ulyssa

For years, Linux Mint (site: https://linuxmint.com/) has been one of the best options for folks new to the Linux world. Released on January 8, Linux Mint 20.1 "Ulyssa" ships in Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce flavors. I downloaded linuxmint-20.1-xfce-64bit.iso and took a look at the Xfce version in a live session.

 

 

"Ulyssa" booted up quickly and easily from a flash drive on the three laptops I tried it on. The Xfce desktop's setup has a pleasant and comfy feel to it. They've loaded the release with a nice selection of tools, making it a breeze for the user to jump right in and get things done. I felt that I was working with one of the best live sessions I've seen.

Linux Mint 20.1 Xfce release notes: https://linuxmint.com/rel_ulyssa_xfce.php

as stable as Stable?

Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 ("Betsy") and Debian Jessie (the current Debian Stable) differ in some important ways besides LMDE 2's quicker and easier installation and set-up. LMDE 2 is based on Jessie, but package updates are not handled the same as in Jessie.

The /etc/apt/sources.list file in LMDE 2 is essentially a blank document. The distro's official repositories are stored in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list, which by default looks like this:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com betsy main upstream import

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org jessie/updates main contrib non-free

deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org jessie main non-free

deb http://extra.linuxmint.com betsy main


By contrast, my /etc/apt/sources.list file in Debian Jessie contains only the following lines:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org jessie/updates main contrib non-free


I have no apt-pinning set up in my Jessie installation; the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and /etc/apt/preferences.d/ directories are empty. LMDE 2 ships with the following files in /etc/apt/preferences.d/:

# /etc/apt/preferences.d/official-extra-repositories.pref

Package: *
Pin: origin build.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-gwendal-lebihan-dev-cinnamon-nightly
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: origin download.virtualbox.org
Pin-Priority: 700


# /etc/apt/preferences.d/official-package-repositories.pref

Package: *
Pin: release o=linuxmint
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: 500


So, there's a lot more going on in LMDE 2 than just Debian Stable. Basically, Mint packages (pin-priority 700) have priority over the same packages from Debian (pin-priority 500). Also, Mint's Update Manager (you're supposed to use that for updating instead of Synaptic) is set to allow only "safe," Linux Mint approved updates, according to Mint's "Levels" system:

This is actually a nice set-up because with all of the special Mint packages included in LMDE 2, you want to feel sure that updates won't break anything. LMDE 2 isn't "straight" Debian Jessie, but the added precautions (which, in the past, I've labeled as "excessive hand-holding") should, in theory at least, make LMDE 2 about as "stable" as Debian Stable.

one more

One more Mint 17.1 Cinnamon review -- this one by Arindam Sen (one of the best distro reviewers out there!): Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon Review: As always, Impressive!

quite tempting

After playing around with the live session of Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon, I'm actually tempted to install this release. But I'm not going to. I have too many distros installed right now, including Ubuntu 14.04 (which Mint 17 is derived from) and Kubuntu 12.04. Two 'Buntu distros is more than enough, and I don't want to replace either one with Mint.

The Cinnamon desktop is excellent, and has matured quite a bit since the last time I played around with it, which I think was when I had Cinnamon installed in Fedora at one point. I used to say that I liked Cinnamon, but that I liked both GNOME Shell and Ubuntu's Unity more. But at this point, Cinnamon's as nice as anything else, and I see several things about it that would make users prefer it over other DEs.

I see that Cinnamon is available in Debian (Jessie), Ubuntu 14.10, and Arch, and it's still available in Fedora. But I don't think that there are any distros (besides Mint, of course) currently offering Cinnamon spins, so in that respect, I'd say that it hasn't reached the level of KDE, GNOME, and Xfce. The same could be said for Unity, but Unity is still a "shell" for GNOME, while Cinnamon, which started out as a "shell" for GNOME, is now a separate DE.

For more info about Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, check out the feature story in this week's DistroWatch: First Impressions of Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon Edition

rebecca

Taking a look at Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" -- the default spin, with the Cinnamon desktop. I'm trying the live session from a flash drive, done with Unetbootin. Here's a shot of the default desktop:

One nice thing about Cinnamon is the Nemo file manager, forked from GNOME's Nautilus file manager by the Mint folks. Glad to see an option for dual-pane viewing!

Cinnamon has a nice automatic wallpaper changer. Not as good as what you can do in KDE, but better than what you get in GNOME or Xfce.

In Cinnamon, It isn't obvious at first how to use different workspaces, or how to add workspaces (there are two workspaces by default). If you go to System Settings/Control Center > Preferences > Hot Corners and enable hovering for one of the hot corners, then choose "Show all workspaces" from that hot corner's drop-down menu, you can use that hot corner to bring up the "Expo" view, which will show you all of the workspaces.

Or, in the Control Center's Applets window, you can add an Expo applet to the panel so you can bring up Expo that way.

There are other ways to get to Expo, too... In any case, from Expo you can add/remove workspaces, and switch workspaces from there. Unfortunately, you can't change workspaces with the mouse wheel on an open desktop like you can do in Openbox. However, you can add the Workspace switcher applet to the panel and use the mouse wheel on that to switch workspaces.

Mint 17.1 ships with a nice collection of software, including Firefox 33.0 (customized for Linux Mint).

Linux Mint still looks like a great option for folks new to Linux, and I think it would be fine for experienced Linux users as well, although I have no plans to install it here. Nice set-up; pleasant, attractive default appearances; easy to get up and running quickly. The live session booted up nicely from the flash drive, and everything seemed snappy and smooth. I encountered no major issues with any of the applications I tried. Pretty much what I've come to expect from this distro. Nice job, from what I could tell!

For more information, see Mint's page at DistroWatch and the Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon release announcement.

no thanks, mint

The "crippled" Synaptic Package Manager that Linux Mint ships with has been one of the main reasons I've stayed away from the distro since I stopped using it after the Mint 9 ("Isadora") release. For users like me, it looks like things have only gotten worse. Here's Ken Starks in "Synaptic Vs. Update Manager in Linux Mint":

Mint had already made upgrades [using Synaptic] a bit more difficult by making you choose all apps with a ctrl+A command and then right click to update all apps. But now, you can’t do even that. The Mark All Upgrades button is completely missing. It wasn’t stripped out; from my understanding, Synaptic had been replaced by Mint’s version of Synaptic. You can search and install applications with it…you just can’t upgrade your system with it.

[...]

What I will gripe about is completely neutering Synaptic as an alternative method of system upgrade/update.


There was a work-around for the "crippled" Synaptic in Mint back when I was using it, and I think there's a different work-around now. But Linux Mint does way too much hand-holding for my tastes. Great distro, for sure, but it isn't for me.

In the comments following the article, one person wrote:

Mint forks a huge number of packages from the Debian/Ubuntu repos. Synaptic installs the Debian/Ubuntu versions from the Debian/Ubuntu repos, and the Mint update manager/package manager installs the Mint version from the Mint repos. A full upgrade using synaptic would result in a Ubuntu/Mint hybrid. If you have ever noticed when upgrading with synaptic in mint that it will ask to keep the original config (mint version), or install the package maintainer’s config.


Okay, I can understand that. So, why even include the "crippled" Synaptic in the default Mint installation? Leave it up to the user to decide whether or not to use Synaptic the way it's supposed to be used. Don't make the user have to jump through hoops to do this. If the user wants to install and use the real Synaptic and risk borking Linux Mint, that should be up to the user to decide.

No other distro that I'm aware of does what Mint does to Synaptic. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth back when I was running Mint. I actually liked the distro, for the most part. But as long as the Mint devs feel the need to protect users from themselves like this, I won't be going back. Thanks, but no thanks.

mint will be "LTS-Only"

Clement Lefebvre has made the following announcement:

The decision was made to stick to LTS bases. In other words the development team will be focused on the very same package base used by Linux Mint 17 for the next 2 years. It will also be trivial to upgrade from version 17 to 17.1, then 17.2 and so on. Important applications will be backported and we expect this change to boost the pace of our development and reduce the amount of regressions in each new Linux Mint release. This makes Linux Mint 17.x very important to us, not just yet another release, but one that will receive security updates until 2019, one that will receive backports and new features until 2016 and even more importantly, the only package base besides LMDE which we’ll be focused on until 2016.

http://blog.linuxmint.com/

Excellent plan. I stick with the LTS (long-term support) releases of Ubuntu, and I did the same when I used Linux Mint. This should free up some time for the Mint devs, who will no longer have to work on those "in-between" releases.

compare/contrast

J.A. Watson takes a quick look at Debian and a few of its derivatives in "Debian, Mint (LMDE), SolydX and Tanglu, compared and contrasted".

they love it

Arindam Sen and Dedoimedo both produce detailed reviews of Linux releases, including nice screenshots and so forth. These two reviewers have recently taken a look at Linux Mint 16. Dedoimedo looked at the Cinnamon spin -- he'll review the MATE spin soon -- and Sen took a look at both Cinnamon and MATE spins.

Both reviewers raved about the release. It would seem that the only downside is the short support period; like Ubuntu 13.10 ("Saucy"), on which it is based, Mint 16 is supported only until July 2014:

(See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS)

Even with that caveat, these guys' reviews leave me with the impression that the Mint team knocked it out of the park with this release; however, I prefer to judge a release based on how things go over the long term, and nobody does reviews of Linux releases a year or two after the release date (not many people would be interested!). Anyway, Ubuntu's non-LTS support period is too short (9 months) for my tastes, and since Linux Mint releases come after the corresponding Ubuntu releases, Mint's non-LTS support period is even shorter.

That's not a deterrent for many other users, and lots of people will be quite excited about Mint 16 after reading these two reviews. Enjoy!

Linux Mint 16 "Petra" Cinnamon and Mate Review: Mint has done it again!

Linux Mint 16 Petra - P-p-p-perfect!

looking good

Just a glance at Linux Mint 16 "Petra" (Cinnamon), from a live session:

It does look very nice, and quite polished. Impressive. I used Unetbootin in Debian Wheezy to put it on a flash drive, and it runs quite well.

The last Mint release I installed here was Mint 9. I won't be installing this release, but I think it would be a nice choice for newbies, or even for experienced Linux users. Everything is set up quite nicely for the user to be able to get right to work.

Mint comes with the Nemo file manager, forked from Nautilus, and I think Nemo's an improvement over Nautilus.

The Cinnamon 2.0 desktop looks fine, easy enough to get around. Here are some shots of what's in the menu:

The live session looks good enough that I'll probably keep Mint 16 on a flash drive for awhile; might come in handy, as it includes all of the tools that I like to have in a live session.

Good job by the Mint folks!

mint's clem

"Why Ubuntu? Because it was (and still is) the best package base."

That's from the interesting interview over at TechWorld, "Q&A: Clement Lefebvre: The man behind Linux Mint."

According to Lefebvre, there are no plans to move Mint from an Ubuntu base, but it sounds like the Mint team is keeping their options open.

He also discusses: Cinnamon and MATE; Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE); the upcoming release of Linux Mint 16 ("Petra"); his thoughts on the possibility of using Ubuntu's Mir (or Wayland); Mint's financial support and business plan; and many other things.

I've always liked how Clem keeps the lines of communication open -- participating at the Mint forums, and keeping users informed at the Linux Mint Blog. He seems to go out of his way to try to let everyone know what's going on with the distro, what he's trying to do with it.

For my own computers, I decided (after Mint 9 "Isadora") to go in other directions, and I no longer run Mint here, but there are good reasons why Mint has become one of the most popular Linux distributions out there. Mint continues to be one of the jewels of the Linux world. I probably won't install it, but I'm looking forward to running a live session of Mint 16 when it comes out because I want to take a good look at Cinnamon 2.0. Down the road, I might even try installing Cinnamon in Ubuntu 14.04. :)

from this week's dw

Interesting stuff in this week's DistroWatch Weekly.


First, a nice review by Jesse Smith of Linux Mint Debian Edition. As I looked over this review, I could see some good reasons why some people would prefer to use LMDE instead of Debian Testing, which LMDE is based on. LMDE is certainly quicker and easier to install, and Smith had some very positive things to say about LMDE's graphical installer, including this:

"The installer is fairly novice-friendly and I didn't encounter any problems while using it. I'm hoping other Debian-based distributions consider adopting Mint's installer. There are a lot of Debian derivative projects out there and many of them lack a nice, graphical installer."

Smith liked LMDE's "Device Driver Manager":

"This program attempts to detect hardware on our system which may not be well supported by our existing kernel or drivers. The Manager will assist us in detecting wireless cards, video cards and our CPU and offer to fetch packages which may give us better hardware support."

Despite all this, Smith said that he was unable to get LMDE to run on his desktop pc, although it worked fine on his laptop and in VirtualBox.

Also, LMDE comes with the Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments, which some users may prefer over the selection of DEs and WMs (including GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell) that "straight" Debian offers.

More comments from Smith's review that show how LMDE differs from Debian Testing:

"This Debian-based flavour of Mint uses software packages from Debian's Testing branch. To counter the potential stability problems caused by using a rolling release repository the Mint team maintains a series of upgrade packs which are tested prior to being released to the community. This places a safety valve between possible software regressions and the community of Mint users."

But, here's an important point brought up by "FSFer" in the DW Weekly comments section:

"The problem with LMDE doesn't become apparent until [the user has had LMDE] running for some months, ie the update packs only are released every few months. Therefore to get timely updates, you have to change repos to the standard testing ( or sid) negating the proposed advantage of the update packs."

That's something I've seen mentioned many times at the Mint forums...


Besides the Mint Debian review, some other nice tidbits in this week's DW Weekly include some items in the "DistroWatch.com News" section.

They've added a "Random Distribution" button to the site's navigation bar. Clicking on it will take the user to a random active distribution's page on DistroWatch. Nice.

Another addition to the front page: a new filter option "to display news about stable distribution releases ONLY (i.e. hide all news items that deal with development, alphas, betas, release candidate, milestones, etc.)."

Then, there's this:

We have removed Pisi Linux from DistroWatch. This is a distribution that intends to succeed the "old" Pardus Linux (when it was an independent distribution with its own package management called "Pisi", rather than the current Debian-based variant). Unfortunately, we have found the project still rather immature at this stage - it has changed name three times already and the communication with the distribution developers have been rather unpleasant, with many conflicting requests and confusing emails. Also, the project's SourceForge page continues to claim that "as of 2013-03-14, this project is no longer under active development," which has been denied by the project's official website. All in all, adding Pisi Linux to DistroWatch so early was perhaps a little premature so we would like to give it a bit more time to mature and settle down. We'll revisit the decision in the future once things start to improve - until that happens we are sorry to say that you won't see any announcements on DistroWatch.

Ouch. Not a good start for Pisi.

mark all upgrades in mint's synaptic

One thing about Linux Mint that used to annoy me was that their version of Synaptic was missing the "Mark All Upgrades" button, something that's always been present in every other distro's Synaptic. The button was supposedly removed to protect users from messing up their systems. Too much hand-holding, in my opinion.

One work-around was to simply do updates from the command line with apt-get. Another was the following approach:

- Click on “Reload” to get any available upgrades to show up.
- Click on the “Status” button down at the lower left.
- Select “Installed (Upgradable).”
- Click on one of the packages, do a ctrl+a to select all, then right-click on any of the selected packages.
- Click on “Mark for Upgrade.”  Then click on “Apply.”

That turned out to be easy enough to do, but the attitude of the Mint folks toward this and other issues played a big part in my deciding not to use the distro anymore (the main reason, however, was that after some years of running both distros side-by-side, I'd simply decided that I preferred to run only Ubuntu, which Mint's main version is based on).

Because of not using Mint anymore, I missed the solution posted by "Roken" at the Mint forums:


If you haven't already (or if you've rebooted) reinstall synaptic.

Now, before you reboot open a terminal and:

sudo gedit /etc/linuxmint/adjustments/10-mintsystem-synaptic.preserve


This will create a new text file. Add the following two lines to the file:

/usr/share/synaptic/glade/window_main.glade
/usr/share/synaptic/gtkbuilder/window_main.ui


Save. Now your "Mark All Upgrades" button should be back and surviving reboots. To revert to default mint behaviour:

sudo rm /etc/linuxmint/adjustments/10-mintsystem-synaptic.preserve


This is the correct way to disable the mintsystem change to synaptic (based on examination of the mintsystem script) and should survive updates in the future.


Here's the thread where this fix was posted: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=200&t=70449&start=20

The fix was also posted in this thread.

Thank you, Roken. If/when I ever install Linux Mint again, I'll try that out.

mint and snow

Blogger Arindam Sen loves to look at Linux distros, and posts interesting reviews at Linuxed - Exploring Linux distros. He writes, "Personally, I don't get tired of installing Linux distros as it is my hobby and I install 2-3 new distros to my systems every week and uninstall the older ones." By reviewing these installations, he provides a great service to the Linux community.

Sen uses Linux Mint on his main machine. I stopped using Mint some time ago, but it's a great distro -- there are good reasons why so many people prefer using it instead of Ubuntu, which Mint is based on. Definitely worth a look, in my opinion.

Check out Sen's latest review: Linux Mint 14 Nadia Review: Is it better than Maya? The author takes a good look at the new Mint release, and compares it to Mint 13 (Maya) as well as to Snowlinux 3.

Snowlinux is fairly new, and appears to be another good distro. Its DistroWatch description:

Snowlinux is a set of Linux distributions based on Debian's latest stable release and featuring four different desktop environments - GNOME, KDE, LXDE and Xfce. It aims to be user-friendly, incorporating many useful tweaks and carefully selected software applications. The project also develops a separate, Ubuntu-based edition featuring the MATE (a GNOME 2 fork) desktop.

These days, I prefer to use Debian Stable and Ubuntu's LTS releases rather than any Debian or Ubuntu spin-offs, but I had great experiences running Linux Mint, and Snowlinux looks quite enticing. I can imagine myself taking a fresh look at both distros sometime down the road -- especially as the Cinnamon desktop continues to mature.

misc.

 It never ceases to amaze me that so many Linux folks go on and on and on about all the things they hate about Ubuntu, about Unity, about GNOME Shell, about... Here's an idea: If you don't like it, don't use it. Problem solved.

...

For the most part, the GNOME Shell Extensions concept seems like a good idea, especially for folks who feel that they need to add tools to make GNOME Shell more like a "traditional" desktop. Still, I prefer to stick pretty close to the default set-up in GNOME Shell, and have no problems with using that to get around the desktop and get my work done. The only extensions I use are Alternative Status Menu and Quit Button.

If you go to the GNOME Shell Extensions site, currently you'll find 12 pages of extensions. The site could use a little organization; you can sort the extensions by popularity, name, recent additions, or downloads (I'm assuming that the difference between "downloads" and "popularity" is that the latter represents how many people actually have a particular extension turned on, but I'm not sure about that). It would be helpful if the extensions were categorized in some way.

I've tried out a handful of the extensions; usually, I end up feeling like they just add clutter to my desktop and don't really make things any easier for me. Seems like a lot of them are buggy.

Some of them come close to being something I'd want without being exactly what I'd want. For example, I'd like to have the Panel-Docklet extension simply show me icons for each running application. Nothing else. I messed around with the extension's settings for a long time, but couldn't find a way to get it to do just that. It gives me an icon for the running apps on the current workspace; I can set it to show running apps from other workspaces when the mouse cursor is hovering over the extension, but that isn't what I want.

Seems like it would be better to just add xfce4-panel with only the icon box on the panel, set to show icons from all workspaces. But with GNOME Shell's Activities overview, I feel like I don't need to bother with adding something like that. Keep it clean, use it like it was designed, I'm fine.

...

Fedora 17 was released today. I currently have F15 (KDE) and F16 (GNOME) installed; I'll be replacing the former with F17 (KDE). I like having both of the two most recent Fedora releases running here, and I've been happy with what they do with both KDE and GNOME, so I'll just continue going with KDE for the odd-numbered releases and GNOME for the even-numbered ones.

...

I use SalineOS, which comes with Xfce; one of my Debian Stable installations is the Xfce version; and, I've added Xfce to Mepis 11 to use sometimes as an alternative to the default KDE.

There's plenty to love about Xfce. I often wonder why folks who hate the never environments (KDE4, GNOME Shell, Unity) don't simply switch to it and get on with their lives.

I add a few things to Xfce to make things more pleasant for me: Dolphin and KSnapshot from KDE (better than Thunar and Screenshot), the Geany text editor (better than Mousepad), and Desktopnova for automatic wallpaper changing.

When using Xfce, the only things I can think of that I miss: Some kind of screen edges/hot corners action; a desktop/workspace grid; and a nice, simple menu editor.

But Xfce is so light and easy to configure that it's no surprise that many people don't want or need any other DE. For my money, it has the best panel in the business (it's my panel of choice for Openbox, by the way). Seems like there's no need to worry about any dramatic changes coming in the future. Kinda seems like the ideal default DE.

...

The distros installed here include Mepis, SalineOS, PCLinuxOS, and Semplice Linux. All of these are either based on or spun from "larger," more established distros. All of them fall under the "one-man distro" category. And all of them are nice distros.

I played around with the idea of dropping all of them and just sticking with the "big boys" that I run -- Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and openSUSE -- but I finally decided that I enjoy using those spin-offs and following the projects over time, enough that I'll probably keep them all (not sure about Semplice -- Debian Sid or anything based on it is too much of a hassle for my tastes). But going forward, I don't think I'll be adding any more of those types of distros to my lineup.

Overall, I think "major" distros are a lot better. Their documentation is better; and, they're more likey to be around five years from now, pretty much sticking with the same philosophies. On balance, I feel that the "spin-offs" don't offer that much in the way of advantages over the "major" distros, while the idiosyncrasies of the spin-off distros and their (lone or few) devs can be quite irritating at times.

So, even though I'm reading all kinds of wonderful things about Linux Mint 13, Crunchbang, and SolusOS, among others, I think I'll pass.

stairway to heaven

For those of you who can't stand GNOME Shell or Unity, check out Dedoimedo's piece on Cinnamon 1.4:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/cinnamon-1-4.html

Still not interested (I still don't get the GNOME Shell/Unity hatred, and enjoy using both of them myself), but Cinnamon's looking pretty good. Dedoimedo says, "I believe Cinnamon is currently the most sensible, most user-friendly desktop environment slash user interface available in the Linux market." I might disagree, but I'm glad to see Cinnamon out there for folks who want to use it.

precise

How does the name for Ubuntu 12.04, the next LTS version, grab you? "Precise Pangolin."

These names get worse and worse, don't they?

I never cared for the names for Debian 6 ("Squeeze") or the current Debian Testing ("Wheezy"), either. I'm okay with the Linux Mint names, which are always female names ending with the letter "a" ("Helena," "Isadora," "Julia," "Katya," etc.), I guess. With Fedora, we have "Goddard," "Laughlin," "Lovelock," and so on.

I don't know. I prefer version numbers, but I guess in the end, it's all in fun, and maybe it adds some color to the Linux world. It would probably be too boring if everybody stuck with only version numbers.

But, ugh, Precise Pangolin? Dang.

best?

"The best Linux distro of 2011!"

OK, that's an interesting article, and the comments that follow are interesting as well, but...

The title misleads since they're only comparing six distros: Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, and OpenSUSE.

And, "best" is so... subjective. Who can say which is "best" for a given individual? Except for "Performance," where they showed a chart of boot times at startup, folks will argue about every comparison they made in the article; and even the boot times at startup depend on different things, like which desktop you've installed and so forth. They found openSUSE (with KDE) to be the fastest, but I wondered if it would really boot faster than Debian with Xfce, for example. And boot times would certainly vary depending on the amount of RAM you have, right?

Some of the things they said in the article were inaccurate, incomplete, or simply wrong. But the article is sure to spark a lot of debate in the Linux community, where the "best" Linux distro is usually "the one I'm using right now."

With six distros running here, and a couple of different releases of three of those distros, and with some long-term experience with a few others, my opinion is that there is no "best" Linux distro. Each one has its pros and cons; sometimes I feel like I could list a bunch of distros on a wall, blindly throw a dart at it to pick a distro, do a little tweaking, and walk away happy.

Besides, they didn't even mention Mepis or PCLinuxOS. :)

Dedoimedo on LMDE

Hm. Dedoimedo gives Linux Mint Debian Edition a great review; compare that to his less-than-glowing review of Debian Squeeze.

I noticed that in the LMDE review, he made no mention of the tons of updates necessary to bring LMDE up to speed. LMDE needs regular "snapshot" .iso's (sort of like PCLinuxOS does with their quarterly releases), in my opinion.

I do agree with some of his points about Squeeze, though. Debian isn't up there with other distros when it comes to the out-of-the-box experience, or when it comes to the installation experience. SalineOS, for example nailed it here where Squeeze didn't.

But, as with most reviews, his focuses on initial impressions, not how things go over the long-term. I'm still not sold on either LMDE (based on Debian Testing) or SalineOS (based on Debian Squeeze) over Debian Stable when it comes to long-term usage. I don't mind struggling with a Debian Stable installation once every few years, knowing that it will end up being trouble-free and solid for the duration. LMDE and SalineOS are still too new for me to feel confident about how things will look down the road; and, in the end, LMDE and SalineOS are still essentially one-man-distro spin-offs of "the real thing." Not that I have anything against one-man-distros...

Since I prefer to use Stable instead of Testing anyway, I have yet to install LMDE; quite happy so far with Saline, though.

Not trying to knock either of those two distros -- I'm actually really glad to see both of them out there (along with Mepis). Both of them do something that Debian doesn't: They give users an easy Debian installation (or, and easier one than they can get from "straight" Debian), and a great out-of-the-box experience.

But, neither LMDE nor SalineOS can replace Debian Stable for me here. Yet. We'll see how things go in the future.

ubuntu ppa for xfce 4.8

If you use Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) or Mint 9 (Isadora) and are interested in trying the new Xfce 4.8, there's a PPA for it:

https://launchpad.net/~alexx2000/+archive/xfce