Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and MATE Editions Released

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and MATE Editions Released

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 1, 2014 @02:05AM from the check-it-out dept.

linuxscreenshot writes The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' MATE. Linux Mint 17.1 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. Linux Mint 17.1 MATE edition comes with two window managers installed and configured by default: Marco (MATE's very own window manager, simple, fast and very stable); Compiz (an advanced compositing window manager which can do wonders if your hardware supports it). Among the various window managers available for Linux, Compiz is certainly the most impressive when it comes to desktop effects. Screenshots can be found here.

89 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Cinnamon and MATE by Laz10 · 2014-12-01 02:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why is it that they keep having two so similar versions of Gnome? I can't really tell the difference.
1. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by juanfgs · 2014-12-01 02:22 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  We should fork mint and make a version with only Cinnamon available.
2. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 02:45 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Because when you have the source code, the competences and the time you don't have to compromise. Reverse example: don't like the fixed menu at the top in OSX? Fork and fix it. Sorry, you can't. Either you adapt or buy something else.
3. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by i+kan+reed · 2014-12-01 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know why you perceived my post to be antagonistic. It was intended as observational.
4. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  Cinnamon is a bit more bleeding edge and fancy for users, plus will be receiving the benefit of improvements to GNOME/GTK going forward. MATE is a solid reliable workhorse for lower end machines that ran GNOME 2.32 without a problem but experience slowness when using GNOME 3/Cinnamon. From my perspective, choice is good. I've got Cinnamon on my newer machines and MATE on the older ones. Add to this that MATE looks the way Linux Mint has looked since the early days of the distro. Having the same consistent interface for years and years is unheard of almost anywhere else.
5. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by bro2 · 2014-12-01 03:15 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  "Because, in open source land, every single difference of opinion ends up being a fork" Observational...yeah, sure.
6. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 03:29 · Score: 0
  
  Because, in open source land, we have the ability to choose, unlike in closed source land, where the choices are made for you.
  In open source land, if there's a demand for it, the choice is there. In closed source land, if there's a demand for it, they'll think about it behind closed doors and possibly get back to you.
  You're new to this open source thing, aren't you?
7. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by i+kan+reed · 2014-12-01 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  Have you seen a counter-example?
  I'm pretty sure the systemd forks are well underway right now, for example.
8. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  That's not true. As a user I may not have the expertise to implement the change I want seen in a piece of software. I may even have a hard time getting a developer to make the change and I'll have an impossible time finding someone to assist in supporting that change. In close source land I may be able to pay an obscene amount and not only get the change, but the support as well. There's a place for both closed and open source software and I don't tend to subscribe to any singular philosophy. Much to the chagrin of Slashdotters.
9. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  MATE is a fork of Gnome2, Cinnamon is made using Gnome3's shell.
  In other words: different technologies
10. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by mrvan · 2014-12-01 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  If you have an "obscene amount" of money, for a sufficiently obscene definition of obscene, you can add any feature you like to any open source project and get all the support you would even need, including a butler to click the buttons on the screen for you.
  If you think that the price of a windows/adobe/matlab license qualifies an obscene amount of money, well, you're out of luck.
11. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-12-01 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Let's call it... drumroll, please... Cinnamon Mint!
12. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by jbolden · 2014-12-01 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  Actually you can. The menus for applications are contained in .nib files. Those can be edited by interface builder. If you want to go further you can replace the .bundle files that are used by Quartz or though of course in practice this is really hard to do since applications assume you are using the standard ones.
13. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  That's not true.
  Yes, it is.
  
  As a user I may not have the expertise to implement the change I want seen in a piece of software.
  That's a lack of ability, not a lack of choice. You do have the choice to learn programming. It's not that hard to get to a point where you're able to make small, hack-ish changes to an existing program.
  
  I may even have a hard time getting a developer to make the change and I'll have an impossible time finding someone to assist in supporting that change.
  Yeah, because that's not how it works.
  
  In close source land I may be able to pay an obscene amount and not only get the change, but the support as well.
  Yes.
  
  There's a place for both closed and open source software
  Obviously there is. This was not about whether or not there's a place for both, though.
  
  and I don't tend to subscribe to any singular philosophy.
  ...and nobody cares...
  
  Much to the chagrin of Slashdotters.
  Oh, please. The only thing which caused me sufficient 'chagrin' to even reply is by how far you're missing the point.
14. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by kthreadd · 2014-12-01 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  ...but experience slowness when using GNOME 3/Cinnamon.
  At least for Gnome 3 if you used one of the earlier versions and felt that it was slow then you should really try the latest version, preferrably 3.14. It's night and day difference between them. It's still not going to be great if your hardware is too old or too slow, but it's going to be better than before.
15. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 07:15 · Score: 0
  
  You seem to be confuse "usability" with "features." While the latter is nice to have, keeping obsolete features just harms usability.
16. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  MATE is truly a GNOME 2 fork, whereas IIRC Cinnamon is a UI built with Gnome in the style of a more traditional gnome 2 interface.
  Cinnamon is a bit more fresh of a code base /I believe/ and is actively developed by the mint team, but usable on other distros like Ubuntu.
17. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by bigfinger76 · 2014-12-01 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  It chagrins the hell out of us, AC, it really does.
18. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by jedidiah · 2014-12-01 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Some features are all about usability.
  This is how Macs in 2014 trying to mock features of X window managers manage to screw things up relative to a 20 year old copy of twm.
  They confuse eye candy (or even crippling) with usability.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
19. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  I think he meant not liking the menu always being at the top of the screen instead of having different menus on every window.
  I used to think it was stupid too, until I used it exclusively for a while... now I find it's much more preferable. But every human is wired differently.
20. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 10:36 · Score: 0
  
  Cinnamon (Gnome3) doesn't supply the plugins most people want. Instead it takes the same route KDE took: you have to download plugins created by random noname people on the web.
  Screw that. There's no way in hell I'm going to use jrandomuser@hisowndomain.com's CPU monitor applet, even if it is the most popular.
  If someone can convince me it's a safe sandbox, and I *MIGHT* change my mind on this. Otherwise, anyone that uses Gnome3 or KDE is either giving up important functionality or is asking to be pwnt.
  tl;dr: Use mate or xfce.
21. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by ChrisMaple · 2014-12-01 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  It's not that hard to get to a point where you're able to make small, hack-ish changes to an existing program.
  Sometimes yes, mostly no. Most programs are so incredibly complex that it's difficult to find the file that contains the code that needs to be changed. Good luck then finding the precise lines to changed (amidst a forest of #ifdef ) and then changing it without side effects. Oh, and in addition to understanding the language the program was written in (often obscured C++), the would-be program enhancer often has to learn Makefile-ese.
  I've spent several days looking at "ls" in hopes of making a simple change, and given up in frustration
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
22. Re: Cinnamon and MATE by BurfCurse · 2014-12-01 18:31 · Score: 1
  
  I'm confused?
23. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by jbolden · 2014-12-02 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  That was a tough transition for me as well. Anyway in theory there is no reason you couldn't write a bundle to do things the windows way. So I was answering that.
24. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-02 11:17 · Score: 0
  
  If you can't tell the diiference, you haven't used them.
25. Re:Cinnamon and MATE by K3rn3lPan1c · 2014-12-05 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  Let's call it... drumroll, please... Cinnamon Mint!
  Why not Franklin Mint?
Wait to upgrade by Pope+Hagbard · 2014-12-01 02:17 · Score: 5, Informative

If you're running Mint 17 now, the release notes say to wait a few more days until they release an updated upgrade manager.
1. Re:Wait to upgrade by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 07:13 · Score: 0
  
  Does anyone know if there will be a Mint 17.1 Xfce version released? I didn't see any mention of it.
2. Re:Wait to upgrade by Pope+Hagbard · 2014-12-01 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  There almost certainly will be. It's normal for Mint to release Cinnamon and MATE builds first and follow up with KDE and Xfce versions a few weeks later.
Pretty damned sweet by GerryGilmore · 2014-12-01 02:24 · Score: 0

I'm running Mint 17 RC right now, due to a fat-finger where I was trying to install it in a separate partition and blew up my partition table. Rather that try to reinvigorate Windows 7, I just went ahead and installed it on the whole disk and - damn! It is really nice, Once I saw that youporn videos worked, I was sold! :-)
1. Re:Pretty damned sweet by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-02 07:20 · Score: 0
  
  Partitions? You're doing it wrong. Install to your ZFS volume. If something bad happens, roll-back. FreeBSD+ZFS, where you can roll-back an entire OS install or even snapshot it and switch and band forth, or run your old snapshot in behyve or a jail.
Please change the update manager notifier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 02:26 · Score: 1

Please change the update manager to suit granny-installations. I have installed Mint to a couple of computers as a replacement for Windows XP, whose users are complete newbies. On both cases I have instructed the users to periodically check, that the update manager's notifier icon is in green. Unfortunately this was a mistake, as the update manager will show the "Every update is installed, all ok" or similar tooltip, even if the updates have not been checked at all for ages. It seems that the user has to press the notifier button, give their credentials and only then the update availability is checked. It would be much better for the newbies, if one could easily configure the update manager to actually check the updates automatically and notify user if there is something to update. Current version just gives a false assumption of security.
1. Re:Please change the update manager notifier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  Check the Update Manager preferences.
2. Re:Please change the update manager notifier by Pope+Hagbard · 2014-12-01 03:11 · Score: 2
  
  How about you file a bug report instead of complaining here, where the maintainer's unlikely to see it?
3. Re:Please change the update manager notifier by oobayly · 2014-12-01 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Dear BMW,
  During cold weather the ignition timing on my car is out and makes is idle rough until I "reboot" it. I've replaced the cam and crank sensors, but it hasn't made a difference. It's not the MAF sensor, and when it's running rough my ODB reader says the ignition is retarded by about 10deg. I'm thinking of replacing the VANOS solenoids next, is this the correct course of action.
  ps. I also asked this question on http://forum.kerbalspaceprogra... but didn't get a reply, why not?
4. Re:Please change the update manager notifier by mexsudo · 2014-12-01 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  whiners: https://bugs.launchpad.net/lin...
Cheers for Mint by meta-monkey · 2014-12-01 02:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

My wife's 83 year old grandmother was distraught because her computer was running so slow it would take five minutes to open a program. I told her I would come down and fix it for her, but it might require a wipe and reinstall, and she was fine with anything.
It was a 5 year old HP running Vista, and I have never seen a computer so fucked in my entire life. There were viruses in her viruses. Toolbars, toolbars everywhere! I told her it was a lost cause and we needed to reinstall.
Before I left home I burned a copy of Mint 17 Cinnamon. I had never used it before (I run Debian) but I had heard it was the simple, user-friendly Linux. I gave her two options, that she could reinstall Vista and eventually wind up right back here, or, I could install Linux Mint. I explained the free software ethos, in terms of both beer and speech, she got it, and said that's what she wanted. I installed it with no problem (except for the nouveau Nvidia drivers. They caused it to freeze up and I had to get the proprietary drivers instead), set everything up for her so she could get her gmail, web browse and skype. Her webcam worked right out of the box, too.
I poked a hole in her firewall and set up vino so I could VNC in if she needed help. It's been three weeks and I haven't needed to once. She loves it and has had zero problems.
Thank you, Mint team, for all your hard work. Thanks to you there's a new 83-year-old Linux h4xx0r.

--
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
1. Re:Cheers for Mint by yelvington · 2014-12-01 02:46 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Linux has been a great platform for the elderly for years.
  My mother, who also is in her 80s, bought a Toshiba Latitude in 2007. It came with Vista and not enough RAM to run anything other than Solitaire. I installed Ubuntu, which took about 15 minutes, and fixed the sound config, which took about two days, and she's been fine ever since.
  But her version of Ubuntu is no longer supported, and rather than try to upgrade -- she lives 12 hours away, so it's not exactly convenient -- we bought her a self-updating Chromebook on Black Friday. So far, so good, although she's going to have to switch to an HTML5 solitaire game instead of AisleRiot, which has been her go-to for the last seven years.
  I'm still running Ubuntu on my own laptop, but Cinnamon may lure me away. I need to upgrade, and I am not a fan of what Ubuntu has done to the UI.
2. Re:Cheers for Mint by Blaskowicz · 2014-12-01 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  Mint with Mate is very adequate to replace Ubuntu 8.04, 10.04 etc. and Mint Xfce likewise can replace seamlessly enough an old Xubuntu. (e.g. for one friend going from Xubuntu 8.04 to Mint 13 Xfce was about perfect)
  A nicety is support has been increased from 3 years to 5 years, that's entirely from the Ubuntu upstream.
3. Re:Cheers for Mint by mexsudo · 2014-12-01 02:58 · Score: 0
  
  Mate would have been a better choice, with the desktop clean of icons, and the shortcuts she needs in the toolbar. Who needs menus?
4. Re:Cheers for Mint by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-12-01 03:30 · Score: 2
  
  explained the free software ethos, in terms of both beer and speech, she got it, and said that's what she wanted. I installed it with no problem (except for the nouveau Nvidia drivers. They caused it to freeze up and I had to get the proprietary drivers instead), set everything up for her so she could get her gmail, web browse and skype. Her webcam worked right out of the box, too.
  I poked a hole in her firewall and set up vino so I could VNC in if she needed help. It's been three weeks and I haven't needed to once. She loves it and has had zero problems.
  Thank you, Mint team, for all your hard work. Thanks to you there's a new 83-year-old Linux h4xx0r.
  I did basically the same thing for my wife. After seeing that she hadn't used her touchscreen laptop for over a week, I asked why. She was just so fed up with W8.1 that she stopped using it. W8 was forcing updates, destabilizing the machine, and she had been annoyed with it's operation in general. So she just stopped using it
  So I installed Mint 17 on it, explaining that I'd never done a touchscreen computer in Linux before. Worked great, and now she's happily doing everything like a Boss. Only problem is waking Docky from slumber.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
5. Re:Cheers for Mint by theskipper · 2014-12-01 03:31 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Cinnamon was the antidote to the dumbed-down interface craze for me. Switched to it a year ago and haven't looked back.
  Nemo alone is worth the switch, it's a file manager that doesn't treat you like a child and "hide the knives" (and trees in the sidebar are intuitive to me, ymmv). Workspace management via panel, hotkeys or OSD all work well. The system menu is usable and makes sense. Applets are actually easy to install and manage. A couple clicks and sane scrollbars are back. And simple things out of the box like being able to resize a window without the idiocy of trying to hit a single pixel in the lower right corner reflects the productivity mindset it targets.
  Maybe all this has been fixed in Unity/Gnome 3/etc. but I haven't paid attention and don't care at this point. Sure there's still bugs and features that need polishing but imho it's worth setting up a vm to test it out.
6. Re: Cheers for Mint by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:10 · Score: 0
  
  Who needs menus?
  computer users for one.
7. Re:Cheers for Mint by jedidiah · 2014-12-01 04:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Age has nothing to do with being unable to deal with technology. Some people are just idiots or choose to be helpless. This cuts across all age groups. So you can have some ancient person pushing 100 that's better able to adapt to new tech than one of her children or even one of her grandchildren.
  A lot of the people that can handle new things could always handle new things and will be able to handle new things when they're past 90.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
8. Re: Cheers for Mint by mexsudo · 2014-12-01 05:05 · Score: 0
  
  99% of the real people only use 6 or 8 applications... or even less. if shortcuts to those apps are in the toolbar, there is no need to drill down and find things.
9. Re:Cheers for Mint by mexsudo · 2014-12-01 05:11 · Score: 0
  
  Good move. My wife had similar complaints. I went one step better and also installed LMDE on her laptop. after configuring it to look identical to her Mint I set it as her default boot OS. >>> she did not notice the change at all. after a couple weeks I asked how she liked. she thought a bit and replied "I did notice that there were no updates needed, but I thought maybe you were doing that for me." LMDE = Stable. next spring LMDE2 will be even more stable.
10. Re:Cheers for Mint by unixisc · 2014-12-01 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  RMS is 61. Is it that much younger than 83, granny's age here?
11. Re:Cheers for Mint by unixisc · 2014-12-01 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  So does the touchscreen work if you install Linux? Or does it just use the keyboard & mouse?
12. Re:Cheers for Mint by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-12-01 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  So does the touchscreen work if you install Linux? Or does it just use the keyboard & mouse?
  Touchscreen works great. It seems a little strange at first using touchsceen for normal looking menus instead of the big icons like W8, but yes, everything functions perfectly. Right clicks of course need the touchpad. But she gets around with no problems at all.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
13. Re:Cheers for Mint by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-12-01 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Good move. My wife had similar complaints. I went one step better and also installed LMDE on her laptop. after configuring it to look identical to her Mint I set it as her default boot OS. >>> she did not notice the change at all. after a couple weeks I asked how she liked. she thought a bit and replied "I did notice that there were no updates needed, but I thought maybe you were doing that for me." Interesting - Maybe it's an excuse for me to get a touchscreen laptop of my own. To experiment with you know, All mine are old school dumb screens.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
14. Re: Cheers for Mint by Blaskowicz · 2014-12-01 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  That's what pocket computers of the 80s and 90s did, but with one key on the keyboard per application (calendar, phone book, text editor, calculator, file transfer).
  Feel free to invent another such computer.
15. Re:Cheers for Mint by meta-monkey · 2014-12-01 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  No, she got it.
  Free as in beer: It doesn't cost anything. Neither does any of the software you'd want to run.
  Free as in speech: You have the right to know what's running on your computer. Your computer should do what you tell it, and not phone home to see if somebody else thinks it's okay for you to do it.
  How hard is that to understand?
  
  --
  We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
16. Re:Cheers for Mint by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 06:37 · Score: 0
  
  Mint has been blowing Ubuntu out of the water for years, now. It's the best beginner Linux around.
17. Re:Cheers for Mint by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 06:50 · Score: 0
  
  OpenSource OSes typically have the benefit of a community curated experience. The best of both worlds.
18. Re:Cheers for Mint by __aaclcg7560 · 2014-12-01 06:59 · Score: 1
  
  It was a 5 year old HP running Vista, and I have never seen a computer so fucked in my entire life. There were viruses in her viruses. Toolbars, toolbars everywhere! I told her it was a lost cause and we needed to reinstall.
  My father's solution for this was buying a new Dell box every other year for $500 USD or less. Those "old" boxes became my FreeNAS file server over the years. I kept telling him to stay away from the naughty bits, but of course he never does.
19. Re:Cheers for Mint by innocent_white_lamb · 2014-12-01 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  I installed Centos 7 on a Lenovo Ideapad laptop a few months back and to my surprise the touchscreen worked just fine. I discovered that by accident when I was polishing a speck of dirt off of the screen and the cursor was following my cleaning tissue.
  
  --
  If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
20. Re: Cheers for Mint by jedidiah · 2014-12-01 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  There's no need to re-invent anything.
  We just need to prevent bored children from ripping apart what's already working perfectly well. They can even be free to create something that's a more primitive sort of throwback.
  Sabotaging what already works really isn't necessary.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
21. Re:Cheers for Mint by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  I poked a hole in her firewall and set up vino so I could VNC in if she needed help
  I hope you mean you poked a hole for SSH; otherwise you left her more vulnerable than she was on Windows.
22. Re:Cheers for Mint by Blaskowicz · 2014-12-02 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  These days teens, earlier twenties and pre-teens are exposed to these systems where "everything is a search" or "everything is an app" and so it's already getting to the point where someone older has to explain what a file is (!). The young can't use a file manager, can't use a regular desktop application and opening a command line scares them away or have you asking what you're "programming" or "hacking".
  In a decade we'll fully realize it. People aged 40 to 50 will be computer litterate and young teens will be computer illliterate, inverting the stereotype of the 1990s.
23. Re:Cheers for Mint by Blaskowicz · 2014-12-03 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  Did she almost notice there are no security updates for LMDE?, that's the very slight issue with it. It will be all changed with LMDE2.
Cinnamon on RHEL7 by Rob+Riggs · 2014-12-01 03:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

I've been a Red Hat/RHEL/CentOS/Fedora user for a *very* long time. I've been trying to use Gnome Shell since Gnome3 came out, so I have given it more than a fair shake. This past month I was testing RHEL7 for desktop upgrades at work and found that Gnome Shell is way too much of a distraction. So, at home I switched my desktop to Cinnamon. Holy Cow! I have a usable desktop again. I found Cinnamon in EPEL7 and installed that at work. It is so much more usable on RHEL7. This is what we will be rolling out as the default desktop firm-wide when we upgrade.
So -- a big *Thank You* to the Linux Mint team for making Cinnamon,

--
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
1. Re:Cinnamon on RHEL7 by RabidReindeer · 2014-12-01 03:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You were more forgiving than I was. Gnome3 was pretty much the Poster Child for the Grinch paradigm of software design that's become so prevalent these days. As in, "Here's our new, wonderful product. Isn't it wonderful? Don't you just love it? What do you mean it doesn't do something essential that you've been able to do for years and you don't like it? You ingrate! You're GOING to like our new product! We're not going to fix it just because you and 100,000 whiny little dweebs claim to need those missing functions!"
  So I switched to Cinnamon and have been perfectly happy ever since. I've even kept some of the Gnome3-like options turned on. But I have all those little bits of clutter that keep me attuned to systems operation that Gnome 3 took away from me.
2. Re:Cinnamon on RHEL7 by x_t0ken_407 · 2014-12-01 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  "Grinch paradigm"...I like that. Soooo fucking prevalent. What the hell happened to cause this??
3. Re:Cinnamon on RHEL7 by RabidReindeer · 2014-12-01 09:47 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Back in the time of Fairies and Unicorns, every software release was a visit from Santa Claus. Each new release was more wonderful and feature-laden than the one before.
  Then came Windows 2000. This was when it all changed, I think. ET began to "phone home" via the Internet, the software license keys weren't just something that you could type in - now they had to be "real" keys. And Microsoft decided that they would be selective about what multi-media formats they supported. As in, if they didn't "own" it, they wouldn't support it. The Grinch was beginning to appear.
  But the happy little penguins played on, and each new Linux release was Christmas.
  Until certain developers decided that they "knew" what was best for the unwashed masses. One of the first examples was when Nautilus lost one of its most popular window display options. That caused a mighty uproar, to the point where after many futile attempts to persuade the masses, a solution was presented that more or less restored what the Grinch had taken.
  Gnome3 brought the Grinch out into the open. Yes, it was a cleaner, more dynamic display. It was certainly prettier. But some of us aren't using our computers to look good, we're using them to (allegedly) be productive. And the Gnome3 Grinch stole our applets.
  As usual, the apologists had all sorts of excuses why I was wrong not to be properly awed. But all those grody little applets served very important purposes. Since they were in the margins of the display, they couldn't be covered up by sliding windows. They were always visible from every desktop. And this was important because when the machine went South, it was often the case that the reason could be seen from those applets even though the display was too paralyzed to permit switching to another desktop or launching a diagnostic app.
  Which is why I'm now a happy little Cinnamon user. It gave me my applets back. And, from what I can see, it's actually a lot easier to write Cinnamon applets than it ever was to write Gnome applets, should I be so inclined.
  But the Grinch is still creeping around. Gnome3 fixed a lot of the things that offended people, but as far as I know, the applets weren't among them. And now we have systemd playing Grinch as well. What's next? I shudder to think, but I may drop my longstanding relationship with Red Hat for Debian if systemd is going to stay the way it is.
  I whine. I complain loudly. But given a choice, I also vote with my feet. Which is why I'm running Cinnamon.
Cinnamon and MATE by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 03:59 · Score: 0

I thought Cinammon was hardware only, and so doesn't run well/at all on some older (5+ year) laptops. I have two Thinkpads that won't run it, but Mate runs fine on them.
And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 03:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Despite a lot of hand-waving initially from the Mint folks about not containing the same "spyware" that Ubuntu does (i.e.the Dash Lens that submitted searches to Amazon, which incidentally had a rather obvious "switch" to turn it off), they still won't explain exactly what their "Mint Search Enhancer" extension for Firefox actually -does-...nor is the source provided for it anywhere by the people behind Mint. They offer a vague suggestion that you can e-mail a request for the source for any package on the website, but no one I know who has tried has actually received any source from them when requesting the Search Enhancer...not even a reply. Nor will they explain why the Search Enhancer is a dependency for the entire Linux Mint desktop and that removing it will also remove the desktop meta-package...that's easily explained though, they don't want you to be able to get rid of it easily. What isn't easily explained is why.
So then, linuxmint.com, perhaps you'd like to explain? Because until someone does I wouldn't touch Mint. There's no other distribution I know of that's attempting so very hard to hide the functionality and purpose of a browser extension...even the source for Ubuntu's "Firefox Pack" are easily found, and more importanly easily removed.
1. Re:And yet... by TangoMargarine · 2014-12-01 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  So just disable the extension and add a normal Google search or whatever to the browser. I don't like it when people try to get all smart and move away from a standard, the-same-for-everybody, not-trying-to-personalize-my-results search either, but come on.
  
  --
  Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
2. Re:And yet... by Rob+Y. · 2014-12-01 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  You can disable it. Not as obviously easy as it could be (but then again, that's how Mint pays to keep the lights on). But if you don't agree with the way their 'enhancing' search for you, you can switch to standard Google search - or anything else firefox supports. Or install Chromium or Chrome from the Mint repository.
  
  --
  Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
3. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Absolutely. You can disable it. You can't remove it without removing the core meta package for the desktop, on the other hand. Contrast that with Ubuntu...apt-get remove xul-ext-ubufox. Removes the extension and nothing else. Oh yeah, and the source for the extension is still readily available.
  Yes you can disable it. No, it doesn't really explain why the people behind Linux Mint are purposefully being obscure about what the extension does, nor does it explain why the source code for the extension isn't readily available, nor does it explain why requests to the e-mail address that is designated for such requests never actually responds to any of them. If you think that isn't a reason for concern...well, good for you, ignorance is bliss. Personally, I actually care about my privacy, I think it deserves to be protected. You don't care, that's your bag, not mine.
4. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 06:14 · Score: 0
  
  So if I put Chrome on I am safe from Mint spying on me? Google will be doing it instead LOL.
  IIRC, they get some payment for sending searches to Yahoo.
5. Re:And yet... by TangoMargarine · 2014-12-01 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Okay, fair enough. I was just hoping you weren't arguing it was unavoidable, which apparently you aren't.
  
  --
  Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
6. Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, it's one of the first packages I remove from the system (among 50 others).
  mint-search-addon is the one you want to nuke.
7. Re:And yet... by Rob+Y. · 2014-12-02 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  I assume you're joking, but I'll bite. Chrome doesn't 'spy on you' and Mint doesn't either. They just pass your searches on to a search engine which does what search engines do (and only the paranoid would call that 'spying on you' - though information is retained). Ubuntu, in passing your stuff on to Amazon, is scarier.
  The only 'nefarious' thing Mint is doing is attempting to find a way to fund their development by getting a commission on the ad revenues generated by the search engine they contract with to process searches. It's exactly what Mozilla used to do with Google and now is doing with Yahoo - and it's a pretty neat buisness model. Mozilla rakes in hundreds of millions a year from Google. Mint probably has a much smaller user base than Firefox, so their haul is likely pretty modest.
  
  --
  Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Init by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:20 · Score: 0

It's somewhat odd that TFS doesn't mention what init system Mint comes with in this day and age.
1. Re:Init by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  Hopefully this is a sign that the trolls and idiots have wandered off to other topics.
I could care less! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 04:25 · Score: 0

Why don't you do something useful like tell us when the KDE version comes out. Any other DE is just crap.
Works well with systemd? by hduff · 2014-12-01 05:19 · Score: 2

Then I don't want it.
grumpycat.jpg

--
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
1. Re:Works well with systemd? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 13:53 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe MINT, which has substantial userbase, will be the first major distro (among the others on the disgusting and absurd systemd bandwagon) to have the balls to put its foot down and tell the systemd camp that their crap solution will be optional, and that their system will become init system agnostic.
2. Re:Works well with systemd? by eshaalsmiles · 2014-12-08 00:24 · Score: 1
  
  That is very unlikely to happen, rather unnecessary overhead. Their recent switch to Debian stable from rolling release shows they have just enough time to concentrate on multiple projects plus their own desktop environment Cinnamon. Besides that, both their projects are based on Ubuntu and Debian which have accepted systemd.
We don't need no stinkin' wait by frovingslosh · 2014-12-01 06:21 · Score: 1

I'm running Mint 17.0 now. Love it. Used to be a big Knoppix fan, but Knoppix has more and more problems with simple browsing and playing videos. Mint just works the way that it should, with no need to install anything extra (and the supposed installs for Knoppix are broken as far as I can tell). But I'm running this live disc the way that God intended, as a live disc, not as some damn installed system (actually running it on a broken laptop without a hard disk so there is no temptation to install it). If I want to run an installed Linux system I'll install Debian on another system. So I don't need no stinkin' "Upgrade manager", I just need to download the ISO, pop out 17.0 and pop in and boot 17.1. I can deal with that without an "Upgrade manager".

--
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
1. Re:We don't need no stinkin' wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  So I don't need no stinkin' "Upgrade manager"
  For those of use with working disks — you should consider at least attempting the upgrade. Mint has decided NOT to track releases of non-LTS Ubuntu, so Mint 17.1 is actually the same underlying "base" OS; Ubuntu 14.04. The parts that have changed are the Mint specific stuff, and one should expect the Mint folks to manage to get their own work to upgrade smoothly. In any case, the upgrade shouldn't be a huge risk or disruption because the OS isn't fundamentally changing.
2. Re:We don't need no stinkin' wait by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 11:48 · Score: 0
  
  You should get some medicine for that mental illness, buddy.
Cinnamon and MATE by BurfCurse · 2014-12-01 06:22 · Score: 2

There are significant differences, in terms of usability, at least for me. With Mate, I can setup separate task bars at the top of each of my monitors and have only the windows that are present on that monitor appear in that task bar. This makes switching between many applications and windows much simpler and carefree. I wasn't able to figure out how to do this with Cinnamon, so I switched back to Mate and have been very happy with it.
Cheers for Mint by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 08:09 · Score: 0

This again; the proverbial 80+-year-old Linux-using grandma who now has no computer issues ever. Haven't heard that one in a few years.
share those add/mod/deletes/config script ideas? by xeno · 2014-12-01 09:58 · Score: 1

Do tell. I just updated my custom-stuff-after-installing-Mint script (which has become a go-to for friends and associates), and it's almost clean enough to share and/or xpost to the Mint forums. I'd love to add good ideas from others, and just as importantly, pull out or modify stuff that needs it.
What packages do you find objectionable?
(e.g. this thread. Care to share that list of 50? Does removal break anything major? )
What are must-haves to add?
(e.g. little stuff like acpi? mainstream stuff like ms core fonts, and cups-pdf so there's always something that behaves like a printer?)
Any elegant or specific fixes that you consider worth sharing?
(e.g. have a sed one-liner to change "Label:0" to "Label:1" in /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf so that pdf print jobs don't overwrite each other, but still want a cmd line install of firefox extensions like noscript and ghostery?)

--
I think not...(*poof*)
Re:share those add/mod/deletes/config script ideas by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-01 18:56 · Score: 0

That sounds extremely useful. Please post the link. Thanks.