Hi all,

I just had a play with Linux Mint today, and I fell in love with it! It feels like what Ubuntu used to be.

I just wonder if anyone has played with it, and what they like/dislike about it? Also, game development looks to be fairly easy on it as well (at least as easy as on Ubuntu), especially since Unity3D has the option to export to Linux (as well as GameMaker, though it's specifically for Ubuntu). I can't wait to dabble with it this week!

I used to run Ubuntu pretty frequently, but really started to hate the Unity interface after a while. I'm glad I found Linux Mint! Anybody else here use it, or another version of Linux they like?

My headless laptop runs Linux Mint and I like it. I also like Zorin- it's pretty licky chewy. I think its window manager is a modified gnome one.

I've seen Mint through I haven't tested it on my own computer.

What I did test is a bunch of desktop environments with Debian. Used LXDE for months, then tested briefly Xfce, then Gnome 3 in fallback mode (normal Gnome 3 is a no go on my netbook) and right now, Enlightenment.

Surprisingly enough, while Enlightenment is the "prettiest" environment I had (everything is animated, anti aliased, with shadows and so on), it's also the fastest that I've tried. Its development was halted for years, and was recently picked up again, so it has some rough corners (better than LXDE though).

But it is very, very configurable, easy on the eyes and works pretty fast (which is a miracle considering that I'm running a single core Atom N450 and an ION 2). I do have some issues with the application menus. Things like Synaptic fail to load since there is something wrong with the launcher that grants root privileges, so I have to launch it myself from a root terminal.

I'm hoping that ppl will pick up on it since that probably means more up to date .deb packages :D

I've come to hate things that run on GTK nowadays, Synaptic? If I gave a floppy to a turtle and asked it to bring me a .deb file it would be faster. Gnome? The same. And so on...

I'm using it as well as a main workstation since last december. Cinnamon is a bit irritating because it seems to lack many basic features (especially relating to dual monitor management) but it has been quite enjoyable so far (and it runs perfectly). I think I'll stick with it for a while, but for my next distro I think I'll go for a different desktop environment.

My headless laptop runs Linux Mint and I like it. I also like Zorin- it's pretty licky chewy. I think its window manager is a modified gnome one.

This thread did get posted after all! It said the server failed while I was writing it last night, and I couldn't get back on the site. Weird!

Synaptic (or apt-get) doesn't work for me.

Hmm, I'll have to look into the problems with apt-get before I go ahead and install it on a separate partition. Like you said, someone may have just forgotten to update something, and perhaps they'll fix it soon enough!

Cinnamon is a bit irritating because it seems to lack many basic features (especially relating to dual monitor management) but it has been quite enjoyable so far (and it runs perfectly).

I'll have to look into that as well. I do remember having some difficulty setting up dual monitors with Ubuntu. I could never quite get the other one to run at the resolution I wanted because it kept thinking it was at its native resolution. I'm not running dual monitors, so it's not a terribly big concern at the moment.

What surprised me the most about Mint is how much faster than Ubuntu it was, and I was even running it off of a live CD! It seemed more fluid. Also, even though it's just aesthetics, the wallpapers are amazing!

I'll have to look into that as well. I do remember having some difficulty setting up dual monitors with Ubuntu. I could never quite get the other one to run at the resolution I wanted because it kept thinking it was at its native resolution. I'm not running dual monitors, so it's not a terribly big concern at the moment.

Well the problem for me is that Cinnamon has no virtualization feature and always runs in "external head" mode, which is what you want when doing powerpoint presentations but not what you want when using both screens as a single large monitor. Having the taskbar stretch out onto both screens is what I am missing. I know, sounds rather trivial, but it's just annoying to have the taskbar only on the first monitor. That said the nice side-effect is that fullscreen stuff only occupies one screen out of the two instead of cutting at the bezel, which is often better. So it's just a quality of life issue, I can live with it.

I tried to use the AMD drivers for Eyefinity like on my Windows system but they broke everything, so I gave up. The open source Radeon drivers, even though they lack full hardware acceleration, are wonderfully stable and that's all I ask for.

There's actually a github issue opened about this. It's been almost two years..

What surprised me the most about Mint is how much faster than Ubuntu it was, and I was even running it off of a live CD! It seemed more fluid. Also, even though it's just aesthetics, the wallpapers are amazing!

Me too. First time I booted it from my crappy flash stick it was really fast, and the installation was nice too. I especially did not miss not having Ubuntu's ridiculous "installing those 500MB language packs that you will never use but for some reason I need to download them anyway, you know, just in case you happen to speak all 177 languages, never mind that I actually asked what language you wanted five minutes ago". Now on my SSD it's beautiful. It takes about ~1 second for the desktop to appear and the system is ready for use

My headless laptop runs Linux Mint and I like it. I also like Zorin- it's pretty licky chewy. I think its window manager is a modified gnome one.

Heh, Mint is Ubuntu with a different shell. If you're running it headless (ie. no shell), you're just running Ubuntu.

I was speaking hardwarewise- see here: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/643909-gah-my-laptop-screen-is-cracked/