Mate not ready for prime time

[mpiter]

Let me ask these questions please ... If I were to just stick with Mint 11, after October when it is no longer updated ... what would happen?
- Would the existing updates still be available through the Update Manager?

I am not part of the Linux Mint team so I cannot answer with 100 % confidence. I just write out of my personal experience with Ubuntu since I still manage my girlfriend's Ubuntu 10.10 for which support stopped a few months ago.

Yes, the existing updates would still be available giving you the opportunity to have the most up-to-date Linux Mint 11 possible.

- Would the software repository still be available?
- Would the packages still be there in Package Manager?

Yes, to test this I have just installed a few minutes ago a package on my girlfriend's computer. It worked. I see no reasons why the Mint team would do something different than the Ubuntu team for this.

- What realistic real world security threats would I expose myself to by not having the latest kernel and so forth?

Not much. Today Linux viruses are almost non existent. The main attacks aimed at Linux, as far as I know, are taking control of your computer to use its resources, e.g., to make a spam dispatcher. If you keep your computer behind a NAT network, it is very unlikely that it will be a target. If you keep your computer with a public IP address, that is another story. I even think that a computer with recent updates has more security holes that an old distribution after the end of its support. New features means new security holes. Mate is really young while Gnome 2.32 was rock solid. Of course, I assume that you do not store vital data that people want to steal at any price.

- What am I NOT asking that should give me pause for consideration by sticking with Mint 11 after October?

To me the whole story boils down to a simple question: Does a more recent Mint version offer you a feature that was missing in Linux Mint 11 and that is really important to you? If the answer is "yes", try to update your graphic card and go for the new version. If the answer is no, stick to Mint "11".

As you could see, you more or less reached the limits of your hardware for very recent desktops (probably just your graphic chipset). Keeping updating your computer with new OS version is likely to become hard. After almost 25 years of Unix-based systems, my feeling is that you will loose more than you would gain. If I were you, I would stick to Mint 11.

[mpiter]

@JoeBingo

After your comments about XFCE being old looking, I downloaded Linux Mint 13 XFCE and opened a Live session with my USB key. I installed Compiz from a PPA which is less bugged that the regular Compiz version, I set my desktop exactly as I had done it with Gnome 2.32 and Mate, and I could not functionally see any differences with the two other desktop environments.

I had used XFCE for a few years in the past. When I switched 2 years ago to Gnome 2.32 just by curiosity, after setting up my desktop as I liked, XFCE and Gnome 2.32 were the same to me. Of course, I installed packages from both worlds and used those that I liked. Working with XFCE does not forbid you to use Nautilus or Evolution.

I do not advise you to switch to XFCE, it is just for your information. Best regards.

[mpiter]

About CPU resources consumed by Linux Mint 13 Mate or XFCE 64-bit editions. I agree with JoeBingo that Mint 13 uses more CPU for unknown reasons to me. I noticed this with Mint 12, but I have not investigated this deeply because it is not a problem with my architectures. My computers stay responsive despite the CPU load. But I often notice with xload a load above 50 %. This is confirmed by uptime but it is contradicted by top, htop, ps -aux, and the GUI resource analyzer that all show me processes that do not account for a total above 10 %. The System Monitor Mate applet also shows a instant CPU consumption close to 0 while the load is way above 0.

This is something that has bugged me for a while, but I presently do not want to spend time on it. What is the difference between the CPU load measured by uptime and the CPU consumption measured by top?

[JoeBingo]

DANG !!! Awesome responses mpiter !!! Way ...
I will get to the tutorial a bit later. For now, I'm all happy and stuff while up in Mint 11 Katya with my old desktop

AND ...

I broke down and slicked my DELL Lattitute D830 laptop and installed Mint 13 MATE just for grins and giggles late last night.
Mate-system-monitor showed a steady load of between 16-18% AT IDLE !!! ... and that's with a pretty dang new nVidia card and a dual core processor !!!
However comma, after downloading and installing nVidia drivers ... mate-system-monitor settled down to between 0-2% at idle.

I may be using the wrong graphics driver on my desktop when running Mint 13 (dunno) ... I stumbled on a terminal command somewhere last night that shows the drivers used and it said in Mint 11 I was using i915 for the graphics driver. I will have to check that in Mint 13 next time I try it on the desktop.

BUT ... back to the laptop ...

I have a DELL DW1390 wireless card installed in the laptop. Via Mint 13, "Additional Drivers" ... it was recommended to download and install the Broadcom STA Wireless Driver. That DID NOT get my wireless working. WHAT DID WORK ... was to disable the STA driver via the same "Additional Drivers" panel ... AND ... run this terminal command ... sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer ... wireless then came right up immediately after reboot !!! WOooHOoo !!!

CONCLUSION: Mint 13 MATE runs absolutely fine on my laptop IF and WITH the addition of recommended nVidia display drivers AND if the terminal command (above) is used for wireless driver download and install, RATHER THAN the Mint recommended driver ... STILL working on getting the desktop to run Mint 13, but SUSPECT it MAY be a display driver issue OR a different driver MAY help anyway.

[Myrmidon83]

Joe, as soon as I read your inxi output I knew what your issue was.

Your gfx card is the DREADED 82845g. I struggled like hell to get ANY linux to work on that for a year, the only one that eventually worked was Bodhi. Save yourself the hassle, that card is horrendous, upgrade or get a new card.

Learn from my nightmare.

[JoeBingo]

Thank you for suggesting a look a Bodhi. I had looked at a half dozen or so distros via live CD but Bodhi was the first that i had actually installed. It's an interesting distro that I felt was promising. However, it was just too much of a learning curve for me and too inconvenient for my tastes. I was a bit lost. No right click menus ... no desktop icons ... I couldn't figure out how to add keyboard shortcuts that weren't listed in the available menu ... I couldn't figure out how to change the file association for the little world icon on the "shelf"/taskbar to point to Firefox instead of the included browser ... when I tried to open folders and files, I found that double click didn't work. I had to click once to highlight and then press "Enter" to open files and folders.

It just seemed like everything I tried to do with Bodhi, was either seemingly impossible, required exhaustive reconfiguration or was totally different from what I'm used to. It was almost as though I were using a computer for the first time LOL.

Bottom line is that if the only Linux distro that worked on this computer was Bodhi ... I would go back to windows xp which runs fine and I'm very familiar with.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a local mom and pop computer store here in town and picked up an old nVidia 5200 128meg video card they had laying around. So far, I'm able to now run Linux Mint 13 maya/mate ... somewhat barely. But I gotta say ... Mint is the best distro out there I've found out (for someone with little Linux experience and coming from windows) ... I just don't know how much longer my hardware can try to keep up.

And I still don't understand how I could run Mint 11 without the 5200 video card and just using the Intel onboard video and everything was snappy and fast ... and all of a sudden, just 2 mint editions later (basically one really) ... my computer is struggling so. Why ??

[mpiter]

As previously written, I also saw a strong increase in CPU usage going from Mint 11 to 12 then 13. But it did not bother me that much because my hardware was fast enough to cope with it without slowing down.

I regularly do all level 1 to 3 updates and now Mint does not require high CPU usage as it did a few weeks ago. I have no idea about what was consuming the CPU but in August my CPU usage average was around 0.6 to 0.8 processes while it is now almost always below 10 %, even close to 1 or 2 % when I do not have an Internet browser on.

Do you regularly install the updates?

[JoeBingo]

Yep ... all updates installed. In fact, I use terminal commands to ensure all updates are installed ...
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

With the nVidia 5200 card, I'm now using the recommended nVidia 173 drivers.

I've unchecked non-needed start-ups and services associated with laptop usage, remote access, assistive technologies and services my CPU doesn't support. I've removed modem manager, blue tooth support and zeitgeist.

I've installed Mate 1.4 (seemed to bring CPU usage down just a tiny bit)

Interestingly, I too have experienced less/more stable CPU usage over time as well. Now at idle ... System Monitor is showing 7-15%, while at times ... 4-10% and am no longer experiencing large, seemingly unaccounted for spikes while at idle. <<< not sure how much of that has to do with the added video card and system tweaks.

Yet, nothing I've done makes Mint 13 as fast, snappy and flawless as Mint 11 was right out of the box ... on my desktop computer.