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Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

arstechnica.com

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Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#31

Post by downtide »

VeilEm wrote: post #12

Reading this post I am reminded just how much more work it is to have a functional linux desktop that ends up running worse than a Mac or windows box. More for less. Less battery life, less games, less driver support. Old hardware. I've been running OS X for many years now but I think in the future I see myself going back to windows and using docker toolbox to get an easy to start and maintain linux development envir…

I mainly use Debian stable and Xfce, the latter of has a few annoying issues. I bought a cheap windows box, and hoped to use it as a work machine as you have described. But I have networking issues and other annoyances with my Intel wireless card. Bluetooth falls over as soon as the machine hits suspend, and when I loose WIFI signal, only a reboot recovers. Windows 8.1 is a crapfest, and it feels like a botched together repackaged version of Windows (the UI and admin UI is horrible). My Debian box is far more reliable. Anyway the grass isn't always greener... I remember when the Linux desktop space was really exciting and innovating. I'm still after something better.

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#32

Post by fla »

VonGuard wrote: post #27
fla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply ubuntu with gnome-flashback. Has been my goto configuration since unity came out and it's pretty much the best of both worlds.

I use this now, but I also try to use it on some seriously old Dell laptops at my non-profit. Sadly, that means I must first install Ubuntu, vanilla. This means I then must login to Unity and install Gnome-Flashback. Normally, this takes about 10 seconds on a modern machine. On these 10 year old Dells? Unity chugs... A task that should take me 5 minutes takes an hour because Unity lags so far behind the mouse and slo…

I imagine that can be painful.

I usually don't even bother doing that through Unity: just open a tty with crtl+alt+f6, install all the packages from there ;)

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#33

Post by atmosx »

VonGuard wrote: post #27
fla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply ubuntu with gnome-flashback. Has been my goto configuration since unity came out and it's pretty much the best of both worlds.

I use this now, but I also try to use it on some seriously old Dell laptops at my non-profit. Sadly, that means I must first install Ubuntu, vanilla. This means I then must login to Unity and install Gnome-Flashback. Normally, this takes about 10 seconds on a modern machine. On these 10 year old Dells? Unity chugs... A task that should take me 5 minutes takes an hour because Unity lags so far behind the mouse and slo…

If the HW is the same, you could create a custom NixOS based desktop image based on Fluxbox (or awesome) with just the programs you need (1 browser, skype, mail program, etc.).

Then you can manage updates automatically, probably just security updates.

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#34

Post by wtbob »

codezero wrote: post #21
wtbob wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading this post I am reminded just how much more work it is to have a functional linux desktop that ends up running worse than a Mac or windows box. I'm extremely happy with stumpwm. It runs, it switches between emacs, Firefox and a good console just fine. It's infinitely more work to get Windows or an OS X box to the same level of functionality, because neither of them properly supports all of these key features…

OS X is POSIX certified, no Linux distribution is but that's a minor point I assume.

True enough; I edited my comment to indicate that I mean all those features at once.

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#35

Post by icelancer »

VonGuard wrote: post #17
oakhaven wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about {x,k,l}ubuntu?

All the Ubuntu's have terminal GUI problems. They just keep tinkering and changing things. Gnome did this to itself, too, and thus, we're left with all these weird GUIs that aspire to be Windows 8, or Mac OS, when Gnome 2 was fucking perfect and shoulda been left alone.

Totally agree. Ubuntu 10.04 was the height of usability. Unity is an embarrassment.

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#37

Post by eloy »

mattlondon wrote: post #7

+1 to Cinnamon being great. I've found Ubuntu's Unity to be really non-intuitive and awkward to use ... even after several years of using it I've never got used to it and generally found it frustrating to use. Cinnamon is an absolute joy to use in comparison - just does its job and gets out of the way. Sounds like Mint is a sort of "unbuntu-without-unity" which is worth its weight in gold in my opinion. Wish I could…

I've used Mint and Cinnamon for over a year... after I stopped using it and started using GNOME on Debian I started realizing how un-polished every part of that GUI was. GNOME is a lightyear ahead of Cinnamon in terms of UX/UI design IMHO.

Re: Mint 17.3 may be the best Linux desktop distro yet

#39

Post by tajen »

VonGuard wrote: post #27
fla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply ubuntu with gnome-flashback. Has been my goto configuration since unity came out and it's pretty much the best of both worlds.

I use this now, but I also try to use it on some seriously old Dell laptops at my non-profit. Sadly, that means I must first install Ubuntu, vanilla. This means I then must login to Unity and install Gnome-Flashback. Normally, this takes about 10 seconds on a modern machine. On these 10 year old Dells? Unity chugs... A task that should take me 5 minutes takes an hour because Unity lags so far behind the mouse and slo…

What are the pros of Ubuntu in serverland over Debian?
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