You can't deny that Mint 11 looks horribly dated now

[t3g]

It looks the same as Mint 10, which was released half a year ago and the default look of this distro is starting to really look its age. I know that the team hates Unity and wants to move to Gnome 3, but Gnome 3 looks worse and has less functionality than Unity. Can the Mint team at least try to embrace Unity in the next release or at least do a Mint Unity theme?

Either way, you have another half a year to give this distro a jolt. I guess the rest of us that like Unity can install the vanilla Ubuntu with the Mint extras from the Katya repository until then.

[david4dev]

It looks the same as Mint 10, which was released half a year ago and the default look of this distro is starting to really look its age.

It's not broken so don't fix it. There's really not much to fault (other than personal preference) with the default look and feel.

I know that the team ... wants to move to Gnome 3

AFAIK the plan is to move to GNOME 3 next release, just like Ubuntu are doing.

I guess the rest of us that like Unity can install the vanilla Ubuntu with the Mint extras from the Katya repository until then.

Yes you can, and there's nothing wrong with that. You could also install Unity from Mint.

[arielo]

Well - I have to say Mint looks much better than Natty+Unity.

I just learnt from your post that it seems that Mint will adopt gnome-shell. This makes me really happy and will perhaps keep me on the debian side of the fence in the next update cycle next November. For the first time in 6 years I've looking into returning to fedora or slackware. I'd like to encourage the Mint developers to pursue the path and go ahead with gnome shell, while maintaining the polished and solid 2D interface they have today as an option.

Perhaps you like Unity design - I don't, and I think it is really poor, half baked, flawed. Some of the ideas are so fundamentally flawed... typical of a project cooked inside a small meeting room with no contact to the external world.

Not to mention the instability: a nightmare - my machine didn't boot after the upgrade, for the first time in many years; the miserable state of gnome2 ("ubuntu classic" ???) where for some reason switching from one window to the next takes 4 seconds. I hear may of the problems are nvidia specific. Well, it seems they have been so busy half-baking unity that they forgot to integrate and test gnome2. Worse: they are saying now that unity 2D will replace ubuntu classic. It couldn't get any worse.

At the same time, I see the gnome3 ecosystem burgeoning. The design amazing and innovative, the most innovative changes in the desktop I've seen this far.

Enough with the rant. Looking forward to a gnome 3.2 + shell based Mint in November. Backed by what hopefully will be a return of upstream to a solid, stable release.

[david4dev]

I just learnt from your post that it seems that Mint will adopt gnome-shell.

I haven't heard any definite announcements from the developers on this but I'm fairly sure gnome-shell will not be installed by default (but it will be simple to install from the repositories). From what I've heard, the plan is to keep to a fairly traditional interface.

[ThistleWeb]

In the grand scheme of things something that's not the same as the latest UI is "horribly dated". This has the same logic as saying a movie that was released in 2010 being "horribly dated". Ye Gods, what happened to 2009? We better keep a record of what happened, it'll be lost in the mists of time. Don't even ask about 2008 or below, nobody is still alive who remembers those years, we can only assume that we're old enough to type which suggests we must have lived through them. I'm getting flashbacks of hiding from dinosaurs, and trying to start a camp fire with a couple of sticks, or maybe I was confused, maybe sticks hadn't been invented by then.

I'm guessing EVERY OS looks "horribly dated" to you, since the last Windows and OSX were from the mists of time, way back in 2010.

Seriously though, some people like Unity, some like Gnome 3 (with or without Gnome Shell), just as some like KDE, XFCE or a wide range of others. Linux is about choice. Most Linux users use their PC to get stuff done. This means familiarity is a welcome thing. There's a limit to what you can do to keep revamping it while staying traditional and familiar. Visually this is about the GTK / QT theme and icon set. In that regard Mint is one of the slickest distros going. You can of course change your themes to suit your tastes, which is what this comes down to; you want Mint to do a theme for Unity to you can use it, even though it's looking like Ubuntu are the only distro adopting it. If Unity is so appealing to you despite it's current issues, by all means either switch to Ubuntu or install it from the Ubuntu repos.

Most Gnome distros will be going Gnome 3 / GTK3, many of them will be using the fallback mode which looks very similar to Gnome 2, while having the option of the Gnome Shell from the repos. Mint is currently heading this direction but time will tell.

So in answer to your flamebait title, yes I can deny it looks horribly dated now. You may be the only one who sees it that way, and as I said earlier, you're more than welcome to do something about it to suit your tastes.

[Roken]

It's odd that in the UK, Micro-Mart (one of the UK's geekier computer mags) only 3 weeks ago did an article about a modern, cutting edge, kick ass desktop based on - hmmmm, Mint 10 with compiz.

Bottom line, if you don't like the theme (and that's basically all you are really talking about), then change it. Gawd knows I did.

[Nexus]

It looks the same as Mint 10, which was released half a year ago and the default look of this distro is starting to really look its age. I know that the team hates Unity and wants to move to Gnome 3, but Gnome 3 looks worse and has less functionality than Unity. Can the Mint team at least try to embrace Unity in the next release or at least do a Mint Unity theme?

Either way, you have another half a year to give this distro a jolt. I guess the rest of us that like Unity can install the vanilla Ubuntu with the Mint extras from the Katya repository until then.

Honestly I prefer Gnome 3, I don't expect it to be fully fleshed out yet, it's a new release, much of what made Gnome 2 special were things like Metacity, GTK2 etc. that were for use with Gnome. Well guess what future development of Metacity is dead, outside bug fixes, now the focus is on Mutter which is pretty much Metacity 3. Give it some time and it will come along nicely, Gnome 2 is what? 9 years old now give Gnome 3, and people who work with themes, and addins for GTK3 a few years and it will blow Gnome 2 out of the water.

[eric k]

It looks the same as Mint 10, which was released half a year ago and the default look of this distro is starting to really look its age. I know that the team hates Unity and wants to move to Gnome 3, but Gnome 3 looks worse and has less functionality than Unity. Can the Mint team at least try to embrace Unity in the next release or at least do a Mint Unity theme?

Yes, it looks the same as Mint 10, just as Ubuntu 11.04 looks like Ubuntu 10.10 if you remove the Unity interface. I doubt anyone would have said 11.04 is "starting to look it's age" if it had been released as a standard Gnome 2.3 desktop just like all previous Ubuntu releases up to that point. That Mint decided not to implement Unity doesn't make it an antiquated distro, and given Mint's traditional conservatism it's fully in keeping with their ethos for the development team to wait a release cycle while usability improvements to Gnome 3 were made before switching. Mint will be going to Gnome 3 as of Mint 12, but that doesn't mean that Gnome Shell will be enabled by default, it simply means they will be switching to the Gnome 3/GTK 3 libraries as a base, as will Ubuntu come Oneric Ocelot.

Either way, you have another half a year to give this distro a jolt. I guess the rest of us that like Unity can install the vanilla Ubuntu with the Mint extras from the Katya repository until then.

Yes, you can. Unity is very much Canonical's baby, and so I can't find fault with distributions who don't choose to adopt it, especially so early in it's development when so many users are having issues running it. If you want to use the Unity interface, Ubuntu would be the logical place to go. As far as I am concerned, Unity is still a piece of beta software; it caused me multiple crashes and lockups, problems I have never had running Linux the last two plus years. This isn't to say it's bad conceptually, but it isn't done. And while Gnome 3 has it's demerits as well, at least it's stable. Point is, Linux is about choice. You don't like something, you can go elsewhere. For every Unity fan who loves the bold new direction there is a former Ubuntu user coming over to Mint for exactly the familiarity you've decried.

[AlbertP]

Gnome 3, but with a panel (not the Shell in its current form) would be good for Mint 12. And Ubuntu will use Gnome 3 and GTK 3 as the base for Unity in Ubuntu 11.10. So I think Mint 12 will also have Gnome 3, which is at least less dated.

And people that want Unity or the Shell can always use the Software Manager, they're both included in Mint 11 (though the Gnome 2 Shell is a bit old but there's a PPA with 3).

[altair4]

It looks the same as Mint 10, which was released half a year ago and the default look of this distro is starting to really look its age.

sigh

I realize that 6 months to a younger person represents a greater percentage of their life then 6 months to me but you've got to be kidding.

[rivenathos]

You can't deny that Mint 11 looks horribly dated now

Actually, yes I can. I deny it. Where do you people come from?

I have used Linux Mint since version 3. I have no problem with a consistent interface that is functional and familiar. Perhaps I prefer this type experience because I run Debian Stable. Everything works, nothing is broken, so I have no problems.

[AdamS]

Were I stand.

Mint 11 default looks spot on.

Clients seem to quite like the default look.

I have yet to find a single client that likes Unity in the slightest.

I cant stand unity in any shape or form.

Clients take one look at unity and get frustrated on the spot.

It takes very little effort to theme mint 11 to your liking, So I fail to see the problem.

I moved my self and my business to mint 11 because of unity on ubuntu 11.04.

I see unity mentioned and want to run the other way.

If it isn't broke, and it isn't. Don't fix it.

You just need to theme it, it isn't that hard to make custom themes for GTK and emerald.

Still look dated to you ? lol

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Took me a total of 5 min to whip that up.

Honestly now, why mess with perfection ? The default look rocks for out of the box.

Just my 2 cents worth

[exploder]

Clem built what the majority of the community wanted. Unity and Gnome 3 are not ready for prime time and they just don't fit in with the usability standards of Mint at this time. Gúrú Linux ríomhaire brings up valid points, you can easily customize the system to look anyway you like. Many find the default look to be elegant and enjoy it.

[z06gal]

I love it when people complain about something that cost them ZERO. Download whatever you want on your computer and customize it to your "standards" and let the rest of us be TOTALLY happy/content with the direction of Mint. In my opinion, Mint 11 is the best yet. It is so user friendly and it works. Oh, and it is free.

[AdamS]

I love it when people complain about something that cost them ZERO. Download whatever you want on your computer and customize it to your "standards" and let the rest of us be TOTALLY happy/content with the direction of Mint. In my opinion, Mint 11 is the best yet. It is so user friendly and it works. Oh, and it is free.

Well said.

[HorrorCode]

I love it when people complain about something that cost them ZERO. Download whatever you want on your computer and customize it to your "standards" and let the rest of us be TOTALLY happy/content with the direction of Mint. In my opinion, Mint 11 is the best yet. It is so user friendly and it works. Oh, and it is free.

not to start a debate, but in todays age, they could have paid anything for it. granted, they probably did just burn it or write it to usb themselves, there are lots of people selling cds that paid little to nothing for, in the range of 9.99. on top of that, theres tech support etc etc etc, just a different outlook.

in the same sense, those ss's are nice, but i like darker themes myself:

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[AdamS]

One of the top reasons we use linux.

To have it the way we want it with out dictation from a corporation. Telling us they know better then us what is best for us lol.

Dark light it is all about the user.

You like dark I like light. Freedom, got to love it when we have it and it isn't just an illusion.

Sucks when reality sets in and we learn that we are not as free as we thought at times.

Any ways, this thread is headed off topic as a thread like this is destined to do.

Just an opinion mods, but if this was on a forum I mod. I would have locked it.

Wont lead to any good.

[HorrorCode]

looks like someone got trolled

[sanderd17]

I really like Gnome shell and it's interface. It's a clean interface with a great search and workspaces view. You just have to get used to some hotkeys like the super key to view the windows, ALT+TAB to switch between them and that's it.

Gnome shell is also (in contrary to Unity) fully customisable with css and javascript. So I believe that Gnome Shell is the perfect environment to make a Mint-like theme for.

For now, it's not quite stable enough (there are extensions that crash gnome-shell) but in a few months, this should be solved and that gives enough time to the mint devs to create a theme for it.

For now, I'm on OpenSuse and while I like Gnome-shell, I really miss the OOTB things Mint could do: package managing, default settings and drivers ...

[Jix]

Mint devs made the right call to stick with Gnome 2 for now. Unity is buggy and Gnome 3 isn't ready. Guys like t3g wouldn't complain if Mint 11 simply wasn't released, and instead we got a large update for Mint 10. But then others would have moaned that Mint broke with tradition. Can't please everybody. Personally, I checked out Mint 9, 10 and 11, but I'm still sticking with Mint 8 until there are some really big changes done to the distro. I got my Mint 8 personalized and uber-tweaked and can't force myself to make the switch, not yet anyway since what I got setup is better than what Mint 11 has to offer out of the box, and even with my tweaks it won't get any better than what I got now.