There's no reason to use Linux Mint

[volteos]

I don't understand why people use Linux Mint, an antiquated OS. People talk about the Cinnamon desktop, but my sentiment is why would you use it when Ubuntu has Cinnamon.

I get being a beginner/distro hopper, but it really doesn't make sense to use anything else other than Ubuntu if you're going to use their repo base anyway. I don't know, I guess I can see it philosophically, maybe they don't like corporate distros, or maybe they don't like snaps (to be frank I like snaps a lot more than flatpaks). But the bottom line is at the end of the day to me, Linux Mint is pointless.

When I started, I recall about 5 years ago, I kept switching to different OS not knowing that the only major real difference was really just the politics and desktop environments. I think a lot of newcomers are unaware of this fact and keep thinking that some how Arch is going to be vastly different as an overall experience than OpenSuse or Fedora...when they virtually use the same sort of packaging scheme.

On top of that I can truly say that the best environment I've ever worked with is GNOME, and only two systems come into mind for me philosophically as a superior choice. The first system is Ubuntu, because everything works on it, I like snaps, I just wish they worked with my custom theme, never had a bad experience with snaps either. The second system is Manjaro, which is what I deem the more "non-corporate" distro because you have a vetting system that's handled by the community, and they're not psychotic about code of eihics and stuff like that. Other than that, it really sucks seeing people fall into a hivemind that Linux Mint is somehow a gamechanger, when it's really just Ubuntu.

[1fallen]

We just say use whatever works for you. I can see your a passionate desktop user.

Possible flamebait....

EDIT As long as your happy I don't see why you care what anyone else uses! ;)

[volteos]

Well the reason I care is because a lot of critics say that Ubuntu is the devil and that it's bad, when it's not. I don't think these critics have any idea of what they're talking about, or at the very least are not adept at using the Linux ecosystem.

[1fallen]

I wouldn't get all hung up over any "he said she said" crap, again if your happy then all is good.

Perhaps they are just as passionate about Mint as you are with Ubuntu. Win Win!

We here in UF hear those kind of things daily and after 19 years worth, it's now just a shoulder shrug and move forward in a positive manner.

[paulycalvin]

I personally agree. Linux Mint kind of sucks. A person can take gnome shell with extensions and do exactly what mint does but way better.

[TheFu]

Well the reason I care is because a lot of critics say that Ubuntu is the devil and that it's bad, when it's not. I don't think these critics have any idea of what they're talking about, or at the very least are not adept at using the Linux ecosystem.

Different people have different pain-points. If Ubuntu works great for your, fantastic.

I switched away from Ubuntu desktops around 2019, while still keeping the Ubuntu base. The DEs weren't to my liking. My choice. Not yours.

When snaps became more and more mandated by Canoncial, most of them either didn't work on my NFS-mounted HOME directories or they were interfering with my sandbox programs that I wanted to use for security reasons. After always removing all snap infrastructure, then installing a package only to find that it was a snap and brought back all that formerly removed infrastructure, I was unhappy. I shouldn't have to fight with my desktop for programs to work. The snap team has suggested a few workarounds for people in similar situations. They are cumbersome. Much easier to just avoid snaps and that means choosing a different distro.

While there were lots of options, the easiest was Mint. I loaded up Mint Cinnamon and used it about 2 hours before deciding it wasn't for me. I added my WM and purged the Cinnamon DE, but kept everything else and have been happily running 21.2 --> 21.3 for about 18 months. No more fighting with snaps. That alone is worth the change to me. When I got a new-to-me laptop, I loaded Mint 22. Under it, everything "just worked". LUKS encryption, networking, audio, touchpad, webcam, mic, they all worked. I'd expect the same would be true with an Ubuntu flavor, but I did test 24.04 with XFCE and LXQt DEs (I hate, hate, hate, hate, Gnome). XFCE crashed taking the entire OS down within 10 minutes. LXQt was stable, but still felt bloated to me.

Wayland .... don't get me started on Wayland breaking my workflows. Tested it a few weeks ago with 24.10 and it still didn't work for me. My multi-system workflows were broken. I use about 5 systems concurrently, daily, constantly. I don't even consider them different computers for the most part, because they are fully integrated on my workstation screens in the native method that lets me treat each window like it were the same system.

So ... you do you and feel free to share your work-arounds for the different issues and I'll do me trying to avoid any need for work-arounds from the OS. Being different is fine, right? If we were all the same, we'd all use MacOS.

[TheFu]

I personally agree. Linux Mint kind of sucks. A person can take gnome shell with extensions and do exactly what mint does but way better.

Don't confuse the DE with the OS. Please. A DE is just a set of regular programs running on a window-manager, running on a display server, kicked off by a login manager. All of them are "applications", not an OS.

[Rubi1200]

Don't confuse the DE with the OS. Please. A DE is just a set of regular programs running on a window-manager, running on a display server, kicked off by a login manager. All of them are "applications", not an OS.
+1

Excellent point and one we should all take note of when "bashing" different distros.

[Tadaen_Sylvermane]

I'd just like to highlight that Cinnamon was made and managed by the Mint people. So you wouldn't have Ubuntu Cinnamon without Mint. Just because "anyone" can do it doesn't mean "anyone" did. The Mint people made it.

And as far as antiquated some of us like stable reliable software instead of newer stuff. Less surprises to screw with our workflow. I went back to Debian Bookworm myself and it + distrobox == zero problems.

Of course this is a moot point if I took the trollbait...

[1fallen]

I'd just like to highlight that Cinnamon was made and managed by the Mint people. So you wouldn't have Ubuntu Cinnamon without Mint. Just because "anyone" can do it doesn't mean "anyone" did. The Mint people made it.

And as far as antiquated some of us like stable reliable software instead of newer stuff. Less surprises to screw with our workflow. I went back to Debian Bookworm myself and it + distrobox == zero problems.

.

+1

[paulycalvin]

I know the difference but the OP is essentially talking about the DE. Both are Ubuntu based. The main difference between the two is the desktop environment.

[ajgreeny]

As far as I'm concerned the really important point to consider here is not Mint or Ubuntu but the DE (or perhaps for some users the WM) chosen. I use both Xubuntu and Mint-XFCE and it can be almost impossible to tell the difference between the two as , of course, they both use the debian.package management system.

I see that you think the best environment you've ever worked with is GNOME whereas Gnome is probably the only DE that I find far too difficult and most awkward to use and has removed far too many configuration options without the need of other packages. I accept that this is just my personal feeling and others will disagree but I have used many different distros in my 20 years exclusively using Linux, and for many years this was mainly Ubuntu with Gnome-2 but then I felt Ubuntu got it completely wrong, at least for me, when they moved to Unity and eventually dumped that and moved to Gnome-3 and later versions; uugh! Sorry; not for me!

I now use Xfce on all my systems, mainly Xubuntu, but also Mint-Xfce, Debian-Testing, and in the past Arcolinux, an Arch derivative, but all with Xfce, and I have to admit that the differences between the distros comes down more to the daily management of things such as updating/upgrading and installing or removing packages, most of which I carry out in terminal, not using GUI apps, so it was very often that I tried to use apt by mistake in Arcolinux instead of pamac, this simply because I had temporarily forgotten i was not using Xubuntu .

[Skaperen]

"there is no reason to ..." is probably better said as "i do not have the full set of reasons to ...".

[volteos]

i

[volteos]

So ... you do you and feel free to share your work-arounds for the different issues and I'll do me trying to avoid any need for work-arounds from the OS. Being different is fine, right? If we were all the same, we'd all use MacOS.

Yes, don't use snaps. Just use the apt repository.

[volteos]

so it was very often that I tried to use apt in Arcolinux instead of pamac.

My not just use pacman...on Arch? It has more packages than apt and are bleeding edge.

[volteos]

"there is no reason to ..." is probably better said as "i do not have the full set of reasons to ...".

I don't think so. There is literally no 'real' reason to use Mint is probably better.

I guess if you're a die hard anarchist you can try and "stick it" to Ubuntu, but if you're using Mint you may as well tell everyone you use Ubuntu. Or maybe if you like the old and outdated Cinnamon theme from Mint. I get the snaps argument, but it's just a bad argument when you don't have to use snaps nor are you forced to.

[shadowtabby]

Heyo,

Honestly 3 days ago I changed from windows to ubuntu. My cousin used to use it on his computer before he had to change back to windows for work. He is how I heard about it. Since I have had ubuntu, yeah a little problems I admit, but nothing that no one here couldn't help with. I am actually starting to be glad that I changed to ubuntu.

[volteos]

Oh hold on I was wrong sorry about all this, now I understand why people choose Mint.

Even if you use apt, apt will choose to install snap versions of packages by priority and debian packages afterward. Now I understand. I haven't had any issues with Ubuntu personally, but I just noticed my apps alone are taking up like 60GB of my system. Snaps are great in my opinion, but they're more catered to servers. Still I would choose Ubuntu over the alternative just because things work best on it (looking at you MySQL Workbench).

I also really hate Debian so it's a win for me anyway.

[ajgreeny]

Now that the use of snap packages has surfaced in this thread I will admit that I honestly forgot about that as a reason for some users to avoid Ubuntu but this is because it is quite easy to get rid of the total snap infrastructure and install those packages using other methods.

I have done this ever since the snap system became default for some packages in Ubuntu a few years ago, 20.04 I think or was it 18.04, I don't remember!

It is, I accept, an extra "chore" after installing the OS but it can be done using a script if you wish and takes just a few minutes.

[TheFu]

Now that the use of snap packages has surfaced in this thread I will admit that I honestly forgot about that as a reason for some users to avoid Ubuntu but this is because it is quite easy to get rid of the total snap infrastructure and install those packages using other methods.

And all it takes to have the snap stuff pulled back is a little mistake or a package dependency that pulls the snap infrastructure back, without our intention for that to happen.

Snaps also break other sandboxing tools. For example, I have firefox and thunderbird constrained in specific ways using firejail. Actually have different modes of constraints depending on the specific need at the time. With the snap package, we get what the snap package maintainer requires for constraints with no customization for specific needs.

Sometimes I want to run Firefox in a mode that doesn't allow any access to prior configs or data and doesn't allow anything new to touch any local storage. Can't do that with snap packages. The workaround is to run Firefox-ESR ... but sometimes there isn't any workaround for other packages possible.

After fighting with snaps for a few years, I decided it wasn't worth it and moved to Mint. I even get lxd without any snap there. On ubuntu systems, lxd is only available as a snap package which irks me greatly. If we wanted to be told how to use our Unix computers, we'd run MacOS.

[1fallen]

If we wanted to be told how to use our Unix computers, we'd run MacOS.

That right there sums it all up for me as well....No Thanks!

[ajgreeny]

And all it takes to have the snap stuff pulled back is a little mistake or a package dependency that pulls the snap infrastructure back, without our intention for that to happen.

Snaps also break other sandboxing tools. For example, I have firefox and thunderbird constrained in specific ways using firejail. Actually have different modes of constraints depending on the specific need at the time. With the snap package, we get what the snap package maintainer requires for constraints with no customization for specific needs.

Sometimes I want to run Firefox in a mode that doesn't allow any access to prior configs or data and doesn't allow anything new to touch any local storage. Can't do that with snap packages. The workaround is to run Firefox-ESR ... but sometimes there isn't any workaround for other packages possible.

After fighting with snaps for a few years, I decided it wasn't worth it and moved to Mint. I even get lxd without any snap there. On ubuntu systems, lxd is only available as a snap package which irks me greatly. If we wanted to be told how to use our Unix computers, we'd run MacOS.
I generally agree with most of what you say here but certainly for Firefox and Thunderbird I have removed the possibility of suddenly losing my installations and having them replaced by the snaps by not installing them in the usual manner with a package manager, snapstore or apt, by using the directly downloaded and extracted .tar.bz archives from Mozilla.

Both of these will update automatically if you set them up to do so, or as in my preference, notify me that a new version is available and offer to update it with one click; if I don't want a new version I can ignore the notification.

The only snap I unfortunately have to install is skype, no longer available for Linux in an up to date version in any other format and because of family inability to move to any other application it has to be skype at the moment.

[kenweill]

I'm replying here using Linux Mint Cinnamon. I use both Windows, Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Fedora on different machines.

I can't say one is better than the other. If you can say "There's no reason to use Linux Mint", well, other's might say "There's no reason to use Ubuntu" when Debian is already there.
Using different distros with different DE is just a matter of personal preference.

I use Linux Mint most of the time, btw.

[Shibblet]

I don't understand why people use Linux Mint, an antiquated OS. People talk about the Cinnamon desktop, but my sentiment is why would you use it when Ubuntu has Cinnamon.

By this statement, we should all be using Debian... but we kind of are... but also not... but .DEB... but, Kernels... argh! :P

I have found that most Linux distributions start out as either a technical fork, or a philosophical one. Mint started as a fork of Ubuntu, from Clem Lefebvre, addressing many of the issues he found with Ubuntu at the time. Then when Gnome 3 rolled out, and Gnome 2 was abandoned in 2011, the Mint team started working on the Cinnamon Desktop.

Sooooooo... Ubuntu Cinnamon would not be a thing without Mint. And Mint would not be a thing without Ubuntu. And then the whole universe collapsed inside of desktop paradox the likes of which no Linux user has seen before. And on a completely unrelated note... Cinnamon and Mint (the flavors) really don't go together. :(

In retrospect, The MATE team picked up Gnome 2 and repurposed it as a modern desktop... making many Gnome 2 users very happy!

Anyway... my point is... Many of these projects start for a reason, and then just end up going their own way. i.e. the purpose of the fork. Mint is it's own distribution now, and has a lot of great things about it.

But... if you like Cinnamon, and you want Snaps... Ubuntu Cinnamon is available for you.

[grahammechanical]

There is no reason for posting in this thread.

So, why am I doing it? I must be insane.

Regards

[1fallen]

There is no reason for posting in this thread.

So, why am I doing it? I must be insane.

Regards
+1
:lolflag:

[zebra2]

There is a reason for everything. I started with Lucid Lynx when it was a development version and have used every dev version since, now Plucky Puffin.
I like Ubuntu just like it is supplied, snaps and all. Its perfect for the needs around this house. So far and after ten years of crashes and reinstalls I have had no reason to change. Lot to be learned without distro hopping. Incidentally, everything with Ubuntu is in development. Just because it is a head ache today doesn't mean it won't be a blessing tomorrow.