Linux Mint 11 is the greatest operating system ever made.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:11 pm

All other operating systems are now measured in fractions of how good they are in comparison to Linux Mint 11.
Windows 8 is exactly .732832 Linux Mint 11 measuring units. Having no operating system is .01 LM11MUs, while Windows Vista is 1E-50000 LM11MUs.

This OS uses less memory than Xubuntu with my compiz tools enabled.

Wohoho AAAahhh!

My notifiers don't DRAG entire windows into neighboring desktops. Instead it brings me to the desktop where the action is taking place.

OHYEA!

THANK YOU GOD FOR FORCING YOUR ANGELS TO FORGE THE EXCALIBUR OF ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS.

That being said, there are a few complains. It seems that on my friends computer there's an issue with the network manager. Not sure why. So far I have no issues. I switched her to Fedora. The new advanced mint menu sucks. It's buggy and I changed it back to the standard start menu. Not a problem since I use Synapse for search launching stuff anyway.

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:34 pm

This thread is worthless without pics. Just sayin' 'cause I'd like to be seein' what yer crowin' about. ... Before I go messin' with it.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 8:03 pm

Not much to see. They just take ubuntu 11.04 and install gnome 2.32.1. They also customized a few things that give a nicer experience. Compiz is tweaked a bit better, though I've changed it a lot. The Software center and update manager are a bit different. The terminal has text drawn cartoon character. Not sure why. It's just trying to be a nice OS for day-to-day work. It's also very normal looking, unlike some other new distros aimed at general users, like me.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 8:21 pm

I'm already using Ubuntu 11.04 with gnome 2.32, so I don't see much incentive to switch at the moment. However, I am looking at them to see what they do with the whole gnome 3 situation. (Why don't people get that desktops, laptops != touchpads?)

vision · Post by **vision** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:04 pm

Isaac wrote:The terminal has text drawn cartoon character. Not sure why. It's just trying to be a nice OS for day-to-day work.

Fortune. Yeah, the little quotes and characters are kind of neat. At first I was annoyed, like, "wth why are you wasting my time with this!" But then later I was like, "Hey, that's kind of fun."

Jeff250 wrote:(Why don't people get that desktops, laptops != touchpads?)

Glad to hear someone else had that same realization. Unity makes me think design aesthetic trumped functionality for no good reason. I've been avoiding it. Luckily, there are more Linux distro options than you can shake a stick at.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:42 pm

Jeff250 wrote:I am looking at them to see what they do with the whole gnome 3 situation.

Oh yeah, me too! Here's something I just read on it.

When GNOME did its version 3 and Ubuntu came up with Unity, the popularity of Linux Mint sky-rocketed, because they stuck with GNOME 2.32. The Mint team has been working on their next version for a while now, and today, they first unveiled what they're working on. There's good news - the team is working on making GNOME 3 likeable. Their question for this release: "How do we make people like Gnome 3? And what do we provide as an alternative to those who still do not want to change?"

snippity-snip

The goal of the MGSE is to re-implement the known and proven GNOME 2.x desktop using GNOME 3 technologies.

http://www.osnews.com/story/25298/Linux ... of_GNOME_3

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 5:06 pm

Nice. Yesterday I found out my system might have been compromised with malicious ware. Since I was planning on upgrading, I decided to check out Ubuntu 11x with Unity. My god, it was terrible. Then I checked out a few other distros like Xubuntu and Fedora. But the Linux I was most drawn to was Mint, so now I have it on both my machines.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:07 pm

Hey vision, check out my compiz settings for mint.
I broke core into two lines to post it.

Code: Select all

[ezoom]
s0_zoom_in_button = <Super>Button4
s0_zoom_out_button = <Super>Button5
s0_minimum_zoom = 0.126400

[zoom]
s0_timestep = 0.100000
s0_zoom_factor = 1.074900
s0_filter_linear = true

[colorfilter]
s0_toggle_window_key = <Super>r
s0_toggle_screen_key = <Shift><Super>r
s0_filters = 

[move]
s0_snapoff_maximized = false

[shift]
s0_initiate_key = Disabled
s0_terminate_button = Disabled
s0_next_key = <Alt>Tab
s0_prev_key = <Alt>q
s0_next_all_key = Disabled
s0_prev_all_key = Disabled
s0_speed = 5.367500
s0_shift_speed = 2.704200
s0_timestep = 0.100000
s0_mouse_speed = 0.100000
s0_click_duration = 2000
s0_size = 100
s0_background_intensity = 0.000000
s0_reflection = false
s0_flip_rotation = -70
s0_cover_extra_space = 2.000000
s0_cover_max_visible_windows = 19
s0_window_title = false

[core]
s0_active_plugins = core;bailer;detection;composite;opengl;compiztoolbox;decor;place;neg;vpswitch;gnomecompat;
resize;mousepoll;session;regex;imgpng;move;shift;obs;wall;animation;expo;ezoom;workarounds;fade;scale;

[grid]
s0_put_center_key = <Shift><Control>g
s0_outline_color = #a9fb009f
s0_fill_color = #abfb004f

[obs]
s0_brightness_increase_key = <Super>Up
s0_brightness_decrease_key = <Super>Down
s0_saturation_increase_key = <Super>Left
s0_saturation_decrease_key = <Super>Right
s0_saturation_step = 10

[decor]
s0_shadow_radius = 0.100000
s0_shadow_opacity = 0.010000
s0_shadow_x_offset = 0
s0_shadow_y_offset = 0
s0_mipmap = true

[neg]
s0_neg_decorations = true

[staticswitcher]
s0_saturation = 0
s0_row_align = 0
s0_highlight_mode = 1

[switcher]
s0_prev_key = <Alt>q
s0_mipmap = false
s0_saturation = 0
s0_brightness = 100
s0_opacity = 0
s0_bring_to_front = false
s0_zoom = 0.140400

[wall]
s0_preview_scale = 0
s0_border_width = 0

[scale]
s0_spacing = 3
s0_initiate_key = <Super>w
s0_initiate_all_key = Disabled

[gnomecompat]
s0_main_menu_key = Disabled
s0_run_key = Disabled

[animation]
s0_open_effects = animation:Glide 2;animation:Glide 2;animation:Glide 2;
s0_open_durations = 233;233;415;
s0_close_effects = animation:Glide 2;animation:Glide 2;animation:Glide 2;
s0_close_durations = 120;199;946;
s0_shade_durations = 2656;
s0_focus_effects = animation:Focus Fade;

[resize]
s0_border_color = #aafb009f
s0_fill_color = #b5fb0019

[expo]
s0_expo_key = <Super>e
s0_vp_distance = 0.000000
s0_curve = 0.244100
s0_reflection = false

[composite]
s0_detect_refresh_rate = false
s0_refresh_rate = 60

[ring]
s0_next_key = <Alt>Tab
s0_prev_key = <Alt>q
s0_speed = 0.758000
s0_timestep = 14.905500
s0_ring_clockwise = true
s0_ring_width = 100
s0_ring_height = 11
s0_thumb_width = 1024
s0_thumb_height = 925
s0_min_brightness = 0.100000
s0_min_scale = 0.928100
s0_window_title = false
s0_title_font_size = 28

[opengl]
s0_sync_to_vblank = false

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:14 pm

You mention that:

This OS uses less memory than Xubuntu with my compiz tools enabled. Wohoho AAAahhh!

Now, I have an old brick of a computer, and am wondering how much ram it is using?
Just so you know, the specs of my machine are 1.7ghz with 256mb ram. Currently running ubuntu, but s l o w l y

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:33 pm

Yeah, the ubuntus will want to run heavy. I think it's because gnome wants to use around 600MBs. At least it does with my system with compiz running.

That's actually a problem with xubuntu. Nothing's just pure XFCE when using Xubuntu. If you're getting stuff from the repos you'll be getting Gnome dependant applications. Even worse, you can also install KDE dependent applications, so you can have a bunch of KDE apps running in Xubuntu or Lubuntu (never used that). In fact it was a problem because some apps were installing conflicting system menus for gnome. I had two battery icons in the task bar at one point.

I highly recommend doing what I am. Learning Arch Linux, but slowly. If done correctly, you can build up Arch to use exactly the amount of RAM you want it using. I read that it can use as little as 64MB. I recommend practicing in virtual box. I haven't gotten very far with it.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:03 am

sdfgeoff wrote:You mention that:
This OS uses less memory than Xubuntu with my compiz tools enabled. Wohoho AAAahhh!
Now, I have an old brick of a computer, and am wondering how much ram it is using?
Just so you know, the specs of my machine are 1.7ghz with 256mb ram. Currently running ubuntu, but s l o w l y

Seriously? I have a spare computer I could give you that's quite a bit faster...

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:49 pm

Well.....
If you compare prices of computer for
processing power * Ram / price = value

Then you will have an interesting indication of how much of a bargain you got the PC for.
If it's me, then that computer (laptop) has a value of infinity, due to it's price being $0!

It's not the only PC that I have either, but it is one that I would like to get going a bit quicker.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:50 pm

Not to hijack the thread, but I was being serious - have a core 2 duo with a couple gigs of ram willing to go to anyone who needs it.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 6:12 pm

I bet sdfgeoff would take it if he weren't on the other side of the planet. Stupid rock. Always getting in the way.

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:31 pm

Yeah I would, but Isaac has it right, I am on the other side of this piece of rock, dirt and water....
So I'll live with that PC and one of my other, slightly better ones. (I am planning to get a much better PC in a few months too)

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:31 am

Isaac wrote:"Linux Mint 11 is the greatest operating system ever made."

Well... It is pretty good, and is getting better.

I've installed it to totally replace my Ubuntu rather than 'upgrade' to the new Ubuntu that I didn't want. So far, I've been impressed. Now if only I could get around the occasional window redraw issues I seem to be getting (my video requires one of those ... less desired... proprietary video drivers that is never quite right in ANY Linux flavor). This is also the first time I've messed around with LibreOffice (which was included with the distro) and it's pretty good for a MS Office alternative except that it seems to trash the password protection on Excel (xlsx) and Word (docx) documents. Content of the document is preserved, but any password protection is gone after editing it in LibreOffice ... but that's not a Linux Mint 11 problem however true MS Office compatibility is one of the things that repeatedly keeps Linux distros from becoming more mainstream than they currently are.

Jury is still out.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:42 am

TechPro wrote:but that's not a Linux Mint 11 problem however true MS Office compatibility is one of the things that repeatedly keeps Linux distros from becoming more mainstream than they currently are.

Jury is still out.

I agree.

I still have to get Power point and a few others working, but I did that once before by getting the right winetricks boxes checked on. This semester I'm only using Excel and Word. Those work with wine perfectly. EDIT: in fact i highly recommend you use MS Excel and Word instead of Libre/Open Office. They are far more stable than the opensource alternatives. I do lots of work on word and excel and I can't go back to Libre/Open Office.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 2:37 pm

Has anyone tried VMware Unity on a Linux host with a Windows guest? I'm lame and just have a Windows XP VirtualBox virtual machine.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:36 pm

I have not. Sorry.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:48 am

TechPro wrote:.....however true MS Office compatibility is one of the things that repeatedly keeps Linux distros from becoming more mainstream than they currently are.

Jury is still out.

Do you know what lengths Microsoft goes to to make sure that this remains true? Office is their crown jewel.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:34 am

Sure, but why do they fully support Mac then?

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:05 am

I think the idea is primarily to keep people locking into Office, and secondarily to keep people locked into Windows. Apparently they've ceded their ability to keep people locked out of Mac... because realistically they were going to lose that battle, so they fell back on the primary goal of keeping people locked into Office when it comes to macs.

They still see the Linux/Unix user base as small enough and weak enough that they don't want to put forth the effort to create a Linux version of Office.

Of course, this is all gathered from reading random bits on the internet, so it wouldn't exactly be admissible in court.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 11:00 am

I'd say one of the main reasons MS is willing to support Office on Macs is because like Windows, Mac OS is also a closed-source proprietary OS.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:23 pm

There was also this agreement made back in the late 90s involving their capital injection into Apple ... as I understand it, that was another part of the agreement. Maintaining development indefinitely maybe not so much, but when you're dealing with a 5% market share (considerably greater than Linux at any rate, and with people who couldn't figure out Wine to save themselves) it's probably not such a hard decision to keep it going - especially with credible competitors to fill the gap now.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 2:27 pm

It won't matter soon enough, as browsers get better and everything moves to the web. Take Office 365

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:01 pm

It will be a cold day in hell, when I let my apps run off of the web.

Yea, I can see it now…move a node in CorelDraw….wait 10 seconds for it to move…lol.

I think cloud computing may end up like that guy who predicted, the world will only need 10 computers.

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 2:14 am

Krom wrote:I'd say one of the main reasons MS is willing to support Office on Macs is because like Windows, Mac OS is also a closed-source proprietary OS.

I'd say you're pretty close to right, but needs more of a money angle. Users pay $ for Windows or Mac OS but don't pay any money (well, most don't) for Linux. MS knows the Linux users are usually not very willing to pay money for Ofiice but Windows and Mac users are usually much more willing to pay money ... therefore that's where MS will make Office available.

I'd bet if a new OS came along and grabbed a chunk of the OS market share ... and it was 1) an OS people liked and 2) people had to pay money to get that OS ... MS would want their Office to be available for that OS. It would be like 'money in the bank' for MS.

[ Post made via iPad ]

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 12:12 pm

TechPro wrote:
Krom wrote:I'd say one of the main reasons MS is willing to support Office on Macs is because like Windows, Mac OS is also a closed-source proprietary OS.
I'd say you're pretty close to right, but needs more of a money angle. Users pay $ for Windows or Mac OS but don't pay any money (well, most don't) for Linux. MS knows the Linux users are usually not very willing to pay money for Ofiice but Windows and Mac users are usually much more willing to pay money ... therefore that's where MS will make Office available.

[ Post made via iPad ]

No, for humble bundle, the linux users constantly donate more.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 12:57 pm

Also worth mentioning likely reasons MS doesn't support Office on Linux; the most obvious would probably be fragmentation and the small market share. One would considerably increase the cost of development, while the other obviously limits the amount of possible sales and both problems tend to feed off the other in a sort of vicious feedback loop.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:45 am

Isaac wrote:No, for humble bundle, the linux users constantly donate more.

Something tells me that's not going to carry over into productivity software.

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:40 pm

Darn, when I got around to downloading mint 11, they release mint 12.....

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:48 pm

It's moments like these you need Minties.

(Sorry, just had to.)

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:03 pm

I think you can still find 11 on there. It should only take a mintnute

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:06 pm

Yeah, I did DL it, and run it off CD live a few times. I like it, so as soon as I've backed up my files from Ubuntu, I'll wipe the drive and install it.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:09 pm

Wha? No linux pun? What a huge disappoint Mint.

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:17 pm

You and your puns, I'll need to think of some more to beat you with. (don't hunt for a pun in that sentence either)

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:55 pm

Done and installed.
Differences:
- When you have a linux application (like from portablelinuxapps.org) on a memory stick, then you can't double click to run it, you can't change the permission to make it executable. For some reason you have to copy it to the hard drive first, which kind of defeats the purpose of portable linux apps.
- Takes longer to boot (by 5 seconds or so)

I can get over that I suppose, for it is superior in many other ways:
- less ram usage (hooray!)
- Easier to customize the theme, startup applications, and just about everything
- looks an handles similar to windows, so it's great for first time linux users. (it even has the "update manager" in the taskbar, grr)

About their claim that "Linux Mint is the fourth most commonly used operating system in the world." I'm not sure how true that is.
From a survey that I looked at the results from (as part of a computing course) the order of number of users OS's are:
Windows XP
Windows 7
Mac
Windows Vista
Linux Ubuntu
And I can't remember the order of the others.

I suppose if you count is as:
Windows
Mac
Ubuntu
Mint
then they are right.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 7:08 am

sdfgeoff wrote:- When you have a linux application (like from portablelinuxapps.org) on a memory stick, then you can't double click to run it, you can't change the permission to make it executable. For some reason you have to copy it to the hard drive first, which kind of defeats the purpose of portable linux apps.

How's the memory stick formatted? I've had the same issue with my arch install, and I never really got it resolved. I don't recall if it wouldn't let me change the permissions, or if the change just didn't persist after I disconnected/reconnected the stick. If the latter is true, it's probably because of the filesystem, and there's also probably a program out there that provides a workaround (which was evidently present on your old system) - it might be a feature tied to a certain file manager/desktop environment.

my workaround was to perform the desired tasks from a script in ~/bin. If it lets you temporarily change the permissions, you could write a script that will add executable rights and then run a file that you pass it, I.E.

chmod u+x $1
`$1`

Where $1 is the file you want to run, with its full path.

If it won't let you change the permissions, you could likewise automate copying to your hard drive and running, say to your temp directory so it gets cleaned up.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 2:51 pm

Weird, the only thing I can think of is that it might be mounted noexec. When you type mount, what mount options is it mounted with?

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:04 pm

Jeff250 wrote:Weird, the only thing I can think of is that it might be mounted noexec. When you type mount, what mount options is it mounted with?

For me: I have an auto-mount daemon running to listens to udev. There's probably a setting in there that has it mount any USB stick with noexec. I can look into it.

One thing that I haven't taken the time to learn is how all of the udev/PAM/etc rules really work. I've always relies on snippets from wiki's and forums out there to manipulate it into doing what I want, and that even doesn't really work all that well for me in many cases.