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Linux Mint 19.2 'Tina' is On the Way, But the Developers Seem Defeated and Depressed (betanews.com)
Brian Fagioli, reporting for BetaNews: Today should be happy times for the Linux Mint community, as we finally learn some new details about the upcoming version 19.2! It will be based on Ubuntu 18.04 and once again feature three desktop environments -- Xfce, Mate, and Cinnamon. We even found out the code name for Linux Mint 19.2 -- "Tina." And yet, it is hard to celebrate. Why? Because the developers seem to be depressed and defeated. They even appear to be a bit disenchanted with Free Software development overall. Clement Lefebvre, leader of the Linux Mint project, shared a very lengthy blog post today, and it really made me sad.
He wrote, "For a team to work, developers need to feel like heroes. They want the same things as users, they are users, they were 'only' users to start with. At some stage they decide to get involved and they start investing time, efforts and emotions into improving our project. What they're looking for the most is support and happiness. They need feedback and information to understand bugs or feature requests and when they're done implementing something, they need to feel like heroes, they literally do, that's part of the reason they're here really." Upon publication of the article, Jason Hicks, Muffin maintainer and member of the Linux Mint team, corroborated the claims made by others.
He wrote, "For a team to work, developers need to feel like heroes. They want the same things as users, they are users, they were 'only' users to start with. At some stage they decide to get involved and they start investing time, efforts and emotions into improving our project. What they're looking for the most is support and happiness. They need feedback and information to understand bugs or feature requests and when they're done implementing something, they need to feel like heroes, they literally do, that's part of the reason they're here really." Upon publication of the article, Jason Hicks, Muffin maintainer and member of the Linux Mint team, corroborated the claims made by others.
I like how mint works so flawlessly, looks clean, and stays out of your way as a desktop. It's just never any surprise when I install it on any of my machines from tiny to large.
But perhaps the main reason I like it is that it both feels intuitive and the software manager takes a lot of the burdens of installing software and custom widgets that are always a pain to find, install, and maintain in Linux.
In short if they are not hearing from me it's because I have no complaints or suggestions.
For me it's the best distribution for getting work done not being a system admin or expert.
In that regard it reminds me of why I also use Mac OS on all my other computers.
Don't get me wrong I've worked with the uggly details of main different systems. Centos and Redhat on server farms. DSL and Slack on small underpowered machines. Raspian. as well as Debian and various flavors of ubuntu. None of these are terrible but Linux mint is the most seemless and least confusing interface.
So I have standardized on it to get work done and not tweak my linux boxes. All my employees use it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Just wanted to say I'm a devout Mint 19.1 user. Was a devout 17.x user, as well. I'd dabbled in the Linux world for many years, but it wasn't until Mint 15 or 16 (been a while now) that I finally made the move and dumped Windows. I never looked back. Even Ubuntu in it's heyday saw me dual booting...
;)
I really love the work these people do. I just hope they get as much satisfaction out of using their tools/programs as I do... If Mint died tomorrow I'm not sure I'd ever find another ~ . Sure you can graft Cinnamon on top of another Unix-like, but there's something about the whole software stack that has made it so I can't even consider another OS as a daily driver.
For what little it's worth, I'll hoist one to the Mint devs when I get home tonight. Heck, I might even make a donation
Sex. Drugs, and Unix.
Being on Slashdot, I too had shared the anti-systemd sentiment. All it took to turn me around was watching one Youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Caution: if you want to continue to happily rant about systemd on Slashdot, don't watch that video! You have been warned!
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
...And completely sane users who also hate systemd.
It's of course based on Ubuntu, so credit is due where credit is due.
But that said, they made it look and feel better, more inclusive bells'n'whistles for life and fun, and of course everyday use. As an old 10+ year slackware user and a big fan of it, I was at some point going "I'm too old for this fixing the boat, compiling this and compiling that" life, and wanted the comfortable life of windows users without the disk trashing, endless registry garbage, and constant threat of viruses, Now - Linux is by far not free from worms, exploits and viruses, but since there's still not that many using it, it has the "Apple effect" of having very little malware to bother your every day life.
The functionality of Mint Linux is nothing short of amazing. I have boxes that have been going on for years, heck - I just moved my previous Mint linux installation from my older computer to a new one (always updating religiously though), but with completely new hardware, worked straight out of the box, even with the proprietary Nvidia drivers and steam gaming, everything was like before, all installations, years of fun stuff installed - just worked (try that with Windows!)
Mint Linux put the FUN back in Linux, it's still Linux with all the control you'd ever want over your (and yes, I say YOUR) operating system, but without the control of the "man" and "corporate", you're as free as you want to be, and can have all the fun Windows users are having (without the constant crashes and dish trashes).
So consider this a small but humble THANK YOU - to the ENTIRE Mint Linux team, every contributor - thanks a million for your efforts, making our lives so comfortable we almost take you for granted, this is just how GOOD a job you did.
You usually never hear the praise - just all the complaints, once you hear nothing - you can be pretty darn sure your job was insanely well done, because people tend to forget to say "THANKS" when they're just enjoying their experience, but something break? You'll have a queue of complaints, right there at your doorstep.
So again - THANK YOU!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
That is the best kind of satire!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.