Quick to answer questions about finding your way around Linux Mint as a new user.
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clem wrote:OK, I'm confused... I actually like Vista...
Have you ever tried OSX? Its got all the polish and neat features found in Vista (and more), cept unlike Vista it doesn't suck! Mark Shuttleworth himself has gone as far as to say that OSX is leading the way and Linux should aspire to equal OSX rather than Windows in terms of polish and features.
I realise this is entirely off topic, but seeing you are impressed with Vista the first thing that jumped into my mind was "well if he thinks Vista is pretty neat wait till he tries OSX".
After reading these 3 pages, I've decided to finally chime in on this forum. FIrst off, this forum has been great as I've recently installed Mint 4.0 XFCE and this community is great re: support. Thanks for that!
Most Windows users, the typical desktop users, that Mint(from what I can tell) is trying to target, will soon be running 64-bit systems. It's inevitable as the chips have been out long enough that many folks are starting to upgrade to them(or already have). Add this to the fact that Windows also continuously requires more hardware capacity to ensure a stable and pleasant experience, hardware manufacturers will continue to bend to this fact as it is inescapable. Easier to charge more for extra RAM, then to attempt to educate consumers in the art of system optimization.
As such, if you are targeting these folks, and you want to make a good first impression, then a few points -
Why not build a system that is optimal for them? 32bit isn't, anymore. Core2Duo is almost the de-facto new standard for mid-range computers, even more so for performance desktops(which is what everyone wants, due to the consumerism you mentioned). Why develop an inferior product?
Also, polish needs to be increased. ESPECIALLY in the areas of fonts and windows rendering. Consumers WANT the eye-candy Vista has to offer - it's the hardcore users that generally ditch it for performance. I have Vista Home Premium on a new Dell laptop and it is truly a pleasure to look at. I wish Linux could achieve that! I use OSX fonts on my current Mint XFCE install as I found the original fonts unsatisfactory(beautiful thing about Linux - it allows me to do that!).
In the end - I hate Microsoft's need to control everything, and over-charge for bloated products which require better hardware, but it's hard to argue with the fact that they control most of the market, and with Vista, they put out an aesthetically pleasing OS. To take some of the better points of Vista would not be a mistake - especially the 64-bit integration. However, there is much to learn from OSX as well.
64-bit IS the future, whether you like it or not. Also, with RAM prices dropping, more and more programmers will sacrifice code optimizations for time crunches and bottom dollar(especially on the Windows side). Also, more folks will WANT more RAM simply because everyone says more is better(with RAM, it's true!). I just built a new system, and it has 4GB of RAM. Do I always need it? No. Do I run applications that will utilize it? Yes, and more than once a week.
I look forward to a 64-bit version of Mint. I'd like to eventually replace Windows for everything(including gaming), but until then, they will co-exist on my hard drives.
This is one thing I don't know much about. I heard 64bit OS's are good for servers because it can carry more the 8 gig of ram and so on. But, what are the benefits of a 64bit edition for a desktop computer?
While I would absolutely love an amd64 port of Linux Mint, I must contribute my $0.02 and say that the stock Linux Mint 32 bit performs well with 4 GB of RAM, provided you install the server version of the kernel instead of the 386 or generic versions. The server version of the kernel (available in the repos) has been compiled to recognize more than 3 GB of RAM, and this DOES NOT slow down the system as another poster reported.
cyphur wrote:I have Vista Home Premium on a new Dell laptop and it is truly a pleasure to look at. I wish Linux could achieve that!
I dunknow about you, but after running CFusion for a heck of a long time, then using the Vista machine at work, I'm not impressed at all. Slowly rendered windows bog the entire system, the effects are VERY limited, etc. What does Vista have in it's added "bling" that CFusion doesn't? I'm not saying it's bad, just that everything isn't all that inferior to Vista in that aspect alone, and it's not all that inovative.
Agreed - Linux has been doing desktop effects for a good while, I was referring to the polish of the system. Font rendering especially. I'm what I consider a linux newb(I've run several distros in the past, but haven't run it as my main OS since the late 90s when I had Mandrake), so when I load up the distro and I have to tweak a bunch of stuff to get it to look nice, I find that as "lacking" from a consumer perspective. Yes I can fix it, and have on my system - but for desktop replacement, that needs to work out of the box. Just my observations so far...
Acid7711 wrote:
And I would love to see a system log of your weekly activities that fully utilize 4gigs of ram + swap on a desktop computer. I could see this on a all-out multimedia crunching computer setup for buisness/movie making/etc, but for daily desktop use? Please. People are too caught up and ram-happy now a days to realize that the core cpu clocks/fsb limit the raw processing power of the system. It's been that way since the battles of the ghz between AMD and Intel years ago. Consumers are stupid. When a company boasts higher speeds, regardless of being true or not, people go crazy and automatically think it's "faster" and "better" based solely upon what they're blindly believing from an unreliable, biased, source.
In the end, it won't matter because you believe what you're told from whomever, and that's the end of it.
I run a Cisco hardware emulator, dynamips/dynagen, as a tool for professional development and configuration testing. Depending on my lab configuration and the number of devices I am simulating and the protocols they are running, it is fairly easy for me to consume 2GB of physical RAM or more when configured for optimal performance.
Is that a typical desktop use? For me it is, so the RAM is justified in my eyes, to allow me to run that software suite as well as my normal programs.
Thanks for assuming I am a stupid consumer, though. If Mint wants to become a true desktop replacement OS - it's those "stupid consumers" it's targeting.
acid7711 I'm OK with you about the desktop home user, the general consumer...
cyphur wrote:the fact that Windows also continuously requires more hardware capacity to ensure a stable and pleasant experience
hmm Windows is a model?
cyphur wrote:Why develop an inferior product?
No, just the product necessary for our current needs
cyphur wrote:Consumers WANT the eye-candy Vista has to offer
NO. Consumers want what we want to make them believe they need. Thanks to the hype advertising, the so-called 'informations' etc
cyphur wrote:64-bit IS the future, whether you like it or not.
Maybe, unfortunately...
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)
sundayrefugee wrote:doesn't do anything productive for me (...) I'd rather have stability and USEFUL functionality, USEFUL, PRODUCTIVE innovation, in my DE.
Just for the record: nobody need of 3D Desktop!
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)
sundayrefugee wrote:Can the Mint tools simply be recompiled in 64-bit?
I'm sure they could be but Clem could just as easily decide to use the 32bit tools as is? In my experience, 32 bit programs run just fine on 64 bit Linux variants. Such things are only critical when it comes to kernel modules and the like.
[quote="clem"]OK, I'm confused... I actually like Vista...
I started with Mint 4.0 and now I use Mint 5.0
I have also used hardy 8.04 64 bit quite alot....using there guides for setting up your system in the forums I dont find any problems with hardy 64 bit at all.
I use Mint because I play poker in Wine and need to hear the sound while I stream audio or play MP3. This is much easier to set up in Mint by default. Also I find Mint 4 and 5 to be more polished than hardy.
Now, I dont no anything at all about servers. That said I downloaded free trial of Windows server 2008 to see how Vista Ultimate would run on my machine. I just cant run out and spend a few hundred on an operating system.
I took 20 minutes trying to set it up like a desktop workstation and turned on all the Vista Eye candy that I could find. I also downloaded beta version of Firefox 64 bit edition. I opened 3 windows with eye candy turned on in 2008 server then opened firefox and opened 20 random tabs. The only flash they were playing was just the ads no movies.
The results were that it used almost the identical resources that Mint uses. And it seemed quite responsive while using for a couple hours.
So I have to say on my machine it runs pretty fast compared to XP Pro 32 bit or Linux 32-64 bit.
I just dont trust microsoft operating system anylonger since I stopped using XP Pro. But I have to agree with Clem. It seems quick, uses less resources (super fetch was turned off) and ran quite well on my machine
Linux just seems to manage memory better than Microsoft OS
My Machine is:
Socket 939 Amd 64 running at 2.4 ghz
DDR 400mhz 2gig
Nvidia 6200 Agp x8 with 256mb ram
I used to have linux mint in my computer and I gotta say I really liked it, although the fact that there's no 64 bit version is a little off putting. I have a 32 bit desktop and a new 64 bit laptop, where I run ubuntu in both (don't do distro hopping with my desktop). Anyway I had to stop using LM in my laptop cos at least for what I do I need a 64 bit OS. I had to run a few simulation programs and on a 32 bit system each iteration took about 5-6 min, while in the 64 bit it took around 4 minutes. When you have about hundreds of iterations to run the extra power becomes very noticeable.
So for the mean time I am going to have to sitck with hardy 8.04 amd64, that is until the is a mint64.
Well Hello Guys (and Gals):
1- I´m a life time windows (arrrghhh) user, started out there with DOS 4.0.
2- I´m now on Vista x64 running Ubuntu x64 in a VMWare machine and MINT 5.0 in a VirtualBox (Sun) machine.
3- Rig is AMD AM2 4200 w/2GB RAM and 2 x 250GB SATA in RAID (stripping).
4- If I can afford it, next month I´ll be changing micro to an phenom x4 quadcore and 4 GB of ram
5- Maybe, repeat: maybe I´ll start dual booting windows and linux.
6- As a long life windows user: vista is the best WINDOWS to date. With XP I had at lease once a week a BSOD. It´s been a year with vista and ONLY ONCE IVE HAD A BSOD (installed a bad driver). I havn´t turnd off my pc in the las 30 days. Vista works and it IS fast guys.
Base Line is: I like to do everything faster, I do a lot of image and audio editing, some video also.
But... I hate Bill. I Love to tinker, AKA Linux. Started with Mandriva, arrhhhggghhh, Followed w ubuntu... DISCOVERED MINT: I Love the eye candy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE that its easier to use than ubuntu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. But... there are a LOT of proggies that you CANT find for linux: gimp is NOT photoshop. UbuntuStudio is NOT Audition, etc. So I will live with both, BUT ONLY 64 BIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
I believe MINT is the right way to Go Clem!!!!, but remember windows 3.11 versus 95, aka 16 bits versus 32 bits: Im hearing the same bullshit now. 64bit (and in a couple of years 128 bit) is the FUTURE
PLEASE: WHEN WILL WE SEA X64 MINT????????????????'
Well this is what we have for a basic schedule but DON"T think this is how it will turn out.
clem wrote:
The XFCE and KDE CEs are almost ready and they could already be released as they are now. I'm planning on giving each of them the traditional 2 weeks of community testing and to separate these two CEs with one week interval. For the XFCE CE I'll be submitting BETA 025. For the KDE CE I've got minor changes planned based on BETA 041, so I'll probably be submitting BETA 042 to Exploder.
The following plan is what I have in mind:
Friday 18/07 --> XFCE CE RC1
Friday 25 /07--> KDE CE RC1
Friday 01/08 --> XFCE CE
Friday 08/08 --> KDE CE
I'll also be rolling out an R2 on Main and its new Universal Edition. Once all of this is out I'll be experimenting with the x64 edition.
PS: Exploder, Shane, I haven't looked at the Fluxbox CE lately.. if it's close to stable let me know so we can plan it as well.
Clem has started working on th 64bit.
Not sure how much he has done or what problems he might be having.
I just know that he has started tinkering with it.
You could keep your /home partition, but your system would have to be reinstalled. You can't go from 32bit to 64bit without reinstalling the system from scratch. Sorry...
Having more than 4GB is not unusual, I have a customer who uses Ubuntu 64bit with quad core processor and 8GB of RAM for professional video editing.
This was a special build machine and O/S / Software package that we built to meet their exact requirements.
If I had a 64bit version of Mint available to me then my client would have jumped at it as they really liked the facilities that it offered,
however it's not available (yet!!) and hence we went the Ubuntu route ....
I have another customer who's server uses a 64bit Ubuntu server build with 4 Virtual Machines (servers) running on it, again quad core and 8GB RAM
with 60TB of disk space ...
There are a lot of opportunities in the commercial world for Linux / Mint to make an impact, having a 64bit version will help broaden that market place.
First of all, you can utilize 4+ GB of RAM on a 32 Bit Linux installation by simply enabling the option when compiling your kernel. This feature has been available for quite some time (and in fact, I'm running such a kernel at this very moment and it works splendidly on my system with 4 GB of RAM.) Furthermore, 4+ GB support is already available in the stock Ubuntu kernel that shipped with 8.04 LTS (which Mint 5.0 uses, unless I'm mistaken.) Secondly, you have to keep in mind the target audience of Linux Mint. While it might be possible that Clem is eyeing Enterprise domination, I doubt it. The purpose of Linux Mint, at least as long as I've been a member of the community, has been simple, easy and elegant solutions for desktop users. The goal has never been to target enterprise server rooms or super computers. In spite of this, I do happen to agree that a 64 Bit version of Linux Mint would be another jewel in an already fantastic crown. Since Ubuntu offers such a version, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities for the Mint development team to create a derivative work for the Mint community. On the other hand, Ubuntu moves too quickly and its software becomes outdated every six months as new versions are released and old versions stagnate. I'm holding out for a Debian based Linux Mint, which is seems to be in the works. With the breadth of software and options available for Debian, a Mint edition would offer the best of all worlds and a slew of new opportunities including 64 Bit support AND Enterprise solutions.
