys. You don't need an applet to do this.
Now there are issues that can be annoying but that shouldn't be one of them. There isn't a perfect operating system. Windows 7 is pretty good right? so why Windows 8? OSX multiple revisions IOS Android the same.
Now the original poster asked if Mint is a good alternative to Ubuntu for a novice and I would say yes because of Unity mainly. A logical menu system organised into sound/video, graphics, internet, office ect helps direct you to suitable software for the task in hand. Unity doesn't do this if its not on the Dock you need to know the name of what your looking for. Software wise you pretty much have the same versions as in the equivalent Ubuntu version.
For a novice I would always recommend a dual boot system possibly a VM , since if you know how to do something in Windows easily, and doing the same task requires you to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do the same thing with different software in Linux then if you just want to get it done use what you know. You can work with the linux version when you are not under pressure, it is not a religion.
I don't know anything about your Dell but how well is your hardware supported? Does everything just work? If not you are not going to have a pain free experience. Still its probably worth using the hardware testing software to generate a report so the issues get back to developers who may well tackle the issue.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
There is no issue if you do not provide information on it. Its just a claim made by an individual. Think more. Don't just post your theories here without thinking.
Actually he posted bug-reports.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I only briefly tested it, but the Mate edition looks excellent, it's not quirky. it's like the old gnome 2 is back, with no bugs and small applets such as xeyes. it's the editiion to use, works everywhere, no need for a 3D driver to run it. also in a funny way it feels lightweight nowadays, due to most other desktops being really bloated (or xfce not being that much lighter)
Especially awesome is, despite its Windows XP taskbar set up, with the big Mint menu, you can easily add a top panel if you wish, and choose your menu between three styles including the gnome 2 one.
Yes, of course, precious. Anything you say. You're very, very special after all.
I'm curious how long I can stick it out before I give up and go back to windows 7, which I'll freely admit does everything I need an OS to do, and has no major or even minor bugs that impact me on any sort of regular basis.
Herein lies the problem; You've come from an OS which does all of the things you want it to do in a way which agrees with you, and tried to turn a different OS into that one.
Linux is not Windows. You cannot turn Linux into Windows. Don't even try.
I use both; Windows for gaming, Linux (Mint 11, incidentally) for everything else. I like the update system for Linux ("Run updates... Oh ok, that was painless" vs "Oh ffs, this is the third restart, and I still haven't updated Java or Adobe Flash yet!"), and the Desktop Cube (Browser, Office apps, and RDP administration sessions all sit on their own desktop, with a fourth for other tasks as necessary). I find it a much more productive setup than Windows with multi-monitors.
Mostly, though, I like that if an app misbehaves to the point of the UI becoming unresponsive, it's Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Backspace and X restarts. It takes about 5 seconds to go from a state which on Windows would require a hard reset to fully operational. That alone has saved me potentially hours in productive time.
TL,DR: Why did you try and swap to Linux in the first place? You like Windows, you bought Windows. Just use it, and forget what anyone else's preferences are.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
In fact, I've never even heard of those problems before now.
And you never even heard how to Google either.
you're not allowed to have a negative opinion of something unless you work for the competition?
you must work for red hat? see how silly that sounds?
I'm not sure what kind of OS you are trying to classify as an operating system for a moron, because I've had to support users who can't use any operating system, no matter how simple. they break everything they use. you wouldn't think they'd be able to screw up something like iOS, etc, but they do. you can't design an idiot-proof OS because the world will make a better idiot.
If all you want out of Linux is an OS that will launch firefox and thunderbird, maybe print or open a flash drive, then there are dozens (maybe hundreds) of distros that can do that without a problem. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual computer enthusiasts. People whom I assume you count yourself among, those who are spending several hours in front of their computer per day by choice, and not spending it all on facebook. People who are installing emulators, installing programs that aren't in the default repositories, customizing the interface to any degree beyond changing the wallpaper. adding a piece of hardware that doesn't have an apple logo on it. These things are very often broken in linux distros, and while you can often get them working, at least well enough to get by, it requires knowing the operating system very well already, or meticuliously following instructions that found on google and hoping that it is the correct fix for your problem, and not knowing why it worked if it did or didn't work if it didn't.
That's why there is no linux for novices. Eventually if you do anything other than web browsing, you're going to find yourself at a terminal prompt typing in sudo and hoping the line you're cutting and pasting after it won't hose your system.
Also your description of windows sounds suspiciously like XP, not 7.
You type sudo and if you get it wrong it stops you with the password failing, you don't know what you think you do.
i don't think (s)he works for anyone :)
the length of the posts indicates a lot of time on the hands of the author.
on vacation actually. at in-laws house. plenty of time for posting.
If you're ready to calm down and stop raging for a moment, I can give you your answer:
Right click desktop -> Personalize -> Window Color (bottom of window) -> Advanced appearance settings...
So there you go - Windows 7 still has the feature to change individual font sizes. People like to bash Windows before actually bothering to investigate if there's a solution. Having said that I will give you the benefit of the doubt here - there's absolutely no reason why the method for changing system fonts should be accessed through a button marked "Window Color". Very bad design there.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
Really? What the fuck are people doing that causes their machines to become so infected these days? My wife never, EVER has viruses or malware or any such bullshit because she learnt the value of being sensible on the net, letting things like Adobe Flash allow themselves to be updated when prompted (and not just click cancel to get rid of the window quicker), and etc.
Viruses aren't a problem at all if you employ some common sense. I agree that common sense with computers is rather rare, but it can be learnt and as such I have a low tolerance for anyone who can't seem to remain uninfected. Even my parents don't get infected and I set all three of them with Windows 7. Are you saying the people in your life are idiots?
As for drivers/anti-virus, all you have to do is organize your shit. Put aside a folder for installers, drivers and keys, so that in the event of a reformat you have everything you need. Very clean and efficient, and then you can get back to gaming in an operating system that actually supports the games you want to play! :)
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I've still got my windows install ghosted onto an external HD to restore whenever I like, so it's not a big deal to be on linux for the time being. I'm using it now purely for amusement value. I'm seeing what the current state of linux GUI development is like.
I keep trying linux because, despite all my bad experiences with it, I still want to like it. I like the philosophy behind linux, the idea of a 3rd major OS aside from Company M's "you do what you want to do our way and we'll change it when we feel like it" and Company A's "you don't even do what you want to do, you do what we tell you that we'll let you do" designed by the people using it. I really really want to like Linux. I want to be part of the kool-aid drinking faithful... but it is totally one of those grass-is-greener things. Every time I step into the green glowing field of linux, I keep stepping into cow pies.
I want to leave microsoft, and in certain circumstances (the year-and-a-half on ubuntu 9.04 for instance), I've been able to get away, but my fanboyism died away well over a decade ago and now I use what works best. Thus, so far I've always been pulled back for one reason or another and it's not microsoft marketing.
Meh, they'll be at best ignored and at worst marked "WONTFIX".
The Linux community is probably the worst community you'll find on the net, despite thinking themselves one of the bets. The level of closed-mindedness there is frightning. To think I believed Linux actually had a chance on the desktop with these idiots!
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
And you'll be even busier, repeatedly posting the same type of sad pointless comment again and again; you really should get out more if this is the best you can do with you sad little life.
I do really wonder with posters like you is this *really* the best entertainment you can get? It's not as if hardly anyone reads or replies to stuff like this (and yes, I know I'm 'breaking the rules' by replying).
Computer enthusiasts aren't "novice" and would just as easily find Windows limiting.
It couldn't possibly be that you are exaggerating a few minor flaws, and then proclaiming it as "broken" could it? Naw, it's those mean Linuxfanboys who just hates having Linux advance is it? Or did they respond the same way on the bug reports? They didn't? Lo and behold, it's almost like the ones that are the most hardcore fans(ie the ones actually solving bugs) would help you.
Christfuck you're an idiot of epic proportions.
protip for mac: click on "help" and type in what you want.
Not anyone with unresolved problems, there are always unresolved problems on any platform you can think of. I'm talking about anyone who can't make linux work satisfactorily for themselves.
It may well not be ready for grandma, but for someone that reads and posts here it points to a stunning lack of competence with computers.
The Linux community is probably the worst community you'll find on the net,
well i think you'll find the pedos and the nazis give linux users a run for their money :)
esp. illinois nazis, i hate illinois nazis!
then what do you call someone who posts here with a stunning lack of reading comprehension?
I've -got- ubuntu 12.04 working "satisfactorily" in as much as it is possible to work around some pretty glaring basic problems.
I gave up on Mint because the problems were so bad that they weren't worth trying to work around. embarassingly bad. stuff that should have been caught in alpha release levels of bad.
again, this was Mint 12, maybe mint 13 fixed these problems. I'm on vacation and I'm more than willing to give 13 a try when I get home... however considering this was a fully patched version of Mint 12 I was using all of 3 or 4 weeks ago. That means that either they haven't fixed the bugs, or major bugfixes don't get backported to previous releases. either way, it doesn't inspire confidence.
LOL you can't handle a really easy to use OS like Ubuntu, yet *we're* the ones with mental deficiencies.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Heh, OK I take it back. In terms of COMPUTER-related communities then.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
There is no linux for a novice.
What an ignorant troll. Linux is ready for any novice. Grandmothers are using Linux without issue. Sad that many grandmothers, with no comptuer experience and/or background, seem far more capable a user than you. Says a lot about your credibility.
I didn't read the rest because the stupidity of your statement stopped me dead in my tracks.
Linux is easily a competator with any desktop OS. Period. Usabilities study after study easily confirms this. Its a fact.
The only thing holding users back from switching to Linux in mass is:
o Not readily found pre-installed (Microsoft forcing this)
o Lacking game titles
o Lacking tax software
Sorry, but you're easily one of the reasons why slashdot sucks so badly these days.
For all of those bitching about Mint based on Ubuntu, just use the Debian-based version: It is rock solid and works like a charm.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Uh, I'm a (novice) Linux user, but to be fair, I've never experienced any of those problems. Resource hogging, slow system, more vulnerable to viruses and other malware, expensive and most of the time not good enough software, etc, but those seem to be (except the last one) hardware or screwed up install (or made up) problems. Particulary the last one seems pretty goddamn farfetched.
Oblivion Awaits
At a certain point I was using openSUSE but it was booting a bit slow, so I switched to Kubuntu.Kubuntu started to become an horrible mess, so I used plain Ubuntu for a while. I never got really used to the terrible file dialog, nor to its lack of keyboard shortcuts, but in the end I could get my job done.
Then Unity came. I put it on an USB key and decided it was too much suffering, so I up the update until I decide to try mint 12.
Ok THAT was really an horrible mess, the most bug ridden half backed desktop environment I have ever used. I resisted a couple of month saying that I'll get used and that they'll fix the bugs. Of course they did not, it's much more fun to add cutting edge new features than to make the basic ones (such as switch window) work.
After 8 taskbar crashes in half an hour, instead of renaming for the 5th time the config directory,I started to download the DVD image of openSUSE 12.1. Guess what, it takes a few more seconds to boot than ubuntu, but who cares, nowadays suspend to ram works seamlessly. If I find a bug (I met a few), well, I can report it and the tracker is not full of illiterate teenagers raging and pasting megabytes of irrelevant logs. It does not have all the possible packages in the world in its supported repositories, at least you have a clear distinction between what is going to work and what could break you system: you can always wipe all the packages from RandomRepo and get it back to work. I even had to compile one obscure algebra library myself, which proved to be 10x faster than the precompiled crap on ubuntu.
Maybe in a while I'll grow tired of it again, what's nice of linux is freedom to change without loosing all the music and videos; maybe, as an old school developer, I'm overlooking the importance of system stability and reliability, middle-click paste and ctrl-alt-sysreq over user-friendly javascriptable social-connected desktop environment.
Maybe I had forgotten what made linux attractive to me in the first place: it helps me get my work done, 10x faster than on OsX and 100x than on Windows. As long as your work is not developing desktop themes or surfing the web, I'll suggest you stick to what is stable instead of what is cool.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
I'll give this this one. Search is horribly broken, and about 20x less functional and LESS CONSISTANT than in XP. /bitterly/
I have users that complain about it
I suspect Microsoft has not fixed the issue because it's a very very hard problem to fix. They replaced a program that simply searches files in order with a system that has an elaborate indexing scheme that's tightly integrated with some other critical system services, and microsoft office too (Outlook, post version 2007, can only search mail that's been locally cached an indexed). I suspect that if they fix the search they will break things they consider more important. It's also pretty much impossible to index data on shared drives. It's literally broken, with no fix.
I also suspect they've always intended to replace the functionality with some other feature.. Like the promised metadata stuff in winfs, or something like bing desktop search, or some windows live branded product. (Heh. They are ditching the live brand) Whatever the reason, nothing has come to fruition. I also suspect that microsoft, in any non-trival business environment, would rather lock you in to something like sharepoint or a new 'cloudy' equivalent than give you a robust local search.
Know what my solution was, that made my users most happy? XP mode. Yes, that's right. They run XP in a VM just to run the old search with that stupid dog.
Obviously you do have some sort of mental shortcoming or you'd realise that nowhere did I mention anything about Ubuntu or anything to do with Linux at all. Non-sequitur much?
...That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual computer enthusiasts. People whom I assume you count yourself among, those who are spending several hours in front of their computer per day by choice, and not spending it all on facebook. People who are installing emulators, installing programs that aren't in the default repositories, customizing the interface to any degree beyond changing the wallpaper. adding a piece of hardware that doesn't have an apple logo on it. These things are very often broken in Linux distros, and while you can often get them working, at least well enough to get by, it requires knowing the operating system very well already, or meticuliously following instructions that found on Google and hoping that it is the correct fix for your problem, and not knowing why it worked if it did or didn't work if it didn't.
That's why there is no Linux for novices. Eventually if you do anything other than web browsing, you're going to find yourself at a terminal prompt typing in sudo and hoping the line you're cutting and pasting after it won't hose your system.
Let's get this straight, you say there's no Linux for novices because people who are not novices might have problems with some particular special applications that weren't designed for it. Try doing the same with any O/S. I find Linux to be far more friendly towards customizing things the way I want them than any MS O/S I've used. And for true novices it's far simpler and safer to use.
Tried them all, and always go back to grandad Debian, who knows best.....although I do dual boot with Arch now.
1. Dell laptop with W7, keeps forgetting it has a mouse. When the mouse dies, I can use the trackpad for a while before that stops responding, but after that it's reboot time.
Driver and/or hardware problem.
2. GF's W7 desktop keeps losing copy/paste buffer. It'll randomly stop working and need a reboot to get it started again.
Third party memory management/compression software or due to running in a VM.
3. Copying files between them (with a Gigabit switch) takes forever. It's quicker to sneakerware a USB drive of videos or photos than it is to copy direct.
Flaw in Samba.
4. Sessions vanishing overnight. Occasionally, we'll leave one or the other of them with documents or web pages open overnight and come back to a blank desktop,
Related to third party memory management/compression, misconfiguration causing logout or hardware failure causing reboot.
Agreed. I just went back to Linux after a quite awhile on Windows 7. I was getting into some web development projects and it's just easier for me to get up and running and set things up on Linux. I went with Ubuntu since I had worked with that before, but Unity was all screwed up - specifically some quirks with Chromium tabs on it and I just didn't like it. I set up the Gnome3 stock PPA and used that for awhile. I liked how it looked but it just got to be too much work to use. Maybe it's because I'm on a laptop but with running everything full screen I found it tedious to keep alt-tabbing back and forth between browser, editor, and command prompt to do anything. Throw in a file explorer window or two and it was a mess. And with no taskbar I had little idea what all was running. I could spend a ton of time tweaking it and customizing it but why? Why spend all that time and work to get things to where they should be? So then I installed Cinnamon and have been using that for a few weeks. It's OK, but still has it's quirks. The taskbar font is ugly as hell, too small, and I can't seem to find a way to make it look cleaner. I've run into the "start" menu shifting like above, and some weird quirk where the locations of the open window tabs rearrange themselves when coming back from a lockscreen. I dunno, I guess it does work for the most part, seems to be better than Unity or stock Gnome3, but maybe I'd just be better off going back to classic Gnome.
Windows 7 wasn't that bad - I actually really like the UI. I just found myself wanting/needing a bunch of the command line stuff from Linux, plus this time around I didn't want to mess with activations, etc.
Is it really too much to ask for a Linux desktop that isn't half-assed complete but also looks and acts a bit more modern than Windows 95? Maybe that's why Microsoft and Apple have the big budgets, to get the little details. But coming from Windows Gnome3 and Unity seem like a completely wrong direction (Unity) and half-implemented (Gnome3). And everything else just seems dated. Sigh...
nonsense, I've put Ubuntu and Mint on people's laptops and desktops and they do fine, no command-line or exotic admin skills necessary. Even for kids to use LibreOffice for schoolwork.
Quite frankly, now that I have a MacBook at work, some of the actions there are quite non-intuitive compared to most Linux desktops or Windows.
as opposed to the open-mindedness of Redmond in fixing windows issues, or adhering to industry standards, or designing a well thought out GUI like "the Ribbon"? Haha, you are so completely full of shit.
I feel ya. That said, get ready to get downmodded to hell and insulted, called a moron, told you don't know computers at all, and told to get off slashdot, for pointing out valid failings in the golden OS.
IT HAS NO PROBLEMS. IT IS THE SOLUTION FOR ALL. IT IS PERFECT. DRINK THE KOOL AID.
sheesh.
There is no linux for a novice.
There is only linux for people who want to learn the nuts and bolts of linux at a slower rate than others.
I launched the WUBI installer for Ubuntu: advertised to Windows users as a safe and painless way to test-drive Linux.
"The buttons" are on the wrong side, of couse, so it is off to Google to find a solution.
I like having a small app pinned to the tray to play Internet radio as a I work. Radio Sure, Screamer, Tapin...
The Ubuntu Store has a Radio Tray app for Linux that seems just the thing.I launch the program and it displays an error dialog in microscopic print.
Back to Google for a solution...
Radio Tray needs gstreamer-ugly.for sound.
Why the Ubuntu store doesn't install the supporting software its apps require I can't begin to guess.
I install the Chromium browser. I install "Angry Birds" and "Bejeweled."
No sound.
Now I'm getting really pissed off.
Back again to Google to find out which FFmpeg installion is needed....
Windows works on the desktop for billions of average people. Linux does not.
bullshit, 4% of the world's population has a "computer", meaning laptop or desktop. Over 60% of the world has a cell phone though, do you think most are running windows?
You're the one who's full of shit. Microsoft does fix Windows issues - you think those monthly windows updates are just full of zero-bytes? The Ribbon is very popular with non-geeks when used in suitable programs (e.g. Office). Complete denial you guys are. Why do you think Linux use has remained stagnant? YOU IGNORE REALITY.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I prefer Ubuntu 12.04 over mint 12. Mint software packager is very flimsy and becomes unresponsive at times. In Ubuntu 11.10, a few times i had the desktop panels and icons disappear on my old core2duo machine. Fedora 16 kde crashed, froze, and sometimes desktop panels and icons all disappeared same as gnome in ubuntu, but at least fedora automatically installed by kworld usb tv adapter drivers. But I always went into ubuntu terminal to bring back my desktop icons and panels same with fedora. If i remember, this issue was related to compiz. Now, on my phenom ii x6 1045t 8gb machine, windows 7 64-bit freezes when playing flash videos in firefox and chrome to running video games. I checked out my ram, motherboard, psu, video card, cpu low temperature, all check out okay. My hitachi hd 500gb might be called into question. Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit(on my somewhat busted western digital 500gb lots of bad sectors) running flash video in firefox had no freezes, slowdowns, or crashes on the same machine. I also installed ubuntu 12.04 onto someones acer netbook(1.3ghz, 2gb ram, intel gma 500) and it runs pretty well especially when running youtube videos. Hulu is actually slow but probably do to the video drivers. Windows 7 32 bit ran hulu much better on the same machine but anti-virus slowed it down to much at some points and the machine did catch a virus which is the reason why i put ubuntu 12.04 on it. Windows has the professional software, games, and optimized drivers. Maybe within the next 5 - 10 years wine under linux will be much better and able to run majority of windows apps.
The big difference is that microsoft maintain their code for X years. In open source land, the original author writes something, releases it, often moves on to something newer/shinier, screw users of the old version.
The fact that I can still get security updates for Windows XP, released in 2002 is of huge benefit to desktop end users. How many total interface revisions and utility program replacements have KDE and Gnome gone through since then? XP? Zero. Know how to use 2002 spec XP and you know how to use 2012 spec XP. I'm no lover of XP by any stretch (went from 2000 to vista x64, then 7 on the Windows side), but until there's some sort of UI, API and toolset stability its going to continue to be a clusterfuck for anyone other than nerds.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
By "it's" i mean Linux.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Pure Debian, for those who just wants the job done.
OpenSUSE for the full desktop experience.
Atm, I'm pretty happy with Crunchbang. Not as snappy as Slackware based distros but it's stable.
Doing my exams these days so can't risk anything.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
1. Install Debian
2. Add ice weasel or chromium, flash + java, VLC
3. Do not use root pwd unless there are updates
4. ???
5. Profit!
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Window Color?!?! Are you fucking kidding? I looked all over the god damn OS for *anything* to do with font sizes, and it's under... WINDOW COLOR?! The last thing I give a fuck about?! Well there you go, another thing that drives me nuts about Windows: Microsoft's complete nonsense OS layout, which seems to only be getting WORSE after Windows XP, where it actually made some sense. I thought Vista made the Control Panel worse, then 7 improved the slop job that was in Vista by just a bit... but this is the most illogical thing I have ever heard. Move on over Start -> Shutdown, I think you've been over taken by something hundreds of times more retarded and illogical.
That's so hard to believe, that FONT settings would be under WINDOW COLOR, that I can't wait to go to my cousin's house and see it with my own eyes. If so... Microsoft has really outdone themselves to make their OS as difficult to such simple things as font size configuration done as possible. And there I was, clicking all the things in the Control Panel/Personalize screen relating to... get this... "fonts" to do this. Well, I guess I should have been worried about the window colors for some reason instead, then I might have "accidentally" stumbled across it.
Truly amazing. It should help though, so thanks, but still drives me crazy that the developers are this braindead with design and organization of such simple OS functions.
And I should add, I *did* investigate, with the help of Google. I found nothing but "answers" saying to adjust the DPI. I spent probably 15 minutes searching, finding the same Fonts/DPI crap. 15 minutes is far more than it should take to find an answer on Google, and yet... I didn't find squat.
Don't worry about it. Now that I think about it more, this is precisely the dumb UI stuff that Windows SHOULD be bashed about. Normally I'm a bit of a defender of Windows (particularly 7) because it works very well for me and doesn't deserve quite so much criticism, but since I'm used to it I'm perhaps more forgiving if I encounter such crap design decisions.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
i've been kludging an mp3 player page & got it to play on clicking in both osX & winXP, but none of the linuces i've tried recently(fc16, mint12, ubuntu12) will play anything in the browser out-of-the-box, even tho they'll gladly play mp3s locally:-\
so would u let me know if u can play any of the mp3s on http://bostoncamerata.org/camradioNew.html from ur browser?
10q
Methinks you may not follow what the poster you are replying to was saying. Try typing "sudo rm -r ~/". It may stop you if you type the password wrong, but it won't stop you if you're just doing something stupid (or that you may not be aware you're doing).
by the way, LM:Debian Edition was so broken as to not even be worth discussing.
Last month I installed LMDE (xfce version) onto my EeePC, and have so far not encountered a single issue with it. None at all. Not even one. The sound works, Youtube works (admittedly I had accidentally set the sound to mute when I tested it in front of some friends, but that was easily fixed), the trackpad works, wireless works. I installed LaTeX, and that worked too. Don't know about DVDs, but my netbook doesn't have an optical drive, so it's not really something I can test. It's reading my Sansa Clip with no problems.
I think the only complaint is that wine isn't in the default repository, but I managed to get that installed manually (and back when I used Ubuntu, I really only used wine to play a few PC games and ZSnes, which 64 bit Ubuntu didn't have, but this laptop isn't powerful enough to run those, and Zsnes is in the repositories, so no problem there).
In the 10 odd years I've been running GNU/Linux, I have never had an install go as smoothly as I had for LMDE.