6 ms·

Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

71 points by dzejkej 15y ago

methane 15y ago
Is it better than Ubuntu? Can I have a few workspaces? I think to leave Ubuntu as it became slow for me and Unity is really not cool at all. What do you think? P.S. Can I transfer all my files from Ubuntu to Mint easily?
- thekevan 15y ago
  >Is it better than Ubuntu? Is Coke better than Pepsi? It boils down more to personal preference. Which one do you like more? >Unity is really not cool at all. I use Ubuntu without Unity. Google "remove unity" and follow instructions for whatever version you are using.
niels_olson 15y ago
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.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  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.
  - ljfoy 15y ago
    I can confirm. They are very glitchy for me too.
  - dman 15y ago
    fglrx or radeonhd?
scriptproof 15y ago
I am not convinced by their "Fresh Upgrade" that looks like a fresh install! Ideally we should be able to upgrade automatically like Chrome or Windows or Wordpress. The future of Linux is here.
- DanBC 15y ago
  Linux Mint Debian Edition is a rolling release distribution. There are important differences between regular mint and LMDE.
- fl3tch 15y ago
  With a clean install, there's less chance of an incident, and if you put /home on a separate partition, you don't have to back up your data (although you should, anyway). If you installed extra packages from the repos, you can get them back with: dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt After reinstalling, do dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade As for automatic upgrades, that goes against the Linux / free software attitude that the user should be in control of her computer and know what it's doing. I think that's why there's no GUI option for automatic upgrades although unattended-upgrades does exist.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    You serious? Keeping your system secure without the users intervention goes against free software?
  - scriptproof 15y ago
    Some kind of service pack to update the software would be nice. But if Wordpress is automatic when you choose to update, you are not obliged to update, there is nothing against free software here!
acabal 15y ago
The Mint team deserves big kudos for striving to maintain a Gnome-panel-like desktop experience. IMO both Gnome-shell and Unity are arrogant usability nightmares; thankfully the Mint team is still keeping traditional usability alive in the Gnome environment.
- bergie 15y ago
  The bigger point here appears to be the extensibility of GNOME shell. If I read the announcement right, the Mint desktop is GNOME3, but using extensions to create a more GNOME2-like experience. The JavaScript environment GNOME3 was written in could lead to lots of UX experimentation like this, at least once it has better documentation.
akarambir 15y ago
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.
- moondowner 15y ago
  Which may be these 'some things'?
- ExpiredLink 15y ago
  Err, Mint is Ubuntu(-based).
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
moondowner 15y ago
This may be the first time I'd want to try a non-KDE desktop. Excellent job Mint team!
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  OT: Didn't he KDE4 release make you want to try something else? Made me try a switch to Gnome, wasn't good for me though. KDE4 now is great IMO, still a few things I don't like but really good, but then ... sheesh!
ilaksh 15y ago
They made DuckDuckGo a partner. I think that means they will have at least little bit of money. I also think this could be a pretty big blow to Google because I just tried DuckDuckGo and it is working really well. I think I am going to try to switch over. Giant companies like Google make me uncomfortable.
- dchest 15y ago
  Be careful with letting others control what you do on the Web. Our goal is to give users a good search experience while funding ourselves by receiving a share of this income. Search engines who do not share the income generated by our users, are removed from Linux Mint and might get their ads blocked. ... It won’t only be down to donations and sponsorships anymore, your activity on the web, every search query you make and product you buy will help fund our project. http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851 http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851
adabsurdo 15y ago
honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?
- lysol 15y ago
  Have you used it? The principal thing is that it's different and offers less customization than gnome2 and even gnome3 with gnome-shell. Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. These sorts of things are self-evident when you've attempted to use Unity for any length of time.
  - adabsurdo 15y ago
    for now i only use linux server-side, but i'm thinking of maybe swiching from osx to linux for my next laptop. i played a little with both mint and ubuntu in vmware, but i don't think i can make a fair assessment. personally, i don't care for customization at all, so i was wondering if there were other issues besides that.
    - tikhonj 15y ago
      You should probably also try KDE. I've personally had bad experiences with Kubuntu, but the Fedora KDE spin and OpenSUSE have been very nice.
  - adabsurdo 15y ago
    >> Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. like what? again, i'm not challenging you, i'm genuinely wondering.
    - quanticle 15y ago
      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 addition, Unity is slow on any system that doesn't have a separate graphics card or the latest generation of integrated graphics. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off the graphical effects to speed it up. Combine that with the usability regressions, and Unity was a definite no-go for me. That's not to say that I "hate" Unity or will never use it as my desktop environment. I think Unity has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, like all too much software out there, it was released before it had been fully finished. I look forward to trying Unity again when the next Ubuntu LTS (12.04, I believe) is released. Hopefully it'll be far more usable and "finished" by then.
craftsman 15y ago
I'm switching my Linux box and a friend's machine to Linux Mint (from Ubuntu), and was going to use v11. I want a simple desktop and something solid that isn't going to be buggy or difficult to setup. I basically use the terminal, emacs, Ruby, and a browser (Chrome). Should I stick with v11 or go ahead and install v12 now? Would it be better to wait a while to let any bugs shake out, or should 12 be pretty solid now?
- thekevan 15y ago
  While I usually don't upgrade to a new version until a few weeks after a distro is updated, it boils down to personal taste more than anything. Honestly, the best answer is make live CDs of both, play with them both and go with the one you like.
- oinksoft 15y ago
  No problems here using plain ol' debian on my laptop. Stable and fast.
  - haakon 15y ago
    Huh, that wasn't the question at all.
vectorpush 15y ago
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) is broken. Installing nvidia post release caused Gnome to become totally inoperable, I had to boot with Gnome-No-Effects option. I prefer Mint's Gnome 3 to Ubuntu's Unity, but speaking practically, staying with 10.10 is my only true option. I am disappointed.
- lhnn 15y ago
  You're comparing apples to oranges, kind of. What you're saying isn't necessarily reflective of Mint 12; it could just as well be Ubuntu 11.10.
  - vectorpush 15y ago
    I should have mentioned that I've tried Ubuntu 11.10 on the same machine and noticed similar UI performance problems compared to Ubuntu 10.10 (as well as a broken compiz). Yes, some of this could be attributed to Ubuntu 11.10, but the comparison is still valid since both are competing for me as a user. If the Mint team finds it necessarily to subsume Ubuntu then they must be prepared to accept the problems that are inherited as a result.
    - mixmastamyk 15y ago
      I'm on 11.04 with gnome-classic and working well. The key is to go back to the previous releases compiz via ppa.
      - jholman 15y ago
        Could you write a little more about this, please?
resnamen 15y ago
The push to Unity made me try alternate window managers. I've ended up sticking with Awesome, which is a pretty sweet tiling window manager. More minimalistic than it needs to be, but still, the core functionality is great. I have multiple workspaces with different tiling schemes for different tasks - one for general purpose, one for terminal hacking (spiralling terminal windows), one for bug fixing (side by side windows w/bug tracker & Emacs), and one for prolonged development (full screen Emacs with a little terminal for building)
- junkbit 15y ago
  Awesome Window Manager is great for dual monitors. Once you master it you can switch focus between them without leaving the keyboard.
- duncanbojangles 15y ago
  When Ubuntu moved to Gnome3/Unity, I did the same. I tried Kubuntu, but found KDE far too different from what I remember back in the KDE3 days to be comfortable with. Then I settled on Xubuntu, which gave me Gnome2 familiarity with XFCE. Then, I installed Bluetile (http://bluetile.org/ http://bluetile.org/) which is a tiling window manager that functions well in desktop environments. It lets me use several different tiling layouts and different modes including tiling, full screen, and floating. Everything can be done with the keyboard or the mouse (there's a narrow pane on the side of the screen with all the functions available as buttons). I've still got window dragging, resizing with the mouse, minimize, maximize, etc. buttons, and a host of new features to play with. I find Bluetile to be the best of both worlds for me, and not much of a compromise at that.
  - resnamen 15y ago
    I'll try this, thanks.
jiggy2011 15y ago
Just tried this in a VM , Mint's interpretation of Gnome3 is better than Ubuntu's at least. No way to add additional panels though (afaik) which is a major bummer.
ozgurc 15y ago
I had great hopes for this release. The fglrx drivers are fething up the "shiny" gnome 3 desktop environment, not to mention I haven't seen anything great about it either -which I am coming to that shortly. MATE is... same as gnome3, I haven't seen anything special about it either. As for gnome 2, why I cannot add widgets to taskbars blows my mind... As far as I can see, and ironically, these new releases have less usability than their older and "geekier" versions. I mean back in linux mint 9 I could find compiz settings in 2 clicks. Now I cannot even see a compiz settings button anywhere. I mean, what the hell was wrong with my rotating cube desktop? Sure, it wasn't breaking any "productivity increase" reports but it made me happy to work with my linux box, not to mention all of the mac & win people looking with envy to these effects which my pieceashit netbook can pull off while their overpowered books can't. Two popular distros (I mean ubuntu and linux mint currently) had created an end goal it seems: "We want to be the mac of the linux world!". In the old days it was "we want to be the windows of the linux world" and this decision killed kde4. But the correct direction is to be an unique experience. Compiz did that, and as far as I can see none of the big mothers of the software world (yes I am looking at you m$ and apple) has a similar software to that! TL;DR:Don't macify yourself.

71 points by dzejkej 15y ago

Is it better than Ubuntu? Can I have a few workspaces? I think to leave Ubuntu as it became slow for me and Unity is really not cool at all. What do you think? P.S. Can I transfer all my files from Ubuntu to Mint easily?

thekevan 15y ago
>Is it better than Ubuntu? Is Coke better than Pepsi? It boils down more to personal preference. Which one do you like more? >Unity is really not cool at all. I use Ubuntu without Unity. Google "remove unity" and follow instructions for whatever version you are using.

niels_olson 15y ago

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.

trafficlight 15y ago
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.
- ljfoy 15y ago
  I can confirm. They are very glitchy for me too.
- dman 15y ago
  fglrx or radeonhd?

scriptproof 15y ago

I am not convinced by their "Fresh Upgrade" that looks like a fresh install! Ideally we should be able to upgrade automatically like Chrome or Windows or Wordpress. The future of Linux is here.

DanBC 15y ago
Linux Mint Debian Edition is a rolling release distribution. There are important differences between regular mint and LMDE.
fl3tch 15y ago
With a clean install, there's less chance of an incident, and if you put /home on a separate partition, you don't have to back up your data (although you should, anyway). If you installed extra packages from the repos, you can get them back with: dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt After reinstalling, do dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade As for automatic upgrades, that goes against the Linux / free software attitude that the user should be in control of her computer and know what it's doing. I think that's why there's no GUI option for automatic upgrades although unattended-upgrades does exist.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  You serious? Keeping your system secure without the users intervention goes against free software?
- scriptproof 15y ago
  Some kind of service pack to update the software would be nice. But if Wordpress is automatic when you choose to update, you are not obliged to update, there is nothing against free software here!

acabal 15y ago

The Mint team deserves big kudos for striving to maintain a Gnome-panel-like desktop experience. IMO both Gnome-shell and Unity are arrogant usability nightmares; thankfully the Mint team is still keeping traditional usability alive in the Gnome environment.

bergie 15y ago
The bigger point here appears to be the extensibility of GNOME shell. If I read the announcement right, the Mint desktop is GNOME3, but using extensions to create a more GNOME2-like experience. The JavaScript environment GNOME3 was written in could lead to lots of UX experimentation like this, at least once it has better documentation.

akarambir 15y ago

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.

moondowner 15y ago
Which may be these 'some things'?
ExpiredLink 15y ago
Err, Mint is Ubuntu(-based).
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

moondowner 15y ago

This may be the first time I'd want to try a non-KDE desktop. Excellent job Mint team!

pbhjpbhj 15y ago
OT: Didn't he KDE4 release make you want to try something else? Made me try a switch to Gnome, wasn't good for me though. KDE4 now is great IMO, still a few things I don't like but really good, but then ... sheesh!

ilaksh 15y ago

They made DuckDuckGo a partner. I think that means they will have at least little bit of money. I also think this could be a pretty big blow to Google because I just tried DuckDuckGo and it is working really well. I think I am going to try to switch over. Giant companies like Google make me uncomfortable.

dchest 15y ago
Be careful with letting others control what you do on the Web. Our goal is to give users a good search experience while funding ourselves by receiving a share of this income. Search engines who do not share the income generated by our users, are removed from Linux Mint and might get their ads blocked. ... It won’t only be down to donations and sponsorships anymore, your activity on the web, every search query you make and product you buy will help fund our project. http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851 http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1851

adabsurdo 15y ago

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

lysol 15y ago
Have you used it? The principal thing is that it's different and offers less customization than gnome2 and even gnome3 with gnome-shell. Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. These sorts of things are self-evident when you've attempted to use Unity for any length of time.
- adabsurdo 15y ago
  for now i only use linux server-side, but i'm thinking of maybe swiching from osx to linux for my next laptop. i played a little with both mint and ubuntu in vmware, but i don't think i can make a fair assessment. personally, i don't care for customization at all, so i was wondering if there were other issues besides that.
  - tikhonj 15y ago
    You should probably also try KDE. I've personally had bad experiences with Kubuntu, but the Fedora KDE spin and OpenSUSE have been very nice.
- adabsurdo 15y ago
  >> Any action requires a hilarious number of clicks to get done. like what? again, i'm not challenging you, i'm genuinely wondering.
  - quanticle 15y ago
    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 addition, Unity is slow on any system that doesn't have a separate graphics card or the latest generation of integrated graphics. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off the graphical effects to speed it up. Combine that with the usability regressions, and Unity was a definite no-go for me. That's not to say that I "hate" Unity or will never use it as my desktop environment. I think Unity has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, like all too much software out there, it was released before it had been fully finished. I look forward to trying Unity again when the next Ubuntu LTS (12.04, I believe) is released. Hopefully it'll be far more usable and "finished" by then.

craftsman 15y ago

I'm switching my Linux box and a friend's machine to Linux Mint (from Ubuntu), and was going to use v11. I want a simple desktop and something solid that isn't going to be buggy or difficult to setup. I basically use the terminal, emacs, Ruby, and a browser (Chrome). Should I stick with v11 or go ahead and install v12 now? Would it be better to wait a while to let any bugs shake out, or should 12 be pretty solid now?

thekevan 15y ago
While I usually don't upgrade to a new version until a few weeks after a distro is updated, it boils down to personal taste more than anything. Honestly, the best answer is make live CDs of both, play with them both and go with the one you like.
oinksoft 15y ago
No problems here using plain ol' debian on my laptop. Stable and fast.
- haakon 15y ago
  Huh, that wasn't the question at all.

vectorpush 15y ago

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) is broken. Installing nvidia post release caused Gnome to become totally inoperable, I had to boot with Gnome-No-Effects option. I prefer Mint's Gnome 3 to Ubuntu's Unity, but speaking practically, staying with 10.10 is my only true option. I am disappointed.

lhnn 15y ago
You're comparing apples to oranges, kind of. What you're saying isn't necessarily reflective of Mint 12; it could just as well be Ubuntu 11.10.
- vectorpush 15y ago
  I should have mentioned that I've tried Ubuntu 11.10 on the same machine and noticed similar UI performance problems compared to Ubuntu 10.10 (as well as a broken compiz). Yes, some of this could be attributed to Ubuntu 11.10, but the comparison is still valid since both are competing for me as a user. If the Mint team finds it necessarily to subsume Ubuntu then they must be prepared to accept the problems that are inherited as a result.
  - mixmastamyk 15y ago
    I'm on 11.04 with gnome-classic and working well. The key is to go back to the previous releases compiz via ppa.
    - jholman 15y ago
      Could you write a little more about this, please?

resnamen 15y ago

The push to Unity made me try alternate window managers. I've ended up sticking with Awesome, which is a pretty sweet tiling window manager. More minimalistic than it needs to be, but still, the core functionality is great. I have multiple workspaces with different tiling schemes for different tasks - one for general purpose, one for terminal hacking (spiralling terminal windows), one for bug fixing (side by side windows w/bug tracker & Emacs), and one for prolonged development (full screen Emacs with a little terminal for building)

junkbit 15y ago
Awesome Window Manager is great for dual monitors. Once you master it you can switch focus between them without leaving the keyboard.
duncanbojangles 15y ago
When Ubuntu moved to Gnome3/Unity, I did the same. I tried Kubuntu, but found KDE far too different from what I remember back in the KDE3 days to be comfortable with. Then I settled on Xubuntu, which gave me Gnome2 familiarity with XFCE. Then, I installed Bluetile (http://bluetile.org/ http://bluetile.org/) which is a tiling window manager that functions well in desktop environments. It lets me use several different tiling layouts and different modes including tiling, full screen, and floating. Everything can be done with the keyboard or the mouse (there's a narrow pane on the side of the screen with all the functions available as buttons). I've still got window dragging, resizing with the mouse, minimize, maximize, etc. buttons, and a host of new features to play with. I find Bluetile to be the best of both worlds for me, and not much of a compromise at that.
- resnamen 15y ago
  I'll try this, thanks.

jiggy2011 15y ago

Just tried this in a VM , Mint's interpretation of Gnome3 is better than Ubuntu's at least. No way to add additional panels though (afaik) which is a major bummer.

ozgurc 15y ago

I had great hopes for this release. The fglrx drivers are fething up the "shiny" gnome 3 desktop environment, not to mention I haven't seen anything great about it either -which I am coming to that shortly. MATE is... same as gnome3, I haven't seen anything special about it either. As for gnome 2, why I cannot add widgets to taskbars blows my mind... As far as I can see, and ironically, these new releases have less usability than their older and "geekier" versions. I mean back in linux mint 9 I could find compiz settings in 2 clicks. Now I cannot even see a compiz settings button anywhere. I mean, what the hell was wrong with my rotating cube desktop? Sure, it wasn't breaking any "productivity increase" reports but it made me happy to work with my linux box, not to mention all of the mac & win people looking with envy to these effects which my pieceashit netbook can pull off while their overpowered books can't. Two popular distros (I mean ubuntu and linux mint currently) had created an end goal it seems: "We want to be the mac of the linux world!". In the old days it was "we want to be the windows of the linux world" and this decision killed kde4. But the correct direction is to be an unique experience. Compiz did that, and as far as I can see none of the big mothers of the software world (yes I am looking at you m$ and apple) has a similar software to that! TL;DR:Don't macify yourself.