Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Chat about Linux in general
Forum rules
Do not post support questions here. Before you post read the forum rules. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

Hey guys,

I am now a 3 year Linux enthusiast... and I must say that I have become completely Linux devoted and am spreading the good news around here in Croatia (which is btw approx. 99,5% M$ controled). I have already made some 5-10 converts... most of them to mint :)

My experience with the various distros is quite limited though... first of all, I tried Fedora... only to move to Ubuntu breezy some weeks later. From there on I stayed with Ubuntu till I first heard of Mint... I've been around since Bianca. Recently I had some extra time and will to test out some of the other most popular distros, I found some good and some not so good differences, and here is my completely subjective review from a standpoint of an IT amateur:


Kubuntu Hardy KDE 4 beta:
Installed okay, than started crashing constantly. Not ready yet and not worth the time except maybe to try out as liveCD to check out KDE4 eyecandy. Oh yeah... btw, after a several year dilemma, I have decided that I will stick with KDE for better or worse, since it's just so much prettier than gnome :mrgreen:



Mandriva spring 2008.1:
I was actually quite impressed with Mandriva... this was my first take with it and I really like it... I'm placing it as my personal second best distro at the time (second to mint of course :D ). What I liked most about it is that even as liveCD it first asked me a couple of questions about my configuration INLUDING wether I want no3d, metisse or compiz fusion... and compiz fusion worked out of the box perfectly. In fact, I'm not sure but I really believe I'm getting a smoother animation here than with mint... like it's a few FPS faster... Onward.... I also got quite a few error messages while playing with the liveCD... I couldn't open the package manager nor the configuration tool..... errors kept poping up. After HDD install the errors went away, but during the first boot I had that message "detecting partitions" or something like that hanging on my screen for good 20 minutes. Also, after the install there is a lengthy survey to take which is like 5 pages long... and for some reason whenever I would click next, the next page would load in a different language... THAT'S JUST ONE CRAZY BUG... I went through english, french, italian, greek and something I think was russian in cirilic... (tried pressing back a few times...). Another problem I have with Mandriva is that for some reasons the liveCD version does not have all the countries in the list during configuration... there is no Croatia or Bosnia... even saw some forum posts about India not being there and so on... supposedly the DVD version is okay.... another strange quirk... :? Playing around with it more I figured out that I really don't like the rpmdrake thing that Mandriva uses as a package manager so I tried installing apt and synaptic to see if it would work.. it didn't even install, some errors popped up during the install process and I decided to say goodbye to Mandriva right than and there.
Conclusion: Even with all the quirks I really liked Mandriva... the absolute high points here, which I would strongly suggest we incorporate in future mint editions are VERY VERY nice boot-up graphics with the option to press ESC and get the verbose info in an "overlay" over the graphics... I think this was pretty much handled as best as it can be.... and should be adopted. Seconly, I really liked the simple option to select desktop effects during the first boot... the other configuration question I didn't really like since the default options are just fine for me and I get them with no questions asked in the mint install process..

openSUSE 10.3:
What impressed me most about openSUSE is that even at the boot loading part it recognised my monitors native resolution (1680x1050) so I had a nice hi-quality graphics all the way from the start. All in all the graphics are what impressed me most about openSUSE! I hope that mint can follow here... :) Later on, I grew annoyed with it quite soon... I guess I'm too much used to mint so even the little things annoyed me too much - i.e. I spent 10 minutes to get my second NIC to work properly... for some reason even though I set it all correctly, it wouldn't work till I finally rebooted the system. The menu is nice, but I find it to be a tad too complicated in comparison to the simple tasty menu that gives you a nice overview of everything that's there... That package manager was also slower than the one I'm used to in mint...
Conclusion: All in all... GREAT graphics... especially those at boot-up, but I'm still sticking with mint. Also, I've noticed that the GTK apps in the KDE release of both openSUSE and Mandriva seem a lot more in tune with the main KDE theme than in the mint releases... I'm not sure why is that, but in my Daryna KDE CE install, Firefox looks horrible in comparison to running it from Mandriva... the scroller bars show some kind of artifacts and glitches and the fonts seem to be a lot more pixelated... like they are not antialiased or something... also the regular gnome icons that are loaded in gtk progs look horrible.

simplyMEPIS:
I only tried the liveCD... didn't really impress me at all... Seemed okay and error free, but nothing spectacular IMHO... I didn't like the 80% wide panel in KDE... seemed pointless and was the first thing I changed...

PCLinuxOS 2007
Once again... seemed like a perfectly nice OS.... although once again I didn't find anyhting overly spectacular about it... the liveCD worked like a charm. Noticed that they installed synaptic to be used in a KDE enviroment... didn't really figure out why... I like adept better. All in all, seemed nice and stable, not at all too different from mint.

Fedora 8
I downloaded it, but quickly found out that it's not a liveCD... which annoyed me and I decided against even installing it... it's another RPM based distro, and the experience I had with openSUSE and Mandriva and their package managers as well as what at least appeared to me a lot smaller repos than mint/ubuntu made me decide to stick with debian based...


Finally,
All in all, I would once again like to stress out that I am no IT professional and that even my knowledge and experience with linux is quite limited, but I wanted to share my experiences with you and even hear some comments and your experiences with various distros. One big distro I didn't include yet is the regular Debian install.. that's because it's been downloading for quite some time now.. being 3 dvd long... but I've just recently burnt the last DVD and plan to give it a test run soon...

From my experience here, what I would really like to see in future mint releases:
- boot loading options and style like in mandriva/suse
- option to select desktop effects and have the 3d drivers automatically installed at first boot like in mandriva
- better GTK integration in the mint KDE release

these are all mostly esthetic improvements, but I think they would go a long way in improving mint as a professional distribution and would greatly complement it.... as for the software setup, I believe that mint is deffinitelly on the right track, since I find it to be superior to all the other distros...


There... that's all I wanted to share with you... all these distros are excellent with quite small differences in their flavours... all of them blow windows out of the sky anytime :twisted:


P,S, the machine I've run all the distros on is:

AMD Athlon64 3800+ /w 1G RAM
nVidia 7800 GT
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
User avatar
belovedmonster
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 639
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:34 pm

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by belovedmonster »

NiksaVel wrote:I have decided that I will stick with KDE for better or worse, since it's just so much prettier than gnome :mrgreen:
This is why I recently switched to Xubuntu. XFCE when set up right (as it is on Xubuntu) is just so much prettier than Gnome. It might sound silly but little things about gnome really drive me crazy, like the way the shut down options window is so fugly. I would only see it once a day but knowing it is there makes me not want to use gnome! I think ultimately daft little things like that are which make you choose one desktop over another, there's no real advantage or disadvantage for one over another.

That's a nice round up of KDE you have done there. I waiting for KDE 4 to mature a bit more then I plan on giving it another go but I think you cant really go wrong with Mint KDE.
User avatar
linuxviolin
Level 8
Level 8
Posts: 2081
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:55 pm
Location: France

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by linuxviolin »

NiksaVel wrote:I've noticed that the GTK apps in the KDE release of both openSUSE and Mandriva seem a lot more in tune with the main KDE theme than in the mint releases... I'm not sure why is that, but in my Daryna KDE CE install, Firefox looks horrible in comparison to running it from Mandriva... the scroller bars show some kind of artifacts and glitches and the fonts seem to be a lot more pixelated... like they are not antialiased or something... also the regular gnome icons that are loaded in gtk progs look horrible.
Now I'm not in Mint but in my other distro in KDE and GTK apps are quite nice! I don't know Mint KDE but try to install 'qtcurve-gtk2', 'kde-theme-qtcurve' and 'gtk-qt-engine' then seek in the 'Configuration Center' 'Styles and Fonts GTK' (in 'Appearance and themes') and you will be able to change the styles, fonts and even install a scrollbar fix for Firefox and Thunderbird... In styles choose 'use another style' and choose 'QTCurve', in fonts choose 'use my KDE fonts in GTK applications'. Personnally I have not installed the 'scrollbar fix' because I have no problems in Firefox. (for the fonts choose 'DejaVu' family - DejaVu Serif, DejaVu Sans and DejaVu Sans Mono - and unclick 'Allow at pages to choose their own fonts instead of those chosen above'. Choose the same family fonts for KDE, Konqueror...)

Also go to 'Style' (always in 'Appearance and themes') and in the first tab choose 'QTCurve'.
For icons I use the 'Nuvola' theme, it's an SVG icon theme. Quite nice also. 8)

Also about the fonts, always in the 'Configuration Center' of KDE I recommend you for the 'use of smoothing' to choose 'activated' then click on 'configure...' and for 'Halo style' choose 'full'. Also for 'forcing the PPP of the fonts' choose '96 PPP'.

With these settings, my GTK apps in my KDE desktop and KDE itself are quite nice.

P.S= I am in French so I hope my "translations" are good... :D
Last edited by linuxviolin on Sun May 01, 2011 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
K.I.S.S. ===> "Keep It Simple, Stupid"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (Albert Einstein)
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

Hey, thanks a lot!! This really made things look better...

I highly suggest that these settings be default for the next KDE release...
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
User avatar
67GTA
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1301
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:49 pm
Location: Kentucky, USA

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by 67GTA »

Mandriva is an excellent distro. I started using Linux with Mandrake. It is the only non-deb distro I would ever consider using. They use the same "home grown" GTK style for Gnome and KDE both. Both DE's use the exact same theme even when installed separately(does that make sense?) That really adds to the look of the distro.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
User avatar
Zwopper
Level 10
Level 10
Posts: 3054
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:20 pm
Location: Deep in the Swedish woods
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by Zwopper »

NiksaVel wrote:Hey, thanks a lot!! This really made things look better...

I highly suggest that these settings be default for the next KDE release...
I second this opinion! 8) :idea:
Thanx linuxviolin! :!:
Image
My artwork at deviantART | My Band - Electric Alchemea
CREA DIEM!

Lenovo U330P | i5 | 16GB | 128GB - SSD | Elemantary OS 0.4
exploder
Level 15
Level 15
Posts: 5623
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:50 am
Location: HartfordCity, Indiana USA

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by exploder »

Very nice and informative discussion! I have tried all of the distro's listed. Mint is of course my distro of choice but Fedora 9 is looking very good too.

Fedora 9 has not yet reached the final release yet but here are some things I liked about it.

- Very organized menus and attractive artwork.
- The system is extremely secure.
- Pulse Audio is very refined and all system sounds work!
- Policy Kit implementation is far more advanced than any other distribution I have seen.
- Package management is showing strong signs of improvement. (Still some bugs to work out.)
- The Developer's seem to have a strong commitment to quality.

I used Fedora Core 6 before coming over to LinuxMint. I am very glad to see Fedora is doing so well.
User avatar
linuxviolin
Level 8
Level 8
Posts: 2081
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:55 pm
Location: France

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by linuxviolin »

Zwopper wrote:
NiksaVel wrote:Hey, thanks a lot!! This really made things look better...

I highly suggest that these settings be default for the next KDE release...
I second this opinion! 8) :idea:
Thanx linuxviolin! :!:
Yes, I guess it would be a good idea... :roll:

Zwopper & NicsaVel, happy to have you helped to have a "better KDE" :wink:
but I'm a little surprised that folks are not aware of these 'tricks'... :!:

P.S.= About fonts, in KDE, I always force the resolution to 96 DPI from the control center. (The 120 DPI is also available to match the "large fonts" historical setting in Windows.)
K.I.S.S. ===> "Keep It Simple, Stupid"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (Albert Einstein)
iamclueless

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by iamclueless »

i do like how you said it is a subjective review... hehe

it does seem you are commenting more on the graphics or first impression upon installing or using a live CD... rather than review the distro itself. so heres my subjective opinion

never played with Kubuntu but have tried Ubuntu and Xubuntu... too much work for me for something thats supposed to be newbie friendly

Mepis... its the best distro ive ever installed! (so far i think the list is Xubuntu, Ubuntu, gos rocket, elive, maryan linux beta, mint xfce, puppy, zen walk, vector, pcfluxboxos) its is true to its claim that it just works.

PCLinuxOS - this was next in line for installation, but Mepis got there first and stayed. I've played with the LiveCD and i thought pretty highly of it, but im more likely to use the mini version (Minime 2008) that you can just build on and put what you want on it
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

it does seem you are commenting more on the graphics or first impression upon installing or using a live CD... rather than review the distro itself. so heres my subjective opinion
yes, that's absolutely true... :) and it is completely intentional! As I believe I've already mentioned, these are all excellent distros and I believe that with a few hours of configuring you could easily make every one of them look like any other... it's the great thing about choine and freedom of linux! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


Anyhew... I'm posting back here after my initial clash with Debian... been running it for some 24 hours now, and to sum up my impression of debian is: SPEED!!! While all the other distros I've tried are pretty much comparable to each other... just by regular use I couldn't tell you which one is a better performet, but Debian is a whole new league... konqueror windows opening in under a second, firefox(or iceweasel) and krusader opening in a 1-2 secs... it was very impressive. But for those of you who've tried the mintified Mint debian alpha edition you already know this :)

The stuff I didn't like is gnome... and a low-res gnome at that... this is the only distro that didn't give me a native resolution when I installed it.. it held my 1680x1050 monitor at 1280x1024.... I quickly resolved this by installing envy from deb from the website and changing the repos as instructed there (added contrib). KDE was the next install straight from the repos with no prob.

The second thing I noticed is that you don't need all the 3 DVDs.... just the first one, than comment out the DVD from the repos and install the rest from the net.

I've missed most of the nice minty eyecandy, and mint tools... actually tried adding the mint repos and installing mintinstall to see if it might work :) (would be nice to be able to open mint software portal to debian installs) but of course it didn't work... it tried installing, but when I clicked yes it would hang and crash...

Here is the list of progs I usually install:
from the repos:
samba nfs-common wine msttcorefonts krusader gnome-commander tsclient filezilla checkgmail scribus inkscape skype gwget k3b vlc audacity stellarium tremulous openarena gnucash pdfedit kompozer virtualbox isomaster acroread acroread-plugins amule frostwire audacious audacious-plugins-extra krename
Portal:
realplay
westernarena
wine doors

here is what I managed to install in debian without resorting to scouring the web for deb/rpm/source files
samba wine msttcorefonts krusader gnome-commander filezilla scribus inkscape gwget k3b audacity stellarium gnucash amule audacious audacious-plugins-extra krename
(some of the stuff from my list was preinstalled in debian like nfs, tsclient and vlc)



Most of the progs I install by default on a new mint install weren't in debian repos and I wasn't sure how to proceed from there... so I made the only sane choice.. went back to good old Mint KDE Daryna CE :) and that's how my trip to various distro lands ended... where it began :)



I'd just like to note that I am fully voting to create a mint flavour based directly on debian.... having all the nice mint tools and eyecandy with the sheer performance and speed of debian would be a killer.


And finally... can anyone give me an explanation as to why is a debian install so much faster than the other distros... even those based on debian...?
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
User avatar
linuxviolin
Level 8
Level 8
Posts: 2081
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:55 pm
Location: France

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by linuxviolin »

NiksaVel, it is usually best to go with the 'original' rather than with the derivatives. Derivatives add various 'tools', GUIs etc but at the same time add bugs, they are more unstable etc... So it is often better to go with 'major distribs' (Debian, Slackware...) than with their derivatives. You will have something faster, more stable, less buggy etc but less friendly also, you will need "to put the hands into the sludge" (I do not know if this is the correct translation of the French expression: "mettre les mains dans le cambouis" but I think you understand what I mean :roll:)

P.S.= Which version of Debian have you tested? Etch, Lenny, Sid? Just curious :wink:
K.I.S.S. ===> "Keep It Simple, Stupid"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (Albert Einstein)
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

etch... freshly downloaded :) and yes.. I understand what you mean... more the reason why I support the idea of a debian based mint...
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
MagnusB
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1252
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by MagnusB »

You forgot one thing in the Mandriva comparison, NiksaVel, the configurations you make on the live session stays when you do a HDD installation. I always set the double click action to maximise, and Show windows from current desktop, and to my surprise this was still in effect after I had installed. That is what I want to see on other live distro's as well, especially for people like me who use the live session to see if you can configure it like you want, and then do the installation. Just saves you the trouble of doing it twice :) As for the localization, I have heard that Mandriva has some of the best localization of all distro's, but a CD ISO is limited, and I guess language files are the first to be dropped to save space...
OpenSuSE's major weakness is zypper. It is slow, you have to monitor repositories your self, and you can easily end up in dependency hell. But it's strength are SaX, YaST and in 11 the installer is completely redesigned, so installation takes just about 30 mins to 1 hr. And the OpenSuSE wiki is an excellent example on how a wiki should be, the documentation is just brilliant! Hopefully we will see a fork of OpenSuSE, I would love to see somebody pull it in a different direction.
Fedora is a strange distribution, and it takes some getting used to. My overall experience with it is just ok, takes some getting used to, but it is well documented and pretty easy to maintain.
I have to agree with you with Mepis, it doesn't really stand out, but it seems like it has some hardcore fans that loves it. I guess it is love it or hate kind of thing, but for debian based distributions I go for Mint or DreamLinux.
PCLinuxOS has never impressed me either, and I agree, they should replace Synaptic with Adept in KDE.
I would recommend you take a look at Foresight 2.0, they use Conary and PackageKit as package manager, and the tar based installer on the DVD make the installation rocket fast. However, last time I checked it is GNOME only, the community isn't all that big yet, but I think this could mature into a real nice distro.
Image
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
--Dean Martin
User avatar
Zwopper
Level 10
Level 10
Posts: 3054
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:20 pm
Location: Deep in the Swedish woods
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by Zwopper »

Foresight has included an XFCE Alpha in their latest release.
Image
My artwork at deviantART | My Band - Electric Alchemea
CREA DIEM!

Lenovo U330P | i5 | 16GB | 128GB - SSD | Elemantary OS 0.4
MagnusB
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1252
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by MagnusB »

It looks like they expanding then :) I just shamelessly promote other distributions I like :) (don't worry, I do the same with Mint).
Image
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
--Dean Martin
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

MagnusB wrote:... and I guess language files are the first to be dropped to save space...

no, that's not it... I wasn't trying to install a croatian language... I chose english as my OS language, as I always do, but when it asked me which country I lived in, my country wasn't listed for some reason... and there wasn't an option "Other" or something like that so thats what annoyed me :) on the next screen I could normally select "Croatian" as my keyboard setting... strange and somewhat disturbing :)

I read in some forum that the DVD version has everything right...
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
MagnusB
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1252
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by MagnusB »

Ohh, you should try more or something, I'll check it out with my CD. However, if my memory serves me correctly, the DVD version is Powerpack = $$$. I reacted as well, my locales wasn't listed either, Norway, but I found them in a list below the main one...
Image
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
--Dean Martin
xvedejas

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by xvedejas »

Have you tried Sabayon? KDE's not for me (But I'll use Gnome, XFCE, or fluxbox), but out of the handful of KDE distros I've tried it was quite nice.
User avatar
MALsPa
Level 8
Level 8
Posts: 2040
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:17 pm
Location: albuquerque

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by MALsPa »

Fedora 8
I downloaded it, but quickly found out that it's not a liveCD... which annoyed me and I decided against even installing it...
There are Fedora 8 live/install CDs and DVDs. Got mine from here:

http://www.osdisc.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi/ ... nux/fedora

Haven't tried it yet, planning on taking a look at it this weekend.
NiksaVel
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 782
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Croatia
Contact:

Re: Some subjective distros review in comparison to mint

Post by NiksaVel »

MagnusB wrote:Ohh, you should try more or something, I'll check it out with my CD. However, if my memory serves me correctly, the DVD version is Powerpack = $$$. I reacted as well, my locales wasn't listed either, Norway, but I found them in a list below the main one...

yes, I know there's an expended list with the lower link, but it wasn't there either... :/ I read about this on the forums, and besides the small european countries like croatia or bosnia there was a guy complaining that india wasn't there either... so go figure :?
Windows is extremely fast after a fresh install. If you want to make it stay that way: - don't use it.
-Clem
Locked

Return to “Chat about Linux”