Excellent review of Mint 13

[runbei]

Dedoimedo did his usual fine job in a review of Mint 13 posted this morning. See http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-maya.html.

Scroll to the bottom for his wrap-up and a few tiny suggestions for improvements.

[xenopeek]

Moved here by moderator

Thanks for sharing

[esteban1uy]

Wow, it keeps growing!!!

2012's Best Linux desktop: Linux Mint 13 - from ZDNet

[bimsebasse]

I've only seen positive reviews, looks like Mint continues to impress newcomers.

dedoimedo as usual has factual errors and odd conclusions, though, but I guess a praise is a praise

[cwwgateway]

Here's a blog post with a few reviews - http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2038, all of them positive, or at least the written ones - I haven't watched the video ones yet.

[bimsebasse]

Here's a blog post with a few reviews - http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2038, all of them positive, or at least the written ones - I haven't watched the video ones yet.

Cheers, very informative. It's annoyingly difficult to disagree with clem on anything when he's so damn sensible all the time

[Monsta]

Here's a blog post with a few reviews - http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2038, all of them positive, or at least the written ones - I haven't watched the video ones yet.

What a big post, possibly the biggest one by Clem so far. Gotta find myself a hefty bit of spare time to read it all.

[Condorman]

And we go from excellent reviews of Linux Mint, to really pretty dumb ones. -> http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2012/08/linux-mint-13-cinnamon-not-quite-there.html The tagline at the top states boldly - "How to choose an operating system for your computer and how to run it there." - but the reality is this guy only reviews Live CD's/USB's, not proper installs. Now to me, though not every live disc is the same, and you can use smaller distros like Puppy and run them live quite happily, I would never run a distro like Mint solely live off a USB and expect perfect performance. I don't think I've used any Linux live that has allowed you to anything other than the most basic stuff, and I certainly would not try to install large important packages and expect it to work running off a USB. For a kick off, quite often after a distros release there are a ton of updates that will inevitably affect your ability to install and use applications without bugs running live-only.

Not only is this a review flawed because of that, but the guy clearly hasn't spent any time with the distro. One giveaway - "There is a panel at the bottom of the screen. It is black, and there is no way to change the colour, as far as I know. That’s a generic GNOME3 issue". If you'd at least spent a wee bit of time with it, you couldn't fail to notice the settings where you can change the themes, and lots are supplied. Not necessarily black. Another - "You may have noticed that there is no switcher between the virtual desktops in the default Linux Mint 13 Maya Cinnamon operating system. Of course, this functionality is still available. If you need the switcher, then you can add this applet to the panel, using the menu from the little triangle in the notification area". Or use the hot corner, again in the settings manager.

There's a couple of things I agree with generally, such as there only being a black screen by default at boot, and the removable devices icon being an image of a desktop, but to me the idea of reviewing a Linux live-only is incredibly flawed, and as a reader I cannot take any review in this fashion seriously. Why not install it, spend some quality time with it, then report back your genuine findings? Who runs a Linux like Mint live?

I hate to play the offended fanboy (I'm not really), but this is silly. Am I wrong? Is it just me?

[DrHu]

but to me the idea of reviewing a Linux live-only is incredibly flawed, and as a reader I cannot take any review in this fashion seriously. Why not install it, spend some quality time with it, then report back your genuine findings? Who runs a Linux like Mint live

I tend to agree with that, a cursory look at some GUI screens and a quick run through of an install to a usb for example or even a VM is not the same as a completely fresh install to a hard drive partition
--one item that tends to come up is the graphics and the wireless driver working on the live session but not when installed

I don't tend to see such reviews as being any more informative than the distributors own how to guide with their installation screens and a few main featured screen (dialog) selections: file manage, package manager and networking (sometimes)
--as a matter of fact, the Welcome web screen provided by Mint (Mepis was first to use that approach I think) provides a good access, provided you have an internet connection that works to show a run-through of the feature set of that Linux version you are using..

The only thing I can positively say about that approach is that it helps introduce new users to the features of a particular Linux distribution, but not much more than you would find via a simple internet search
--as advertising for a distribution or Linux in general, it is probably a good thing (that it happens at all!)

[supermuble]

I got tired of Windows 7, which got so slow after installing the recommended updates, that I couldn't even use it. Windows 7 is not very fast on early model 64 bit processors, even with a good amount of ram, I have never been very impressed with the laggy speed of Windows 7. I searched Google and found Linux Mint reviews and I was pretty surprised by how good the reviews were, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I've experimented with many many of the "plug and play" user friendly Linux distros over the last 6 years, Mint, Fedora, Mepis, Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, etc. So far, Linux Mint has been the best one. I have never written a review on any computer program or computer OS before, but I actually feel proud to tell everyone about how good Linux Mint 13 is. I have version 13, Maya, 64 bit.

Pros:
1.) Linux Mint has done every single thing I've wanted to do with it, right out of the gate, without installing ANYTHING. All of my NTFS format drives are found and mounted and show up on the desktop seamlessly, there is not hooplah, jumping through fiery hoops to see all my old Windows based files!
2.) My sound card worked, my wireless card worked, all my media, videos and music played almost flawlessly, (1 small clip I tried playing didn't have sound, but this happens with Windows 7 and other OS systems too.)
3.) Linux mint is TWICE AS FAST as Windows 7, all around. Its FOUR TIMES faster than the last Ubuntu OS I used. I don't know how or why, but it's blazing fast. When you open firefox it instantly opens, with no lag. The same goes for any program you open, it opens as fast as your hard drive can load it, there is no mysterious silent lag like Windows 7.
4.) Linux Mint comes with all programs and you need nothing in order to do most of the things you use a computer for. The software that is bundled with it is simply outstanding, including the new version of Gimp which is just as easy as Adobe Photoshop, and does almost everything that Adobe does, just as simply.
5.) Linux Mint is the ONLY LINUX distro I've used that has done every single thing I've asked of it. in the past there was always a problem that I could not wrap my brain around, and something would not work, so I would be forced to go back to Windows XP or Windows 7. Well Linux Mint is the first distro that has allowed me to make a permanent switch. I almost cannot believe I am saying this because I have tried at least 25 different distros before, over the course of 6 years, and eventually I gave up hope on Linux, and I decided it would never be as easy to use as Windows. Well they finally nailed it! Props to you guys who spent all your hard work making Linux Mint. It is one seriously slick package.

Cons: (I had to try really hard to come up with this list.... These really aren't even cons...)
1.) My ML-1710 samsung laser printer wouldn't work at first. I reinstalled it from the Linux Mint control panel, and it started working great! Not sure why I had to do this? No codes or terminal screen commands were necessary I just reinstalled it.
2.) I cannot find a graphic equalizer in the music player or in the sound settings (I'm sure I can download a new music player).
3.) The task bar on the bottom of the screen is too small and frail, although it looks really good. I wish I could click a setting and make it larger without too much fuss.
4.) No image batch resize tool in gimp, nice for resizing all your photos in a batch to upload them to facebook, or email them to people.
5.) When you run your mouse cursor up to the top left of the screen, it immedietely minmizes your program and shows a view of all the windows you have open, so you can toggle between different programs and web pages. Well, this happens by accident everytime you move your mouse towards the top left of the screen, especially when you are browsing the web. This is highly annoying and I wish this feature was NOT included by default, because it's hard for people who have never seen this feature in their life (people like me!).

Linux Mint overall, is the most impressive Linux distro, for reliability and functionality, that I have ever tried. I am a typical computer user, and I use my computer for work, writing, web pages, photo editing, music and research. Linux Mint has done everything I've wanted to do so far.

[xenopeek]

Nice addition. Not wanting to go off-topic, but just pitching in some of the cons you listed can be easily remedied

Graphical equalizer: There may be a better way, but you can add the PulseAudio Equalizer program with a few steps: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/system-w ... lizer.html

Panel height: Resizing the panel can be done from Cinnamon 1.6. It's just released this month, see announcement here: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=207. You can already install it if you want: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2177. Then go to Cinnamon Settings > Panel to configure the panel height.

Batch image resize: There are various plugins for GIMP that will add batch processing, like this one: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hodsond/dbp.html. You can also just use the convert command from a shell script or the terminal to achieve the same. convert is part of ImageMagick and that is installed by default on Linux Mint 13. Run "man convert" for more info, but there are also plenty of examples online.

Top left corner: Then disable it from Cinnamon Settings > Hot Corner.

[supermuble]

Hi Vincent, thank you so much.

Your feedback wasn't expected and I am extremely happy to see that there are simple remedies to my "cons."

I will also add, that I was worried about video editing capabilities with Linux mint, because I was using Adobe premier. Now I see that there are countless "free" video editing programs that are nearly on par, or equal to Adobe premier that can be downloaded. Now I am not seeing much reason to ever go back to a Windows based operating system.