Ubuntucat

For quite a while I’ve heard hype about Linux Mint. A lot of people make it sound as if it’s the perfect Linux distribution—Ubuntu but more polished. Other people think it’s just Ubuntu with some different artwork, nothing special.

As usual, the critics and the devotees both fail to give a real sense of what Linux Mint is like. I tried it out today and found it to be a great modification of Ubuntu but not perfect. It is not, however, just Ubuntu with proprietary software and different artwork.

First of all, I went to the Linux Mint website to try to download it. The front page had all these announcements of releases without actual download links to the releases themselves. Good thing there’s actually a Download link at the top of the page, which takes you to a page with a clear set of download options. I went for the Gnome full edition: Linux Mint 3.0 “Cassandra.” It took only an hour to download via BitTorrent over DSL (typical for a Linux distro disc image). I burned the CD and booted it up. The splash screen is pretty polished.

The wallpaper and the install icon were also nice to look at.

Then, came the disappointment. First of all, when Gnome loaded, the first thing I saw was a pop-up of Tomboy (some note-taking program?). I don’t want any program to load up in my face without my asking for it. Sorry, Knoppix. Sorry, Linspire. And, sorry, Linux Mint. If I want Tomboy, I’ll launch it myself. Then, I opened the Linux Mint menu (a modification of the regular Gnome menu) and was disappointed again. Why is it so busy? It looks like the Windows Start Menu!

Yes, I was disappointed, but I also realized that you could substitute in the regular Gnome menu applet and remove the Mint menu. The menu was annoyingly crowded, but the programs in the confusing menu were great. Mint substituted in AmaroK for Rhythmbox, Thunderbird and Sunbird for Evolution; it also put in by default Beagle, Envy, Beryl and Emerald, NTFS-config, and its own Xorg-conf graphical configuration tool.

This tool was amazing. It’s worth adding the Linux Mint repositories just to get the Xorg.conf application. It GUI-ifies sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, easily allowing you to change refresh rates, save and load other configurations, and test out your settings safely (it doesn’t log you out the way Control-Alt-Backspace normally would).

Other tools allowed you to do stuff you could normally do in Ubuntu’s Gnome but with a slightly different interface. I didn’t try out the ndiswrapper option, but it’s included by default and looks like it could be good (especially after seeing the Xorg.conf tool).

Other good defaults: the Linux Mint homepage when you first launch Firefox has a slick Flash interface with all the essential links. And the user’s home folder has folders for Documents, Downloads, Music, Network, Pictures, Projects, Templates, and Videos. I’m glad it has default folders, but I probably would have left out Network, Projects, and Templates. It does get a bit cluttered.

More on the negative side, you’ll see that some of my screenshots use the Human theme (Ubuntu’s default). That’s because I couldn’t take the ugly default Cassandra theme. And Bianca was no better. The pinstripes and solid blue scroll bar just don’t do it for me, and they appear even worse in contrast to the beautiful wallpaper artwork that Mint comes with.

Warning: The regular Linux Mint includes w32codecs and other legally questionable packages. If you are unsure about (and actually care about) the legality of the default codecs in Mint, download its Light Edition instead.

I think I’m going to stick with Ubuntu for now, but I have to say I’m still reeling from how impressing that Xorg.conf tool is. Maybe something like that will make its way into Gutsy? Seems like pretty basic functionality to me.