Mint 12 Lisa Final

[penn07]

Downloaded Mint 12 Lisa "Final" from softpedia

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/O ... 0183.shtml

I installed Mint 12 last night on a spare drive but my first impressions are not good, Gnome, Gnome classic and Mate all seem to be compromises none of them are as refined as Mint 11 or LMDE, Mint 12 is a better alternative to Ubuntu with Unity but I feel Mint 11 or LMDE are more usable.
I know its early days for Mint / Gnome 3 and I am sure there will be many improvements over time, perhaps though Mint should drop Ubuntu based distro and build only on Debian.

[proxima_centauri]

I know its early days for Mint / Gnome 3 and I am sure there will be many improvements over time, perhaps though Mint should drop Ubuntu based distro and build only on Debian.

GNOME3 is currently trickling it's way down to Debian Testing.

[penn07]

I know its early days for Mint / Gnome 3 and I am sure there will be many improvements over time, perhaps though Mint should drop Ubuntu based distro and build only on Debian.

GNOME3 is currently trickling it's way down to Debian Testing.

Deep joy !!!!!!!

[Stennie]

Today I loaded Linuxmint 12 64 for the third time, loaded all the updates but no luck, it broke again and won't boot.
Think Linuxmint12 should be stamped beta forever and Clem should move on to Linuxmint 13.
There are just to many major bugs for this to be considered as a viable desktop.....

[Joe_Linux]

Today I loaded Linuxmint 12 64 for the third time, loaded all the updates but no luck, it broke again and won't boot.
Think Linuxmint12 should be stamped beta forever and Clem should move on to Linuxmint 13.
There are just to many major bugs for this to be considered as a viable desktop.....

I seriously like Clem's efforts, but I have to agree that 12 Final is actually not ready for prime time, and most likely Ubuntu 11.10 isn't either. I'm sticking with Ubuntu 10.04 until something viable for a production system actually appears. I can live with the novelty of Clem's extensions to Gnome 3, but it appears to me that his extensions are built upon a very weak foundation. Perhaps Shuttleworth should chuck Unity and use MGSE instead. Somehow some entity needs to put a major effort making Gnome 3 or KDE4 actually user friendly. Maybe XFCE is in fact the answer. Anyway for the moment I'm just going to wait it out while experimenting with USB sticks. I would like to know where to report actual issues and concerns as it needs to be done in an organized manner.

[Stennie]

I wonder if the mate software is making Linuxmint 12 64 unstable.
Does the cd version include it...

[cwwgateway]

No, the cd version doesn't include MATE, although I doubt (but I'm not sure) it would affect Gnome 3. Personally, I have had few issues with Linux Mint 12. I have had a few problems with speed but I attribute that to virtual box, as the live dvd (without updates) was mostly fine.

[wumingism]

I know its early days for Mint / Gnome 3 and I am sure there will be many improvements over time, perhaps though Mint should drop Ubuntu based distro and build only on Debian.

GNOME3 is currently trickling it's way down to Debian Testing.

Yeh agree ubuntu is getting more buggy and more bloated these days. Debian is awesome.

[ernestj]

You are right, XFCE is the answer. I am a fan of MINT, but GNOME 3 has not won me over. I really have poor feelings for it. I was a Windows user from the beginning of time. Switch to Ubuntu 11.04 and was perfectly happy with it. It was perfect enough for me to chuck Windows for good. Ubuntu 11.10 is still good. However, GNOME 3 is completely unusable. I would prefer to go back to Windows than work with GNOME 3.
Then I found XFCE, added a AWN Dock and absolutely love it. I added Synapse to get apps quickly. I found that I typed the first couple of letters in Unity to get apps anyways, so this works perfect. Best of all, it is fast and light.

[craig10x]

I wanted to like mint 12...really i did...but to me it's just not like previous editions which ran very smooth, very polished and very attractive looking...I know Clem did the best he could with what he has to work with, but i just find it easier and more smooth to use my ubuntu 11.10 with unity...so it looks like i will be staying with that...

[kmb42vt]

I wanted to like mint 12...really i did...but to me it's just not like previous editions which ran very smooth, very polished and very attractive looking...I know Clem did the best he could with what he has to work with, but i just find it easier and more smooth to use my ubuntu 11.10 with unity...so it looks like i will be staying with that...

I actually felt the you before I installed the RC. I'd been following gnome-shell development for example ever since it was an option to install in Gnome 2.32 (version 2.28 if I recall correctly). And although I preferred the final version of Gnome 3/gnome-shell over Unity I still found it mostly unusable and glitchy. I also found the thinking process of the Gnome developers highly questionable as well. However, much to my surprise, I'm sold on Linux Mint 12. The default DE with MGSE, although not quite up to the old Gnome 2.32 desktop standards, is more than usable if still lacking a bit in features and the ability to customize. And I find myself really liking the gnome-shell/MGSE desktop environment.

Even MATE is shaping up a lot faster than I thought it would. By the time they get MATE fleshed out and stable a user won't be able to tell the difference between MATE and Gnome 2.32 except perhaps for the names of some of the more familiar apps. Like Caja instead of Nautilus.

Okay, I seem to have rambled on a bit. That's a bad habit of mine but I'm too old to break it now.

[cwwgateway]

I would like to give my 2 cents on this subject. The mint team had really no good option if you think about it (although I personally really like what they did).
They could have:
1. Given stock gnome 3 - Thank goodness that they didn't. Many people would be unhappy with this decision, as happened with other distros. However, if this is what you want, you can disable the extensions.
2. Given stock unity - I think an almost equal amount of people would have been angry with this decision, and besides the codecs and other tools, it would have been basically a ubuntu + extras. And they couldn't have customized unity much from what I've heard.
3. Given XFCE/another desktop environment - They already offer alternatives which you can use as you please and many people would be unhappy if the switched from gnome.
4. Given Gnome 2.32 - They couldn't have done this and remained compatible with Ubuntu, and therefore it would basically be Mint 11, which you are free to download and use.
5. Given Gnome 3 + extensions - this is what they did and in my opinion the best option. It looks and behaves a fair amount like gnome 2, although I agree that it is not nearly as customizable, and it remains compatible with ubuntu
6. Given MATE - They did this too, which is a lot more than most other distros. This is the only way to give Gnome 2 while staying compatible with Ubuntu. They admit that there are a lot of problems with it, but it is the only option. Again, you are free to use any other version of mint (or anything) if you don't like this or until the bugs are mostly removed.
So, I think that the mint team did everything that they could to keep mint the best distro around !

[craig10x]

I agree with that...i personally don't mind unity, in fact i kind of like working with it in my ubuntu 11.10...but it doesn't have too many customization options at this point in time, where as, like you said, gnome 3 shell does (using the extensions)...

I think both unity and gnome 3 shell itself (probably even more so then unity) will improve in customization ability as time goes on...
and like you i think Clem did the best he could to please the most amount of mint users...Though i do think it would have been nice to have the default with just one panel on bottom...maybe the next version of mint mgse will have it, hopefully...

[d00med]

I had to downgrade to Mint 11. I spent all day giving each DE a shot and it's just more issues than I'm willing to deal with on a daily basis. MATE was particularly unstable. Hopefully a lot of the issues aren't prevalent with most users - I'm rooting for Clem and the Mint team, and I'd like Mint 12 to be hugely successful.

[podagee]

mint 12 is perfect.i installed a 32bit dvd edition on my nieces 64bit comp. and its running perfectly.actually better than my set-up.why dont you give the 32bit a go.
and as to the response of gnome 3 being user friendly,i mean how more friendly do you want it to be?its usable,customizable,everything is very easy to find,and its a lot nicer than kde.i personally dont care for kde,never found it appealing.everything in mint 12 operates perfectly except one bug which isnt too bad.its while in gnome shell,hovering over certain icons will give a flash or pause of screen colors.nothing an alt+f2 doesnt clear up temporarily.put a little time into it and watch how your feelings change toward it.it really is a nice distro

[craig10x]

i may have to install MInt 12 myself and give it a fair chance...ubuntu 11.10 with unity has been working quite well for me but i sort of miss good ol' minty
I hope in future editions (like 13 for example) he makes the default as 1 panel on bottom like the old mints and i hope he can add more minty appearance themes as well..

[stanley82]

I installed mint12 because I ran into disk problems with mint11 on the disk. I hate change so gnome 3 was off to a bad start but I could get to endure and possibly like it. Right now the screen all of a sudden shows me all my open tasks and I wish it would stop. It strikes me as there are some basic bugs there.
The Nvidia driver situation I have learnt to fix and live with.

I got evolution email from the package manager and the only way I can invoke it is from a terminal.

CUPS has a bad bug for parallel port printers. Add prilnter and LP0 is not there any more. It's there in ubuntu 11:10 ??? The CUPS support tell me it's an issue with the distro, or kernel or driver not there or executable. It's there with kernel 3.0.0.12 abd 3.0.0.15. Nasty

If I can get the printer up I'd be happy but hate to go back to mint11, I do not like to be beaten with this stuff. Ian

[arachnia]

If I can get the printer up I'd be happy but hate to go back to mint11, I do not like to be beaten with this stuff. Ian

Have you got your parallel printer sorted yet? I managed to get my Epson PhotoEX working in Mint 12 Cinnamon yesterday so could post the details if you're still stuck. Annie.

[what-is-a-computer?]

yes, please post your details. In Mint 11 cannot get my parallel port to work.