You can't deny that Mint 11 looks horribly dated now

[HorrorCode]

Windows has paid people who have made the look of Win XP to 7. And at Mint you get it for free. This is sort of comparing apples and oranges.

But anyway, if we'd post a call for designers on the forum we'd soon get great themes for Mint.

Themes for both Gnome 3 Shell and Unity would be awesome

What I personally would love to see is the option/tool to create your own, fully featured themes, installed by default. As is isnt the most impossible task in the world even for a noob, and several templates to build off of could be provided. This would be a much better route for all of us in the Gnome world, especially if everything is as documented as it should be regarding the new UI.

[spider2097]

On a personal note, I thought the move from the default dark theme in Gloria/Helena/Isadora to the silver/grey/brushed metal look of Julia (which was carried forward to Katya) wasn't a good idea but that's easy to change Occasionally when the theme manger takes a while to sort itself out (for instance, after a reboot), the task bar & buttons take on a bit of the Windows 3.1.1 appearance though - all flat, square & grey. Once everything gets itself organised (usually less than 10 seconds), it's all good. I'm not sure if that's down to Gnome or other parts. I'd be interested in seeing a Mint Openbox variant where a right-click opens MintMenu instead of the Openbox menu.

[Garvan]

I am a recent refugee from Ubuntu, and while I must agree that the default Mint GUI looks dated, it is still highly configurable. That is why I am here. You can adjust it easily to what you like.

The new Unity interface in Ubuntu did not do what I wanted. And I think Mint has an excellent menu system (new to me - but perhaps old to long term Mint users). I like it.

Garvan

[untenops]

I'm new to Linux Mint. I installed LM 11 less then a week ago. For one reason, Unity. I have been using ubuntu for years. And will probably still use the server version. But I just could not stand the unity interface on 11.04. So I'm here because LM 11 is using gnome 2. I even tried out Fedora to get a taste of gnome 3. And frankly didn't like it very much. I know I could use ubuntu 11.04 with its classic interface, but that just seemed wrong, on principal. Especially when I hear gnome will be gone in 11.10. So, my point is, Mint 11's horribly dated look, just got them one new user, and I would bet many more then just me. Thank you LM.

[pan]

I also came from 11.04 to LMDE and I just couldn't be pleased more. But still, someday in the future, highly customizable gnome-shell touched by mint...sounds great!

[Nexus]

Windows has paid people who have made the look of Win XP to 7. And at Mint you get it for free. This is sort of comparing apples and oranges.

But anyway, if we'd post a call for designers on the forum we'd soon get great themes for Mint.

Themes for both Gnome 3 Shell and Unity would be awesome

Gnome-look.org has sections for both now. With Gnome 3/Shell just not becoming a staple on different distributions there aren't a lot of options available yet. That should change as people make the shift and the demand, and the want for GTK 3 Themes increases.

[mikeb1986]

Saw this thread and thought I should mention it was actually the "dated" look that made me stick with Mint 10. It does exactly what I need it to do, and nothing I dont need it to do. I hope Mint 11 is just as dated if I ever get round to changing this, but I dont know why I would bother unless I got a new PC. Everything on 10 just works

Never used linux before, never even considered it. Spent 3 years at uni taking the piss out of all the geeks for it. Got a netbook with Linpus Light and liked the simplicity, but not the fact that nothing worked. When it crashed someone recommend Mint. Tried it and liked it so much I put it on my desktop and use it at least 99% of the time.

[AlbertP]

Mint 11 looks just as dated at first sight. It has new scrollbars (in GTK apps, not in Firefox atm), but there's a guide on internet how to disable them.
The wallpaper is new, but if you don't like it, you can install mint-backgrounds-julia and switch back to the grey (or dark green) 1010101010 background.

Anyway, you can use Mint 10 till it reaches end of life in April/May 2012.

[HorrorCode]

Mint 11 looks just as dated at first sight. It has new scrollbars (in GTK apps, not in Firefox atm), but there's a guide on internet how to disable them.
The wallpaper is new, but if you don't like it, you can install mint-backgrounds-julia and switch back to the grey (or dark green) 1010101010 background.

Anyway, you can use Mint 10 till it reaches end of life in April/May 2012.

In all honesty, if one can do the appropriate updates themselves, they can run any OS for as long as they choose. I'm sure theres still a few users around here running 7/8 still.

[AlbertP]

True, but users of 7 cannot use the repository anymore, Ubuntu have taken it down. Mint 1, 5 and 8 are still up.

[HorrorCode]

To be more specific, I meant updating in other ways, like building the new packages & dependencies or using newer repositories, but this would take a more experienced user to attempt this in the first place. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if you do updates or not, i.e Windows 98 can still be used to any extent you wish it to, but you're the one responsible for preventing it from breaking down and getting infected etc etc etc. At Mint 10's current state, I don't see any updates that are actually NEEDED to keep my netbook running until the end of time, nothing is forcing me to upgrade, and nothing forces 10 to look in any way shape or form, "dated". If it was so dated, everyone would have left Mint a few years ago...

[AlbertP]

Many people don't care about dated. They just want a working system, that works the way they are used to. And that's what Mint does.

I agree that we could probably attract more people to Mint by a more modern look, but this should not consume more system resources. I think that just a new GTK style is enough.

[sjonesy]

I've never been impressed with the wizards at canonical's ideas about how things "should" look and feel. After all they're the ones that decided oss and alsa were useless in favor of that piece of unicorns pulseaudio and basically forced anyone who needed them to recompile their kernel.
There is such a thing as too much geekyness.

[Reddog1]

You are entitled to your opinion. If you don't like Mint 11 use another distro. I say this because I am a brand new Mint user. Mandriva has been my preferred distro since I began using Linux in 1997. I've always been a KDE type of user, but with the advent of KDE4 I began to test the waters with Gnome. Over the years I've used probably a dozen different flavors of Linux, but Mandriva (formerly Mandrake) was my choice because I really like the way Mandriva organizes the desktop and the DrakTools have been, in my opinion, superior to any other for configuration. Lately, because of KDE 4, I've been quite unhappy with the performance of my Mandriva system (I don't use cutting edge hardware). Ubuntu works fine on my old Pentium 4's, but Gnome has never been my cup of tea. I don't like the Gnome Panels, which is a problem that I can fix with AWN (I tried Cairo, but found it to be unstable, though very pretty), but then there is the ugly default Gnome icons which show up in various incomplete icon sets. This I can fix, but it is a time consuming process and not something I really want to spend hours to get right. So, having heard good things about Mint, I decided to give it a try. Quite frankly, Mint 11 quickly became my distro of choice. It is fast, and Mint's panel and menu layout is just fine for me, right out of the box, and I don't even miss the Mandriva menu. Plus, the KDE programs that I really want, K3B and KMail are easily installed and work perfectly. The ugly Gnome icon problem doesn't exist and the default installation of multimedia codecs saves time, too. I rate Mint 11 as a "10", and I will likely be installing it on my wife's machine as soon as Mandriva 2010.1 with KDE 3.5 is deprecated.

[HorrorCode]

The ugly Gnome icon problem doesn't exist and the default installation of multimedia codecs saves time, too. I rate Mint 11 as a "10", and I will likely be installing it on my wife's machine as soon as Mandriva 2010.1 with KDE 3.5 is deprecated.

To clarify on this topic, that icon problem does in fact still exist but it depends on the controls, icons, etc, not just the theme or icons. But welcome to Mint, if you need any help of any kind, someone will be way happy to give you a hand, especially me. I prefer Gnome myself, as I like tweaking every little thing and it makes me feel ocd lol, but anyways theres a new Mandriva fork out I've been playing with but I'm not pointing any fingers, it's not my thing.

[sjonesy]

well not to add more to the fire, but when i try disabling certain features in compiz, it starts crashing and gives errors coming from unity. so while were against it, its still being forced on us, i've just decided to drop back to mint 10 due to this, theres way too many bugs in 11 & unity to make any sense of it imho, the point of this distro was something clean, and elegant, correct me if im wrong, thats 10, but not 11, at least not yet.

so dont use compiz.

[wronglish]

And then, Audacious Playlist (instaled from the U-repo) now have a fixed height, something only a U-genious may imagine!
"From now on, all things must have the size and form of a mobile display! If don't, they'll be burnt." -- I suppose some guy determined to coders. Burnt (as OSS/Alsa and all the software dependent on them)... or bloqued with a black square placed above the sizecursor.

Isadora, save me !
Long long long life to isadora!

w

[Reddog1]

Reddog1 wrote: The ugly Gnome icon problem doesn't exist and the default installation of multimedia codecs saves time, too. I rate Mint 11 as a "10", and I will likely be installing it on my wife's machine as soon as Mandriva 2010.1 with KDE 3.5 is deprecated.



"To clarify on this topic, that icon problem does in fact still exist but it depends on the controls, icons, etc, not just the theme or icons. "

Now you have me intrigued (not that I really want to replicate the ugly icons). What combination will actually cause those icons to show up in Mint?? I have every Gnome iconset installed that I had in Mandriva and in Ubuntu, and I haven't seen it--yet. But if I do, I really, really want to know what I did that made it happen because I really, really hate those icons.

[HorrorCode]

well not to add more to the fire, but when i try disabling certain features in compiz, it starts crashing and gives errors coming from unity. so while were against it, its still being forced on us, i've just decided to drop back to mint 10 due to this, theres way too many bugs in 11 & unity to make any sense of it imho, the point of this distro was something clean, and elegant, correct me if im wrong, thats 10, but not 11, at least not yet.

so dont use compiz.

Or I can use 10 as I stated I am now doing. Lol.

[HorrorCode]

Reddog1 wrote: The ugly Gnome icon problem doesn't exist and the default installation of multimedia codecs saves time, too. I rate Mint 11 as a "10", and I will likely be installing it on my wife's machine as soon as Mandriva 2010.1 with KDE 3.5 is deprecated.



"To clarify on this topic, that icon problem does in fact still exist but it depends on the controls, icons, etc, not just the theme or icons. "

Now you have me intrigued (not that I really want to replicate the ugly icons). What combination will actually cause those icons to show up in Mint?? I have every Gnome iconset installed that I had in Mandriva and in Ubuntu, and I haven't seen it--yet. But if I do, I really, really want to know what I did that made it happen because I really, really hate those icons.

Well to be more specific I was simply stating that some icon sets are complete and some arent, but if you can clarify as to which exact icons you speak of, I can find one to replicate the issue. I have tons of different sets installed and theres at least 4 different variations of broken icons or incomplete sets that are common. Those normally consist of the folder icons, or hardware, but then there are what should be more common icons i.e multimedia or games.