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Linux Mint is Still Number One


mhbell

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Linux Mint is Still Number One

 

First a little bit of history about me and Linux.

When I First Started With Linux

 

It was in the Early 90’s around 1991 or 1992 as I recall. I tried to play around with a Piece of software called Minnix, But I could never make it work a couple of years later a Linux OS called Suse a (Commercial) version, and a free Linux OS called Mandrake came out. I used the commercial Versions of Suse from Version 5.2 or 5.3 until version 10.1. During that Time I also Used Mandrake which later became Mandriva. About that time I started using Ubuntu which had just came out. I used it until they came out with Unity. That was when I started using Mint Linux and have been using it ever since.

 

For the past 2 weeks I have been downloading and installing Linux Distro’s to my SSD Disks. 22 of them to be exact. I have learned much and have observed a few things about many of the Linux Distro’s. The Greatest Majority of them, are based on Debian / Ubuntu, and most of them configure and react the same. Most use Apt and the Ubuntu Repo’s. Most of the desktops have many of the same features even though different, Cinnamon, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, Mate, Etc. The difference of many of them, are the color and style of the Icons and the Titles. Some of the different ones were KDE Plasma, Arch Linux, Budgie, and Unity. What follows is a list of the Distro’s that I downloaded, installed, and my opinion about each one.. The first 5 are Favorites of mine.

 

1. Mint 18.1 Cinnamon: The top one in my Opinion. It just works right out of the box. Easy to configure and do most anything that I need or want. Stable with no hiccups. I have not found another Distro that I like better. It has never failed me.

 

2. LXLE: A Light weight Distro with to many games and other stuff that is not needed. It is one of my favorites. Based on Lubuntu and not as fast, but is more stable.

 

3. Gecko: A Suse Spin off. Has the Cinnamon Desktop Much better than Suse for configuring.

 

4. MX-16: Fast and for the most part very stable. Still being developed.

 

5. Debian: Most of the other Distro’s are derivatives of Debian / Ubuntu. Most stable OS there is. It is behind the times and has not kept up.

 

Lubunto: Fast, Light, and still needs work. Unstable Apps Abiword had the jitters.

Mint KDE: I do not like KDE and it is also bloated and slow.

Watt OS: Light weight similar to Pepermint.

UA Linux: Ubuntu spin off with several desktops you can choose at boot up time.

Ultimate Edition: Bloated and Slow Has pretty Wall Paper.

Deepin: comes from China. Installed Grub in the wrong Disk. Different.

Linux Lite: Another Light weight.

Peppermint: Like the name It is colorful and looks like candy colored Icons. Would drive me crazy looking at it.

Zenwalk: A slack derivative. I am Not interested.

Rebellin: Could not find UEFI.

PCLinux OS: Spin off from Mandrake / Mandriva By Tex Star. Uses RPM Pkg Mgr

Solus: uses Budgie DT.

Fedora 25: Stable Good Distro, But uses RPM instead of APT.

SuSe Leap 42.2: A Big Disappointment, Bloated not easy to configure Printer.

Suse Tumbleweed 42.2: Same as Leap.

Edited by mhbell
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Seems like every distro has its pros and cons. Linux Mint is very nice. I kinda went in a different direction; I had both Ubuntu and Mint running here, decided to drop Mint and keep Ubuntu back around the time Unity and Cinnamon were coming out. Since then I've taken Mint for a few spins in live sessions, but haven't installed it. I do have Cinnamon installed in Debian, but of course it isn't up-to-date with the Cinnamon in Mint.

 

With Ubuntu, I mostly stick with the LTS releases. Been doing that since 6.06 ("Dapper"). I log into either Unity or GNOME; either one is fine with me but I do like GNOME Shell a little better than Unity. Seems like my Ubuntu LTS installations are always better after the first point release, but that initial release will contain some bugs. Ubuntu ain't perfect but I still like it, running it for over 10 years now.

 

For me, Debian is still #1, even though Mint and other distros might be nicer out-of-the-box. Once I get Debian Stable installed and set up, seems like there's nothing to worry about and not much to even think about.

 

Besides Debian and Ubuntu, I've also been running Arch and openSUSE. To me, Arch is simply magnificent. 'Nuff said. I went with KDE for openSUSE and later added Fluxbox; I kinda alternate between logging into KDE and Fluxbox sessions.

 

As well, I'm running BunsenLabs (based on Debian Stable, ships with Openbox) and Antergos. BunsenLabs is a wonderful a little distro, as was CrunchBang before it. I went with Openbox for Antergos and later added LXQt to it. Interesting, I don't know if I did something wrong during installation but my Antergos installation (with Openbox and LXQt) actually takes up more drive space than my openSUSE installation (with KDE and Fluxbox). Both openSUSE and Antergos install with too much stuff, in my opinion, but both run quite nicely here. Check this out, for the root partitions, df reports 7.1G used for Antergos and 5.9G used for openSUSE:

 

Antergos:

 

$ df -hT /dev/sda7

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda7 ext4 15G 7.1G 7.2G 50% /mnt/sda7

 

openSUSE 42.2:

 

$ df -hT /dev/sda5

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda5 ext4 15G 5.9G 7.8G 43% /mnt/sda5

 

Of course, that almost doesn't seem to matter because Antergos is fast and snappy under either Openbox or LXQt. openSUSE, same thing when running Fluxbox.

 

I like MX but I mainly keep it around for live sessions, on a flash drive. Very handy to have in the toolbox. The MX communtiy does a great job -- I hope they can keep it up.

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I've used Linux Mint for years, not because I really like it, but because I share my Linux machines with family who are used to Windows and Mint isn't difficult for them to use (if you have the Cinnamon desktop.)

Mint works well, is stable, Debian based, has fast mirrors and the LTS philosophy is good if I install it on a friend's old machine. You know things aren't bleeding edge but it won't break on them.

MX-16 is a great little distro and I use it on an old netbook that I take on holiday.

If I had one machine all to myself and didn't care whether others could use it there's no question what I'd use - Arch (with Xfce probably.) I've tried Manjaro and it's pretty good (although I don't like the community.) However I'd prefer to stick with the real deal.

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V.T. Eric Layton

The pros and cons of most distributions are more about subjective opinion that technical reality, usually. For example: to me Slackware has no cons and Gentoo has no pros. It's all a matter of opinion because under the hood they're both GNU/Linux. The differences are desktop managers, methods of control (sysVinit, Systemd, etc.), package managers, available apps, etc. All that is window dressing on top of the rock solid, secure GNU/Linux platform.

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The pros and cons of most distributions are more about subjective opinion that technical reality, usually. For example: to me Slackware has no cons and Gentoo has no pros. It's all a matter of opinion because under the hood they're both GNU/Linux. The differences are desktop managers, methods of control (sysVinit, Systemd, etc.), package managers, available apps, etc. All that is window dressing on top of the rock solid, secure GNU/Linux platform.

Well Put Eric and I agree 100 Percent.

Mel

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Darn I thought this was a post about the annual survey which Arch won last year.

 

Some good posts above as it is always nice to see what other folk think of different distros.

 

I have been mightily impressed with MX-15/16 but it is almost time for me to move on and get back to Arch.

 

:breakfast:

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Hedon James

The pros and cons of most distributions are more about subjective opinion that technical reality, usually. For example: to me Slackware has no cons and Gentoo has no pros. It's all a matter of opinion because under the hood they're both GNU/Linux. The differences are desktop managers, methods of control (sysVinit, Systemd, etc.), package managers, available apps, etc. All that is window dressing on top of the rock solid, secure GNU/Linux platform.

 

 

Well said Slacker! Wholeheartedly agree!

 

About the only thing I do not like about Linux is when I hear Distro A is the BEST, or Distro B sux. Anyone who says stuff like that has left out the two MOST IMPORTANT words of that statement..."for me"; but since they couldn't be bothered to write those 2 simple words, as a matter of clarification, I tend to view EVERYTHING they said with skepticism, as I automatically wonder what other clarifying information was left out? A very close second is when I hear that Software X is horrible and should be discontinued, because it dilutes the resources and efforts of Software Z. No thought whatsoever, nor consideration, to the fact that everyone has a differing opinion; everyone has a different perspective; everyone views "features" and/or "bugs" in a different manner. If you think everyone should be using the same OS and the same software that you prefer, you should probably be an Apple OS X user, not Linux!

 

I think that most of us Linux-users, for one reason or another, fled Windows because of choices we didn't like that MS made for us. We found linux or embraced Linux because we were allowed (sometimes even ENCOURAGED?!) to make those changes. I think it's the ultimate irony that a Linux user who embraces the freedoms to make their own software & design choices (because they didn't agree with MS) wants to limit the choices of others who would disagree with them. They fled the restrictive nature of MS dictatorial control so that they can foist that control on other user's choices? WTH?!!!

 

But on a positive note, I think this is why I enjoy the BATL forum so much! We have users of Arch, Slack, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, SUSE, Manjaro, Sid, MX, and a host of other OS (apologies if I left your favorite distro out....just trying to remember the majority of 'em); we have users/fans of Gnome, KDE, LXDE, LXQT, XFCE, Openbox, Fluxbox, i3, Awesome (and others I can't remember); ALL co-existing on this forum, sharing tips, tricks & information to make each others' systems work better for us. I'm no longer a newbie on here (by my own standards, although perhaps I'm still the "new guy"?!) and I have NEVER heard ANYONE disparage anyone else's choice of OS, DE, or software choices.

 

I enjoyed mhbell's synopsis of distros, hearing about what he likes/dislikes about each. Sometimes I think "yeah, me too"...other times I think "hmmmm.....hadn't thought about it from that perspective". But either way, I usually learn something. Except when Raymac makes his comparative posts/analyses....I almost always agree with him 100%....I'm thinking perhaps Ray and I share a brain?! o:) Even SB has persuaded me to keep an open mind regarding the merits of Arch and Arch-based distros. I always assumed Arch was way above my pay-grade...and I may have gotten around to trying it someday....but he has certainly expedited the process with his information-sharing and encouragement. I'm still not certain whether it's for me, but I'm absolutely enjoying tinkering with it and learning things. Turns out that, even though Arch does things a little differently, it's still fundamentally Linux under-the-hood!

 

So keep the reviews, and the information coming! My entire Linux experience has been shaped by someone, or something, either forcing me to make a change or by encouraging me to try something different to solve a problem in a different way. Some stick...some don't....and some are philosophical game-changers. And I never know which one it will be when I first start reading...it's the highlight of my day. Enlighten me!

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The pros and cons of most distributions are more about subjective opinion that technical reality, usually. For example: to me Slackware has no cons and Gentoo has no pros. It's all a matter of opinion because under the hood they're both GNU/Linux. The differences are desktop managers, methods of control (sysVinit, Systemd, etc.), package managers, available apps, etc. All that is window dressing on top of the rock solid, secure GNU/Linux platform.

 

 

we have users/fans of Gnome, KDE, LXDE, LXQT, XFCE, Openbox, Fluxbox, i3, Awesome (and others I can't remember);

 

 

Enlighten me!

 

 

Window Maker ! Consider yourself enlightened. :harhar:

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The pros and cons of most distributions are more about subjective opinion that technical reality, usually. For example: to me Slackware has no cons and Gentoo has no pros. It's all a matter of opinion because under the hood they're both GNU/Linux. The differences are desktop managers, methods of control (sysVinit, Systemd, etc.), package managers, available apps, etc. All that is window dressing on top of the rock solid, secure GNU/Linux platform.

 

 

we have users/fans of Gnome, KDE, LXDE, LXQT, XFCE, Openbox, Fluxbox, i3, Awesome (and others I can't remember);

 

 

Enlighten me!

 

 

Window Maker ! Consider yourself enlightened. :harhar:

 

Budgie
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Hedon James

bwahaha! you two crack me up! all this intelligent discourse AND entertainment....

 

P.S. Wouldn't E17 represent "enlightenment"?! (sometimes, I crack myself up?!)

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V.T. Eric Layton

I actually LOVE all GNU/Linux distributions, and as most of you know, I've tried MANY of them. ;) I just prefer some over others. That doesn't mean that the ones I prefer least are bad in any way. It's just that I use what's right for me. THAT, my penguin pals, is THE MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT GNU/LINUX... CHOICE!

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@HJ I don't really think we share the same gray matter (God help you if we do.)

We do have some common features (or bugs:)

  • Ubuntu heritage. Deep down I still consider myself an Ubuntu guy.
  • Practical approach to choosing a distro that will benefit our end user or "client."
  • Patience and willingness to help without being arrogant or telling someone to RTFM. That is pretty much universally applicable here.
  • Ability to appreciate a good backstory - like why use Synaptic in an RPM based distro?
  • Appreciation for using FOSS software to make your O/S rather a moot point.

 

I believe you tinker more with the software than I do, and I probably get bitten in the butt by hardware more than you do. It's all good though. We live and learn.

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I've always thought of the basic GNU/Linux toolset as sort of an auto platform - the hard points of a car design if you will. You can take that and make a car, an SUV, maybe even a truck - different body styles or options can be bolted on.

Whether I was trying to use a Slackware installer, get Debian working over the Net, or doing the Arch shuffle, I was always comfortable with the fact that hey - this is Linux at the end of the day.

This doesn't mean I'm ready for Gentoo though. :nuke: :w00t:

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Hedon James

@HJ I don't really think we share the same gray matter (God help you if we do.)

We do have some common features (or bugs:)

  • Ubuntu heritage. Deep down I still consider myself an Ubuntu guy.

  • Practical approach to choosing a distro that will benefit our end user or "client."

  • Patience and willingness to help without being arrogant or telling someone to RTFM. That is pretty much universally applicable here.

  • Ability to appreciate a good backstory - like why use Synaptic in an RPM based distro?

  • Appreciation for using FOSS software to make your O/S rather a moot point.

 

I believe you tinker more with the software than I do, and I probably get bitten in the butt by hardware more than you do. It's all good though. We live and learn.

 

 

I agree 100% with everything you just said! (see what I did there?) Speaking of sharing a brain, who is supposed to have custody of it this week? I've got some important milestones to hit this week and I'm more likely to accomplish that if I have the brain! :blink:

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