Hi James,

Thanks so much for the kind words, very glad to hear that you found the review helpful. Makes my day to read that.

This is the review that convinced me that I wanted to try Mint Linux on my old laptop. Excellent coverage of the issues and very good editorial style. Many thanks for the info.

Good review, Jim.

I don’t really have anything to comment on, but I figured as long as we’re having a love-fest for Mint, I’d pledge my allegiance as well.

I don’t remember who turned me on to it, but I’ve been using Mint since 2.0 (Barbara) back in ’06. That’s also when I stopped experimenting with Linux distros. I’d finally found just what I was looking for and I’ve never been sorry since.

The only other distro I use is Ubuntu, of course, and that’s primarily so I can review it to do step-by-step directions when someone has a question.

Clem and the rest of the crew who bring us Mint deserve a round of applause for sharing such a fine piece of work.

Very nice review!
Thanks for your kind words on my wallpaper!
If anyone just wants the wallpaper, it can be found here: http://zwopper.deviantart.com/art/Mint-Dew-99660030

My other wallpapers can be found here: http://zwopper.deviantart.com/gallery/

A tip is to try out the XFCE and KDE versions that is coming out any day now!

//Zwopper

Mint, it is worth the download and install. I teach seniors computers at the senior center (SRDA). Many can’t afford a computer and I am finding a used garage sale special with MINT gives them something that has a familiar feel and works quite well for very little money. We have DSL, Cable (TV) modems and wireless setups and they all work very well. Dial up modems, not so good.

Bottom line, MINT is a mature Linux that even a Senior can use. Great job to all involved!

I’m a die-hard fan and user of PCLinuxOS, but I’m very impressed with Mint 7. It’s wonderful to see each new generation of any distribution get better and better. This is why Linux is the future of computers.

@ Jim Lynch:
By the way, the “Request a Review” feature above seems to have a permissions issue.

Last suggestion for the night. One thing I have been doing is downloading different Window managers to run on top of Ubuntu. I am sure this is doable in other distros as well. I just find the one click nature of the meta-packages in the Ubuntu repositories to be most convenient.

One I am keeping my eyes on is LXDE. Very slick and lightweight.

I have been searching for the best Linux Distro for years. Mint 7 is the best. It looks great, very stable, easy to setup, many applications available and FREE! We don’t use Windows anymore.

Everybody should try it!

@ maximus2000:
Thanks for the tip. I think I have it installed, but have yet to figure out the one switch. Too many balls in the air tonight, and about to go to work(it is my Monday).

tlmck,
Yes it is seether and yes UE is pretty cool but you can get all those Compiz plug-ins in Ubuntu also. I do not think any of them are created by the UE developers. I use Compiz but only some of the plug-ins. You need to install compizconfig-settings-manager to turn them on, off and configure them. Also install compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported and compiz-fusion-plugins-extra to get all the extras.

Yeah, Steven is a good guy. I hope he drops by at some point.

Dang, we really need an edit button on this sucker. Anyway, forgot to say thanks for the link to Practical Technology up in the Blogroll section. I like the way the man thinks. Added his feed to my My Yahoo page, right under yours of course.

Some other possible review candidates are Ultimate Editon, and the Apps Ekiga, and Compiz Fusion. I am sure you could do Akiga in a VM, but not so sure about the other two.

I recently tried the latest Ultimate Edition 2.2, and was htwarted at every turn until I installed my trusty old 7600gs card in the machines. It appears ultimate does no like older integrated graphics such as Nvidia 6100, ATI 2100, or Intel 3100. It would simply hang on booting the login screen. Installing the 7600gs in each machine solved the issue.

The Akiga phone software looks intriguing, but I only played with it briefly. I do not possess a headset, or even a mic. for use with such software.

Lastly, I have never really understood how to manipulate the Compiz software. Not that I am into fancy graphical effects anyway, but it would just be interesting to dabble in. Supposedly the effects are very impressive in Ultimate Edition 2.2. See the video on their home page.
http://ultimateedition.info/#ultimate2.2

The song in the video is pretty cool to. I do not really keep up with such music as a rule, but I think it is a band called Seether.

Thanks Maximus, I’m glad you liked it.

Just wanted to let all of you know that the DLR discussion forum is now up at:

http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/forum

Please drop by if you want to chit chat more about Linux or whatever. I’ll be adding threads shortly, I just got it up. Don’t be shy about dropping in!

Great review of Linux Mint I myself still use Ubuntu and do all the customizing myself. However, my buddy swears by Linux Mint and will use nothing other then it. Eric you are correct on Grub does not support ext4 by default but there is patch that allows it. Not sure why Fedora 11 does not use this patch since there default FS is ext4 while Ubuntu 9.04 is ext3 still. Ubuntu 9.10 will use Grub2 and will use ext4 as the default FS. Well glad to see this make it on Linux Today. Also being an old ET Reader(sniff sniff)I am glad you have a place for me to read your Linux Reviews Jim, keep them coming. As for applications to review you should try Songbird great iTunes like replacement.

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.

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! ;-)

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/

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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….