Slashdot Mirror
Linux Mint Hack Is an Indicator of a Larger Problem (techrepublic.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On February 20th, a hacker working under the handle 'Peace' took control of the website of Linux Mint, a popular Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu (and Debian) targeted toward non-technical users and power users unhappy with modern desktop environments. While these attacks are regrettable, and part of an infrastructure problem rather than a problem with the distribution itself, it increasingly appears that the Linux Mint team is spread too thin when it comes to security. The distribution itself blacklists updates that work perfectly in Ubuntu and Debian, and the graphical utilities don't update the kernel. Because the value added by Linux Mint is in Cinnamon, why do the developers need to distribute a broken version of Ubuntu when the Cinnamon DE could be distributed as an Ubuntu spin?
I think it means three things: "Why do people use Mint when Ubuntu is better in every way? Some people think the only answer is 'Cinnamon' . Ubuntu should port that over so they are the awesome and Mint can die"
I agree with your interpretation. I even (unlike you, probably) kind of agree with the original author's point. I would be pretty happy if the Ubuntu team offered Cinnamon as an alternative of Unity. But of course they never will, because they specifically developed Unity to replace Gnome in the first place, thus creating all this demand for Cinnamon and Linux Mint.
Linux Mint isn't just Ubuntu. They also provide Linux Mint Debian Edition, which is far superior, IMHO.
You mean like the Anonymous Coward who says "graphical utilities don't update the kernel"
This person should simply click the Mint update manager on their bar which brings up the graphical Update Manager Window. Then you click "View", and from that drop-down menu select "Linux Kernels". From there you can choose from all of the available kernels for Linux Mint.
I don't know about you, but that is certainly looks fairly graphical to me!
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
That's the value for me, it works out of the box for all the hardware I've used it on so far. Unlike Ubuntu which has issues of it's own lately for me. Before the hack hit I had Mint installed on an MSI laptop with and Nvidia card and the thing fired up out of the box with no issues. Only thing I had to do was turn off that secure boot garbage in the bios which was easy.
Maybe Mint isn't the ideal distribution for people and maybe it could be done better. Still it's doing things right enough for me to use it and run Steam on it with no issues for all the games that provide native Linux ports. Could Ubuntu do it? Maybe but I hate Unity and Gnome 3. I also don't want one of the side distributions because unlike Mint I feel like they're treated as second class from the main one.
Mint is Ubuntu with an additional repository that contains Cinnamon, and a different set of default packages. When I say Mint is Ubuntu with ..., I mean that literally, as in (for Rosa):
"Ubuntu Spin" is the term given to a variant of Ubuntu that's the result of a collaboration between Canonical and an interested community. For example, KUbuntu is a spin with KDE replacing Unity as the desktop.
So...
What the author is saying is given Mint is just Cinnamon + Ubuntu, why distribute this somewhat hacked together kludge, rather than collaborating with Canonical? If the two works together, then the "Mint" side would be able to build on Ubuntu in cooperation with Canonical, leaving "CUbuntu" to have the same advantages as other spins (for example, up to date releases, testing so that changes in one part of Ubuntu do not damage CUbuntu, etc) while still getting a Cinnamon desktop.
That's one solution, another is to get more people and disentangle the project from Ubuntu completely. It depends upon what the Mint team actually want.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
And the author is an ass. Mint includes, among other things, full multimedia support. Ubuntu does not have that. That's why it is very popular. Ubuntu made a choice not to include full multimedia support.
Oh for mod points. Amen.
"Non-technical users"? Fuck off. It's an OS that is designed to be used, not endlessly fiddled with. But for some self-appointed gatekeepers, that's somehow become an unbearable eternal-September thing for linux.
Probably codecs that Mint has but Ubuntu doesn't include by default for legal reasons
Encrypted DVDs don't play out of the box on Ubuntu, you have to manually install libdvd-pkg. Which admittedly isn't hard, but it is an extra step. And there may well be other codecs they don't support I'm not aware of.