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1 • Next Mint codename (by alexis on 2010-02-22 09:24:21 GMT from Ukraine)
I can't help but admire Mint's clear look, its speed and things. That is really a very nice implementation of Ubuntu. Gloria became my main OS for every-day use (besides Windows). I am looking forward for the 9th version of Mint, but am worried about its name chosen by its developers ("isadora"). Could you change it to some more neutral name, while "a gift from [a goddess by the name of] Isis" isn't what I (and many other people of the Christian ranks) feel comfortable with. Thank you.
2 • Serious? (by barCA at 2010-02-22 09:45:25 GMT from Denmark)
@1 - I am not using mint, but i just have to ask... Are you serious with your question, if you are, thanks for the laugh on a monday morning!
3 • distro jump (by abhifx on 2010-02-22 09:49:30 GMT from India)
although i haven't stopped jumping distros after using Linux mint. but yes, i do fall back to Linux mint as the main distro because its so easy and elegant that the distro has spoiled me :) . but i do keep my eyes on other distro's development. who knows which might turn better. sabayon is yet a very much personalized distro
4 • mint (by Tim on 2010-02-22 09:54:57 GMT from Australia)
I'm one of those distro-hoppers who has currently settled into Mint 8. I'm more of a KDE-type traditionally but I'm not yet happy with KDE4 as a primary desktop and Mint has done a lot to soften the edges of my Gnome aversion.
#1... really, you're threatened by Egyptian mythology now? Gah.
5 • Mint... (by Leroy at 2010-02-22 09:55:31 GMT from Serbia)
A lot of people seem to be talking about the look, for me, the look is what I like the least about Mint, including the menu. I go back to two panels and classic gnome menu. But this distribution truly is not "just Ubuntu" with codecs. Although, would that be considered a small deal, especially for someone who says they want to be friendly with new users (I'm looking at Ubuntu here)?
I find over and over that some programs simply work better in Mint, especially under Wine. I managed to launch some stuff I never could in Ubuntu. It also seems much more stable.
I think Ubuntu should take this guy on board and let him teach them a thing or two about how to make good desktop Linux, and then let's have one great winner distro.
6 • Mint 8 (by linux advocate on 2010-02-22 10:03:36 GMT from Australia)
Ever since Mint 8 came out, I have converted more windows users to Linux than I have done in all my previous years (since 1997).
This certainly says something about Mint 8. For those who are daring I also urge them to try out Mint 8 KDE.
I used to be a KDE user until KDE 4.0 I have then used gnome, but it is nice to have a choice and now I am going back to KDE 4.4 (great gui, thanks all of you KDE developers). It will be interesting to play with Gnome 3 when it comes out.
In the meantime I encourage all of you guys who love Linux with Gnome, KDE or any of the other GUIs to spread the word around and let the computer users see what they are missing out.
Linux (Power to the People)
7 • Mint and Distro Hopping. (by LarryJW on 2010-02-22 10:05:54 GMT from Norway)
I am very satisfied with Mint and while it has not completely stopped my distro hopping, it has greatly slowed it down. I still look through the new distros but I tend to compare them to Mint which is the Mint standard. With the bar raised that high, what happened is, while I use Windows off and on, my hopping in Linux is actually less than in Windows. This has saved money on CD's and DVD's and spares my hardware to a great degree.
8 • Mint for hopper (by oeb on 2010-02-22 10:12:09 GMT from United States)
I routinely use Mint's latest version to download and burn other distros I want to "sniff."
9 • re:1 (about Mint & Christians) (by Caraibes on 2010-02-22 10:16:02 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Alexis, I understand your feelings. I recommend you not to use Mint, as there are issues when it comes to political statements, leading to some alliances you don´t want to be part. Just use Ubuntu, you´ll have mostly the same anyway... Don´t be lead astray by scoffers on this comment sections. They can´t really fathom our issues...
A neutral distro is the right answer for you.
10 • Neutral (by donegal martin on 2010-02-22 10:42:02 GMT from United States)
@ 1 & 9
From Paul to Saul a name is but a name and does not embody or define the person or thing.
11 • #1 (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 10:51:40 GMT from France)
What about Ubuntu Christian Edition? Looks like the right choice for you.
Anyway, it's libre software so I believe you can change the name anywhere it appears in the distro. You can still suggest the author to change the name but distrowatch is not the right place for that. You should open a feature request, or go the Mint forum and talk with the authors.
12 • Mint & Religious People (by Dylan on 2010-02-22 10:54:17 GMT from Ireland)
Regarding the Mint codenames there is nothing religious or anti-religious about them. Its just a name... they could call it apples if they wanted as its only a simple codename.
Anyway I have found that although Mint makes things even easier with codecs, I just don't like some of the extras they added.
In order for me to have the perfect Linux I will probably create my own customized Ubuntu. Ubuntu is almost perfect for me, but not quite there yet.
13 • Mint 8 saved the day (by Vista to Mint story on 2010-02-22 10:55:39 GMT from United States)
My main PC with Vista was crippled by malware and a nasty virus while doing some simple web surfing Friday evening. Knowing how much it will take to recover it, I fired up a 6 year old PC and put Mint 8 on it. This distro is amazing! All hardware was properly detected during the install. My scanner that has not worked since Vista works flawlessly on Mint. Yes, I am re-building my Vista PC for work purposes but I have now made my Mint box my main machine.
14 • No more distro hopping - and Xfce (by Charles on 2010-02-22 11:01:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Don't forget Mint's Xfce edition which I use as my main desktop - and yes, Mint has ended my distro-hopping days. I occasionally try out another distro from Linux Format but have settled down to easy use of Linux with Mint. It works!!!
15 • Linux Mint (by Frog on 2010-02-22 11:03:05 GMT from United States)
As a profuse distro hopper, I like to keep trying every thing new that comes around.
Of course by doing so, I have harmed my mind in more ways then can be imagined.
I like Mint very much and I do from time to time head on back home to it. Did I just say that? Yea I guess I did. Heh!
But, do I compare other distros to Mint? Well I guess I am guilty and I do that alot.
Mint is a top quality distro. Nothing CAN compare to it. That isn't to say there aren't any other good distros around.
If I WERE to say that:
1. I'd be a liar
2. Everyone would know that I am full of bullsh**! (Which I do tend to be anyways, or so others may tell you that. :P )
I frequent their forum alot and have found that they ARE the kindest people you could ever associate with. Bar none!
So yea, Linux Mint HAS spoiled me, but I will ALWAYS try out other distros and I WILL continue to compare them to 1 awesome distro called: Linux Mint!!!
~Froggy~
16 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-22 11:04:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #1
You are perhaps confusing yourself ref the name "Isadora"...everyone else knew instantly it was a reference to Isadora Duncan, "and you don't need me to remind you of who she was".
Ref #9.
If you have issues with religious themes or what you conceive to be an (ir)religious theme, then I can only recommend deep introspection on your part.
In any event alexis should be more tolerant of other religious groups...GNULinux is for the entire planet, not for religious minorities.
Mint is the same distro, whatever it is called, (please refer to well known Shakespearean saying on the topic of scent and roses...).
If you still have issues with "names", and their connotations, then I would suggest this is merely the tip of the iceberg.
17 • Linux Mint Recommendation (by Scott on 2010-02-22 11:08:16 GMT from United States)
For all of you who purchased a Dell with Ubuntu preloaded, please give Mint a try. After trying a few non-Ubuntu distributions, I settled on Mint and haven't looked back. My wireless worked out of the box with it and no problems to report for many months.
Just an opinion: Dell should've put Mint on their Inspiron 15n units. In my case, it made switching to Linux from Mac much easier.
18 • Mint (by Sprint955 ,Belgium on 2010-02-22 11:12:25 GMT from Belgium)
Mint is really a "stopper" when it comes to hopping distro's.
I have been using mint sinds Cassandra now, and kept it with Gnome it is more direct to the point, and feels more stable.
The Mint 7 is my favourite one, but for some people who don't like the look of Mint Gnome, i borrowed the Zen theme from PclinuxOs and installed into Mint .
I use the Zen Dark with the window border Zen light, it looks great.
Even the Zen (KDE) menu is available.
I have been trying for about 70 different distro's, and some of the biggest distro's are just not that good compared to Mint.
Also i installed a lot of KDE apps into Gnome wich work beautifull .
The sad point is that for newbies like me who do not know all the terminal tricks, get not the support they could use on forums , and i mean this in general on all distro's !
Ask a question and it , or gets deleted or never answered, very seldom you get a response, why ?
This should get better, so a lot more people can understand and use Linux to its full capacity.
19 • Distro-hopping (by Jordan Clarke on 2010-02-22 11:14:46 GMT from Australia)
It's funny how this came up at such and appropriate time - today I was installing openSUSE 11.3 M2, but after installation all I got was a blank screen (well, it is alpha software). So I reinstalled Mint 8 on my new laptop, just like I had done two days ago!
It won't stop me distro-hopping (I doubt anything will... except perhaps Debian testing, sidux, or Arch, once I'm no longer a n00b), but Mint 8 is a fantastic fallback! I'm loving it!
20 • Mint? A quoi bon? (by Béranger on 2010-02-22 11:20:48 GMT from Romania)
As long as Mint can't fix Ubuntu's bugs (cause it's based on it), it's almost... uh... sorry, worthless for the seasoned Linux user.
21 • What's in a distro's names (by Carl at 2010-02-22 11:33:55 GMT from Spain)
For Deity's sake. All of you that cannot stand the name that was chosen for Mint. DON'T USE THE DISTRO. It's just an OS, not a way of life.... You guys must be miffed that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in a spacecraft called Apollo. Really... I would have thought the tribulations of this world called for something more serious than freaking out over a name.
22 • No more hopping (by Daba on 2010-02-22 11:34:24 GMT from Luxembourg)
I tried a lot of distros, and then I discovered Mint 7.
Next I tried the latest Fedora, Ubuntu, PCLOS, and finally Mint 8. Now I stick to Mint and I know the reason why.
23 • Linux mint & Israel (by Ohad Basan on 2010-02-22 11:37:52 GMT from Israel)
Mint is a wonderful distro but since the Anti-Israeli post in the linux mint blog, I can't get myself to use it.
24 • No more hopping? (by OliverBerlin on 2010-02-22 11:44:10 GMT from Germany)
Linux Mint is very good, but there ist no need to stop distro-hopping.
The evolution continues...
25 • Mint rocks (by Robert on 2010-02-22 12:02:45 GMT from United States)
Yes, I have completely stopped "distro-hopping" on the desktop since I found Linux Mint. It's the distro of choice when I go out to conquer Windows users.
Will donate to this project very soon.
I
26 • Salvation or Satan (by Derrick Chapman on 2010-02-22 12:07:58 GMT from United States)
So Mint is either the Holy Grail to cure distro-hopping or a plot to subvert Christianity. Methinks they doth hype too much.
27 • Mint 8 and ... (by randy on 2010-02-22 12:12:43 GMT from United States)
Mint 8 is a very well put together environment and has done well with making a GNOME environment easy to deal with even though i still prefer the KDE 3.5 environment. Like many others have already said, i hate KDE 4. I have always preferred Mepis and PCLinuxOS. I found Sabayon to be a great package, but not my preference. I will say i have not stopped hopping, as i continue to look for something better, but Mint has done a great job in putting a well put together and managed environment for the novice as well as the general user. My only complaint is the Ubuntu bloated overhead that i think could be lighter. Mint Xfce may be the better choice for better results in performance. Overall, Mint is right now pretty hard to beat, but that does not stop me from looking at other potential alternatives.
randysvh
28 • @1 and all: seeing with other eyes (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 12:16:20 GMT from Brazil)
What about Linux (and Unices) having "daemons" running inside the box? Not one, but a lot... I heard a story about a guy who didn't run Unix just because that fact. So, would running Windows be the only acceptable choice, because they are named "services", and not "daemons"?
Seriously, I don't think a Linux distro name can change your personal commitments - mine, too - unless you'd allow to. There are some many real "evils" in the world - let's say, money and power in bad hands, drugs, some TV shows; and their daughters and sons: poverty, undevelopment, lack of justice, the coming ecological catasthrophe. Let's focus on real things. I think Linux is not part of this.
29 • archlinux (by archuser at 2010-02-22 12:51:47 GMT from Serbia)
When will you put archlinux into major distributions.I don't know why are slackware or gentoo better distro's than arch.I think you should watch rankings,and more listen users.
30 • mint for new comers (by mint user on 2010-02-22 12:54:06 GMT from India)
Linux mint is easier on new comers and i have previously tried to introduce ubuntu to users who had never known alternatives to microsoft exist but it has been a pain to introduce ubuntu to users with no internet connection and they would reject it for various reasons such as its not able to play multimedia, it is uglier and if they would want to use ubuntu it is only for its fast bootup ,faster performance compared to vista and not needing to maintain an anti-virus, etc but after mint has arrived it has been more easier to convert people to linux and people continue using it as it is better in areas where ubuntu lacks.
AND for #1 there are far more important problems to address than a name, its like saying i dont like the name of #1 being posted here as its not neutral.Would you not use your name here?
31 • Mint or not to Mint? (by rich on 2010-02-22 12:54:52 GMT from United States)
Mint is a wonderful distro.I've used both Gnme and the latest KDE versions. Desipte some small issues I am back to Ubuntu on 3 of my 4 computers and Mint Gnome is on the 4th. I will still distro hop as newer versions of all distro's come out in search for the 'near' perfect OS distribution a hopeful remedy for my software insanity.
Rich :)
32 • forum? (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 13:01:09 GMT from United States)
"One comment that comes up a lot on the DistroWatch forum..."
There's a forum?
33 • Mint's code names... (by Kevin C. at 2010-02-22 13:02:55 GMT from United States)
IIRC, Clem names the various incarnations after female relatives...I'm pretty sure the early ones were named after his daughter(s). If this is not so, I'm sure the names are not selected with some nefarious purpose in mind...actually this entire subject is one of the silliest I've seen here in quite some time.
34 • Mint (by Jesse at 2010-02-22 13:03:02 GMT from Canada)
It didn't seem appropriate for the article, but I've also converted my main desktop machine over to Mint. It's been a breath of fresh air.
35 • Mint works well for me except... (by TomG at 2010-02-22 13:04:22 GMT from United States)
I love Mint, and keep trying to use it, however I have an older ATI Radeon 3200 card and for some reason Ubuntu has issues with it. If I can fix that for certain, Mint will definitely become my permanent distribution. I've tried, but can't nail down a solution that solves it for good.
But, Mint does have everything I want in a Linux distribution. No complaints at all from me.
36 • Mint, Mint, Mint, Yes !!! (by Francky on 2010-02-22 13:04:56 GMT from France)
(French)
Sans Ubuntu, je n'aurais jamais réussi à venir au monde Linux,
et aujourd'hui je suis séduit pas Mint.
C'est trop tranquille, facile, et je le recommande avec bonheur à plein de gens.
Prof, je vais l'installer comme OS pour mes élèves ...
Gros point positif : préparer (en graphique) des installations de paquets,
et tout balancer d'un coup : cool.
Je suis anticlérical convaincu, et le nom isadora ne me dérange pas,
en revanche je trouve que #1 a un grain, qu'il reste avec sa Gloire.
(poor english)
Without Ubuntu, I couldn't came to Linux'world.
Now, I'm a Mint'user, very happy.
It's too easy, i recommende it 100% for begginers who have at less a 512Mb machine.
I'm a teacher, i will install mint for my student, for work in classroom.
Great point : You can prepare several software install (in graphic mode) and install them all in only clic and big wait (ubuntu can't whith the new soft'manag)
Religious is boring me, but the name isadora and the egyptian god inside is ok for me. I think that #1 is ridiculous ...
37 • Mint 8 KDE (by KenP on 2010-02-22 13:19:30 GMT from United States)
I do want to try Linux Mint 8 KDE out but the only thing stopping me is the DVD size download. Can't I download a LiveCD that has an installer, like Ubuntu? I don't mind cherry picking software to install off the net but its criminal waste of my broadband to try and download the entire DVD.
To cut a long story short, is there a CD (~700Mb) download as opposed to DVD one for Mint?
38 • Religious distros (by Gene Venable on 2010-02-22 13:19:37 GMT from United States)
After reading the first comment, I would be interested in acquiring 666 Linux, if there were such a thing!
In the meantime, I think Linux Mint is a great fallback distro; I often hop over to Linux Mint if I run into unexpected problems elsewhere.
39 • Mint rocks (by Brian at 2010-02-22 13:21:41 GMT from Canada)
Mint, Mepis, Pardus, PClinux, Debian, Sabayon, and Mandriva all have permanent places on my machine. Mint and Mepis are my two main distros with PClinux coming in a very close third. Both are rock solid and as good as things get in the Linux world roght now. I still have extra hard drives for distro hopping - there's no way I will ever give that habit up :)
40 • DVD size (by Jesse at 2010-02-22 13:26:24 GMT from Canada)
@37
You could download the light edition CD and then download the KDE desktop. I tested the process on my laptop and it saved a few hundred MB.
41 • alinux, superOS, and mint (by hotdiggettydog on 2010-02-22 13:26:33 GMT from Netherlands)
I see where alinux is back on the scene with a new beta. I remember the Peanut releases and they were ahead of the times. Good luck to alinux and welcome back.
Mint is awesome.
I'm finding SuperOS pretty nice. Sure, its ubuntu but it comes with everything configured and most codecs plus a few nice additions. Good stuff.
42 • Mint and Distro Hopping (by shaney on 2010-02-22 13:28:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have been a serial distro hopper for a long time and although I spent time with a few, there was always something missing or something not quite right, stopping it being perfect.
I tried Mint at the tail end of the Mint 6 cycle and was impressed enough to try 7 and it turned out to be the most hassle free distro I have used.
EVERYTHING worked and I even put it on the missus laptop and at that time it was the only distro I had found that worked with her wireless card out of the box.
I found no reason to try another distro though I am now thinking of trying one or two out to see how they compare after this time.
The main highlight for me is the MintMenu, I love it.
The one downside, I always preferred rolling releases like PCLinuxOS and Debian Sid and the bi-annual re-install can be a drag (dist-upgrade isn't recommended).
43 • Mint and what it is.l (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-22 13:31:31 GMT from United States)
As far as LinuxMint goes its a great distro for new users.and a good distro for experienced users. As far as codecs and other out of the box goodies are concerned they are irrelevant. If they are not present, for most distros they can be downloaded with a few mouse clicks. You don't need to be installing a linux distro if you don't know how to find and install codecs and all the extras. That's just my opinion. I usually put LinuxMint on someones computer when they want to try out linux. I just wish the theme and menu system was just not so butt ugly. Also the update system needs a lot of work. They never have been able to utilize Synaptic properly so I understand why they want to get rid of it and do a complete update system rewrite. Of course Synaptic can be too much for new users. As far as the other flavors of Mint, LInuxMint 5 KDE CE was the last good Kde flavor and I haven't tried the others so I can't comment on them. Furthermore the base of Mint is Ubuntu so they will follow the same direction that Ubuntu does.
For anyone who asks, I do have both installed on my computer and I do use both so I am commenting from my experience.
44 • Distro hopping is well and alive. (by MK on 2010-02-22 13:42:26 GMT from Israel)
The guy that suggested Mint will stop users from distro hopping is way out of reach. Diversity, freedom, and distro hopping are all parts of the Linux culture, and I don't see what Mint has to do with changing that. I've been using Ubuntu for the past three years, but am still interested in other distros.
Don't get me wrong, Mint is nice. That said, the distro is haunted be the political controversy sparked by the developer, and by the bugs inherited from upstream.
45 • Distro Hopping? (by John on 2010-02-22 14:02:28 GMT from United States)
I'm not a fan of KDE4 and Mint's repositories are lacking. I don't know if this is because of KDE4 or because of Mint. I could also do without the Dolphin file manager. Honestly, there's a lot of customization available with other distros that Mint (or KDE4 or Dolphin) doesn't permit.
46 • distro hopping (by mmp on 2010-02-22 14:03:57 GMT from Italy)
well, actually i'm on ubuntu on two machines since 6.06, and sticking... but on my eeepc i am a frequent changer, well, hooper? hopper? hooper?
47 • Distro Hopping? (by John on 2010-02-22 14:07:38 GMT from United States)
Let me rephrase comment #45. You can customize it, but there's no reason you should have to jump through so many hoops to get it done. KDE4 is/was/and for awhile to come, a giant step backwards.
48 • No subject (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 14:12:09 GMT from Ukraine)
@Jesse Smith:
How could you forget about relatime? Don't you know about it?
49 • my favourite pass time (by Likes2Hop on 2010-02-22 14:12:26 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
I toy a lot with operating systems, its like a sport for me, but when i bumped into mint i started thinking of retiring and enjoying the easy life :), nah just kidding, but mint has a permanent partition in my hard disk, heart and mind ;)
50 • The real ending of distro hopping - only if you do it by yourself !!! (by Randy Andy on 2010-02-22 14:23:58 GMT from United States)
Sometime any customized distro came to the point where you dislike something. That's the point where you started to hopp again also from Mint, cause non is faultless, or has the same flavor. To break this, you have to do it by your own for your invidual need and taste, if you're not one of these oblivious cows, an you are willing to invest a little more time to learn how things work. If you are willing to do so, you should choose a distro to give you the most of choice and freedom to customize anything you want. The your everlasting seach come to an happy end.
More arguments which distro you should choose, to make it realize you found on the url above.
If you want to see a Distro done right, compile it yourself!
51 • Distro hopping (by Glen Wilson on 2010-02-22 14:26:01 GMT from United States)
I have developed definite bovine tendencies since I started using Mint several versions ago. I have also found that this is the first Linux distro that people new to Linux seem to easily adapt to. I think Mint is very clean and orderly, but why it is that much more acceptable to Linux virgins is a bit of a mystery to me. It may just be that they can tell that I am extremely confident about setting them up with Mint because I know it is reliable and well thought out. My distro-hopping now is concentrated on distros that work well with older, slower machines. I have found that the size of the distro ISO often has little to do with how well some distros work on, for example, very old laptops. In fact, Mint actually loads and runs on many of these old machines though it is a bit too slow for daily use and may take forever to load. To me, the fact that it does eventually chug along to a working system on these dinosaurs is a great testament to the Mint developers. Straight Ubuntu usually cannot achieve this result. Anyway, Mint is tops in my book for everyday use on any system built with what was considered average hardware capabilities in the past ten years. (For my dinosaurs, AntiX, WattOS, and Dreamlinux seem to do very well including wireless setup.)
52 • The real ending of distro hopping - only if you do it by yourself !!! (by Randy Andy on 2010-02-22 14:27:50 GMT from United States)
Sometime any customized distro came to the point where you dislike something. That's the point where you started to hopp again also from Mint, cause non is faultless, or has the same flavor. To break this, you have to do it by your own for your invidual need and taste, if you're not one of these oblivious cows, an you are willing to invest a little more time to learn how things work. If you are willing to do so, you should choose a distro to give you the most of choice and freedom to customize anything you want. The your everlasting seach come to an happy end.
More arguments which distro you should choose, to make it realize you found on the url above.
If you want to see a Distro done right, compile it yourself!
Sorry for the post above, wrong URL
53 • @35 (TomG): old(er) ATI Radeon cards and OpenGL (by cba at 2010-02-22 14:30:03 GMT from Germany)
"however I have an older ATI Radeon 3200 card and for some reason Ubuntu has issues with it"
This is related to a regression in mesa 7.6 and above: I use an old ATI Radeon 7500 card and with Ubuntu Karmic or OpenSuse 11.2 (both distros were released with mesa 7.6.x) OpenGL is not working anymore for such old Radeon cards. Torcs and Google Earth crash right from the start. And as Mint Helena is Ubuntu Karmic-based, it shows the same bug, too.
OpenGL with these old Radeon cards will work again if you uninstall the Ubuntu Karmic mesa packages and install the Jaunty mesa packages in Karmic afterwards.
The same procedure works with OpenSuse 11.2: You have to use the mesa package from the OpenSuse 11.1 update repositories.
Most distros that were released around the same timeframe share the same bugs, in this case Ubuntu Karmic, OpenSuse 11.2 and Mint Helena and many others.
54 • re: #1 & #9 (by free me from this evil spirit on 2010-02-22 14:30:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you for alerting me to the fact that Linux Mint is actually a covert plot to convert the world back to goddless paganism.
I will be removing Linux Mint from my computer and have my hard drive exercised of evil spirits and blessed by the local priest.
No superstitious nonsense for me!
55 • Distro hopping and Mint (by William Burke on 2010-02-22 14:32:13 GMT from United States)
I started using Red Hat long before there was a Fedora. I have always been drawn to Linux because it was a challenge and forced me to use my mind. I have tried practically every Distro on this site over the past years. I have hopped with the best of them. Having said that, Linux Mint is my favorite. Maybe my age is catching up with me; the challenges that pulled me into using Linux are not as exciting today as they used to be.
Using Mint will never be compared to using Windows as far as I'm concerned. I started using Windows with version 3.1. It was lousy. It's still lousy. For some people; Windows is a great solution, just not me. My opinion is that Mint is the best for me at this time and probably into the future. But, I will always keep my options open and keep watching the other Distros. Linux is always changing - is always in flux. Some Distro might knock Mint of the top of the mountain one day. If it happens, I'll be ready to hop to it.
56 • Distro Hopping (by dragonmoputh on 2010-02-22 14:35:48 GMT from United States)
Mr. Lynch at Extreme Tech makes one big assumption. He assumes that distro hopping is caused by a search for something better. Perhaps for a number of Linux users it is. However, a large segment of the Linux community distro hops because they just like to try different distros. Distro hopping is like bar or restaurant hopping. You may find one that becomes your favorite but that does not stop you from going to others. Also, there is a segment of the Linux community that, like the gunfighters of the Old West, like to put notches on their guns(PCs). They just want to see how many different distros they can try.
@#1: If "Isadora" ruffles your feathers because if its etymology, then I'm sure you are horrified at Devil Linux, arguably one of the better firewall distros. As someone already suggested, you can use Ubuntu Christian Edition or you can boycott Linux altogether. BTW - do you boycott Proctor & Gamble products because of their "satanic" corporate symbol?
57 • Mint and Ubuntu (by Paul at 2010-02-22 14:37:10 GMT from United States)
My parents, my son, my wife, two co-workers, and my in-laws all using Mint 8. (my one CD has gotten a workout!) Mint's out of the box install is simple, and the level 1 and 2 updates are all I put on their machines - stable and no viruses.
I think it has been interesting to see how Ubuntu has actually changed a bit to resemble Mint...Ubuntu software center as an example. I personally use falko's Ubuntu howtoforge setup instead of Mint on my desktop as I prefer to tinker a bit, but Mint is a wonderful distro.
58 • Is pclinuxos really a rolling distro? (by robert on 2010-02-22 14:39:33 GMT from United States)
@42
Regarding PCLINUXOS....is it really a rolling release?
I never understood that, although I did donate a while back but removed it from my harddisk.
59 • Distro Hopping??? (by Randy on 2010-02-22 14:43:58 GMT from United States)
I have used somewhere over 25 distro's so far in my life of linux. Mint 8 is good but im more interested in their fluxbox edition then the main edition. I settled on Arch Linux. It is simply great for customization to the users needs and wants. It runs lean and fast with openbox and other lightweight applications. But I will always be looking out for other distributions.
60 • Linux Mint and Distro Hopping (by Chatioc Techie on 2010-02-22 14:52:41 GMT from United States)
I some what agree that Mint has stopped me from "hopping" and has been my primary OS since Elyssa. While I do still test many distros, it is done mostly in Virtualbox.
When I was first introduced to Linux desktops (Fedora 6), I was a huge fan of Fedora yet tried many different distros. I am comfortable with Linux and enjoy tinkering under the hood, but since I used PCLOS 2007, i realized that most of the tinkering was unnecessary. PCLOS to me, set a higher standard of what I expected from a free Open Source OS; however due to the lack of development, I decided to start the hopping again.
Then I tried Linux Mint 5 (Elyssa) and never looked elsewhere. I was so pleased with the ease of use and speed of the distro and loved the out-of-the-box experience. I have tried nearly every major (and some obscure) distros, and none of them even compare to Mint IMHO.
I use to be a huge fan of KDE 3.5, but could not stand KDE 4. Recently I tried Mint 8 CE KDE and I must admit I am starting to really like this version. Needless to say the KDE version has found a home on my HDD, it is both beautiful and functional. Nice work!
Thanks to Clem and the community for putting together another awesome experience.
61 • Mint 8 ( Distro hopping...... (by Klaus Staack on 2010-02-22 14:59:14 GMT from Canada)
I try now 8 years different Distros. openSUSE, Fedora, Mint, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Kubuntu etc. But with time the hardware is getting older and you are happy, when you have one good working Distro and jumping from one Distro to the next makes no sense at all anymore. Why should I buy a new Computer when my old Box is working ?! Bye Bye to Windows. Windows 7 ist not more running fast enough on my hardware. So now I prefer Mint 8, Fedora and PCLinuxOS ( not more so good then years before ).
Klaus.
62 • mount option "relatime" (by Jesse at 2010-02-22 15:02:49 GMT from Canada)
For those who read post 48 and wondered what "relatime" is, it's very similar to the "noatime" option mentioned in this week's Q&A. Like "noatime", it prevents the system from updating the access time of a file. The difference is that if the file has been modified since the last access time, then the access time is updated. This can be a handy balance for those few programs that require access time information, without causing the system to update all access times. It has a fairly narrow purpose and most home users will probably be better served with "noatime".
63 • Devian and Ubuntu and Mint (by lefty.crupps on 2010-02-22 15:09:55 GMT from United States)
> Unlike what Canonical does with Debian, we do
> not fork the Ubuntu repositories or break
> compatibility with our base distribution.
I wish Mint would base itself on Debian Testing; that would give it the longer-release-cycle that it wants as well as a much more stable base and a larger community (although, a smaller Desktop-oriented community perhaps, and a whole lot less newbies writing HowTos for each other, which I admit is very useful). It is nice to see that they have something for Debian planned though; we'll have to see what it is and how it works out.
64 • Linux Mint (by aen on 2010-02-22 15:10:16 GMT from United States)
Currently use Linux Mint 7 XFCE community edition on both generic desktop PC and older IBM Thinkpad A30. It works flawlessly on both computers. My wife uses the Thinkpad to get on the internet via wireless home network. She is very novice in her ability but has no problems using the OS.
Was Ubuntu fan for several years - tried Mint XFCE and liked it much better for a number of reasons - especially speed of performance of their XFCE version vs. XUbuntu.
Can see no reason to change. Patiently waiting on Mint XFCE 8 version to arrive.
Occassionally use MacPup 3 for just browsing and e-mail. Another great minimal distro - but not as robust as Mint.
65 • Debian 6.0 (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 15:21:52 GMT from Italy)
Debian just released he first alpha of the Squeeze installer?
Wasn't Squeeze itself supposed to be released on December 2009?
Now it will be at least December 2010, I'd imagine.
66 • thanks (to #53) ! (by TomG at 2010-02-22 15:38:35 GMT from United States)
Hey just wanted to say thanks to cba from Germany. I'll give your solution a try this week.
67 • RE: 1 & 9 et al. (by Sam on 2010-02-22 15:43:19 GMT from United States)
First, my wife, an ordained minister, has been using Linux Mint on her laptop for almost two years now. I'll have to let her know it makes Jesus cry. Second, "Isadora" is a Pagan name unfit for Christians to use? I bet Saint Isadore (the masculine form of the name) must truly have hated himself.
68 • No subject (by VPR at 2010-02-22 15:44:53 GMT from Venezuela)
I tend to agree because it was happening to me when I installed LinuxMint 5 some time ago. But I then started distro hopping again. I love to experiment and try new things. So I now have one work computer with Ubuntu 9.10 and many VirtualBox computers with Mint8KDE, Arch, Mandriva, and anything else interesting that comes along.
69 • Mint as hopper-stopper? (by Arve Eriksson on 2010-02-22 15:52:46 GMT from Iceland)
For my part, I suppose Mint ended my distro-hopping for my laptop - it was, simply put, good enough, familiar (running Ubuntu on my desktop) and didn't stop booting with kernel-upgrades (I don't know why, but that always happens for me with Fedora and Mandriva - currently testing that through VBox to see if I can reverse the trend, though :-) ). At the moment, I'm interested in reliability, and Mint simply provides. I expect that applies to other Debian-/Ubuntu-based distributions as well, but Mint was first in line out of those on this computer.
(So effin' what if I shouldn't do kernel upgrades? :-p )
70 • Linux Mint ends "distro hopping" (by Leo on 2010-02-22 15:56:58 GMT from Indonesia)
YES, VERY TRUE!! For ten years I have been hopping from one distro to another. And almost never used those distro other than trying out.
But since I found Mint 7, and installed it on my system I don't try other distros anymore. Now my office only uses Mint 7 and Mint 8. There is absolutely no place for Windows!
Mint is absolutely great! Very complete system and it just works!
Leo from Indonesia, Batam Island.
71 • Poisoning of Ubuntu (by Tom at 2010-02-22 15:59:43 GMT from Denmark)
First Canonical stuffed a lot of MONO dependent programs into *buntu, then they took GIMP out and now they've hired Matt Asay.
Something's afoot and this is a hot topic with wide implications for the, currently, most visible Linux distro. Any chance of DWW taking this up?
72 • Mint Look (by Supernatendo at 2010-02-22 16:01:14 GMT from United States)
Unlike most of the commentators here I tend to like the look and feel of Ubuntu over that of Mint. The brown color is more professional looking IMHO and when I boot up Ubuntu 9.04 and up with the improved gnome login screen I get a lot of inquiries about where I got that "Windoze theme pack" lol.
Colors and themes do not a better Linux distro make... A lot of people prefer simplistic designs to the sometimes distracting colors and layouts chosen by other distros.
It has always been very easy to customize GNOME and I don't understand why newcomers who migrated to Gnome after KDE 4 are so shocked that you can put your own personal touch on GNOME to make it look even better than KDE...
Also, IMHO, it is good to not have the proprietary codecs by default, it has helped me find the open standards which, on top of being higher quality, fit better with my free software mentality, and I hope it does the same for others out there, but I do understand why an inexperienced and uninformed computer user would not be able to make the distinction between operating system quality and the proprietary codecs they provide.
73 • End of "distro hopping" (by Sitwon on 2010-02-22 16:03:09 GMT from United States)
I have been using the same distro for almost a decade now. Does that make me boring? Maybe. But I also know "Linux" in general better than those so-called geeks who hop form one live CD to the next never getting more than a superficial glance at what their system is really capable of.
Distro hopping is just stupid and I advice new Linux users to pick one distro and stick to it for at least a year before installing anything else.
74 • Hopper-Stoppers (by Georgios on 2010-02-22 16:22:45 GMT from Greece)
I am with Linux since 2002. I was distro-hopping all the time, except 2004-2008 when I settled with Ubuntu (4.10 through 8.04). I felt that Ubuntu was becoming more and more bloated and slow, so I returned to Debian testing (work computer, and home media center). My netbook runs Arch since last summer, and I am really impressed with its stability, speed, and simplicity (despite being a cutting edge disto). The funny thing is that Arch appears to need less tweaking than Debian testing.
For non-geek people who just want things to work and do not enjoy tweaking, though, I understand why Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora/OpenSuse/Mandriva are better alternatives.
75 • ...Linux Mint... Why it is n o t Windows, but should struggle for Mainstream.. (by Christian Oelte on 2010-02-22 16:45:04 GMT from Germany)
Hallo To You All !
I adopted Computer use really lately, only at age 33, in 2001, typing first attemps on the keyboard of the Win98-Box of my girlfriend. Besides, I used ATARI-STe for musical (recording-)purposes. In the Windows-world I was plounging in trying-out every freeware-program for music-signal-processing and -mastering I could find. It was fun, I really learned very much about computers-inside, because my system crashed very, very often. In fact, I can't count the numerous times, I had to set-up my system again and again. When adapting XP, the frequence slowed down a little, but my system very quickly becomes slower and slower (the well-known Windows-obesity-effect). I tried out a lot of Registry-thinnig-tools and finally spent so much time in caring about the basic working of my system, that I had to admint to myself that i reached a point of ineffectivity. Since 2004 I began distrohopping, but always gave up when I had to hit the command-line too often. Of course, I know, that you can do very well only using the command-line, but hey - learning to point-and-click on two computer-systems (Atari-TOS and Windows) is enough for me ! I'd like to u s e computers, not p r o g r a m them !! Projects like INX (http://inx.maincontent.net/) are great, but for everyday-use and beyond I'm so happy to have found Linux Mint. I always compared the actual version with the one of it's mother Ubuntu, but always had to decide for the minty-touch. The phrase "out-of-the-box" is no longer a dead slogan. I don't understand why there should be a problem of co-existence with other, more technically-bleeding-edge distributions, I can only doubt this is a matter of envy. I've to say thanx to all the developpers of all the distributions I tried out, even when it's only for this little moment of suspense 'will it work or not...' A special 'Thank You' to the Mint-Team, who helped me ending my search.
Have a nice day & excuse my bad english (sitting in Mainz, Germany writing these lines...
76 • PC-BSD 8.0 (by Ronald Gibson on 2010-02-22 16:58:06 GMT from United States)
I saw a link on Saturday for PC-BSD 8.0 on the list of new releases and downloaded it. Now the link is gone. I'll try it out anyway.
77 • Not likely (by Gh0stly on 2010-02-22 17:02:50 GMT from United States)
I will never be content to use a single distro. Some distros are good for server class and others are good for desktop. Some are better for people with limited computer experience. Ubuntu I would choose for the least experienced such as a child or the 50+ age group. Mint I would choose for the 14-35 age group. But really what it comes down to for me as of this very moment is the first stable distro to come out with the full version of KDE 4.4 will be my distro of choice. I love the Windows 7 UI and I love the stability and safety of Linux. KDE 4.4 successfully marries the two together. As for the server side of things I have found none better than CentOS 5. In fact almost all my customers request this distro as well. So I doubt we will see anyone just content to use one distro except the end user.
78 • Mint (by Joe at 2010-02-22 17:16:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
I currently use Linux Mint as my main distro, but this has far from stopped me from distro hopping. I'm still testing new distro's all the time, even more so now, as Mint offers a nice safe fallback to return to if something goes wrong.
79 • Mint Linux 8 (by C Martel on 2010-02-22 17:26:35 GMT from United States)
Support for bcm43xx still seems rather mysterious, although I will not look askance at a free distro.
Tried using Windows XP and PclinuxOS drivers with Ndiswrapper with little positive results.
Not exactly a newbie with Linux distros, but would appreciate a more straight forward approach to wireless detection and configuration.
Most thankful for this open product.
80 • Linux Mint - A Better Way of Doing Things! (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-22 17:27:49 GMT from United States)
Great review of Linux Mint this week, plus the lead in interview with Clem was quite informative. Like many others I first wandered into the then relatively constrained world of Linux in the mid to late '90s, thinking as I did that somehow there had to be something, anything, better than Windows as a work a day operating system. I started with MacOS back in the early '90s, and knew I didn't want to return there! So at the time I was not a geek, just a dissatisfied Windows/Mac user looking for a better way of doing things.
Didn't take long to for the realization to set in that I was in over my head. Linux was largely a geek's playground at the time, and while I was truly interested I didn't have time available, given the daily responsibilities that were mine, in which to educate myself sufficiently to make sense of or fully utilize the Linux distros then available.
Some years passed, and while I occasionally peeked in the door to see what if anything might be new in the world of Linux and open source, not until Ubuntu made its initial splash did I again attempt in earnest to familiarize myself with a working Linux desktop.
Years later, after endless adventures with a number of top tier Linux distributions, becoming familiar with and comfortable using them for daily computing chores, I came full circle back to Ubuntu. Finally, with certain nagging issues prompting, I began to look closely into spin offs from that distro. Linux Mint, the most popular of these daughter distros by far, immediately caught my eye. And once I'd tried it I understood immediately why it was so highly regarded.
From the days of Linux Mint 6 I've done little 'looking back' or wondering if something out there migh be better suited to my needs. Mint 7 "Gloria," and 8 "Helena" have nailed Clem's masterpiece of distro building firmly into place as the operating system of choice for what I do on a daily basis. Everything that was said about Linux Mint in this latest DW review I heartily agree with and complement.
At least for this cowboy Linux Mint signals the end of distro hopping as I once knew it. While I still run the occasional VDI distro image in VirtualBox, simply to keep up with what's available, the OS that manages all this is Linux Mint. I'm proud to be a supporter of this truly exceptional open source project, and look forward to Mint 9 and what Clem and his Linux Mint team may have in store for us with that release.
For those who may not have tried Mint previously, be aware that doing so may place you on the endangered species list - one of the many lost forever to the grand sport of distrohopping!
81 • Mint (by Pozzo53 on 2010-02-22 17:37:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm using the KDE version of Mint Helena and generally finding it much smoother than Ubuntu 9.10, on which it is based. A bit disappointed to find I can't get sound on Flash videos still, but I like the the Update Manager a lot. This is certainly the sort of thing that might persuade Windows users - at least to avoid the cost of upgrading to 7. Can't imagine I'll ever stop trying new distros, though. The great thing about Linux is that you can use the distro that suits the task. I can see lots of value in simple kiosk systems for home use, for example. Incidentally, the debate over the name Isadora makes no sense from a Christian point of view. It was a name that suited at least two saints; Isidore of Seville is a Father of the Church. (Helena was a Greek deity, as it happens.) The alphabetic names do help keep the historical development in perspective, although it might have been better to keep them in step with the Ubuntu base distro from the beginning: it is a bit odd that Helena is based on Koala. Almost as daft as Windows NT starting with version 3.1.
82 • Distro Hopping (by Jerry L Hoover on 2010-02-22 17:52:50 GMT from United States)
No LinuxMint has not stopped me from downloading other distros, however I am using Mint to download and burn them to install on my test computer, I have used the top ten on your site plus a few others that I read good reviews on, but, the fact is, IM NOT GIVING UP MY MINT!
Im to curios not to check out other distros, but unless someone comes up with something better my main os is MINT, so, to the other distros, pony up, MINT has set the bar very high.
Thanks JLH
83 • Linux mint (by Gene Smith on 2010-02-22 17:53:55 GMT from United States)
Count me in as a sedentary linux mint user. I tried about ten different distros and stopped at Mint. Why? I'm a computer user and this makes using a computer easy.
84 • Mint days (by Sergio on 2010-02-22 18:08:01 GMT from Italy)
I'm an intermediate Linux user currently running Mint Helena on my home laptop, my doughter's aspire one and onto my 16GB usb key. Desktop experience is excellent and, at the moment, i'm not interested in switching to another distro, although I recently used (for a reasonable period of time) Mandriva, OpenSuse and Fedora. Having said that, i keep myself updated on the latest technologies and innovations brought to users by the distros' community, and... if found one having implemented great new features i always give it a try.
85 • Stick with Tops (by Ghost Dawg on 2010-02-22 18:12:23 GMT from United States)
I've tried Mint and it's not bad but wasn't for me. I used to distro hop alot but as time goes by, I stick with the top 5 of distros.
Debian
Mandriva
Slackware
Fedora
OpenSuse
I also use Sourcemage for those times when I'm bored and need to tinker more.
These are and probably will be around when the others are long gone!
86 • No subject (by revdjenk on 2010-02-22 18:26:17 GMT from United States)
I have been using Mint, coming in just before #5 was released. So I am coming up on two years. My previous long length stay was with almost split between elive and PCLinuxOS at about a year each. In between and before each of these, I have tried Mandriva, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Puppy, Mepis, DreamLinux, and downloaded and run live many others, like Knoppix (of course!), openSUSE, Fedora, Sabayon, OpenSolaris . As you can see, most of the distros I have tried are in the top 50, so I tend to be conservative.
I appreciate Mint's extras compared to the other 'buntus, of look, special tools, ease of use. I usually have any of the apps which ready and right there, or have generally good help at the safe and friendly forums. (I even try to help out as I can.)
I am committed to Mint (and Linux) as I just purchased a Linux loaded laptop from LinuxCertified rather than go through a MS-centric supplier.
87 • Excellent Mint Article (by Sly on 2010-02-22 18:51:09 GMT from United States)
Thanks Jessie for the excellent informative interview and review on Mint 8!! The force(s) behind Mint have done a great job and should be recognized and commended.
After 'hopping' through quite a few distros, I settled on Mint and OpenSuse, in that order. While I don't think Mint or OpenSuse will stop me from 'reviewing' other distros I have stopped hopping for now.
88 • Mint (by Johannes on 2010-02-22 18:54:06 GMT from Germany)
Though I'm still an Ubuntu user, I have to recognize that the guys at Mint are doing a really good Job. Would be my second distro choice.
I don't like the LM logo and design, though.
89 • Linux Distro (by Chris on 2010-02-22 19:04:39 GMT from United States)
I am a Ubuntu user and I like it. Thou I did tryed Debian, OpenSuse, Fedora, and Mandriva in that order I always go back to Ubuntu. As well Linux Mint in Virtualbox.
90 • suggestion for next donation : VIM (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 19:16:39 GMT from Canada)
Please donate to this wonderful editor : VIM
http://www.vim.org/sponsor
91 • re distro-hopping & Mint 8 (by Bill Juian on 2010-02-22 19:20:12 GMT from United States)
I already have told Jim I disagree with him about the "end of distro-hopping." My point: Perhaps for a minority of Linux users seeking a Linux-driven "digital appliance" this might be true. As long as they can run (the few) apps they run they simply do not care what the operating system is that supports their activity. Given Mint's highly polished and very stable operation it might be satisfying for those people. It certainly is less expensive than a Mac! Both can satisfy their lack of curiosity, as does Windows 7. Key point: Win7 and OSX are expensive, hence the search for a Linux alternative.
But I do not think that is why most of us have turned to Linux, nor is the search for OS-soma the reason most of us might choose Mint. (Do not underestimate what is behind the pretty face.)
The creativity of the Linux community is remarkable. Now that I am retired I can focus on it and pay attention to what goes on. So I will "distro-test" because doing so offers a great learning opportunity for me.
Is Mint impressive in terms of achieving what it sets out to do? Surely it is but it is hardly the only game we can play. And three cheers for that!
What do I run? At the moment Ubuntu 9.10 runs on sda. Ubuntu is my "go-to" distribution. When the next LTS comes out I will put it on and probably not disturb it much save for updates. Mint and PCLOS are running in a "test mode" from an external sdb. antiX and sidux run from their own jump-drives. I am very interested in seeing the next Debian and the next Mepis.
End of distro-testing? Not for me.
92 • Igelle (by Supernatendo at 2010-02-22 19:26:29 GMT from United States)
I am going to have to keep an eye on Igelle. Will there be a review of this cross-platform OS soon? It isn't often that Distrowatch has an opportunity to review a Distro that is independent of any other distro base, and this one has piqued my interest.
93 • @71 (by Leroy at 2010-02-22 19:29:22 GMT from Serbia)
Tom,
I think that after almost 7 years Canonical have realized that Ubuntu is not making the slightest dent in the general desktop market (although inside the Linux world it is top dog...), and are now looking to make whatever money they can elsewhere cover the cash guzzler's expenses (via various so-called enterprise projects), before possibly dropping the thing altogether, or making this thing we now know as Ubuntu be to Canonical what Fedora is to Red Hat. Which either way is pretty sad news for Linux on the desktop I'm afraid.
Hiring Asay was a pretty shocking thing I agree but at least it tells you where things are going. Also, you forgot to mention Ubuntu's new default search engine ;)
Oh, but on the bright side... the default desktop won't be brown anymore. Well that's a load off my mind.
94 • Distro Hopping (by Paul Brown on 2010-02-22 19:33:35 GMT from United States)
Ironically Linux Mint may be the distro that persuades me to try a secondary installation. I gave up distro hopping several years ago after I installed openSUSE. I love its stable upstream infrastructure, support for things like my USB broadband modem, the rock solid system updater (YAST), and the opportunity to run cutting edge KDE4.
This month's review of Linux Mint suggests I can expect a stable and up-to-date system whose upstream support isn't likely to evaporate. In its early days, GNOME was just plain ugly and not very cooperative if one desired the ability to modify defaults. The Linux Mint screen shots look pretty nice, and the review suggests that customization may be somewhat easier.
It's probably time for me to give GNOME another spin. I am downloading the Linux Mint LiveCD and may end up installing it alongside openSUSE if it lives up to the billing. Does this make me a distro hopper? No, I don't think so.
95 • Ubuntu (by Flep on 2010-02-22 19:45:16 GMT from United States)
I used unbutu for awhile I started to pay attention to what a lot of other ppl were saying about it being nothing but propaganda would'nt have it on a computer thats why a lot of ppl wont have it know what go read their website look at some of the files unbuntu puts on ur computer they were right nothing but propaganda
96 • Suse (by Flep on 2010-02-22 19:58:36 GMT from United States)
did not get in my last post i also wanted to say Suse was my distro of choice but I wont support it or use it any longer because of their MS deal best thing about linux dont like something move on Choice dont have that with MS
97 • RE: 93, Opinions don't matter. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-22 19:59:22 GMT from United States)
@Leroy, Where do you get all of this? I read about it and that's not what it sounds like to me. The search engine is such a sad thing to worry about. It's a cash cow, a money maker. I think we may need to learn a little more about Matt Asay intentions before we tell everybody what he's going to be doing at his new job.
@Tom, If you use any Gnome desktop in the next few years you will be using MONO. That is going to be a fact of life that you can do nothing about. I don't like it but there is nothing I can do about it so get over it. Gimp is too large to be included on a cd. As far as I''m concerned Open Office shouldn't even be included. But that's just me.
Rumors of the demise of linux does abound. Let's not help them along.
98 • Staying with Mint (by Tim on 2010-02-22 20:13:00 GMT from United States)
I have tried out most of the major distros over the last few years, about the only major ones I haven't installed are Slackware and Gentoo. I have found all of them to be good, and for about a year I found Arch to be the best. It was faster than Mint and did everything I wanted it to do.
Helena seems to have closed that gap. I am less inclined now to want to mess around with configuring a computer. Helena's ease of use, speed and comprehensive software collection are close to perfect for me.
Three weeks ago the SSD on my Aspire One died. I decided to install a 1.8 inch drive in its place, but had to wait for the appropriate cable to be shipped from Hong Kong. During this time I used a usb stick with Mint and just its default applications on the computer. Yes I know there are many distributions that can run from a usb stick, but Mint is the best one I have found. Its components just fit well together. Now I have my Aspire One running with Mint being the only OS on the hard drive. I don't anticipate putting any other OS on it. Helena just plain works and works well.
99 • The end of distro-hopping ? (by Robert Forster on 2010-02-22 20:24:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Having frittered away many hours distro-hopping - I have been pleased to land on Mint Helena , which overall has given me a really good feeling so far. (So many earlier hops have disappointed mainly due to being issued with broken features, or landing too heavily on my multiboots). For my particular interests (multimedia) Mint does an excellent job - I'm not unfamiliar with command lines and problem solving, but unwilling to repeatedly tackle variations on the same old glitches. ( I also run Windows 7 and XP neither of which can claim to be problem-free). I believe the Linux community has wasted much effort on reinventing the wheel and needs to aim for a quantum leap in functionality. So I have resolved not to hop again until tempted by a distro which can offer something really different.
100 • Mint (by dave on 2010-02-22 20:33:01 GMT from United States)
I think all of these good comments about Mint show what a good distro it really is.
101 • Less than perfect Calculate and Mint (by LLR on 2010-02-22 20:45:01 GMT from Hungary)
By nature, I am not a typical distro-hopper. But, it seems, it is the only sure way to assess the field for your needs using your own criteria. For me, ease of legibility and Internet access are quintessential. But, I also like to have more than the usual home-sectretaial staff.
Distro names, however, seem to be meaningless. Have you ever asked: "What makes Scientific Linux so scientific?", or "What sort of calculation is supported by Calculate Linux?". Looking closer at the menu of the later one, you may have the feeing that it should be called Kalkulate. But, seriously, do you see any special calculation related applications, programmable spreadsheets, readily setup calculation-related programming languages for general purpose calculations, for array processing such as A+, for high precision arithmetics, for symbolic processing, or for any related purposes? If so, you can see more than I do. As far as a general purpose distro is concerned, it seems, it is made for senior citizens: the letters are large, and readability is excellent. Internet access is for wired and wireless, but not for DSL. Neither gets Scientific DSL connectivity. So, when you talk about choices, you should not state more than that you really know surely.
I find that Linux Mint has the nicest fonts. The subpixel antialiasing works wonderfully. I could use numerous superlatives, if one item did not ruin all of them. That one is Internet access. Linux Mint 7 XFCE does not have the necessary facilities for DSL configuration, and Linux Mint 8 though has the entry facilities, but it doesn't work. When I enter the ISP-provided username and password, it pretends to make an honest effort, then a message in a pop-up window informs me "Wired network Disconnected - you are now offline." How nice of it! That should make me really happy. When I look at the configuration again, the password is missing. Just to ensure that the hardware is compatible I have to mention that I established connection at the first trial on Fedora Remix, Mandriva, PCLinux OS, somewhat harder on ArtisX, and after many trials on OpenSUSE. Can this still be a hardware-related issu? It seems that the graphic artists have made their best, but some programming testing has likely let half done.
102 • Mint and distro hopping (by Lars at 2010-02-22 20:54:35 GMT from Sweden)
I am a long time Mint user, and I'm very happy with Mint. I have tried many other distros such as Suse, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, PCLOS, Slackware, Fedora, Mandriva, PC BSD but I keep coming back to Mint. I am now on a Mint machine in my kitchen. We use it for music, web radio, browsing, regular day to day work and for that Mint is the best. All media formats work, easy navigation, just plain useful. No worries!
103 • Igelle (by Davey at 2010-02-22 21:05:00 GMT from United States)
I second @92. If Igelle is as independent and new as claimed it deserved an in depth review ASAP. It's so rare that a new distro is not some remix or version of some other distro, this might be a real breath of fresh air.
104 • End of Distrohopping? Nein! (by kondorv at 2010-02-22 21:08:14 GMT from United States)
LinuxMint is good for newbs but it is a tidied up version of Ubuntu. And some things, like the beta release boot loader Grub2, cannot be tidied up. That obviously was a move on Ubuntu's part to drive users back to Windows. Grub, although it worked, couldn't be "maintained" so they gave us crap instead. How very Linux of them.
Actually, Pardus is at least as good for newbs as it installs without exception and one avoids both Gnome and Mono altogether in the default install, which is KDE latest. One also misses the Google "load" that Mint includes by default. Plus, it has purty pictures for backgrounds - of living things. I appreciate it since it is a product of the government of Turkey. AND - it is not UBUNTU! Has policykit nonsense (for desktop) but no one will run Slackware anymore. Might actually have to learn something.
There is no end-all, final distro. Most seem designed to drive users back to Windows. openSUSE, for instance, since the Simians got their hands on it and still not recovered. Ubuntu, for instance. Even Fedora, which was rock solid as FedoraCore now comes out of the box broken.
Hey, it's free! What did you expect for nuthin?
105 • end of distrohopping with linux mint (by @audio on 2010-02-22 21:27:45 GMT from Germany)
in our family and friends are several installations of mint(1x7;4x8) on machines from 0,7 till 3GH. It is a nice series of good distris, but i am still looking for better oneś, small out of the box working distris that work on old machines with less ram as well on machines at the main stream. The goal is to have distriś that can be installed old and new machines for people that have no sense for hard and software, but the need for information from the net on an easy basis without knowing anything of the things behind it --it has only one reason for them ..youst work..
106 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-22 21:36:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #101
Message reads "you are now disconnected"...leave it out LLR...that's just because some "school official" can't get your webcam to work...I thought everybody knew that.
107 • still hop, but keep coming back (by michael at 2010-02-22 21:40:03 GMT from United States)
I'm using Mint Helena x86_64 at home and the 32-bit version at work. I do try other distros out for the sake of argument, but I like the fact that so much stuff just works out of the box with Mint. Minimal setup from a fresh install -- it just works. Well, as much as any Linux distro "just works"... ;-)
108 • @58 (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 21:52:56 GMT from United States)
No. It requires a clean install every 3 years.
109 • About Linux Mint (by Clement Lefebvre on 2010-02-22 21:55:21 GMT from Ireland)
Hi,
I read DW Weekly a lot (isn't it great the way it comes on Mondays?) but I usually don't comment here for fear of getting involved in petty fights or distro-bashing (it happened a lot with a fellow French mate called dbrion if I remember well). So I'll just make a few points to clarify a thing or two and for anyone interested in getting more info, they're welcome to contact me by email.
The name Isadora was chosen for the following reasons:
. it had to start with I and finish with A.
. it had to sound great (although that's subjective).
. it had to be a female name.
So I had the choice between Isabella and Isadora, both sounded great, both had historical connotations (which I like) , one was very common and closer to Spain/UK/Monarchy and the other one was more exotic, unique, and through its origins it had some classicism in it (Roman/Greek/Egyptian). That's how the choice was made.
Now, being an agnostic myself and not caring much about religion at all... I was surprised to see some people disliking "Isadora" in the name of Catholicism... I have to admit, I don't really understand their reasons... my wife and kids are Catholic, in fact, almost my whole family is Catholic.. and no one here seems to see the problem with Egyptian mythology... is there a link between Satanism or anti-catholicism and Egyptian mythology or something I'm not aware about???
So anyway, that's the first point.
The second point is about Israel. I did comment on the Palestine-Israel conflict and I'm sorry I did. I was frustrated about the violence used by the Israeli army at the time and it was a reaction of anger on my part after watching a movie about it and drinking one too many drink at the same time. It was foolish of course and I did and still do apologise for it. I'm not involved in politics, I don't support any of the two sides involved in the conflict and I don't care what race or religion people have.
The team who's working with me on Linux Mint is made of people from various different places and I don't think any of us actually know much about each other's religions. We simply don't care but after my mistake we were unanimous to treat politics as spam and to stress the neutrality of the project when it comes to any sensitive topic.
Finally, I haven't used my kid's name in the codenames yet as we're not there in the alphabet yet... but when it happens I hope "Maya" won't offend Catholic people, it didn't seem to offend the priest when she got baptised...
Ok, enough irony. I do hope the whole religious/political thing would stop. Anyone who knows me well would tell you how un-religious or un-political I am so please don't stick these etiquettes on me or on Linux Mint.
There are reasons to use Mint and there are reasons to use something else instead. People are free to choose for themselves, but if their choice is based on what religion they follow or what political opinions they have, then they're mistaken, because the team and I simply don't care about this kind of things.
110 • Mint (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 22:02:33 GMT from Canada)
I've been using Mint since its 3.0 release! Now I'm on Mint 7
Yes, I tried other distros, but I always came back to Mint. It just works well and it's easy on eyes ( after I add some blue here and there ).
But on my laptop, I can't live without #CrunchBang. :-)
re: post #1 I hope that was just joke sir, I'm still shaking my head.
111 • @90 (by Anonymous at 2010-02-22 22:11:59 GMT from Canada)
+1 for the best editor (after kate of course ;-) ... )
112 • Mint, KDE4 and stuff (by davemc on 2010-02-22 22:18:50 GMT from United States)
Mint is awesome, but I would not classify it as a "Distro". Its more like a new way of tailoring and adapting an existing Distro to something better by modifying whats on top. I think of this technology as more like a parasite - a very very good and beneficial one. Its really interesting stuff and I hope Clem decides to actually tailor the technology itself into an all in one GUI that anyone could use to customize a Desktop in this way for any Distro and any WM. Sure, I know the inner "nuts and bolts" behind it is much more complicated than that, but why cant it be done? This is how innovation begins in the Open Source world. Mint is not a "Distro hopper stopper" - very far from it. Distro hopping is an ingrained part of our culture and its what we do. We live to explore the grass on the other side of the fence rather than sit around and dream of it. Its what makes Open Source survive and thrive in any environment and crosses all boundaries.
For you KDE3.5 folks, your just crazy! KDE4.4 is freaking awesome. Heck, even KDE4.3.5 is fantastic. Let go of KDE3 and its cruft heavy cumbersomeness, filled with legacy throwback code that's falling apart at the seams wannabe WindowsXP look alike. Embrace the new Windows 7 wannabe snap windows goodness along with some new and amazing technology like tabbed windows and window cluster grouping! Seriously though, KDE4 is truly amazing and is most definitely "ready" for all KDE lovers to finally embrace. Come on back in to the KDE fold.
113 • Linux Mint ends "distro hopping (by victor on 2010-02-22 22:21:10 GMT from Italy)
No,it's not true.I've used Linux Mint Helena for a couple of weeks ,then I've turned back to my beloved Debian (Lenny and Squeeze).
Anyway I appreciate Clement and his team's work.Thank you.
114 • ClementLefebvre (by dave on 2010-02-22 22:21:23 GMT from United States)
BRAVO!!!
115 • RE:104,109 Take the bad with the good. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-22 22:23:50 GMT from United States)
@kondorv, What kind of comment is that? It's just nonsense and full of nothing beneficial. A waste of bandwidth.
@Lefebvre, Very nice comment with a lot to say. A very good explanation for a lot of misguided people . The subjects should not be brought up again or should just be ignored.
@LLR, Strange that you are having problems with DSL I don't, so what are you doing wrong?
116 • LLR- connection problems (by Barnabyh at 2010-02-22 22:26:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just get a router or router/modem combo and be done with it. Input your settings once and forget about messing with crappy dial-up ADSL USB modems. This is the best option if you're running Linux.
117 • distro-hopping (by Jake on 2010-02-22 22:59:03 GMT from United States)
While it is true that I don't distro hop as much...I still hop around every now and again. I use LinuxMint on my main box and laptop. I still keep a box for testing additional and new distros.
I love LinuxMint. It has been the most robust, customizable, and satisfying distro to date for me.
118 • Re: 109 • About Linux Mint (by Clement Lefebvre) (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-22 23:55:02 GMT from United States)
Well said Clem! Thanks for setting the record straight. When it comes to mixing politics and/or religion with open source philosophy, there's simply no place for it. Some will disagree of course. However clearly stating the neutral position you and the Mint Team hold to on such matters, while admitting you're human and capable of an occasional misstatement, is the right approach. Your work on Linux Mint speaks for itself. Anyone who sees it otherwise should be take a close look at themselves in their mirror.
119 • Not quite content... (by Killer on 2010-02-23 00:14:19 GMT from United States)
Linuxmint rocks, and yes, I have done a lot less distro hopping since I discovered Mint a few years back. But I do use Mandriva on my web server, and I'm downloading PC-BSD as I write this. Let the success of Mint be a lesson to the other distros: Make it good, and I'll hop back to you on occasion. Otherwise, I'm quite content with Mint as my desktop. Why shouldn't I be? Bashing a Linux distro because it actually works good is ridiculous.
120 • Since trying Linux Mint (by Samson Shupe on 2010-02-23 00:41:50 GMT from United States)
I now run Linux Mint 8 on 2 laptops. I also use Easy Peasy 1.5 on my Netbook and SimplyMEPIS on an old PC. I use Linux heavily (99% of the time vs. Windows 1%) and when everything works, I have to have a good reason to hop. I am also a past user and big fan of PCLinuxOS.
121 • Mint 8 (by Snuffy on 2010-02-23 00:50:44 GMT from United States)
Yes, I am a Mint user. I have stopped distro hopping, as well as bathing and shaving. I don't really do anything with Mint - I just sit here mindlessly looking at the screen. But then, I did that before. Ever since I was 10. ADD, brought on by too much television.
Seriously though, Mint is the closest to a Windows work-alike that I have found so far in Linus World. Mint is the first distro any non-technical user coming from the Windows should try. I use it because I need at least one boot that's install and go, with no configuration. They've done a great job.
My eyes have glazed over again. Oh well.
122 • Mint (by thetaLord on 2010-02-23 01:26:00 GMT from Philippines)
#30
I agree with you. It's really hard to introduce Ubuntu and other distros without those multimedia codecs installed by default to users without internet connection.
Mint is easier to introduce to general user. Both with internet connection and without internet connection users.
Also, as what i've observed, Debian based distros tend to have better hardware detection compared to RPM based distros.
123 • Linux Mint (by Renaat on 2010-02-23 01:43:46 GMT from France)
I stopped distro-hopping with this Perrrrrrrrfect Distro ( I mean especially Mint 7 !!! ).
And we also think highly about Mint 5r1...
Congratulations Clement ( this has nothing to do with the fact my wife is an Irish Lass ! ).
124 • Debian Mint (by Merlin at 2010-02-23 01:44:28 GMT from Canada)
I was really surprised when I installed Debian Squeeze on my son's new laptop. It played DVD's right out of the install. I also use Debian on my desktop, but I don't have a DVD or CD drive, so this was somewhat of a pleasant surprise as I didn't have to guess which codecs to install (although being the Debian geek I am, I added the multimedia repository anyways!). The only thing that really needed to be installed for a complete web experience was the flash plugin.
125 • Mint (by fox on 2010-02-23 02:04:21 GMT from Canada)
I was very happy to see Clement Lefebvre's posting here and I couldn't say it better than Jon Iverson (@118) did - Clem is human, admitted he made a mistake and let's take the politics (at least the non-open source politics) out of Mint and any judgement of it. I got interested in Mint about two months ago when it came on a disk in a Linux magazine. In my case, I was looking for a lightweight, responsive distro, and rather than checking out the Mint 8 official version, I tried two community versions: Mint 7 XFCE and Mint 8 Fluxbox. I ended up getting more interested in the Fluxbox version because it was built on the newer Ubuntu, so it boots faster. But also, it was the first time I had ever tried Fluxbox, and like everything Mint does, it was beautifully customized and much more functional out of the box than I would get by putting installing Fluxbox on a minimal Ubuntu. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a responsive, Debian-based distro. Mint XFCE is in the process of being updated to version 8, and once it is, it will be interesting to compare the two.
Mint 8 Fluxbox makes for an interesting comparison with another lightweight distro also built from Ubuntu: CrunchBang Linux. Like Mint, Crunchbang includes most of the codecs people depend on out of the box, but CrunchBang uses Openbox instead of Fluxbox, and CrunchBang is more muted in design than Mint. Both are fast, lightweight and easy to use.
126 • Re: #109 (by Sam on 2010-02-23 02:20:13 GMT from United States)
So the photo of the cute kid in your lap was really intended to disarm us from criticizing that one perhaps justifiably angry blog post eh? :)
127 • Linux Mint (by Tony King on 2010-02-23 02:22:46 GMT from United States)
Having tried all of the "top" distros, Linux Mint began streaming ahead of the opposition as far back as Mint 5. It has been the ONLY distro to work on all of my desktops and laptops ( 4 desktops; 3 laptops --- some quite new, others more aged), without problems. This Distrowatch article should encourage all users to give Mint a try. I still enjoy experimenting with other distros, but Mint 7 and now 8 is the Linux choice in my office. Oh, the fact that it's from Ireland does influence me, but its greatest influence is the fact that it is so useable and yet as complex as needed.Go Clement & crew. Great job.
128 • Mint , mint, and more mint (by Verndog at 2010-02-23 02:49:53 GMT from United States)
Wow, the Mint is out if force !
I have never seen so many positive comments regarding one distro in my life, let alone here at Distrowatch. Even Jesse has gotten on the bandwagon.
I like Mint also, and use it occasionally. Ubuntu being my main stay.
But I'm impressed with the positive comments regarding Mint.
I am very interested in trying Mint KDE when 4.4 is solid. Using Kubuntu Karmic now, which is very solid. Opensuse is also geat but a few snags along the way.
129 • Is this really Distrowatch? (by Redondo at 2010-02-23 03:42:12 GMT from United States)
I thought I stumbled into the Mint forum by accident ?!
130 • Mint? Next! (by Tidux at 2010-02-23 03:45:44 GMT from United States)
I started as an Ubuntu user, after literally swearing and making obscene hand gestures at Vista. This was in summer of 2008. I tried Mint that September, but decided that it was the opposite of what I was looking for. I removed it after less than a month. After bouncing around between Debian, Slack, Arch, and Gentoo for over a year, I've settled on Slackware and couldn't be happier. My hardware's auto-detected and auto-configured by Slackware just as well as under Mint except bluetooth, which I've never actually used. The speed is delightful, the roll-your-own-binary-package tools are fun, and the lack of automatic dependency handling makes you THINK about what exactly you're stuffing into your hard drive.
In summary, here's an expanded twist on an old saw:
"Use Red Hat, learn Red Hat. Use Debian, learn Debian. Use Slackware, learn Linux. Use Mint, learn nothing."
131 • Mint and Ubuntu: Symbiosis (by RO at 2010-02-23 04:14:24 GMT from United States)
@112
Davemc, I think symbiote would be a better word than parasite for the relationship you describe (it certainly is how I see it). Watcha think?
Pax,
RO
132 • Re 109 (by Salsa at 2010-02-23 04:23:07 GMT from Australia)
>>109 • About Linux Mint (by Clement Lefebvre on 2010-02-22 from Ireland)
...The name Isadora was chosen for the following reasons:
. it had to start with I and finish with A.
. it had to sound great (although that's subjective).
. it had to be a female name.
So I had the choice between Isabella and Isadora<<
A little bit of Google searching and I stumbled upon some names matching your criteria: Idriza, Ifeta, Ilina, Ina, India, Indira, Irma, Ismeta, Istina, Ivana, Ivanka, Ivona, Izeta...
Your naming conventions seem to be too West European, IMO.
My choice would have been the following: India, the Princess of Salsa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_India
:-)
Cheers
133 • two things (by RollMeAway at 2010-02-23 04:37:05 GMT from United States)
1. You are satisfied with distro X, and no longer distro-hop?
Why are you reading these pages?
2. Why do distro releases need names?
2010.02.22 is very descriptive and unique.
134 • Minty Thoughts (by RO at 2010-02-23 05:18:10 GMT from United States)
I first tried Mint at version 3 on my wife's desktop, and was reasonably impressed (I think after Edubuntu 5 and/or 7 messed up sometime around then), and jumped right on Mint 4 (I'm with RollMeAway@133 - keeping track of the names is ridiculous - where's Goofy Guppy?), and that was a disaster after a round of updates from the Update (mis)Manager made it unstartable. Had to fall back to the Mint 3 partition to recover stuff, then went to a straight Ubuntu as I recall.
Along about Mint 6, I decided to give it a try on one of my laptops, and found it good, and Mint 7 even better a short while later when I was trying to find something to get beyond Ubuntu 8.04 where 8.10 totally failed to deal with my Fujitsu P5020 Atheros wifi. Mint 7 has been doing fine now. Mint 8 on a Fujitsu p1610 and a Sony P series Vaio has been even better.
There are problems in paradise, though.
1. I can never be sure whether the next version will be as successful on the same hardware (consider that WinXP has been working on it for about 8 years, and pretty much the same programs do, also - much more long term stability as long as the malware does not slip in for the dark side of that scenario - nothing's perfect). Grub 2 in Xubuntu 9.10 really hosed up my separate boot partition, so I have a strong aversion to putting anything on my multi-boot setup again with Grub 2 once I recovered with Mint 7 and its Grub 0.9x.
2. The Gnome Mono M$ patent time bomb is nagging at me, so I feel the need to look at the non-Gnome versions of Mint (or any other distro I play with). It was so much simpler back in the days of RH 6 and IceWm for a CD/Samba server I set up at work back in the late 90's...
3. The Google Buzz mess that has boiled up lately made me aware that Google HIstory has been tracking my web surfing for a LONG time, and the main culprit seems to be the Google tool bar, and that is built deep into the version of Firefox distributed with Mint. I have taken measures to deal with it now that I am aware of that exposure, but I feel as though Mint, Firefox and Google blindsided me together. Yeah, I know it was in Release Notes somewhere, but that is a lot of reading I did not always have time for - working "out of the box" can lull us sometimes.
Still, given all that, Mint is pretty much my go-to for new quick full-featured installations (now that I am more aware of how to protect my privacy a bit better - still much to backtrack and catch up on it seems ...).
135 • Mint & Names (by Fred Nelson at 2010-02-23 05:21:58 GMT from United States)
Even though, for various reasons (like wanting a 100% FOSS distro, preferring straight Debian over Ubuntu in the first place, and liking to be a bit more bleeding edge, as Mint KDE comes out months after Mint GNOME, which comes out months after Ububtu, which comes out months after the snapshot of Debian Sid its derived from), I will not use Mint myself, but it is a great distro for those who would go and get all the proprietary stuff anyway (and some percentage will eventually go pure once they really get into Linux ;) ). In addition, the software and artwork of Mint itself are fully open-source; can't ask much more than that.
I was a little annoyed myself when the political spat happened; how could Clem not have known that expressing his opinion on one of the most explosive conflicts in the world (not unlike that of North Ireland in some way) by the head of a very popular distribution would not draw the very strong ire of both people that disagreed with him and those that don't want to be associated with said conflict? He apologized for it and has not brought it up since (except to remind people of his apology); again, what more can one want than that? He's human and makes mistakes like all the rest of us. Clem, keep up the great work on Mint!
@133: Names gives a distro character. It gives flavor that one distro uses Toy Story characters, one uses alliterative animals, one uses female names, etc... Heck, my preferred distro right now has an elaborate procedure (almost a game) to choose which names to vote on: It must be connected in some way to the previous name, and the nature of said connection must never have been used before. (Fedora, if you're wondering.) Just plain numbers is boring IMHO.
136 • Of Saints and Mints (by Peter Besenbruch at 2010-02-23 05:43:08 GMT from United States)
I am an Episcopal priest, and I have a comment or two about Isadora (or Isidore). There were two Isadora's that come to mind from Church history: St. Isadora, and Isidore of Seville. Here are their links in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Isidora
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadore_of_Seville
Christians should be aware of their history, especially when it is so easy to look it up.
My own experience with Mint came about recently when I tried to install it on an infected, Vista laptop. The machine was a little too new for Debian Lenny to make it work easily, so I gave Mint a try. The Broadcom wireless gave trouble, but after the third, massive update, it sprang to life. With minimal tinkering, I got all the special keys to work, plus suspend and hibernate. The Web cam and microphones also worked. The person is making lots of Skype calls. In short, everything worked, and worked well.
One other aspect struck me, the interface is very KDEish for a Gnome based distro. It's also similar to Windows. Mint comes with only one taskbar, and there is a prominent Start button in the lower, left of the screen. In addition, by default, Mint uses only one desktop. Yes, you can change any of this, if you want, but the only thing I added was a desktop pager.
137 • igelle first impressions (by RollMeAway at 2010-02-23 06:08:01 GMT from United States)
1. Clearly states it will overwrite the MBR (with grub2).
I've had enough of that lately.
2. The License reads like a ms eula:
"THE SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE SOLD TRANSFERES OR FURTHER DISTRIBUTED"..
"The software is protected by the copyright laws and treaties of Finland and other countries"
"The software is licensed to You, not sold"..
"You may not (1) reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software....."
(2) transfer the software or Your license...
The installation transfers 3 compressed files to a directory on the hard drive.
I will let someone else check this one out.
138 • Re: 109 (by jake at 2010-02-23 07:47:11 GMT from United States)
"There are reasons to use Mint and there are reasons to use something else instead. People are free to choose for themselves, but if their choice is based on what religion they follow or what political opinions they have, then they're mistaken, because the team and I simply don't care about this kind of things."
Exactly. Thanks, Mr. Lefebvre, I couldn't put it better.
I've been using Slackware for a decade and a half, and it works quite nicely for what I need a desktop computer to do (and the occasional server; mostly I use one of the BSDs on the servers) ... But I don't exactly worship the ones & zeros that make up the code-base.
All software sucks, all hardware sucks, all applications suck ... and all fanbois suck. Bottom line? If it works for you, use it. All else is useless palaver.
139 • no more disto hopping (by sj on 2010-02-23 08:48:17 GMT from United States)
Now that I've found LinuxMint I've stopped searching for "better" distros. It works great, most apps just install, with little mess.
140 • Mint 8 (by Tom on 2010-02-23 11:31:56 GMT from United States)
I am a happy Mint user but still distro hop. I like to run them in V.Box. That way I can see how they run with differing amounts of memory.
141 • Hopping (by M. on 2010-02-23 11:35:41 GMT from Australia)
I stopped distro hopping 18 months ago.
Arch is the exact opposite to Mint.
Fast stable non blaoated and whatever I want it to be.
After a great deal of testing on VMs I am even using it for servers with better stability and performance than the recognised trinity of SUSE RedHAt or Debian.
142 • *buntu (by Tom at 2010-02-23 12:02:56 GMT from Denmark)
@93: Hi Leroy. Yes, you're right. I forgot to include the search engine issue.
I don't have a problem with Canonical trying to monetize their efforts. It's the sneaky way they're going about it I don't like.
@97: Hey Eddie.
sudo apt-get remove --purge mono-common libmono0 mono libmono1.0-cil libmono2.0-cil
Cheers
143 • Kerffuffle over Mint names (by merlin at 2010-02-23 12:59:33 GMT from Canada)
All the talk about religious meanings of Mint names brings back memories of the KDE slaves comment on the f 2007. KDE must be racist! Now, how do you feel about using KDE on Mint Isadora. Start pulling your hair out :-)
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/why_does_kde_use_slaves
144 • Linux Mint KDE (by speedyx on 2010-02-23 13:05:01 GMT from Ukraine)
A recently started italian wiki project to assist the newbie experience. I create it and I'm looking for contributors
145 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-23 13:55:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #93 & 142
Perhaps you don't grasp the concept that Canonical is a business...and any business plans/models it may have are of no concern to anyone but themselves (and stockholders if they exist).
In other words they are not answerable to anyone like us...they guarantee nothing and you choose to use their product at your risk.
If you buy their service contract/wotever then that is another matter entirely.
If Canonical choose to stuff their product with mono apps, then, if you don't like that concept, simply don't use Ubuntu. Same as Mint, if you have hangups about the way it "works", or "looks" or "patron saints" or what a particular version is named, or political comments simply ignore it and move on...nobody gives an arse what anyone else uses anyway.
In any event, if Yahoo is substituted for google as the default search engine, so what?
If a user can change from the default to any other "search engine " (currently nine on my machine via FF, although that may change), then it begs the question of how long Yahoo take to realise the tie-in with Canonical is not necessarily a money spinner.
If, has been mentioned elsewhere, folk who can install a distro are more than capable of changing a default setting, then Yahoo can be dispensed with merely by clicking a few options.
In a similar vein, as of next month, in the EU, MS are obliged to offer other browsers (eleven I believe). You can google it up. The entire notion is for folk to have a choice...Canonical gives you or me a choice as well...
If Ubuntu or Mint, in the main, are not purely open source (Mint has a "pure" version, but that is standard marketing btw), then it demonstrates that not every distro builder is unduly concerned about "purity" but take a more pragmatic approach...which might account for their undoubted popularity.
Whilst being adept at the command line stuff is laudable, never forget for an instant there is rather more to "distros" than that.
How anyone can imagine they have any just grievance against Canonical for standard business practices is a bit silly, isn't it.
146 • Mono apps and GNOME @97 (by Rahul Sundaram on 2010-02-23 14:18:58 GMT from United States)
" If you use any Gnome desktop in the next few years you will be using MONO. "
That's not true RHEL has never included Mono by default or in the repository even and Fedora doesn't include it by default either and there is only one official GNOME module Tomboy which is written in Mono and has been replaced by Gnote (port to C++) by default in Fedora
147 • Distro hopping (by srinivas.v on 2010-02-23 14:20:24 GMT from India)
A true GNU/Linux GNU/Bsd enthusiast will continue to distro-hop. "choice" is the power of "free as in freedom" world. My distro of choice has been debian and will be always. But my desktop has been populated by everything from minix 2.0 to linux mint to mandriva free to open suse to pc bsd 7 to ... to ....
Ah... Now that is freedom. Thank u RMS and all the developers and users of the wonderful *nix community.
148 • Comments: Linux Mint Helena Review (by Dick Parker on 2010-02-23 14:34:23 GMT from United States)
As a noobie to the world of Linux, I researched and tried several of the more popular Linux distros taking advantage of our inclimate weather. I'm relatively literate in the Windows world, but am tired of the increased hardware requirements for the newer Windows releases. I've settled on Linux Mint 8 'Helena' .
My Review Comment: Linux Mint distros make a point that this distro runs well on minimal hardware.
* x86 processor
* 256 MB of system memory (RAM)
* 3 GB of disk space for installation
* Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
* CD-ROM drive or USB port
Thus, It would have been quite informative if Jesse Smith had used such minimal hardware as a part of his review since many of us are running older units (both desk and laptops). My computer is a pc has a 1.4 GHz Athlon and only 512 of RAM and runs 'Helena' very well. Primary use is email, simple applications, browsing, and music jukebox. I also fancy myself as a barbershop music arranger and like Musescore. I do have a Windows XP/Linux Mint 320 G partitioned hard drive.
I would like to see a non-proprietary full featured jukebox for Linux. I did use WINE Doors and downloaded J. Rivers Media Jukebox which runs well but has a few Linux limitations since Media Jukebox was designed for Windows. .
149 • Mono and Resources (by Jesse at 2010-02-23 15:17:06 GMT from Canada)
@148:
In the review, I did cover running Mint in a virtual environment with fewer resources. (I don't have any physical PCs with less than 1GB of memory.) As I stated in the review, Mint worked well for me with as little as 512MB of RAM. Below that point, things got sluggish.
@146:
Fedora does include Mono (or did). I found Mono installed on my Fedora 11 box and, I think, on Fedroa 12 as well. I don't use any Mono-based apps, so I assume it landed there as part of the default install.
150 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-23 15:31:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #148
Then DP, perhaps you might consider sharing more of your thoughts with Jesse on what you posted here? Jesse wrote a week or two back along the lines of what might be useful, to all of us, by way of having a "standard kit" and a "standard set of tests" for his reviews in the future.
I thought this was splendid idea, so if anyone else cares to suggest just such a "standard set of kit" and what tests might be included...'course, defining "standard" is the tricky part so best of luck on that one.
Talking of kit, I found this whilst catching up on the Philly laptop spying case boom sensation scandal...the article is on the back of the remote control of computers and is food for thought...no doubt we shall read of a rush on black gaffa tape and similar, anyway, read on:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10457737-238.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related
The thrust appears to be that "spy software" per se is not needed and the standard set of onboard apps/tools are more than adequate for the job of remote spying...(especially if tricked up/enabled prior to being presented to the student).
One of the twists in the Philly story is that the remote viewing (and possibly eavesdropping) was not strictly necessary to laptop recovery of allegedly stolen lappies...and the machines appear to have been tricked up with far more useful (commercial) apps for recovery anyway.
This story becomes ever more bizarre as it unfolds...one aspect being that the school aver the remote control facility would never be used for other than its "un"stated purpose...
Er, hello, Earth to school authorities...then why were you showing students, (minors, as the press would have it, wonder why that term? Ahem.) snaps of what they were doing in the privacy of their own homes?
Since when was this anti drugs abuse activity in the anti theft remit?
And slightly t-i-c, how long before we see the sales/prices of used lappies, sans built in camera and mic, increase on eBay?
Still in t-i-c mode...if Logitech are halfway switched on they will now advertise their "after market add-on" webcam/mic combos as the "only" sure way to avoid being spied on...simply unplug when not in use...by yourself.
151 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-23 15:39:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #150
Oops, looked like you covered the kit aspect already Jesse...I have a job typing two fingered...poxy dupuytren's.
152 • RE:146,142 (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-23 15:48:28 GMT from United States)
@142, Yes Tom that will do it.
@146, I believe Fedora still has it now but that doesn't matter. Did you notice that I said in the next few years? Red Hat may not but I just can't see any others not including it.
153 • Mint - No more distro hopping (by Erech Myers on 2010-02-23 15:51:10 GMT from United States)
I agree with the article for the most part. I've been using Mint as my desktop for a few years now and have not changed. However, I do have an old computer that I use as my Linux distro hopping computer. I don't use that computer on a daily basis, but anytime I feel like trying a new distro it comes in handy! Long Live Distro Hopping!
154 • Fedora and Mono @146, 152 (by Fred Nelson at 2010-02-23 16:18:29 GMT from United States)
For what it's worth, you two must be thinking of Fedora 11 or before, which included Tomboy (and hence Mono) by default in the Desktop spin. Fedora 12 replaced it with Gnote, and Rawhide shows no sign of going back to Tomboy, especially with a Fedora contributor (Debarshi Ray) being the new maintainer of Gnote. So no, Mono is no longer included in the default install of Fedora as of the current stable version.
If by "include" you mean available in the main repository as opposed to in the default install, then yes, Mono is still included and will probably will stay unless the alleged patents on various parts of Mono start being actively enforced. (IANAFCORHE albeit [I Am Not a Fedora Contributor or Red Hat Employee].)
155 • end of distro--hopping? (by Bryan on 2010-02-23 16:47:41 GMT from United States)
I don't think finding a distro you can be satisfied with (like Mint) will mean the END of distro-hopping. In my case, I use Mint as my old standby that can and will do anything I tell it, while my other partition is devoted to things like testing new flavors and building up Arch and Slackware installs.
Basically I see my computer as a two-car garage: on one side is the old trusty Honda that will run forever, no matter what. On the other side is my project car, stripped down and malfunctioning; a continual work-in-progress that I go to when I feel like tinkering.
156 • distro-hopping (by bugman at 2010-02-23 16:49:09 GMT from United States)
i have stopped distro-hopping as well
but i have settled on puppy, not mint
157 • Linux Mint ends "distro hopping" (by Peter Schelleman at 2010-02-23 17:13:10 GMT from Netherlands)
Not true for me. I love MInt and fully agree with Bovnar's evaluation. Mint I use as my daily bread and butter distro, but I also look at other distros to see what is moving in the Linux world. Ubuntu may be moving away in the direction of commercial ventures, witness their deal with Yahoo, putting all their apps in Ubuntu software center and more such things.
At the moment I run Windows 7 on a 2nd desktop for gaming and work; have Mint and Fedora installed on my main desktop and am running Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my netbook. I agree with the modern Mark Twain: it is better to remain agile while distro hopping and be thought a fool than to keep your mind shut and remove all doubts.
158 • Mint and not religious about that (by rarsa on 2010-02-23 17:25:12 GMT from Canada)
After intensively distro hoping I settled for Fedora. When I realized that it was more experimental than I had time for, I moved to Ubuntu for a little while and then Mint.
I have been on mint since Elisa (version 5), doing In-place upgrades. I'm currently on Gloria as it is stable for me. My next jump will be a clean install once the LTR (10.4) based version is out.
@1: A name is just a name, in this case the distro names are female names, most names have an etymology. Are you looking for etymologies for each and every name? Wouldn't you use the "Nero" cd burner just because it sounds like Neron? When you drive do you skip streets with "non christian" names? Would you avoid shaking hands with a woman named Isadora?
Although I respect your religion, your comment was borderline ridiculous. I really don't think you thought that one through.
159 • And it hasn't ended my hopping (by rarsa on 2010-02-23 17:29:38 GMT from Canada)
I forgot to add that virtualization made Distro hopping way easier. I still test all the distros I receive with my magazine subscriptions. Plus some others that look interesting.
I have yet to find a nicer menu than Mint's.
160 • #56 (by Notorik at 2010-02-23 18:13:54 GMT from United States)
Why not? What else do you need? Friendly (quirky) community, huge repository, a multitude of great Puplets to choose from, and all around 100 megabytes. It is the only usable distro on really old hardware. It rocks on newer machines.
161 • grub 2 and mint 8 (by Anonymous at 2010-02-23 19:59:52 GMT from Canada)
I get the impression that mint lovers either use mint 7 (with grub.9) or install only to the whole disk
There has been a lot of posts on various forums concerning the problems that grub 2 can cause with dual installs; hopefully these are all in the past.
162 • GRUB 2 (by Fred Nelson at 2010-02-23 20:38:51 GMT from United States)
Oddly, despite all the dire warnings about GRUB 2 not working well on individual partitions, I have not had any problem with it. And I tried it first with a very early alpha of Ubuntu Karmic, when it had just been recently introduced. I also have a Debian Sid partition with GRUB 2 working just fine. (Though a tip to distro-hoppers: make sure to disable the GRUB script that searches for other partitions on the disk; it can take an absurd amount of time, and you presumably already have a master GRUB 0.9x handing booting on the MBR.) So it's definitely a YMMV situation; have backup plans, but don't count on it failing either.
163 • distro hopping (by Bob in Toronto on 2010-02-23 20:42:19 GMT from Canada)
I'm doing much less distro hopping with Linux Mint.
Had an old PIII 800 laptop that I was using for awhile and ran Mint 7 XFCE on it and it worked well and was fairly zippy on this old machine...but the mobo packed it in first ;)
Have a newer Thinkpad laptop of P4 vintage and am running the Gnome Mint 7 on it with no issues of consequence.
I'm running Ubuntu on my Dell Mini and Ubuntu Studio 8.10 on my main desktop.
The one "show stopper" with Mint has been Pulse Audio on Mint 8. Was trying to install it on a Toshiba laptop with an Intel soundchip and was unable to get audio working. Have been tearing my hair out with it...mind you the parent distro Ubuntu has the same problem as do many other distros. Funny thing was that audio worked fine in "live" mode...the problems started when I did the actual installation.
Also had some bugginess when hot swapping USB devices in Mint 8...this is never a problem in Mint 7...but found a more or less "fix" for it.
I often think of Mint as the "better Ubuntu" and recommend it to friends, but I'd hoped that perhaps Mint could have come up with a "better" way to deal with the glitches working with Pulse Audio than Ubuntu has.
Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to Mint 9...think I'll avoid 8 for the time being.
164 • have you really stopped downloading and testing other distributions? (by Klaus buchmann (58) on 2010-02-23 20:45:42 GMT from Netherlands)
I have been a mint user (no developer) for a bit over a year now (coming from msw of course) and for me this OS is all i need: stability, safety, reliability, a sea of software, as well as the conviction that people like Clem are determined to improve the system even further. Linux has the right philosophy which eventually will convince many other people.
Firefox and Thunderbird are the other two apps i use for my purpose and that trinity is enough to carry on with for the next couple of years as far as i am concerned.
I was curious enough to have a quick look at a few other os, (kde, xfce) but i'll stick to Mint 8.
Please keep up the good work.
165 • Linux Mint and Ubuntu (by Robin on 2010-02-23 21:11:25 GMT from United States)
I bet Linux Mint would soar to the top of the chart if it was built on Debian Testing instead of Ubuntu. Ubuntu's policy of putting BETA software by default (Grub2, PulseAudio, etc) while still calling their distro "beginner-friendly" is a mistake in my opinion. When it works, it's great! When it doesn't, however, it can give even experienced Linux users headaches. It ought to be a Linux Law: Don't give newbies Beta software and expect them to be just fine with it!
Even Ubuntu's upcoming LTS release will include Beta software! If Mint follows suit (as in the past), they are bound to inherit the same whirlwind that Ubuntu has with Karmic.
Switch to Debian, Clem! You'll be Number One quicker than you can say "Distrowatch!"
166 • Linux Mint and Distro hopping. (by JT on 2010-02-23 23:03:26 GMT from United States)
I still look at other linux distros, but not in the same way I used to before I found Linux Mint. For me I ultimately want a computer that works in a way that I'm confortable with. Windows makes me unconfortable, and I've never been able to get into Macintosh. Linux Mint is easy for me to use, has most of the packages I want, and really just makes sense. It takes the stuff I actually liked about windows, while getting rid of all the stuff that bothered me.
So now I use Mint as my main OS and use virtual machines to check out other operating systems.
167 • No subject (by alexis on 2010-02-23 23:24:21 GMT from Ukraine)
As always, just a balanced and reasonable answer is much more effective than a pile of emotional words. #67, #136 - thank you, a big thanks to you!
To all the rest: I am old enough (as a computer user too) to be aware that neither windows or linux, or *bsd can be less or more godly or saint. You say to me: it is a free world, use windows instead. I know better than to go to that. Rather, it is vise versa: it is at the windows world exist such things that have bored me quite a bit. Every time one run a crack exe-file for some commercial software (let us be honest: a lot of people use it here, and they can't help but do that), do you think there are church hymns sounding as I do that? Nope. There are some satanic-like pics appearing, and a likewise music sounding. Am I satisfied with TheBat! mail-client (that name have been inspired by a song by Aerosmith) or the Nero as a burning software (doesn't that sound ridicuous: Nero burning a copy of Qui Vadis by pirates) and other things like that.
Strangely enough, it is at the Debian/Ubuntu world my breath became in somewhat free and sound (as to say); that is the reason I am kind of interested in those project like Ubuntu, Mint would be as neutral and clean as they can be. What I mean. Let us be honest, neither Christian version of Ubuntu, or Muslim, or Satanic one will become a mainstream. There are a host of reasons they won't because of, and I won't be plunging into that matter. All the successful business projects are very careful about such things as names, being it might hurt somebody of any religious, or political or !!!just simply national!! background and views (don't say me it doesn't do any difference; it does). As for Isadora, I am glad visitor #136 explained that to me (thank you again, Reverend). But that is not just as silly thing as somebody might think. There is a Russian saying: \"What name you'll give to your ship, that will be its fate\". If you choose a mean, nasty name, some name that refe rs to a chaos, gives some allusions to a satanic subject -- that would be its fate.
#109: Clement, if any of my words hurted you, I am sorry. I appreciate your work very much and want to encourage you to continue on, doing the best you can.// BTW, did you think of the name of Irena (Irina)?
168 • Isadora (by fernbap at 2010-02-23 23:54:16 GMT from Portugal)
What's wrong with Isadora, for god's sake?
If you take a look at the origin of names, all have a certain origin that was lost through history.
This way, people would complain about Sara being a jewish name, disregarding the fact that it is used in all western world?
or Leonidas because it is a greek myth?
Or about BSDAnywhere because someone could soletrate BS Dany?
Some names sound well, some don't. Personally, i like Isadora.
169 • mint (by forlin at 2010-02-24 00:02:37 GMT from Portugal)
For a release that is due to become available sometime between 60 and 90 days ahead the time and energy placed here discussing it's name would have better utility if it was about new features and improvements.
As Mint is a distro with a vast community base, maybe next time the leaders could present a few names and then let the users decide by vote.
170 • Distro Hopping (by Aaron on 2010-02-24 02:43:12 GMT from United States)
I have been playing with Linux for about three years, but it wasn't until Linux Mint 6 that I went 100% Linux. While I still enjoy trying out other distros, my laptop will always have Linux Mint as its primary OS simply because it works. No looking for video or wireless drivers, no sound issues, no crashes...just pure function.
171 • mint 8 (by nick at 2010-02-24 03:55:18 GMT from Australia)
mint does "not work" for me. Tried it many times in the past and gave up. This time seeing the extremely favourable review of "number 8" I decided to have another try. Based on Ubuntu I thought I could use the repository of my own ISP (iinet.net.au) by going to synaptic and trying to find it.
All Ubuntu inspired distros I tried so far showed my ISP as a repo.
Is Mint really based on Ubuntu or really Debian?
The first application I always install on a new distro is mc (midnight commander).
Synaptic installed it OK, but when it came to the CLI and I typed mc, the fun really started with a note that there was a wrong ELF header.
I read up on libraries etc. and reinstalled mint 8 again without any success: the ELF warning was still there. Please do not give me any advice for a remedy because I have now definitely given up on Mint which is a pity because a lot of effort, dedication, time and love of the subject has gone into this distro. I am surprised why such a highly praised distro did not work on my setup.
172 • Linux Mint (by Carling on 2010-02-24 05:53:55 GMT from United States)
Over this last 3 months I have downloaded all the top distros and not one match up to Linux Mint in my opinion the next best is Pardus 2009.1 that for speed is exceptional,
I have downloaded ubuntu 10.4 and within 12 hours I was back on Mint why you might ask, well the simple answer is everything works out of the box, no problem with my hardware drivers, like I had with ubuntu 10.4. I had problems with Opensuse 11.3 Fedora 12 Debian, PCLinux 2010 and others, Why people think Ubuntu is great is because it is well advertised, people actually think Ubuntu is Linux.
I can't be doing going into the terminal to install drivers and updates, that's not my scene, if software can't be installed with a mouse click how do you expect new users to understand what the terminal is all about, when they have never used it in windows,
For those that have use Mint know what a good distribution it is, I have stated on Opensuse forum that they need to take note on what Linux Mint developers have done to make things easy for new users,
173 • Unbelivable ? (by RollMeAway at 2010-02-24 06:25:55 GMT from United States)
Did someone post a note in the mint forums to go to distrowatch and pump up mint?
174 • RE: 173 and an Observation (by Landor at 2010-02-24 09:23:52 GMT from Canada)
RE: 173
This is normal. I don't remember if you were around in the PCLOS days, or whenever something big was posted about Ubuntu or even say Sabayon, they'd flock to the comments section in droves.
If we looked at actual numbers though, say for monday there was roughly 80k in visitors. Of those visitors there was just over 100 posts, not all about Mint of course, or glorifying it. You break those numbers down and you see just how small the number actually is based on percentages. Also, you can surmise that most posts are people who are vocal for some "apparent reason", especially when the majority are not regular posters. :)
=========
I'm disillusioned with Ladislav and how he recently (in my regard) totally contradicted the premise of this comments section. This is not a direct quote but I remember Ladislav stating here that he believed a comments section was prudent for two reasons to point out errors and discussion of the articles/content here so people could have a say of their view whether it was for or against. That's within reason of course, as long as the person expressed themselves in a intelligent manner and treated others with respect.
I posted this week, around the #5 or #6 spot, I saw the post go through and then when I looked later on in the day on Monday (which anyone can see it's not there) the post was completely gone. No information about the comment being deleted.
The only reason I can see for this is that Ladislav himself now holds a favourable bias in regard to Mint, which I wondered about earlier with his over zealous defense of Mint's stature and right for a review which primarily he based on the monetary providing that as an absolute reason for it's singular distinction.
What I find the most telling of this is that it wasn't anywhere near a fraction of the stand I've taken on other topics and it was a direct observation of what Clem wrote that was completely inaccurate in the way of repositories.
I said similar before but I'll expand on it, given how constricted the section here can be. We need a definite rule book for posting, updating frequently at your discretion (at the present time), telling us who we can post about, what distributions we're allow to, or not as the case may be, post positively or negatively about. We need clear definitions on exactly how we're supposed to post to keep in line with the outcome you find most desirable.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
175 • Re: 172 abotu Ubuntu 10.04 (by hob4bit on 2010-02-24 09:42:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, did you know that Ubuntu 10.04 is not released yet? You cannot judge a distro based on alpha version.
176 • Linux Mint 8 & distro-hopping (by Dieter Gentzow on 2010-02-24 09:50:53 GMT from United States)
Stopped distro-hopping with version 3 of MINT several years ago.
Reason for moving from Windows to Linux is because WIndows was wasting way too much time. Reloading Windows on a PC with all your personal special apps and security patches etc, could take an eight hour day.
Now with Linux Mint, the process is down to two hours.
I practice the old saying: "Don't fix something that is not broken"
Diz, W8DIZ
177 • Re. 176 (by Tim on 2010-02-24 12:48:36 GMT from United States)
Hi Diz. Great to see another ham radio operator on Distrowatch. Have you looked at Shackbox yet? It is a nice distro with a lot of ham radio add-ons. I have a laptop that I want to try it on and see if I can run it mobile.
73's
Tim KF4BZT
178 • @142 (by Leroy at 2010-02-24 12:53:34 GMT from Serbia)
Tom, I too want everybody to make money :) That's not at issue here. My point is that Ubuntu has largely failed, at least in what they proclaimed years ago were the goals. And now I wonder, I speculate, what happens next? Does it drag on, or what? In any free world, this one included, wondering and speculating ought to be a legitimate pastime.
Another point where its failure is evident is precisely the popularity of this good little distro Mint, known otherwise as "Ubuntu done right".
@145 -
"Perhaps you don't grasp the concept that Canonical is a business"
As long as they grasp it and turn a profit, what does it matter whether the likes of me grasp it :)
"Any business plans/models it may have are of no concern to anyone but themselves"
But, how will they go about preventing people from expressing their free opinion? Senseless arrogance sure doesn't sound like an ideal PR model to pursue. Hm.
"In other words they are not answerable to anyone like us"
That's a bit like saying Burnley FC really don't care if any fans show up at their games, much less if they support the team. Even serious, big clubs can't afford that sort of, again, senseless arrogance, let alone the unfortunate Burnley.
@175 - Is that you, #145 ;)
179 • Distro Hopping (by Contentus Bovinious at 2010-02-24 15:15:51 GMT from United States)
I have many systems and am always downloading and checking out new distros. That being said, I do have my main system that I need to be always running for important tasks, such as playing World of Warcraft. That system runs Mint, and has been for quite some time now. Mint was the distro that finally (permanently) replaced Windows for me.
180 • Tried Mint, hopped back (by Lee at 2010-02-24 15:45:29 GMT from United States)
First, the on-topic part of my post:
I tried Mint mainly to see how they had altered
Gnome. I'm pretty happy with stock Ubuntu, but
I constantly try different window managers and
desktop environments. Mint was nice but I hopped
back.
Now, about Distrowatch Weekly & its comments section:
Its WEEKLY and thus, ideally, the comments would
reference the current week's editorial. Ladislav
gently tried to guide comments with: "If you are a
Linux Mint user, have you really stopped downloading
and testing other distributions? Please comment below."
To that 173 replies: "Did someone post a note in the
mint forums to go to distrowatch and pump up mint?"
And 174 notes: "... you can surmise that most posts
are people who are vocal for some "apparent reason",
especially when the majority are not regular posters."
This week's subject was Linux Mint and comments by
that distro's users were appropriate. I submit we
need fewer comments from the half-dozen "regular
posters" who treat this area as a social network
or their personal blog.
181 • Linux Mint & distro-hopping (by campamax at 2010-02-24 15:54:40 GMT from Italy)
I've been using Mint since its release nr. 5, and every distro I've tried have not satisfied me as much as Mint. So I stuck with it for its releases 6 and 7, both also an my netbook. Then Mint 8 came, and something unbelievable for me happened: my netbook became very slow. I reinstalled, and again the same problem.
Then I decided to give Ubuntu Netbook Remix a spin to see if the problem laid in the Ubuntu base or in Mint itself, and... well, UNR is not in my opinion as clean and polite as Mint is (and MUCH more work was needed to configure the system the way I desired), but the overall speed remains appreciable.
So, I have not an answer about where the speed problem laid. I now keep using UNR and had to abandon Mint, but I'll give it again a try with the next release, as well as if I had a more powerful PC to play with I would start with Mint again. Bot for now..... bye Mint, see you later.
182 • @173 & @174 Don't believe it? it was just an answer (by rarsa on 2010-02-24 15:56:19 GMT from Canada)
@173
I don't frequent the Mint forums, I have no idea if something was posted there. There was an explicit question asked to Mint users in the article:
"f you are a Linux Mint user, have you really stopped downloading and testing other distributions?"
So I guess that the question was answered by Mint users. How is that strange? Had it been a question to centOS users I wouldn't have answered but I would have expected centOS users to respond.
@174
How is noting that something is good based on personal experience a "bias"?
How does that affect you that Ladislav or me or any other person likes Mint? Or worst, How does it affect you that someone points out the advantages of one distribution? Are you trying to get "politically correct" here?: All distributions are the same under the law.
The reality is that some are more user friendly, some others are faster, some are stable and some are experimental, some may even work just for a few people. It's all good.
183 • All distributions are the same under the law. (by AngryDistroGUY at 2010-02-24 17:27:09 GMT from United States)
Do you seriously believe this?
I think I have a problem with you. Not only are they different, but they are not the same.
Which Law?
Is there a LAW about distributions that we are unaware of?
This is not like
"That all men are created equal" and apply it to Distributions. This does not work. They are not created equal. Each one is unique in its way of dealing with situations. Which LAW? Could you be specific.
184 • RE:178, What are you talking about? (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-24 18:07:10 GMT from United States)
UBUNTU DONE RIGHT? Mint is not trying to be Ubuntu so what are you talking about? Most of the time when I hear a phrase like that it's quite obvious that people don't really know what goes on in developing a distro for release. That must really burn up the developers of LinuxMint to hear people say that. It is based on Ubuntu and that's all. As far as the rest of your comment goes there's a lot of rambling that makes no logical sense at all. Why are you doing it? Why you even care?
185 • @173; @174 - Truly Unbelivable!! (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-24 18:08:00 GMT from United States)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
173 • Unbelivable ? (by RollMeAway at 2010-02-24 06:25:55 GMT from United States)
Did someone post a note in the mint forums to go to distrowatch and pump up mint?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
174 • RE: 173 and an Observation (by Landor at 2010-02-24 09:23:52 GMT from Canada)
RE: 173
This is normal. I don't remember if you were around in the PCLOS days, or whenever something big was posted about Ubuntu or even say Sabayon, they'd flock to the comments section in droves...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gotta love people who find distros like Linux Mint easy to be upset with because they don't cater to their narrow view of what a Linux distribution should be.
Now that Clem and his Mint Team are blazing a trail along which legions of frustrated former Windows and Mac users are finding a well lighted and welcoming pathway into the world of open source and Linux, people of such a mindset happily invent reasons to object even though their reasons are completely without foundation. They object because that's what they do -- the only thing they really know how to do.
Speaking strictly for myself, while hopefully reflecting thoughts of satisfied Mint users around the world, I love it when certain people disparage those who simply want a modern, reliable, well designed, easy to maintain Linux desktop OS that right out of the box does essentially everything a work a day operating system should do. Such negativity as we've seen exhibited here provides ongoing evidence that Linux Mint and similar developments are on the right track, otherwise these guys wouldn't have a thing to complain about!
That Linux Mint is widely recognized as "Ubuntu Done Right" is no accident. The rapidly growing legions of Mint users world wide who gladly testify to that fact will not be silenced by such petty nay sayers!
186 • How about Igelle. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-02-24 18:11:29 GMT from United States)
Has anybody tried Igelle yet? This looks like it could be a breath of fresh air. Downloading now.
187 • codecs (by hating M$ on 2010-02-24 18:58:00 GMT from United States)
The only reason anyone would have to include codecs installed by default is its because windows users are so used to it. They always buy pre-built computers with everything installed for them. Generic windows (store bought) doesn't come with codecs, or anything else for that matter. You might not even have internet access because drivers aren't included. One thing linux does better than windows (among the 1000s of other things) is provide drivers for basic computer hardware (stuff like lan, some video, and other stuff). If you took a store-bought windows OS and installed it, good luck having any of your hardware work. So, windows fails big there while linux provides necessary drivers to get the job done from the start. Linux even updates better without requiring restarts for everything except kernel updates. (I may be wrong, but I don't think windows even trys to update their kernel until the next version.)
188 • Linux Mint for the win! (by librarygrrl on 2010-02-24 18:59:21 GMT from United States)
I don't think Mint has ended distro hopping totally, as I'm very curious. But, now that I've got the webcam working with Cheese, every piece of hardware on my wife's HP laptop is working!! This is quite a feat. It also mostly meets her approval, and she just wants to sit down and use the computer, without having to be a geek like me. We replaced Vista with Mint, and I am overjoyed! I think Mint will live on this particular laptop for quite awhile.
Now I'll just be peeking at things for my own curiosity, and running things on older computers I have. I'm very tempted to find a distro to run my aging PowerBook... :)
189 • Igelle (by Jesse at 2010-02-24 19:59:51 GMT from Canada)
A few people have asked about Igelle. I'm hoping to download and try that distribution next week. If all goes well, I'll write up a review about it in the next few weeks.
190 • No subject (by jeffcustom at 2010-02-24 20:02:27 GMT from United States)
I've always been perplexed why people in the Linux community can't just applaud a developers efforts, especially when it brings people to try Linux.
When someone decides to lead a project they have to get webspace, download mirrors, monitor and support a user community, etc.... When any developer makes this type of commitment, they deserve some respect.
I believe that too many people open their mouths who, while maybe having great computer skills, lack terribly in human to human communication.
If someone decides to create SPEAR-Mint, PEPPER-Mint, DOUBLE-Mint or whatever distro, I will look if I like or ignore if I like. Who am I to criticize these people for their vision of an OS and what right do I have to beat up on Ladislav because he chooses to list info or have an opinion about an OS on HIS SITE?! I feel that is not my place.
I have the privilege of using my computer any way I like because of people like Warren Wolford, Clem, Robert Shingledecker and many many others... I choose to just be grateful for the choice and reserve my comments for encouragement and suggestions.
I would dare to say that the Linux community would be much stronger if others would take a similar approach.
191 • Slackware Speculation (by david on 2010-02-24 20:42:45 GMT from United States)
Can anyone tell me if the lack of updates to the Current Change log is indicitive of a new realease pending shortly. It appears the last update was Jan 31. I am running current and it's stable and fast.
192 • igelle (by david on 2010-02-24 20:47:29 GMT from United States)
i have installed igelle and it seems stable enough. The lack of packages available limit it somewhat but this is to be expected from a new project. The desktop is responsive but the only thing one is able to change seems to be the wallpaper. Hardware support seems to be on par with all the other major distros. I like the dock at the bottom but once again I can't find anyway to alter it to my liking. I haven't had a crash yet and i have been running it for 4 days.
david
193 • @183: All distributions are the same under the law (by Anonymous at 2010-02-24 20:47:50 GMT from Canada)
I guess you really didn't read my post correctly, Or maybe I didn't write it correctly;
I asked
Are you trying to get "politically correct" here?: All distributions are the same under the law.
With the colon ":" I meant: "Are you trying to be politically correct? Do you think that all distributions are the same under the law?"
I should have added quotes around that statement.
I guess you stopped reading there because I go on to say pretty much what you said on your last paragraph.
"""That all men are created equal" and apply it to Distributions. This does not work. They are not created equal. Each one is unique in its way of dealing with situations.""
You actually wrote it more directly.
194 • RE: 182 (by Landor at 2010-02-24 22:19:03 GMT from Canada)
In 193 you said the author of 183 stopped reading at a specific point, doing so to point out his error, where he would have understood that he was in line with what you meant.
If you actually had read what I said Ladislav now has a favourable bias for Mint and "I believe" his reason was monetary, since that was the only part of Mint he was overly zealous about. So, tell me, how does money have anything to do with a bias in regard to "personal experience". You should have read my comment further.
Also, to the point again, how is talking about how much money a distribution earns a way of "pointing out the advantages of one distribution"? (as you stated, though I added ing to fit with how I typed it out)
I find it funny that you brought up politically correct when that is really what the whole part of my comment that you're referring to is all about. About Ladislav deleting my comment because it didn't follow the party line, so to speak. So who's talking about being politically correct?
For what it's worth, here's the basis of my comment that was completely removed.
Clem said that only distributions that have corporate funding maintain their own repositories. That is complete (and I'll use a term I read Ladislav use here not long ago) and udder "FUD". As far as I remember, Slackware does not receive corporate funding and maintains its own repositories. I also believe that Arch and Gentoo do not receive corporate funding and maintain their own repositories and there are many others, those are to just name a few.
It's a nice way for Clem to skirt two real issues about his own repositories. A) He doesn't have the resources to maintain his own repositories on the scale Mint has now and I'd bet my last dollar the majority of the comments here wouldn't have happened because the usership would be far lower due to small availability of packages. B) that until Mint does run its own repositories it can never really be considered a stand alone distribution.
Those are two facts of the matter and Ladislav deleted the post because it didn't fall in line with his growing bias towards Mint.
Feel like talking about politically correct?
(Feel free to delete this again too Ladislav)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
195 • Mint Stops Distro Hopping (by Rick on 2010-02-24 22:21:09 GMT from United States)
I think it's definitely true...I am always distro hopping but every once in a while when I get tired of hopping around the ONLY operating system I will leave on for any extended period of time is Mint. So much so that as a fan of KDE over Gnome, Mint Gnome is the only OS that I always come back to.
196 • Question 191 (by Barnabyh at 2010-02-24 22:22:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
That is usually quite a good indicator, however the usual time between releases is about 8 months which would put 13.1 some time mid to late April. I personally hope that it will include KDE 4.4.1 at least instead of 4.3.4, although I'll only be trying it to (most likely) go back to Xfce to get some real work done :).
197 • slackware (by david on 2010-02-24 22:37:05 GMT from United States)
@barnabhy
thanks for the insight. i too use Xfce but i do like the eye candy that KDE offers.
david
198 • @ 194: mis-quote (by Jesse at 2010-02-24 22:38:34 GMT from Canada)
Landor, you wrote:
"Clem said that only distributions that have corporate funding maintain their own repositories. "
That's not accurate at all. Actually, what Clem said was
"you'll notice very few projects which have the resources to both maintain their own packages and develop new innovations on a regular basis. I can think of only a few, and these are backed with corporate funding"
He didn't say "only distributions that have corporate funding maintain their own repositories". He said the projects *he could think of* which innovate AND have their own repositories are backed by corporate funding. I assume he was thinking of distros like Ubuntu and Fedora.
Now, there may be some that slipped his mind or he may be mistaken in his assumption, but your statement was false.
199 • RE: 198 (by Landor at 2010-02-24 22:53:03 GMT from Canada)
First, I'll reply this once. I said I wouldn't continue to discuss things with you and asked you to do the same but you fail continually to do so. You and Forest both.
He was speaking directly about your question about repositories so it falls directly under the basis that companies with corporate funding maintain their own repositories. You can read it any way you want.
And he actually said (nice way to cut off a pertinent part of the comment btw):
Developing our own repositories represents a massive amount of work. If you look at the various distributions on the market you'll notice very few projects which have the resources to both maintain their own packages and develop new innovations on a regular basis. I can think of only a few, and these are backed with corporate funding.
That might not read to you that corporate funding is why distributions maintain their own repositories, but as I said, anyone can read it any way they want.
You also "assume" he meant this or that and also make allowances for something that "may" have slipped his mind. Me, I prefer to read what he actually said, not look into my distro-crystal ball for hidden meanings. So, no, I was not incorrect.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
200 • End of Distro Hopping (by Rod Kimmitt on 2010-02-24 23:24:22 GMT from United States)
Sad, but true, at least in my case. I've been using Mint for about 6 months now (started with release 7 and moved to 8 recently). So far, it's behaving well, and I'm not inclined to move on. Today Linux users have an embarrassment of riches, with numerous mature distros from which to choose. It's not like the old days when it took some real time and effort just to install a (barely) working version of Linux. I started with Red Hat 5.1 (shudder). Now, many distros are so easy to install and so functional that there is little incentive to hop around.
Maybe I am becoming complacent. (Mooo).
201 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-25 02:26:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
202 • @187: M$ Tax and Linux Kitchen Sink (by RO at 2010-02-25 04:26:19 GMT from United States)
I think you are pointing out a benefit of the M$ tax for those willing to pay it for a pre-configured machine from a manufacturer like Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, etc. That's OK with me for those who find it comfortable.
But I am more in line with where you go from there. I have come to strongly dislike installing Windows XP or 7 (skipped Vista completely) from scratch because it is so aggravating to find the proprietary drivers, useful apps, and, of course, an anti-virus as the first priority. I do have a little "kit" now of Avira, and now Portable Apps to help with such chores, but with modern Linux distros it's mostly all there on the installation CD image and/or repositories (the proverbial "kitchen sink") - a breeze by comparison.
There is the odd bit of unsupported hardware here and there, but I find that less and less of an issue as the distros have matured over the last few years, and usually one or another will work out of the box. I do tend to stay with older hardware, and that helps (as long as it is not too old or underpowered, but even then I can resort to the "mini" distros like Puppy, Slitaz, Slax, etc for PC's that Windows XP or 7 would be too much for - choice is so nice).
Linux in general has just gotten easier and easier to put on a PC from scratch instead of Windows. A far cry from when I had to install Linux from a box (or 2) of floppies to just get a basic server-class machine for experimenting/developing without a GUI (or a very simplistic one) or desktop-oriented apps.
Linux has come a long way, and my hat's off to ALL the distros and their hard-working developers - now I need to pick a few of my favorites to make some donations to!
On the downside, it would help greatly if Ubuntu would get more realistic about release schedules instead of throwing junk out "on time". That would help its slipping credibility with me. I make it a point now to let it "age" a month or 3 to get that first big "service pack" out there (as with a certain commercial software enterprise in Redmond...). That is where I appreciate Mint lagging them as it polishes the initial roughness of a new Ubuntu release - take your time, Clem!
203 • Mint - Pinnacle of the Linux Desktop Experience (by LoveMint on 2010-02-25 05:05:46 GMT from United States)
It's not a bad thing that mint is so complete that people find it unnecessary to keep distro hopping. Finally there is a Linux distribution that I can install on a family member or friend's computer and I don't have to worry about their user experience. It Just Works. Flash, codecs, java... just works, right out of the box! Mint is beautiful, functional and impressive. I'll always be a distro hopper personally because I'm a geek and different hardware and different computer roles mean different distros apply, but I'll always have at least one computer in my home with mint on it and it's the only distro I'll install or recommend to people who aren't familiar with linux. Debian makes a great server and ubuntu makes a great desktop, but mint takes it to the next level and represents the pinnacle of desktop distributions in my perspective.
What I'm currently running:
Primary Desktop - Mint 8 x64
Primary Laptop - Mint 8 x64 (just switched off opensuse 11.2 x64... not bad, but knetworkmanager is terrible)
Common area desktop for roommates on old hardware - Zenwalk Current
Older spare "play" laptop - Debian Stable 32-bit
204 • Mint is awesome... what's in a name? (by Mint is great on 2010-02-25 05:15:24 GMT from United States)
Mint is definitely one of the best desktop distro's out there! Thank you so much clem... I'm going to donate some cash soon enough to help keep this distro great.
To the christians complaining about the upcoming name... really? You're going to ask for a more neutral name to fit your narrow world view? I guess that's your right. It's my right to hope and pray to the universe that one day christianity will be looked at in the same light as greek or egyptian mythology is today.
205 • Mint - an anecdote (by gnomic at 2010-02-25 06:07:29 GMT from New Zealand)
OK, call me a fanboy . . . but I am not being paid to say this, nor am I a daily participant on the Mint forums. One day I went into the library to use the internet, and spied a young chap looking most woebegone. Turned out he had installed Fedora on his laptop alongside, Windows, and decided he might prefer to try another Linux instead. He boldly deleted his Linux partition and somehow in the process hosed Grub. Panic stations, Windows would no longer boot, and he was going to be in trouble with his girlfriend for wrecking their shared machine. I pulled out a Mint live CD I just happened to have with me, we installed it, and roughly twenty minutes later he was looking much happier, as both Mint and Windows were booting on his machine. So 10 points for Mint. Personally I enjoy using Mint in general (though it would be nice if it didn't insist on trying and failing to suspend my laptop when I close the lid on a live session in the Gnome version), and find having the requisite multimedia codecs installed a definite plus for live CD usage. Your mileage may of course vary.
206 • 198, 199, 201 (by Brooko at 2010-02-25 06:35:27 GMT from New Zealand)
Any chance you could stop the personal attacks forest. We all know you appear to feel goaded everytime Landor posts, but I for one am becoming utterly sick of your pointless little tirades. Why don't you just live and let live. True - this is not Landor's private blog - but neither is it yours. I used to enjoy reading both of your comments until recently. You both had wonderful insight into the goings on in the wider community and I enjoyed reading both of your points of view on various distros. Recently, I'd get more sense from a kindergarten.
Jesse - in this instance I read Clem's comments pretty much exactly along the lines of Landor's inference - although I disagree with the thought that one must have their own repos to qualify as a separate distribution (rather than a flavour - if that makes sense?). I think Mint does bring a lot of innovation, and kudos to the Clem and the other developers.
But supporting Landor's point - one such distribution that does run it's own repos and has brought a lot of innovation in years past is Mepis. True - it is reliant on Debian repos as well - but the point (in my view anyway) is valid.
Now can we go back to discussing distributions .....
207 • Re:191 (by jake at 2010-02-25 07:20:53 GMT from United States)
"Can anyone tell me if the lack of updates to the Current Change log is indicitive of a new realease pending shortly."
Yes. PV can. And he's not talking. After fifteen years of running Slackware, my gut feeling is that we'll have a bunch of changes to -current in a week or four, followed by a fairly regular update cycle over six weeks or a couple months, followed by one or more RCs, followed by Slackware 3.1 around a month later.
I don't speak for PV. The above paragraph is pure speculation.
"It appears the last update was Jan 31."
Yes.
"I am running current and it's stable and fast."
So why do you want an update? The system works. Use it. Unless you actually enjoy the constant update cycle ...
208 • Debian, @207 (by Reuben at 2010-02-25 07:56:59 GMT from United States)
I just tried the debian squeeze cd image in virtualbox. Selected the gnome option from the installer and I had gdm pop up on first boot. I remember trying to prod X to even start on woody. My how have things advanced.
"So why do you want an update? The system works. Use it. Unless you actually enjoy the constant update cycle ..."
Well, I assume he's running the current branch because he wants the latest. Oh, and I subject myself to that type of torture by using Fedora's updates repository.
209 • No subject (by ice at 2010-02-25 09:14:12 GMT from Switzerland)
yes is partialy true, is use ubuntu bevore, an now only linux mint, is the best distro ever, we dont need windows 7 even more. thanks.
210 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-25 10:32:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #206
Why bless you Brooko, surely you realise this is just sparring, if only to get a point over. If you feel it's pointless then that's your affair, but read on.
As for insights etc, these things change over time. I for one feel the discussion about Mint is perfectly valid, and long since I would have joined in with more enthusiasm, but from my perception the subject has run out of steam...
We all know (and have known for some considerable time) Mint is an excellent distro(s), to those who simply want functionality out of the box...others like to configure stuff for themselves and Mint may not meet their needs or expectations.
We all know it's based on Ubuntu, we all know it has a "pure" version to appeal to those who prefer open source stuff, we all know it has different desktops, we all know it will install to a lot of machines without problems.
We all know of a "supposedly" political gaffe by Clem...but that gaffe was only in the minds of those who don't read the papers...neither "side" in that situation had any claim to the moral high ground.
There's not really a lot more that need be said about Mint, it's a great distro, and known to be a great distro, no question about it.
The latest "thing" is to go on about repositories. Seeing as how the entire ethos of distros, so to speak, is about open source and sharing then it would make sense to share repositories thus avoiding duplication of effort and waste of energy. It used not to be an issue until now.
Nobody really expects a dev, who built a "distro" on the back of Ubuntu, to then come up with thousands of packages, progs or apps and have their very own repository. Repositories are the result of a great deal of joint effort and some might describe a repository as a pooling of resources...to be enjoyed by all.
To repeat, the entire ethos of open source is about sharing and building on previous works. This sort of thing is actively encouraged to the point that if you take code and improve or modify it in any way then giving it back it to the "community" is just expected. (Doesn't always happen of course.)
Some of the "arguments" above on the repository thread are little more than sophistry or, if you prefer, casuistry, or perhaps just specious.
As for the notion of personal blog...if other folk wanted to remark on anything then they have only to type in their comments and click "Submit"...yet they don't.
211 • Linux Mint (by kay on 2010-02-25 11:38:11 GMT from Germany)
Really Linux Mint is impressing. I was looking at and hopping to a lot of distros but finally found Linux Mint the best for a stable system for everyones use at my home. But I am still looking forward to new distros or versions.
212 • Mint & Arch: Stopping Distro Hopping (by Goetz Kluge on 2010-02-25 13:14:46 GMT from Germany)
My last two distros were Mint and a Mint upgrade. Before that I used RedHat (then Fedora), Gentoo, Knoppix and Debian. Due to some special issues with my hardware, there were some problems with Mint. (Also I always want to run the HW clock with UTC and not in local time, so there was a little annoyance to configure Mint for that.) The issues probably are no problems anymore, but nevertheless, one year ago I moved to ArchLinux. I am very happy with Arch, and since using it I visited distrowatch only each other month or so :-)
Arch: The danger (not a flaw) with ArchLinux is, that after installing and learning a lot you can end up with a very comfortable system without too much console operations as in case of any other popular distribution. I may have to learn lot of forgotten things again once I would have to reinstall ArchLinux. Nevertheless, I probably will stick to Arch, as the documentation (required for re-learning) is excellent.
Mint: If I would have to install Linux *quickly* on annother computer or if I would have to recommend a distribution to friends who just want to install an OS and go to work with the applications right away, I may try Mint again (and try out the Fluxbox version).
So I didn't stop hopping completely. But I significantly narrowed my choice: Arch and Mint. Besides that, I watch PUD and Dreamlinux.
Best regards from Munich
Goetz
213 • linux mint and enthusiasm (by Anonymous at 2010-02-25 15:06:59 GMT from Canada)
Enthusiasm is essential but can lead to distortions.
Go to the mint forum:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/search.php?sid=02b71b21c4879e2da7cac7f3c9eac378
and search for "grub 2"
You get:
Search found 8992 matches • Page 1 of 450
The first page is Feb 25 (today)
The speed and quality of the help is impressive.
It would be more impressive if less help was needed
214 • Mint Linux - here today... (by G at 2010-02-25 19:26:02 GMT from United States)
...but gone tomorrow? I've enjoyed all of the enthusiastic posts about Mint. I'm hesitant to use it, hoever, because it does not have corporate backing like Fedora, or a large and formal development structure like Debian (my favorite).
Are any Mint users concerned about using a distro that depends on a small number of developers, and that may someday become stagnant or dormant? Or will you just move on to the next new thing if that happens?
215 • @214 Here today... gone tomorrow? (by Jesse at 2010-02-25 19:35:30 GMT from Canada)
The question of whether a distro will stick around is a question I look at. It's nice to know that there is something backing the technology you use on a day to day basis. Fedora, Debian, etc feel safe this way. Mint, while young and small, is based on Ubuntu (which has corporate backing) and Debian (which is a large organisation), so using it isn't a concern for me. After all, if Mint goes under, users will still get security updates from Ubuntu until the distro's regular end of life. Then they can switch to something else.
And, for that matter, most of the big name distributions use essentially the same software, so moving data from one desktop install to another usually isn't an issue.
If we were looking at a production server, then I'd be more concerned with backing. For example, I'd much rather run Red Hat (or a clone) on a production server than Slackware. Slackware may actually be a better server OS, but it's largely run by one great man. Which isn't something clients want to hear.
216 • @ 213 • linux mint and enthusiasm (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-25 21:05:42 GMT from United States)
To post an anonymous suggestion linking Linux Mint's forums to community wide issues surrounding the present version of Grub 2 is disingenuous at best.
So what that there are hundreds of pages of reference to Grub 2 issues in the forums? All that tells me is that within Mint's extremely active forum concerns for Grub 2 are just as pronounced as they are in any other on line Linux community.
That it might be "more impressive if less help was needed" with Grub 2 issues is a given. But why you feel that's an issue to be laid at the feet of Linux Mint is beyond me!
217 • @214 Mint Linux - here today... (by fox on 2010-02-25 21:16:52 GMT from Canada)
Like Jesse, I do take into consideration the longevity record of a distro as well as its dependencies on other distros before deciding which one(s) I will learn and use. For me, any distro based on Debian or Ubuntu is a safe bet, even if the distro depends on a small number of maintainers or has a brief history. That's because most of the things you learn about it could be applied to other distros with the same base. A good example is CrunchBang Linux, based on Ubuntu 9.04, which I really like. I hope the developer will continue to update it, but even if he chooses not to, I have learned a lot about the Openbox window manager through this distro, and I could achieve something similar by installing a base Ubuntu and adding Openbox to it from the Ubuntu distros. Members of the CrunchBang forum have already made some CrunchBang variants in this way, and have made them available on the forum.
This brings up another criterion I consider important - the extent to which you can help on the forum of the distro you are considering. Crunchbang has a very active forum and the "senior" members are very helpful. I have done some exploring with the community editions of Mint, and have seen the same good things there as I have with CrunchBang. I would not hesitate to adopt one of them for this reason.
218 • Landor & Forest (by CC at 2010-02-25 23:01:03 GMT from United States)
I don't know if anyone was able to read what Landor posted in reply to Forest before it was deleted, but I did. I wasn't going to comment due to the personal direction this has all taken, but after reading Brooko's reply in 206 and since only Landor's reply was deleted, I decided that I might as well put in my two cents.
I've been reading this comment section for quite some time and I have never seen Landor get so upset that he would respond to someone in the way he did. I can't say that I approve of the language he used, but given the nature of the personal comments made by Forest (that I am still surprised were not also deleted??) that Landor's response could be considered as “justified”. Whatever people's opinions are regarding Landor's posts/opinions here is one thing, but Landor at least (for the most part) keeps his comments focused on the topic and not directed at the individual. A couple of exceptions that I can think of off-hand would be Jesse “maybe” and Caitlyn Martin.
While Forest on the other hand, by his own admission in 210 considers this “sparring” (ie Fighting) to get a point across. He says that Landor is telling people they are wrong via personal attacks yet here he is doing the very same thing. I have seen Forest “spar” with other people on here in a similar way, crossing over into the personal level. In 206 Brooko made a good point; that it appears Forest feels goaded by Landor's posts. But I think it only “appears” that way because every time Landor posts, Forest jumps all over his posts. Even after Landor asked to have direct posting between them stop. So it is seeming that Forest's sole purpose now is to provoke Landor into responding/defending himself, which he did.
So anyway, I'm shocked to say this, but this comment section has reached a lower low than I have seen. I do think it would be unfair to ban Landor in light of the personal comments made against him. I don't think comments such as those made by Forest should be allowed to remain here.
Anyway, forgive me for venting what I would normally say has no place here. To make slight attempt to gain some on topic footing … I am currently downloading Mint. After reading so much about it here I figured it was finally time for me to actually give it a try!
219 • linux mint and enthusiasm (by Anonymous at 2010-02-25 23:20:52 GMT from Canada)
As one poster commented this issue of DWW seems like a part of the mint forum.
except that it is all milk and honey
220 • Ref post#218 (by RB at 2010-02-25 23:34:35 GMT from United States)
Thank you !
I totally agree with you. I was able to read Landor's post and left it alone. Too bad it wasn't just edited and left alone. Forest previous post being left intact led me to wonder on the relationship of Ladislav and Forest. VERY disrespectful of Landor. I too didn't agree with his choice of words, and I have NEVER seen him so upset.
Forest comes across thinking in his own mind how intelligent he is. The myth is in his own thinking. He doesn't come across being as smart as he thinks EVERYONE thinks he is.
I just hope Landor has not been banned.
221 • possible interview (by subg at 2010-02-25 23:48:35 GMT from United States)
Jesse: How about an interview with Warren Woodford of MEPIS?
222 • Mint (by Notorik at 2010-02-25 23:55:32 GMT from United States)
I changed my mind, Mint is solid. I haven't seen much discussion about Mepis for a long time. I am not a fan-boy but it is a really good distro that I would like to see get the attention it deserves. Basically it is all Ubuntu, Mandriva, and now Mint. Oh yes and the insufferable BSD's recently. In fact, while this forum was orgasming over BSD one of the most innovative new distros disappeared with hardly a whimper. I am talking about Kongoni.
#220
Forget about it. They will both eventually go away like Caitlyn did (don't ban me again, I'll be nice...don't delete this I said some good stuff up there).
223 • Not Deleted (by Anonymous at 2010-02-26 00:59:16 GMT from United States)
Look, Landor's more recent posts are still here:
not deleted # 174
not deleted # 194
not deleted # 199
It's not as bad as some say.
Distro hopping? Lately only with live cd's & dvd's.
Main hd distro: Debian stable. It just works.
Thanks, have a really nice time!
224 • @221 MEPIS interview (by Jesse at 2010-02-26 01:03:13 GMT from Canada)
I'm actually been waiting for MEPIS 8.5 to come out so I can play with the new system. When that happens, and if Warren would like to chat, then we'll probably have a short interview here. It's generally my practice to contact developers of distros I review and ask them some questions, see if they have anything they'd like to share. Not all developers respond to interview requests, but if Warren does, I'll happily put his two cents in the feature.
225 • Kongoni (by Notorik at 2010-02-26 01:07:42 GMT from United States)
Actually from the Kongoni website some new developments:
"A couple of days ago the main developer and maintainer of Kongoni Linux has decided to leave this distribution due to lack of help and of course lack of time to handle all the parts, like development, support, forums and so on. Now, as I have discussed this with AJ Venter, the main developer, I will be taking on the main development part of Kongoni, which means, the next release should be done by me, well hopefully
When this is gonna happen, the next release, at the moment is unknown, as this is my first time of taking over the development of a Linux distribution and plus I need to understand the overall idea of Kongoni.
Do not worry, one way or another the distribution will continue and new releases will be out there, just the time will be a small issue.
So, wish me luck and lets hope it’s gonna work for the best."
226 • Landor and Forest (by sly on 2010-02-26 01:58:55 GMT from United States)
Just my own viewpoint, but I have seen many posts where Landor has taken others to task for their comments and opinions. It's makes for interesting reading on occasion. But when you dish it out, you have to be prepared to take it.
227 • F&L (by joe at 2010-02-26 03:08:36 GMT from Portugal)
"Forest comes across thinking in his own mind how intelligent he is. The myth is in his own thinking. He doesn't come across being as smart as he thinks EVERYONE thinks he is."
Both are playing their best to get people to think that. The fact is: in this way, nobody cares. it's being annoying and it feds up. I'm sorry, I resisted a few times to comment.
It's only two lines to think about.
228 • The whole topic (by Landor at 2010-02-26 03:41:41 GMT from Canada)
I guess we'll see if I have been banned, and yes, I did ask to be. If this post goes through I haven't been.
I'd like to say that I apologized to Ladislav for disrespecting him and his site almost immediately after I wrote posted here, via e-mail. I'd like to extend that apology to the readers of this site and comment section. Nobody deserves to see that kind of language used in any forum. So, my apologies to all.
I'd like to thank the couple people here as well that hoped I wouldn't be banned and also spoke up against how forest continually posts.
To 226 the only thing I'd like to say in regard to your post is this, When I put someone to task for their comments, are you sure it's them I'm putting to task or their comment? I believe there's a distinct difference between the two and I have been a vocal proponent for as long as I've been commenting here about this community getting along, not fighting. I've also been (like I did above) the only person that I'm aware of to actually apologise to the person for going too far with my comments, which was with Clem of Mint. These are very distinct behavioural differences between what I do and what Forest does, plus the udder failure to act as I asked (in a kind manner) for both of us to ignore the other for the benefit of everyone here.
I think it's kind of rude for Ladislav to have left the post for the simple fact that although I do "take his comments and opinions to task" I have always tried to treat the man with nothing but respect. It doesn't matter though, my comments disrespected his site and I guess that could be equated with payback.
I'm going back to ignoring Forest, I don't like letting someone own me as I allowed him to.
Fedora 13/Rawhide (which is kind've not really rawhide but is, if I understand their whole process now? Is that correct Ladislav?) runs really nice on my Netbook with the Libre kernel. Time to switch this machine over to it.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
229 • Re: 228 (by sly at 2010-02-26 03:54:43 GMT from United States)
For some people, taking their comments to task is the same as taking them personally to task. Within certain constraints, it's a healthy exercise. We are all grown-ups, and I for one enjoy a lively debate.
Good to see that you are back on the ice.
230 • Ref#229 (by RB at 2010-02-26 05:33:57 GMT from United States)
Back on the ice! LOL. True indeed.
Well at least we all took a break from the Mint onslaught for a moment.
===on topic===
I have a Japanese girlfriend and keep thinking about Vine and wonder if she would enjoy that more than Ubuntu.
I installed Ubuntu on her pc and she was savvy enough to get the IME language installed my herself.
Vine though is strickly Japanese.
231 • Re: 215, Jesse (by jake at 2010-02-26 05:58:54 GMT from United States)
"If we were looking at a production server, then I'd be more concerned with backing."
Not I. I'd be more worried about fitness for the task, and 9s of uptime.
"For example, I'd much rather run Red Hat (or a clone) on a production server than Slackware."
I disagree. When you consider that most production servers are installed and then pretty much ignored until the next hardware upgrade ... and the fact that *most* production hardware is upgraded within 18 months ... it only stands to reason that it doesn't make much difference what OS is installed at roll-out, as long as the architect knows what s/he is doing, and the total system is stable & secure. Fortune 1000s have other issues, but I still use Slackware & BSD wherever possible ...
"Slackware may actually be a better server OS, but it's largely run by one great man."
Try to remember, PV provides *his* definition of what a Linux can be. If you actually understand the core of the OS[1], modifying Slack to suit a specific business need is actually pretty easy. If PV fell off the face of the Earth tomorrow (gawd/ess forbid!), not a single one of my clients that use Slackware day-to-day would notice a thing. Most of 'em don't even know that they run Slackware ... And I rather suspect I'd probably personally just build on the current Slack core, updating the bits that I need, to continue on as I have been for a decade and a half.
"Which isn't something clients want to hear."
Depends on how you approach the clients. I provide guaranteed long-term[2] business computing solutions, not marketing hype and store-bought software that promises to do everything for everybody, and as a result does neither. My clients are happy, they keep coming back, they spread the word vocally, and I haven't had to do any advertising in over a decade.
[1] OS here being defined as some flavor of Linux or BSD +GNU & a GUI
[2] Long-term is subjective, now that the Nintendo Generation own businesses ...
232 • What is the topic here? (by Henning Melgaard on 2010-02-26 10:39:19 GMT from Denmark)
We live in a free world and : YES everybody have the right to speak their mind.
But ladies and gentlemen, please remember, that these endless personal discussions between 2 or 3 users, is what will eventually make everyone else tired of the whole thing and then they will go somewhere else.
233 • @231: Servers (by Jesse at 2010-02-26 13:18:59 GMT from Canada)
I don't really disagree with the points made in post 231. Most of them are bang on and goes to show different people look for different things. I will say though that my big concern with going with a smaller distro (or a distro that isn't backed by a large team) breaks down to two things.
1. What happens if the leader of the distribution stops working? (Maybe they get sick, maybe they move on to something else.) Jake mentioned his clients wouldn't notice. Fine and good. But what if the distro stops putting out security updates? That's my big concern with distributions lead by one or two people. If the CEO of Red Hat quit tomorrow, I can be pretty sure updates would still be rolled out. If the leader of (for example) LinuxConsole quits, then what happens?
2. What if *I* can't work on their systems any longer? It's nice to have a fail-safe in place so that if you disappear, the client has a safety net. Something like a support contract or a way to quickly get a support contract, either from the company or another IT person familiar with the system.
e
234 • @233 (by jake at 2010-02-26 14:10:45 GMT from United States)
"But what if the distro stops putting out security updates?"
In my case, it's hardly an issue ... I actually run the core software I provide for my clients. When security updates are made available, I know about it (this is FOSS, after all). The issue(s) get(s) evaluated, existing systems are secured and/or patched, and we all move on. Most of the time, I have slack-based systems patched before PV has updates available in -current or -stable ...
"What if *I* can't work on their systems any longer?"
That's a contracts issue, not a software/distro issue. It should make no nevermind if you are talking OSX, Minix, Linux, BSD, or even a solution from Redmond ... Me, I take the entire "this is mine" out of the equation, rather I look at the rolled out system as paint on the client's infrastructure. I might have applied the brush, but if I do it right the client has a bright & clean, but otherwise unnoticed new environment to do business out of ...
I'm a crusty old fart ... I like to do as little work as possible :-)
235 • DISTRO HOPING AND NAMES CALLING. (by lott11 on 2010-02-26 15:07:20 GMT from Colombia)
Why !! why !! is it most Linux user are like sports fans.
They complaint a bought every singular little detail.
Like some thing as trivial as a name, or it's like windows, or even if it works out of the box.
People get a life!!! instead of saying this is a great improvement, over that Swiss cheese of OS.
No you knock it just because it works, or because it looks different than the base distro.
Well get real, that is what is so great a bought Linux, you can do what you want with it in any way you like.
But no you have to knock it out, heck you are now even complaint by what it is called.
Lets face it! you are all looking for petty fights that's all.
And would I stop looking for that perfect distro, no never it is not in my nature.
I started using Linux well in the early days from code, it was not best way of getting work done but it was safer then that Swiss cheese.
And before any one complaints that I am picking on the cheese industry know I am not.
I call windows a Swiss cheese it's because you can not plug all the holes on it for security or anything for that matter.
And yes I do use it, it takes 4 hours just to make it secured enough for my taste, and I know that I will do this same job again in another 12 to 16 weeks at most just because I do work with it on a daily bases.
Linux on the other hand is where I keep my real information where I know it is safe.
Any thing that I care to keep out of harms way is in my Linux.
And as far as to my Distro's in the Swiss cheese dos, dos2.1, 3.1, win 95, win98, NT 3&4, 2000, XP pro& media editions, Vista just like ME I just remove it and 7 well lets say that I was not that impressed at CES 2009 much less now.
And now on to Unix based distro, I started with BSD, OSX, Slackware, Mandrake, SUSE, Red hot, Gentoo, Arch, well make this really short I have 270 GB of ISO images just in Linux .
Why it's simple when ever I here of some one complaining of how the system crashed, I just ask dose magic words [{what is it that you do with your PC}] then I just give them my second question do you have Kids and what are there ages.,
I give at least 3 different distributions of Linux and fix there PC with the Swiss cheese that they are use to.
Then I leave then alone for a month or so, and ask the [words did you try it] [ did you like it] & [ what did your kids think of it.]
most of times I get not yet, but that 8 % that said I love it, even better is 13 % know but my Kids like it better then windows, that makes my day.
It is not how it looks, it is not how it is called, it's how it works for you that is what matters.
And to the second question yes I do like Mint Linux I have all ISO images, and depending on my friends and customer need I do recommend this OS.
All that matters, is if this work's for you, dose the name matter?
No !! heck just look do call it isa, india, iza, NO! NO! NO!!! YOU CALL MINT 5-6-7 AND NOW MINT-8 THAT'S ALL.
And to CLEM your apology is greatly appreciated, and I do thank you for your work.
Just ignore all of those narrow minded individuals, who have to look for some excuse to complaint.
And to those that have nothing better to do this is XXI century, HO 21st. Century.
236 • @233 - Jesse's big concern.. (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-26 18:01:35 GMT from United States)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"..my big concern with going with a smaller distro (or a distro that isn't backed by a large team) breaks down to two things.
1. What happens if the leader of the distribution stops working? (Maybe they get sick, maybe they move on to something else.).."
--------------------------------------------------------
We've seen that more than a time or two haven't we. A recent episode that comes to mind was Texstar's illness and the time he spent out of the loop as far as his PCLinuxOS project was concerned. That distro came perilously close to falling apart at the seams with him not actively running the show, and lost a tremendous amount of ground as it struggled to regain its balance. Now that Texstar has reestablished himself as the leader of PCLinuxOS, that distro is once more widely recognized as being back on increasingly stable ground.
Another small but well regarded distro that lost direction and momentum for a time was Mepis. Without rehashing what the near fatal distractions were here and now, once Warren reasserted himself in the context of that development project things moved back on track to where they are today.
These are but two high profile examples among many where losing the leader of a respected distro, if just for a time, has spelled near disaster or loss of emphasis for the community that looks to and leans on that unique vision and the development work that fleshes it out. Without a clear eyed single minded view to guide it, such a work can easily fragment and fall apart.
237 • distrohopping (by Helmut on 2010-02-26 18:26:51 GMT from Germany)
Ladislavs comments on distrohopping caught me ungaurded - he is so right...
238 • No subject (by jafo at 2010-02-26 18:34:24 GMT from United States)
I recently deleted my Mint install and replaced it with SuperOS, to date I haven't found any functionality In Mint that I can't also equal in SuperOS.
Both are very convenient from a live-cd/dvd standpoint, or a install-and-go standpoint, but one of them never asked me to discontinue using it if I didn't agree with a certain political view.
That dev's opinion was downplayed later, but it was undeniably thrust out there, and it did influence my decision to switch distros regardless of whether others might agree or disagree with that decision.
I realize this may hurt some peoples feelings, but I can live with it.
It's all about choice, and I like to keep my options open.
239 • RE: 234/236 (by Landor at 2010-02-26 21:34:37 GMT from Canada)
Jon hit on a huge point without maybe even realizing it (I don't know) when he posted, "Without a clear eyed single minded view to guide it, such a work can easily fragment and fall apart."
This is one of the reasons I prefer one person running the show. Indecision and lack of focus ruins organizations as much as anything else. Leadership is just that and you need one specific person to steer the ship so to speak. If you went to make dinner for you and your family of 4, sitting for hours debating what you should make, it would be time to break your fast.
In the same scenario, with exactly what Jake expressed, if he chose to eat at a different time, or something different, he could easily do so by preparing it himself or finding it somewhere else.
So in essence, of Jon's comment, we have also seen the outcome of what can happen when there was one single leader and that leader is replaced by a group and what the (possible) indecision or lack of a singular vision can create.
This is one of the main reasons when I build any distribution/OS for my system, like Jake, I take the core of it and apply my own view of it. I'm not hindered by any one, or group's mentality/vision, only my own laziness or lack of vision, which at times can be great! :)
Time to go back to editing a silent video I'm creating freely thanks to GNU/Linux
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
240 • Re 236 (by Brooko at 2010-02-26 22:03:07 GMT from Norway)
@Jon - really good point - and I know with Mepis that there was a lot of comments/concern at the time.
From our POV though (the Mepis Community), it also heralded a new beginning .... let me explain. Because Warren recognised his own resource limitations (at that particular moment in time), he encouraged the Community to get actively involved.
* We started our own website (mepiscommunity.org)
* We started our own repository for more up to date packages (with his approval) - now well over a thousand packages
* Community members got involved with their own remasters (including gnome)
* We've had fundraising drives to support our own servers
* Warren opened development on his tools under Apache licensing, and we now have some members of the community actively assisting development them.
* We now have far better communication with Warren on a daily basis.
I think the Mepis Community is in far better shape now than it ever has been. If Warren (cross fingers doesn't happen anytime soon) ever could not go on with Mepis, I now believe the Community and the distro would continue. We couldn't replace Warren's unique magic. But we could and would continue his legacy.
So sometimes, these events can lead to a better future :)
241 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-26 22:43:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the topic of distro hopping, just got this which might be of interest to those who are advocates of the pastime. It might be a compelling argument "for":
http://ostatic.com/blog/in-defense-of-distro-hopping.
And, as many of us have discovered anyway, it's not the most difficult thing to arrange one machine for your stable distro and another for your hopping activities.
Ref the school spying issue, (no, I do mention distros further down) with the inevitable question about the invasion of privacy, and purely from a macabre interest I followed some of the links and found this: (I don't know how the WT stands in the US but I'll presume it is a serious heavyweight journal)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057_2.html?sid=ST2010020402509
Some of you will be aware of this anyway, but, for Google to link up with the NSA on such a flimsy pretext is somewhat amusing.
Anyway, to stay on the distro topic, lest I be accused of hijacking...or heaven forfend, vaguely censorial; Shuttleworth.M is nobody's fool and owing to this action by google and possible threat to privacy (and we all know keywords are used in gmail to "target" ads) might explain why Yahoo is to replace Google.
Still on topic and t-i-c...Google Chrome anyone...
Slightly off topic, although that Lindy Matsko woman might have been a bit silly, and could have been fed the pics of the student by a guilt ridden IT whistleblower (how's that for conspiracy theory?) one day we might all be very glad of her lack of self preservation...
242 • @239 • by Landor & @240 by Brooko (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-26 23:45:47 GMT from United States)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
@239: Jon hit on a huge point without maybe even realizing it (I don't know) when he posted, "Without a clear eyed single minded view to guide it, such a work can easily fragment and fall apart."
This is one of the reasons I prefer one person running the show. Indecision and lack of focus ruins organizations as much as anything else...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for this latest Landor. Trying not to be drawn into the rather nasty squabbles you and Forest have engaged in has left me a bit reticent when it comes to reading and posting relative to you contributions. But the tenor of this latest is such that I'm grateful to respond with a big 'high five' in full agreement!
Without a clear eyed single minded view propelling a project, whether it's distro building or otherwise, "indecision and lack of focus" will flow in to fill the gaps with the sort of 'goo' that ultimately brings things to a halt. For that reason visionaries like Texstar, Warren and Clem, each lending foresight and leadership to their particular view of what a community enriching distro should be, are essential to the success of such an endeavor.
Like others I've had experience with each of these fine projects as well as many more, and I'll say with no hesitancy that it's the singular vision of their respective leaders that makes these works as worthwhile as they are.
This sense of focus and vision is both their greatest strength, as well as their greatest potential weakness should that vision be somehow derailed. We've witnessed this if only briefly with a couple of these, and we see this take place each and every day as projects of every sort fall apart around us for lack of such qualities in leadership.
------------------------------------------------------------
@240: I've always appreciated and enjoyed the Mepis community Brooko, and agree with you that it and development work on the distro itself is in better shape today than it's been in a long while. Should Warren ever find himself in a position where he had to relinquish direction of the project to others (heaven forbid), hopefully the community would display the collective wisdom necessary to get behind and fully support new leadership whose focus is to "continue his legacy" as you put it.
It would behove the Mepis community at large and Warren in particular to set up a line of trusted succession, composed of qualified people widely recognized by the community, fully capable of heading up the project in his absence. One who fully shares Warren's foresight and vision should be designated as immediately in charge should anything happen to take him out of the loop. With wise planning the seeds of continued success are put in place, and without it you almost guarantee future failure.
243 • @241 - by Forest (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-27 00:15:54 GMT from United States)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"..for Google to link up with the NSA on such a flimsy pretext is somewhat amusing."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of things Google does are not easy to understand, but this one is probably not one of them, at least not in my book Forest.
For all their considerable efforts at system security, Google is certainly not without issues needing to be more thoroughly researched and addressed. For them to look to the NSA for guidance in certain security areas, given the global reach that Google must police and secure to the best of their ability, does not seem a "flimsy pretext" in the least. If anything I would see it as the better part of wisdom to look to whatever expertise and know how that the NSA may be able to offer that better serves the security requirements that Google is faced with implementing around the world.
Nevertheless I can see why, given the reluctance people have to attributing anything of genuine value to such a secretive agency as the NSA, you might be prompted to view this from a suspicious perspective.
244 • grub2 observation (by RollMeAway at 2010-02-27 06:16:05 GMT from United States)
It appears that Debian 'testing' and Debian 'unstable' (and distros derived from those) are the only users of grub2.
I have not found any other distributions that have adopted grub2.
If anyone knows otherwise, please post.
I still hold onto the hope someone (group ?) will come up with an alternative, or pickup development of the original.
245 • Mint 8 and distro hopping (by Michel on 2010-02-27 12:13:20 GMT from Canada)
A steady Linux user for the last 4 years I've put in my share of hopping. While I've settled on Puppy (Stardust) and Mint 8, I don't think it necessarily means that my days of hopping are over. With the cornucopia of different Window Managers, the availability of live CDs, it's always fun and sometimes challenging to try something new, especially if like me, you tend to keep some very old hardware around for testing.
246 • distro hopping (by Gustavo at 2010-02-27 12:34:26 GMT from Brazil)
Mint is really the easiest distro available. I had it as my main distro for a long time, however, as a Ubuntu based distro, its full of bugs (Brasero not burning for example).
I moved on to Zenwalk, a Slackware based distro. The system is elegant, works flawless and WAY faster than Ubuntu/Mint.
After install all the basic programs are there: Firefox, Pidgin, OpenOffice 3, Transmission (torrent), GIMP, Totem, Exaile, audio and video codecs, Flash and many others
It is also easy to install more software using a graphical application called Netpkg. Their repositories have Opera, Skype, GoogleEarth, JAVA, Amule etc.
Try Zenwalk! I think it's the better distro today.
247 • No subject (by Gustavo at 2010-02-27 12:39:07 GMT from Brazil)
The best distro today, I mean.
248 • Linux Mint KDE (by speedyx on 2010-02-27 13:37:21 GMT from Ukraine)
A recently started italian wiki project to assist the newbie experience. I create it and I'm looking for contributors: http://simplix.wordpress.com and http://simplix.wikidot.com
249 • is Win7 & Pardus Linux dual-boot possible? (by kimlik66 on 2010-02-27 13:39:17 GMT from Canada)
Hello all :)
I want to create a dual-booting machine using Windows 7 & Pardus Linux......
Now, can you, please, tell me -- step by step -- as to how can i achieve this in the best and user-friendliest way?
And which boot loader would you reccomend?
Grub, Lilo, or something else? And can I install the bootloader on a CD, or a flash ram/thumb drive?
If so, kindly tell me this -- step by step.
I would truly appreciate all timely responses.
250 • @246 • distro hopping by Gustavo (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-27 15:34:44 GMT from United States)
I enjoyed your thoughts regarding Zenwalk Gustavo. I've only experimented with Zenwalk as a live DVD. However after your favorable assessment I think I will install it as a virtual machine and spend more time evaluating it.
Um abraço grande de um amigo que sente saudades do Brasil!
251 • Distro Testing (by Ed at 2010-02-27 17:18:42 GMT from United States)
I'm relatively new to Linux,started with Ubuntu 7-10, but not computers. I've been building my own since 286 and DOS 3 days. I'm currently using Ubuntu 9-10 for my everyday use. Have moved almost everything to Linux except some games and Access databases I designed, need to learn a new database. Any suggestions?
Since I'm new to Linux I want to test as many different distros as I can, using grub2 since it installed with 9-10, I have the following set up.
Machine 1 - Asus P5N2E motherboard, Intell Quad Q6600, 4GB ram, GeForce8800GTS 640mb ram,and 4 sata hard drives, two for OS's & two for data. Currently installed os's - XP for my games, Vista for nothing - plan to delete, Ubuntu 9-10 current main os, Mint 8, Mandriva 2010, and Ultimate 2.5.
Machine 2 - Asus A8V mb, AMD Athlon 64 3500, 1GB Ram, GeForce 7800GS 256, 2 hd, one for OS's, one data. Currently installed - XP, Ubuntu 9-10 for testing changes, Debian 5, Absolute 13.0.2, Salix 13.0.2, OpenSuse 11.2, Sabayon 5.7, PCLinxOS 2009, Fedora 12, Ubuntu server 9-10, Puppy 4.3.1, and Mint 8 KDE.
I also have VirtualBox running on my everyday 9-10 and have Manga, Sidux, and another copy of OpenSuse 11.2 installed in it.
The only problem I've had with grub2 is trying to boot a live iso. Doing something wrong but haven't figured out what yet!
252 • Ref#251 - loop booting in grub2 (by Verndog at 2010-02-27 17:57:02 GMT from United States)
Regard booting live iso's. Here's a segment of my grub2.cfg:
menuentry "mini.iso" {
loopback loop (hd0,5)/mini.iso
linux (loop)/linux findiso=/mini.iso ramdisk_size=100000
initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
}
menuentry "miniPM" {
insmod ntfs
root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6FAAFC6330D89A83
linux /miniPM/bzImage ramdisk_size=100000
initrd /miniPM/minirt.gz
}
menuentry "Pmagic" {
loopback loop (hd0,5)/pmagic-4.9.iso
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux (loop)/pmagic/bzImage findiso=/pmagic-4.9.iso root=/dev/ram0 noeject noprompt sleep=0 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 loglevel=0 keymap=us
initrd (loop)/pmagic/initramfs
}
menuentry "Clonezilla" {
loopback loop (hd0,5)/clonezilla-live-20091230-karmic.iso
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live union=aufs ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" nolocales noprompt vga=773 ip=frommedia toram=filesystem.squashfs findiso=/clonezilla-live-20091230-karmic.iso
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}
253 • 252 • Ref#251 (by Verndog at 2010-02-27 18:00:21 GMT from United States)
The "hd0,5" is where I have the ISO's stored. They just happen to be stored on an NTFS filesystem.
254 • aLinux 12.9 stable (by Jay Klepacs on 2010-02-27 18:36:53 GMT from Canada)
Hello Jesse and Ladislav.
aLinux was released Feb 22 2010 - stable.
http://alinux.tv/linux-announcement.txt (Announcement)
http://alinux.tv/linux-more-downloads.html (Package Lists)
http://alinux.tv/ (website :)
- Thanks
Jay L. Klepacs
255 • ref. 251 - grub (by forlux at 2010-02-27 19:05:00 GMT from Portugal)
"using grub2 since it installed with 9-10"
"Since I'm new to Linux I want to test as many different distros as I can..."
The same about me in both cases.
Since Grub2 is still in beta stage and is much more complex to deal with than Grub1, I did not like to have it taking ownership of my MBR, when I installed 9-10.
So, I decided to revert to Grub1 and will go with it until Grub2 matures and I have time to learn it.
Just in case you (and others) don't know, there is a very easy tool to restore the MBR, when something wrong happens. It's the Super Grub Disk. It does now support both Grup 1 and 2.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/
256 • MagmaLinux (by Tundra at 2010-02-27 19:08:10 GMT from United States)
Is this a distro?
http://www.magmalinux.org
257 • Ref 252 (by Ed at 2010-02-27 19:22:27 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the samples, Think my problem has been that I didn't put the iso images in the root of the drive. Tried to run them from a directory they were stored in.
258 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-27 20:14:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #243
I'm amused JI, certainly not suspicious!
Google is, very likely, the number one resource for domestic info from just about anywhere. It must be an absolute goldmine when sifted by the appropriate search engines...wherever they be situated...worth bearing in mind that, about where the searches are performed...
If Google can scan "my" incoming emails and display appropriate ads on the page then they can do that for any email...except the key word(s) might not trigger an ad placement if you follow.
What with all the info with the potential to be "uncoverable" from Google by virtue of their data mining emails and docs it is hardly surprising folk might be amused about a tie in with NSA...and other "interested parties".
It's amusing too to see attempts to explain away the collaboration and well intentioned attempts at damage limitation.
Just to stay on topic, it will be very interesting to play with this ChromeOS. I daresay it will be pulled apart by all those capable to see what makes it tick, especially the updates.
With reference to another recent remark from yourself and others regarding a, "clear eyed single minded view propelling a project" I have to confess I agree...that describes Shuttleworth.M and Canonical to a "tee"; well said!
259 • 236 • @233 - Jesse's big concern. (by Justin Case at 2010-02-27 21:11:03 GMT from United States)
If you run a business with Linux then go with a commercial distribution with a well established track record of profitability. For the home user it doesn't matter that much. In the event a distribution were to go under it would take less than 15 minutes to pop in a cd and have a new distro running on your home box. I don't worry about stuff like that and neither should you.
260 • @251 - by Forest (by Jon Iverson at 2010-02-27 22:28:06 GMT from United States)
-------------------------------------------------------
"With reference to another recent remark from yourself and others regarding a, "clear eyed single minded view propelling a project" I have to confess I agree...that describes Shuttleworth.M and Canonical to a "tee"; well said!"
---------------------------------------------
No disagreement there. Shuttleworth is clearly a visionary when it comes to pulling Linux up by its bootstraps and putting it on the map as a serious player amongst modern desktop operating systems. Of course there are any number of things he and his development team do that people take delight in questioning, much I suppose like they enjoy questioning what Google does.
Shuttleworth, like Google, has deep enough pockets to do things pretty much as he pleases. Therefore while questioning the moves he makes and the motives behind them may be an interesting and at times amusing exercise, none of that will effect where he's ultimately headed in the least.
The best we can do with either Google or Canonical/Ubuntu is keep our eyes open and enjoy the show. If we know one thing for certain it's that companies like these never cease to amaze, regardless of whether one is supportive of their efforts or not!
261 • Distro-hopping (by Chuck on 2010-02-28 00:27:30 GMT from United States)
I still download other distros but keep coming back to mint
Chuck
262 • grub2 and live iso (by Ed on 2010-02-28 03:52:04 GMT from United States)
I like the ability of grub2 to boot a live iso image, no need to burn a cd or dvd to test live iso. After testing with it today I'm up to 50% success rate. Managed to start TinyCore, Siltaz, and PMagic. Crashed with Puppy, XEN live, and CDLinux.
On a past subject - the school spying case, it appears the student had taken home a school computer which wasn't allowed off school property. When it was noted missing the program was activated to locate it.
263 • Why I don't use Linux Mint (by [deXter] on 2010-02-28 04:28:42 GMT from New Zealand)
While I agree that Mint is certainly one of the best available solution for someone new to the Linux world, I* personally would never use it - my pet peeve with Ubuntu and all its spinoffs are the *horribly* outdated repos with ancient packages that could potentially be disastrous.
Let me explain, for example, GParted 0.5.1 fixes some serious issues related to partition resizing, so I guess it is imperative that one use the latest version for any partitioning work, but noooo, instead, the repos still deliver a version thats 10 months old! (~ 8 releases!) Yep, no kidding. 10 friggin months is way to long for a package that releases a stable version practically every month. I mean, GParted is such an important program for people who are migrating from windows or distro-hopping.. I think it's a *crime* that they're still keeping such an old version in their repos and letting innocent users fall victim to potential data loss, which could be easily avoided by a simple act of just using the latest version.. Shame on you, Ubuntu.
Infact, most packages found on the repos are not only old, they're practically outdated.
For example:
ntfs-3g (2009.4.4):
This is terrible for all those people switching from windows and need to access NTFS partitions for various reasons. The poor folks who rely solely on the Ubuntu repos are missing out on such important features like full compressed file support, junctions, ACLs, encryption, and not to mention important bugfixes and finally performance improvements.
Also, Wine (1.1.31):
Practically everyone who follows Wine would acknowledge the incredible amount of progress made by each and every release. I can't fathom why someone would use an older version, that too EIGHT releases old, unless if they have regression issues with certain apps (but then those are the exceptions, not the rule). Once again, people who're relying on the standard repos, like most newbies migrating from windows, would miss out all the great improvements made by Wine, and then they'd go complaining that so-and-so app (usually a game) doesn't work (well) in Ubuntu, when all they had to do was update to a newer version of Wine.
Anyways, I guess these are more of an Ubuntu issue than Mint, it's unfortunate that Mint has to bear the brunt, but the thing is - they don't have to. All they need is a good community repo with stable up-to-date packages. How hard can it be? Mint seems to be very popular distro, (According to them, the 4th most widely used Distro in the world!) I'm sure they have (or can gather) the resources to pull it off.
Finally, the worst bit of using Mint is that you can't get support in any Ubuntu-labeled medium. Again, this is not Mint's fault, but its really unfortunate.
For instance, try going to the #ubuntu channel and say that you're using Mint, and they'll treat you like you're the most horrible, wretched creature in the world. Infact, I believe they even have it in their channel topic that they don't support Mint. Even if you try and argue that Mint is based on Ubuntu, the commands are all the same, etc, they'll refuse to even hear you out. I mean, what sort of an attitude is that? Stuff like that does more harm to the community than good. (Actually, I don't think any good can come at all, with an attitude like that)
(Why would you go to #ubuntu instead of #linuxmint? Well its simple, if you're living in the "wrong" timezone (like I do) more often than not you'll hardly find anyone online - anyone knowledgeable, that is. )
/endofrant
(* - Although I personally don't use Mint because I'm an update-junkie, Mint is my distro of choice when I try to convert Windows users. Like others, even I've had the highest conversion rate with Mint 8 compared to any other distro/version. This was highly suprising for me, given that my experience with Ubuntu 9.10 was.. lets say, a Karmic Katastrophe :) )
264 • Re: 262 (by jake at 2010-02-28 04:53:19 GMT from United States)
"When it was noted missing the program was activated to locate it."
Yeah, sure, right. That's why the kid was accused of drug use, instead of being disciplined for "illegally" taking a laptop off campus. Those cameras & screen shots were used to snoop outside the mandate of the school system, pure and simple.
And as a side question, WTF do the under-eighteen set need school issued laptops in the first place? When I was growing up, it was all most kids could do learning the 3 Rs well enough to pass college entrance exams. Adding more complexity to the basic K-12 education isn't going to help anyone understand the basics, no matter how you look at it ... I'll bet a wooden nickel that if you actually analyzed how these things are being used "in the classroom" and "for homework", it is to both cut back on the actual teaching that needs to be done (lazy "tenured teacher syndrome"), and to increase busywork for the kids to make their technically illiterate parents feel good about the "modern education" their sprog are receiving.
Call me a neo-luddite if you must, but I honestly don't think computers belong in the K-12 classroom EXCEPT in typing class (which should be a requirement to graduate high school, IMO), and as an elective that teaches actual computer/networking theory (which not everybody is cut out for). Browsing Facespace & Mytube & YahGooBing and playing games doth not a computer expert make.
265 • RE: 264 (by Landor at 2010-02-28 06:20:22 GMT from Canada)
I had issues with the school system letting my son on the internet for "research purposes" in every grade from 1 up. I spoke to them about it and they did their best to assure me that they knew best and internet access was good for my son, monitored well, etc. They tried to explain to me how the internet worked and what my son would learn through research and the knowledge available to them. They "understood" that most people are laymen on the internet and they would insure his safety. Not long after proving I knew far more than any of them dreamed of I had no problems from them when I still refused to sign the release form for him to.
I taught my son about the computer, something they had no real interest in doing at all. Then about 4 years ago I introduced him to Linux finally. Through Linux and a bit of BSD now I'd bet he knows more than the majority of teachers that ever taught him in any of his classes, when it comes to computers only of course.
He has access in High School to the internet but I didn't even grant that until grade 10. I still wonder if he really needs it.
I also monitor his online activities from home. A computer's a learning tool for the most part, then secondly a work tool. I have a server setup and it streams movies and such but by no means in my opinion is a computer ever meant to be an entertainment centre.
An old friend of mine said once, if you want to play games, buy a nintendo. I'd counter, but they don't run flight sims. :) He was right though, that's why we own a PS3.
It's kind of sad how the whole landscape of computing has changed. We even see it in Linux and that's a big part of the reason why I oppose such all in one distributions. It's "my opinion" such things should not be a factor in why you run such an amazing learning tool like Linux, not at all.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
266 • Linux Mint ends "distro hopping" (by Samuel on 2010-02-28 09:07:34 GMT from Italy)
It's true that since I discovered Linux mint I have remained in it. But that hasn't stopped me from hobby of testing other distros and learning more of how linux works. But I need a distro that I can use without difficulties when there is no time to google solutions. Linux mint qualifies for this and that's why I have stuck to it and propose to those in windows.
The latest distro that I have looked at is Haiku and I am still visiting freeBSd to see where I can start. It looks a very complicated thing and that's why I am very interested in it.
267 • Not really it doesnt work for me! (by FREDDY on 2010-02-28 09:32:54 GMT from United States)
All debian/ubuntu based distros freeze up on my PC I use ARCH and no freeze
268 • Computers and school (by KimTjik on 2010-02-28 11:08:00 GMT from Sweden)
It looks like persuasive marketing and mindless vanity has united. I recently saw an interview where students themselves admitted that having access to a personal laptop during class was distracting. Some said it was a convenient and faster method to make notes, but I'm doubting the truth since it well could be that students of today have less skills in making efficient notes and mind mapping. Nothing can beat a skilled listener with some pencils and paper.
Another disturbing comment in the interview was when some said it was perfect to make Power Point presentations. Haven't we already seen too much of such presentations? I suspect the driving force behind such bad habits are unskilled teachers. First of all such aids steals time by emphasizing the least important part of the exercise, and secondly it's far more important to learn the basics of a making a good public presentation with basic visual aids. What's the point in learning to repeat fairly simply predetermined graphs with added text, if you lack the ability the talk cohesively?
I don't see computers as unnecessary tools, but tools should be selected according to task, otherwise it becomes pretty similar to a scenario when carpenters, plumbers and other craftsmen only would get a Swiss army knife instead of proper specialized tools. Computers are excellent tools when used with discernment. A basic subject where computers might make a big impact is mathematics. With the help of "living" geometry students can move and manipulate an object to get a better understanding of mathematical rules. Mathematics is an exiting and fascinating science, but if can't visualize it and only continues to repeat static routines it becomes extremely boring and unproductive.
I've been in contact with some officials to discuss these subjects, and my impression is that few have a good understanding about why and how to use computers effeciently. It's more like a piece of inventory: "let's see, we put some chairs, a blackboard and a computer here...". This is probably the biggest challenge for Linux and open-source in general, since these officials open wide and get fed by screwed marketing and buzz words. Who pays the price?
269 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-28 12:31:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref distro hopping.
Has anyone had a good look at Element?
I tried it live on a 3GHz, 2GB ram machine...but only to see the media centre apt working and if wifi was easy to sort...it was...very.
Ref the media apps: nothing remarkable, but it then it was live. The videos played via VLC were ok but a bit jerky on the media app apt itself; did not bother with the music replay app.
Installed to a 2GHz compaq I found the media centre apt "caused" the cursor to move around as though there were a slight time delay...presumably some very busy software in there.
There was a weather function bundled into the media centre...whether the weather apt has any real utility is subjective...I usually just look out the window, faster and more accurate...well, in UK that is.
Music files played without probs and ditto the video played ish. The only drawback being the fuss of working the menus in the media apt itself, for fuss read menus.
VLC worked as expected
Having seen this sort of thing before, I would suggest that running this sort of GNULinux stuff on older software is really only for hobbyists, who derive great pleasure in getting stuff to work on ancient hardware, and may not worry overmuch about the day to day utility of a slow apt.
For the rest of us simply wanting to run a "media centre" type distro for replaying video/music files then a new(ish) machine with more generous specs is a must. I would not be surprised if the 3GHz machine, with 2GB ram was the minimum for successful operation.
I found that on occasion the media centre apt just died and nothing short of a restart got it working again.
Lastly, I note the FBI have been introduced into the school laptop spying equation.
Obviously a damage limitation exercise of some sort...but for whom?
As said before you could not make it up.
270 • Hardware requirements for a "media center" type distro (by NippoNoob at 2010-02-28 20:38:37 GMT from Brazil)
*
> For the rest of us simply wanting to run a "media centre" type distro for replaying video/music files then a new(ish) machine with more generous specs is a must. I would not be surprised if the 3GHz machine, with 2GB ram was the minimum for successful operation.
__ Hey guy, I'm sure you've ever heard of GeeXboX. I doubt you need anything faster than a Pentium 4 to run that little gem.
*
271 • Mint vs Ubuntu (by Vyacheslav on 2010-02-28 20:39:05 GMT from Latvia)
Hello everybody !
I use Mint installed on several PCs at the university. However, the some bells-and-whistles written for Ubuntu (for example, BiSIGi themes) tend me to use Ubuntu (9.10) on my laptop.
I must say, Mint is the most user-friendly environment for non-professional linux people, who are using their computers just for work :)
To LinuxMint developers: Thank you very much for the greatest linux distribution dedicated to ordinary people !!!
Regards,
Vyacheslav
272 • No subject (by forest at 2010-02-28 21:28:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #270
Thanks for the suggestion NN, I may just do that...just looked at their pages and it looked quite interesting. The latest version is dated just two weeks ago, so you can't much newer than that, lol.
273 • RE: 264&268 / Laptops for school (by Landor at 2010-03-01 00:35:41 GMT from Canada)
My son just told me of a couple students in school where our Board of Education provides them with Laptops. He said that they are a definite must because the students who otherwise are very intelligent have extremely poor penmanship, to the point where it is actually incomprehensible.
I guess in this scenario, obviously a special case (or cases) I would deem the use of a laptop for school a must. Without one, where would these children be? Tools are just that and if they're not meant to be used when required what are we doing.
I still stand firm on the position that computers in school "generally" are basically a waste of time when 0 is being taught to the children regarding their use/function. I believe Internet access is pretty well rediculous in schools.
I had a conversation about what Jake brought up with someone today. They agreed (as I did) that typing (keyboarding now) should be a mandatory credit and it shows just how far behind our educational system is that in this climate of computers being in almost every facet of work, schools don't require it as mandatory? Jurassic mindset at its best.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
274 • @273 ..No need to write? (by RollMeAway at 2010-03-01 00:50:32 GMT from United States)
"..otherwise are very intelligent have extremely poor penmanship, to the point where it is actually incomprehensible. "
So, instead of teaching students to write legibly, just give them a keyboard?
Now, if they would only apply this to doctors as well. Ha!
275 • 1 + 1 = ? (by Verndog at 2010-03-01 01:21:57 GMT from United States)
This may sound silly, bit I remember the lost art of using simple math skills, using a sheet of paper - add, subtract, multiply, divide.
Just take away a calculator from a current student and have him do simple math on a piece of paper and watch him choke.
Let alone a whole computer!
276 • RE: 274 & 275 (by Landor at 2010-03-01 03:30:15 GMT from Canada)
#274
It's a shame they don't have the ability to actually teach penmanship like it was required at one time, long ago, even before my time. I think with these boys it's more about their udder lack of fine motor skills. That would probably be something that would be well outside of the the school's function.
#275
It's all too easy for (the term I like that Jake uses) the nintendo generation. I loved being challenged and took pride in the fact that I didn't even use pen and paper, it was all done in my head. That kind of pride lacks now with the "instant on" society we have now.
That's a big reason why the command line is being tossed out by so many, instant on, or instant gratification.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
Number of Comments: 276
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| Random Distribution | 
Hubworx
Hubworx products include Hubworx Network Manager, Hubworx Web Office, and Hubworx Thin Client Server. Hubworx Network Manager was a complete Linux Operating System (based on Mandriva Linux) designed to manage your network and protect it from intruders. It comes with simple but powerful tools to administer your system and protect against viruses, spam, and undesirable content. Hubworx Web Office was a suite of web-enabled applications securely accessible from any PC with an Internet connection. Tools include e-mail client, shared calendar, contact management, project manager. Hubworx Thin Client Server was designed to extend the useful life of any obsolete PC by converting it into a powerful thin client. Standard software includes a suite of open source office applications.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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