'My anniversary', Mint 18.3, and some babbling

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tpprynn
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'My anniversary', Mint 18.3, and some babbling

Post by tpprynn »

This is my tenth year of distro-hopping, of the Linux/Windows zig-zag and of using Linux Mint. I don’t think I’m speaking too soon to say that I’m now fully satisfied, now using the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 18.3. Some of my prior dissatisfaction was really more about my own vices and bad habits, and very little of the ‘problems’ with Mint were to do with its actual workings. I had disliked the presentation mostly, of Mint, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora. Often the presentation made me think of a man who’d turned up on his prospective date’s door with his underpants hanging out of his trousers and then had gotten aggressive-defensive when she pulled a face. This scenario still gets echoed daily on Linux forums.

My laptop is one of these slim and cheap atom machines that won’t run a Linux distro for some time, properly. My desktop PC, which is a slowly morphed version of the computer I first used for Linux, is the one running 18.3. There was a vain and irrational part of me that often thought that the machine with the few hundred quid’s worth of components should be the one running Windows, but I seem to have let that go now, and the behaviour and presentation of Cinnamon has I think been the final push – that and ironing out some compulsions and obsessions. Mint doesn't say 'Working on it...' when transferring a tiny file from a pendrive, and doesn't hang when cancelling a transfer. Mint doesn't start griping about permissions. And Mint doesn't eat through my mobile data a couple of hours after I've paid for it with an unasked for update.

It felt and I think still feels to me that there had been an opening for Linux at some point when Windows 8 came out, that it missed, and I wonder if there can be another opening. It’s like certain musicians, who get some attention short of the time where they peak, or who continue to improve after they’ve left the brief period of spotlight. Or the shoes or shirts you like are unpopular and disappear. A lot of people have a weird snobbery and don’t want good things to be popular, but I really do. I want sanity to reign. I’ll be 50 in a few years and I haven’t learned that lesson…

I do still feel a little bit proud that a Cinnamon theme I’d synthesized – with a substantial amount of my own input - ‘Tout’, was included with I think Mint 14. All right, I didn't write it all from scratch, but I had to learn things, and bring my own aesthetics in, and to reflect on others' work. I enjoyed a few years of trying to learn various code, mostly thwarted. As the theming norms changed I found pursuing that particular area at odds with my wanting to deal with my compulsive and obsessive habits. I don’t know how much or how little the widgets and toolkits that Apple and Microsoft use changes but it’d be good if gtk could coalesce, if I’m not being naive there. I haven't even tried to amend Tout for my own use because not having my own aesthetics in front of me enables me to get on better with just using the machine without thinking, That gradient isn't quite pronounced enough... I used to use my own photos as wallpapers, but now I just use a slideshow of a few ready-mades and make myself accept 'flaws'. (More or less...)

Although it’s not neatly and tidily October, my own Linux anniversary, I’ll end by thanking Mint’s creators and other staff, and the forum users who’ve been a help over the years.

Don’t get too experimental! Don’t break anything now!

Lee
what's not to like.jpg
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Pjotr
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Re: 'My anniversary', Mint 18.3, and some babbling

Post by Pjotr »

Happy anniversary. :)

I don't think you'll have to be afraid of sudden radical major changes, like in Ubuntu. Thank God, Mint has a reputation of being consistently conservative with the desktop experience.
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Re: 'My anniversary', Mint 18.3, and some babbling

Post by MurphCID »

I'll add my congratulations as well. My linux journey began with a boxed set of Mandrake Linux back in the day, and I could never get it to work. Then came Mint, and I have found a distribution that works right out of the box. Mint seems to pride itself on ease of use, stability, and predictability which stands it in good stead.
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