Ubuntu-Based Linux Mint 19.2 'Tina' is Here with Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce (betanews.com) 96
The Linux Mint project today released the Linux Mint 19.2 "Tina", which is now available for download as Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce editions. From a report: If your computer is fairly modern, take my advice and opt for the excellent Cinnamon. MATE and Xfce are solid choices too, although they are more appropriate for computers with meager hardware. For new users, choosing amongst three interfaces can be confusing -- thankfully, the Mint developers stopped using KDE almost two years ago. Linux Mint 19.2 "Tina" is based on the wildly popular Ubuntu operating system, but on 18.04 rather than the new 19.04. Why use an older version of Ubuntu as a base? Because 18.04 is an LTS or "Long Term Support" variant. While version 19.04 will be supported for less than a year, 18.04 is being supported for a mind-boggling 10 years! The Linux kernel is version 4.15 and not part of the newer 5.x series.
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I've always said 'X FACE' too, but then I learned that the 'G' in XFCE is neither silent nor visible.
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At least (I think) I know how to pronounce fluxbox.
Flu XBox?
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A list of badly-chosen names: (Score:5, Interesting)
What are some of the other poorly chosen, self-defeating names? Here are a few:
1) Rust. Imagine going to a top manager and saying you want to program a product in Rust [rust-lang.org]. Rust makes iron into useless red dust.
RUST - Ridiculously Unable Social Tribe?
RUST - Raunchily Unstable and Seriously Troubled?
RUST - Rash Under Smelly Toes (Someone else's idea.)
2) Gimp [gimp.org] is a derogatory term [urbandictionary.com] for someone that is disabled or has a medical problem that results in physical impairment.
3) GNU [wikipedia.org] is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix!" GNU humor. [gnu.org]
4) LaTeX is written in both English and Greek letters. (Why not Chinese, Japanese, and Thai characters also? Ha!) LaTeX [wikipedia.org] requires two paragraphs in the Wikipedia article to explain the name.
5) There is nothing "regular" about Regular Expressions.
6) NetLoony [sourceforge.net] Apache Server GUI and Tools. (Looney is someone who is "Extremely foolish or silly".)
7) pGina [pgina.org].
8) Bouncy Castle cryptography [wikipedia.org].
9) An acquaintance of mine worked at The Last Pickle. [thelastpickle.com] Yes, really. Apache Cassandra support.
10) Slashdot comment [slashdot.org]: "If you make a ForNix product, please start at version 8!" The commenter wants it to sound like "fornicate".
11) Slashdot story: [slashdot.org] Pronounced "conch," but spelled Xonsh [xon.sh], it runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X systems, bringing Python libraries to the command line -- for example, the ability to use regular expressions when globbing files.
12) Boom Supersonic [boomsupersonic.com]. "Boom" is what you hear when there is an explosion. It's not just a word indicating going supersonic.
Doesn't anyone at BOOM have a mother?
Son: Mom, what do you think of the name BOOM for my company?
Mom: No, son, that's not a good name.
Son: Why not?
Mom: You're only 3 years old. You'll understand when you are 4.
13) Malwarebytes [malwarebytes.com] is software named after the problem it is supposed to cure. (Should a company that makes toilet paper be called "feces"?)
14) CockroachDB [cockroachlabs.com] (Couldn't they have found a better name? Maybe PukeDB? FatalCancerDB? PottyTrainingDB?)
15) Lisp (programming language) [wikipedia.org] is a speech impediment [wikipedia.org].
16) PostgreSQL [postgresql.org]. Someone at the recent OSCON told me that people often call it "PostGres". I'm very impressed with the software and the organization, but the name needs improvement.
17) "C" is a letter, not a name for a computer language.
18) C++ is a name spelled with math symbols.
19) "D" is a letter, not a name for a computer language [dlang.org].
20) Microsoft is small and soft.
21) Alphabet [wikipedia.org] is the parent company of Google. Not a good name. Other, similar bad choices for a company name: "Name", "Spelling", and "Country". I found that am able to invent worse names for a company: "FussBudget" and "O
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"Technically knowledgeable people often lack social ability."
True, but I think in a lot of these cases they were named by people in their early to mid 20s who still tend to have a slightly adolesecent sense of humour. "Gimp, hur hur fnar" etc. When I look back at the sort of things I found amusing in my early 20s (beavis and butthead, south park sort of stuff) now they just leave me cold or embarrassed.
But its not just names - am I the only person who gets irritated by things the "Woo hoo! You've read all y
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Here's a few more I can think of:
Bison (A parser based on YACC (Yet Another Compiler Compiler)). Two layers of stupid there. .NET (Made describing what it was to management that much harder).
GRUB. Unappealing imagery every time you deal with booting your OS.
X (the windowing server protocol thingy). So named because it came after (W)indows.
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You have to brace yourself when talking to outsiders and management about MongoDB in Sweden. "Mongo" is used as short for "Mongoloid" - as in having the look of someone with Downs Syndrome - in a derogatory sense as an insult.
Re: Xfce should change its name (Score:1)
Thankfully?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of us were upset when Mint dropped KDE. KDE has always been the best, and Mint was also the best until they did that.
Choice is a wonderful thing, folks.
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A desktop environment is usually quite stable if you turn off the eye-candy. I've found that it causes all sorts of problems... more than the benefit of shadowed windows and animations.
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Thankfully on XFCE there is... well, it's a checkbox... That's why we're on the same page. I use XFCE... I used to use Fluxbox, but after a bit, I decided to give XFCE a try and never looked back. :)
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KDE4 on Mint 17 was pretty solid. This March I switched to 18.04.2 and KDE5 is nowhere near feature parity with 4. No custom date formats, missing icons everywhere, it's a subtle mess.
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Too lazy to google?
https://linuxhint.com/install_kde_linux_mint_19/
sudo apt update; sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop kde-plasma-desktop kscreen
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I've never seen the advantage of Mint/Mate vs. Kubuntu or Neon, dropping KDE was dumb and as shown not effective.
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.. and the KDE guys don't have a Cinnamon version of their distro. Tsk tsk.
Tina? (Score:2)
A choice in User Interfaces. (Score:3)
We all want a choice in User Interfaces, but for love of God, we do not want anyone to be using an interface that we didn't choose.
For more professional systems, where the distribution makers are going to be offering support and maintenance, having less choice in Windows Managers is probably more ideal, as it is easier to help someone if they are using a UI that looks like all the others. Vs some crazy custom version of FVWM that that one guy (normally Me) in the office has so customized that you don't even need to password protect the desktop, because there is a chance in hell anyone would be able to navigate the system.
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I've long been puzzled by this, and my only thought is that a vast swath of IT is really just about configuring stuff, and it draws in people for whom configuring stuff is an end to itself.
Like, they install an OS just so they can configure every last configurable detail, even if there's reasonable arguments that whatever they configure isn't meaningfully different than whatever the default was, or it's possibly worse in some practical way. It's not about "what can do with this computer?", the configuring
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.
One of the things I did really like about Debian,
Re:Mint? misconception (Score:3, Informative)
Mint puts more polish on Ubuntu, just as Debian has a LOT of rough edges for desktop that Ubuntu fixes.
Absolutely is the superior choice to Ubuntu, and yes I have extensive experience with Ubuntu since that's mostly what my employer has.
Re:Mint? (Score:4, Informative)
> just another Deb/buntu clone, rebranded with icons and themes
Well, Ubuntu is also "just another Debian clone, rebranded with icons and themes", isn't it? So how come people don't just use Debian?
Because it's not actually like that. There are various minor differences (not at all minor in Ubuntu) which distinguish the distributions. Specifically, there are various apps written for Linux Mint, which can be used with other distributions, but mostly aren't, or aren't well integrated. These are mostly non-GNOME GTK3 apps.
1. Cinnamon! ... Were you aware that the Linux Mint people write Cinnamon? Mint is its "home distro". ... and more.
2. Menu and settings apps
3. Xviewer - a PDF viewer
4. Xplayer - a media player
5. xed - a text/lightweight document editor
6. pix - image manager
7. nemo - a file browser
I do agree with you that Mint should go non-systemd, like with Devuan. That would be great.
Slackware (Score:1)
Slackware is still kicking. I love it.
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might as well install Debian and customize the theme yourself
Even if the only difference is the theme, if you like that theme, then you may as well use the version with the theme you like so you don't have to bother customizing it yourself.
More features = more bloat? (Score:2)
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A great, lightweight and very complete environment.
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Mint based on Ubuntu based on Debian (Score:1)
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"more appropriate ... for meager hardware"?! WTF (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using Linux (windows free) since 1999. My main distros from them to now include Redhat, Mandrake, Kubutnu, Xubuntu, Mint, and Devuan.
I used KDE for quite a while, but started to have issues with it. After trying others, I landed on XFCE and have used it ever since. I have tried others like Cinnamon and MATE, but I prefer XFCE. It has nothing to do with the hardware I am running. I don't understand why some people position it as ONLY being suitable for older hardware. That is ridiculous.
I still applaud Mint, because they started out by polishing up some of the rough bits of the linux distro. I used it for many years and wish them the best. But once they adopted systemd I started having issues that persisted even after reinstalls and an entirely new computer. I had to switch, and Devuan was the most logical choice for me. It was a practical move for me, and not a philosophical one (although I can certainly appreciate and agree with the *nix philosophy). Clem, the maintainer of Mint, acknowledged that since they were a downstream of Ubuntu they didn't have a choice but to adopt systemd. I wasn't aware that they ditched KDE. It seems to me they should be able to support it, but I know KDE requires a ton of extra packages/libraries for it to work. Maybe the popularity of Mint just made maintaining it too daunting.
If for some reason I need to switch distros again in the future, I do know I'll be using XFCE, because it's the DE I like the best. It's sooooo easy to try out different ones now, what with VMs/QEMU and bootable distros. Don't rely on reviews, even verrry lite articles like this one. Give them all a shot and use the one that you like best.
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I have quite a clear understanding of what a distro is and what a DE is. If you'll notice, Mint has "editions" of their distro.
And just so you know, while it's certainly possible to install multiple DEs and switch between them, a few years ago Mint discouraged people from doing that:
"Whilst this sounds like and is an easy thing to do, users should be aware that using different DEs on the same system with the same home can lead to strange problems and errors. Installing another DE can change system files an
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XFCE isnt even all that light on system resources anymore
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XFCE isnt even all that light on system resources anymore
They don't put out new releases very often, so not sure what you mean by "anymore". There is a new one supposed to be coming out soon though. Not that a new release means it will use more resources.
I haven't even felt the need to check it to be honest. I only have 8GB of RAM, and I don't see usage go above half use very often. I do work in GIMP, Kdenlive, and play a few games like HL2+variants, and a few games on Steam here and there. Never really had a problem with memory usage in general. I always h
Meager hardware? (Score:3)
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