Installation
As always I installed Linux Mint 7 in VMWare and, as usual, the install went fine and I didn’t have a darn thing to complain about. Remember the days when a Linux install was an iffy thing that might blow up in your face? With distros like Linux Mint we seem to be so far past that that installing them is…a bit boring.
Then again, I can do without some of the bad memories of the early days of Linux. Probably better not to idealize those days too much. Ugh.
The install took just a few minutes and I was ready to boot into my new Linux Mint 7 desktop.
Desktop & Apps
Linux Mint has some new desktop artwork. It’s using a new icon set and a new theme based on Shiki Colors and a very attractive wallpaper called Mint-Dew. When you first boot into Linux Mint you know that you are not in any other distribution and certainly not in the orange-ish land of generic Ubuntu. Everything about the Linux Mint desktop screams refinement and class.
Linux Mint 7 comes with quite a bit of software and here’s some of what you’ll find in it:
Giver
Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News
Pidgin
Transmission
XChat
GIMP
OpenOffice.org
Gnome MPlayer
Brasero Disc Burner
Rhythmbox Music Player
One of my beefs with Fedora was that OpenOffice.org wasn’t installed by default. Thankfully that’s not the case with Linux Mint 7. It’s there, ready for you to use it whenever you want. Are you listening Fedora developers?
Adding new software is as easy as clicking the Menu button and choosing Software Manager (or Package Manager if you prefer). There’s lots more software you can install if you want, you shouldn’t lack for applications to play with if you choose to run Linux Mint.
Which reminds me that I need to do some app reviews too so post your app suggestions in the comments sections if you don’t mind and I’ll start making up a list to work off of.
Multimedia in Linux Mint 7
One of the nice things about Linux Mint is that it’s multimedia ready by default. I was able to watch the movie “Enter the Dragon” with Bruce Lee without need to install any other codecs or software. YouTube videos worked fine as well.
(18 votes, average: 4.39 out of 5)
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So you don’t lke blnkie-winkie-bouncie nags?? God for you! They drive me nuts!
Nice review on Mint 7, which is an exceptionally well done re-spin on Ubuntu. I do think it is as good an everyday Linux as there is out there, frankly.
One question tht a virutal machine does not touch: How does GRUB work with ext4? My impression from fedora 11 release notes is that GRUB is problematic with ext 4 and it requires an ext3 formatted /boot partition.
OK, if I could type I would have said “Good for you!” We’ll let God pick his on fights.
Hi Bill,
Yeah those bouncie things suck! Or flashing or whatever. Whoever thought those up should be smacked upside the head!
I’m not sure on the ext4 question. Hopefully Brian or someobody else will drop by and have a few thoughts about it.
Hi guys,
Maybe I can answer your ext4 question. I am running Linux Mint 7 on my pc. I have a separate / partition and a separate /home partition. Both partitions are formatted as ext4 filesystems. I do not use ext3 anymore.
GRUB has no problems booting the / partition on my desktop PC. I have been running Linux Mint 7 for several weeks now without issues.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Welcome to DLR! Thanks for chiming in on the ext4 thing, glad to hear it’s working well for you. That’s good for folks to know.
[...] pitched it this morning and they linked to my Linux Mint 7 review over on my new Desktop Linux Reviews blog. Thanks so much Linux Today guys! It made my day to see [...]
i have always said.. when is GNOME… not GNOMISH..!! when it is linuxmint….. im not one for using the Gnome desktop.. it just feels old.. however.. i have switched to linuxmint on one of my pc’s at home.. it just feels to right.. i still have a place for KDE.. especially KDE4 no matter what anyone else says.. but linuxmint is defenelty a very very good distro….
Welcome to DLR, Pete. Nice to have you with us.
And welcome to everybody else who shows up later on too so I don’t spam the thread with welcome messages.
Guys, just so you know there is a KDE version of Mint available as well that puts Kubuntu to shame.
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_felicia_kde.php
This edition of Mint KDE is based on Ubuntu 8.10. The next release, based on 9.04, is due out any day now. It will be released with KDE 4.2.4 and Amarok 2.1.
G2D2, thanks for that tip. I’ll add that to my list of reviews to do when it comes out.
BTW, a big thanks to Linux Today for linking to this review. I appreciate it a lot. It’s great exposure for such a new blog.
And if you haven’t visited Linux Today, you should:
http://www.linuxtoday.com
The next generation GRUB, GRUB2 supports booting from EXT4 partitions, though I believe that is still in development. There has been a patch for the legacy GRUB for ages though to support EXT4. Ubuntu 9.04 has no problem booting from EXT4 partitions, so presumably Mint 7 would also have no problem with it.
Well, I’m really glad to see your prompt review of Mint 7. I was wondering if you’d do a repeat since 7 just came out, but I thought your piece about Clem and his politics may have taken priority.
In any case, what I would say, from as close to an objective point of view as I can get, Linux Mint (any version) rates in my book as one of the three Linux distributions (or even desktop software, for that matter), that a relative newcomer might have at least a CHANCE to install, as long as they aren’t the panic stricken type of newcomer. SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS are the other two that I feel fit into this category. Ubuntu comes VERY close, but misses by an inch or two.
I can’t say that I am personally a big Mint fan, though, and Clem’s recent political stand just gave me a reason to stay away a while longer. If he shuts up about his politics, I may sneak back later, but if he keeps up his rants, I’ll just respect his wishes and stay away.
For those who are GNOME fans, this is DEFINITELY the NUMBER ONE distro. For those who are KDE fans, you can typically get a Mint KDE community edition a few months after the official release comes out, and in fact, there is a KDE 4 respin out there; well worth KDE fans trying out.
Nice review, Jim, hope to see many more like it!
As hard as I try, I just cannot get into Mint. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, it’s just that it is not Ubuntu. Had I tried Mint before Ubuntu, my attitude may be different. Coming from the KDE world, the interface differences in Mint are certainly less of a shock.
However, the more I use Ubuntu Gnome, the more I like it. It has become so ingrained, that going back to a KDE type arrangement, or even Windows for that matter is just strange to me. Sort of like I cannot imagine how I got along without Gnome before.
At any rate, the built in multimedia capabilities of Mint should certainly be helpful to those newer to Linux, and those who do things like play movies on their laptops. The only thing I add to Ubuntu is Adobe Flash, as all of my other stuff is in native Linux formats. I also do not play DVD’s on any computer. This are reserved for my $89 Walmart home theater.:)
As to the Grub question above, I do know that the version that comes with Ubuntu 9.04 works perfectly fine with Ext4. I am using it right now.
BTW, another distro that may be right up your ally is Elive. I have not tried it, but it does look like it would be interesting to fans of Mac OSX. http://www.elivecd.org/
Jim, if you want to find something to potentially complain about besides the bouncing balls, check out how long it takes for the mint* stuff to update. If I run an apt-get update, it might take anywhere from twenty seconds to a minute, depending on the last time I refreshed the cache. Last time I tried the Mint tools, they were taking on the order of TEN-TWENTY minutes. Whatever value they add, they just were not worth it to me. I use assign an alias, and do this:
alias ug=”sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”
or, if I just want to download the upgrades without installing them, so I can examine them first:
alias dl=”sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -d dist-upgrade”
After doing either . .bashrc or exec bash to pull in these alias changes (I keep them either in .bashrc or in .bash_aliases, which I invoke from .bashrc), I can upgrade orders of magnitude faster than mint anything, and typing in a two character acronym followed by an Enter key does not stretch my limited keyboard skills too much! ;-)
Minor ding, but see if those tools do any better than the Mint 6 tools. Maybe it was because it was WINTER when I was using Mint 6 – the Mint tools were SLOWER THAN MOLASSES IN JANUARY! ;-)
I’d second the notion to review Elive, and I’d also like to see a sidux review as soon as 2009.02 is released.