 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1082, 5 August 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the characteristics of open source that makes it so powerful is the ability of the community using the software to modify it and contribute those modifications back to the original project. This enables everyone involved, from the developers to the users, to benefit from small contributions from many people. In an effort to make these sorts of small contributions easier the Debian project announced a new initiative which involves the creation of a sub-project called Tiny QA Tasks. This new project will hopefully attract new developers to tackle small tasks and assist them with mentorship. While Debian is trying to open its doors to new contributors, Funtoo is closing its doors. The Funtoo project started as an evolution of the Gentoo, source-based meta-distribution and has reached the end of its life. We share more information about both of these developments in our News section. Plus we talk about openSUSE publishing two significant snapshots, one of the distribution's Tumbleweed branch and another from the project's Aeon Desktop branch. Speaking of snapshots, one of the more popular features of advanced filesystems is atomic snapshots, the ability to make an instant copy of files and directories. While snapshots are usually restricted to the realm of advanced filesystems, such as Btrfs and ZFS, this is not always the case. This week, in our Tips and Tricks section, we talk about creating and working with snapshots on FreeBSD's classic UFS filesystem. First though we dive into Linux Mint 22, the latest version of Mint's Ubuntu-based branch. Mint has introduced a number of new features, including experimental Wayland support, in this release and we talk about how the distribution performs in our Feature Story. Do you like Mint's main, Ubuntu-based edition or do you prefer the Debian-based flavour of Mint (LMDE)? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint 22
The Linux Mint distribution is often regarded as one of the more beginner friendly Linux distributions and has occasionally be labelled "Ubuntu done right." This public image tends to come about as a result of Mint removing Canonical's Snap support, providing a more traditional desktop layout, and focusing on adding features and polish that the community requests.
The project is available in two main branches, an Ubuntu-based branch which features three x86_64 editions: Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce; and a Debian-based edition which runs on x86 and x86_64 machines and is offered in a single Cinnamon desktop edition.
The Mint team launched Linux Mint 22 last week which is based on Ubuntu 24.04. This is a long-term support edition which will receive security updates through to the year 2029. The new release also includes several new features and improvements:
- If you're connected to the Internet during the installation, language packs for your selected language are downloaded. In addition, the following languages do not require an Internet connection since their language packs are present on the ISO image: English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian."
- Linux Mint 22 ships with modern components and the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
- To guarantee better compatibility with modern hardware, the kernel is version 6.8 and Linux Mint 22.x point releases will follow the HWE series.
- The default sound server switched to PipeWire.
- The Software Sources received support for the new Debian DEB822 format.
- Themes were updated to support GTK4.
- JXL support was added to Pix and a new thumbnailer was implemented for it.
- All software using libsoup2 was migrated to libsoup3.
- HiDPI support improvements were made in the boot sequence, in Plymouth and Slick-Greeter.
- In Ubuntu 24.04, a number of GNOME applications moved to libAdwaita and stopped supporting the system theme. Since selecting a theme is a core part of the desktops shipped by Linux Mint (Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce), apps are required to support it. As a result, the GNOME Font Viewer was removed and the following applications were downgraded back to GTK3 versions: Celluloid, GNOME Calculator, Simple Scan, Baobab, System Monitor, GNOME Calendar, File Roller, Zenity.
- Verified Flatpaks now show their maintainer name. Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default. A warning reminds you of the security risks associated with them.
- Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default. When enabled, these Flatpaks are clearly marked as unverified.
- Following the discontinuation of Hexchat, Linux Mint moved to the Matrix chat network.
The What's New document also mentions the GNOME "Online Accounts" utility has been replaced by the XApp "GNOME Oneline Accounts GTK" as the former no longer supported desktop themes in any interfaces apart from GNOME Shell.
The three editions of Mint 22 are all in the range of 2.7GB to 2.8GB in size. I downloaded the ISO for the Cinnamon desktop, Mint's homegrown environment.
The live desktop
Booting from the live media brings up a boot menu where we are given the chance to start the live desktop, launch the desktop in safe graphics mode, or start an OEM install. The OEM install does a quick setup without a user account.
Taking the live desktop option boots to the Cinnamon interface. A panel is placed across the bottom of the screen. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the project's system installer.
Installing
Mint uses the Ubiquity system installer, inherited from its parent distribution. The graphical installer is very straight forward and walks us through selecting our language from a list and, optionally, showing us an on-line copy of the project's release notes. We are then asked to confirm our computer's keyboard layout and asked whether we wish to install media codecs, including ones which may be patent encumbered. Disk partitioning comes next. Mint offers guided and manual partitioning. The guided approach will set up one root partition or set up a flexible storage volume using LVM. The manual partitioning screen is quite user friendly and it has a nice point-and-click interface. The partitioning screen will also perform checks on our layout and warn if it thinks we are missing a partition, such as space for /boot/efi on UEFI-enabled systems.
The final two screens of the installer ask us to select our timezone from a map and then create a username and password combination. Mint also allows us to enable home directory encryption, something for which most other distributions have dropped support. The installer then copies its packages to our drive and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Mint 22 booted to a graphical login screen. There are three session options available. The default is to login to Cinnamon running an X11 session and using hardware acceleration. There is also a Cinnamon session running on X11 with software rendering, for when hardware acceleration may not be available and we need to make more use of the CPU. The third option is to run Cinnamon with a Wayland session and this last option is marked as being experimental.
Linux Mint 22 -- The welcome window
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Upon signing into any of these sessions a welcome window appears. This welcome window consists of five tabs. The first tab shows a short welcome message. The other four tabs are labelled First Steps, Documentation, Help, and Contribute. The Documentation tab shows us links to the project's release notes, What's New document, and support documentation. The Help page links us to the project's user forum and chat room. The chat room and the forum are both opened in the Firefox browser. The Contribute tab links us to a web page where we're shown details on how to contribute or donate to Linux Mint.
The First Steps tab is interesting as it provides us with quick access to several configuration tools and system utilities. On this page we can find a button which opens a desktop appearance configuration tool to help us adjust the theme of Cinnamon. There are also buttons for opening the Timeshift utility to help us take snapshots of our filesystem, launching the update manager, opening the Cinnamon settings panel, launching the software centre, and opening the Gufw firewall utility.
Linux Mint 22 -- The settings panel
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I quite like Timeshift, especially when it is paired with Btrfs volumes as it can automate snapshots and make recoveries from updates or mistakes much easier. I also appreciate the Cinnamon settings panel. It's organized in a classic grid layout which makes it easy to quickly find and open configuration modules. From the settings panel we can adjust the theme, resolution, and extensions of the desktop. There are also modules for launching the firewall tool and managing privacy settings such as remembering recently opened files.
The firewall utility presented to us is Gufw and the firewall is disabled by default. Gufw makes it simple to turn on the firewall and open specific ports to allow access to network services.
Software management
Linux Mint ships with a few software management tools. The Update Manager is available through the welcome window, the application menu, and there is an update icon in the system tray which will open the update manager when clicked. The update manager shows us a list of available updates and we can select which ones we wish to install. The update manager worked well for me, downloading and applying the handful of available security updates.
The update manager has some useful options. For instance, it can launch Timeshift for us to take a snapshot pre-update. The update manager's Preferences panel allows us to adjust the frequency of checks for new packages and we can decide whether the update manager should search for updates to just Deb packages or also monitor for Flatpak and extension bundles too. I quite like the update manager. It's both streamlined in its primary function and also, with a little digging through the menus, it can be flexible.
Linux Mint 22 -- The update manager and Timeshift
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The software centre is a custom software manager with a fairly modern look. The top half of the default screen shows recommended or featured applications. The bottom half of the window shows us categories of software we can browse. A search bar in the top-left corner will assist us in finding applications based on their name.
Clicking on an application, either in the search results or in a category, brings up a full page description and screenshot of the selected item. In the top-right corner of the window we will find a button to install the item. Immediately under this Install button is a drop-down menu which gives us the option to switch between installing the software from a "system" Deb package or a Flatpak package. As far as I can tell, there isn't a universal default for which package type is selected. Sometimes the Flatpak was picked for me, other times the Deb, even when both were available. Once a new package has been installed the Install button is replaced by two buttons - one to remove the application and another which can launch the applications from within the software centre.
Linux Mint 22 -- The software centre
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From the software centre's menu we can switch to a screen which shows low-level packages and applications which have been installed manually (in other words, any packages which didn't come pre-installed with the operating system). From this screen we can remove any software we have installed.
For people who prefer a classic package manager, Synaptic is also included. This gives us access to low-level packages. We can also use the APT and Flatpak command line utilities if we wish. Unlike its parent, Mint does not ship with Snap support, but it can be installed from the distribution's repositories.
Hardware
I started my trial with Mint in a VirtualBox environment where the distribution performed well. The system was stable and the desktop was responsive, even with visual effects enabled. The desktop dynamically resized with the VirtualBox window and I encountered no issues. When I tried running Mint on my laptop the experience was similarly polished. The live media took an unusually long time (about five minutes) to boot, but otherwise the experience was great. Audio worked out of the box, media keys were recognized, wireless networking functioned well, and Cinnamon was responsive. I found the distribution booted equally well in UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes and the experience was entirely smooth.
The Mint distribution is slightly on the heavier end of the spectrum. A fresh install took up 9.1GB of disk space, not including my swap partition. When signed into the Cinnamon desktop the environment consumed 870MB of RAM. This puts Mint slightly above the resource usage of most distributions I've used lately running Xfce and Plasma, but a bit below distributions running GNOME.
Included software
Mint ships with many popular open source applications. Digging through the application menu we find the Firefox browser, Thunderbird for e-mail, and Transmission for working with bittorrent. LibreOffice is supplied along with a calendar application, and the Nemo file manager. The Celluoid media player is available to play video files and Rhythmbox will play music files for us. There is an IPTV application installed for us called Hypnotix (which we have reviewed), and (assuming we checked the codec box at install time) Mint supplies us with codecs for playing virtually any media file.
Linux Mint 22 -- Setting up launchers for web apps
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Mint ships a utility for managing passwords and security keys along with a backup utility. The backup tool is a nice companion to Timeshift in that it is focused on making archives of our personal files while Timeshift focuses on making snapshots of the operating system. There is also a printer manager and the GNU Compiler Collection.
Behind the scenes we find the GNU core utilities and manual pages are installed for us. The systemd init software is featured along with version 6.8 of the Linux kernel.
The included software worked well for me. I don't think I saw any glitches or problems during my trial with the default software.
Wayland session
Mint's release documentation mentions the Cinnamon desktop now offers a Wayland session. It's marked as being experimental, meaning people should expect some rough edges and problems. While most of my time with Mint 22 was spent in the X11 session, I did try the Wayland session a few times. I was pleasantly surprised.
While not all of my experiences with Wayland over the past decade have been truly bad, with one exception, my Wayland experiences have always been very notably sub-par compared to running the same desktop/distro combination with X11. Wayland tends to mess up my mouse pointer's appearance, often crashes, and is usually visibly slower to respond when compared to X11. To make matters worse, when a Wayland window manager crashes it usually takes down the entire desktop session, rather than just restarting the window manager and leaving the individual applications running. I've run Wayland in virtual machines, on Intel hardware, and on AMD hardware (never on NVIDIA which often gets blamed for Wayland's problems) and I've regularly tried Wayland sessions when running Plasma and GNOME. I usually return to X11 by the end of the day.
Linux Mint 22 -- The Wayland session
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Despite being new and experimental, Cinnamon's Wayland session is already performing better for me than the GNOME and Plasma equivalents ever have. The desktop does lag a little bit in VirtualBox, but otherwise offered me a stable and responsive session. Media applications, often the Achilles heel of Wayland, worked properly as did screenshot tools, my web browser, and the Cinnamon configuration utilities. Cinnamon's Wayland session always showed an extra mystery icon on the panel which didn't go away, but otherwise appeared to be on par with the X11 session. When we consider that Cinnamon is several years "behind" Plasma and GNOME in terms of development time, I'm impressed their Wayland implementation is already better.
Conclusions
I'm usually impressed by new releases of Linux Mint and version 22 has been no exception. The distribution delivers on virtually every front for desktop users. It's easy to set up, it offers a solid collection of popular applications without overly crowding the application menu, and it ships with three desktop flavours - ranging from full featured (Cinnamon), to classic (MATE), to lighter (Xfce). The welcome window makes it easy to access help, change the look of the system, and perform essential tasks such as making backups and installing updates. The software centre is fast and flexible, uniting Flatpak and Deb packages fluidly in one space.
Cinnamon uses nice, sane defaults, and it should be familiar for people migrating from Windows, while being flexible for people who want a distinctly different look and feel. Media support works out of the box, the update manager integrates with Timeshift for bullet-proof updates, and the system is stable. Even the new Wayland session works surprisingly well.
I played with Mint for five days and didn't manage to find any errors, any crashes, or any common task that it tripped over. The closest I can come to a complaint is it would have been nice if the system installer offered more guided partitioning options, perhaps offering a drop-down menu for root filesystems such as ext4 and Btrfs alongside the existing LVM option. And that's it, that's the nearest thing to a limitation or fault I could find after nearly a week with Mint 22.
There is a reason, several reasons, I usually recommend Linux Mint to less experienced users and Linux newcomers. It is easy to install, offers five years of support, it's stable, and it is possible to perform virtually any task from the desktop without opening a command line. The system is unusually friendly, integrated across components, and it's pleasantly straight forward to install software across multiple formats. It's also consistent. While some mainstream distributions publish a mixture of good and bad releases, Mint has steadily published good, polished releases for over a decade that have delivered a friendly, stable experience. I'd recommend it for both beginners and more experienced users who want to spend more time using their computer than setting it up.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Linux Mint has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 833 review(s).
Have you used Linux Mint? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE publishes new Tumbleweed and Aeon Desktop updates, Debian introduces Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro experimenting with immutable images, Funtoo discontinued
The openSUSE project published a few news announcements this week. The first discussed several updates to the project's Tumbleweed branch. Tumbleweed received a new kernel with updated wireless networking drivers, the KWin Wayland session received several fixes and enhancements, and Discover's handling of Flatpak packages has been improved.
The second announcement talked about openSUSE's Aeon Desktop edition which has just published its third (and probably final) release candidate. The new snapshot offers full disk encryption and updates the system installer (called tik) to use systemd-repart instead of dd for deploying the Aeon image. "Depending on your hardware, Aeon will automatically configure Full Disk Encryption in one of two modes: Default Mode with strong verification of bootloader via the Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 (TPM2 for short), initrd and kernel before automatically decrypting your system. Fallback Mode with no verification of boot components and requiring a Passphrase on boot to decrypt your system."
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The Debian project is trialing an initiative which aims to lower the bar for contributing to Debian while also dealing with small bugs and usability issues. The Tiny QA Tasks sub-project is described as follows: "This project contains some short, self-contained, relatively simple tasks to enhance the quality of Debian with the intention to integrate newcomers into the project by doing valuable contributions in a short time frame. The effort should be guided/led by experienced Debian Developers who show their workflow to others." A Matrix channel has been set up where experienced Debian Developers and people wishing to contribute can communicate.
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The Manjaro Linux community is experimenting with a new, immutable operating system image. A call for testing was posted on the Manjaro forums: "Manjaro Immutable Out Now for Community Testing: Powered by Arkdep 70 from the Arkane Linux 60 project this exciting new Manjaro variant is available for public testing right now! The goal of this release is to gather community feedback on the technology powering Manjaro Immutable. Note that this is only an experimental release and not representative of the final version, there is also no support guarantee, so hold off on installing it as your primary operating system, at least for now." The testing images require at least 32GB of storage space and UEFI mode.
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The Funtoo project was created by Daniel Robbins (the founder and former project leader of Gentoo). Funtoo was described as an evolution of Gentoo, but in this case the new generation did not outlive its parent. The Funtoo project is shutting down. Robbins posted on the project's forum: "All good things must come to an end. I've decided to end the Funtoo Linux project. Funtoo started as a philosophy to create a fun community of contributors building something great together. For me, it's no longer that so I need to move on to other things. There is not a successor BDFL for Funtoo nor am I interested in trying to find one, or hand the project off to someone else. You can expect the project to wind down through August. If you have a Funtoo container, it will continue to be online through the end of August so you have time to find another hosting solution if you need one."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Making snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD
When people talk about filesystems, particularly when comparing traditional Unix & Linux filesystems against modern filesystems, there are a few keys points which tend to be mentioned. One of the main features offered by advanced filesystems (such as Btrfs, ZFS, and HAMMER2) is snapshots - lightweight copies of the filesystem which can be kept on the disk or transmitted to another computer. These snapshots capture moments in time on the system which allows us to compare different versions of files, rollback changes, and recover deleted files.
Advanced filesystems offer other powerful features, such as multi-device storage, transparent compression, and deduplication, but I feel as though snapshots are one of the key selling points of advanced filesystems. Traditional filesystems (such as ext4, UFS, and XFS) simply don't have the equivalent capability, at least not without having an added storage management layer like LVM, but those need to be set up in advance and are relatively awkward to manage compared to Btrfs and ZFS.
This divide between the capabilities of traditional filesystems and advanced filesystems can cause system administrators to make some tough choices, especially in limited hardware environments. Snapshots and related features are great to have, but using them often means using a heaver filesystem that will eat more memory and perform I/O more slowly when using low-specification hardware.
Though it is not talked about often, there is a filesystem which bridges the gap between the classic filesystems like ext4 and the advanced filesystems like ZFS. UFS, which is the traditional filesystem of FreeBSD, has the ability to create snapshots, browse them, and restore files from the snapshots. This week I want to explore how snapshots on this classic filesystem work and what we can do with them. This will be especially helpful on lower-end machines, such as Raspberry Pi computers and virtual private server (VPS) environments.
The following steps are performed on a FreeBSD 13.3 system using UFS as the root filesystem. Though the same commands should work in any version of FreeBSD from 5.1 and up. In the upcoming examples, when I am running commands as my regular user I will prefix the command with a "%" sign, the common prompt in FreeBSD's default shell (csh). When running commands as the administrator (root user) commands will be preceded by a "#" symbol.
Snapshots of UFS can be accomplished using the mksnap_ffs command line utility. The mksnap_ffs utility accepts one parameter only - the filename we want to assign the snapshot. Based on where the snapshot is created, mksnap_ffs will determine which filesystem we want to snapshot. For example, if we create a snapshot called /snap1, the utility will determine we are making a snapshot of the root (/) filesystem. However, if we make a snapshot called /home/snap1 then the utility will understand we are making a snapshot of the /home filesystem.
I feel it is worth mentioning any snapshot we create shows up as a file and this file will appear to be the same size as the filesystem we just snapshotted. The snapshot doesn't actually take up this much space, as long as it continues to sit on the filesystem from which it was created. The snapshot itself takes up virtually no space if we leave it in its original location. Though it will be the size indicated if we transfer it to another computer.
Let's look at UFS snapshots in action. Here we create a snapshot of the root filesystem and call the snapshot "mysnap":
# mksnap_ffs /mysnap
To confirm the snapshot was created, we can use the ls command. Here we confirm a snapshot was made on June 9th and the filesystem is about 68GB in size. The new snapshot is owned by the root user and only accessible to people in the operator group, for security purposes:
% ls -l /mysnap
-r--r----- 1 root operator 68719509504 Jun 9 15:33 /mysnap
To access the contents of the snapshot we can create a device called a "memory disk" and mount it. Here we prepare the snapshot for access:
# mdconfig -f /mysnap
md0
In the above example we create a memory disk associated with mysnap. The mdconfig program returns the name of the newly created memory disk, in this case md0. We can then mount it and explore the snapshot using the mount command. When running the mount command, we need to specify the option "ro", indicating this is a read-only snapshot and we cannot change it. If this "ro" parameter is omitted the snapshot will fail to mount properly.
# mount -o ro /dev/md0 /mnt
At this point we can explore the snapshot located under the /mnt directory, copy files from it, and use tools to compare the versions of files in the snapshot against current versions of the files on our system. When we are finished with the snapshot we should unmount it and remove the memory disk:
# umount /mnt
# mdconfig -d -u md0
In the future, if we wish to remove the old snapshot, we can simply delete its file by running the rm command:
# rm /mysnap
Let's look at one more example where we create a snapshot of our /home filesystem and transfer it to another computer as a backup so we can restore files in the future. This isn't particularly efficient, but can be handy if we want an exact copy of all filesystem data on a remote machine, for example when backing up a VPS.
Let's say I have a modest home directory and it looks like this, with one important text file called hello:
% ls
COPYRIGHT abc hello
% cat hello
World!
Now I make a snapshot:
# mksnap_ffs /home/.snap/homesnap
At this point I can transfer the snapshot of my home partition to another computer (called backup-server), perhaps with the scp command:
# scp /home/.snap/homesnap jesse@backup-server:
Then, oops, my precious file called hello accidentally gets deleted:
% rm hello
On the backup server, assuming it is running FreeBSD, I can perform the following commands to restore my missing hello file to my original computer by running:
# mdconfig -f homesnap
md0
# mount -o ro /dev/md0 /mnt
# scp /mnt/jesse/hello jesse@original-computer:
Cleaning up on the backup server is then the same as before:
# umount /mnt
# mdconfig -d -u md0
While this snapshot technology on UFS is very handy, especially in low-resource environments where we might not want to run a filesystem such as ZFS or Btrfs, it does have limitations. For example, UFS only supports up to 20 snapshots at a time. It also doesn't appear to be integrated with other utilities, such as the system upgrade tool (freebsd-update), meaning we need to manage UFS snapshots manually.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Emmabuntüs DE5-1.02
Emmabuntüs is a desktop Linux distribution with editions based on Debian's Stable branch with the Xfce and LXQt desktop environments. The project's latest release, DE5-1.02, introduces a number of accessibility improvements. "The accessibility functions added in this upgrade are: Orca screen reader combined with the Svox-Pico speech synthesis to help the blind persons. The Compiz window manager with its accessibility module (full-screen zoom, change of screen brightness, etc.) for the visually impaired. MouseTweaks and mouse emulation with numeric keypad for people with physical disabilities. eBook-speaker for audio playback of digital books in ePub format. Daisy-player for reading audio books in Daisy format. Kiwix in accessibility mode to read Wikipedia offline. Ocrizer for scanning a document in OCR mode and opening the result in LibreOffice. Elograf for voice dictation. Tux Typing voice version for learning the keyboard of Zendalona. NatBraille software for generating Braille books. GNOME-calculator in accessibility mode." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4
Super Grub2 Disk is a live platform that helps the user to boot into almost any operating system even if the system cannot boot into it by normal means. The project's latest release is Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4 which introduces support for Btrfs volumes. "This new version is packed with many new features. Added BTRFS support all over Super Grub2 Disk. Operating System specific options: EFI, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, Linux, Mac OS X, MS-DOS, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows Vista (and newer). New Operating Systems: GNU/Hurd, ReactOS and Linux from /boot partition. Debian and Ubuntu secureboot binaries have been updated so that they properly work on updated or recent UEFIs. (Fix) Force to update devices after enabling native disk drivers. Fixed the use of unicode.pf2. grub.cfg files are now searched at EFI partitions. diskpartchainboot.cfg: Fix quoted label. Partition labels. Overall redesign. Refactor unicode font file generation. New Hungarian, Traditional Chinese, Polish and Japanese translations." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,044
- Total data uploaded: 45.0TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
The Linux Mint main edition or Linux Mint Debian Edition?
This week we opened with a look at Linux Mint. We reviewed Mint's main edition, which is based on Ubuntu. The Mint team also supplies a Debian-based edition which uses most of the same technologies and supports 32-bit processors. Which flavour of Mint do you prefer?
You can see the results of our previous poll on automatically applying software updates in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you prefer Linux Mint or LMDE?
| Linux Mint (main edition): | 801 (23%) |
| LMDE: | 1041 (30%) |
| Both: | 340 (10%) |
| Neither: | 1291 (37%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Sleeper OS. Sleeper OS is an antiX-based distribution which seeks to balance being lightweight with a friendly user environment.
- Bazzite. Bazzite is a gaming-focused distribution based on Fedora. It offers two flavours, KDE Plasma and GNOME.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 August 2024. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Mint/LMDE (by Brad on 2024-08-05 00:17:02 GMT from United States)
I've used both, but I always preferred LMDE, because the base is Debian rather than Ubuntu, so I knew I was always getting the LTS kernel, instead of the Ubuntu offering.
It's not my daily driver any more. I'm in total agreement with Jesse that Mint is suitable for folks wanting to migrate away from Windows; if anyone were to ask me for help in that regard, I would recommend Mint, and help them with installation, and with post-installation issues or questions.
2 • Manjaro is immutable when breaks (by Pedro Barreto on 2024-08-05 00:42:23 GMT from Brazil)
When Manjaro breaks, it is certainly immutable or atomic.
3 • From Ubuntu-MATE to Mint Cinamon (by Jim4444 on 2024-08-05 01:01:15 GMT from United States)
I'm a low-tech user who has used Ubuntu-Mate for several years, but 7-Zip encryption stopped working on the Ubuntu-MATE 24.04 release. According to more knowledgeable users who helped me, it has something to do with Engrampa which MATE uses. I really like the MATE desktop. I need to make some time to try the Mint 22 Mate version to see if 7-Zip encryption works there. I started with Mint Cinnamon to make sure I have a distro where 7-Zip encryption works.
4 • mint not for me (by Because; reasons on 2024-08-05 01:11:46 GMT from New Zealand)
longstanding bugs not fixed;
Main edition installer will auto-create a (U)EFI partition when booted in legacy / BIOS boot, often rendering the install unbootable.
response from LM: not our installer, not our problem. We just use it.
32 bit Cinnamon (LMDE): nemo reports unbelievable copy information for files greater than 400MB.
Incorrectly reporting the data size in multi PB or EB.
Incorrectly reporting the expected copy time, typically in the 10s of years,
and unbelievable copy rates, in the multi TB/s.
Since at least LM Ver:19, but carried over to LMDE.
5 • Funtoo (by uz64 on 2024-08-05 01:27:59 GMT from United States)
Clearly Funtoo wasn't too serious of a distro. Having "fun" in the name goes a long way in showing how serious the project was. Which is, not at all. When you think, "hey, you know what would be fun? Let's start a distro!" and that is the only thing keeping you going... what's the point? The announcement really puts on display what a joke the distro really was. A reason maybe *not* to start a new distro. Or as a user--a reason *not* to use said distro.
6 • Mint/LMDE (by zephyr on 2024-08-05 01:29:32 GMT from United States)
My opinion is Ubuntu bloats any distro. LMDE is the better choice.
7 • Linux Mint 22 (by Steve K on 2024-08-05 01:38:35 GMT from United States)
I have been using Linux Mint for over 15 years and have never had a problem with it. Not one. It is rock solid and has been my daily driver since then. During that time, due to my insatiable curiosity with all things Linux, I've tried and used many dozens of other distros but haven't liked any of them as much as Linux Mint.
Being a constant tweaker I prefer the MATE version instead of Cinnamon due to its customizability. Cinnamon doesn't offer anywhere near the customization that MATE does. For example, in Cinnamon you can't even set transparency levels on the taskbar..
After installing Linux Mint MATE the first thing I do is to totally trick it out with some of the many awesome themes available on the Internet (GTK themes, Icon themes, etc.). When I'm done not only do I have a super reliable distro with many valuable features, but is also totally unique and awesome-looking. Yes, eye candy is my thing and makes my time on the computer far more enjoyable!
8 • Linux Mint 22 (by Pumpino on 2024-08-05 02:22:04 GMT from Australia)
@7. In Mint, open extensions from the main menu and download the list. There is a transparency extension, which I think is the first one listed. Download it, switch to the other tab and click on settings to enable it. You can adjust the level of transparency.
9 • Windows-style DEs (by Dave on 2024-08-05 02:26:20 GMT from United States)
> a more traditional desktop layout
It’s interesting how often the Linux community uses this euphemism. Why not just admit that it’s a Windows-style layout?
10 • I don't prefer Linux Mint or LMDE - both use proprietary software (by Andy Prough on 2024-08-05 02:31:52 GMT from United States)
I use fully libre-licensed distros such as Trisquel, Guix, Hyperbola, and GNUinos. Unfortunately Mint doesn't offer a version without proprietary-licensed programs, and I don't know of any easy way to try to make it fully libre.
11 • Funtoo No More (by InvisibleInk on 2024-08-05 03:03:17 GMT from United States)
"All good things must come to an end. I've decided to end the Funtoo Linux project. Funtoo started as a philosophy to create a fun community of contributors building something great together. For me, it's no longer that so I need to move on to other things. There is not a successor BDFL for Funtoo nor am I interested in trying to find one, or hand the project off to someone else. You can expect the project to wind down through August. If you have a Funtoo container, it will continue to be online through the end of August so you have time to find another hosting solution if you need one."
If I'm playing the armchair psychologist, I'd say the above indicates a clear-cut case of burnout
12 • Linux Mint 22 - XCFE (by Shawn (Oompa-Loompa-Land) on 2024-08-05 05:19:57 GMT from Vietnam)
I'm missing an install option with full disk encryption and(!) BTRFS (with proper sub-volume layout). I was also surprised that compiz and compton are still part of the default applications. On my Intel NUC 11th Gen i3 Mint 22 XFCE live disk boots fine. Ubuntu / Xubuntu / Lubuntu 24.04 Live do not boot.
13 • Mint or LMDE? (by Minter on 2024-08-05 05:49:04 GMT from Spain)
I'm a distrohopper but I keep a Mint partition and I always go back to Mint. I would like to choose a Debian Mint derivative over the Ubuntu one, but I prefer Mint over LMDE because some reasons:
1.- There is a Xfce version out of the box. I'm a Xfce man, no other desktop satisfies me, and to get rid of the LMDE standard desktop and install Xfce is a little annoying. Why no more options like regular Mint?
2.- Longer support. Several years of longer support. As soon as a new version of Debian appears, LMDE support desapears. Why not as long as regular Debian?
3.- 'UpdateManager' makes easy to get rid of old kernels. I don't no why, but LMDE's 'UpdateManager', that seems exactly the same utility, doesn't have this option.
14 • @Windows-style DEs (by Minter on 2024-08-05 05:54:06 GMT from Spain)
''Why not just admit that it’s a Windows-style layout? "
Probably because the 'style' was first introduced commercially by Apple (classic Mac) and used by other OSs (like BeOS, for example).
15 • Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon and the Poll (by Albert on 2024-08-05 06:24:26 GMT from United States)
Last week I downloaded the system mentioned in the subject and installed it on the hard disk of my PC. I've been using Mint since I started with Linux back in 2009. I began my journey with Ubuntu and almost immediately discovered L.Mint and decided to have it along. It has been almost always a pleasant experience for me to have it; unfortunalely I can't say the same about Ubuntu which began annoying me with the Unity Desktop first, which treated a PC desktop as if it were a cell phone. However Kubuntu, Xubuntu and U. Mate were still there. Later the invention and adoption of the snaps, and the way they increasingly intertwined with the systems and core parts of them, was too much for me. I completely left the ...buntus, kept with L.Mint at the same time as I began trying and using Debian derivatives too.
While keeping these two (Mint and Deb. derivs) I started distro-hopping to see many of the rest of the OS's in the Linux environment. While I discarded the others for their instability, I've lately added Fedora (KDE and Mate) which has gladly surprised me a bit -I had expected it to be unstable, but has proven me wrong so far.
Back to L.Mint Cinnamon; I didn't like this DE very much at first, but I kind of forced myself to use it just because it is the one favored by the developing team and thus enjoys more features than Mate and Xfce (I have these two installed too just because I like them). Now it's irrelevant which one of the three I'm using at a determined moment.
After having L.M.Cinnamon 22 installed for a few days I started seeing that the OS hanged sort of frequently, forcing me to press ALT, Ctrl and Del at first, then I had to use the Reboot button of the PC and when this wasn't enough I had to resort to switching the machine off. After this, I examined the root file system and confirmed my suspicion: the OS had not created a swap file as it was the expected behavior of L.Mint. I corroborated this fact with some terminal commands, consulted the internet and created an 8 Gb swap file. I haven't had more interruptions so far, but considering I did this one or two days ago, perhaps it's too early to make a proper judgment.
Almost at the same time I realized that something else was happening: the root
partition had become strangely small. It was after a careful and patient review of the root folders that I discovered the culprit: the /var/log/ folder had reached over 15 Gb in just a few days. I once more resorted to the internet and decided to wipe out its contents yesterday. Only a few minutes ago I reviewed this log folder and it was 1.2 Gb in size. Too much for one day, something else must be wrong with this system.
I still continue to like L.Mint very much, even in spite of these little inconveniences. I'd like to know, however, if any of these two things have happened to other users also.
In the poll I answered that the Main Edition is my preferred one because of a somewhat weird thing happening with my installed OS's (If you've had the patience to read my lengthy post up to this point you might have realized that I multiboot the OS's on my PC). On another PC where I have two disks of 1 Tb in size, one being mechanic, the other an SSD, the Debian derivatives very often seem to get confused with names of the drives -presenting me with partitions that are in sda as if they were in sdb and viceversa. The strange thing here is that this has never happened with Ubuntu or its derivatives, including L.Mint.
When I asked about this in a forum of MX linux I was told that this is a common occurrence when multibooting and that I should not worry about it.
16 • Error update manager (by Klaus on 2024-08-05 08:07:42 GMT from The Netherlands)
Hi there,
I am using mint 22, Wilma and it's great again.
But refreshing the update manager I am getting the following message:
W:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/costales/folder-color/ubuntu/dists/noble/InRelease:
Signature by key 0DD210ABE883B905B88B55E7FC14671BA89CA06C uses weak
algorithm (rsa1024)
Any suggestions please.
Thanks
Best
Klaus
17 • @16, update error (by Mr. Moto on 2024-08-05 09:17:12 GMT from Philippines)
https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2024/04/workaround-apt-warning-signature-key-uses-weak-algorithm/
18 • 3 • From Ubuntu-MATE to Mint Cinamon (by James on 2024-08-05 09:26:05 GMT from United States)
I to love Ubuntu Mate and immediately found the 7 zip problem which I reported. I believe it will be fixed in the nest point release. In the mean time 7 zip indeed compresses the file, and if you add gnome file roller it will open it.
With Ubuntu Mate the Ayatana indicators work, especially the battery one, which still do not work in Mint. Another. I will stick with Ubuntu Mate.
19 • Mint (by MarkE on 2024-08-05 09:30:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Unlike some other popular desktops (ahem Gnome), Mint has never, as yet, been annoying and lets you do what you want without obstruction (like having the power button shutdown the computer immediately, for example).
And it's not designed for a nonexistent phone or tablet, either. And it's easy to use, but doesn't infantalize the user. I could go on..
It's Cinnamon for me, but I've tried the other desktops as well, they're all good.
20 • UFS snapshots (by Martin on 2024-08-05 09:40:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you Jesse for another very informative and useful tutorial on making snapshots with the UFS filesystem.
21 • Mint 22 (by NiftyPenguin on 2024-08-05 10:22:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you for the review. Mint is a great distro for new and seasoned Linux users alike. Sane defaults, cool theming and rollbacks baked in.
I use the XFCE edition as it seems to do everything I need, is stable and speedy. I've used 22 since beta and I reckon it's one of the very best Linux desktop releases in the 26 years I've followed the penguin.
I'd probably move to LMDE if Mint stopped using the Ubuntu base for the main editions, especially if there was an LMDE XFCE.
22 • Traditional (by Jesse on 2024-08-05 11:04:09 GMT from Canada)
@9: "It’s interesting how often the Linux community uses this euphemism. Why not just admit that it’s a Windows-style layout?"
Because it has nothing to do with Windows. The layout Cinnamon uses is being compared here against past versions of Linux desktops, such as KDE 1-3 and GNOME 2.
23 • Funtoo no more (by Dylan on 2024-08-05 11:11:51 GMT from The Netherlands)
Why was Funtoo born? Wasn't Gentoo sufficient?
24 • Linux Mint 22 (by TFrog on 2024-08-05 11:21:13 GMT from United States)
I've distro hopped between Linux Mint and Manjaro (KDE and Cinnamon) on and off for years now. There's a lot to like on both distros. I've not experienced many of the issues brought up here. Perhaps it's because I have a System 76 Pangolin laptop with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD. The reason I've hopped back and forth with these two specific distros is because of drivers for my 2 year plus old Pangolin. Generally, I've had no issues with either distro with one exception. As Linux Mint ages, I've had issues with keyboard drivers not working. With Manjaro i've not had that issue. Aside from that I've had little or no issues with Linux Mint.
One comment mentioned issues with swap file. I've been running Linux now for over 20 years. I've NEVER ran a system without a "swap" partition for more than a few reasons. When I ran Windows years ago, I noticed how swap files were all over the file system. I still suggest a separate swap partition to new users for this reason and one other. Most systems hibernate or suspend better with a swap partition in Linux than a swap file. Microsoft may work better with a swap file, but Linux has always worked better with a swap partition. I'm not sure why this is.
If you look at those distributions using Calamares for their installer instead of the Linux Mint installer, when you go to partitioning, it gives you a choice of with swap partition or with a swap file or something else entirely. I always select with a swap partition for hibernate or create something else entirely. Linux Mint's installer only offers swap with file or select something else with their installer. Perhaps a better description of how the partitioning works in Linux Mint would help allieveate these issues.
As to me, I'm happy with Linux Mint Cinnamon. Manjaro rates second in my choices of distro/desktop. But this is for me and my personal laptop. Others may have better luck elsewhere. Just pay very strict attention to partitioning.
25 • Mint 22 (by DachshundMan on 2024-08-05 11:45:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
One of the things I like about Mint is the update application. I updated my install from v21 to v22 with only a minimal intervention being required by me. Once it had got going I walked away and came back about an hour later to find the upgrade was done and only a reboot and a manual removal of the update tool was required. Much easier than a new installation from scratch.
26 • Mint 22 is the Cure (by pfbruce on 2024-08-05 12:37:38 GMT from United States)
Mint 21.3 would show resources in Browse Network. 21.3 was the last distro that would list printers, other computers, the router thumb drive, etc. Mint 22 fixed that. 22 also produced an annoying flicker on my second monitor that I could not fix. So I have been cured from upgrade fever.
I replaced Mint22 with MX19 using Clonezilla.That was the easiest install I ever made! While MX19 does not fix the Browse Network problem, it is the latest distro I had where Wine still worked. (It is Wine4, but I think Wine5 also worked with VOX, my spanish dictionary).
I still have the ISO for Mint 21.I will keep it, but the latest Linux upgrades do nothing for me anymore.
27 • Mint 22 Upgraded (by wally on 2024-08-05 13:04:20 GMT from United States)
All my systems have a version of Mint as one of the OS.
Upgrading an MSDOS install, the installer eventually hung and had to be killed.
Fortunately it had apparently finished and rebooted and ran w/o problems.
Upgrading a GPT install, it went perfectly but now will not chainload the grub.cfg. Always worked before and still boots from the main menu but I really want to chainload the Mint grub.
A bit of a downgrade for something that has always been flawless for me.
28 • Mint 22 (by RetiredIT on 2024-08-05 13:16:47 GMT from United States)
Though I have used dozens of distros since 2006 which began with Ubuntu 5.10, I eventually settled on Linux Mint in 2011, and then on MX Linux (which lost its way after 21.3). I then went back to Mint 21.3 and LMDE6, both of which I have on my Lenovo Thinkpad T490 (500 GB SSD/32 GB mem.) and Dell Latitude 7490 (2 TB SSD/64 GB mem.).
I downloaded and booted Mint 22 MATE into the live environment which was enough to see that not much has changed in the past several years. Same ole, same ole ugly dark themes which Mint has been using! Why always so dark? We need light! Though it runs well I see no point in upgrading from 21.3 at this time.
I have become very weary of reinstalls and fresh installs in the past 18 years. Each time I spend hours with them. So instead, my daily driver is now Ubuntu 24.04 with the MATE desktop, no Snaps and 12 years of support through Ubuntu Pro. Just like Windows, all distros should have at least 10 years of support. Five years is fine but 10 years is even better!
29 • Majaro (by Lupus on 2024-08-05 13:20:49 GMT from Germany)
#2
"When Manjaro breaks, it is certainly immutable or atomic."
Then it a good thing it never broke on me since forever (at least 4 years)
30 • Mint 22 (by qa1 on 2024-08-05 13:56:24 GMT from Poland)
Can someone test the following thing in LM22 and post the results?
In LMDE6 edition (Cinnamon 5.8.4) drag-and-drop functionality doesn't work under Cinnamon with LibreOffice apps like Calc (for moving/copying cells/columns/rows with or without ALT, CTRL, SHIFT), Writer (for moving/copying selected texts/paragraphs), any LO app (moving sth from Navigator). The mouse cursor doesn't change its icon while trying drag-and-drop like it normally should. ALT + dragging windows with the mouse in Cinnamon's system settings was deactivated for this test. Everything worked OK under LMDE4 (Cinnamon 4.4.8).
How to reproduce this under Cinnamon? Open a spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc. To move columns or rows, click on the header(s) to select them, then hold down Alt and drag one of the cells in the region to the new location. To make a copy hold down Alt+Ctrl. The mouse cursor should change when moving cells, but this is not happening under Cinnamon. Described procedure doesn't work under Cinnamon, but works under XFCE (tested on MX Linux).
More about drag-and-drop in LO Calc:
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/scalc/guide/move_dragdrop.html?DbPAR=CALC#bm_id3155686
More about drag-and-drop in LO Writer:
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/guide/dragdroptext.html?DbPAR=SHARED
Does drag-and-drop functionality in LO work in LM22 Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce edition?
31 • Possible Timeshift problem (by nail on 2024-08-05 16:35:36 GMT from United States)
@15:
" Almost at the same time I realized that something else was happening: the root
partition had become strangely small. It was after a careful and patient review of the root folders that I discovered the culprit: the /var/log/ folder had reached over 15 Gb in just a few days. I once more resorted to the internet and decided to wipe out its contents yesterday. Only a few minutes ago I reviewed this log folder and it was 1.2 Gb in size. Too much for one day, something else must be wrong with this system."
Your settings in Timeshift may be making too many Snapshots. I had to take it off automatic in a previous version of Mint.
32 • mint 22 (by Will on 2024-08-05 19:55:56 GMT from United States)
I'm mint 22 it on my ancient m92p thinkcentre and on my spanking new Tuxedo Stellaris AMD with nVidia 4070... solid and wonderful. Every time I put another distro on system, I go through the pain and suffering of figuring out why this doesn't work, why that won't update properly, why this and why that. With mint... very little drama with old hardware, with really old hardware or with hot off the presses hardware. It's almost boring by comparison. Jesse's review is spot on. It's so solid, it's sick.
33 • @30 (by Will on 2024-08-05 20:02:51 GMT from United States)
Works for me:
OS: Linux Mint 22 x86_64
Host: 3209A85 ThinkCentre M92p
Kernel: 6.8.0-39-generic
LibreOffice: 24.2.4.2
34 • @9 -Windows? (by Will on 2024-08-05 20:16:24 GMT from United States)
Traditional desktop definitely did not originate or even progress much with MS Windows. If anything the so-called traditional desktop on Windows has significantly degenerated over the last several versions. Linux's desktops are all better than Windows's (Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE, even dare I say it Gnome) and are considerably more extensible. Windows doesn't beat Linux on the "Desktop", they beat it in the "Desktop" market where desktop refers to the corporate desk...top and yeah that's pretty much the US market which dominates the world.
35 • Comments on Wayland (by oldtechaa on 2024-08-05 21:38:59 GMT from New Zealand)
I'm something of a pragmatist when it comes to change and Wayland, so I do believe it's the future and I might as well start getting used to it now. I know a number of people still have a lot of issues to work through with it, like Jesse mentioned above, but in my experience with Kubuntu it just works perfectly. It feels less broken than X11 in fact. Plus I can use Waydroid, and that's a critical usability factor for me.
Give it time and it will work for you once the bugs are worked out. Or you can try a different DE and it's a totally different implementation that may not have any such bugs.
36 • Mint upgrade? (by Kazlu on 2024-08-06 08:25:23 GMT from France)
Linux Mint has always been an incredibly reliable and easy to use choice in the world of Linux distros, even of desktop OSes in general. Although I don't use it on my own computer, I always recommend it to friends and family and I am actually helping a couple of people with maintenance for it. But really, I'm surprised about the little work required. For someone who has a basic desktop usage like working with a couple of office apps and web browsing, so not a lot of extra software installed, using Linux Mint is a breeze. I enabled automatic upgrades coupled with Timeshift setting just in case, so they don't have to think about actively doing maintenance until something breaks, but it never does...
Linux Mint is also the distro that taught me to think about the necessity of upgrading an OS that is still supported, and about the fresh install upgrade method, which I find BRILLIANT. When your computer is merely a tool and you want to minimize the time spent on setting it up, I really think this is the way to go. MX Linux makes this easy as well by the way, with the "preserve home" function in the installer. Just think about backing it up before, just in case! It's probably not the only one offering this, just the only one I know.
The official upgrade guide to Linux Mint 22 is now suggesting a package upgrade: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/upgrade-to-mint-22.html. But the fresh install upgrade method for Linux Mint is still valid, although the version references are out of date: https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2. If you are using Flatpaks, you may want to add this procedure to restore them easily: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/u3wcm7/easy_flatpak_apps_backupinstallation/. Flatpak data should be in your /home and therefore preserved with this method.
Also, remember that Linux Mint 21 and all the 21.X are supported until 2027. So, unless you need something from the newest release, if your LM 21.X is working just fine, there is nothing wrong with keeping 21.X for another 2 years, until LM 23 is out. You can upgrade Linux Mint every other version, every 4 years and always get support. That is what I advise to people with basic desktop usage. But it's easier to do with fresh install upgrades than with packages upgrades!
There are a number of reasons though why package upgrades might be much easier than fresh install upgrades (multi-user setups, server setups, and many more come to mind). It's perfectly fine to run that since it's officially supported by the editors. But in any case, one should always do the backup part of the fresh install upgrade method before, just in case something goes wrong. At least you can always go on with the upgrade this way if the package upgrade breaks half way for some reason.
I think fresh install upgrades are brilliant because they are the anti-thesis of the rolling release. Not that the rolling release model is bad, it's just not for the same people. So many things can go wrong when something important changes. The switch to Pipewire maybe... If you know tour way, rolling upgrades or package upgrades are probably better, but for beginners or people with little time, a fresh install upgrade is a great way to set your OS, which is a collection or packages meant to work together, the way the editor meant to, therefore with a lower chance of having something going wrong.
37 • mint is a hard pass (by kde fan on 2024-08-06 08:31:41 GMT from Croatia)
no kde, irrelevant
38 • Mint 22 (by kc1di on 2024-08-06 09:53:24 GMT from United States)
Mint 22 solid as usual. Thanks for the review. It's working great here on my hardware. would recommend it to anyone looking for a solid Distro.
Install and enjoy!
39 • @18 (by Jim4444 on 2024-08-06 11:30:15 GMT from United States)
The Ubuntu 24.04 Engrampa bug in the MATE desktop was reported to Ubuntu in February and its "importance" is still listed as "undecided" and the bug is "unassigned". Only 4 users have clicked that they are affected, but three of those are me and two people helping me last month. I may have to see if I can learn how to install Gnome file roller. Remember, low-tech user here.
40 • @23 Dylan: (by dragonmouth on 2024-08-06 11:44:06 GMT from United States)
Why were ANY derivatives (knock-offs) born? Who needs *buntus, Mint, Fedora when we have Debian or Red Hat?
41 • Linux Mint (by penguinx86 on 2024-08-06 16:00:54 GMT from United States)
I use Linux Mint Main Main Edition, because LMDE does not include compatible drivers for my laptop's Wifi adapter.
42 • @37 (by brad on 2024-08-06 16:29:11 GMT from United States)
"SolydXK" The project started as an unofficial variant of Linux Mint's "Debian" edition with KDE as the default desktop. I haven't used it in years, but it was OK at the time. I think it's moved away from its Mint "roots", however.
43 • @40 dragonmouth (by Dylan on 2024-08-06 16:51:13 GMT from The Netherlands)
Derivatives are not useful, but Fedora is not a derivative (instead RHEL is a derivative of Fedora).
44 • Linuxmint (by Bob on 2024-08-06 17:10:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
@37
When Linuxmint abandoned KDE, I abandoned Linuxmint. One of Mint's biggest shortcomings is the absence of KDE, one of the most complete and powerful desktops.
45 • Mint and KDE (by Jesse on 2024-08-06 20:25:22 GMT from Canada)
@44: You can install KDE on Mint with one command. Not exactly a barrier to using the distro.
46 • Mint (by Jan on 2024-08-06 21:41:22 GMT from The Netherlands)
An elaborate guide for tweaking Mint (for normal people, I think nerds do not need this):
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/1.html
End of last year I started testing Linux for my crappy old hardware. Of course I started with Mint in the 3 versions. Mate seemed the best (but slower than Windows), Cinnamon was slower (heavier), XFCE was strange and not fast.
I later concluded that the flagship version of any distro has best maintenance, the other (community) versions have the risk to suffer from neglect.
I recently tested Mint 22 again. Seemed all 3 to function well and faster than last year, so progress.
However one preference program was still not available, it is with Fedora-WS (unbelievably this full blown and latest GNOME seems to run the best/fastest on my crap old hardware).
47 • redox os (by Red Ned on 2024-08-07 07:40:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
After Distrowatch's not-much-has-changed review of Redox OS, they've thrown down the gauntlet in their July update:
"Website Improvements: Now the Home page is clear that we aim to be a complete Linux/BSD alternative."
Yet the work they've done is still mostly fixing and adjusting things. It doesn't mention much in the way of programs yet...There's a bit on hardware support improvements, and some financial backing, though.
48 • @43 Dylan: (by dragonmouth on 2024-08-07 11:25:12 GMT from United States)
Red Hat released in 1995, Fedora relleased in 2003.
49 • Red Hat and Fedora (by Jesse on 2024-08-07 13:06:46 GMT from Canada)
@48: "Red Hat released in 1995, Fedora released in 2003."
_Red Hat Linux_ was released in 1995. That distribution was rebranded as Fedora in 2003.
_Red Hat Enterprise Linux_ (the current form of Red Hat's distribution) is based on Fedora.
For the past 20 years RHEL has been based on periodic Fedora versions.
Don't take my word for it. Red Hat says so themselves: "Think about it like this. The Fedora project is the upstream, community distro of Red Hat® Enterprise Linux. Red Hat is the project’s primary sponsor, but thousands of independent developers also contribute to the Fedora project. Each of these contributors, including Red Hat, bring their own new ideas to be tested and debated for inclusion by the larger community into Fedora Linux. This also makes Fedora an ideal place for Red Hat to put features through its own distinct set of tests and quality assurance processes, and those features eventually get incorporated into a version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/linux/fedora-vs-red-hat-enterprise-linux
50 • @4 - why are you running cinnamon on 32 bit? (by MInuxLintEbianDedition on 2024-08-07 17:29:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
LMDE is best if you install a minimal mate session and keep the gnomish apps
even better if you devuanate it.
51 • Universal Disk Format Cross-platform-ness (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-08-07 18:36:51 GMT from United States)
Thank you Jessie for bringing to light an underappreciated filesystem. I found a forum thread on it called, "Why I am using UFS in 2021."
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/why-i-am-using-ufs-in-2021.79470/
The filesystem I wish to lend attention is UDF because it works natively (not with add-on drivers) on the major platforms. The only other such option is Microsoft FAT, unless someone knows better the modern state of play on Mac and Windows with respect to Unix filesystems. This bash script consolidates OS-specific quirks.
https://github.com/JElchison/format-udf
52 • Mint 22 (by Ragnar the XVI on 2024-08-07 20:54:26 GMT from United States)
I have had to regress to Mint 20 on my older laptops 4GB Ram and no SSD.
Not just some odd hardware issue. It is bloated programming, feature creep, bells a+ whistles. New stuff always needs more resources, Ram, CPU cores, Graphics, and an SSD.
B. Offer 2 grades of Distro. One for newer hardware and One for older machines.
And one 'base' version barebones for Geeks to build their own.
C. Stop concentrating on Cinnamon. It is really only distracting the development.
Tip: For Mate users just use a dark theme and the Mate looks the same as Cinnamon. I don't see any advantage to Cinnamon frankly, it is a waste of time and effort.
D. Forget about LDME as a fallback project. Just make a full project that powers a low resource version or the base version. If Mint had its own decent Repos you could build it up from Debian and Backport useful Ubuntu or other and that would be the fallback or eventual new Mint.
Here is what most developers do: Put their favorite desktop (Cinnamon for Mint) with cutting edge stuff on a new machine or VM and then neglect the other versions. So most of the other versions are buggy.
Software issues:
1. Offer curated Mint Repositories stocked with vetted and updated programs and abandone most old Ubuntu or other repos.
I would estimate about 95% (except the newer mainline stuff) of the software in the Ubuntu repos are useless to most people.
And when viewing to install them via Mint's Software Manager has no advantage. Either there are no useful comments, information or the Developer is obscure. Many of the web links lead to deadends. Much of the Ubuntu repo software is just too old, outdated and buggy. Often it is incompatible and won't even install properly.
2. If not changed to own fully curated repos, update the Software Manager and Update Manager to filter info based on 'warning levels' or change back to the 'update levels' settings Mint used to have for the Update Manager around Mint 17 or 18.
3. Repackage all flatpaks and abandon flathub altogether or make it an option with a warning - is not verifed and tested setting.
4. Remove all Ubuntu repos or software that is useless, buggy as noted above.
5. Xapps -? There is no use to me for Xapps. But maybe it is just me.
6. Get a real Browser like Brave in your Repo so we don't have to add it as a seperate Repo or flatpak.
53 • no.52 (by Someguy on 2024-08-08 07:40:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Lot to agree with.
Annoying thing about recent Mints is Firefox defaults to Google search on browser title bar. Certainly can be adjusted but that's not the point. Google's parent is in whole lot of trouble. World domination and $$$ seem to dominate everything these days...
54 • @52: Mint pitfalls? (by Kazlu on 2024-08-08 09:17:38 GMT from France)
Interesting post.
If I try to sum up your point of view of Mint (correct me if I'm wrong): it's great, since you use it with Mint 20, but it relies too much on Ubuntu repos which are unreliable and the software base, plus the Cinnamon desktop, renders the OS too slow. Well I mostly agree with that, which is why I don't use it myself. On this basis, I can only recommend the distro I have been using for the past few months: SpiralLinux, which is nothing but a Debian respin (only uses Debian repositories, no extras) but carefully configured into an easy to use desktop OS. Large choice of desktop environments, and you don't have to install them to replace the default one (there is one ISO per DE here as well). Although I am missing some perks from my favorite distro (MX Linux), Spiral has been very servicable and reliable.
Now, to say a bit more to your points. There is after all a reason for Mint using Ubuntu as a base and keeping LMDE as a backup, not as well supported "side-project": Ubuntu hardware support is better as well as software availability, simply because hardware manufacturers and software editors focus more on Ubuntu than Debian. Now it won't change anything to someone just willing to browse the web or do some office work, it will mostly affect gamers, video editors, some specific professional users, etc. So there is an argument here. But keeping an Ubuntu base allows to cover more use cases, at the expense of being more resource hungry/less clean I suppose. The important aspect is that Mint does nos develop that many packages themselves and they could not replace everything Ubuntu adds up to Debian, otherwise they would not keep a Ubuntu base! This is why LMDE trails a little behind the main Mint edition.
B. "Offer 2 grades of Distro. One for newer hardware and One for older machines."
I'd like that. Honestly, SpiralLinux or maybe SolydXK, SparkyLinux, Q4OS, possibly Peppermint and wattOS are very good alternatives to Mint for older machines.
C. "Stop concentrating on Cinnamon. It is really only distracting the development."
Well Cinnamon is most of what they develop themselves anyway. They do not develop MATE or Xfce, they just package them (although they contribute to MATE I think). They also develop XApps, see below, but that's about it. I think they could not, even if they wanted to, switch their efforts from Cinnamon to rewrite every other piece of software coming from Ubuntu that they need, it's just not the same work. Especially drivers! Not at all the same work. People on the open source world spend time to develop what they want to, not what a company direction would ask them to.
D. "Forget about LDME as a fallback project. Just make a full project that powers a low resource version or the base version. If Mint had its own decent Repos you could build it up from Debian and Backport useful Ubuntu or other and that would be the fallback or eventual new Mint."
See above. Manpower is not switchable like that. Not the same work. LMDE is, in their own words, an effort to have a fallback more or less ready in case they would HAVE TO drop the Ubuntu base, in case Ubuntu goes dark and pulls of a Red Hat, restrincing access to Ubuntu sources, or simply dropping developpement of Ubuntu Desktop. If this happens, some of the switch work for Mint is already done, but far from all of it.
1. "Offer curated Mint Repositories stocked with vetted and updated programs and abandone most old Ubuntu or other repos."
See above.
2. "If not changed to own fully curated repos, update the Software Manager and Update Manager to filter info based on 'warning levels' or change back to the 'update levels' settings Mint used to have for the Update Manager around Mint 17 or 18."
Interesting. I think Mint dropped that when they pushed forward Timeshift, arguably making these safety ratings less necessary. Arguably, I'll give you that.
3. "Repackage all flatpaks and abandon flathub altogether or make it an option with a warning - is not verifed and tested setting."
More or less done in Mint: some Flatpaks are flagged as "unverified". I suppose the distinction between Flatpaks and deb packages could be more obvious though, so I'll agree with you here.
4. "Remove all Ubuntu repos or software that is useless, buggy as noted above."
See above. Manpower problem. Buggy softwarefor some will work and be super important for others, you can't remove software that has been reported "buggy" by one person. Stability ratings might help though (the more people flag a piece of software as buggy, the worst the rating), but this is one big endeavour...
5. "Xapps -? There is no use to me for Xapps. But maybe it is just me."
The reason for XApps to exist is similar to Cinnamon, but it's actually brillant. Take Xed for example: gedit, the original text editor for Cinnamon, became too tied to GNOME dependancies and that made it difficult if not impossible to package for Cinnamon. But alternatives like Mousepad lacked features. So Mint decided to create a new text editor (not from scratch, they took code from existing ones of course, thank you FLOSS!) for Cinnamon but, while they were at it, made sure it was actually easy to install on any DE, so that they would not have the same problem later with another DE. So, XApps are utilities they have to maintain once for all of their Desktops environments. That's more efficient.
6. "Get a real Browser like Brave in your Repo so we don't have to add it as a seperate Repo or flatpak."
Could be nice. Personal preference I suppose. At least the separate repo is provided by the editors of Brave themselves, not some third party.
Thanks for the input.
55 • @52 - Mint equivalent for older/slower PCs (by Uncle Slacky on 2024-08-08 10:28:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sonuds like PeppermintOS is what you're looking for - based on Debian or Devuan, with a similar look and feel to Mint:
https://peppermintos.com/
https://peppermintos.com/screenshots/
56 • LMDE v Mint (by mister.proxy on 2024-08-08 10:56:12 GMT from United States)
I have LMDE on my machine, but rarely use it, I though LMDE 2 was good because of the Mate desktop, after that it went downjill and only keep it for sentimental reason; I do not think I would use the Ubuntu based version. They both use systemd, which I find difficult to acclimatize too.
57 • Mint 22 (by Teofrasto on 2024-08-08 11:15:57 GMT from Italy)
If I could give a suggestion to Mint developers, I would tell them to avoid Flatpaks.
58 • Mint (by oSMO on 2024-08-08 11:19:34 GMT from Sweden)
@57 Mint doesn't have any installed flatpaks by default? They obviously make sure you can install them if you want to
59 • Mate/Cinnamon/Gnome (by Jan on 2024-08-08 11:29:28 GMT from The Netherlands)
When Mate (Gnome2) and Cinnamon (Gnome3) started their existance there seemed to be a valid reason for that.
I wonder if with the present Gnome these reasons have been bypassed. So isn't it better to go with the present Gnome (with replacing the absurd display-UI, copying the KDE/Windows-display-UI).
60 • @52 remove flatpak (by StephenC on 2024-08-09 04:00:06 GMT from United States)
For your point #3, the Mint Software Manager has a dependency on flatpak, but you can do this to abandon flatpak:
1. Open a terminal
2. Run "sudo flatpak list"
3. Uninstall any listed applications (if desired install the system native version)
4. Run "sudo flatpak uninstall --all" and verify again with "sudo flatpak list"
5. Run "sudo flatpak repair"
6. Run "sudo apt remove --autoremove flatpak" and then "apt purge flatpak". Software Manager no longer works.
7. Run "sudo apt install --no-install-recommends flatpak" to reinstall flatpak, but now it has no related dependencies and doesn't download in the background.
8. Run "sudo flatpak remotes" and verify no flathub or link is listed. If some flatpak remotes are listed, remove them with "sudo flatpak remote-delete flathub"
Now you can enjoy native packages only.
Number of Comments: 60
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