The current state of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[esteban1uy]

Help! I'm becoming an Ubuntu user again, need the support and guidance of the group

12.04 with Cinnamon and Gnome Shell is excellent so far and generally suits me better than Mint 13 with Cinnamon. If only you could have the refinement, polish and dev man hours of Ubuntu and the short distance between dev and user plus the community of Mint (Ubint? [Todo: come up with different name]) instead of having to choose.

Oh no... please, repeat after me:

Clem, grant me the serenity
to accept the things of Mint I cannot change;
courage to change the things of Cinnamon I can;
and wisdom to know the difference with Gnome-shell.

HighMem

[craig10x]

i feel the same way
As you know, i have been running ubuntu 12.04 w/unity for a few months now and love the polished and professional look...but though i like the ubuntu forums, still enjoy the mint forums even more (friendlier, i find)

I hadn't tried Cinnamon session on ubuntu 12.04 up until now but since playing with the live iso of mint 13 w/cinnamon i am really getting "into" using Cinnamon again...I think unity is fine though i must admit i find i can move around somewhat faster with Cinnamon since it is more "conventional" in the way it is used...

On saturday i am adding on Cinnamon session...i could end up switching back to mint (mint 13) with Cinnamon or i may just continue using 12.04 but perhaps with Cinnamon instead of Unity...haven't decided on that as of yet...

But like you i am a bit "conflicted" about which one to use (ubuntu or mint)

[bimsebasse]

The Ubuntu community seems half made up of pesky 15 year old fanboys - I prefer cranky backwards looking middle-aged Minters any day of the week

esteban, the force is strong in you!

[MALsPa]

Help! I'm becoming an Ubuntu user again, need the support and guidance of the group

I feel your pain; I like using Ubuntu.

12.04 with Cinnamon and Gnome Shell is excellent so far and generally suits me better than Mint 13 with Cinnamon. If only you could have the refinement, polish and dev man hours of Ubuntu and the short distance between dev and user plus the community of Mint (Ubint? [Todo: come up with different name]) instead of having to choose.

Well, you could dual-boot 'em and get the best of both worlds. I had both Ubuntu and Mint running here for a long time, through a few different releases of each.

[wei2912]

Help! I'm becoming an Ubuntu user again, need the support and guidance of the group

12.04 with Cinnamon and Gnome Shell is excellent so far and generally suits me better than Mint 13 with Cinnamon. If only you could have the refinement, polish and dev man hours of Ubuntu and the short distance between dev and user plus the community of Mint (Ubint? [Todo: come up with different name]) instead of having to choose.

Changed back after some time. Now i want Mint.

I felt that I should return to Mint after trying out Ubuntu 12.04. It's rather good, but I think that its interface is not yet polished to that extent.

So,
I'm back after a month of Ubuntu 12.04.

[bimsebasse]

Help! I'm becoming an Ubuntu user again, need the support and guidance of the group

I feel your pain; I like using Ubuntu.

12.04 with Cinnamon and Gnome Shell is excellent so far and generally suits me better than Mint 13 with Cinnamon. If only you could have the refinement, polish and dev man hours of Ubuntu and the short distance between dev and user plus the community of Mint (Ubint? [Todo: come up with different name]) instead of having to choose.

Well, you could dual-boot 'em and get the best of both worlds. I had both Ubuntu and Mint running here for a long time, through a few different releases of each.

I do dual-boot but only for testing purposes - Maya with Cinnamon doesn't provide me anything I don't get in Precise with Cinnamon at this point. The other way round I lose the pretty and simple LDM (no fan of MDM) and installing Gnome Shell is a hassle.

/Brian Bentsen,
CEO of Mint Users Currently Ubuntu Users Who Want to Be Mint Users.

[Condorman]

The difference for me is performance. Mint with Cinnamon is brilliantly integrated, and the system loves you for it. It's practically a lightweight OS, and I don't have an amazing PC.

I've recently made my way here from Ubuntu. I've used Ubuntu for many years, in recent times only on and off as I've toyed with the idea of Unity. There comes a time in an Ubuntu users life when you have to just admit to yourself that you don't like Unity. I don't hate it, I'm not a hater. I like the new and I like the flash. I wanted desperately to love Unity. But I don't. I love Shell, and since discovering it yesterday, I love Cinnamon. Absolutely love it. It is the perfect modern desktop environment.

[craig10x]

I have been a long time user of mint who returned to ubuntu 11.10 and then to ubuntu 12.04 with unity...i got to like it a lot but recently i tried Zorin 6 Release Candidate (the iso has a few bugs which seem to go away when installed) and i must say i am really impressed! The RC is only available in 32 bits but the final release will of course have both 32 and 64 bit...I have used Zorin in the past and always liked it but never installed it before...for me, Zorin 6 will be a "keeper"...

It's based on Ubuntu 12.04 of course, and is very fast, smooth and snappy and just has a great "feel" to the whole thing....To adopt for Gnome 3 they very cleverly worked out the use of the AWN (Avant Window Manager) dock and it's used to create the lower panel it has instead (just like mint...1 panel on bottom)...and for the menu it is the good old gnomenu which is preset to a "Windows 7" look style slab menu to help windows converts feel more comfortable (though there is about a dozen other slab menu styles one can use if they prefer...i kind of like the windows 7 default one though...it is cute...lol)...

Otherwise, it is like a highly customized ubuntu with cute compiz effects by default, nice fonts in the windows (ubuntu style) colors, theming, etc...and i think they do other little things to ubuntu to make it run snappier too...

If someone wants to check it out, go to the blog announcement on their site (it will lead you to the proper link)...the main download would be the old Zorin 5 (gnome 2 version)...

Here is a newly posted video review of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5K6nYhXwdY

Only weak spot is the Zorin community is a bit light on activity...my favorite forums are ubuntu and mint of course...but of course it is ubuntu underneath, so plenty of places to get help...though they do try over there...

But when the 64 bit version is released, i am installing for sure...using it made me realize that though i like Unity, the old style way of working a desktop is a bit easier to work with

I am fond of Cinnamon also but i have to give the "edge" to Zorin 6....really love it

[MALsPa]

Re: Zorin, I wonder how many Mint (and, maybe Debian) users would take issue with this, from Zorin's home page (http://www.zorin-os.com/):

Zorin OS is a multi-functional operating systemdesigned specifically for Windows users who want to have easy and smooth access to Linux. It is based on Ubuntu which is the most popular Linux operating system in the world.

Anyway, looks like a nice distro.

[craig10x]

Thanks....it is
I know what you mean...well, i think they try to get a lot of windows converts to move over to linux by having that default "windows 7" looking slab menu and panel that looks like windows...but in reality, it's really ubuntu with lots of added refinements, once you get past that part...

I've made my panel a bit smaller (from 35 pixels to 25 pixels...thought it was too large) and right now i am using one of the other (of the many available) slab menu options which has a "favorites" section (the default windows 7 one does not) and it looks and work really well....and doesn't even have that hint of windows at all...so it's easy to move away from that look if you don't want to be reminded of windows (lol)...

There are even little "window previews" images that pop up when you point your mouse to something you have on the lower panel...so mine feels a lot like KDE (the slab feels like the kde kick off menu) which gives it a bit of KDE type of feel, actually..except of course, otherwise, it is GNOME of course

It really has a great look (the way they customize it) and nice little compiz effects...and a very smooth feel about it...and in the awn preferences, there are tons of applets that can be added, you can applications to the start up menu, etc etc...very versatile for sure...

So i would say if an experience linux user likes the ubuntu base, but is looking for an alternative to unity (aside from Cinnamon) this is a really nice choice...

[bimsebasse]

Re: Zorin, I wonder how many Mint (and, maybe Debian) users would take issue with this, from Zorin's home page (http://www.zorin-os.com/):

Zorin OS is a multi-functional operating systemdesigned specifically for Windows users who want to have easy and smooth access to Linux. It is based on Ubuntu which is the most popular Linux operating system in the world.

Anyway, looks like a nice distro.

That's just stating a trivial fact. Gotta love the added "in the world". Not just the most popular Linux distro but most popular in the world. I thought only kids said that

[zerozero]

Well, it is in volume (ubuntu and ubuntu based distros) i think it is supposed to be about 20 million globally...so in that sense, when they say that it is the most used linux system in the world, that would be a true statement

By the way, just to show anyone who checked out the video or saw the screenshots on their website and groaned...ohh, it looks like windows 7...
actually, as i said, it is only the default menu that gives it that look...otherwise, it is all linux all the way

And in fact..check out this screenshot....i simply made the panel smaller in the gnomenu settings (35 pixels to 25 pixels) and picked out this alternate slab menu style from the dozen or so available, and this is what it looks like now (and not a trace of windows 7...lol)...

Actually, i don't mind the default look, but most of the other menus, have a favorites section...here's mine on the favorites...

ZorinOs.png (723.54 KiB) Viewed 1726 times