Why Mint over Ubuntu?

[idledragon]

I've used Mint 6.0 and many versions of Ubuntu. I actually just installed 9.04 on my netbook. I love Mint 6.0, but what I like it the look and feel.

What is fundamentally different? Is it 'mint-tools' and look and feel? Or are there other things that I'm just not seeing that are changed (is it going to be a huge chance from Mint 6 to 7?). All the reviews of Ubuntu latest are very positive and I realize that Mint will integrate 'things' from it, but what does that mean? I mean I can adjust the look and feel of Ubuntu to replicate something close to Mint.

I think my question boils down to why Mint over Ubuntu? Don't get me wrong, I love my experience with Mint, but I want a little more than the basic why. (Don't want: it comes down to being able to choice)...what does that choice really mean?

On a side note, I've been considering the KDE version. Is the latest version of it buggy? My sense is that gnome works much better with Mint, but I think that probably unfounded. Thoughts?

[Aging Technogeek]

Why spend all that time setting up Ubuntu to be "something close to Mint"? You need to get mplayer to work (it's already done in Mint), wifi problems to solve (not so much in Mint) other functional tweaks. Plus the cosmetics of the thing (getting rid of that funky brown theme). And when you've done all that you still don't have the Mint tools (mintInstall, mintUpdate, mintUpload , mintMenu, etc.) .

If you do all this you end up with Mint. Why not just install Mint and save all that time and aggravation?

[AlexMex90]

I have found Mint to be more "newbie friendly" because everything on my notebook worked out-of-the-box some minor configuration needed.

[lexon]

I found Mint to be easier to use than Ubuntu just like others have said. For me, it was a DVD application that works without having to configure.
The only issue I had was the system seems to have a couple issues as I got more updates so I slipped in another IDE drive and installed Mint again. Very easy to setup like the first Mint but I do not do updates anymore. Right now there are 291 updates waiting.
Besides, it is always nice to have a spare drive ready to go. Some years ago I had a drive fail. I have a hard drive rack in the desktop.

lexon

[idledragon]

I guess I'll come back to my initial questions "What is fundamentally different? Is it 'mint-tools' and look and feel? Or are there other things that I'm just not seeing that are changed (is it going to be a huge chance from Mint 6 to 7?)"

I did reinstall Mint on my MSI Wind, but with my latest update the wireless went down (just loaded the old kernel and it works fine).

I do really like how much everything is integrated together...I wonder if with Mint 7.0 is going to detect the wireless card automatically....I guess U 9.04 does now.

[shane]

Being based on Ubuntu, Mint is sometimes hard to differentiate from Ubuntu or shed the 'Ubuntu plus codecs' image. But Mint is more than that. Mint tries to get as much working out of the box as possible. This includes codecs, Java Flash, online media, wireless, etc. Also Mint tries to fix some bugs which are usually bad default configurations in default Ubuntu... or at least provide an easy way to configure things properly.

Then there are the Mint tools. mintMenu is leaps and bounds ahead of the default Gnome menu... and with the Gloria, I think people will sit up and take notice. It is really the way a modern menu should be done (though not perfect... I don't like that you have to scroll in the menu). Think of searching in the menu for an application and if it is not installed... the menu offering to search and/or install the application for you! It's 2009! That's the way it should be!

mintInstall is another great tool... also not perfect (I don't like that it opens a whole lot of windows and dialogs). The .mint files provide the packager with many more options than simply a GUI for apt. It is a really good tool and I think would be a great model to follow for commercial applications in Linux that don't want to build a ton of packages for all the different Linux distros.

Many aspects seem trivial for most seasoned Linux users. But for those who are new or not as technically inclined, having almost everything work out of the box is wonderful. Even for Linux veterans, it is great to know that certain things will just work... so you can get to what you want to do much faster. This is what brought me to Mint from Ubuntu. Now, being part of the team I see why it is so. The standard required by anything released under the Mint banner is very very high. And that guarantees quality which seems to be lacking in some ways in Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has some flaws... but if Mint is great, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.