Mint 11 - Good, Bad, Ugly

[crong]

I was OK with Ubuntu 11.04 but couldn't get a working system with 11.10 on my hardware so I switched to Mint 11. Hopefully, what I've written here will be of help to some but it's incomplete and I'm still looking for a few answers...

The Good
Quick setup with good hardware detection. I used Katya DVD iso on USB stick + wired Internet connection and it got all the hardware except the wireless adapter. The OS looks polished and it's clear that good attention has been paid to detail.

(The OK)
My computer clock was set to UT so the time was wrong. One-time fix:

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dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

The Bad
1) The wrong driver was suggested for my wireless network adapter. One-time fix:

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sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

2) Date & Time is missing from Control Center. One-time fix:

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sudo apt-get install system-config-date

... but I still cannot get ntp working, see viewtopic.php?f=90&t=73540&start=0 so I have to do it manually:

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sudo ntpdate 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org

3) Bluetooth is not working after startup. Turning it off and then on again from the icon starts it. Alternatively, from terminal use

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hciconfig -a

... adding this command to the beginning of /etc/init.d/bluetooth enables it directly after startup but, as previously stated, it still keeps stopping.

4) The Bluetooth icon doesn't change when a device is connected.

5) Weather doesn't show as part of the clock. It did at first, but now it's reduced to a few px in width and is invisible. Workaround is to add "Weather Report" to panel.

6) The Software Manager doesn't not update to "Installed" and search doesn't distinguish packages that are already installed from those that are not. This feels like a very un-Mint-like annoyance.

The Ugly
Security-compromised version of Java: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/
See: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=84993 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/884252

[vrkalak]

** Topic [MOVED] as there was no Newbie Question.

[aes2011]

...
6) The Software Manager doesn't not update to "Installed" and search doesn't distinguish packages that are already installed from those that are not. This feels like a very un-Mint-like annoyance.
...

I had mentioned something similar earlier (viewtopic.php?f=90&t=76975):

4. I installed mahjonng three times. That's because after the progress bar reached 100% and vanished, there was no message that the game I wanted was installed. It took me three tries before it sunk in
### Perhaps, a message could be provided that would inform us that the software has been installed?

but Vincent had this response in the same thread:

No, I don't want any notifications. Before you know it we end up in Windows' "next->next->next->I agree->do it already->finish" hell. I installed it, or I would have gotten an error A mention of this in the manual would perhaps be helpful though.

Reductio ad absurdum??? but that view seems to have prevailed

[crong]

I read through your thread and, as altair4 demonstrated, the assumption that "[it worked] or I would have gotten an error" is fundamentally flawed. Ubuntu's Software Center does it right and it does not require any additional action on the part of the user (no "next->next->next->I agree->do it already->finish"). Like I said, it feels very un-Mint-like to find an important detail like this left dangling.