Guest post by Linux Mint, one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions, has released the latest version in their 17.x series. Mint 17.x is a long term support series that will be supported through to 2019 and is binary compatible with Ubuntu 14.04. The launch of Linux Mint 17.1 includes a number of new features and small improvements. Software updating and kernel selection have been improved. The MATE desktop edition ships with two working window managers, Marco for basic funtionality and Compiz for visual effects. The Cinnamon edition of Mint also features some improvements, particularly more keyboard short-cuts and reduced memory usage. Both editions of Linux Mint feature a pastbin command which makes it easy to share image and log data on-line.
Now that Ubuntu has brought various alternative desktop choices (including MATE) under it’s wing as just other Ubuntu flavors, what is Mint about again? Mint grew in response to Unity and Gnome 3, with Ubuntu under the hood, but with more familiar UIs for users.
Mint seriously ticked off Canonical by using Ubuntu’s software repos. So they fought right back and said, “Hey it’s all open source, so you steal from us, and we can steal right back!” Add to that the recent about face in support of Gnome 3, that makes Cinnamon a lot less necessary, and now Mint is left filling a void that no longer exists.
But don’t worry Mint fans. With Ubuntu now switching to a QML user interface as part of their convergence plan, you can expect Qt applications to start becoming first class citizens (especially those build to support convergence with multiple views for phone vs desktop modes). Meanwhile GTK applications will be taking a back seat. Linux Mint will have some time to prepare, by continuing to based itself off of the current LTS, and focusing on GTK applications that integrate with Cinnamon well. Of course this will put it in direct competition with Elementary OS as the future GTK based, custom desktop environment, Ubuntu offshoot. But that’s a much better (see honest and fair) fight than attempting to take on Ubuntu itself, while being so utterly dependent on it.
Mint was around long before GNOME 3 and Unity came along. Perhaps you are thinking of Cinnamon? Mint has always been about providing a friendlier, more desktop-ready distribution. It has a lot of utilities and add-ons which make for a more complete desktop operating system when compared against Ubuntu.
I am a long time KDE user and still use KDE on a daily basis on my main work computer.
But I tried Linux Mint 17 on an older notebook and on a home computer, it is very nice. It is dead simple to use, works well, perfoms well and doesn^A't bring any of the reinventions of the desktop that Gnome 3 and Unity attempted and which I, and I suspect many other users, do not care for.
When I first loaded Linux Mint, I had the feeling that every feature is really conceived to make my life easier and it has a feeling of simplicity to it that really makes you productive.
So I think Mint has a fairly healthy life ahead.
Mint is not totally dependent on ubuntu, there is also the debian based LMDE version.
Mint was actually designed to provide a fully functional distro ‘out of the box’ for novice users. This was back when Ubuntu was semi-crippled and required extra software installation.
Yeah, right. More “we will make money by selling phones, just let us screw the desktop with Unity” crap from Ubuntu that did so well in the past 5 years… Endless cycle of ‘convergence’ iterations.
Meanwhile, Mint will provide stable Linux desktop environment that some of us so desperately need.
Since I last upgraded my Ubuntu installations from 12.04 to 14.04, all three setups have had a variety of problems. All three on different hardware, all three working perfectly up until the upgrade. Most are minor annoyances, but one system refused to boot to the desktop afterwards which is a no-go for a supposedly user-friendly distro. Since I gave up trying to fix all the problems on my main machine, I think it might be time for a fresh install. And, since Ubuntu (which has more or less been fine since I started using it in 2008) has given me so much hassle this year, I’ll probably install Mint instead, see if it fares any better.
I switched back to Windows 8.1 from Mint. The reason is that I couldn’t get get my USB TV tuner card to be recognized by the xbmc extension HDHomeRun to use the xbmc as an alternative to Windows Media Player. Strange: this card is recognized by other applications in Mint, but HDHomeRun just “couldn’t see” it.