Newness of MATE = should upgrade to Mint 13?

[AngelusWebDesign]

I miss the "Add to archive" context menu item that was there back in Mint 11. I used that OS for about a year before upgrading to Mint 12 a couple months ago.
viewtopic.php?f=206&t=101731

However, I'm thinking Mint 12 will be very short-lived on my PC -- mostly because of the bleeding-edge and immature nature of MATE.

I didn't have a screensaver or Power Management applet either! I tried to install one, but I don't know that it worked.

What do you think? Is Mint 13 a no-brainer for someone who's already taken the plunge to Mint 12?

Thank you in advance,

Matthew

[mpiter]

The answer to your general question is definitely "Yes, upgrade to Mint 13". When Mint 12 was available, it was written by Clem that Mate was young, not very stable, and needed a lot of work to comply to the regular Unix standard. So users could try it but without satisfaction guarantee. Actually, Clem was taken aback by the Gnome 2.32 disappearance and he needed more time to work on Mate.

Now with Mint 13, Mate seems to me rather stable and trustworthy. We find small bugs from time to time, but nothing very annoying as far as I am concerned. I did the leap 2 weeks ago and I am very happy about it. I think that Mint 12 was to be avoided, but 13 is a must-have.

[zum Kaufhof]

I agree with trhat completely - and very many more do to.. At the moment LM13 Mate seems to me to be very stable. Cinnamon looks to be the future rather than the present.

Trevor

[AngelusWebDesign]

Well, I upgraded (fresh install) to Linux Mint 13 (MATE, 32-bit) about a week ago. I'm glad I did!

I even have the "compress" item again on my context menu. Excellent!

Everything works well; no downsides experienced so far.

[mpiter]

Cinnamon looks to be the future rather than the present.

Yes, I agree on this. I think that the whole GTK+3 is for future computers. I tried Gnome Shell and Cinnamon during about 6 months. To me, Cinnamon was a huge step forward in comparison to Gnome Shell, but everything related to a Gnome Shell seemed heavy, slow, and feature poor. The idea about dynamical desktop features might be a bit heavy for many today pieces of hardware.

[mpiter]

Well, I upgraded (fresh install) to Linux Mint 13 (MATE, 32-bit) about a week ago. I'm glad I did! ... Everything works well; no downsides experienced so far.

No downsides for me neither. Everything has smoothly ran on my computer for almost a month.