Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#31

Post by amcintyre » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 7:33 PM UTC

adabsurdo wrote: post #11

honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?

My personal reason is that it felt like beta-quality software at best. The UI would hang almost every time I tried to log out, for example, forcing me to go to a tty to kill the lightdm service. As lysol says, it seems like things that used to take a mouse click or two now required a lot more effort (but I'm willing to admit I probably didn't try hard enough to figure out the "new way" to do them).

Beyond the UI, stuff that "just worked" before (like my wireless network adapter) now didn't work at all without manual intervention.

All told, it was just too much hassle on a machine where I just want to get some work done. Yes, I should probably know better than to upgrade a Linux distribution on a machine that I use to actually get some work done, and it will probably be a while before I upgrade again--I'll just choose something usable and leave it alone until I have a week of vacation to spend fussing with updates.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

ExpiredLink wrote: post #15

akarambir wrote: post #5

installed Mint 12(lisa) on a virtual machine but some things are missing. I've been thinking of abandoning Ubuntu for Mint. Will wait for some more time.

Err, Mint is Ubuntu(-based).

[deleted]

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#33

Post by starwed » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:02 PM UTC

quanticle wrote: post #29

adabsurdo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. like what? again, i'm not challenging you, i'm genuinely wondering.

The author is referring to the fact that the taskbar/dock in Unity doesn't offer the same affordances as the old Gnome2 taskbar. For example, in Ubuntu 11.04, there was no way to open a new terminal from the dock. You had to click on the terminal icon, then click File->New Terminal. As someone who routinely opens a number of terminals for various tasks, that one regression was a source of significant slowdowns. In ad…

I always launched the terminal using the keyboard, and I think they improved that with Unity -- so it was a speed-up for me.

[And if you're opening a terminal, we can be pretty sure that your hands are heading for the keyboard anyway! :) ]

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#34

Post by lean » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:03 PM UTC

quanticle wrote: post #29

adabsurdo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. like what? again, i'm not challenging you, i'm genuinely wondering.

The author is referring to the fact that the taskbar/dock in Unity doesn't offer the same affordances as the old Gnome2 taskbar. For example, in Ubuntu 11.04, there was no way to open a new terminal from the dock. You had to click on the terminal icon, then click File->New Terminal. As someone who routinely opens a number of terminals for various tasks, that one regression was a source of significant slowdowns. In ad…

>There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off the graphical effects to speed it up.

There is. 2D mode.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#35

Post by silon4 » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:06 PM UTC

adabsurdo wrote: post #11

honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?

For me, broken Alt+Tab that switches applications instead of windows is a non-starter. And the top application menu bar.

The rest is OK and I can learn/adapt.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#36

Post by ljfoy » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:10 PM UTC

trafficlight wrote: post #17

niels_olson wrote: post #2

Just installed Linux Mint Debian Edition. I'm conflicted. It seems nice, but a number of things don't work, the biggest being the nvidia drivers. Turned a bunch of old stuff into a standing dual-screen multimedia center in the garage, so plenty of room for fun and education, not sure I'd switch to it full time.

The ATI drivers don't work all that great either. The post-release drivers won't install at all. The other one installs, but it's really glitchy.

I can confirm. They are very glitchy for me too.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#37

Post by Niten » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:21 PM UTC

adabsurdo wrote: post #11

honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?

Some people have legitimate complaints, there are a couple minor bugs and glitches in Unity still. But mostly what I see is knee-jerk resistance to change; even if Unity is a better UI, they hate it because it's different from what they're familiar with.

It's exactly the same kind of hang-wringing we saw from a lot of the GNOME 1 users when GNOME 2 came out.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#38

Post by muuh-gnu » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:42 PM UTC

adabsurdo wrote: post #11

honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?

After Gnome2 was discontinued, Canonical _could_ have listened to their current users and instead of Unity, developed something similar to Mint's MGSE. But Canonical suddendly decided to discard their current target group, desktop users, which made Ubuntu popular, and suddenly switch everything to tablet users.

People hate on Unity for two reasons:

1. Because they feel betrayed by Canonical for switching to another target group and letting desktop users Gnome2-less alone in the cold. It is like Apple completely giving up on Macs and OSX and fully going iOS.

2. Because Unity is, hands down, simply less usable for day-to-day desktop use than Gnome2. It may make sense on tablets, but it is a step backwards on PCs. If Canonical wouldnt aggressively push it by making it a default, probably nobody would voluntarily install and use it.

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#39

Post by dman » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:52 PM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #23

I run Ubuntu 10.10 as my main OS and it screams. I Installed Mint 12 on a test partition and it is a significant slow down, particularly regarding all things UI. Ubuntu puts out a pretty steady 50fps with translucent desktop cube in 1920x1200, Mint 12 can barley transition between workspaces without a choppy slow down. 5-10 second lock up whenever I use ctr+alt+T. Window color inversion (and apparently most of compiz…

Which graphics card? Do you even have acceleration working under Linux Mint?

Re: Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

#40

Post by dman » Sat, Nov 26, 2011, 8:53 PM UTC

trafficlight wrote: post #17

niels_olson wrote: post #2

Just installed Linux Mint Debian Edition. I'm conflicted. It seems nice, but a number of things don't work, the biggest being the nvidia drivers. Turned a bunch of old stuff into a standing dual-screen multimedia center in the garage, so plenty of room for fun and education, not sure I'd switch to it full time.

The ATI drivers don't work all that great either. The post-release drivers won't install at all. The other one installs, but it's really glitchy.

fglrx or radeonhd?