The Release Candidate For Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" Is Out

First time accepted submitter Type44Q writes "Well, the latest edition of Mint is finally here (the release candidate, anyway); according to The Linux Mint Blog, 'For the first time since Linux Mint 11, the development team was able to capitalize on upstream technology which works and fits its goals. After 6 months of incremental development, Linux Mint 14 features an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience. We're very proud of MATE, Cinnamon, MDM and all the components used in this release, and we're very excited to show you how they all fit together in Linux Mint 14.'"

Comments

Re:names are so cool, not!

[maxdread]

Well aren't you all bitter. What's the problem, no one in your life to name anything after?

Re:names are so cool, not!

[SomePgmr]

Me, If i developed anything and name it nice names, like "Fuckoff" "sloppyshit", "kludge", and "ididyourmom"

Lemme guess, you're involved in the GIMP project?

What?

[Mr 44]

Would it hurt to include a few words explaining what the hell Mint even is or why we should care there's a new version?

Re:What?

[buswolley]

well for one thing it moves to MATE 1.4 and Cinnamon 1.6 . No I have no idea what those do.

Re:What?

[0123456]

There was a time when you could expect people on Slashdot to know about the most popular Linux desktop distro and not need to be spoon-fed that information.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like ubuntu, with less suck

Re:What?

[danbuter]

MATE is basically Gnome2 but updated. Cinnamon is Gnome3 but has a much better UI than Gnome Shell.

Re:What?

[bogaboga]

MATE is basically Gnome2 but updated. Cinnamon is Gnome3 but has a much better UI than Gnome Shell

This would sum it up well for you: -

MATE is basically a less ugly version of all GNOME releases; CINNAMON is even better.

Re:What?

[bogaboga]

So you're too lazy to simply click that link in the summary body, right?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Debian?

Re:What?

[mrclisdue]

He was a president, and his motor skills were often called into question, hence, the article you read.

hth,

Re:What?

[tuppe666]

Would it hurt to include a few words explaining what the hell Mint even is or why we should care there's a new version?

Ubuntu is the "go to" version of GNU\Linux, based on the incredibly good Debian, but supports features without sacrificing too much stability, and because it has some money thrown at it. Has rightfully become the most popular distribution out there.

Unfortunately Gnome; Microsoft; Apple; Canonical have all made the decision that the future is ditching mice and keyboard, and running our fingers all over the screen.

Mint has become popular simply by supplying a desktop that those of us who still love mice and keyboards love [whatever you think of that]

In short its a great new OS release, get it downloaded and installed now...or at least read the article before posting on Slashdot.

Re:What?

[0123456]

It's not *a* MAJOR linux distro, it is, according to several sources, *the* MAJOR linux distro, after masses of Ubuntu users jumped ship in the Unity/Gnome 3 debacle.

Certainly this machine will be switching from Ubuntu to Mint shortly.

Re:What?

[fnj]

Cinnamon is just a fork of Gnome Shell from Gnome3, but proper in appearance and operation and with actual working applets like Gnome2 and in general discarding all the garbage in the "real" Gnome Shell.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft, Apple et al used shills and reputation managers to chase anyone interested in technology away.

Now Slashdot is full of marketing drones trying to flog their latest product, and their only interest in Linux is ensuring nobody wants to try it.

Re:What?

[petermgreen]

Disclaimer: I have used Mate but I have not used Cinnamon.

AIUI Mate and cinnamon are two different approaches to the same problem.

The problem being that the gnome developers decided to throw out the boring but functional gnome2 and replace it with the radical gnome3 and further the distro vendors decided to allow gnome3 to take the package names previously used by gnome2 thereby screwing those users who wanted to stick with the desktop they knew while upgrading the rest of their OS (and things are sufficiantly tightly coupled in the linux world that sticking with an old OS version is not really a reasonable option).

The mate approach has been to fork gnome2 and rename the components to remove the config. This produced immediate results but long term leaves them with a load of forked stuff that perhaps doesn't really need to be forked and no easy way of getting any good stuff that comes out of gnome3. The cinnamon approach is to try and build a traditional GUI within the gnome3 framework, this avoids relying on outdated and barely maintained foundations but it also means a lot more work upfront and probablly more user visible change and runs the risk that gnome will decide to screw everyone again.

Re:What?

[thammoud]

I use Mint 13 and still have no idea if I am running MATE or Cinnamon nor do I really care. It works just fine for me. It will be nice to find out the major differences between the too, which one you are currently using and how to switch to the other one.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it hurt to include a few words explaining what the hell Mint even is or why we should care there's a new version?

Linux Mint is a computer operating system based on the Linux distribution Ubuntu. Linux Mint adds many features that baseline Ubuntu does not have, one of which is providing a more complete out of the box experience.

MATE is a desktop environment forked from the now-unmaintained code base of GNOME 2.

Cinnamon is a fork of GNOME Shell, initially developed by (and for) Linux Mint. It attempts to provide a more traditional user environment based on the desktop metaphor, like GNOME 2.

Why is there MATE and Cinnamon? Well, you can start by reading: Controversy over GNOME 3.

Re:What?

[buswolley]

hmm is Mint the most popular Linux Desktop distro? I've heard about Mint, and that it was a response to Unity. Still I hadn't kept tabs on it lately, and didn't know whether it had fully capitalized on the Unity debacle. Also, I'm not shopping for Linux systems lately since I've been using NeuroDebian and centOS exclusively in my fMRI analyses.

Re:What?

[petermgreen]

to remove the config

That should have said to remove the conflict.

Re:What?

[Threni]

Ubuntu was the first linux I used. Mint became the second, thanks to Unity. So in a sense it's bringing people together! I tried LXDE but that's been dropped now so I'm giving KDE a go and so far I think it's great.

Re:What?

[mrbluze]

There was a time when you could expect people on Slashdot to know about the most popular Linux desktop distro and not need to be spoon-fed that information.

There is nothing informative about "an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience". At the very least the summary could have contained something detailed or specific about the distro release apart from its name.

Re:What?

[maxwell demon]

Yes, there should have been a description of what is new in that version. But that's something different from describing what Linux Mint actually is.

Re:What?

[fredprado]

Yes, it is. It absorbed a lot of Ubuntu's user base.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. "commonly needed" I'm willing to bet most network devices don't actually use non-free firmware.

2. You can get copies of the installer that have these drivers.

3. Debian are freedom fascists. Wait, that sounds wrong. They are really into this GPL thing. You can agree with that or not, but what sense is there in bitching about it? It's not like they try to hide it.

4. Don't buy that hardware. There's nothing that needs to be secret about networking software.

5. Don't buy that fucking hardware!

6. If you have to buy the hardware, do a little product research first and know whether or not you need #2. If you're installing *any* OS you should check driver availability. This is not rocket science, and this is also not kindergarten. Don't be "that guy" who suddenly decides to use OS Whatever and complains about it not working out of the box. Computers are not magic, software is not telepathic: own up to a little responsibility.

Re:What?

[westlake]

Yes, it is. It absorbed a lot of Ubuntu's user base.

I'd like a source for that claim.

Ubuntu's core appeal as a client OS is not to the hardcore FOSS and Linux geek.

In a 2012 Lifehacker poll for Linux distributions, Ubuntu and its variants received 51% of the overall vote, followed by Linux Mint with 16%.

User agent counting suggests Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution for web clients, generating between 0.5%and 0.72 of Internet traffic.

Ubuntu (operating system): Adoption and Reception

Re:What?

[fredprado]

Mint is an end-user distribution targeted to the same public that uses Ubuntu. The main difference between them is the UI. Mint decided to keep the traditional UI, while Ubuntu chose to go to Unity,

Mint is on the lead since the beginning of 2012:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/246826/as_2012_dawns_mint_leads_the_list_of_top_linux_distros.html

And was in first place at least until August 2012:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-5-most-popular-linux-distributions-7000003183/

Re:What?

[westlake]

And was in first place at least until August 2012

Stephen Vaughan-Nichols of ZD Net went on to say:

Well even though I like (the) relatively new Unity interface, a lot of other people really don't. I think that mostly it's because while Unity is great for new users who aren't especially computer savvy, a lot of Linux professionals find it gets in the way -- and, of course, experienced old Linux hands are exactly the kind of people who visit DistroWatch.

That said, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth thinks the operating system will see 20 million new PCs sold with Ubuntu in 2012, and that's not counting people who install it. Those people will also largely be new computer users. If Ubuntu can get most of the new users coming to Linux, I think they'll be happy even if they're no longer as popular with old-guard Linux desktop users.

http://www.zdnet.com/the-5-most-popular-linux-distributions-7000003183/

Re:What?

[uvajed_ekil]

You must be new here. Mint has been mentioned plenty of times on /., has been in the top few most popular on Distrowatch and received a lot of attention from several other top Linux and OS sites for a few years now, and has gained a ton more popularity since the GNOME project went nuts and Ubuntu accepted GNOME 3 and went with that Unity BS. Mint is a "major" distro in the opinion of many, and is becoming THE distro for home/desktop use.

Re:What?

[mjwx]

Mint is an end-user distribution targeted to the same public that uses Ubuntu. The main difference between them is the UI. Mint decided to keep the traditional UI, while Ubuntu chose to go to Unity,

Mint is on the lead since the beginning of 2012:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/246826/as_2012_dawns_mint_leads_the_list_of_top_linux_distros.html

And was in first place at least until August 2012:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-5-most-popular-linux-distributions-7000003183/

I've been using Linux Mint as a replacement for Ubuntu after Ubuntu tried to Mac-ify the UI.

I want a desktop Linux distro as a drop in replacement for Windows that I can use in situations where there is no requirement for Windows software. So I don't want to have to modify the UI to get it looking the same for people who have learned how to use a computer by rote memorisation on Windows. If I wanted to modify everything I'd be installing Debian or Gentoo.

Re:What?

[Eunuchswear]

Cinnamon is just a fork of Gnome Shell from Gnome3, but proper in appearance and operation and with actual working applets like Gnome2 and in general discarding all the garbage in the "real" Gnome Shell.

What garbage?

Re:What?

[davester666]

Gah. I'm going to wash my mouth out with soap just to get rid of all these crazy flavors.

Re:What?

[Yomers]

lame but easy way to check - right-click on network manager applet, if nothing happens - it's cinnamon.

Re:What?

[LingNoi]

No because this is slashdot, it's not about pandering to the crowds that:

1) Don't know about the technology in question

2) Are so lazy that if they don't know something would rather make a comment about it then to simply google said topic.

Re:What?

[thammoud]

I see "Network", "Network Connections", "Network proxy" under control center.

I ran "Configuration Editor" under "Menu->System Tools", under the desktop tree node, there is only one entry called "mate". I guess that is what I am running.

Re:What?

[fredprado]

What happens in the future remains to be seen, but our discussion is about what is happening now and which distribution is more popular. Regarding this topic I provided the data you asked.

Re:What?

[MonsterTrimble]

LXDE was dropped by whom? Mint or Ubuntu?

Re:What?

[lsatenstein]

Mint vs KDE.

Which can run with lower overhead. I tried Fedora 17 with KDE on my netbook. I found the system very very sluggish. I switched to Gnome 3.x and the system came alive. My Netbook is a dual core atom, 1 gig ram and 512 gig disk. I believe KDE requires too much memory for a 1gig system. I have not tried mint on the netbook, so in all fairness, Mint is probably A#1 for the Netbook too

Re:What?

[Threni]

Mint. Last version to include it as an option was 12, and then only in 32 bit flavour.

Re:What?

[shutdown -p now]

Mint was actually on its way to the top even before Unity. The other thing it did differently from Ubuntu is including Flash and various proprietary drivers out of the box. That was always handy for a casual user distro.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[maxwell demon]

Here's a hint for you: N is the 14th letter of the alphabet.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[maxwell demon]

Maybe he's just angry that they didn't nickname it "Nyder" :-)

Full-disk encryption?

[Chaonici]

EFF posted an article about full-disk encryption (FDE) in Ubuntu 12.10 and how easy it is to set up through ubiquity, the application used to install Ubuntu. The article also mentions that the next version of Mint, which is based on Ubuntu and therefore uses ubiquity for installation, should have the same easy FDE option.

FDE is good for privacy and security; as EFF's article notes, having it be as simple as possible to set up can only be a good thing. If this new version of Linux Mint features this FDE option, I will strongly consider switching to it, and will certainly try it out at the very least.

Re:Full-disk encryption?

[greg1104]

There is still no FDE in Mint 14. Even worse, the reports I've read suggest that Mint 14 broke the popular howoto hack. The feature voting board was recently updated to say this feature was "selected" though. Hopefully that means it will be coming in Mint 15. Linux distributions are useless to me without encryption; you're basically saying "this is not meant for real work" to every business user who might consider it. It's a shame that Mint isn't ready to fill in yet for companies who are pushed away from Microsoft OSes by the mess around Windows 8.

Re:Full-disk encryption?

[greg1104]

FDE is mandatory for keeping all of the data on a stolen laptop from being exposed. It allows something that is broken to be repairs without fear that the repair company will get access to everything as well. That someone might give up their key if pressed for it--via violence, court order, or stealth--doesn't mean it's useless to use in the general case.

Re:Full-disk encryption?

[bankman]

Do you have a link to the reports that suggest that the howto hack is broken? Alternatively do you know whether it's still possible to do it manually as described here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=49162&start=0?

Re:Full-disk encryption?

[Compaqt]

Well, it's not as if there's no encryption whatsoever on Linux right now. You may already know this, but Ubuntu 12.04 offers home seamless directory encryption upon install.

That's mostly where "the good stuff" resides anyway. There's probably not much of interest on /usr/bin that isn't available on ubuntu.com.

Also, it's pretty easy to (graphically) set up an encrypted partition with Palimpsest (disk tool).

Re:Full-disk encryption?

[bingoUV]

Business users would typically look for something with a longer support cycle, like centos. So no use complaining about lack of business features in a distribution targeted to non-business users.

Minty Goodness

[rueger]

I've quite happily settled into Mint Cinnamon for the last year. That followed a year or two of Ubuntu - pre-Unity, Windows of various vintages, and a MAc G4.

Mint "Just Works". Installs easy, does everything that I want without headaches.

And with Vista in a Virtual machine I can even run Quickbooks, the single program that forced to boot into Windows once a month for bookkeeping and invoicing.

I've got enough years of computers behind me that I really want easy, reliable, and stable. Mint does all of those things.

Re:Minty Goodness

[KingBenny]

yah, cinnamon is , to me at least, they very best desktop i have come across so far, i dropped ubuntu as well since a few months, unity just wouldnt work out. If you're still reading this might i ask about your machine's hardware configuration. Does vista/7 run smoothly, how much memory and space do you reserve to run it? please ?

Re:Minty Goodness

[rueger]

Processor : 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ Memory : 3082MB (2354MB used) Operating System : Linux Mint 13 Maya Oracle V 4.1.12 Base memory 700 megs Video memory 21 megs SATA Drive: Virtual Size 25 gigs

Re:Minty Goodness

[KingBenny]

i should be able to get it working then as well, thanks for replying

LMDE - Linux Mint Debian Edition

[BrookHarty]

Been using mint debian edition as my daily desktop for awhile. I'm really loving the polish and look of Mate on Mint. Went with the debian edition as I'm tired of Ubuntu and its anti competitive behavior. But the biggest issue I'm running is neither are rolling releases. I have a mixed LMDE and Debian testing running which has been mostly ok.

Also, running mate which is based grtk2 you have to use a theme that looks good on gtk2 & gtrk3.

I see the mate team talking about moving to gtk3, but no idea if its really being worked on or not. And compiz being decommissioned and having to be forked, its incredibly frustrating. Gnome3 is not an option, cinnamon might be. Mate just works the way I want.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[tuppe666]

Nadia,
Meaning: Hope (in Ukrainian, diminutive form in Bulgarian/Polish/Russian, etc.)
Moist and dewy[1] (in Arabic)
Dew in Persian

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Its from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, Nadezhda “Nadia” Chernyshevski is Maya’s best friend...Maya was the name of Mint 13 :)

It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[horza]

I like the idea that Mint includes a lot of stuff out of the box (mp3 etc). However most people now have moved onto the Unity interface. I don't see that as an option, which makes it seem a bit ancient.

Phillip.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[OverlordQ]

Not sure if troll. The whole point of Linux Mint, and being based on Ubuntu, is that it *doesnt* use Unity. If you want Unity, use Ubuntu.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[Stormwatch]

Why would you want that? I thought the point of Mint was having a Linux desktop with an interface that is not a piece of shit!

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[Threni]

> However most people now have moved onto the Unity interface

Most people have left Ubuntu for Mint and are using other front ends! Gnome, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE etc. Why the fuck would you want to use Unity. Even if they get all the crashes, bugs and inconsistencies out it's still dreadful. I know the argument is that it would work on a touch screen, but nobody uses Ubuntu on a touch screen so it doesn't matter.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[maxwell demon]

That's the whole point of Mint. If you want Unity, just install Ubuntu.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, if you like Cinnamon, just install it from a PPA to your Ubuntu install. You don't have to run Mint to get Cinnamon.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[MichaelSmith]

Thank you for starting the obligatory unity flame thread.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[OhANameWhatName]

However most people now have moved onto the Unity interface. I don't see that as an option, which makes it seem a bit ancient

Let's be honest, if you think Unity is the next 'big thing' then you've got your head up Mark Shuttleworth's arse. Just because it comes from Canonical, it doesn't mean it's good.

If you put some thought into it, it's rather clear how Unity is (at best) an average desktop interface and a terrible tablet interface. It's incredibly unstable, poorly thought out and simply not configurable. It would serve quite averagely as a touch screen desktop productivity GUI. To top it off, Gnome 3 is actually a better desktop interface with more flexability and a damn site more stable.

So it's quite scary that Canonical have bet-the-house on this 'swing for the fences' GUI which obviously all the users of Mint can't stand. Ironically, the Unity desktop interface is creating the greatest schism in graphical desktops since KDE 'vs' Gnome. 'most people have moved onto the Unity interface' is either a troll or wishful thinking. Mint is (essentially) 'not Unity' and is now more popular than Ubuntu for this reason. And who knows how many people who stuck with Ubuntu aren't actually using Unity.

Face reality .. you're in a minority that's going to be left behind playing in Ubuntu-land. You're ancient.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[greg1104]

Let's be honest. You didn't get the joke.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[TheGratefulNet]

this is slashdot.

we're not usually 'unity gain stable'.

(wait, will software geeks get that?)

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[aliquis]

Why would you want that? I thought the point of Mint was having a Linux desktop with an interface that is not a piece of shit!

Oh so it comes with VNC as desktop environment? :D

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[uvajed_ekil]

Wait, you WANT Unity, and are hesitant to try Mint because it DOESN'T have it? If you actually like Unity and can get by with it, good for you, and stick to Ubuntu. One of Mint's main selling points is that it does NOT rely on Unity, which many of us find absolutely abhorrent. MATE is included or available, and is essentially GNOME 2, which was fine. Cinnamon is something new, and is very agreeable to folks who liked GNOME 2, while being a newer project that is showing a lot of potential. KDE just doesn't jibe with some of us, but Mint supports it, and I know I speak for a LOT of people when I say GNOME 3 can suck it. Or if your needs are simple you can use XFCE, and now there's MDM, which I am not yet familiar with. So Mint comes with a lot of choices, just not Unity, thank God.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[styrotech]

Wow. I have never seen that much Whoosh from a single post before.

Well done.

Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option?

[Compaqt]

The 12.04 (Precise) version of Unity doesn't crash. What inconsistencies did you have in mind?

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

It should read "whoever started"

"whoever" is performing the action (started), it is the subject of that clause.

Don't try to use proper English if you don't know the rules.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[fm6]

You don't like code names? Then WTF are you doing on a geek web site?

Re:Mint

[maxwell demon]

With Cinnamon, it definitely doesn't have the program menus at the top of the screen (at least by default; I didn't check if you can get that as option), although it does have those annoying dialog windows which are attached to the main window's title bar, non-movable, usually hiding the stuff you want to see, and since the programs usually were not designed for that, often even missing critical information (the most extreme was a dialog asking "yes" or "no", without any hint what it was asking about, because the developer thought I could read that off the window title), which I've heard is copied from OS X. I haven't found a way to disable this and return to sane movable, title-bearing dialogs (well, ideally most dialogs should even be non-modal, but that's the application developer's fault, not the window manager's).

And This is About...

[fm6]

Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros. But I don't. So just for stupid people like me, could all these breathless distro update announcements take just a little time to explain why I should give a shit about their distro? What does it have to offer that better-known distros do not?

Re:And This is About...

[Stormwatch]

As others mentioned before, Mint is not some "little" distro, it is possibly the most popular Linux distro now.

Re:And This is About...

[maxwell demon]

If you think Mate is a strange little Linux distro you are clearly not up to date.

What it has to offer that other well-known distros have not? Well, a more traditional Gnome interface that Gnome Shell or Unity.

Re:And This is About...

[maxwell demon]

s/Mate/Mint/ of course. But hey, if the Slashdot editors don't proofread, why should I? ;-)

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

Hey, I said I was stupid, didn't I? And we stupid people have trouble keeping up with stuff.

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

If this is just about the user interface, why is this a distro and not a shell? A decent distro makes it easy to change the shell.

Re:And This is About...

[tuppe666]

Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros.

Short Answer : There is only Ubuntu

Longer Answer: If your not interested in Linux your shouldn't. That is the short answer, and even if you are interested in linux you shouldn't. The reality is. Distributions [Distro for short] are just that collections packages [Applications/Modules Building Blocks that make up a modern OS with sensible selection of programs] together in essence a kernel[BSD/Linux] Userland[GNU] + Display Server[X and Wayland] + Windows Manager[KDE/Gnome/XFCE] + Office Package[LibreOffice Calligra Suite] + Internet Browser....you get the idea.

Now because Linux can be tailored for different processors processors [ARM;Mips...] different community is [Religious Christianity and Location Brazilian] Specialist [Boot Disks; Extra Secure]...but if your using any of these then you know why! there is even a Ubuntu Satanic Edition http://ubuntusatanic.org/news/ Satanists.

But mainstream there really is only Debian, Ubuntu(Popular Debian variant), and Fedora(You have heard of Red Hat) [Yes I could easily add a couple more :)]. In context of this article Mint should be considered Ubuntu without Unity[Its own Metro nighmare]

Seriously install a distribution its not hard.

Re:And This is About...

[tuppe666]

Bottom line is that the arrogant Gnome developers gave everyone who uses Gnome no choice.

To be fair you can't blame Gnome on this one. I agree with what you have posted, but Mint replaced Unity with Cinnomon [and Mate] not Gnome shell. Its actually a subtle difference.

Re:And This is About...

[tuppe666]

You know, I can't make a whole lot of sense out of your writing. Which fits. You can't be bothered to express yourself clearly

Having reread my post. Its not bad. The reality is I use "Mint because I do not want or use Unity"...and your right, its confusing blobs, but its no less confusing than I'm "sticking with windows 7 because I don't want Metro".

The worrying think here is you have posted 8 times in this forum, actually proud at your basic lack of knowledge. You are I suspect being disingenuous.

Re:And This is About...

[tuppe666]

Yep, so it is (according to ZDNet). And you know something? I never heard of it before. Maybe that says I'm not paying attention — or maybe it says that nobody cares about desktop Linux any more.

You want us to care? Tell us why.

Because Windows is failing to make an impact in the modern world, but Linux owns it :). Your trolling

Re:And This is About...

[tuppe666]

If this is just about the user interface, why is this a distro and not a shell? A decent distro makes it easy to change the shell.

Yes its easy on Linux, unfortunately not so easy on Windows where you are forced to use an Screen full of advertisements.

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

And that's relevant because....

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

The worrying think here is you have posted 8 times

Yeah, nothing wrong with your writing.

Re:And This is About...

[TheGratefulNet]

and netcraft...

... is silent on the issue.

Re:And This is About...

[drinkypoo]

It's both, you can get the shell on Ubuntu through a PPA. Which does come back to your original question, why is this a distribution, and not just a PPA?

Re:And This is About...

[drinkypoo]

Well, the Mint team also develops Cinnamon (Gnome 3 fork) and supports Mate (Gnome 2 fork). So if you want a good, modern Linux desktop, this is pretty much the distro to get.

I can install those on Ubuntu, and then I get to keep using PPAs, and Ubuntu software center. What do I actually get out of installing mint that I don't get with Ubuntu? So far I know of at least one thing (full disk encryption) that I don't get with mint that I do get with Ubuntu.

Re:And This is About...

[uvajed_ekil]

Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros. But I don't. So just for stupid people like me, could all these breathless distro update announcements take just a little time to explain why I should give a shit about their distro? What does it have to offer that better-known distros do not?

Should I give a shit about Windows 8, which is getting tons of mentions everywhere but is a huge step backwards? I don't care about it, but guess what, lots of people do. Same deal with you and Mint, which is the top desktop Linux distro today. It is not strange or little in any way. Linux Mint has become what Ubuntu intended to be - an easy to use distro that is complete, has plenty of community support, and makes for a great desktop OS, though it is now even better than Ubuntu and is gaining market share faster. Mint is big, and not some niche distro or a johnny-come-lately that just repackages Ubuntu with new wallpaper and a few apps and codecs, it is a driving force in the Linux community. Check it out for yourself.

Re:And This is About...

[uvajed_ekil]

Can you read? I didn't ask why we should care about Linux, I asked why, out of all the gazillion Linux distros, we should care about this one?

Can you Google? Linux Mint is currently one of the most innovative distros around, perhaps the best desktop distro, and easily one of the most popular. It has enough of a history and has grown enough for anyone to take it seriously, and is highly functional and well-polished compared to most distros. Reviews are generally stellar, it is compatible with Ubuntu but better, a variety of desktop environments are well-supported, hardware compatibility is top-notch, the installer and update tools are excellent, it looks good, there is great community support, etc. etc...

Really, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I feel Linux Mint is about as good as it gets right now as far as desktop Linux distros, and I am far from alone. Mint puts Ubuntu and that Unity debacle to shame, and it also bests Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/Scientific, SUSE/OpenSUSE, Debian, Arch, Slackware, Mageia, and whatever else you want to label a "major" distro. I've looked at numerous distros since before Mint existed, and I honestly feel that Mint keeps getting better and has truly begun to pull away from the pack.

I am biased and have used Linux Mint every day for five years now, I have always been happy with it, and I am happier than ever with it now. But all bias aside, it is a damned good distro, and popular for a reason.

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

Jesus Hieronymous Christ on a Pumpkin! Are you arguing with me or your imaginary friends? Because nothing you're saying has anything to do with my post. Which was about the fact that distro announcements never bother to explain why the distro exists. What are its goals? What are its special features? Why should I take the time to evaluate it?

Re:And This is About...

[hazem]

Here you go... all you might want to know and more:
http://linuxmint.com/

Not much need to copy and paste stuff about the distro when you can just follow the link there and read all about its philsophy, advantages, etc.

Cheers.

Re:And This is About...

[mwvdlee]

It is the tendency of open source project to never really explain on their own website what it's product is.
All too often I visit an open source project whose entire website is just a blog roll for the latest releases and links to API documentation.
Nowhere do those sites mention what the project is supposed to do and what makes it different from similar projects.
Coupled with often clever but ultimately meaningless names doesn't make it any easier.
FWIW, I have no idea why Mint exists and what makes it different (or, in fact, preferable) to other major distros either.

Re:And This is About...

[fm6]

I've seen the site. Believe it or not, I know how to use Google.

Show me where it says why the distro exists.

Re:And This is About...

[hazem]

The "About" tabs of most websites often have this kind of information. This one here seems to describe its purpose pretty well: http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php

Wikipedia says:
"Linux Mint is a computer operating system based on the Linux distribution Ubuntu. Linux Mint adds many features that baseline Ubuntu does not have, one of which is providing a more complete out of the box experience by including proprietary and patented software[1] including Java and the Adobe Flash web browser plugin, which are features that are needed to play certain online games, watch YouTube, and certain applications..."

Re:And This is About...

[serviscope_minor]

I did not say that Linux Mint was a sucky distro. I said that if people want people to try it, they should explain why it's so hot.

Sure. Have you checked the Mint website? Perhaps they do. This is slashdot, not a place for mint sales pitches in general. Since it's the #1 distro at the moment, I'd say that the RC for the new version does qualify as news for nerds.

Being news for nerds, it is appropriate to just state the facts.

Re:And This is About...

[Rufty]

I think he's a Unity developer.

Re:And This is About...

[bingoUV]

Holy Noodly Appendage. You didn't bother to explain why you exist. Why should anyone bother explaining anything to you. What are your goals. Your special features except ignorance and pride in it. Why should one take time to put up a "Mint for extra-dumb dummies" explanation for you?

Re:And This is About...

[bingoUV]

It is the tendency of ignorant fools to remain ignorant. They want to appear as if they were interested in being informed but there is so much information available already that if they were truly thirsty for it they wouldn't be for long. And people who cannot find that wealth of information are too dumb to understand the concept of Linux Mint anyway.

Nowhere do these people explain what they would do if someone describes a Linux distribution to them. FWIW, I have no idea why you exist and what makes you different (or, in fact, preferable) to other ignorant people.

Re:And This is About...

[shutdown -p now]

So that a casual user can insert a DVD, click Install, and everything is working the Right Way out of the box without him having to fumble around with repos and whatnot.

Also, don't forget about LMDE. Mint is not just Ubuntu done right anymore.

If they have fixed the bug...

[gdav]

...whereby it dies on closing the lid on a toshiba NB550d, I shall sacrifice many fatted oxen on the appropriate altar.

Re:If they have fixed the bug...

[jimshatt]

Well, have you filed a bug report? You can get an email, you know, when something happens with a bug (fixed, preferrably).

Re:If they have fixed the bug...

[uvajed_ekil]

...whereby it dies on closing the lid on a toshiba NB550d, I shall sacrifice many fatted oxen on the appropriate altar.

Please ask about this in the Linux Mint community forums, at forums.linuxmint.com. I had the same problem with my Toshiba Satellite L775D, and someone there helped me to configure my Mint properly, and now it works fine. I don't remember what config file I edited (and I'm using LM Debian Edition on this laptop), but it worked like a charm. Please file a bug report and ask for a fix in the forums, as there is probably a way to fix that. There is so much hardware fragmentation to deal with that issues like this will crop up (and everything is made for freaking Windows), and if we all pitch in just a tiny bit we can continue to make progress. Linux Mint is usually so easy to use, and worth the effort when it isn't.

I'm not big on oxen. Got any lambs? mmmm... gyros....

COMMUNISSSTS !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadia sounds like a Communist KGB-Evildoer Agent ! "Bill" to the rescue !!!!!!!

Re:COMMUNISSSTS !!!!

[egr]

Sure, if you prefer guys

What is Linux Mint?

[steveha]

Linux Mint is a distribution of Linux that is based off of Ubuntu. Like Ubuntu, it uses Debian packages.

When Ubuntu made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("Unity") and the GNOME project made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("GNOME Shell"), Linux Mint in turn made the decision to support those of us who loved GNOME 2. We have two options: MATE and Cinnamon. Both are well-supported by Linux Mint (and in fact primary development on both is by Linux Mint guys).

MATE is simply a fork of GNOME 2. For reasons that are not clear to me, GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 cannot co-exist on the same system... something about library conflicts. (Doesn't Linux have library versioning that should make it possible to avoid these conflicts? Eh, moving on.) The MATE project did a mass rename on everything in GNOME ("libgnome" -> "libmate", etc.) so MATE can co-exist on the same system with GNOME 3. So, those of us who loved the smooth polish that came from man-decades of development in GNOME can still use it.

But MATE isn't the future. From what I have heard, the library underpinnings of GNOME 3 really have improved over GNOME 2, and the new technology is a step up. Who wants to be locked into a frozen clone of GNOME 2 forever? Thus, Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a project to build on top of GNOME 3 and provide a user experience similar to GNOME 2. New plugins, new themes, etc. all go together to make a very usable desktop; but GNOME 3 apps will work seamlessly with it.

Many disgruntled Ubuntu users have abandoned Ubuntu for Linux Mint. Mint is now the top Linux distribution on distrowatch.com; I'm not sure it was even in the top ten before the whole Unity/GNOME Shell fiasco, but now it's number one.

A comment I have seen multiple times on Slashdot from different people: the Linux Mint guys are focused on making their users happy, rather than making something new. Where the GNOME Shell guys promise a "consistent and recognisable visual identity", and Mark Shuttleworth (the head Ubuntu guy) said "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not voting on design decisions.", the Linux Mint guys promise that you will "Love your Linux, Feel at Home, Get things Done!"

Linux Mint has always focused on making a beautiful system that is out-of-the-box usable. Now they are one of the top choices for people who have rejected Unity and GNOME Shell.

For me, the most important part of the announcement is that they have the password keeper working right now. I'm using Linux Mint on a laptop at work, and I can't connect to Windows shares; I'm hoping the new updates will sort that out for me.

Since this is based on Debian packages, I can probably just update in place without needing to do a full re-install.

P.S. One of my biggest complaints about GNOME 3 is that I can no longer take sit a Windows user down and just say "it works pretty much like what you are used to". You may like GNOME Shell and you may think it is better, but you cannot argue that it is very different, and it would take a bit of training before a guest could use it. Linux Mint, on the other hand, works a lot like pre-Windows 8 versions of Windows; with a little customization and theming I'll bet you could fool people into thinking it was actually Windows XP.

Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[Stormwatch]

Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?

As a long-time Mac fan, I must say it is pretty much unusable for us too.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[drinkypoo]

Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?

As a long-time Mac fan, I must say it is pretty much unusable for us too.

Unity has all the silly tricks of OSX's interface including the unified menu bar, and then some. Is it the extra functionality that confuses you?

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a long time Ubuntu user who switched to Linux Mint shortly after Unity, I agree on all your points. I'd like to add that Linux Mint is my go-to Linux distro. I make a USB install flash from the downloaded ISO and it installs on anything I've attempted. Thinkpad T61, Dell E1505, Compaq SR5510, etc. I like the fact that it just "works" out of the box and has a similar look to Gnome2.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[blind biker]

Who wants to be locked into a frozen clone of GNOME 2 forever?

That's the whole point of MATE - it's a fork and it is being developed as part of the project. You seem like you understand the meaning of the word "fork", but have a blind spot when talking about MATE.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[steveha]

Let me rephrase and see if that helps you understand my point.

MATE is a fork of GNOME 2.x. It should work just as well as GNOME 2.x ever did (barring bugs). But people have moved on from writing to the GNOME 2.x API; the new apps are written to the GNOME 3.x API.

Well okay then, just install the GNOME 3.x libraries alongside MATE and run the new apps. That will work, at least for now. But if the apps feature integration features with the desktop environment, they won't work with a GNOME 2.x flavored environment (i.e. MATE).

Well okay then, MATE isn't really a frozen fork, it's being developed; how about porting it to the GNOME 3.x world? Well, that would be a huge amount of work. And the longer the GNOME guys keep adding features to GNOME 3.x, the wider the gap becomes and even more work to bridge that gap.

But wait, the GNOME 3.x guys made it possible to write plugins and such and adapt the GNOME 3.x desktop... if you did that, you could make something that works just like GNOME 2.x, but is native GNOME 3.x, so it would naturally inherit the changes to GNOME as it evolves. That sounds like a nice future-proof solution. Okay, that's Cinnamon.

So if you want a smoothly polished desktop now you can run MATE now, and you have the option of transitioning to Cinnamon later if MATE becomes too outdated. If you want to run nothing but GNOME 3.x programs and you want a pure GNOME 3.x desktop, you can run Cinnamon right now; it's not as polished but it does work well.

I hope this clears things up for you. I do understand that MATE is being developed, but I believe it will never seamlessly integrate with GNOME 3.x technology, and I think that once Cinnamon becomes smooth and polished, MATE development may slow or cease. But I am very glad that they took the trouble to build MATE for us; it's a perfectly good solution for at least the near to middle term, and possibly forever.

I've used both, and I would rather use either one than use GNOME Shell or Unity.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

I must be one of the few ppl happy with Unity. It actually reminds me most of WindowMaker which I have used for years before KDE and Gnome.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[Artemis3]

I used Mint before Unity. It's "selling point", was to ignore the 4 countries which enforce software patents, and distribute codecs (such as mp3) by default. Later Ubuntu introduced "restricted-extra" packages and i forgot about Mint.

It is a separate distro, so when Canonical decided a way, and they chose another, some people decided to go with them instead. This important freedom of choice is something we should encourage instead of criticize. 3 distros? Good, 600? better. Many desktops = many options, people can use what they like, no one can force you their "one true way".

Because of unity, I simply switched desktops to XFCE, so used Xubuntu (Ubuntustudio is also using XFCE). XFCE (and LXDE) use a classic desktop, you can still sit a windows user and make them use it quickly, provided you configure it in a traditional way (single panel below, apps menu to the left, etc).

Mint is pretty much Ubuntu with a different desktop, but it lags some months behind Ubuntu, which in turn lags some months behind Debian Sid. I would recommend Mint users to stay in the version based off Ubuntu 12.04 LTS until the next one (in 2 years) comes out. That means using Linux Mint 13 instead of 14, and stick to precise PPAs for selected apps.

Mint is becoming complex, offering mini flavors of its own, they even have a Debian (instead of Ubuntu) flavor. So its hard to know when someone mentions "Mint", which "Mint" they mean.

Having used and customized XFCE, i see no reason to go with Mate. XFCE could use better defaults, but the distros can fix that. Ie: you could define the "win" (super) key to show the apps menu, assigning both super keys to run xfce4-popup-applicationsmenu.

Re:What is Linux Mint?

[jools]

As a Ubuntu fan and Mac user I wanted to like Unity. Personally I find the UI often misses the point. Consider the unified menu bar - the menus aren't shown until you mouse-over them. How are you supposed to move the mouse toward a menu that you can't see? Strangely when the menu is not shown the space where it would have been is left empty. For instance in this screenshot: http://cdn.arstechnica.net//wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ubuntu1204.png the menu will appear near the top left, to the right of the "Firefox Web Browser" text. Personally I don't think the quality of the user experience is anywhere near as good as Mac.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[wonkey_monkey]

Nadia,
Moist and dewy

I think I know her.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[sunderland56]

It's much better than ubuntu - with names like "Wanking Warthog", "Horny Heron", and "Onanistic Ocelot", it's no wonder corporations don't take them seriously.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple shills are getting strange.

Mint 14 does include support for AMD Trinity APUs

[voss]

Which while being a little late is still nice.

sorry, done

[Osgeld]

the last 3 versions of mint have been nothing but a headache to me, good luck to you mint, but I am done riding this bus of half broken, poorly executed, mess

Re:sorry, done

[codepigeon]

What archaic hardware are you trying to run it on? I am so old that I remember the hours(!) it took to get my sound card working on FreeBSD in the 90's.

I recently installed Mint on this old Dell desktop with no problems at all; including a newish ATI graphics card. No headaches, no compiling of utilities or messing with X.

I don't give any credence to your argument. I have been in the trenches with *nix for almost two decades. Mint won me over from Suse, who I thought was the most user friendly.

Re:sorry, done

[Osgeld]

a phenom II

Thinking of switching to PCLinuxOS

[Dwedit]

I was thinking of switching from Ubuntu to PCLinuxOS, because I want to use a computer without ever needing to reinstall, in other words, rolling releases.
Mint looks really nice, but I don't think it has rolling releases.
Has anyone else used that PCLinuxOS, and how is it? Any better rolling releases distros out there that aren't too hard to install and set up?

Re:Thinking of switching to PCLinuxOS

[couchslug]

"I was thinking of switching from Ubuntu to PCLinuxOS, because I want to use a computer without ever needing to reinstall, in other words, rolling releases."

You could try that "Debian" thing, I think it's a fork of Ubuntu or somethin'....

Re:Thinking of switching to PCLinuxOS

[rlumpy]

I've been using PCLinuxOS (KDE) for three years on 4 machines, and have been happy with it. The rolling releases are great and usually work. There have been a couple of problems, but they're usually fixed in a week. The maintenance crew maintain an active and friendly prescence on their forum. The distro is independent, not based on Debian or Ubuntu, so the occasional independent software may not have a plug-and-play distribution.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[thetoadwarrior]

You're no fun.

What if I use XCFE?

[thetoadwarrior]

I know they have a XCFE port of mint. But if Mint is basically Ubuntu why would I want to switch from Xubuntu to xcfe mint? I'd like th try mint but as long as I'm on xcfe then I see no reason to move.

Re:What if I use XCFE?

[Blaskowicz]

It goes both ways, there's no reason to use Xubuntu over XFCE mint. Both are the same OS, the difference is default selection of software, wallpapers, theme and set up of panels and start menu. Arguably Mint is less gimmicky and looks less dated, from screenshots Xubuntu looks like a dark, poor man's OSX rip off whereas Mint Xfce gives you a taskbar on the bottom, a better start menu, is themed white / light gray. It also has LibreOffice instead of Abiword.

Re:What if I use XCFE?

[thetoadwarrior]

I agree but my install is fairly new. Switching just for the sake of switching would be a waste of time if there is no great difference.

Re:What if I use XCFE?

[bingoUV]

One more difference between Ubuntu and Mint philosophies is that Mint has better out of box support. It comes with "less free " stuff like flash, mp3 codecs, etc whereas on Ubuntu one needs the extra step to install them.

Mint does have a rolling release option

[Blaskowicz]

The debian edition of mint is usable (though less friendly than ubuntu version) and is a rolling release. It updates slow though and I'm used to distro versions where I can easily know what version I'm running.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's no wonder corporations don't take them seriously.

"The Chicago Mercantile Exchange employs an all-Linux computing infrastructure and has used it to process over a quadrillion dollars worth of financial transactions[82][83]

The Chi-X pan-European equity exchange runs its MarketPrizm trading platform software on Linux.[83]

The London Stock Exchange uses the Linux based MillenniumIT Millennium Exchange software for its trading platform and predicts that moving to Linux from Windows will give it an annual cost savings of at least £10 million ($14.7 million) from 2011-12[84][85]

The New York Stock Exchange uses Linux to run its trading applications.[83"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters#Business

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such a word in Persian. I have never heard such a word in Persian during my 40 years of life.

I've never heard more than a handful of words in Persian during my 30 years of life, but I don't deny the rest of the language exists...

Re:names are so cool, not!

[stasike]

well, before jumping to conclusions you should have looked up previous names:
1.0 - Ada
2.0 - Barbara
2.1 - Bea
2.2 - Bianca
3.0 - Cassandra
3.1 - Celena
4.0 - Daryna
5 LTS - Elyssa
6 - Felicia
7 - Gloria
8 - Helena
9 LTS - Isadora
10 - Julia
11 - Katya
12 - Lisa
13 LTS - Maya
14 - Nadia

This way it makes much more sense, doesn't it?

Alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the fuck modded this insightful!? Yes, Sherlock, it's the 14th letter of the alphabet. Thanks for your "clue".

Why the vile? Here, have some knowledge:

Names of full releases, see the pattern? Female names alphabetically.

Ada
Barbara
Cassandra
Daryna
Elyssa
Felicia
Gloria
Helena
Isadora
Katya
Lisa
Maya
Nadia

Re:Alternative

[jimshatt]

Yes, I know (it's kinda obvious). Anyhow, I think I failed to see the sarcasm in maxwell's post, because I saw it out of context (didn't read the OP). Whoops.

This is weird

[Windwraith]

I have trouble taking Mint seriously. I only hear about it when people complains about Unity.

No, seriously, every single time I hear about Mint is because there's some controversial thing about Ubuntu and a lot of guys come in saying "I moved to Mint years ago because I am tired of $NEWS_TOPIC". At times there are also Mint comments even if the news about Ubuntu are good (I am sure I saw a "I moved to Mint..." routine on a few of the Steam for Linux news reports in Ubuntu-related news sites).

I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is. Until I find a real happy user as opposed to someone complaining about Canonical in every Ubuntu-related news, it just sounds like haters got busy inflating scores (wouldn't be the first time something of the sort happens). Everyone I know uses the same usual subjects, and while anecdote is not proof, I've met a sizable amount of Linux users from being a developer. Not even a single issue reported by Mint users.

So, is there someone using Mint for any reason that is not spiting Canonical? I'd like to know, just to make sure I receive information not coming from people giving the impression of being zealots. They seriously need some PR as opposed to just say bad things about the competition.

It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".

Re:This is weird

[Osgeld]

I switched to mint back when all the ubuntu retardedness started, v9 was actually pretty good ... then in 10 things started breaking. Had to provide my own xorg.conf to set a standard 1280x1024 resolution, panels would insta-crash on boot, and wanted to delete themselves and rebooting your linux machine 2 or 3 times to get full functionality wore thin in a matter of days.

11 didnt fix anything, but gave me scrollbars that auto hid, 12 gave us gnome3 but with dual menu systems, gnome 3's and mints which broke half the time I tried. thats about the time I said F it, its a nice system when it works, but it seems to be very fragile and since I am not a linux nerd I just want to turn on the machine and get shit done ... not fiddle with the OS constantly

nowdays I just use xubuntu or plain ol debian.

Re:This is weird

[BlackPignouf]

I find it beautiful, well polished, it works out of the box (with video codecs, mp3, java, flash, ...), it is well integrated, it supports interesting projects (mate & cinnamon) and is fully compatible with Ubuntu repositories and 95% of its documentation.

Also, releases bring mostly bug fixes or new features that you can safely ignore. If you find it easy to use LM 12, you won't have any problem using LM 13 or LM 14.

Re:This is weird

[epine]

Let me sort this out for you. Mint is now becoming what Ubuntu might have been had Canonical not become afflicted with hubris, delusion, trendiness, and indifference.

They go right ahead and ruin everything I've done to set up a comfortable work process--all for the sake of jumping onto the tablet revolution--without so much as a kind note:

Dear Alpha Geek,

As a dual-head power user with nine desktops we know you're going to hate Unity with the sidewall taskbar worse than a rectal fissure, so we've arranged an LTS release on the last usable version of Gnome2 which we hope will tide you over until Unity matures into a viable environment for the hardcore user.

We care!

yours truly,
Dept. of hard decisions

I don't hold anything against Canonical for deciding it was time to set a new course and a new direction. What I hold against them is failing to show up and knock on the door to explain the news with decency and mutual respect.

What they've done once, they'll do again. That's how the trust relationship works.

I don't really care if Mint is not anything more compelling that what Ubuntu might have been. It doesn't have to be better. It only has to be not Ubuntu. You're darn right. You act as if there's something wrong with this political logic. There's nothing wrong with this political logic. This is how people with self esteem behave in the aftermath of callous and unnecessary disappointment.

Re:This is weird

[PiMuNu]

Posted from my Linux Mint laptop... it just works tx. It's an OS, its job is to "just work". If you notice it, that's a problem.

Re:This is weird

[Jicehix]

Mint has better colors.

No, seriously : just try it. You'll understand why many Mint users (who have tried Ubuntu before) like to point out they moved. The "classic" Mint is as accessible as Ubuntu without all the fancy crap (and better colors). It has a very slick UI, excellent configuration tools. The Debian edition of Mint (LMDE) is also rock solid and very easy to use for a newcomer (I mean, for a Debian distro).

Anything about Mint shows how serious and skillful they are at respecting their users.

IMHO, the reason you hear so much about Ubuntu is the great amount of Windows users who switched because some guy told them it was so cool and simple to install, and while that's true in many ways, they still don't know anything about linux and end up having a lot of problems using it. Or they just can't stand the colors and are getting nervous.

Note that I'm not a Mint user : I'm running Gentoo on my office laptop, and Debian on servers, so I'm not doing PR here.

Re:This is weird

[Rigrig]

I switched from Ubuntu to Mint a while ago (before Unity), because it promised to be "Ubuntu, only easier", and stuck around because it was. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy tinkering with stuff (messing around until it breaks is the usual the reason for me having to re-install), but it's nice to have everything working right away on a fresh install, instead of having to go through the motions of setting up restricted-extras yet again.

Re:This is weird

[Windwraith]

I like orange, although my desktop is currently shades of grey with green highlight.
I am an Ubuntu power user. Defaults aren't made to stay in my setup.
Everyone here is talking like if Ubuntu was Windows or iOS, a solid set of things that you aren't allowed to touch. Makes me wonder if they even use Linux at all, because the defaults are not enforced on you, nor impossible to change. The defaults are only there first.
If you need to install VLC or GIMP or some tool via software center/synaptic/apt/whatever, and you can do it, you can install another desktop with the same exact effort. It's not even that hard, just input XFCE/Gnome/KDE/LXDM/whatever-floats-your-boat on a search box and press OK a few times.
Most people complaining in these threads are already linux users that know the names of those desktop environments, so what exactly is forcing them to change the whole distro instead of using a search box in one of the package managers? It's actually less effort to just change a few packages in Ubuntu than change distro altogether, and less time lost. And I see plenty of comments about time being money in Slashdot, so they are losing money wiping out and reinstalling a distro from scratch, and getting negavity and hatred inside and outside. Just because they don't like the default colors.

Re:This is weird

[evansvillelinux]

So, is there someone using Mint for any reason that is not spiting Canonical? I'd like to know, just to make sure I receive information not coming from people giving the impression of being zealots. They seriously need some PR as opposed to just say bad things about the competition.

I am using Linux Mint 13 because I was downloading and evaluating different distros just for the sake of checking them out. So far, everything I've tried with Mint "just worked" and I will likely stick with this one. Hope this helps a little.

Re:Cinnamon Is...

[greg1104]

Could be worst--at least it's not Cinnamon the Maltese puppy

Re:I feel stupid

[tuppe666]

I actually donated to Linux Mint about a month ago, and yet I've given up Linux (again) for Windows 7 (again) due to a lack of comparable software (no, 80% functionality isn't good enough compared to the 100% I get with Windows unfortunately). So I feel kinda stupid for donating and yet still abandoning the operating system. Then again, I do appreciate Linux on an intellectual level so hopefully it helps.

I gave up on Windows 7 for the same reason, and moved full time to Mint. I just cannot find the same functional programs I can on Linux, or they are riddled with malware, or they can charge thousands to do basic things, and I have to sacrifice my privacy to do so, all I end up doing is installing those programs I know from Linux, only I have a massive headache in maintaining all the packages. I gave up in the end after the OS I was using was tied to the hardware it was on? I had to use a live distribution to rescue my data. Hell it didn't even do 80% of the things I wanted, In fact frighteningly it restricted me from doing things I wanted. *shudder*. As for Windows 8 well... No wonder windows lost in mobile where it doesn't have a monopoly.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Zontar The Mindless]

This is completely off-topic... but I'd really like to change that to "Maoist and dewy", and see how long it took anyone to catch on.

Nothing weird

[tuppe666]

I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is.....It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".

You should read through the comments. People on the whole love Debian, and love Ubuntu's spin on Debian. Most mint users also *love* Ubuntu. What they don't love is "Unity" They love "Cinnomon". In fact thats what they talk about in the summary.

Unity
====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface)

Cinnamon
=======
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.

People are not zealots, they are exercising choice on a platform that allows it. In fact Mint is basically Ubuntu with Unity replace with Cinnamon. In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.

Re:Nothing weird

[Windwraith]

I immediately install KDE4 (at least the core) as soon as I finish installing Ubuntu. I am also exercising my choice to not use Unity, just without needing to change the whole distro.

And I am not exactly saying they are zealots, but that they sound like that because of the negative context surrounding most comments promoting Mint.

Also, isn't Cinnamon always composited (AKA 3D-accelerated)?

Re:Nothing weird

[tuppe666]

I immediately install KDE4....And I am not exactly saying they are zealots

I see your promoting something by calling the other side zealots...its kind of sad that we live in that world. KDE is an excellent windows manager [and XFCE is too]. Many people including myself love Gnome and gnome applications...we are just not particularly enamoured by either Unity of Gnome Shell [even though they have got an awful lot better]. There is friendly competition between Gnome and KDE, but its just that friendly.

Personally having noticed E17 is at alpha, it the first time I have been excited for a windows manager release for sometime. That is going to be my next desktop.

Re:Nothing weird

[thedarknite]

The thing I find interesting is that the Distrowatch ranking is counting the number of hits per day from each distribution (unique IPs only). Does this mean that Mint users are comparing features, looking to change distributions, or there is a subset of users pushing up the ranking?

My occasional visits to Distrowatch have generally been when checking whether changing distributions is worth it. Currently, I've gone with installing Cinnamon onto Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Re:Nothing weird

[Chrisq]

There is friendly competition between Gnome and KDE, but its just that friendly.

Nothing on slashdot is friendly. If I said that I prefer tea to coffee then there would be some people who would call me an idiot for not "knowing" that coffee is better - then someone who had invented his own hot drink that would be a world beater if it wasn't for the conspiracy of tea and coffee drinkers to prevent it. Finally someone would say "what about toast" and get shouted down for being off-topic and supported for understanding the real underlying issues.

Re:Nothing weird

[Tordanik]

Unity ==== http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface)

Cinnamon ======= http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.

It's only a full screen if your screen is really small. The Wikipedia screenshot is pretty misleading in that regard - this would probably more representative for normal display sizes.

But more importantly, the similarity with smartphones is mostly visual - the icons are larger than Cinnamon's and placed above rather than next to the program name, which makes it look loosely like a touchscreen interface or a Windows desktop with application links. However, the Unity start menu (aka "Dash") is actually keyboard centric. It prominently features a search bar which also has focus when you open the Dash and is the most efficient method of using it. In that regard, it has more to do with program launchers like Launchy or the search field in the Windows 7 start menu than with smartphones.

The traditional hierarchical menu is indeed superior in one use case: Accessing rarely used applications using only the mouse or a touchscreen (no keyboard). But at least for me, it turns out that I'm almost never doing that anyway. ymmv.

In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.

That doesn't actually tell us how many people use a distribution, though - the Distrowatch numbers are based on a relatively small subset of Linux users that is probably not representative. For example, a user who is happy with their distribution and does not intend to switch to anything else would be less likely to even visit a distribution comparison site.

It could be interesting to look at the traffic of major websites instead. Unfortunately, most of them do not differentiate between distributions. One exception I know of is the Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report, where Ubuntu clearly accounts for the largest share of traffic among Linux distributions except Android. As we know, statistics like that have their own set of problems, and in this case there is also a huge number of "Other" in there that could easily skew the results. However, it still seems like a better approach for measuring actual usage. (Do browsers on Mint usually include the distribution in the user agent string?)

Re:Nothing weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Mint is basically Ubuntu with Unity replace with Cinnamon

Mint is a more than just "ubuntu with a traditional desktop". THAT whole saga began well after mint was already popular. Mint was already a "household name" before ubuntu went to gnome 3. The original concept of mint (correct me if I'm wrong) was to provide a derivative of ubuntu with the popular non-free software (patented codecs, flash, etc) already pre-installed and configured. That is what made mint popular: the "just works" concept. Since then it has grown into a distribution in its own right, and the fact that mint offers a version based on debian (rather than ubuntu) shows that mint isn't tied to ubuntu as much as when they started.

Re:Nothing weird

[mmsimanga]

Please mod parent up! There is nothing like friendly competition on Slashdot. It's either may way or you are an idiot :-).

Re:Nothing weird

[Windwraith]

No, I am promoting that you can easily pick another DE, I just gave my personal usage as example.

Cinnamon Is...Traditional layout,advanced features

[tuppe666]

Cinnamon Is...http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Re:names are so cool, not!

[olip85]

Is it "whomever" or "whoever"?

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ukrainian word for 'Hope' is just 'Nadia'. On the other hand, in Russian, it is derived from 'Nadezhda' as a dimunitive form.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[uvajed_ekil]

Whomever started this naming version releases by nick name should be shot. Is this named Nadia because that is the wife of the main developer and he had to show some love otherwise he's never get some love again?

Me, If i developed anything and name it nice names, like "Fuckoff" "sloppyshit", "kludge", and "ididyourmom"

I guess we all need to feel cool.

Well, Clement Lefebvre has been naming his Mint releases since he started the project, something like six years ago, so I doubt he is going to stop now just because a few people think the whole concept is dumb. And you are free to create something and name it "fuckoff" or "sloppyshit" if you so desire. In fact, I recommend you go spend some time on that and less time whining here.

Ripping on other people's projects for no reason is childish.

I guess we all need to feel cool.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[uvajed_ekil]

Yes, Ubuntu's goofy naming scheme is a little odd, especially now that they are supposed to be a legitimate leader in the field. In contrast, Linux Mint was, and still largely is, the pet project of one man who likes to give his releases women's names, which seems less strange. I'm not saying I like the names, and in fact I use Mint and always go by version numbers rather than the names, but to each his own.

I don't care about the name and just hope LM14 works and Cinnamon progresses, though I still prefer Mint's Debian Edition to the Ubuntu-based versions.

Re:I feel stupid

[humanrev]

Well I suppose I must know how to use Windows better if I choose malware-free software. I will admit this is a skill that comes from experience, but I have a LOT of Windows experience and see little point in switch from something that works so damn well. Windows 8? It can go to hell. Hopefully Metro fails and Windows 9 allows for a more traditional desktop operating system.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah they're not running Ubuntu. They're using things like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat MRG.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[tuppe666]

It's much better than ubuntu - with names like "Wanking Warthog", "Horny Heron", and "Onanistic Ocelot", it's no wonder corporations don't take them seriously.

Yeah right its the name!?

Unlike Microsoft - Whistler, Longhorn, Blackbomb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames

Android - Cupcake, Donught, Eclair ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history

Linux Pink Farting Weasel, Holy Dancing Manatees, Batman!, Jeff Thinks I Should Change This, But To What?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_kernel_names

OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X

The adoption rate in enterprise has clearly nothing to do with its codename. I think its the usual reasons Monopolistic abuse. Oddly the most used OS's in mobile have the least stern names. I guess that is why Microsoft is a failure in mobile.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[mwvdlee]

Apple shills are getting strange.

It's Apple shill 2.0 aka "Strange jackass".

Shh... Don't mention Debian

[Eunuchswear]

Yet another Debian based distribution that tries to keep quiet about it.

Why not just run the real thing?

Re:Shh... Don't mention Debian

[Chrisq]

Yet another Debian based distribution that tries to keep quiet about it.

Why not just run the real thing?

My perception of debian (which may be wrong) is that it is not as user-friendly as the down-stream copies, and has a slow release cycle that means that it often runs with older versions of packages. I have heard other people express the same thing, so even if it is wrong it is probably why many people don't use it.

Re:Shh... Don't mention Debian

[Eunuchswear]

Yet another Debian based distribution that tries to keep quiet about it.

Why not just run the real thing?

My perception of debian (which may be wrong) is that it is not as user-friendly as the down-stream copies

What does that mean exactly?

, and has a slow release cycle that means that it often runs with older versions of packages.

No Debian based distro has a faster release cycle than Sid!

I have heard other people express the same thing, so even if it is wrong it is probably why many people don't use it.

Me too. I've just never had anyone tell me exactly what "unfriendly" means.

Re:Shh... Don't mention Debian

[Chrisq]

Yet another Debian based distribution that tries to keep quiet about it.

Why not just run the real thing?

My perception of debian (which may be wrong) is that it is not as user-friendly as the down-stream copies

What does that mean exactly?

Based on the "marketing" of Ubuntu and others, the down-stream copies are configured with all the apps that you are likely to need and will automatically update these. The assumption is that Debian needs more things to be user-installed. Also I believe downstream apps do more to self-configure to the hardware - certainly Linux Mint installs without issues on my Lenovo E525 whereas Ubuntu needs some manual steps so I would assume that the setup is not in the Debian base.

Re:Shh... Don't mention Debian

[Eunuchswear]

What does that mean exactly?

Based on the "marketing" of Ubuntu and others

and one should always believe marketing,

the down-stream copies are configured with all the apps that you are likely to need and will automatically update these. The assumption is that Debian needs more things to be user-installed.

Because

apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

is so hard.

Also I believe downstream apps do more to self-configure to the hardware - certainly Linux Mint installs without issues on my Lenovo E525 whereas Ubuntu needs some manual steps so I would assume that the setup is not in the Debian base.

So it seems Ubuntu at least doesn't do much more to self-configure the hardware.

I admit that I probably underestimate how difficult it is to install things - I installed Debian Sid on a Sony Vaio Z series.

Re:Shh... Don't mention Debian

[shutdown -p now]

Um, what? Their about page:

"Based on Debian and Ubuntu"

Not to mention that their other distro, that is based directly off Debian rather than Ubuntu, is called LMDE - Linux Mint Debian Edition.

Why not just run the real thing?

Because you want things to just work immediately out of the box, without having to install drivers, X, some DE etc. If you don't, then you need not bother, you're not the target audience here.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Eunuchswear]

Here's a hint for you: N is the 14th letter of the alphabet.

Depends on what alphabet you use.

Which is relevant considering how short the US one will last.

There's a US alphabet now? How does it differ from the English one?

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Eunuchswear]

though I still prefer Mint's Debian Edition to the Ubuntu-based versions.

Well, obviously, it's closer to the real thing.

Though I can't imagine why you don't just run the real thing.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[kevingolding2001]

Do you get angry about tropical storms as well?

Re:names are so cool, not!

[antifoidulus]

Come on "Ada" didn't even ship with GNAT installed by default, what a tease!

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Raumkraut]

The English alphabet doesn't have "Zee".

distrowatch confirms it

[Yomers]

subj

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Chrisq]

Nadia, Meaning: Hope (in Ukrainian, diminutive form in Bulgarian/Polish/Russian, etc.) Moist and dewy[1] (in Arabic) Dew in Persian

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Its from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, Nadezhda “Nadia” Chernyshevski is Maya’s best friend...Maya was the name of Mint 13 :)

Also means "rivers" in Hindi

Re:names are so cool, not!

[aliquis]

No English or US one here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin-derived_alphabet

The idea wasn't to say US got a special one and voila, it happened to be the same as the English one.

The idea was rather to point out that there existed a shit-load of alphabets of which US just happen to be using one combination of letters.

There's no the alphabet.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Eunuchswear]

No English or US one here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin-derived_alphabet

Not trying very hard, are you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alphabet

There's no the alphabet.

There is according to wikipedia! (joke).

installation under VirtualBox just crashed out

[epine]

My host is Mint 12 with VirtualBox 4.1.2_ubuntu. I've been running an LMDE guest just fine.

This installation made it past the language pack downloads into a testing hardware, then put up a notice that the installer crashed. I tried to repeat the exact same installation, and this time I get a message during disk setup that "The creation of swap space in partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) failed." I didn't reboot the virtual machine between attempts.

There's gobs of free disk space on the host OS. I had configured 512MB of system memory on a 12GB virtual disk.

So the installer crash corrupted the virtual disk hardware? Hmmm, interesting.

Re:installation under VirtualBox just crashed out

[epine]

Completely fresh install (new virtual machine setup) this time selecting "Debian 64" instead of "Ubuntu 64" as the base version. Same disk space and memory selections.

This time, another installer crash, much sooner, but with a traceback. It's running in ubiquity/debconffilter.py and I've got "OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory".

Maybe 512MB of vbox memory is not enough. Another attempt with 768MB is now swimming along, rather tediously.

One word: PAE

[sshir]

Ubuntu based XCFE distros are screwed anyway. They by design were made for low spec hardware but guess what? 12.10 based anything does not work on non-PAE CPUs... Like, for example, those great pentium M based T41 thinkpads.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[JasterBobaMereel]

...Old Persian, a language that has not been spoken for 2000 years ...

And ic cyðe eow, æt ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage...

Perhaps Ubuntu Should Die Now

[BrendaEM]

Ubuntu screwed up with Unity, which did more to divide the Linux landscape than any other event in recent history. Mint has been working harder than anyone to make sure people can work hard with a useful desktop. Thank you all.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[bad-badtz-maru]

Naming software versions by nicknames has been around since you were in diapers. Sorry that you are finally being exposed to it.

Re:I feel stupid

[jones_supa]

I actually donated to Linux Mint about a month ago, and yet I've given up Linux (again) for Windows 7 (again) due to a lack of comparable software (no, 80% functionality isn't good enough compared to the 100% I get with Windows unfortunately). So I feel kinda stupid for donating and yet still abandoning the operating system. Then again, I do appreciate Linux on an intellectual level so hopefully it helps.

Maybe your donation will still help to get Mint a bit closer to that 100%.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[VortexCortex]

No, a jackass is one who thinks that it's cute and funny to introduce confusing reference designation schemes ...

No, a Jackass is one who stubbornly complains about things of little significance, and antagonizes others instead of doing anything productive at all. Sound familiar? It should.

Debian Lenny. [snip dubious claims of friendship].

The names are just codenames, you know like everyone uses: "Longhorn", "Chicago", "Tiger", "Snow Leopard", etc. They don't matter in the least bit except to the devs and irrational people like you. Debian is from the names Deborah and Ian, who started the distro. Lenny and the other names used for Debian releases are from the Pixar movie: Toy Story. Etch, Wheezy, etc. Sid is always the development branch's name, the kid that destroys toys... It's really not that hard or confusing and, in the case of Sid, it might actually help you remember what that version is all about.

Whether or not you like naming conventions is irrelevant. If you don't like it then use a different distribution, repackage and rename one, or take the source and roll your own -- name it however you like, or even use some other OS entirely... Hell, you can even develop your own OS, compilers, and languages from scratch, Like I'm doing.

Instead of just bitch about how things are colossally fucked at all levels, I prefer to put my money (read: time) where my mouth is and develop something that's better, more secure, & less irritating (to me). Who knows, maybe my ideas will suck, or maybe my demonstrations will prove interesting and influence more popular OSs & Compilers (to use a different call stack for code pointers than data and parameters, etc). In any event, at least I won't be an obnoxious, worthless, belligerent, whiny Jackass.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[maxwell demon]

>Here's a hint for you: N is the 14th letter of the alphabet.

Shut up you insensitive clod. I'm Chinese - and I can assure you that N is not the 14th letter of the alphabet ;)

Since when does Chinese have an alphabet? Chinese has ideograms.

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Chrisq]

Hindi for river is 'nadi', not nadia

Re:names are so cool, not!

[Chrisq]

ek nadi do nadiA