Linux Mint 10

[JimShortz]

Ubuntu gets all the headlines, and it is good, but I think for most people coming from MS Windows Linux Mint 10 would be a much better choice of Linux OS.

I've been using Ubuntu (versions 8 through 10) at home and at work for over 2 years now so I'm pretty familiar with it and have always been very happy with it. I like a challenge! Unfortunately, out-of-the-box Ubuntu doesn't play MP3s, doesn't have Flash installed, etc. Once you have completed the installation you actually have quite a bit to setup and it's not that easy for newbies...

I recently replaced my home installation of Ubuntu with Linux Mint 10. What a revelation! It is based on the Ubuntu project, but it is much more elegant with brushed metal menus etc. (very Mac like in its slickness), and by default the layout of things is very Win XP in style - hence I say it would be very easy for people coming from Windows. Another huge benefit is that out-of-the-box everything works. I'm a tinkerer, but have seen no need to add anything - it just works and has a great choice of default software!

I thoroughly recommend Mint. Ubuntu gets all of the headlines and had me thinking all other Linux distributions were just for nerds and Geeks - but this isn't true at all. Mint is actually the next most popular Linux distribution after Ubuntu, and interestingly has twice as many people sharing Linux Mint 10 on Pirate Bay as are sharing Ubuntu 10.10

You can download it from the main website: http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php (choose the standard version for DVD - this includes all the files and makes the job easy!)

To get it more quickly you can get the torrent: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5952709/Linux_Mint_10_Gnome_DVD_%5B32-Bit%5D_%5BISO%5D_%5Bgeno7744%5D (Note for mods - this is legal sharing of free software through a legal file sharing network)

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

[Cloggie]

I fully 100% agree with the topic opener.

I also switched from Ubuntu => Mint after testing Fedora, Mandriva, Arch, OpenSuse and several others and I loved it!

Most things work out of the box, installed Oracle VirtualBox to run also some Windows programs and it all works fine.

Very impressed how it works and most of all - FREE.

If you live in Bangkok, join us next month - http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/409242-ubuntu-it-meeting/page__st__50

Cheers,

M.

[dave_boo]

If you're set on an Ubuntu derivative, Ultimate Edition is out there also. It includes everything....and I mean everything.

[keeniau96]

I have been using Mint since Mint 5 and very, very satisfied. All the benefits of Ubuntu plus the little extras. And not having to use the horrible baby-poo brown color scheme. Yes, I know all about changing that GnomeLook etc. Just prefer Mint.

[padeakin]

Can anyone be a bit more specific, what does Mint do out of the box that Ubuntu doesn't?

Already mentioned

Flash

MP3

How easy is it to change to Thai after it has been setup in English?

[sulasno]

going to try it out; downloading the Live DVD at 832Mb

[Cloggie]

Can anyone be a bit more specific, what does Mint do out of the box that Ubuntu doesn't?

Already mentioned

Flash

MP3

How easy is it to change to Thai after it has been setup in English?

Very easy, start language support and install Thai

Edited January 19, 2011 by Cloggie

[BugJackBaron]

Can anyone be a bit more specific, what does Mint do out of the box that Ubuntu doesn't?

Already mentioned

Flash

MP3

How easy is it to change to Thai after it has been setup in English?

Very easy, start language support and install Thai

For Thai INPUT you may need to run ibus-setup(This is the Ubuntu way)

but I'm not sure for mint.

Other than that, Mint has the best java by default(Sun) and all codecs, flash etc, preinstalled so in a way it's easier.

Another important thing is that Mint 10 comes with a better kernel(linux engine) designed for interactive desktop use than stock Ubuntu.

[Crushdepth]

Well, I installed both Ubuntu and Mint in Virtual Box with identical (but quite limited) resources, only half a gig of memory. My superficial impression is:

* Mint desktop is more polished than Ubuntu and fixes some of the niggling annoyances, but

* Mint is noticeably slower than Ubuntu, at least with a desktop running.

But I expect if you run Mint with more RAM you probably won't notice or care. I will be bumping my work PC up to 4 gigs of RAM tomorrow, so I'll probably run the virtual machines with a lot more RAM in future.

Another positive for Mint - it worked flawlessly under Virtualbox. Wish I could say the same for Ubuntu - I'm having problems with the screen resolution resetting on reboot and sound playing back either too slow or too fast.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Crushdepth

[padeakin]

Just spent a couple of days testing Linux Mint, managed to get it to do everything that I wanted it to do, which has not always been the case with other flavours of Linux, but, I found it to be very slow, running on a reasonable spec machine with Pentium 4 and 1Gb of RAM (not in a virtual machine), it takes 2-3 seconds to respond when clicking on the menu, running XP on the same machine is instant. Opening a browser takes about 10 seconds, compared to 2 seconds with XP

Well, I installed both Ubuntu and Mint in Virtual Box with identical (but quite limited) resources, only half a gig of memory. My superficial impression is:

* Mint desktop is more polished than Ubuntu and fixes some of the niggling annoyances, but

* Mint is noticeably slower than Ubuntu, at least with a desktop running.

But I expect if you run Mint with more RAM you probably won't notice or care. I will be bumping my work PC up to 4 gigs of RAM tomorrow, so I'll probably run the virtual machines with a lot more RAM in future.

Another positive for Mint - it worked flawlessly under Virtualbox. Wish I could say the same for Ubuntu - I'm having problems with the screen resolution resetting on reboot and sound playing back either too slow or too fast.

[JimShortz]

Just spent a couple of days testing Linux Mint, managed to get it to do everything that I wanted it to do, which has not always been the case with other flavours of Linux, but, I found it to be very slow, running on a reasonable spec machine with Pentium 4 and 1Gb of RAM (not in a virtual machine), it takes 2-3 seconds to respond when clicking on the menu, running XP on the same machine is instant. Opening a browser takes about 10 seconds, compared to 2 seconds with XP

I'm surprised that it's so slow on your old P4. I'm using a machine that's about 3 years old (low spec intel dual core and 2 gig of Ram) and there is no delay at all on the menu and about 2 seconds to open Firefox. I wonder if you have a problem with your video driver? That does sound slower than it should be to me...

[ItDontMeanAThing]

Learned about Mint while researching my planned laptop compatibility with Linux. Installed it three months ago and am happy. It has opened every media file type I've tried except midi. Only problem is Firefox occasionally locks up the machine when I have way too many tabs open. qBitorrent has a bug where it occasionally eats up most of the CPU cycles. Switched to transmission and haven't had a problem, except that I like qBitorrent's features better.

[BugJackBaron]

Learned about Mint while researching my planned laptop compatibility with Linux. Installed it three months ago and am happy. It has opened every media file type I've tried except midi. Only problem is Firefox occasionally locks up the machine when I have way too many tabs open. qBitorrent has a bug where it occasionally eats up most of the CPU cycles. Switched to transmission and haven't had a problem, except that I like qBitorrent's features better.

Unless you are buying something hot and new off the shelf there is very little worry with Linux compatibility.

The real problem now is not so much Linux as the buggy applications

Transmission is a solid choice, and I had a similar cpu devouring issue with Deluge when I tried it.,

If firefox gives you grief then you can try (1) the beta of firefox 4 (2) google chrome (3) Opera,,,while (3) has a few annoying minor bugs it eats the least cpu of the three browsers. Opera 11 even has extensions now!

[ItDontMeanAThing]

Unless you are buying something hot and new off the shelf there is very little worry with Linux compatibility.

I suspect that's true. I wanted no worry. Some Broadcom wireless chipsets are notoriously difficult to make work in Linux.

If firefox gives you grief then you can try (1) the beta of firefox 4 (2) google chrome (3) Opera,,,while (3) has a few annoying minor bugs it eats the least cpu of the three browsers. Opera 11 even has extensions now!

First tried opera because that was on my last Linux box. Mint didn't like it at all. I plan on trying Chrome when the 'how-to install' threads on the Mint forums age off because it's become a no brainer.

Firefox doesn't crash anymore now that I keep my open tabs to what will fit without scrolling. Only have one computer, so it's a beta free zone - though that's probably a holdover from spending too many years with windoze.

[Gary A]

If you happen to use CAT EVDO, it sets up easily with Mint 10. The same method as the latest Ubuntu.