outstanding job on Mint11

[Smiff2]

so i've been away from Mint for a year.
have done two installs of it this week.

one was an old WinXP machine with AV slowdown issues and a non-working scanner (Lide 50). installed Mint11 as experiment - everything worked! scanner, printer, etc all picked up and working "out of the box".

today my XP machine decided not to boot. tried M11 (also first time trying a 64bit OS). Looked great, then remembered why i couldn't switch to linux before - my Creative Emu 0202 USB. well, turned it off and on again and it worked too (only at 44.1khz but i can live with that for now i don't do production!). interestingly it needed a restart after boot in windows too.

i realize much of this is upstream credit but i wouldn't use Ubuntu because of the new interface.

not saying its perfect i'm sure i'll be back soon with problems! but first impressions are very good indeed.
currently running Mint11 (from USB stick, seems totally stable) to see if anything comes up before installing.
cheers!


couple of small issues i've noticed:

1) if you have a corrupt NTFS filesystem and want to do a windows partition resize to put mint sidebyside, the installer doesn't let you (ok) but doesn't make it clear what problem is (have to use gparted to see that)
2) software manager doesn't make it clear when its installing something in the background? it seems to finish, with the blue bar saying "not installed" my assumption is that it was erroring out. turns out, install had gone ok but you needed to refresh. otherwise it sits there forever saying "not installed" with no indication what to do?! silly little ui bug that created bad first impression!
3) Finally because this seems to be compulsory to complain about sorry: the default wallpaper is not good sorry! (like My First 3dSMaX save). all your others are gorgeous so this is odd!

[Smiff2]

something else.. my intention was to stick with the LTS release but, by my dodgy maths since that's now a year older it'll only be supported for 6 months longer than 11.04, is that correct?
and given the improved hardware support, using the latest version ALWAYS seems to be the way to go with debian or ubuntu derived distros.. if you don't, you'll be messing with PPAs guaranteed. which is odd since actually i haven't bought any new hardware for years.

P.S Mint11 is absolutely useable running from a Class6 samsung microsd card. this is remarkable!

[midas]

If one is already running Linux Mint Isadora (LTS) and one is going primarily for stability...there is simply no better way to go. LM Isadora is based on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (LTS) and its first goal is stability and reliability.

However, Linux Mint is always releasing at least one month after Ubuntu's release date. During the extra time a lot of bugs are being fixed and extra testrounds are being performed. The LM-team are going very oftenly for the extra mile and are even fixing some extra bugs.

In short, when performing a fresh install...I would simply go for the latest (stable) release. First you could try the Live-DVD...when not encountering any problems you can be sure not experiencing problems with the final install. When encountering problems you can always go 'back' to LM 9 Isadora.

LM 11 Katya is provided with bugfixes and security updates till oktober 2012. LM 9 Isadora even a half year longer.

[Smiff2]

thanks, i am going primarily for "everything works out of the box" and for this latest release is the way to go i think. It could just be my odd hardware but i've always noticed fewer issues, there are rarely regressions (Intel issue with laptops in 9.04 comes to mind, sorted now i think).

not sure if it's worth filing bug reports for my small issues above?

[Smiff2]

the win continues.

have a GeForce 8800GS in this machine.. don't really play games any more but wanted the performance.
just held my breath and installed the recommended nvidia driver through the popup (wasn't sure whether to follow nVidia instructions and disable Nouveau or..),
reboot... and first time i've seen 3d work properly in linux

AssaultCube runs great and so does Compiz anyway.
note sure which version of driver this is but if it works i'll leave alone.
wanted to to do this early in the setup case it meant a reinstall.


what Mint badly needs imho is an easier SMB server share setup tool :/

****

Oops spoke too soon - enabling the Composite and OpenGL plugins in Compiz kills windows decoration (no window borders!). not sure how to go about fixing this.. anyway once i figured out how to revert to default compiz settings i can use system again. :/

Is it recommended to apply all the level3 updates in mint update manager? i see several compiz updates in there.

nVidia driver installed was 270 apparently (latest download from nvidia is 275)

[midas]

Just leave Mint-update the same way as coming out of the box. As default, the level 1,2 and 3 updates are being applied. That means the Compiz-updates will be coming in too.

[Smiff2]

ok thanks.. this is probably a stupid question but what's the nearest ubuntu equivalent of something like "system restore" that lets you back out bad system updates etc..?

[midas]

Yes, there is some functionality in Mint-update and Mint-back up covering your question. I have never used the functionality and don't know how it works (yet)...

[Smiff2]

oh dear. run into a major problem with memory management, started new thread here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=77380


update: summarising the bugs i've found so far (<1 week into Mint11)

1) memory management / paging slowdown on my fast PC http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=77380
2) Compiz is very buggy, need to roll back to .8x http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=74327
3) Themes failing during logon on slow PC (icons wrong etc), hacky script workaround http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=77444
4) network printer asks for password every time, and no place to set it?!
5) numlock state http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=22302

all upstream issues then i think. but Mint11 could have shipped with older Compiz..
that's about it so far..

[Smiff2]

was going to make a list of things that need installing after a fresh mint11 install, might as well do it here

• gparted (was this really not included? it was in the live dvd. essential to manage hard drives..)
• ttf-mscorefonts-installer (if you're coming from windows and have docs you need this.. and even if you're not coming from windows you probably need this package for other docs you will encounter.. why not add this to the things mint offers to install afterwards on the welcome screen?)
• preloader (if you have an old hdd seems to do a good job speeding things up?)

+ other suggestions please add!

[Smiff2]

hit this bug in mintmenu today (error launching Office2003 through WINE through MintMenu)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/664751
and this really is a Mint issue, and not fixed in current version (as of today)

[Smiff2]

could probably include gnome-games in the DVD version?

remove overlay-scrollbar and the lib.. this confuses new users is imho harder to use...