A Review of Linux Mint 6: Felicia
Linux Mint is a bit of a dark horse when compared with the big distros like Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat or Gentoo. Don’t overlook it – it provides a great deal of polish that the Linux world has been looking for for a long time. I just put it my old desktop system, so here’s my impression.
Installation:
I did the install the traditional way, by downloading the ISO image (http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php), burning it to a CD and booting it. A Windows installer, mint4win, is available, and automatically runs if you put the Linux Mint CD in your Windows system, and it gives you the option of installing Mint to a file inside one of your Linux partitions, for easier coexistence with Windows. Unfortunately, only 32-bit x86 ISOs are available, though an x86-64 release of Linux Mint 6 is expected soon.
The installer I booted from the CD is pretty close to Ubuntu’s installer (Mint is a direct descendant of Ubuntu, after all) which is a very good thing, because this installer rocks. You start with a Mint Live CD, which lets you test drive Linux Mint without touching your hard disk, and shows you a GNOME desktop, Firefox, OpenOffice and more. Running off the CD is going to be slow, so if you want decent performance, you’ll want an actual installation on your hard disk. It’s a seven-step wizard, starting with the most friendly disk partitioner in existence. It lets you non-destructively resize your existing Windows partition to make room for your Linux partition and a swap partition, or it’ll helpfully guide you to a fresh install, or it’ll let you partition the hard disk yourself. After that, you set your time zone, name your computer, name your first user account (with sudo privileges in the Ubuntu tradition so you can do tasks that require root privileges.) and then go get a snack while it copies files and sets up a bunch of software packages. It finishes by installing GRUB, and automatically sets it up to dual-boot if you have a Windows partition on your system. Then you reboot and you’re done! You get a slick graphical GRUB boot menu, and a cool splash screen before X starts up and presents you with the login prompt.
Desktop:
Once you log in, you get a GNOME 2.24 desktop. Again it comes out of the box with a Mint custom theme. Of course, wallpaper and desktop appearance can be customized pretty easily. It comes with OpenOffice 2.4, GIMP, Firefox 3, Thunderbird and countless other applications. Use mintInstall or Synaptic to select and automatically install any of the thousands of software packages in Mint’s and Ubuntu’s repositories – software that’ll let you do virtually everything you want. In short, it’s got everything you need for a basic desktop, all ready to go. One pleasant feature you get with the standard installation that you don’t get with many other Linux distros is codecs. You get lots of Windows codecs, you get libdvdcss, you get the newest version of Adobe’s Flash Player (ok, almost the newest – there’s actually two versions of the Flash player installable from the repos, and an older, buggy version is installed by default. Uninstalling that version and installing the newer Flash version solved some Flash glitches I ran into.) In other words, if you put a DVD movie into the drive, it plays. You download some mp3 audio files, they work. You find some wmv videos on the net, and they Just Work. Just about everything multimedia-related that requires codecs Just Works. Unfortunately, this may cause issues for those concerned with the one-in-a-million odds of actually being sued or busted for having these things on your system, and this will cause consternation for Free Software purists who don’t want their systems contaminated with proprietary software. Just install the Universal edition instead of the standard edition, and you’ll be free of the codecs, but left with a menu item so you can install them if you choose.
Also, as far as drivers go, certain pieces of hardware, like NVidia and ATI video cards, among other devices, aren’t fully supported with free software, though the manufacturers have chosen to release proprietary drivers. The open, though less-than-fully-featured drivers are installed by default, but you’ll get a polite notification in your system tray of this situation, and the option to switch to the proprietary drivers with a click of a mouse. It gives you the options you need, and is pretty painless. Aside from that, hardware detection was just about flawless – all my devices were detected – monitor, DVD drive, sound, wi-fi, USB devices, etc. and they all Just Work. Wi-Fi uses Ubuntu’s NetworkManager, which puts a handy icon in your system tray, which lets you connect to wi-fi access points with a single mouse click. I highly recommend using it.
Mint improved on Ubuntu with some specific software tools including mintInstall, a software manager which can be browed offline and shows screenshots and user-ratings of various packages before giving you the option to install them. mintUpdate is an improvement over Ubuntu’s update manager, with a new GUI, and enables you to painlessly update your system with bug fixes and security updates. MintUpload is a tool that lets you easily share files with other by uploading them to anywhere where you have web space. mintNanny is intended for families, and enables parents to do things like blocking their kids from viewing certain domains. mintBackup lets you easily make a backup of the contents of your home directory, where you typically keep all your documents and preferences and such. Also Gufw lets you configure a firewall on your system (by default it is not firewalled, and also does not run software with incoming ports by default.
Glitches:
No software of any consequence is free of bugs, glitches or other issues, and Linux Mint is no exception. As I mentioned earlier, it mistakenly installed an older, buggy version of Adobe’s Flash player by default. This was easily fixed by using Synaptic to uninstall it and install the other version available in the repositories, but that’s something that Grandma wouldn’t be able to figure out. Also, some of the Mint-specific tools could use a little bit of polish – when I clicked Refresh in mintInstall to redownload package lists and screenshots and such from the Linux Mint servers, it took close to an hour. Regular Synaptic refreshes its package lists in a matter of seconds (on a reasonably fast Internet connection.) Some optimization is in order here. Also, I would love to have an x86-64 version of Linux Mint. I understand that this is in the works, and will probably be ready in a few weeks. All in all, these are relatively minor problems.
Pros:
- Very easy to install.
- Very polished.
- Everything, including codecs, DVD playback, Flash, and so on Just Works out of the box
Cons:
- Not entirely open-source. Purists may balk at inclusion of Flash, drivers for proprietary hardware. May run into legal strife because of its inclusion of libdvdcss.
- A few minor bugs (wrong version of Flash installed by default, but easily fixable.)
- The Mint-specific software, like MintInstall could use some optimization. It takes an obnoxiously long time to reload its software lists and screenshots from the Mint servers.
- Still waiting for a 64-bit version of Mint 6, though that’s coming soon.
The Final Verdict:
Linux Mint is an excellent distro, and perfect for those who aren’t especially technical, and want to test the waters in an environment that won’t bite them too badly. It handles hardware detection, installation tasks and other housekeeping tasks automatically, so your system Just Works. Even codecs and things like Flash are set up for you, making things downright painless. There are a few bugs, but they’re pretty minor, and easily manageable. Under the hood, it’s pure Linux. For the techincally savvy, the terminal with the bash prompt is right there, and you can set it up for anything from games to web surfing to web serving to software development. I give it an A-.
gbarules2999 Said,
December 28, 2008 @ 9:22 am
“Unfortunately, this may cause issues for those concerned with the one-in-a-million odds of actually being sued or busted for having these things on your system…”
Well, it’s less the user that’s afraid than it’s more of the developer being afraid. If you live in the USA of several European countries distributing these codecs is illegal. That’s why few add them like Mint did.
Nonetheless, a nice write-up.
Mohan Said,
December 28, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
I tried out Mint 6 for about 4 days (replaced my Ubuntu 8.10) but I ran into this weird error where if I plugged in my Sansa Fuze and was syncing up with Banshee flash would just stop working in Firefox and I couldn’t live with that quickly went back to Ubuntu 8.10. Other than that it was pretty good distro.
reia Said,
December 29, 2008 @ 12:41 am
There is an universal edition:
“this edition aims to provide the same features as the Main Edition without including proprietary software, patented technologies or support for restricted formats”.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
Meldroc Said,
December 29, 2008 @ 12:51 am
Yeah, I thought I mentioned the Universal edition briefly in my article.
Boycott Novell » Links 29/12/2008: Linux 2.6.28 Benchmark, TomTom Only Exploits Linux Said,
December 29, 2008 @ 9:41 am
[...] A Review of Linux Mint 6: Felicia Linux Mint is a bit of a dark horse when compared with the big distros like Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat or Gentoo. Don’t overlook it – it provides a great deal of polish that the Linux world has been looking for for a long time. I just put it my old desktop system, so here’s my impression. [...]
Bevin Said,
December 31, 2008 @ 7:20 am
Linux Mint is the distro that will probably win Windows users to over to Linux.
I know it did it for me. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Some of us simply aren’t interested in becoming computer programmers. We are deeply grateful to such creative geniuses as Clem, but we are devoted to our own fields, such as art and music. We have neither the time nor the energy to configure our operating systems.
For us the answer is Linux Mint.
The Linux Mint Blog » Blog Archive » Mint 6 Review: Meldroc Said,
January 12, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
[...] http://www.meldroc.com/?p=19 [...]
Traga2whiskys Said,
January 12, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
There’s nothing like Mint, i also just came from Windows, tired of 3 weeks solving a problem with MSI files, that weren’t working, i format, and had several ditros to try. First i tried them with the Live CD’s, first i wanted to install Ubuntu, my younger brother have it there for already one year, and no complaints, but then i decide for Mint, and guess what, i love it, and my father that is 70 y.o also prefer it to windows, he says its less complicated (he just new firefox and openoffice anyway. My friends are also getting very curious, speacilly the “movie freaks” and also the one’s that see Compiz working.
I don’t think to change never, unless the change it completly.
Ubuntu Look » Mint 6 Review: Meldroc Said,
January 12, 2009 @ 9:17 pm
[...] http://www.meldroc.com/?p=19 Comments: [...]
Koro Said,
January 13, 2009 @ 7:25 am
I agree. This is the perfect distro for those new to linux.
Cyberglyph Said,
January 13, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
I just switched from Windows XP/Vista about 1 week now to Mint, I Love it a ton! I have not used windows for 1 full week and I don’t miss the errors, lockups, freezing, spyware, adware, viruses, or anything. If your new to Linux and you wan’t to get away from Windows give this a serious look. I can go to any of my websites and they work perfectly. I have had no issues yet. Windows people take notice! try this I think you won’t be sorry.
Fosco Said,
January 13, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
Mint is a full reasonable alternative to MS products, easy to install, to use, to love. I tried it after Ubuntu, too much serious x me, and I’m very satisfied.
Best greetings to all from Rome!
findrew Said,
January 13, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
Mint6 is great for newbies. I’m a techie by trade but when I first encountered Vista I knew the time for change had come. I started with Ubuntu Hardy and liked it but couldn’t see myself recommending it to anyone who was ‘just a user’. Then I tried Mint5 – pretty good but: Mint6 is the business! Three happy Windows converts and counting!
Back to the review, I too had problems with the default flash plugin so changed to the ‘adobe-flashplugin’ from the ‘flashplugin-nonfree’ and that seems to have fixed the problems (I was getting 100% cpu usage on sites with even minor flash content)
Nice work guys!!!
kneekoo Said,
January 14, 2009 @ 12:58 am
Meldroc Said:
“Wi-Fi uses Ubuntu’s NetworkManager”
Just to put things in order, NetworkManager comes from RedHat, not Ubuntu. The latter only adopted it for its obvious utility, like other distros have it. See the below link:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/003jan05/features/networkmanager/#interview
Yes, I also had problems with the pre-installed Flash Player – some Flash content was not displayed for some reason. However, I used the official Adobe package to replace the one inside Mint but it only worked after I *completely* removed the old one.
mintUpdate got updated so now it only gets the new files… or that’s what’s official, ’cause I’m using Felicia (Mint 6) and I didn’t get the updated package through the regular channels.
Overall, I liked the review. As Linux Mint is my favorite distribution, it felt good to see such a positive article that gathers pretty much the same opinion about this not anymore a newcomer on the Linux stage but still not so well known.
Jonathan Said,
January 14, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
My XP machine died and I had an old box that I installed Linux Mint on to use as a temporary replacement. I am now in no hurry to fix my other PC. I have been using Linux Mint for over a week now and its wonderful. I have a few years of linux/unix experience with RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD. Linux Mint takes all of the complicated aspects of linux out unlike the other distros. I also had an issue with flash as mentioned above but again it was a simple fix. I did have a problem with installing it with my old onboard video card but after using the safe graphics mode the install worked fine. The only other minor complaint I had was that mintUpdate was checking for updates more often than I preferred but it was very simple to change the preferences. I do like that there are updates put out almost everyday. Makes me feel comfortable that there is constant work being done on the distro as nothing is ever perfect. I highly recommend Linux Mint for those wanting a desktop that just works. I have other linux boxes that I use for other purposes but this will be my daily desktop.
duh duh Said,
January 22, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
Yeah, shame their daily updates renders my computer frozen until it finishing scanning.
Bevin Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 10:50 am
The daily updates issue is not that serious. It can easily be changed.
The default is to update three categories of updates: 1, 2, and 3.
It can easily be reset in one minute to update only 1 and 2.
Once that has been done, it will update only a couple of times a month.
egonomico Said,
February 24, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
I was playing around with my laptop and had a “formatting” mistake courtesy of Mac OS X so I started from scratch and decided to go with Mint6 over ubuntu (hardy). I was just tired of installing a lot of stuff that I use so Mint was my answer. I had tried it a few weeks and knew I was pretty completed out of the box.
The only big problem I have had is that the repositories are extremely slow. Ubuntu updates at +250 kb/s but with Mint I get only a 10 % of that. It sucks. I couldn’t find a way to change the location as in Ubuntu (software Origins) so I had to leave it updating and went away to do something else. I’m new to Mint so I don’t know if I’m alone with this, but google didn’t help. It’s gonna be on a laptop that I don’t usually connect to the web so it is not a real problem, but it’d be great if this issue went away.
Nice review! bye
Boris Said,
March 12, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
Personally i was a bit skeptical about switching to Linux. My Adobe software (Photoshop and Dreamweaver) all work on Windows only… But i found out that using Wine it can be done.
Now, i have LinuxMint on my laptop, with all my Adobe software running with Wine. It’s FAST! Love it.
David Said,
April 13, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
I played around with Mint but gave up because of problems with keeping the wifi working. With Mint 6 I’m hoping they followed close on the heels of Ubuntu 8.10. U-8.10 rocks when it comes to wifi.
Abesh Said,
April 15, 2009 @ 8:36 pm
I installed mint 6 on both my laptop and my desktop and i face the same problem as egonomico.Ubuntu repositories are really fast and i though i keep hearing that mint is an improvisation on ubuntu,how come the repositories are so slow?other than that,i feel mint is a fantastic distribution(GNOME,havent tried out the KDE yet) and things are pretty smooth sailing till now.
Does anybody have a solution to speed up accessing the repositories somehow??lik,downloading 300 mb of updates takes the whole night!and that is really frustrasting:(
mewtwo064 Said,
May 2, 2009 @ 11:35 am
Mint 6 simply works. I successfully installed it on 3 different computers using the install under windows method and works most excellently. One of my computers gave me so much trouble even getting Live CD’s from other distros to work right (with out having to add commands like acpi=off and/or use compatibility modes) let alone a full install working properly. It was even a breeze to install the missing video card and wireless drivers on my laptop under Mint 6 and they work perfectly! I give this 2 thumbs up aside from a few very minor glitches that I’ve encountered (but then again, what software is without its glithces? =P)