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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.
So then the four flavors come in two flavours? How many normal flavors are there in a flavour? I always get the metric conversion wrong.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
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.
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.
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).
Well, duh! You're using the 32-bit version, missing out on half the bits. If you want all the bits to work, install the 64-bit version, like any sane person would.
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.
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.
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.