MINT SUCCESS AND THE SPIRIT OF GNU

[GrayWizardLinux]

same hear!!!!!

[Aevum]

Every one of my friends who tried out Mint didn't regret it, that's a big success isn't it? I think we're getting more and more known, or at least that's just my hope!

[npap]

Hello my friends,

There was a time when I was very confident about the success of Mint: I predicted that it would reach the 5th place in the DistroWatch list.

Look at Linux Mint now!
I am surely proud to belong to the Mint community.
If Socrates were alive today, he would have been a part of the project.

Cheers,
npap

[blogger]

Let's see what GNU is all about
http://www.gnu.org/

[Aevum]

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.

[den1m]

double post, see next

[den1m]

Indeed true what you say, but listen up, what separates mint from every other linux distro, including ubuntu, is that it is so COMPLETE.

It has pretty looks, codecs and everything you need pre installed. But while ubuntu still is clinging on to this 700mb limit, why cant mint do something a little different than being just a better version of ubuntu?

Listen up, mint team. Go DVD! Where ubuntu refuse to think in those lines, this might be a area for mint. Mint is more and more like OSX on mac, and thats what mint should aim for. User-friendlyness to the fingertips, with a complete OS that has everything you need. Gimp, inkscape, blender, openshot video editor, avidemux, audacity, XBMC media center, lmms, scribus, mypaint, google earth, skype, a FTP-client like filezilla, cheese webcamapp, sunbird, kompozer, glipper and desktop areas at the taskbar, maybe even calibre for ebooks and add back some games, preinstalled in a complete OS package that has EVERYTHING you will ever need by default. Maybe even TOR as default with the ability to fire it up with vidalia in the menu, plus OTR encryption by default in pidgin. And ad a big amount of cool fonts for use with gimp, scribus or openoffice, its lots of it on the net. I think its a mistake to try to mimic windows with its limitations on the default setup, windows users will have no trouble understanding these benifits in linux and will be positivily surprised. It could be like a free open source alternative to OSX that covers all aspects a user can think of, user-friendly to the fingertips. Why buy a mac if you can buy a cheap PC and install mint for free that has EVERYTHING with a few clicks? I see no application that has this now. It doesnt matter if noobs doesnt use many of the apps, but if its preinstalled, a noob might discover and start to use some of these great freeware apps and thereby increase its use and encourage to even further development.

I always install all the mentioned applications, but for a newbie he might not even know it exists and want to go back to windows to use adobe illustrator because he does not know of inkscape and the fact inkscape is just as good.

Oh and BTW, one option i miss in mint that ubuntu has, is the ability to right click on the menu and automatically add it to startup. Gthumb should also be the standard image viewer.

[metalfan24]

Hi all, My name is Lee, First time poster (and linux Mint user) From Vic, Australia

Well, last time I used linux (for the first time) was Redhat way back in like.... 99 or something, I remember a commandline interface, and hours scraping around with "help" commands trying to figure out how to boot into GUI haha, needless to say at the time I felt it to complex for me (idiotic mistake).
Mint is great (running 2 comps on Linux Mint 8: Helena), I've even got my gf using it no troubles, and she isn't really all that computer literate.

I think I burnt the first disc too quickly though, I got errors on the first comp and ended up booting to commandline.
After screwing around with apt-get I managed to download everything that was (seemingly) missing/damaged and haven't had any issues yet (all codecs work fine, etc) it's been a long time since I looked at a command line, and it still only took 2 minutes to figure out what needed to be done and fix the problem.
Second computer, went seamlessly, perfectly even!.
Will definately be keeping Mint on the hdd... permanently, and recommending it to anyone that's had enough of windows and wants an approachable alternative.

Great Job

[gizmodo]

well, i think the linux mint community is one of the best i have ever seen. it is close to the devolepers. (ever seen mark shuttleworth on irc? well i didn't and i have seem clem quite a lot times in the 2 weeks i have been using linux mint) it isn't a big shouting pool like the ubuntu forums, and i a lot smaller, (which i think is better)

[JonM33]

well, i think the linux mint community is one of the best i have ever seen. it is close to the devolepers. (ever seen mark shuttleworth on irc? well i didn't and i have seem clem quite a lot times in the 2 weeks i have been using linux mint) it isn't a big shouting pool like the ubuntu forums, and i a lot smaller, (which i think is better)

Yes, most of the people here are nice. Recently I have seen one that is a very negative poster. Reminds me of the openSUSE and Ubuntu people that drove me away from using Linux a couple years ago. But alas, I enjoy using Mint far too much. One bad egg isn't going to ruin my overall experience with such a complete and user friendly OS.

[npap]

--

[npap]

To understand the essence of Free Software, read the following dialogue between Socrates and Antiphon (free translation of Xenophon, A Memoir, 6).



ANTIPHON: I believe that you are a righteous man. But I do not consider you wise. I think that even you yourself know that, since you do not receive money for your teachings. On the other hand, your clothing or your house or anything else of your possessions, if you think it has any monetary value, you will not give it to anyone for free, or even at a price below its value. It is therefore obvious that if you think your teaching has some value, you should collect the appropriate money. You may be just because you do not cheat out of greed, but wise you cannot be because you know things without value.

SOCRATES: O Antiphon, I think that selling someone's beauty and wisdom is obscene work. Because if someone is selling his beauty to whomever desires it, we call him a prostitute, but if anyone knows someone who is handsome in body and spirit, and befriends him, we consider him a wise man.
Exactly the same happens with wisdom. Those who sell it to those who want it we call them Sophists (Note: Sophists received money for their teachings). But anyone who understands that someone is intelligent and teaches him something good and makes him his friend, that man, we believe, is a good and kind citizen.

So, as someone else who is pleased when he has a good horse or dog (material goods), so I, in the same way and even more so, am pleased when I have good friends, and if I know something good, I teach it and recommend it to others who I think will benefit from this virtue.
And the treasures of the old wise men, which they leave written in their books, I study together with my friends, and if we see something good, we talk about it and consider it a great gain if, in that way, we become friends.

[ElectricRider]

Sprint of GNU - So... My operating system is haunted?

SOCRATES: O Antiphon, I think that selling someone's beauty and wisdom is obscene work. Because if someone is selling his beauty to whomever desires it, we call him a prostitute,

Since this relates to free vs non free software, that's a sly way of calling Microsoft a whore.

But this isn't about beauty or teachings from the mouth. This is about blood sweat and tears. I agree that all software that imparts knowledge or teaching (Informational) should be Free. Like Socrates. He was a teacher. He did not build houses and give them away for free.

The whole premise of this thread is majority flawed. You are comparing apples and oranges.

If a developer makes non informational software and chooses to give it free that is great. But if one chooses to charge a fair price for their hard work That is his Right and should be looked down on by no one.

It takes years of learning, computer equipment, time, transportation, (all this needs to be paid for somehow) and hard work to produce good software like games for instance that many times take a big team and 3 years or more to develop. If these folks choose to charge for their work I am behind them all they way and you should be too, lest you be a thief.

[npap]

I agree with you in some respect, ElectricRider.
Perhaps the heading of the above post is not quite appropriate.
A man has the right to reap the fruits of his labor, whether it is material or spiritual.
The question is: Why is Mint and so many other Linux distributions offered free of charge?
Anyway, your comments are enlightening.
Thanks for your response.
Cheers,
npap

[ElectricRider]

I agree with you in some respect, ElectricRider.
The question is: Why is Mint and so many other Linux distributions offered free of charge? npap

I am no expert but my personal thoughts are as follows:

Blame Linus Torvalds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

He created a Terminal program he could use to access Unix servers on his PC 8086 hardware. He was never seeking to produce a "Linux Kernel" (in fact he only coded about 2% of the kernel itself as of 2006.) This terminal program re-write got so involved it took on the life of a kernel.

As Torvalds wrote in his book Just for Fun[7], he eventually realized that he had written an operating system kernel. On 25 August 1991, he announced this system in a Usenet posting to the newsgroup "comp.os.minix.":[8]

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have .
—Linus Torvalds [9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

Thus with large Unix community support the kernel and Linux grew into what we have today. People just kept adding stuff till we had full blown operating systems.
The community jumped on this Free idea bandwagon and decided to fill the distros with "free" open source software in the spirit of Linus's free gift to the community.
As there is a lot of open source software and a lot of bad publicity around companies over charging for crappy software this just made since to more and more people.

I encourage everyone to read the above referenced Wikipedia pages because the story is truly interesting.

There is also a Linux movie - story of Linus Torvalds and open source, called Revolution O.S.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ out since 2001 this film has helped to influence the Linux movement.

BTW, did you know that Linux Torvald "Creator of Linux" is employed by Microsoft? Yep, It's true.
Linus Torvalds works for Microsoft. http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analy ... uits-linux

[Zwopper]

BTW, did you know that Linux Torvald "Creator of Linux" is employed by Microsoft? Yep, It's true.
Linus Torvalds works for Microsoft. http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analy ... uits-linux

Yeah right!
Look at the date of that article...
Thursday, 01 April 2010 07:28

[ElectricRider]

BTW, did you know that Linux Torvald "Creator of Linux" is employed by Microsoft? Yep, It's true.
Linus Torvalds works for Microsoft. http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analy ... uits-linux

Yeah right!
Look at the date of that article...
Thursday, 01 April 2010 07:28

Darn it. You busted me. It was good for a funny wasn't it?

But seriously, how do you feel about the rest of the post cus that is what this thread is about.

( if you don't get it read the rest on my posts.. i'm full of Chit) haha

[npap]

Being a long time Linux user, I probably came to Mint for entirely different reasons than many/most. The codecs are trivial to me and honestly, I almost never use any of the Mint tools. For me it is the people, the Mint team and its forum users.

Mint has the feel of a small, close knit community. The team seems to genuinely care about what its users want and need, and does a good job balancing need and want. They aren't necessarily the same thing you know.

Fred

Well, Fred has given us a better reason for Mint's success.

[npap]

Linux Mint?
Amazing! Just look at the Distrowatch rating for the last seven days.
Congratulations to Clem and his team.

Success comes with hard work and the eagerness to do more than your best.

[npap]

MINT, number one on Distrowatch!

That is success!
Congratulations to Clem and the Mint team.