Bye Bye Ubuntu...Hello LinuxMint

[toughmudderdave]

..Tired of Unity and the lack of features/tweaks with Gnome. I've upgraded my machine and while I was at it, threw down LinuxMint w/ Cinnamon. Much cleaner interface and I like the feature set so much better. That's the beauty of Linux..You can pick your "flavor"

I've got a 480GB SSD for my primary drive so I'll also be installing OpenSUSE, Arch, and I may even give Gentoo another "go" since that was the OS that sold me on Linux many moons ago.

 

[toughmudderdave]

And Seamaiden takes the "plunge" as well. **grin**

 

[SetHeh]

Did you switch just because of Unity? I'm asking because I usually install my Ubuntu via Minimal CD (~ 30 MB ISO image). The installer has an option that allows you to choose your preferred desktop environment and the rest of programs. The reason I do it this way is that I have an old PC so I install a bare bones Ubuntu with Openbox WM and apps that I need. The OS is very responsive and far from bloated. Here's a desktop screenshot:

 

[kushie]

For old systems, Xfce rocks and is lightweight.
Can run with mint as well as debian.
I like xubuntu. Clean and fast.

 

[SetHeh]

Yes, Xfce is a great and lightweisht DE, but Openbox is even lighter — much, much more.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Did you switch just because of Unity? I'm asking because I usually install my Ubuntu via Minimal CD (~ 30 MB ISO image). The installer has an option that allows you to choose your preferred desktop environment and the rest of programs. The reason I do it this way is that I have an old PC so I install a bare bones Ubuntu with Openbox WM and apps that I need. The OS is very responsive and far from bloated. Here's a desktop screenshot:

[URL=http://i45.tinypic.com/2mcx05k_th.jpg]View Image[/URL]

Unity had a lot to do with *my* reason for switching, but Dave wasn't using Unity because he hated it so much. I am liking Mint a lot better than the Unity I was using, for sure. Still could use a couple of tweaks, especially with certain programs like GIMP, but still, much faster and user-intuitive, easier for me.

 

[toughmudderdave]

Unity had a lot to do with *my* reason for switching, but Dave wasn't using Unity because he hated it so much.

Correct. And yes, I've installed many different DEs over the years, and I have a server here in my office running xubuntu. I haven't as of yet, but I intend on installing a few "flavors" of linux on my machine and playing with them. LinuxMint is very nice though.

 

[nepalnt21]

SetHeh, what music player is that on your screenshot? i tried deadbeef for awhile, but i wasnt digging the way it sounded... the eq didnt seem to help. do u like the one u have?

 

[SetHeh]

It's called Audacious. It works great and supports XMMS and Winamp skins, although its default GUI is GTK3. What I like the most is that it isn't system resource hungry. Another alternative would be Clementine, which looks and works like the old AmaroK 1.4.

http://audacious-media-player.org/

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Try VLC player... works awesome in both linux and winderz. Been using that one for going on 7 years or so now.

sudo apt-get install vlc


The only ui changes I really made to ubuntu was to change the window manager (lwxd?) and reset those stupid default 'pop-up' window sliders... what a joke and a waste of time.

Things take longer to set up with linux... usually. The control is finer and the end result is much nicer... and, after all the set up time invested, it will work that way till the hardware grinds to dust. LOL

Stay Safe!

 

[SeaMaiden]

It's called Audacious. It works great and supports XMMS and Winamp skins, although its default GUI is GTK3. What I like the most is that it isn't system resource hungry. Another alternative would be Clementine, which looks and works like the old AmaroK 1.4.

http://audacious-media-player.org/
View Image

I switched back from Amarok to Audacious for this install, and I much prefer it. I was having real problems playing back some file types in Ubuntu Unity with Amarok. No such troubles with Mint and Audacious!

I've played around a little bit with Audacity for messing around with music/sound files. It's fun.

 

[kaotic]

I just switched to Nadia last week. Ubuntu was getting to bloated and slow. I hated Unity from the get go. I ran Cinnamon in Ubuntu and was happier. Mint 14 with Cinnamon is great though. I dual boot with BT5 also.

 

[The Professor]

Linux Mint w/Cinnamon is also my "flavor" of choice. It's been holding the #1 position at DistroWatch for a couple years now which was formerly held by Ubuntu for the looongest time. It's popular because it's a very well sorted distribution and popularity in Linux is good because it means lots of pre-compiled packages and penty of help online.

 

[SetHeh]

I switched back from Amarok to Audacious for this install, and I much prefer it.

IMO, Amarok was great up until 2.0 branch. After that it became bloated. These days I prefer "leaner" music players. Audacious works like a charm for me. Occasionally, I also use CMus (dubbed by some as "Amarok for terminal"). Here's my screenshot:



It's probably not everyone's cup of tea.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

IMO, Amarok was great up until 2.0 branch. After that it became bloated. These days I prefer "leaner" music players.

Again... I'll recommend VLC player. Very capable application, lots of options, runs a small footprint in memory and is cross platform.

Been around for years and is very stable and smooth. Surprised more folks haven't heard of it or use it.

Stay Safe!

 

[huligun]

You know I know of a bunch of people that live in a commune type of setting in the hills of Nicaragua that use that Linux. Those people sacrifice so much to live independently, but software? I have to draw the line someplace. The following for Linux is sort of a religious cult thing, a political stance, and the kind of people that say, "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down".

I can understand that many that use Linux are doing it for various reasons, not all of them exactly financial, but man... you can steal or buy a bootleg of Windows if you really want to give it to the man. I really didn't enjoy the two weeks or so I gave Linux an honest try. I have never been so miserable.

 

[SeaMaiden]

You know I know of a bunch of people that live in a commune type of setting in the hills of Nicaragua that use that Linux. Those people sacrifice so much to live independently, but software? I have to draw the line someplace. The following for Linux is sort of a religious cult thing, a political stance, and the kind of people that say, "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down".

I can understand that many that use Linux are doing it for various reasons, not all of them exactly financial, but man... you can steal or buy a bootleg of Windows if you really want to give it to the man. I really didn't enjoy the two weeks or so I gave Linux an honest try. I have never been so miserable.

That's not why I use Linux. I use it because I got tired of all the fucking bullshit, blue screens, viruses, spyware, scamware, updates, security updates that made things more insecure, and then, finally, yeah, the cost. Bootleg is bullshit, I don't need Windows that badly.

Linux has come a long way, and the distro you choose makes a big difference in how usable it is for you. This LinuxMint distro is something I'm going to have my (74yo) mother try. She insists she has to use Excel, but the Libre Calc that comes pre-installed works exactly like Excel. Need to play around with your photos? You don't need to use an expensive program like Photoshop to do it, you can use opensource GIMP (which also happens to be available for Windows now).

The only reason I was keeping my own machine dual-boot was so I could make deposits, because all my banking is done online (USAA, who I believe invented the Deposit@Home thing using your Android or iPhone). Now that I have a Tablet, I can make my deposits, so no more Windows. I have one OLD laptop that's still got a Windows install on it, but I rarely use it so was going to give it away.

 

[SetHeh]

Again... I'll recommend VLC player. Very capable application, lots of options, runs a small footprint in memory and is cross platform.
Been around for years and is very stable and smooth. Surprised more folks haven't heard of it or use it.

VLC is great, but I use it mostly to play video files.

@huligun, I use Linux for the same reasons as @SeaMaiden. I've become so used to it that I feel awkward using Windows. Plus, upgrading a Linux distrubution is sooo easy compared to Windows. I just type "aupgrade" in terminal and that's it. ("aupgrade" is my custom Bash alias command for "sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude safe-upgrade"). Alias commands are awesome invention!

 

[kaotic]

It's my default. Good stuff.

 

[czeslaw]

Im also get angry with this Unity but in 12.10 u have real, working Gnome Classic