Which version of Mint are forum users using, and why?

[marcus0263]

LMDE 64 Bit why?

Simple
1. Semi Rolling Release
2. Fast and stabel
3. Gnome 3 sucks, sucks big time

Clem's "Cinnamon" ....
Clem you made an Admiralble and Valiant effort, but you just can't make a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear.

[craig10x]

Cinnamon isn't in final release...it's only in it's alpha development stage...just the foundation right now (though already it is very stable and nice to use) the various configuration options and other features will be sent down in the update manager (as newer versions) as it goes along...by the time Mint 13 arrives with Cinnamon as default it should be awesome...and by the way, it's coming to LMDE as well for your information...

It's funny, you look at the foundation of a building and say...well where is the floors? the offices? the elevators? well...duh...they haven't been constructed yet
what the heck is the matter with some of you people here???
Are they putting something in your water there in seattle? must be from all that rain you get there...it's making your brain "soggy"

[marcus0263]

Cinnamon isn't in final release...it's only in it's alpha development stage...just the foundation right now (though already it is very stable and nice to use) the various configuration options and other features will be sent down in the update manager (as newer versions) as it goes along...by the time Mint 13 arrives with Cinnamon as default it should be awesome...and by the way, it's coming to LMDE as well for your information...

It's funny, you look at the foundation of a building and say...well where is the floors? the offices? the elevators? well...duh...they haven't been constructed yet
what the heck is the matter with some of you people here???
Are they putting something in your water there in seattle? must be from all that rain you get there...it's making your brain "soggy"

Well when/if it's ready I'll take it for a spin again, but currently simple things like basic config settings for example like the task bar .., editing the menu, etc. etc.

Again Clem has made a Valiant effort, but we'll see what he can do with this horrible mess called "Gnome Shell". Gnome Shell may work nicely on a Tablet/Phone but for real work/productivity it's crap

[craig10x]

well my response to your post (which was meant in fun of course) was just to make you aware (if you weren't already) that when you look at Cinnamon you are not seeing a finished program..it's only in the beginning stages at this point...much of the kind of features and configuration that you were looking for haven't been put into yet...you are looking at it's foundation....the building isn't up yet....apparently, i have a lot more faith in it then you do...seems to be a lot of pessimists in the mint forums...i like it already and by the time it's done i have no doubt it will please the vast majority of mint users...except perhaps, you?

and by the way, gnome shell is what the developer makes it...in ubuntu's case...it was unity...in gnome's case....it's what you see in that....in Clem's case, his re-write of the shell is following a whole different direction...one that is designed to give most mint users what they are looking for...

[marcus0263]

well my response to your post (which was meant in fun of course) was just to make you aware (if you weren't already) that when you look at Cinnamon you are not seeing a finished program..it's only in the beginning stages at this point...much of the kind of features and configuration that you were looking for haven't been put into yet...you are looking at it's foundation....the building isn't up yet....apparently, i have a lot more faith in it then you do...seems to be a lot of pessimists in the mint forums...i like it already and by the time it's done i have no doubt it will please the vast majority of mint users...except perhaps, you?

and by the way, gnome shell is what the developer makes it...in ubuntu's case...it was unity...in gnome's case....it's what you see in that....in Clem's case, his re-write of the shell is following a whole different direction...one that is designed to give most mint users what they are looking for...

Figured it was all in fun and no didn't take it seriously. Yes I very much know Cinnamon is very young and in it's initial stages. I know Clem can do wonders, I've been a Mint fan since Barbara. It actually is the only distro that could pull me away from my beloved Gentoo. Let's hope that Clem can turn this Turd of a Gnome Shell into a diamond.

Oh and also on a side note, Ubuntu's "Unity" isn't just another Gnome "shell". Ubuntu is going it's own way, yes Unity is still using xorg and some Gnome libraries but they are creating their own thing.

Anyway Mint Debian is outstanding, there are a few things that still need some luv but I'm not only running it on my Lappy, my Workstation at work but it's also the flavor I've been moving my friends and family over too. I've found it to be not only very fast but very stable, it's time to give Ubuntu the boot and move the main releases of Mint over to it IMO.

[ivarth]

Well, after using Mint 11 for quite some time, I decided to try again Ubuntu 11.10. Tried it for a couple of days, not excited about it. Although I liked the Windows(Super key) shortcut, Super+1, Super+2 etc.).

So, I trashed Ubuntu and installed Mint 12. I like it. I'm not too happy about the lack of customization in Gnome 3, but I can live with it for now. I do miss Compiz though
It will be interesting to try Cinnamon out when it has matured a bit more.

[craig10x]

Yes... Cinnamon will be getting many more features and themes as it goes along i believe based on various comments i have read from Clem....each new version of it will have some things added, so i would imagine that by the time Mint 13 arrives it will be pretty mature and complete...

Meanwhile, i find that i love using it...it's very stable, attractive and easy to work with (even without all the features yet)...so it's become my main session on Mint 12
I'd say my 2nd favorite is MGSE but i like this even better...

[Spewns]

Incoming rant.

I've been trying to make Mint 12 work for me, but I think it's time to give up. The GNOME 3 fiasco has ultimately lead me back to using Windows 7 almost exclusively, which is not what I wanted.

GNOME Shell is slow, glitchy, and unstable. It freezes and crashes regularly. This can be amplified by installing buggy extensions from the GNOME 3 extensions site. GNOME Shell won't even be able to launch on log in with some of those.

Cinnamon may have potential, but it's alpha and will require time before it's in a state that's acceptable for real, regular use. As far KDE, it's a slow mess. Unity is slow and buggy. Why is everything so slow? I have a fairly modern desktop.

The Linux desktop has definitely reversed direction lately. Its current state is really, really embarrassing. It's possible I'll be abandoning Linux for the foreseeable future. I don't want to, but I need a good desktop.

[craig10x]

have never really noticed any significant slowness in all the various gnome distros i have used on various laptops over the years, including mint....
kde did seem a bit slower to me....at least kubuntu did which is the only one i ever used...wonder why you seem to be having that problem as i don't think it's that common..

as far as windows, it may be pretty peppy at first, but it tends to soon slow down as the registry gets corrupted, and the filing system is poor on windows compared to linux and also causes slow downs eventually...as well as malware and viruses of course and even if you don't get them, even the mere running of the virus/malware scanners tend to slow things down and of course there is the increased ram usage which can also slow things down unless you have a LOT of excess ram...so i am still trying to figure how that is a far better solution for you for a speedy desktop...

Cinnamon runs great on my laptop...very speedy and pretty stable too..as far as how long it will take to mature in features and configuring, i think likely sooner then you think...probably by the time Mint 13 arrives...meanwhile, it's my primary session on Mint 12 even at this point...because to me...it just FEELS RIGHT...

[cwwgateway]

Incoming rant.

I've been trying to make Mint 12 work for me, but I think it's time to give up. The GNOME 3 fiasco has ultimately lead me back to using Windows 7 almost exclusively, which is not what I wanted.

GNOME Shell is slow, glitchy, and unstable. It freezes and crashes regularly. This can be amplified by installing buggy extensions from the GNOME 3 extensions site. GNOME Shell won't even be able to launch on log in with some of those.

Cinnamon may have potential, but it's alpha and will require time before it's in a state that's acceptable for real, regular use. As far KDE, it's a slow mess. Unity is slow and buggy. Why is everything so slow? I have a fairly modern desktop.

The Linux desktop has definitely reversed direction lately. Its current state is really, really embarrassing. It's possible I'll be abandoning Linux for the foreseeable future. I don't want to, but I need a good desktop.

I find cinnamon pretty fast (especially if I disable all of the extensions that are in gnome shell. I'm not sure why that works but it does). I also find cinnamon to be very usable, and I use it for productivity as well as for fun. MATE is pretty fast (albeit a tiny bit buggy at times). XFCE is very fast and is fairly usable (you can actually use the old mint menu). LXDE is super fast and also fairly usable. The various window managers are extremely fast, although not quite as usable as other desktops IMO. KDE is known to be a little bit (or a fair amount) on the slow side if you don't have great hardware. Windows (which I am using right now because I am viewing a pdf which I need to read which I can only get working on windows using firefox) crashes and freezes SO MUCH. When it isn't, it is still slow (and I have a 2.3 GHz Core 2 Quad, 8 gigs of ram, and an nvidia gt120 graphics card). And as craig10x said, the need for anti virus scanners (which in Windows' defence, I have to many of, although only 1 is active) is really annoying.

[Mike54]

LMDE on one desktop
Mint 12 Cinnamon on two other desktops
Mint 12 Cinnamon on my laptop

I initially installed Mint 12 on one desktop to get a sense of what the GNOME Shell is like. I figured I may as well get acclimated to it, because I'll be seeing it in LMDE before long. After discovering Cinnamon, I installed 12 on the other two machines. If the new and improved LMDE version works as well as 12 Cinnamon has been working, I will likely move all the machines over to it. For no other reason than having found LMDE to be both fast and solid as a rock.

Cinnamon runs great on my laptop...very speedy and pretty stable too..as far as how long it will take to mature in features and configuring, i think likely sooner then you think...probably by the time Mint 13 arrives...meanwhile, it's my primary session on Mint 12 even at this point...because to me...it just FEELS RIGHT...

Feeling right pretty well sums it up. And I liked your earlier foundation analogy, as well. Personally, I am looking at the foundation and getting pretty excited at how great the finished structure is going to be.

[craig10x]

Thanks...somehow the idea of constructing a building came to mind when i was answering his post...i was getting the impression that he thought Cinnamon was in it's final release...rather then just getting started

[asymmetros]

On the other hand, it is not quit logic to admiring the building when there is only the foundation. Regardless how talented is the architect, the whole construction may end up in a fiasco.

But that 's about taste. Personally, i prefer xfce than gnome2 in any case, openbox is also one of my big favourites. KDE is good, E17 also, LXDE - i don' t like it.
Cinnamon does not really counts for me - i am not intending to use it in the foreseen future -furthermore, it is unfinished yet: the fair is to compare buildings with buildings, not bulidings with foundations.

[AlbertP]

But what about half-finished buildings where you can already live at the ground floor? I now use Cinnamon daily. It's amazing to see how fast it improves. Yes, there are regressions as well but they're not that serious. I can live without a working Alt-F2 (which stopped working a few weeks ago). And it's already more stable than Gnome3+MGSE or KDE 4.5.5, which both crashed occasionally at me.

[z06gal]

I have been using the cairo dock session with effects and am absolutely carried away with it. Compiz runs fantastic and is alot of fun. It also helps that the dock now allows for update manager to be an active part of the dock. I decided to check it out and see what it was like and I love it. It is nice to have all the options

[P.T.]

I am using mint 12 currently. I had Ubuntu for half a year and on christmas day, I decided to switch to Mint. Since yesterday I started to use cinnamon and I am liking it so far.

[Kevin108]

I spent a week or so with Mint 12. Things were going nicely until Cinnamon updated a couple days ago. Pink highlights covered everything, the keyboard would sort of disconnect from the OS when using certain extensions, it wouldn't save my setting for a 12-hour clock and the non-stock themes are all broken. All in all, Mint 12 still isn't ready.

I did a little distro-hopping today trying:

Mint 11 LXDE - nvidia-current fails to redraw the screen after opening the terminal leaving a big, black box in your graphics until you maximized a window or dragged something across it.
Fedora 16 - Gnome 3 and Yum are pretty awful. Cinnamon for Fedora has all the same issues.
OpenSuse - Didn't want to install then would freeze randomly when not in fallback mode.

I'm back to Mint 11.

[cwwgateway]

I spent a week or so with Mint 12. Things were going nicely until Cinnamon updated a couple days ago. Pink highlights covered everything, the keyboard would sort of disconnect from the OS when using certain extensions, it wouldn't save my setting for a 12-hour clock and the non-stock themes are all broken. All in all, Mint 12 still isn't ready.

I did a little distro-hopping today trying:

Mint 11 LXDE - nvidia-current fails to redraw the screen after opening the terminal leaving a big, black box in your graphics until you maximized a window or dragged something across it.
Fedora 16 - Gnome 3 and Yum are pretty awful. Cinnamon for Fedora has all the same issues.
OpenSuse - Didn't want to install then would freeze randomly when not in fallback mode.

I'm back to Mint 11.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with cinnamon (and the various other distros you tried). But first off, the themes were broken, but new versions are all fixed. And there weren't even supposed to be themes until cinnamon was stable (which was last release). Theme devs were told that changes would occur between version 1.0.x or 1.1.x and the stable version (1.2). Secondly are you using the updated extensions? And are you using the gnome tweak tool for cinnamon that merlwiz79 made?

[craig10x]

Unlike Kevin's experience i am happily enjoying Mint 12 with Cinnamon as my main session....why? because i'm not tinkering with it...not trying to add themes that weren't ready (i will wait until Clem adds some by default and they make it simpler and more stable to add other themes as they are developed)...not trying to play with settings that haven't been incorporated yet (between tweaks program and the actual Cinnamon settings) etc etc...only minor problem was with the clock staying 24 hrs but that was simple to correct (and restore it to AM/PM) and even THAT will get fixed by Clem (he knows about it...probably be fixed by next version)..

In other words, i leave it ALONE and wait for each new version to add in the features properly so they won't cause problems, break, etc...
That's the secret for success with this...it is a word called PATIENCE

[Kevin108]

Oh, I'll be back to Mint 12 in the near future. I can't leave it alone. I don't even think I'd call myself a noob anymore. I don't know nearly as much as I'd like yet but I'm having a ball.

I understand it takes time to find and fix all the little minor issues. Cinnamon itself is a testament to how well the Mint devs listen to the users.

Mint 11 is even a good example of that. It's easy to find many minor but important changes between a fresh install and applying the most recent upgrades.