Speed-Ups, Small Fixes Earn Good Marks From Ars For Mint 17.2

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Speed-Ups, Small Fixes Earn Good Marks From Ars For Mint 17.2

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 12, 2015 @05:29AM from the weighed-in-the-balance-and-found-worthy dept.

Ars Technica reviews the newest release from Linux MInt -- version 17.2, offered with either the Cinnamon desktop, or the lighter-weight MATE, which feels like what Gnome 2 might feel in an alternate universe where Gnome 3 never happened. Reviewer Scott Gilbertson has mostly good things to say about either variety, and notes a few small drawbacks, too. The nits seem to be minor ones, though they might bite some people more than others: Mint, based on Ubuntu deep down, is almost perfectly compatible with Ubuntu packages, but not every one, and this newest version of Mint ships with the 3.16 kernel of Ubuntu 14.04, which means slightly less advanced hardware support. (Gilbertson notes, though, that going with 3.16 means Mint may be the ideal distro if you want to avoid systemd.) "This release sees the Cinnamon developers focusing on some of what are sometimes call "paper cut" fixes, which just means there's been a lot of attention to the details, particularly the small, but annoying problems. For example, this release adds a new panel applet called "inhibit" which temporarily bans all notifications. It also turns off screen locking and stops any auto dimming you have set up, making it a great tool for when you want to watch a video or play a game." More "paper cut" fixes include improved multi-panel options, graphics-refresh tweaks, a way to restart the Cinnamon desktop without killing the contents of a session, graphics-refresh tweaks, and other speed-ups that make this release "noticeably snappier than its predecessor on the same hardware."

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Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 05:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

For example, this release adds a new panel applet called "inhibit" which temporarily bans all notifications. It also turns off screen locking and stops any auto dimming you have set up, making it a great tool for when you want to watch a video or play a game.
Facepalm. That should happen automatically without having the need for a panel applet. Let me guess that they actually added it because the normal lock/dim inhibition is too broken.
1. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:14 · Score: 0
  
  I thought the same thing about the "restart desktop" feature. Skmehow it's ok in the linux world. Imagine the outrage if ms shipped windows with a feature like that...
2. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:29 · Score: 0
  
  Don't conflate the GNOME and GNOME-derived desktop environments with Linux in general. A great deal of Linux users think that GNOME and GNOME-derived desktop environments are utter shit. They consider the GTK+ toolkit, GNOME, and the related software to be fucking disasters. No KDE developer or user would consider a text editor with a monstrosity of a UI like gedit's to be acceptable, for example.
3. Re:Bad design by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2015-07-12 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  I was coming here to say the same thing. That's just weird.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
4. Re:Bad design by Blaskowicz · 2015-07-12 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Flash 11.2 doesn't prevent the screen saver from kicking in, so till now I either disable it or set the time ridiculously long.
  Applet is in Mate, I've added it and will try it.
5. Re: Bad design by kthreadd · 2015-07-12 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Don't conflate the GNOME and GNOME-derived desktop environments with Linux in general. A great deal of Linux users think that GNOME and GNOME-derived desktop environments are utter shit. They consider the GTK+ toolkit, GNOME, and the related software to be fucking disasters. No KDE developer or user would consider a text editor with a monstrosity of a UI like gedit's to be acceptable, for example.
  Thankfully the loud commenters at HN and /. are not representative of GNU/Linux users. It's of course unfortunate that some users don't agree with the recent improvements in the GNOME user experience, but that's often unavoidable when you're making larger changes.
6. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:42 · Score: 0
  
  Thankfully the loud commenters at HN and /. are not representative of GNU/Linux users.
  Those people are the only GNU/Linux desktop users! I hate to burst your bubble, but normal people do not use GNU/Linux unless it's hidden within something like Android, and even then they have no idea what GNU or Linux are.
  Face it, there have been no recent improvements to GNOME in many years. That's why its usage has dropped like a rock. It's in the exact same situation that Firefox is in. Some really awful UI changes were made, all in the name of attracting some mythical "average" users who do not exist or who would never use GNOME and Linux to begin with. The quality and usability took a nosedive, driving away many of the small number of users who actually did exist.
  GNOME and Firefox are both dying projects. They will remain as such until they jettison the awful changes that have ruined both of them.
7. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  That's why its usage has dropped like a rock.
  https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=gnome-shell
  https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=xfce4
  The Debian popcon statistics show a quite significant rise in popularity over the last couple of years. Not sure why the graph shows a dip at the very end though. Pretty much all packages have that dip from what it it looks like, vim, linux kernel etc. so that's probably just a data glitch.
8. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 08:06 · Score: 0
  
  I suspect that that dip is due to all of the users who have fled Debian to Slackware and FreeBSD after Debian switched over to systemd. Systemd fucked up my Debian unstable and testing systems which, despite Debian's naming conventions, were generally far more stable than the main releases of the other Linux distros that I've tried. Systemd is the reason why I'm no longer a Debian user. I use Slackware now. I know I'm not alone, too. Lots of other Debian users have said they've switched to Slackware, Gentoo and sometimes even the BSDs because of systemd being used by Debian.
9. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 08:57 · Score: 0
  
  I know it is difficult the try to adapt to new stuff. But really, you can't keep on running away from the new scary stuff. Once you will have to face your demons and fight them. Just accept that life is evolving, even something that seems lifeless as a computer program. Just adapt and you will learn new things and become stronger. But when you keep on running away and refuse to adapt, and you'll end up as an endangered species. It would be a shame that you were replaced along with the old servers, since you can not work with the new servers. And only because you were too afraid to learn something new.
10. Re: Bad design by maugle · 2015-07-12 10:10 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I know that, eventually, I will accept systemd just as I did PulseAudio. However, I also still remember how awful and frustrating my PulseAudio experience was, back when Ubuntu jumped on the PulseAudio bandwagon way too early. So I'm going to wait things out for maybe a couple more years, and let some other suckers beta-test systemd for me. There's a difference between being afraid of something new, and knowing not to grab the cutting edge with both hands and squeeze.
11. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  Here's a big fuck you asshole!
12. Re: Bad design by Guy+From+V · 2015-07-12 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't see that Mint 17.2 XFCE was released yet.
13. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 21:10 · Score: 0
  
  Strawman: People won't use systemd because it's new and scary
  Reality: People dislike systemd for a variety of reasons, including bad design, bad or incomplete implementation, dislike of the political nature of the rollout. No good reason to change.
  As you get wiser you start to realise that change != better but change always = risk. There needs to be a convincing reason to take the risk other than "new".
14. Re: Bad design by KGIII · 2015-07-12 21:32 · Score: 1
  
  Cinnamon and MATE are up. I am not sure what MATE is based on. Cinnamon is based on GNOME. I kind of like Mint, it is my main distro. I call it Linux for Retards. It suits me just perfectly.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
15. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 21:56 · Score: 0
  
  MATE is based on GNOME 2.
16. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 22:05 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sure I'll be hated on for saying this but....
  I'm looking forward to Windows 10. Its been at least a year since I've played around with any nix distros and with all the complaints over systemd I think its best to stay away for a while.
17. Re: Bad design by KGIII · 2015-07-13 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you. I really like the Cinnamon desktop environment as a user. I find it is a bit harder to hack at but, from a usability view, it is pretty decent. There are some rough edges and things I would advocate changing but, all-in-all, it is well polished, intuitive, and responsive.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
18. Re: Bad design by perryizgr8 · 2015-07-13 21:02 · Score: 1
  
  What's wrong with gedit?
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
19. Re: Bad design by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-14 08:32 · Score: 0
  
  I've been a big fan of Cinnamon from soon after the first version (which was way rougher around the edges than the recent ones...) I've never really used MATE but I'm also happy that Mint are developing it as well - this way we've got a DE developed from GNOME 2 which more or less follows what its users want, and we've also got a DE developed from the shiny-shiny underpinnings of GNOME 3 but which also more or less follows what its users want. If you want more easily hacked I'd imagine MATE is the way to go - at least if you used to use GNOME in the days before GNOME Shell...
  (same AC as before)
20. Re: Bad design by KGIII · 2015-07-14 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  I will load up a MATE ISO in a VM and take a gander at it. I recently said to hell with it and returned to my Linux roots. Well, technically, I was a Unix man at first really. Well, sort of. Career wise, yes. Ah.. That bastard we call Solaris.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
Another plus for the 3:16 kernel... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 05:45 · Score: 1

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, Linus, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Trusting Ars by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 05:48 · Score: 0

> Ars Technica reviews
And we're supposed to trust them because...?
1. Re:Trusting Ars by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  I used to trust them, until they were infected by SJWs.
2. Re:Trusting Ars by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 10:29 · Score: 0
  
  Ars is pack of underachieving loser wannabes in computing mostly. They're no 'experts'. They're far from it.
highly recommended - listens to user feedback by iggymanz · 2015-07-12 05:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Great to have a distro (or any open source project for that matter) that values user feedback and tries to meet needs, rather than having "churn and feature churn for change and hype's sake", and also for taking conservative approach to radical new things that are yet immature or just badly engineered
Linux and systemd by mpol · 2015-07-12 05:55 · Score: 1

> that going with 3.16 means Mint may be the ideal distro if you want to avoid systemd.
What does that even mean? Does Linux 3.17 require systemd? You're better off with 3.16?
That would be really strange.

--

Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
1. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:09 · Score: 0
  
  Top quality shillpost.
2. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:23 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Aside from Linux Mint, pretty much every major Linux distro, from Fedora through to Debian, has switched to systemd recently, or will be switching soon.
  The other modern Linux distros that haven't switched yet are impractical for serious use because they're extremely primitive (Slackware), or impractical because they sometimes require extensive compilation of packages (Gentoo), or are otherwise unsuitable because they are niche distro projects that may not be around next month.
  Systemd is just not suitable for many Linux users. Maybe it's fine for somebody's workstation, where failing to boot or downtime are considered tolerable. But admins running production Linux servers cannot put up with bullshit like that. They need simple software that will work, and in the rare cases when it doesn't then it needs to be easy to debug. Practical experience with systemd has shown that it has some severe problems. A cursory reading of the Debian mailing lists and bug reports will highlight numerous examples of things going very wrong with it, and its poor architecture then making it difficult to diagnose and fix such problems.
  So serious Linux users are facing a small number of choices:
  1. To continue to use older, pre-systemd Linux distros for as long as is practically possible.
  2. To use Linux Mint, which for the time being is the only major and usable modern Linux distro that isn't forcing systemd on its users.
  3. Move to some other operating system, typically one of the BSDs, or even Windows.
  Collectively, modern Linux distros are quickly becoming a systemd monoculture, and experience has shown us that monocultures are dangerous, especially in the context of software.
3. Re:Linux and systemd by Blaskowicz · 2015-07-12 06:39 · Score: 2
  
  It's very likely that Mint switches to systemd with Mint 18 and LMDE 3 (i.e. those on Ubuntu 16.04 and the debian after jessie)
4. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  Very true! And that's exactly why every intelligent and responsible Linux admin is in the process of learning FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and planning to switch all of the Linux systems he or she manages over to one of those operating systems now or in the near future.
  Linux is becoming a dead zone. Those who still use it are "zombies", so encumbered by bad circumstances that they're essentially forced to continue using Linux. Meanwhile, everyone who can get away from it is doing so as quickly as possible.
  The most negative impact that systemd has had on Linux has not been of a technical nature, but rather a social one. Systemd, and the poor handling of it by the Linux kernel leadership and Linux distro leadership, have destroyed the trust that so many Linux users and admins had in the Linux kernel and Linux distributions.
  In hindsight, it's now obvious that Linus should have used his position of leadership and influence to put an end to systemd earlier, for the sake of the Linux community. It's also obvious that a major distro like Debian should not have switched to systemd, as the process of doing this fractured its community beyond repair.
  It hurts me to admit this as a very long time (over 20 years!) Linux user and admin, but Linux is no longer a good choice for an operating system. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are much better now, in all respects. Their technology is better, their leadership is better, their governance is better, and their future are so much brighter.
  Linux is pedalling backward. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are continually getting even better than they already are.
5. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  Very true! And that's exactly why every intelligent and responsible Linux admin is in the process of learning FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and planning to switch all of the Linux systems he or she manages over to one of those operating systems now or in the near future.
  Linux is becoming a dead zone. Those who still use it are "zombies", so encumbered by bad circumstances that they're essentially forced to continue using Linux. Meanwhile, everyone who can get away from it is doing so as quickly as possible.
  The most negative impact that systemd has had on Linux has not been of a technical nature, but rather a social one. Systemd, and the poor handling of it by the Linux kernel leadership and Linux distro leadership, have destroyed the trust that so many Linux users and admins had in the Linux kernel and Linux distributions.
  In hindsight, it's now obvious that Linus should have used his position of leadership and influence to put an end to systemd earlier, for the sake of the Linux community. It's also obvious that a major distro like Debian should not have switched to systemd, as the process of doing this fractured its community beyond repair.
  It hurts me to admit this as a very long time (over 20 years!) Linux user and admin, but Linux is no longer a good choice for an operating system. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are much better now, in all respects. Their technology is better, their leadership is better, their governance is better, and their future are so much brighter.
  Linux is pedalling backward. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are continually getting even better than they already are.
  The only zombies I've seen are the ones running around with their heads on fire because they can't imagine themselves learning anything that they can't run step by step in a bash shell.
  Dude, almost everyone is on board on this. If systemd was so horrible as you say then the actual people making the distros would not use it. Sysadmins are great, I used to work as a sysadmin on a large HPC site until I got fed up with the stubbornness of people that just couldn't think of learning something new, but there are some real world problems out there that people hit every single day that systemd is able to fix, and we need that despite whatever nostalgia you might have over how you learned Unix used to work and somehow told yourself was one true way that could not be improved in any single way.
6. Re:Linux and systemd by Lunix+Nutcase · 2015-07-12 09:26 · Score: 3
  
  In hindsight, it's now obvious that Linus should have used his position of leadership and influence to put an end to systemd earlier, for the sake of the Linux community. It's also obvious that a major distro like Debian should not have switched to systemd, as the process of doing this fractured its community beyond repair.
  Why would he have done that? He may have issues with the way the developers work and a few things that systemd has done, but is overall not against systemd. As he stated in the interview responses:
  
  Yeah, I've had some personality issues with some of the maintainers, but that's about how you handle bug reports and accept blame (or not) for when things go wrong. If people thought that meant that I dislike systemd, I will have to disappoint you guys.
  So it doesn't seem "obvious" at all that he should have done that based on his own statements.
7. Re: Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 10:29 · Score: 0
  
  to the best of my knowledge, 17.2 doesn't include systemd because it's a long term service upgrade to a version that came out before systemd was part of Debuan and Ubuntu.
  I don't recall Linux Mint saying they won't migrate to systemd in their next LTS release.
8. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 10:55 · Score: 0
  
  Asking a perfectly legitimate question is not shilling. KGFY.
9. Re:Linux and systemd by present_arms · 2015-07-12 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  uname -a Linux localhost 4.1.2-pclos1 #1 SMP Sat Jul 11 03:35:45 CDT 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux No systemd here :D
  
  --
  http://chimpbox.us
10. Re: Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 11:23 · Score: 0
  
  I am switching my 2000+ redhat severs over to gentoo because I don't want to use redhat 7. So go suck it systemd fan boys.
11. Re: Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 12:15 · Score: 0
  
  The people making distros like systemd because it pushes a lot of the work they do back to package creators/maintainers. Systemd wasn't created for admins/users of distros, it was created by redhat for the benefit of redhat.
12. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 14:04 · Score: 0
  
  *BSDs need a decent GUI, Linux DEs won't cut it!
13. Re:Linux and systemd by caseih · 2015-07-12 14:46 · Score: 1
  
  That's a bit odd to say as systemd was first proposed to solve a number of pressing server problems including issues with rapid spin up and spin down of virtualized containers, increasingly complex and dynamic storage subsystems such as fiber-channel fabrics and attached storage arrays, dynamic networking and routing configuration as is common in virtualization and containers, service supervision, and increased logging and auditing. The fact that it is also ideally suited to desktops and laptops is nice.
  If you face none of the more vexing configuration management issues on your servers, then count yourself lucky.
14. Re:Linux and systemd by Eunuchswear · 2015-07-12 18:23 · Score: 1
  
  So serious Linux users are facing a small number of choices:
  1. To continue to use older, pre-systemd Linux distros for as long as is practically possible.
  2. To use Linux Mint, which for the time being is the only major and usable modern Linux distro that isn't forcing systemd on its users.
  3. Move to some other operating system, typically one of the BSDs, or even Windows.
  Collectively, modern Linux distros are quickly becoming a systemd monoculture, and experience has shown us that monocultures are dangerous, especially in the context of software.
  In what way is Debian Jessie not a "major and usable modern Linux distro"?
  systemd is one of the init systems available for Jessie If you want to use sysvinit, uupstart or openrc feel free.
  
  --
  Watch this Heartland Institute video
15. Re: Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-13 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  Cool story, bro.
16. Re:Linux and systemd by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-20 07:56 · Score: 0
  
  Funny. It got started as with every other Poettering project, because whatever distro he was at the time using (likely Fedora) was not fitting his use case. And rather than look around for existing alternatives he cooked up yet another.
  And that use case was rapid bootup and shutdown of laptops, because Linux power management was not up to snuff.
  This pretty much the same as how he came to do Pulseaudio, because he bought himself a USB headset for VOIP, and found that straight Alsa was less than accommodating for frequent plugging and unplugging of audio devices. Wonder if he even stopped to glance at Jacks before laying down the first lines of Pulseaudio.
Bing by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:03 · Score: 0

default search is powered by microsoft we hate linux bing
1. Re:Bing by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:06 · Score: 0
  
  Uh pretty sure microsoft 3 linux
2. Re:Bing by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:09 · Score: 0
  
  uh pretty sure microsoft <3 linux
Cinnamon works great! by javajeff · 2015-07-12 06:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

No issues with Cinnamon or Mint 17.2. Everything works great, and I could not imagine using anything else right now. I have settled into Mint and Cinnamon since I like the interface and it is compatible with Ubuntu. Over the years, I have jumped around and tried different distros, but I have been with Mint now for years since they do everything right.
1. Re:Cinnamon works great! by Ramze · 2015-07-12 08:37 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I've also enjoyed Mint, but it's had its issues. I had it on a laptop years ago and it would randomly freeze. I had Mint 17.1 for months, but had to update the kernel to support Zram for snappier response times and use other tweaks to update Mint to work properly.
  Cinnamon would often completely freeze after playing a video with VLC. SMplayer would play vids on top of the menus and other windows. All sorts of issues -- none of which happened under Ubuntu with Gnome or KDE on the same machine, though it did have newer versions of VLC and possibly drivers, codecs, etc.
  Last month, I switched to Cubuntu -- It's basically Ubuntu with Cinnamon, but much more polished than a straight install of Cinnamon over Ubuntu. It also disables some of Ubuntu's crapware and makes spyware like zeitgeist easy to remove without issues.
  (tried to uninstall zeitgeist from a fresh Gnome-Ubuntu install with Cinnamon installed and it wanted to uninstall Cinnamon with it!)
  Mint has awesome features beyond Cinnamon - like the ability to change the colors of individual folders... but, it's grounded in older software and repositories making it difficult to upgrade to the latest versions of VLC, etc. Cubuntu comes with the 3.9 Kernel and works with Ubuntu Vivid repositories, so it was the right choice for me.
2. Re:Cinnamon works great! by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2015-07-13 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  Mint, Cubuntu, kubuntu...
  I'm glad that we've gotten past the "complexity of a billion distros" and settled down to.. uhmmm, a billion Ubuntu distros. And yes, I know they're all downstream of Debian...
  Not sure how we'd get normal people to choose.
Wrong about the kernel (slightly) by Blaskowicz · 2015-07-12 06:37 · Score: 1

Ubuntu 14.04's kernel is the 3.13 version, originally, and that is the version in Mint 17 and 17.1.
Ubuntu 14.04.2 has 3.16, while 14.04.0 and 14.04.1 have 3.13 (If you originally installed a version earlier than 14.04.2 and applied the default updates, it's still the same Ubuntu, but the kernel upgrade is an optional update/upgrade. Also there's a different version of Xorg/Mesa in there - which Mint doesn't follow exactly)
The point versions of Ubuntu are addressed there :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel...
That's nitpicking but if you do have some issue with hardware with either of the kernels (perhaps more likely with a laptop) then it's good to know. Upgrading from Mint 17.0 or 17.1, you get the choice of upgrading the kernel or not.
1. Re:Wrong about the kernel (slightly) by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:44 · Score: 0
  
  And you can select kernel 3.19 from mintupdate.
2. Re:Wrong about the kernel (slightly) by kthreadd · 2015-07-12 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, both Linux 3.13 and 3.16 are supported on Ubuntu 14.04 (14.04.2). Linux 3.13 will be supported for the full support lifetime while 3.16 will only be supported for a limited time, eventually wit will be replaced by the kernel from 16.04 which will be supported until the end of the support cycle.
3. Re:Wrong about the kernel (slightly) by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, both Linux 3.13 and 3.16 are supported on Ubuntu 14.04 (14.04.2). Linux 3.13 will be supported for the full support lifetime while 3.16 will only be supported for a limited time, eventually wit will be replaced by the kernel from 16.04 which will be supported until the end of the support cycle.
  Why don't they just update to 4.0? I don't think most Ubuntu users care which kernel they are on. The ABI is pretty stable so there wouldn't be any compatibility issues if they just continuously updated the kernel, but they would get a constant stream of improved driver support.
Desktop Linux by nowsharing · 2015-07-12 06:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

After testing out a dozen or so current releases, I have been really impressed with the current state of the Linux desktop/laptop experience.

My Brazilian grandma-in-law's laptop just bit the dust, and I wanted to set her up with something from my aging arsenal of dust collectors. I pulled out an Asus 900A (2009 Intel Atom based netbook with 4GB 1st-generation SSD) which ran terribly with any OS back when I last used it in 2011. So I installed Porteus Linux on it, a distro that allows you to generate your own installation using their simple generator at build.porteus.org, and now it freaking flies. It's snappy, has 3.5GB of free space, and to my amazement the sound and video hardware was set up automatically. She can Skype, FB, and browse with it right out of the box.

I also recently found what looked to be a nice laptop left in my building's recycling area, so I took it home and fired it up. It was a HP Pavillion DV2-1019AX with Windows 7 installed, and it ran horribly. 240p streaming video brought it to a stuttering standstill. I loaded Mint 17.1 XFCE and all of the sudden it feels like a powerhouse. It does 1080p video without flinching and everything else you'd want a laptop to do without blinking. In short, I'm very impressed with the current state of Linux for desktop environments. It's only been a few years since I last tried one out, but those old distros now seem like ancient history. These are modern, efficient, luxurious looking operating systems.
1. Re:Desktop Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 17:44 · Score: 0
  
  240p streaming video brought it to a stuttering standstill. I loaded Mint 17.1 XFCE and all of the sudden it feels like a powerhouse. It does 1080p video without flinching and everything else you'd want a laptop to do without blinking.
  Just making sure...did also you try the same 240p streaming video under Linux?
2. Re:Desktop Linux by ThatsNotPudding · 2015-07-12 23:38 · Score: 1
  
  I also recently found what looked to be a nice laptop left in my building's recycling area
  Unless you left the Windows partition, I guess there _might_ be a chance you wiped out the honey pot...
Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Irate+Engineer · 2015-07-12 07:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

Just updated to Mint 17.2 and use MATE. Nice - it is a bit snappier. The only aggravation is the start menu still lags on first opening (a "paper cut" issue, but it's been around for a while).
I am a Windows XP EOL refugee that transitioned to Linux Mint last year (but I have used UNIX and Fedora at work for some time). At the time I had no idea what would be the best home desktop distro for me out of all the Linux distros available. Mint with MATE behaves a lot like XP; UI is similar enough that the transition from XP was very painless. I put a lot of different distros on a stick and checked them all out, and Mint/MATE worked for me.
This is one of the bigger problems preventing Linux desktop adoption IMO; there is an overwhelming number of Linux flavors, and very little guidance available as to what are the pros and cons of each, so casual users just suffer on with Windows because it is a simpler decision. Few really want to put in the effort to explore that whole ecosystem to find one that they like (and fewer know that they can even test the variants without installing), so Windows is the default experience.

--
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
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1. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  That's rather unfair. There's a large number of reviews of different Linux distros, chiefly focusing on the major ones (typically the likes of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint; Fedora; OpenSuSE; Mandrake/driva back in the day; Arch; Gentoo). These also tend to boil down to saying that if you're migrating from Windows and want a familiar experience, then Linux Mint is probably the way to go.
  Yes, the ecosystem is big (some might argue too big, but that depends on one's criteria) but if you look at the major ones, you're really choosing between a small number of ecosystems -- Debian based, Red Hat based, SuSE, or other -- and then choosing for user-friendliness vs configurability within that ecosystem. Since for an incomer looking for general desktop systems the ecosystem will typically matter not one jot, the discriminator becomes user-friendliness, and simply for willingness to provide reasonably straightforward access to closed-source binary drivers Mint is probably the easiest out of the box - though even the likes of Fedora make it pretty easy these days to get hold of what you want. Gone are the days of finding random RPMs of MP3 codecs, or building them from source.
2. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by gaiageek · 2015-07-12 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  The only aggravation is the start menu still lags on first opening (a "paper cut" issue, but it's been around for a while).
  Thanks for mentioning this. I've put Mint on a few old laptops since XP's EOL, and that start menu lag was a dealbreaker for me with Cinnamon. It really leaves a bad first impression, and frankly I hoped it would have been fixed by now.
  
  --
  www.gaiageek.com
3. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 12:40 · Score: 1
  
  So you're willing to disregard an entire system because there's a couple second delay that happens once after a system is booted?
  Whew, Windows users are a tough crowd to please.
4. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by jones_supa · 2015-07-12 17:50 · Score: 0
  
  Notice that the OP said that he experienced the lag under MATE, but the GP says he experienced it under Cinnamon! So there certainly are problems. I personally find the Cinnamon Start Menu lag to be extremely annoying and it gives an unprofessional impression. Surely a simple menu could be made work smoothly? Under Windows there is even live tiles in the Start Menu and it's still super responsive.
5. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 19:07 · Score: 0
  
  so casual users just suffer on with Windows
  This, coming from a guy who was still using Windows XP in 2014. Indeed, you were suffering and in many ways probably still are. But don't for a moment believe that most people are "suffering" with newer versions of Windows. To do so would be trolling.
6. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-13 01:19 · Score: 0
  
  You're right! My bad.
7. Re:Linux Mint 17.2 with MATE from Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-20 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  Meh, Windows users do not pick their OS, they just use whatever came with the hardware.
  The one thing that has held up Linux on the desktop is that the big OEMs, Dell, HP, etc, are heavily in bed with MS, and do not want to risk their razor thin margins by watching their bulk discounts on Windows resales evaporate.
  Get Linux out there on the store shelves in something other than a bottom of the barrel web terminal (damn it Intel, whats up with giving the Linux variant of the stick PC a quarter of the specs that Windows gets?!) and watch it get adopted.
my take by Anonymous Coward · 2015-07-12 09:14 · Score: 1

KDEnlive package (installing via apt-get post install) should be installing additional KDE libraries but aren't. So if you run the application, you can't open any files (or use any functionality that does file management/navigation, or it will crash). The tool bars miss icons and some would say "No Text".
The firefox version that gets installed has a bunch of nasty stuff that calls home to mozilla and google, than what previous versions did. Just do a about:config and search for "goog", "yahoo", "social", "face", and you'd see what I mean.
Systemd optional in 17.2 - will be required later by walterbyrd · 2015-07-12 14:03 · Score: 1

That is my understanding.
You will be assimilated - just like with Microsoft.
Maybe Devuan? by walterbyrd · 2015-07-12 14:06 · Score: 1

If they ever get a completed distro.
https://devuan.org/
Took the plunge .. ! by niks42 · 2015-07-13 08:00 · Score: 1

.. and it works, the upgrade path was so much easier than before; so far, it seems to be snappy, I haven't found anything (yet) that doesn't work - except the discovery above that the install doesn't by itself update GRUB, so it booted into a lovely command line first go.