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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

#71

Post by codezero »

wtbob wrote: post #69
codezero wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mostly unrelated – but I wouldn't have known/cared about POSIX compliance until I ran into it: On OS X, getopt is POSIX compliant. GNU utilities tend not to enforce POSIX in getopt, as a result you can do things like ls .txt -la On a POSIX complaint system, the optional arguments must come before any file arguments. This is super annoying to me, after having been using Linux for 15 years :) Personally, I've been supe…

> Personally, I've been super happy with OS X for all purposes except servers, but to each their own, and that's where Linux (and the BSDs) shine – giving you access under the hood, which is awesome, but some of us just want the car to drive itself, so to speak. I can understand that, but I just can't live without a tiling window manager. Every time I have to use a UI with movable windows I feel old-fashioned and clu…

There are a bunch of decent tiling window managers on OS X but I don't know if any support a Common Lisp connection. Which one do you use on Linux, I'd like to check it out.

I've tried tiling wms in the past but they never stick for me, probably because most of my work is isolated to the browser and email, and I typically have each maximized on separate displays. I've always preferred my terminals to be backgrounded when not in use and to have all the tabs consolidated.

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

#73

Post by nickpsecurity »

nitrogen wrote: post #30
VonGuard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MATE or Cinnamon? Want to know before I install. I get weird ass errors like nobody when I install Linux. Currently, my Ubutntu 10/14 machine randomly decides to ignore keyboard inputs and replace them with random other letters. Happens right in the middle of me typing, and I do a lot of interviews. I've literally had to reboot the damn thing in the middle of an interview because my typing was onscreen as akusfhlasiu…

It sounds like you may have accidentally triggered a shortcut for switching keyboard layouts. Try looking through the keyboard shortcut settings for something too easy to press by accident.

Appreciate the tip. Ill check. You have a guess on why moving a Save File dialog messes with window for application itself? That's a new bug to me for Linux in general.

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

#74

Post by ymse »

xorcist wrote: post #66
sampo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last time I looked on Mint there was no support for upgrading the system. Some years ago, the recommended way to upgrade Mint was indeed to do a full reinstall [1]. For a couple past years, there has been a simpler way, involving a bit of command line acrobatics [2]. Still not good for your mother-in-law. Apparently [3] only in 2015 Mint finally started to have the "normal" way, where you just click on an upgrade b…

Weird indeed! > Level 4 and 5 updates are not recommended unless they bring solutions to issues you're facing What's a level 4 update? And how do I know if it solves an issue I'm facing? I haven't got the faintest idea what they are talking about and I dare say I'm an experienced user otherwise. What could my in-laws possibly do with that information? > Upgrade for a reason > "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it". So don…

These concerns are exactly why I don't install or recommend Mint to others. Terrifying that they haven't fixed it after all those years. It seems more of an attitude rather than technical issue.

> There is still room for an easy-to-use Debian for end users

Does it have to be Debian? I'm looking forward to the inevitable "non-free" Guix fork that my grandmother can use. That will surely be the year of the Linux desktop.

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

#75

Post by giancarlostoro »

I don't think I've ever used Mint, or if I did it was brief. I've used Netrunner which was really nice, but ultimately fell in love with openSUSE. I may someday give Mint a try though. This is interesting news but the article is confusing to me at first glance as to what Mint is actually doing. Cinnamon isn't really for me though. I loved Gnome 2 because it was highly customizable but now that it's gone my only alternative is KDE or XFCE but XFCE feels like it's missing something everytime I use it.

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

#76

Post by noir_lord »

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.

> All the Ubuntu's have terminal GUI problems. They just keep tinkering and changing things.

Xubuntu doesn't. 4.12 in 15.04/15.10 was much the same as 4.10 in 14.04 (other than bug fixes and some small tweaks to fix stuff they where near identical).

The XFCE folks reached rough parity with Gnome 2 in terms of desktop usability then just focussed on small increment improvements and bug fixes and that has been a major win imo as I can use a desktop that supports modern linux distro's, is fast on everything and rarely surprises me.

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

#77

Post by erkaes »

collyw wrote: post #55
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…

Only when it is preinstalled. Otherwise Windows is just as much grief.

Have to agree with this. I freshly installed windows 10, and the sleep feature is just not working when the lid is closed. I've tried several suggestions and still got the same results. Feels the same like setting up linux desktop, only I know in the end it will work.

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

#78

Post by asdfzxc »

collyw wrote: post #47
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 really like Cinnamon, but I found it had a habit of randomly chewing up CPU cycles for no reason. That was a bit over a year ago, and I switched to XFCE. Anyone had similar problems and found it has improved or not?

In my case it was the Firefox browser. It's been much better since I made the switch to Google chrome.

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

#79

Post by xorcist »

ymse wrote: post #74
xorcist wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird indeed! > Level 4 and 5 updates are not recommended unless they bring solutions to issues you're facing What's a level 4 update? And how do I know if it solves an issue I'm facing? I haven't got the faintest idea what they are talking about and I dare say I'm an experienced user otherwise. What could my in-laws possibly do with that information? > Upgrade for a reason > "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it". So don…

These concerns are exactly why I don't install or recommend Mint to others. Terrifying that they haven't fixed it after all those years. It seems more of an attitude rather than technical issue. > There is still room for an easy-to-use Debian for end users Does it have to be Debian? I'm looking forward to the inevitable "non-free" Guix fork that my grandmother can use. That will surely be the year of the Linux deskto…

> It seems more of an attitude rather than technical issue.

Indeed. All the above concerned what looks like official communication from the project only, not what they choose to spend their time on. But it's important to give a fair picture of yoru project to the outside world, if not for other reasons than simply to avoid hordes of thankless users demanding support.

It's a bit unfortunate when articles like the Ars one paints this as a desktop operating system for end users. It's clearly not what they're aiming for, and it only reinforces the commonly held view that Linux is somehow for nerds only.

Ubuntu seems to still be the desktop operating system to recommend for non-technical users, but between Unity and the shopping lenses we desperately need a plan B.

> Does it have to be Debian?

No, but Debian does bring so much of the solid foundation "for free" that I feel it is probably the easiest way to get there. Debian has had a mostly working upgrade path for some 20 years now, which is simply outstanding.

What's missing is mainly a well polished default GUI, including the ability to discover and install new software. Debian is simply too flexible for a non-technical user. It must probably also take care not to break the most non-free software.

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

#80

Post by collyw »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #68
collyw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mint also has a rolling release based on Debian. I looked at Arch but the install looked difficult, so I ended up on Manjaro. Arch based with an easy to use installer and package manager. Works great on the laptop I am currently typing on, but its a bit crashy on my Gigabyte brix (though Mint had problems on that box as well).

> Arch based with an easy to use installer and package manager. What's different about Manjaro's package manager? Is it a porcelain for pacman?

There is a graphical one available, which wasn't available when I looked at Arch.
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