Ubuntu 12.10 Cinnamon vs Mint 14 Cinnamon

[Dr. McKay]

I'm switching from a Mac to Linux and am still in doubt as to which flavour I'm going to be using.
Ubuntu seemed like the obvious choice but after trying out several distros (many of which Ubuntu based) I decided that Mint Cinnamon was going to be it.
Until I found out you can install the Cinnamon desktop on ubuntu. Which I tried.
Hmm. It looks equally nice as it does on Mint but still, I've got the impression it runs just that tiny bit better on Mint (i.e. more fluid - and I tend to ditch something at the first sign of even the slightest hint of 'jerkyness').

Ubuntu would seem like the logical step when coming from a Mac : it's the most popular distro out there and the Unity interface in some ways is very similar to OS X. But, I have to say, I 'dislike' Unity with a passion (not going to use the word 'hate', seems a bit too strong - it was OK I guess in 12.04, terribly slow in 12.10). Mint Cinnamon touched me right away (although I'm currently trying out OpenSuse 12.3 KDE and I must say, it's slowly starting to win me over).

Anyway, Cinnamon is my desktop environment of choice, but is there a reason why I should just choose Ubuntu with Cinnamon instead of going for Mint, which shares practically everything with Ubuntu anyway ? Am I right in thinking that Ubuntu will always be the first distro to support new stuff (like was the case with Steam) ? Or will everything Ubuntu just work in Mint ?

[AndyOpie150]

If your system can handle it try Kubuntu. It has all the bells and whistles and has more optons than Ubuntu.
If you like the MAC look there are distro's that will give you that look. Checkout "DistroWatch" for a complete list of Distro's (Mint is at the top of the list).

Changing Distro's is pretty easy, some .iso's (not all) can be put on a USB drive so you don't waste CD's or DVD's.
I have tried more than 2 dozen before settling on Xubuntu dual booted with Windows (I have a 1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, 10 year old machine with an Intel Pentium 4 processor).
I still have plenty of room for a BSD based distrobution one day as well. 35GB for all partitions still leaves me plenty of breathing room. BSD is just a lot more challenging to install (not for the faint of heart or unskilled)

[AndyOpie150]

If your system can handle it try Kubuntu. It has all the bells and whistles and has more optons than Ubuntu.
If you like the MAC look there are distro's that will give you that look. Checkout "DistroWatch" for a complete list of Distro's (Mint is at the top of the list). Mint is a very good distro, and with there new update has me thinking about giving it another try.

Changing Distro's is pretty easy, some .iso's (not all) can be put on a USB drive so you don't waste CD's or DVD's.
I have tried more than 2 dozen before settling on Xubuntu (I have a 1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, 10 year old machine with an Intel Pentium 4 processor).

[wildmanne39]

Thread moved to Recurring Discussions.

[fantab]

...
Anyway, Cinnamon is my desktop environment of choice, but is there a reason why I should just choose Ubuntu with Cinnamon instead of going for Mint, which shares practically everything with Ubuntu anyway ? Am I right in thinking that Ubuntu will always be the first distro to support new stuff (like was the case with Steam) ? Or will everything Ubuntu just work in Mint ?

There is NO reason. And it is true that theoretically, everything that works in Ubuntu should also just work on Mint. Mint is more "user friendly". It comes pre-installed with lots of stuff, so there isn't much for an average, new migrant to worry about. Whatever Ubuntu has in its repos is there in Mint. Just note that Mint releases at least one month after Ubuntu.

I have installed Cinnamon on 13.04 (Development Release) alongside Unity. I haven't seen any difference in the performance of Cinnamon when compared to it on Mint 13/14.

My suggestion, have the best of both distros. Install Cinnamon in Ubuntu and keep Unity as well... why not?

[craig10x]

If you would like even more of a mac-like experience, you could also consider "cairo dock session" if you install cairo dock from the software center, then when you log in to ubuntu, if you hit the little thingy you see near where you sign in, you will then see the option of logging into cairo dock session with or without unity panel...if you select the session with the unity panel, then what you will get is the top ubuntu panel with global menu along with cairo dock on the bottom of the screen where it autohides...and in that session, there is no unity bar on the left side...go to the cairo dock website to look at screenshots to check it out...

I use to use it myself, and liked it a lot, but eventually decided just to use the default unity...if you install cairo dock session you always have the option of changing it on the log in screen back to the standard unity session as well...

personally, to me, even unity feels very "mac" even though the unity dock is on the left instead of the bottom...
after i left windows, i did MAC for some time before discovering Linux and switching over, so like you, i can appreciate the "dock" experience...

[Dr. McKay]

I'm still trying out Linux on my iMac for the moment, an older Core2Duo model.
For some reason, steam games that run smooth as butter in OS X are a regular jerkatron in Linux, ubuntu or mint, doesn't make a difference.
I guess it's because I have a Radeon 2600 HD. As I understand, Linux drivers for AMD/ATI cards just plain suck. I hope I'm doing the right thing bying a computer for Linux (even though it will have a nVidia card in it...). I see all those linux games running smoothly on youtube, and I can't even get an old game like Half Life 1 run smoothly on my Mac under Linux (which runs Team Fortress 2 without a hitch at native 1920x1200 res in OS X).

[snowpine]

I personally use and enjoy Mint. Ubuntu and Mint are 99.99% the same, so any software designed for Ubuntu, or instructions/tutorials/how-to's you read for Ubuntu, will probably work equally well on Mint.

[Dr. McKay]

I'm still trying out Linux on my iMac for the moment, an older Core2Duo model.
For some reason, steam games that run smooth as butter in OS X are a regular jerkatron in Linux, ubuntu or mint, doesn't make a difference.
I guess it's because I have a Radeon 2600 HD. As I understand, Linux drivers for AMD/ATI cards just plain suck. I hope I'm doing the right thing bying a computer for Linux (even though it will have a nVidia card in it...). I see all those linux games running smoothly on youtube, and I can't even get an old game like Half Life 1 run smoothly on my Mac under Linux (which runs Team Fortress 2 without a hitch at native 1920x1200 res in OS X).

Am I right in thinking that 3D performance sucks in Linux or is it just the AMD drivers ?

[neruson]

Am I right in thinking that 3D performance sucks in Linux or is it just the AMD drivers ?

I don't have a problem playing games on Steam with the experimental proprietary Nvidia drivers. I think it's more of a directx/opengl issue. Until more game developers start supporting OpenGL there's going to be some rough edges here and there, but keep in mind, gaming on this level in Linux is still in it's infancy so patience is a virtue

But yeah, AMD support in Linux is god awful. Nvidia isn't too much better but there are no where near as bad as AMD.