I'm impressed
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Nov 23, 2007 12:03 AM EDT |
Linux Mint looks like the sort of Ubuntu I would happily recommend to anyone, it comes pre installed with the necessary CODECs (it's not even a simple matter of linking to the PLF repositories as it is with Mandriva, they are there, already installed), so playing movies or proprietary media formats is a no brainer. On my test machine, a 2 Gig P4 with a gig of RAM and an Acer 1440 by 900 wide screen it just runs - and that is from the Live CD. It recognised the monitor (setting resolution to 1280 by 960, but even running in Live CD mode I was able to very simply reset it to 1440 by 900). Getting the Cube running was equally as simple, and while still in Live CD Mode. I'm seriously impressed. I shall no doubt be making a number of copies of this one and handing them out. |
| jacog Nov 23, 2007 12:47 AM EDT |
And it's quite attractive by default. I have not had a look at Daryna yet, but used to run the KDE version of Bianca... nice, very nice. |
| ColonelPanik Nov 23, 2007 5:57 AM EDT |
And WiFi? |
| tracyanne Nov 23, 2007 12:06 PM EDT |
WiFi? Good question, I'll install my DLink wifi card and run sime tests, later today. |
| tracyanne Nov 23, 2007 4:00 PM EDT |
Well I tried the WiFi abilities of this Distro and it seems that it has no trouble recognising and configuring the DLink Wireless card. I can't get WiFi though, because the Damn cheap DLink router won't work. it simply refuses to function as a Wireless router. |
| Abe Nov 24, 2007 5:51 AM EDT |
Quoting:I'm seriously impressed. Tracyanne When I read your post, I said to myself, Tracyanne being the finicky cat she is, :-) it must be good and I ought to try it. I downloaded, created a liveCD and tried it on three different machines (old ones), it was very erratically and behaved sporadically. I was about to declare it as unstable and not ready until I tried on a fourth one. I was able to run it from CD and was very impressed and decided to installed on hard drive even though it is based on GNOME (I prefer KDE). During the installation, I consistently kept getting an error say it "couldn't copy files from CD to hard drive" in the middle of the install. The error msg was elaborate saying CD & hard drive exhibit this kind of behavior when they get bad due to age or damage. It suggested to clean the CD or to check the hard drive. Well, I knew the hard drive is good because I never had a problem with it before, so I checked the CD. What do you know, I notice a scratch. Created another one and it worked flawlessly on all the machines it didn't work on. Very impressive. It has a touch of a Mac, windows and Linux all combined. The main menu is very slick. you find everything in it and, contrary to the Windows "All Programs" menu, it is extremely user friendly, especially by all the msgs and information it offers the user. It is very snappy and so far it has been reliable and robust. I am very very impressed and can't wait for the KDE 4.0 version. |
| ColonelPanik Nov 24, 2007 7:51 AM EDT |
Abe, What about WiFi? |
| tracyanne Nov 24, 2007 1:06 PM EDT |
Just to continue my WiFi experiment, I managed to get my DLink Router working, it doesn't seem to like the steel topped bench I use as a work bench. I moved it to a wodden chair near by and it burst into song, so to speak. The Linux Mint distro, still in Live CD worked flawlessly using the DLink Wireless card (with FOSS drivers). I also tried the same card with the Mandriva 2008.0 install that is on the machine, and it too worked perfectly with the FOSS driver (Mandriva have the option of using Windows Drivers) Another thing I'm really impressed, also with the latest version of Compriz Fusion. While I've seen the flashy utube videos, but I'm not using the obviously high end video cards those people are using. So was an eyeopener to get, not only some really nice effects, but some really useful ones. I think I'll be running the cube on my laptop. PS: I'm feeling a bit euphoric this morning Labor just won yesterday's election in a landslide - Australia is once again a Socialist Country. Not only that John Howard, our ex prime minister lost his seat of Bennalong to the Labor candidate Maxine McKew. Whoop Whoop. |
| helios Nov 25, 2007 7:26 AM EDT |
It's good to see Mint climbing both in use and peer recognition. I Expect it to hit number one by March...maybe sooner if the KDE community version is as good as the others. Komputers4Kids has moved almost completely to Mint for our installs. We still use Mepis quite a bit because it works juussstttttt a tad better with i810 and 845 chipsets. They have been hell on earth to work with but these two distros seem to tame the beast nicely. Three D cubing works OOTB and I just like the debian/dpkg way of doing things. Other distros may have captured the use of apt and some of them have done so nicely but in my opinion, apt without dpkg is like bread without butter. I wish I could take credit for that analogy but I must credit it to our dear departed friend Jim... I must admit I have some dislike for the ubuntu way of doing debian...can't put my finger on it but it's there none the less. Another reason for my pleasure with Mepis is that Warren had the good sense to move his repositories back to stable debian. All in all though, Mint is Stellar. The DevTeam is mucho helpful and the community seems to be friendly and the mods aren't overbearing and power-tripping. Not saying that there are any that come to mind readily... h |
| jdixon Nov 25, 2007 7:39 AM EDT |
> PS: Tracyanne, given the results of your last out of TOS post, I hope you won't mind if I just ignore this. > It's good to see Mint climbing both in use and peer recognition. Likewise. I'll have to set up a virtual machine and let Meredith try it out to see what she thinks. She may soon be ready to step out on her own and try something other than Slackware (which she only uses because I help support it). |
| beirwin Nov 25, 2007 9:18 AM EDT |
>PS: I'm feeling a bit euphoric this morning Labor just won yesterday's election in a landslide - Australia is once again a Socialist Country. Not only that John Howard, our ex prime minister lost his seat of Bennalong to the Labor candidate Maxine McKew. Whoop Whoop. Excellent news. After hearing about how Australia has treated refugees over the last few years, I'm glad to see that John Howard got the boot. I read in the Sidney Morning Herald that this is the first time since 1929 a Prime Minister lost their own seat in an election. Couldn't have happened to a finer fellow. Tracyanne, what is Kevin Rudd's position on open source and ODF? During the election he apparently held up his laptop and said that "this is the tool of the 21st century", so I got thinking if this means a Microsoft tool or a OS-independent tool. Barbara |
| azerthoth Nov 25, 2007 11:02 AM EDT |
Back on topic: Downloaded and tried LinuxMint 4. On 3 different machines, Laptop #1 it would not finish loading the GUI for the user, it would start and the little splash screen would kick off and run ... then nada. Laptop #2, no wireless (bcm43xx) which is no big deal, I have both the microcode and windows drivers saved elsewhere just for that laptop. However no cube at all. Desktop, loaded fine, again no cube. The one common theme between all 3 machines, nVidia. So with that, I give the distro a thumbs down and will stick with Sabayon. Which does ship with the nVidia Drivers, choice of KDE, Gnome, and Fluxbox or all 3 on install, and with the cube and nVidia drivers an option to load during liveDVD boot. As well as all the purported out of the box functionality of LM4.0. Codecs, DVD's, ect. |
| tracyanne Nov 25, 2007 11:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:Tracyanne, what is Kevin Rudd's position on open source and ODF? During the election he apparently held up his laptop and said that "this is the tool of the 21st century", so I got thinking if this means a Microsoft tool or a OS-independent tool. At the moment I'm guessing he doesn't have one, although the Australian Labor Party's website does run on Apache. I'm not yet sure if Gary Parr, our local Candidate got in, but I spent a bit of time explaining Linux and FOSS to him before the elections, if he did, I'll be back lobbying him, and explaining Linux and FOSS, and why I believe it's the best choice for building an Australian IT infrastructure that is not dependent on any Multi National monopoly. |
| montezuma Nov 25, 2007 12:09 PM EDT |
> I'm not yet sure if Gary Parr, our local Candidate got in Not according to the ABC. The Nationals kept it. Is Rudd the first PM from Queensland? |
| Abe Nov 25, 2007 12:27 PM EDT |
Quoting:Excellent news.Yes in deed, it is good news. Blair was 1st, Howard 2nd and in about a year, G. W. Bush will be the third. Those are the main people who caused major chaos in the whole world. IMHO Of course. After using Mint for a day, I am more impressed. Even though I am not a fan of GNOME and never will, I didn't mind using GNOME. It is that good, but I still anxiously waiting for KDE 4 release. I believe it will be the Distro that will shut up every Linux doubter and will present the major challenge to MS on the desktop. Like Helios said (nice to see you post again Ken), I too expect it to be # 1 on Distrowatch list in a short time. Quoting:Abe, What about WiFi? Sorry Colonel, I don't have a WiFi yet. May be you can test it yourself and let us know. |
| tracyanne Nov 25, 2007 12:32 PM EDT |
Quoting:Is Rudd the first PM from Queensland? Yes. Back in the 90s there was a move by conservatives to push the Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Joh as he was known to Australians), for Prime Minister, but it never got far. I'm interested in seeing a FOSS supportive policy come out of Canberra, but I fear it will be business as usual. The computer for every child will no doubt be a big sale for Microsoft. |
| beirwin Nov 25, 2007 1:00 PM EDT |
Quoted:
"Yes in deed, it is good news. Blair was 1st, Howard 2nd and in about a year, G. W. Bush will be the third. Those are the main people who caused major chaos in the whole world. IMHO Of course." Speaking from Canada - Prime Minister Stephen Harper (a Bush lackey--shudder) hopefully will be the 4th. We've got a minority situation here, so it's a little questionable when the next election will be called. Canadians don't trust right-wing wingnuts, but the Liberals (known as the "Natural Governing Party" of Canada) need to get their house in order before the electorate entrusts them with a majority. It would be great if the Greens got a elected in a few ridings to keep the politicians honest and on track in dealing with climate change. |
| montezuma Nov 25, 2007 1:03 PM EDT |
> Back in the 90s there was a move by conservatives to push the Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Joh as he was known to Australians), for Prime Minister, but it never got far. Yeah I was living in Oz then. A senile old fool for PM would have been just great. /sarcasm More hope for FOSS with Labor than the coalition I suspect. Jeff Waugh of Ubuntu and Gnome fame is a fanatical Labor supporter. Hope that helps ;-) |
| Abe Nov 25, 2007 1:39 PM EDT |
Quoting:Prime Minister Stephen Harper (a Bush lackey--shudder) hopefully will be the 4th. Rest assured, when GW is gone (thanks to the term limit), Harper will be gone too. Quoting:... to keep the politicians honest .... Is that possible? Politicians and honesty are oxymoron. :-) |
| ColonelPanik Nov 25, 2007 1:50 PM EDT |
Abe, I did try it, before anyone started this thread. The live CD not only did not work, it somehow messed up
this machine (yep, the dreaded bcm43XXX). I used Mint awhile back and liked it (maybe when Feisty was just coming out?) If people start reporting WiFi nirvana with the new Mint we will switch from Ubuntu 7.10 I wish our elections were over, damn I wish they were over. From my Third-World experience I sure love a coup d'é tat. They are over in a few days, maybe even hours. Not months and months of big toothed talking heads reading something they don't even understand. |
| Abe Nov 25, 2007 2:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:If people start reporting WiFi nirvana with the new Mint we will switch from Ubuntu 7.10 I am sure they will because Mint is based on Ubuntu. If it works on Ubuntu, it should/will work on Mint. Quoting:I wish our elections were over, damn I wish they were over.Be patient, the wheels of democracy takes time to speed up. |
| tracyanne Nov 25, 2007 3:58 PM EDT |
Quoting:I suspect. Jeff Waugh of Ubuntu and Gnome fame is a fanatical Labor supporter. Hope that helps ;-) I've seen his wife Pia crop up on the LinuxAus mailing list (I think it was that list). I suppose I'll have to start working on our local rep Paul Nevill (as he seems to have been re- elected), my partner knows him, as she is on a number of local community Groups, that our local councillors and Federal reps involve themselves in, and she's gotten pretty well known for her outspoken views on various subjects, and see if I can get him to work on pressuring the Labor government to look at FOSS. I'll also be checking out any of the Greens that may have made it the Senate, they are very favourably inclined towards FOSS, at least the ones I've spoken to. |
| tracyanne Nov 29, 2007 11:42 AM EDT |
One thing about Linux Mint that doesn't impress me is the software installation system. You can install only one application at a time. In addition, unless you already know the application is installed, you don't get any indication that it is until after you've gone to the trouble of downloading software. On a normal Linux system like say Mandriva, you can go through the list of available applications and place tick in chack box, and if you desire install 20 30 or a hundred applications at a go, but with Linux Mint you install a single application, then you install another, or you have lots of windows open at a time on your desktop, all downloading and installing individual applications. I think thay have the right idea, in how they present the applications, with nice descriptions, although a bit more detail would also be good. But I think they need to move away from the web interface and run the installer as a client side application, sort of a better version of the Linspire CNR. |
| azerthoth Nov 29, 2007 11:55 AM EDT |
While I havent played with Mint or Ubuntu lately enough to comment on the single install and then do the next for software. Synaptic is still available for both, where you can click to your hearts content before giving it the old "make it so" button. Heck worse come to worse apt-get install will let you line them up, and apt-cache search will hand you a few details. Its hard to beat apt, aptitude, and synaptic as the trifecta of package management. They are IMHO the standards against which any other package management system should be graded against. I really do miss those now that I have moved away from Debian and derived distro's. Gentoo and Portage are great and extremely flexible and powerfull, but also archaic and easy to mess up for the uninitiated. There are others of course, but I wont mention them as I dont believe that they should even be in the same category. |
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