Problems with software after reinstall

[mfreeman]

I just took the plunge to upgrade from Mint 10 to Mint 13. Now I wish I hadn't!

I use a separate /home partition so that I don't have to mess with re-doing all of my settings for all of my software every time I have to reinstall. But now, I've got several software problems:

1. Cinnamon won't automatically come up. I get the Nautilus desktop, but no Cinnamon. I either have to manually enter 'cinnamon --replace' in a terminal, or put it in the Startup Applications. But if I put it in the startup applications, I can't switch to any other DE without first disabling it. And then, even after disabling it and switching to MATE, for example, Cinnamon suddenly DOES start up (partially, anyway). It overlays its panel over the MATE screen. I have to manually kill Cinnamon to get to the MATE panel (which I can see behind the Cinnamon panel, because I have a transparent theme running). Cinnamon is also very unstable when using my ATI proprietary graphics driver. It crashes with a segmentation fault quite often.

2. Evolution can't find my e-mails, even though it's all there. When I run Evolution, it behaves as if it was the first time it was run. There are some important e-mails that I need immediate access to and I cannot lose those e-mails. Ack!!!

3. There is some software I cannot get onto Docky, like LibreOffice (the initial startup window with the menu in the center that lets you choose which LO app start). It does not give me an icon to pin, and it won't accept drag-and-drop icons from the Cinnamon menu like it did in the old menus.

4. Any suggestions for e-mail notification apps that work without the e-mail program actually running? I used to use CloudSN, but it requires Indicator Applet, which Cinnamon doesn't support. I'd like to be able to see e-mail notifications as they arrive without having an e-mail client constantly open.

The new Mint looks pretty, but I sure wish I had my Mint 10 back. I WANT Cinnamon to work for me, because it has some features I love, and is just plain pretty. I just need features from Gnome 2 also. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[remoulder]

I don't have to mess with re-doing all of my settings for all of my software every time I have to reinstall

Mint 10 was based on gnome 2 and gtk 2, Mint 13 is not. Mint 13 has 2 versions the MATE version and the Cinnamon version, neither of which is the same as mint 10 If you have downloaded the MATE version you should not expect to run Cinnamon on it and vice-versa as they are based on different underlying system components. Your existing home will contain a lot of hidden config files and folders that are on the whole not relevant to the new systems used in Mint 13, the only thing you should carry over is your data. Even applications may have been upgraded and settings from an earlier version may not be correct.

To test if things are due to your existing home try creating a new user and logging in to that. If things work then I would suggest copying over your 'data' only and using that user.

[mfreeman]

Hmmm... I wasn't aware that they would conflict. It had never been a problem in the past, and I figured they would be smart enough when they designed MATE/Cinnamon/Gnome3 that they would use their own settings folders, not Gnome 2's. The thought had never even occurred to me that is would be a problem. Reinstalled, putting all my hidden settings folders that I wanted to keep on another partition, and then moving them over after testing the new environment. Didn't see much of a difference either way. Works ok (with the exception of Evolution, which just seems to have completely lost all my e-mails - NOT happy about that). There is still a huge slow-down/CPU useage increase in both Cinnamon and MATE, and my laptop is still running hotter than its ever been before. Also, I'm having networking problems. Even accessing other computers on my local network is really slow, and pinging various web sites produces lots of packet loss, and download speeds, which were going around 2,000 Mb/sec. in Mint 10 just a couple days ago, are now running in the hundreds of Mb/sec., and sometimes even all the way down to ~20 Kb/sec, depending on the site. My desktop computer running Mint 10 on the same wireless connection is still seeing ~2,000 Mb/sec. on many sites. Windows 7 on the same laptop is cool and fast on networking. I'm also having problems with some games. For example, sound's not working at all in World of Goo, and the screen flickers between the current image (which is slow and jerky) and random previous images in Osmos. Both worked smoothly and with great sound in Mint 10.

And just because I hadn't mentioned it in the previous post: I've got an AMD X2 dual-core processor running 64-Bit Mint 13 Cinnamon. Graphics is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200, running the latest proprietary driver in the Ubuntu repos.