Mint is overrated

[richyrich]

Try these ;

....

[KBD47]

Probably the best advice for any newbie--of which I am one--is run the live cd/dvd of any distro first before installing it to make sure everything is working--keyboard, printer, internet connection, etc. I've found several popular distros that my computers did not like. Sometimes it just isn't a good match.

[clem]

Wow. I guess the mint fanatics won't like me bashing it but it's really in bad shape.

I guess I was right in the first place that Mint's priority is still the Ubuntu side.

You're guessing a lot...

By the sound of your posts I initially thought I was faced with feedback on a critical issue. I then searched your posts on this forum and I can see you developed a taste for emphasis and drama. I'm glad this isn't a targetted effort against Linux Mint and with a little more patience and focus I'm sure you'll either find a solution to your problems or find the right alternative operating system for you.

Good luck.

[telenux]

Wow. I guess the mint fanatics won't like me bashing it but it's really in bad shape.

I guess I was right in the first place that Mint's priority is still the Ubuntu side.

You're guessing a lot...

By the sound of your posts I initially thought I was faced with feedback on a critical issue. I then searched your posts on this forum and I can see you developed a taste for emphasis and drama. I'm glad this isn't a targetted effort against Linux Mint and with a little more patience and focus I'm sure you'll either find a solution to your problems or find the right alternative operating system for you.

Good luck.

Trust me, I am not interested in drama.

My outbursts were too much. I'll refrain from doing so in the future.

I thought my concern about the database was justified and I don't understand how the mint-x-theme package would cause problems.

I thought I provided feedback or at least my preferences on a few instances. I like choice so on a matter of principle, I prefer the choice of having the 'Mint theme' google search and 'Mint message' when opening terminal console or not. I am positive they can be modified but one has to read a manual or find the 'how-to' someplace. It's not obvious where they are.

Thanks for the reply and to others who tried to help, I appreciate your efforts.

I'm not sure a re-install will help but if I get around to it, I might try once more.

It might be my hardware but I have had Debian, Fedora, and Lubuntu on this laptop at times and this is the first time I had that sort of issue.

I will explain my issues more congenially next time.

[randomizer]

It might be my hardware but I have had Debian, Fedora, and Lubuntu on this laptop at times and this is the first time I had that sort of issue.

Hardware issues can show up at random. Like I said before, run fsck on your root filesystem and see if it picks up any problems. An I/O error is not a good thing and you want to rule out (or detect) a hardware issue as early as possible to avoid more problems down the track.

Remember that fsck must be run on an unmounted filesystem, so a Live CD (or a dual booted distro if you have that) is the way to go.

[zacklyke]

An open letter to telenux and those like them:

Might I just add this conversation could have been considered null and void from the get-go when the OP used words such as "invest" in a community purely driven by the donations of its users and the little ad revenue these sites generate? Let's not forget you're talking about an Ubuntu-based distro trying to be another Ubuntu. If you're from the states, we're in the midst of a juicy contradiction Starburst commercial right now.

No but by all means, telenux, excuse the Mint corporate elite who are out to steal your hard-earned money to provide you with outstanding services, none of which you technically pay for.

In all honesty I hope you stick around and find we're really a great group of people interested in providing a proper experience for the alternative OS user community. It's hard to find people this dedicated who are almost entirely doing it on charity. Alternatively, if you show up with your guns cocked you should come to realize how hard it must be for the kind people who pour their heart and soul in to this distribution to take your arguments as though you were a polite user with a suggestion. Most people in this thread have. I can honestly say I'd do the same, but you certainly must realize how you come across and it's the wrong attitude to have in an open source community.

There aren't teams of thousands making Linux Mint distributions catered specifically for telenux. In fact, half the fun and battle with Linux Mint, and any open source project in general, is taking something great on its own and tailoring it to be great for you. That's the freedom and benefits you get.

If you think the Linux Mint gang is sitting in giant leather chairs counting their Canonical or Red Hat cash while they laugh at you because you chose to use the Linux Mint sponsored Google page instead of going to www.google.com, you need to educate yourself further in the matters at hand before making accusations that reflect poorly on not just your words but people who think it's okay to vehemently attack hard working developers that do this as a labor of love.

I'm sorry for the rant, but you brought this same conversation to the IRC channel and I just think you've made your point that you're unhappy (all though not sure yourself why you are) and are blaming people instead of getting your hands a little dirty because baby, that's what Linux is all about.

[mzsade]

Er..don't mean to gang up on you or anything, but the home page is configured via firefox>>Edit>>Preferences>>General.

[tek_heretik]

Whoa! First of all, every FREE Linux is FREE (use at your own RISK!), secondly, NOTHING is perfect in this world! Here is an idea, take a crack at Linux From Scratch, come back and let us know what a wonderful distro YOU wrote. FYI, I have a fairly modern high-end machine with a Brother printer, a webcam, etc, EVERYTHING WORKS. Even had two monitors (one died, went in the garbage) on my nVidia card running in twinview, the nVidia driver enabled me to turn the bright DOWN because the cheap monitor's (an Acer) bright control is messed up. I am running constantly updated 11, it's fast, stable, clean, pretty....I think you are not that Linux savvy and your off-brand cheapie laptop probably doesn't like ANY Linux, lol.

Sorry Mint folks, hate somebody dissin' something EXCELLENT and FREE!

[linuxviolin]

First of all, every FREE Linux is FREE

Mwahahaaa, good to have corrected. I was going posting about this...

[telenux]

It might be my hardware but I have had Debian, Fedora, and Lubuntu on this laptop at times and this is the first time I had that sort of issue.

Hardware issues can show up at random. Like I said before, run fsck on your root filesystem and see if it picks up any problems. An I/O error is not a good thing and you want to rule out (or detect) a hardware issue as early as possible to avoid more problems down the track.

Remember that fsck must be run on an unmounted filesystem, so a Live CD (or a dual booted distro if you have that) is the way to go.

Yours was a good theory so I ran some tests (HDD is a laptop PATA IDE drive):

I ran this from my Debian partition (that is, /dev/sda7):

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16.2
e2fsck 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)
/dev/sda6: clean, 136561/3268608 files, 1183537/13056820 blocks

Disk Utility 2.30.1
returned the message:
File system is clean.


SMART Data shows:
13 bad sectors


I think it might be a little high but I am not sure that should cause the problem experienced. I have straight Debian on another partition but no similar problem. I will try re-installing on the Mint install (partition) another edition of Debian or maybe something like aptosid.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[TBABill]

Probably a good idea telenux. I just had some quirky issues on an older install of Windows 7. I would have sworn I had a virus, malware or trojan my antivirus wouldn't pick up. Finally the frustration had me ready to throw a $1200 HP Touchsmart with 25 inch screen out the window. I decided to just sacrifice Windows (never made backup disks for that PC) and tried to install Linux on it. It took me almost an hour of swapping disks between Ubuntu, Mint and Debian to finally realize the ##!@#@! hard drive had failed. By the next morning the machine just booted to the Bios screen, then a flashing cursor.

Not saying your issue is the HDD, but that machine has now eaten 2 hard drives over 3 years and the symptoms did not at first make me suspect the drive was bad. Hopefully your issue is easier to both find and fix, but another distro is probably the best bet to be sure it's not just LMDE it struggles with.