Reblog This If Youre A Linux, Unix, Old Software, New Software, Copyleft, Etc, Nerd Please. My Dash Is

reblog this if you’re a linux, unix, old software, new software, copyleft, etc,  nerd please. My dash is currently the tiniest bit dead and it’s giving me the boreds. 

I felt that addressing some of these points would be good for newcomers, especially those who are interested in/have installed Mint.

@mirqmarq428's impressions and opinions shouldn't be considered invalid. As someone who started using Linux around that time, things were significantly less intuitive and/or user friendly across the board.

While Cinnamon is very reminiscent of Windows 7/10, the welcome screen and documentation encourage the user to customize. I do agree, however, that using an unfamiliar DE is a really good idea for new Linux users. The fun thing about Mint is that you don't have to stay on Cinnamon (or even XFCE/Mate). It's a good platform to experiment and learn.

Snaps are disabled, though it's possible to enable them in Mint (instructions are even in the documentation). Ubuntu does not offer Flatpak support by default, and previously required official flavors to drop support.

Release cycle- Mint is based on the latest LTS of Ubuntu (and on the latest version of Debian for LMDE). It's entirely possible to install more recent versions of packages via flatpak and debs without touching the terminal. Mint's Update Manager can also install newer kernels in a few clicks. If you have cutting edge hardware, there's always the Cinnamon-Edge edition.

Mint also has an update manager that can send reminders, though this can be disabled.

In the end, it's important to use what you enjoy. Despite my concerns regarding Snap, I've been running the same Kubuntu install on my desktop for almost a year now. A handful of the programs I use were either Distrobox'd or built manually. Mint has been just as capable in the times I've used it.

Replying to @fzf

I have no strong personal feelings about mint. It happened to be a good first distro for me, and i like the colors. My disrecommendation of it comes in bullet points:

Mint is touted as a "windows-like environment" on account of the Cinnamon desktop. However, Cinnamon and windows 10 have deceptively little in common beyond the general layout - iv said this before and I'll say it again: don't give people a knockoff of what they're used to, give them something new to learn.

Mint disables, disallows, discourages, and distrusts snap packages. While iv seen a huge amount of hate for these, and the technology had a rough start, they're not any more of a pain than flatpak (and way better than appimages, yikes). In fact, removing them from what was otherwise an Ubuntu system causes more problems than it fixes - for months last year it was a pain to run Chromium on mint because the Deb was broken and snaps were disabled (iirc - might be misremembering. either way the snap war is not a good cause imo)

Release speed - when i got started with Mint in march of 2020, I downloaded mint 19.04 cause that was the version on the website. Mint 19.04 is based on Ubuntu 18.04 which had a 4.18 kernel. Everyone else in 2020 had a 5.2 kernel at least. There is a balance between stable and up-to-date, and Ubuntu has mastered it. Mint, by necessity, lags behind Ubuntu. Heck, there's even the time the mint devs had to beg users to update because of a security issue, and found that most users had never bothered updating!

Ubuntu (gnome) is different from both macos but windows interface in obvious ways that encourage a paradigm shift in desktop usage.

Snap packages are extremely meh, but they ain't here to steal ur freedums (yet).

Ubuntu has the second best software compatibility of any Linux (best is Arch), and a lot of pkgbuilds in the AUR are just extracting debs from Ubuntu ppas anyway so it's really close. Ubuntu tells you to update and makes it easy with the popup which you can close or banish.

So yeah. Mint is just slightly worse Ubuntu

lesbians love and support our trans sisters 💖💖

@01adrianrdgz Thank you :D not stopping anytime soon

Mint XFCE on a 2008 MacBook <3 taken last Summer

Sweet Ambar Blue theme and Candy Icons by EliverLara. The wallpaper was one of the defaults

Issue 4 is now live and being printed! As always, you can access the digital version for free.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/issue-4-now-93529202?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Third week running ArchBang- a minimal Arch distro with OpenBox and Tint2Panel