Ubuntu vs Mint

Justin10

I always knew about Linux but was never bothered. But recently my laptop died and decided to install Linux on my old laptop.

I first tried Mint painless install and was so impressed with how quick it was. Then decided to install Ubuntu, and it seems to be slower.

Also what makes Ubuntu the most tell know or liked shell from Linux?

Thinking of buying a chromebook and sticking linux on it, but would lie to mess about with Chrome OS first to see if I could only use Chrome which I think I do at the minute, would anyone be able to point me into the right direction to install Chrome OS??

Khannie

Rochey18 wrote: »

would anyone be able to point me into the right direction to install Chrome OS??

If you buy a chromebook, it'll come with Chrome OS already on it. Looks tasty enough for day to day usage, but for your average computer head, I would imagine that a Linux install will reap rewards.

Justin10

I know Chrome comes on the Chromebook

Just wanted to try it out, but I suppose I could just leave Chrome open.

Would anyone be able to suggest a good website for information on Linux especially Ubuntu and Mint,

rebeve

Rochey18 wrote: »

I know Chrome comes on the Chromebook

Just wanted to try it out, but I suppose I could just leave Chrome open.

Would anyone be able to suggest a good website for information on Linux especially Ubuntu and Mint,

http://distrowatch.com/

human 19

1 Ubuntu tells you what you should like and tries to give it to you (to suit Canonical's corporate vision)
Mint listens to what you want and tries to give it to you (Cinnamon, Mate desktops for those who hated Unity)

2 Ubuntu releases by calender date regardles of how much crap it contains
Mint cleans up the ubuntu crap and then releases on no specific date

3 Ubuntu forums are full of questions that dont get answered because so many people think Ubuntu is the only linux variety and install that first. Hence its much harder to get a problem solved
Mint forums much more helpful and probably, in my experience, the most laid back and helpful of the lot

excollier

I am running two dual boot computers, one of them with Mint and Ubuntu. I have to say I like both, and I don't see what all the fuss is over Unity, it is very simple to understand and use (IMHO), but I do prefer Mint ( I use LMDE and Mint 13 KDE too ).
At least Ubuntu don't charge cash for something many don't like.
Microsoft Windows has the same sort of grip that Sky holds in the world of satellite broadcasting here and the UK, most are unaware that they can do exactly the same stuff without having to pay. Pity.

rebeve

human 19 wrote: »

1 Ubuntu tells you what you should like and tries to give it to you (to suit Canonical's corporate vision)
Mint listens to what you want and tries to give it to you (Cinnamon, Mate desktops for those who hated Unity)

2 Ubuntu releases by calender date regardles of how much crap it contains
Mint cleans up the ubuntu crap and then releases on no specific date

3 Ubuntu forums are full of questions that dont get answered because so many people think Ubuntu is the only linux variety and install that first. Hence its much harder to get a problem solved
Mint forums much more helpful and probably, in my experience, the most laid back and helpful of the lot

So you don`t like Ubuntu .

human 19

rebeve wrote: »

So you don`t like Ubuntu .

I dont dislike Canonical/Ubuntu, although I am wary of where they are going.
Anyone who brings more people to linux is ok with me. My 2nd distro is an Ubuntu fork.
I was simply comparing mint to Ubuntu.

Do you have any disagreement with any of my particular points?

rebeve

human 19 wrote: »

I dont dislike Canonical/Ubuntu, although I am wary of where they are going.
Anyone who brings more people to linux is ok with me. My 2nd distro is an Ubuntu fork.
I was simply comparing mint to Ubuntu.

Do you have any disagreement with any of my particular points?

A bit harsh on the forum gurus maybe.

croo

human 19 wrote: »

I dont dislike Canonical/Ubuntu, although I am wary of where they are going.
Anyone who brings more people to linux is ok with me. My 2nd distro is an Ubuntu fork.
I was simply comparing mint to Ubuntu.

Do you have any disagreement with any of my particular points?

To be honest I think your description is a little simplistic.

I used Debian for years (and still do for servers) but it was always(well often) a lot of work to configure a nice desktop.

Ubuntu took Debian, and for the for first time since I started using linux in the early 90s, created a distro that seemed to just work no matter what system I tried it on. Video, Sound, networks even WifIi & 3g that had always been problematic worked. It was a huge leap forward in terms of ease-of-use .

Besides that there was one key difference between Ubuntu & vanilla Debian - Ubuntu made it easy to install binaries - something deeply frowned upon, for some obvious reasons, by the free software faithful.

But there were still things to do after a typical Ubuntu install - for patent & licensing reasons they could not include the likes of MP3 other popular codecs not unless they would license these. Since they were giving Ubuntu away that hardly made sense. Also software like DeCSS while used my many was illegal in many countries so including them in the default ubuntu version could be opening themselves (and anybody else who distributed ubuntu) to potentially criminal proceedings.

It was a fairly painless affair if you did want to add these things yourself - but it was another step that most people (not living in the USA at least) just did. Though I suspect most were oblivious the legal issues & questions. Never mind those who disagreed with the principals of using closed/licensed/patented software.

So Mint came along and prepackaged Ubuntu with all these things - I always wondered about the legality of it - even mixing the free & closed software might have been considered a breach of the GPL. But the new converts to Mint seemed to be more interested in the free (as in beer) aspects of linux rather than the free (as in Freedom) aspects . Things like DeCSS were definitely illegal even in Ireland but I think that has now been replaced with libdvdcss - which might be still questionable in some countries but is a least undisputed (legally) though in many countries it is simply illegal to break (or even to attempt to break) encrypted data. And decoding a DVD would seem to fall into this category.

Since Mint's rise in popularity there has been the whole unity or not unity debacle with ubuntu - Mint went with a custom Gnome3. I, from pure laziness, stayed with Ubuntu but with the default Gnome3. Many people seem to like Unity.

But as far as I can see these 2 points are the only real difference between Mint & Ubuntu.

In summary as I see it;
Debian = Pure FLOSS
Ubuntu - Debian + better install + more drivers including binaries + unity (or gnome if you prefer)
Mint = Ubuntu + lots of unlicensed/patented codecs + custom gnome3 shell

Johnboy1951

croo ........ I am not disputing your statement about the illegality of CSS ..... but it was my understanding that it had never been tested in court ...... particularly the concept of distributing it, rather than breaking any security/encryption system, which I understand is illegal in some jurisdictions.

I would surely appreciate a listing of locations where this has proved to be illegal, to posses, distribute, use etc etc.

If you have anything on that please post or PM me, thanks.

dh0011

I would like to say that I like ubuntu as I have to program in a statistical package called R. It is very easy install R in ubuntu. To use R effectively R needs access to the internet. Also when dealing with large data sets R needs a stable platform to run on.

R doesnt play well with mint. Most statisticians using linux use either ubuntu or fedora.

Both ubuntu and fedora do very well with R.

While some of you say that you dont like canonical I will say that it is a good stable reliable operating system that costs you nothing.

RodgersLFC

My favourite distro is Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop environment. It runs much faster than Ubuntu, I like Unity but the latest Ubuntu releases seem to be quite bloated. I havent tried 13.04 yet, mind.

excollier

13.04 seems to be giving problems for some, but then that's to be expected.

10-10-20

I have used Ubuntu since 8.04 but I've dropped it completely after giving Unity a chance. It's not condusive to having mutiple windows open, it's hard to find applications as there is no menu system and it's not as customisable as KDE/Gnome/Xfce etc.

I'm on Mint now. No problems to report except for some minor niggles with X (possibly ATI related). The added bonus with Mint is that the lead developer is living in Ireland and is a boards.ie member.

GreenWolfe

I'm using Ubuntu 13.04 coming from Fedora. I don't find Unity to be much of a hassle tbh. I'm used to just hitting the super key and typing in the name of the program or file I want in Windows, so it's handy to be able to carry that behaviour over to Ubuntu.

At the moment I'm not in the mood to customise much of anything in the Unity environment, other than getting a nicer wallpaper. Unity is adequate for window management imho, the only time I've ever felt like I was in a straitjacket was when I was using GNOME 3.

I think I'd be right in saying the above wouldn't be the majority opinion. I understand that Canonical have a limited set of resources to work with, but I was still disappointed that they cut non-LTS support time.

PropJoe10

I've heard 13.04 is fairly slow and buggy. Havent tried it out, and have no intention of doing so - might try it in a virtual machine sometime, just to have a look. I've tried most well-known Linux distros and my favourite is still Xubuntu. The desktop environment (XFCE) is simple, uncluttered and easy to customise. Unity isnt too bad but its cumbersome at times.

d'Oracle

dh0011 wrote: »

I would like to say that I like ubuntu as I have to program in a statistical package called R. It is very easy install R in ubuntu. To use R effectively R needs access to the internet. Also when dealing with large data sets R needs a stable platform to run on.

R doesnt play well with mint. Most statisticians using linux use either ubuntu or fedora.

Both ubuntu and fedora do very well with R.

While some of you say that you dont like canonical I will say that it is a good stable reliable operating system that costs you nothing.

Why?
It seems a funny problem to have, I mean you should be able to make Mint play just grand with R.

syklops

Maybe off topic, but, some people are saying some things are easier to install on Ubuntu than on Mint and vice versa. How has installing changed? The last time I used Ubuntu which is about 3-4 years ago, you either used apt-get or the GUI. Search for package, click install, what could be easier? Considering Mint is just a tweaked version of Ubuntu, how different can it be.