7 ms·

Clement Lefebvre: The Man Behind Linux Mint (2013)

52 points by davesailer 4y ago

raverbashing 4y ago
It's funny how the concept of "distro" is losing importance now. Do people really care if their docker containers run Ubuntu? Debian? RH? Not really Also 90% of the pain in (traditional) distros seem to be the UI stuff (Window Manager, drivers, audio, etc). Not saying the other parts are not complicated, but upstream does most of the work there.
- throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  > Do people really care if their docker containers > Also 90% of the pain in distros seem to be the UI stuff Is it only me who see a contradiction here
- hulitu 4y ago
  We don't run docker containers. We run programs.
- PrayagS 4y ago
  Distros do not exist because people want different Linux images to run their containers on top of. > Also 90% of the pain in (traditional) distros seem to be the UI stuff (Window Manager, drivers, audio, etc). For a second I thought you're completely missing the point but then you say this lol.
ogogmad 4y ago
As inflammatory as it is, my experience with Ubuntu (non-LTS) was the biannual death march. An upgrade broke my system. I never had any such experience with Win or Mac, so it was a Linux-specific problem. I suppose I could've used the LTS version, but then (again unlike Win and Mac) I would've been limited to only old versions of packages. Mint would probably have been similar. Nowadays I'm using Manjaro for 3 years running. There's no 6 monthly release cycle, but a continuous stream of rolling releases. An upgrade has never broken my system to the same extent as it did with Ubuntu. It's closer to the Win and Mac experience for me. Caveat though: Manjaro is not as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Mint or Pop!_OS.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > An upgrade broke my system. I never had any such experience with Win or Mac, so it was a Linux-specific problem. Counterpoint: somewhat recently, a Windows update permanently disabled my wireless headphones. They still work with any device that isn't running Windows. They won't work with other people's devices that are running Windows.
  - mattigames 4y ago
    Never heard something similar before, what headphones exactly are they?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      Bose QC35 II.
- hoistbypetard 4y ago
  If you don't want to go full rolling, Fedora's every 6 month upgrade has been smooth for me. I have a desktop I've been upgrading since Fedora 17 that is currently on Fedora 35.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  I think this is a YMMV kind of situation. Isn't Ubuntu non-LTS supposed to be more... experimental? Like they try out new things which may or may not go on? Anyway, I've never used Manjaro, but my daily driver is Arch. I remember around the upgrade to Linux 5.16 and gstreamer 1.20 (not 100% sure of the version) the sound on my laptop went to hell. Pipewire would die and while the system was still more or less usable, it wouldn't turn off. It would hang indefinitely trying to shut down pipewire. Apps that didn't need the sound would work OK, but others would hang at launch, like Telegram. Firefox worked as long as it didn't try to play anything. As soon as it did, it would become unresponsive. I could work around it by disabling pipewire, and I could get back to work by installing the LTS kernel, which was still at 5.15, and the sound worked (I need to be able to make calls with Teams). My laptop is AMD Zen3 based, but on my (older) Intel boxen everything was OK. However, on the laptop, sound wouldn't work with external sound cards or BT headphones, either. This was quite shocking to me, since I'd been using Arch since ~2011 IIRC, and this was the only time when an upgrade was this terrible.
bezier-curve 4y ago
I worked with Clement between 2017-2019. I invested a significant amount of time getting their mutter fork caught up, and there was a fallout resulting from all the work being reverted at the last minute before the next release. I'm still bitter about this, and I think this experience has been traumatic. On their private Slack workspace they harassed me, later banned me from their Github organization, used social media to defame me, and continued to attack me in Github issues for some time afterwards. During this time I also got a job with a reference from Clement praising me, but was later laid off after he wrote a blog post attacking me while being increasingly harassed in private by various Linux Mint team members. I wish I still had that reference email I let him send directly to my previous boss, so people could see how quickly he will turn on people within a three month time period. Needless to say this has spoiled my appetite for being an open source contributor. Maybe I will eventually find a project that interests me, but every time I try to get back into the Linux desktop userland these experiences come back to haunt me. Edit: It seems people want proof, but all I can show is a public figure who has done irreparable damage to the way I look at FOSS.
- ogogmad 4y ago
  Apologies, but you're going to have to provide evidence for these accusations. The alternative is that anybody can come out of nowhere and call another person awful. I understand this might be difficult.
  - bezier-curve 4y ago
    He still left up his attack piece, blatantly lying about a number of events that occurred. I don't think it's worthwhile to defend myself years later, but does this sounds like the tone of a professional? This is one of many poor messages he's been sending about former staff, along with several Github comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/bzbomd/comment/eqsm4ru/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/bzbomd/comment/e... I'm not the first person they have ostracized. I have seen other anonymous post-mortems describing experiences similar to mine from earlier time periods. I did so much work for them, it still feels unreal that someone could be that vindictive. Perhaps this belongs on a Glassdoor equivalent for FOSS projects, but since one doesn't exist and this thread appeared in my feed, I think it's important I'm able to voice my perspective since he tried to assassinate my character.
unixhero 4y ago
Love Linux Mint. I say that as a Unix loving, Slack, Arch and OpenBSD wielding geek. I just don't want to deal with anything else than being productive, and Linux Mint helps me do that.
noisy_boy 4y ago
Mint was to Ubuntu then what Pop!_OS is to Ubuntu now. Cinnamon was a fine DE when I last used it some years ago.
- aulin 4y ago
  What is Pop!_OS to Ubuntu?
  - Zhyl 4y ago
    A batteries includes, newbie friendly OS. Mint in 2013 was a distro that included non-free codecs which allowed it to do things that Ubuntu couldn't out of the box. Pop!_OS now includes Nvidea drivers and other tweaks that make it a more friendly experience for users generally and people new to Linux specifically.
    - julienfr112 4y ago
      What Ubuntu is to debian ?
      - Zhyl 4y ago
        Ubuntu to Debian is Red Hat to CentOS.
- proto-n 4y ago
  I love cinnamon, but lately it has fallen behind, sadly. I kept using it for a long time, but KDE was just so much better in a few important ways (fractional scaling, multi monitor performance, battery life for some reason) that I had to switch. I still much prefer the general feeling of cinnamon and miss it.

52 points by davesailer 4y ago

It's funny how the concept of "distro" is losing importance now. Do people really care if their docker containers run Ubuntu? Debian? RH? Not really Also 90% of the pain in (traditional) distros seem to be the UI stuff (Window Manager, drivers, audio, etc). Not saying the other parts are not complicated, but upstream does most of the work there.

throw_a_grenade 4y ago
> Do people really care if their docker containers > Also 90% of the pain in distros seem to be the UI stuff Is it only me who see a contradiction here
hulitu 4y ago
We don't run docker containers. We run programs.
PrayagS 4y ago
Distros do not exist because people want different Linux images to run their containers on top of. > Also 90% of the pain in (traditional) distros seem to be the UI stuff (Window Manager, drivers, audio, etc). For a second I thought you're completely missing the point but then you say this lol.

ogogmad 4y ago

As inflammatory as it is, my experience with Ubuntu (non-LTS) was the biannual death march. An upgrade broke my system. I never had any such experience with Win or Mac, so it was a Linux-specific problem. I suppose I could've used the LTS version, but then (again unlike Win and Mac) I would've been limited to only old versions of packages. Mint would probably have been similar. Nowadays I'm using Manjaro for 3 years running. There's no 6 monthly release cycle, but a continuous stream of rolling releases. An upgrade has never broken my system to the same extent as it did with Ubuntu. It's closer to the Win and Mac experience for me. Caveat though: Manjaro is not as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Mint or Pop!_OS.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> An upgrade broke my system. I never had any such experience with Win or Mac, so it was a Linux-specific problem. Counterpoint: somewhat recently, a Windows update permanently disabled my wireless headphones. They still work with any device that isn't running Windows. They won't work with other people's devices that are running Windows.
- mattigames 4y ago
  Never heard something similar before, what headphones exactly are they?
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    Bose QC35 II.
hoistbypetard 4y ago
If you don't want to go full rolling, Fedora's every 6 month upgrade has been smooth for me. I have a desktop I've been upgrading since Fedora 17 that is currently on Fedora 35.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
I think this is a YMMV kind of situation. Isn't Ubuntu non-LTS supposed to be more... experimental? Like they try out new things which may or may not go on? Anyway, I've never used Manjaro, but my daily driver is Arch. I remember around the upgrade to Linux 5.16 and gstreamer 1.20 (not 100% sure of the version) the sound on my laptop went to hell. Pipewire would die and while the system was still more or less usable, it wouldn't turn off. It would hang indefinitely trying to shut down pipewire. Apps that didn't need the sound would work OK, but others would hang at launch, like Telegram. Firefox worked as long as it didn't try to play anything. As soon as it did, it would become unresponsive. I could work around it by disabling pipewire, and I could get back to work by installing the LTS kernel, which was still at 5.15, and the sound worked (I need to be able to make calls with Teams). My laptop is AMD Zen3 based, but on my (older) Intel boxen everything was OK. However, on the laptop, sound wouldn't work with external sound cards or BT headphones, either. This was quite shocking to me, since I'd been using Arch since ~2011 IIRC, and this was the only time when an upgrade was this terrible.

bezier-curve 4y ago

I worked with Clement between 2017-2019. I invested a significant amount of time getting their mutter fork caught up, and there was a fallout resulting from all the work being reverted at the last minute before the next release. I'm still bitter about this, and I think this experience has been traumatic. On their private Slack workspace they harassed me, later banned me from their Github organization, used social media to defame me, and continued to attack me in Github issues for some time afterwards. During this time I also got a job with a reference from Clement praising me, but was later laid off after he wrote a blog post attacking me while being increasingly harassed in private by various Linux Mint team members. I wish I still had that reference email I let him send directly to my previous boss, so people could see how quickly he will turn on people within a three month time period. Needless to say this has spoiled my appetite for being an open source contributor. Maybe I will eventually find a project that interests me, but every time I try to get back into the Linux desktop userland these experiences come back to haunt me. Edit: It seems people want proof, but all I can show is a public figure who has done irreparable damage to the way I look at FOSS.

ogogmad 4y ago
Apologies, but you're going to have to provide evidence for these accusations. The alternative is that anybody can come out of nowhere and call another person awful. I understand this might be difficult.
- bezier-curve 4y ago
  He still left up his attack piece, blatantly lying about a number of events that occurred. I don't think it's worthwhile to defend myself years later, but does this sounds like the tone of a professional? This is one of many poor messages he's been sending about former staff, along with several Github comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/bzbomd/comment/eqsm4ru/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/bzbomd/comment/e... I'm not the first person they have ostracized. I have seen other anonymous post-mortems describing experiences similar to mine from earlier time periods. I did so much work for them, it still feels unreal that someone could be that vindictive. Perhaps this belongs on a Glassdoor equivalent for FOSS projects, but since one doesn't exist and this thread appeared in my feed, I think it's important I'm able to voice my perspective since he tried to assassinate my character.

unixhero 4y ago

Love Linux Mint. I say that as a Unix loving, Slack, Arch and OpenBSD wielding geek. I just don't want to deal with anything else than being productive, and Linux Mint helps me do that.

noisy_boy 4y ago

Mint was to Ubuntu then what Pop!_OS is to Ubuntu now. Cinnamon was a fine DE when I last used it some years ago.

aulin 4y ago
What is Pop!_OS to Ubuntu?
- Zhyl 4y ago
  A batteries includes, newbie friendly OS. Mint in 2013 was a distro that included non-free codecs which allowed it to do things that Ubuntu couldn't out of the box. Pop!_OS now includes Nvidea drivers and other tweaks that make it a more friendly experience for users generally and people new to Linux specifically.
  - julienfr112 4y ago
    What Ubuntu is to debian ?
    - Zhyl 4y ago
      Ubuntu to Debian is Red Hat to CentOS.
proto-n 4y ago
I love cinnamon, but lately it has fallen behind, sadly. I kept using it for a long time, but KDE was just so much better in a few important ways (fractional scaling, multi monitor performance, battery life for some reason) that I had to switch. I still much prefer the general feeling of cinnamon and miss it.