Is Linux Mint ugly?

[lsemmens]

Henry Ford was reported (falsely apparently) as having said, "You can have any colour you like, as long as it's black". Look how that worked out.

[trytip]

Ban/Termination Request.

hey, take it from me, banned from two linux forums and a few torrent forums, it wasn't hard to do on my part just be myself but if myself gets me banned wherever i go do i have a problem? no i don't, the world has a problem with me and my views
drink some tea or coffee and who cares about the rest. we're all gonna die here soon maybe or not, enjoy this time to make a good looking desktop as you like it and make it better looking than developers at mint.
mint wants to have a default look like apple which i can overlook, but apple has a bit of polished shininess on their color gray and mint doesn't it's just drab and dull gray.

what i will complain about: font sizes in linux sux HUGE icons tiny fonts

[trytip]

The box clearly showed "5400 watts" as its nominal output. I was 3 meters away and I could see that. However, the two were trying to work out if the unit was "fifty-four hundred watts" or "five thousand four hundred watts".

which one would be a better deal the fifty-four hundred or the five thousand four hundred, i would buy a generator since i need to install some day lights because the sun is too bright sometimes.

[cliffcoggin]

<thread hijack>

The box clearly showed "5400 watts" as its nominal output. I was 3 meters away and I could see that. However, the two were trying to work out if the unit was "fifty-four hundred watts" or "five thousand four hundred watts".

</thread hijack>

I'd have been tempted to tell them it was actually five million four hundred thousand milliwatts, and see what they made of that.

[lsemmens]

Awwwwww! Now we're getting pedantic! Everyone knows it's 5.4Kw.

[jp14]

in south africa that would be 5million 40hundred 40 and ....listen properly...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi1nSJZMcLg

[lsemmens]

Thanks, JP, made I LOL!

[Dark Owl]

anyone upgrading to mint 19 should do so knowing that the new experience will differ.

Can I offer a veteran's opinion here? I've been using PCs since before Windows... not as a plaything but as a tool to get stuff done. That means creative output on paper or distributable file (whether that be a PDF, a JPG, or a web page). The purpose of a PC as a tool is for it to help not hinder, and every time Windows got revamped, they changed the user interface so there was a loss of productivity getting used to the new one... and the older you get the more difficult that transition is. I stopped at Win7, unwilling to switch to Ribbon toolbars and the Metro GUI.

Why change the user interface at all? Once you've got the basics of a GUI with things to click, there is no need to move stuff around so it is hard to find. Everything else is window-dressing and pandering to fashion.

There is no need for a new version of Mint to change anything in the GUI. The nuts and bolts underneath can change, but there is no need for the GUI to change. Leave that as a choice for the user. I do not want to update Mint 18.2 (which is what I happened to have an install disc for) to 19 or 20 and find it changes what I see on the screen - provide new customisation options if you like, but don't remove old ones and leave it up to the user to adopt them if they wish.

Whether a GUI is ugly or not is in the eye of the beholder; what I need is ease of use and consistency, and I see no point in wasting clock cycles on animating the desktop (for example).

If you ever wondered why older people use out-of-date software, it's because we don't want the risk of upheaval if we update!

[karlchen]

If you ever wondered why older people use out-of-date software, it's because we don't want the risk of upheaval if we update!

Really? Actually I am on the wrong side of 60 myself, but still using this ...

Code: Select all

karl@voyager:~$ inxi -Sx3
System:    Host: voyager Kernel: 4.15.0-99-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8 
           wm: muffin 4.4.2 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 

... and no upheaval, compared to my LM 18.1 Cinnamon, just a different icon theme and a different wallpaper.

anyone upgrading to mint 19 should do so knowing that the new experience will differ.

Well, this depends on whether users focus their attention on all the many things, which have remained unchanged compared to LM 18.x, or whether they permit themselves to be frightened by the few things, which have visually changed between the 2 major releases 18 and 19.

[all41]

+1 Dark Owl's point

It's much like shopping at your favourite grocery store where
you have become accustomed to the aisle and shelf location and plan your
route with that in mind.

How upsetting it can be to find the store has rearranged everything
and you now have to search to find what you need. It's upsetting to your routine
to have to learn the new layout.

[Dark Owl]

no upheaval, compared to my LM 18.1 Cinnamon, just a different icon theme and a different wallpaper.

Fine... but explain why we should have our chosen theme and wallpaper altered without so much as a "by your leave"? Wouldn't it be more sensible to leave things as they are, and give the user the option to choose a different theme if they wish?

[smurphos]

Fine... but explain why we should have our chosen theme and wallpaper altered without so much as a "by your leave"? Wouldn't it be more sensible to leave things as they are, and give the user the option to choose a different theme if they wish?

If you upgrade that's exactly what happens - your personal settings are left untouched, if you do afresh install whilst preserving your home folder that is also what happens*

If you do a new fresh complete install including wiping home then sure you end up with the default theme and wallpaper for that release but that's not really unexpected.

* so the caveat would be if you are using some third party theme you may need to source an updated version of that theme if your upgrade or home preserving reinstall is 18.x > 19, 19.x > forthcoming 20 etc. If you are using one of the stock themes (Mint X or Y) then the theme itself may have had subtle tweaks, generally to improve the types of issues under discussion in this thread, contrast etc.

[trytip]

+1 Dark Owl's point

It's much like shopping at your favourite grocery store where
you have become accustomed to the aisle and shelf location and plan your
route with that in mind.

How upsetting it can be to find the store has rearranged everything
and you now have to search to find what you need. It's upsetting to your routine
to have to learn the new layout.

+1 all41's point

[cliffcoggin]

I lean toward the conservative opinion in that time spent on the computer is unproductive, therefore the more time I spend learning new designs and layouts, the more time I am wasting.

In regard to the original question "is Linux Mint ugly?" I really don't care as long as the fancy designs do not obscure the functionality. A pleasing artistic appearance is all very well, but it must always take second place to legibility and functionality on my computer, which is why for many years my wallpaper or whatever it is called in Linux was just a grey screen. No picture, no design, no patterns, just a plain medium grey screen.

[Portreve]

Even in death there is change. The body you start out with ends up in a completely different state. In sum, and to borrow an expression, the only constant is change.

[cliffcoggin]

Even in death there is change. The body you start out with ends up in a completely different state. In sum, and to borrow an expression, the only constant is change.

But of course. Entropy will always win.

[Mister Cabbage]

i think mint's appearance is fine, as is the operating system overall, and i didn't come to mint based on its appearance. the default themes, software, etc. are enough to get one started in a Linux OS. rather than change the themes, why not an easier tool to customize themes. i realize there are existing software projects that do this to some extent, but maybe the mint team might consider something in-house and a bit easier for newcomers to use?

i'm more interested in window manager functionality. i really dig the tagging system for awesome tiling manager, but i'm still acclimating to i3wm. if there was an easier means of getting apps started on specific workspaces/tags via a GUI menu, i'd probably go back to using cinnamon desktop. i think there's ways to get more control over workspaces with scripting in cinnamon, but i found it easier to learn how to use and tweak i3. although, I've enjoyed learning to do more things in general via cli.

[thx-1138]

...In regard to the original question "is Linux Mint ugly?"
I really don't care as long as the fancy designs do not obscure the functionality.
A pleasing artistic appearance is all very well, but it must always take second place to legibility and functionality on my computer,
which is why for many years my wallpaper or whatever it is called in Linux...
...was just a grey screen. No picture, no design, no patterns, just a plain medium grey screen.

Amen...

[GS3]

The purpose of a PC as a tool is for it to help not hinder, and every time Windows got revamped, they changed the user interface so there was a loss of productivity getting used to the new one... and the older you get the more difficult that transition is. I stopped at Win7, unwilling to switch to Ribbon toolbars and the Metro GUI.

I subscribe everything you said in your post. I stopped upgrading Windows and I am still on XP and that is why I am using Linux Mint.

There was no need to keep changing things around but MS just changed their business model. The fundamental reason they kept making changes was because they needed to keep making money.

In the case of LM I agree with you that the main focus should not be aesthetics but stability, lack of problems, continuity, compatibility, etc. and looks should take a very second place. Unfortunately a lot of people just get bored with things and just want the excitement of change.

I absolutely hate it when I have to upgrade and fight with a million little changes, glitches, things that are now broken, etc. Every change to fix something breaks at least one other thing.

[GS3]

The box clearly showed "5400 watts" as its nominal output. I was 3 meters away and I could see that. However, the two were trying to work out if the unit was "fifty-four hundred watts" or "five thousand four hundred watts".

The easiest way to figure it out is to convert it first to HP.