Linux Mint Forums

Ubuntu 9.10 clobbered my system.... lol. Error at 25 percent. After formatting. *sniffsniff*. Downloading a new one right now.

Well, that's just a minor glitch, I'm sure.

I'd be willing to bet that the developers really earned their keeps this time around, and when you finally get it running, even though your sound and/or video and/or networking might not work right or at all, your windows will wobble quite extraordinarily.

lol. I purchased my PC as Linux friendly as I could. The only problem I ever encounter is the nVidia video card. Even WiFi works ootb with Mint/Ubuntu. I'm downloading another copy onto a different pc to burn again.

optimize me wrote:Well, that's just a minor glitch, I'm sure.

I'd be willing to bet that the developers really earned their keeps this time around, and when you finally get it running, even though your sound and/or video and/or networking might not work right or at all, your windows will wobble quite extraordinarily.

Heh, That was definitely worth logging in for just so I could say "lol."

Got to have our priorities ya know...

optimize me wrote:... even though your sound and/or video and/or networking might not work right or at all, your windows will wobble quite extraordinarily.

Facetious, but true. It seems to me that the current state of development of Gnome and even more so KDE and many distros is not particularly to make computing easier and faster for all, but to make more ridiculous, useless eye-candy, i.e. form over substance. Not my idea of progress, but I guess that is what many computer users want....

lagagnon wrote:Not my idea of progress, but I guess that is what many computer users want....

I'm not sure which users that would be. As far as i know, everybody uses a computer to do something - whether it be to play music or movies, do research or work, browse online, check email and stay in touch, and so on.

What does it matter how fancy your cube or skydome is? Who really cares how much the windows wobble? Did we really need Ubuntu developers to spend their time cranking out that new GDM or the xsplash? FFS, they didn't even get xsplash right as they decided to fade it in & out of usplash. confused?

I personally would like to see a moratorium on all eye-candy development for at least a year. The Ubuntu team has no justification for spending valuable time working on cubes and wobbles when I (and everybody else with Intel hardware) is sitting for six months on a cobbled-together xserver that barely does what it's supposed to do. They couldn't even take the time to make a decent, official patch for that mess because they were working on that useless BS.

optimize me wrote:What does it matter how fancy your cube or skydome is? Who really cares how much the windows wobble?

That is my point - I currently notice that a large proportion of computer users nowadays, from newbies through intermediate level, are attracted to the "looks" of the desktop over the functionality and speed of their desktop and its applications. One only need scan computer forums threads (including the Mint forums) to see a great proportion of them deal not so much with function but form. I speak of the numerous threads concerning theming, compiz problems, fonts, desktop screenshots, making GUI applications prettier, etcetera etcetera....

IMHO this is a sad state of affairs and shows a growing trend to superficiality in computing. And golly, I always thought computers were tools to get a job done quicker.

lagagnon wrote:

optimize me wrote:What does it matter how fancy your cube or skydome is? Who really cares how much the windows wobble?

That is my point - I currently notice that a large proportion of computer users nowadays, from newbies through intermediate level, are attracted to the "looks" of the desktop over the functionality and speed of their desktop and its applications. One only need scan computer forums threads (including the Mint forums) to see a great proportion of them deal not so much with function but form. I speak of the numerous threads concerning theming, compiz problems, fonts, desktop screenshots, making GUI applications prettier, etcetera etcetera....

IMHO this is a sad state of affairs and shows a growing trend to superficiality in computing. And golly, I always thought computers were tools to get a job done quicker.

Many people come to Linux, and specifically, to Linux Mint, because it gives them the freedom to set their computing experience as they like. And a great looking DE environment to work in. Windows and Mac are pretty restrictive with how you can run them and the things you can do with them. I think the trend now between the major DE's out there is to balance flexibility and ease of use. Unless you are running some old (read: older than 4 years) hardware, performance isn't an issue (save the few Intel nagging issues that have nothing to do with KDE or Gnome).

As for KDE being bloated - It runs on netbooks, so I'd hardly say it's bloated. If you research, KDE4 has less lines of code than Gnome. And form over substance? What about KOffice? Did you know KOffice has a project application now? This is real-world stuff, as so many people have wanted a MS Project-type app in Linux. or Amarok? Or activities? Activities let you set up desktops for...different activities! Sounds potentially productive to me. Or the KDE Education initiative?

Now I agree on the comments regarding making the *buntu family more solid. And things like Pulse Audio and the Intel graphics issue really need to be laid to bed. It looks like, according to the developer of PA, the PA problems in Ubuntu are due to the way Ubuntu has compiled PA into their kernel. It looks like this was NOT fixed in 9.10: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/pa-in-ubuntu.html

As for Gnome - looks like they must have dug the KDE4 "activities" concept: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/09/gnom ... -tour.html People who do not like KDE4 for looking too modern may have some issues with Gnome3. But, since this is Linux and not Microsoft, just like in KDE you'll be able to change back to some "classic" - type look. Or hey, not upgrade at all.

I'm all for fixing the bugs in the Ubuntu kernel. There's much to be done for the next LTS release in April. But at the same time the people working on the kernel are different from the people working on the desktop. And progress will happen. Some day we might need a better / faster computer to make it run right - i.e. have a good user experience. So far that has not been the case with Ubuntu or Mint. But it might happen.

Users who have performance issues with Linux Mint (Gnome or KDE) generally can't blame "eye candy" for their issues. At least generally not the out-of-box ones. They are, inevitably, hardware issues like OM's Intel problem. And the solution there lies in the kernel.

lagagnon wrote:

optimize me wrote:What does it matter how fancy your cube or skydome is? Who really cares how much the windows wobble?

That is my point - I currently notice that a large proportion of computer users nowadays, from newbies through intermediate level, are attracted to the "looks" of the desktop over the functionality and speed of their desktop and its applications. One only need scan computer forums threads (including the Mint forums) to see a great proportion of them deal not so much with function but form. I speak of the numerous threads concerning theming, compiz problems, fonts, desktop screenshots, making GUI applications prettier, etcetera etcetera....

IMHO this is a sad state of affairs and shows a growing trend to superficiality in computing. And golly, I always thought computers were tools to get a job done quicker.

Computers are not just tools, nor should they be.

I think the developers are doing just fine.

I like a Linux distribution to look well, doesn't have to look best ever
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070903/usercomments

• There are many wonderful "moments" throughout the film. The scene where Redford is out in the ocean on a small sailboat with his good friend and the two are playing the "best ever" game

Quite often see comments abouts fonts, blurry fonts, doesn't look as good as windows; all this angst is a waste of time, and not useful for the developers to pay attention to, and thankfully such users seem to be a minority

So I am not a fan of CDE desktop (a little too much TCL look) for example, but quite like openlook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEN_LOOK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWindows


But I too find the constant tweaking of eye candy to be plain irritation, it does nothing to enhance the system

Let the people who want to play with desktop looks offer their custom themes; they do already, and let the OS /distribution developers concentrate on performance and functionality

Yes you should enhance a GUI application's integration into your desktop choice, but please stop trying to fix the GUI: this has already happened with Kde|Gnome underlying hardware processing Hal | Dcop
--and probably reflects more on market or distribution's choices than functionality or performance or reliability.

Apropos to that, I do think Mint's slab menu is a vast improvement on Ubuntus' (Gnome default) menus.
--and now that they have a look that works well, don't mess it up with Ubuntu's Gnome choices (defaults)