I finally decided to see what all the hype was about. Many of you know i like Ubuntu for its simplicity and straight-forwardness, as well as packages that are fairly recent. I installed the latest Mint Celena Beta 3 and it takes that simplicity and recentness to the next level.
Recentness: The included Pidgin is 2.1.1 and Firefox is 2.0.o.6 (compared to 2.0 and 2.0.0.4 in ubuntu, respectively). Several other packages have also been updated to more recent versions. Package choice is also slightly different. For instance instead of Rhythmbox, mint uses Amorok. Other packges included in Mint that are not part of ubuntu are : tomboy and sunbird (and a few text-mode apps).
Simplicity: Ubuntu has always been simple but mint takes it a step further. For starters it already comes pre-loaded with java 1.6, Flash 9, and a boat-load of various media codecs. Furthermore it includes Envy, a tool that makes installation of proprietary nvidia and ati drivers as simple as 2 mouse clicks and it works extremely well. It also has a first-run wizard which helps you enable/disable some things such as the possiblity to do kernel updates (which they recommend you disable for stability purposes).
Artwork: If you are tiered of the "Human" orange-brown theme then Mint might have the solution, its a black-green-white theme that is actually very appealing. see screenshots (on their site) for details. Grub is also fancier (ala Suse style) which gives it a nice first impression.
Note that Mint's mirrors are slower than ubuntu so downloading the iso and mint-specific packages of their repo will be slower than ubuntu. No, apt-get upgrades don't take forever since mint basically uses the stock feisty sources.list save a few modifications.
overall rating:
cons: as with traditional ubuntu its still a bit on the slow side, though i've noticed under gnome it takes up about 30 or 40mb less to idle which is fairly nice. boot times aren't the greatest either unfortunately. the GTK Xorg config tool is a complete fail, and their "recommended" settings for the first time wizard fail too.
Recentness: The included Pidgin is 2.1.1 and Firefox is 2.0.o.6 (compared to 2.0 and 2.0.0.4 in ubuntu, respectively). Several other packages have also been updated to more recent versions. Package choice is also slightly different. For instance instead of Rhythmbox, mint uses Amorok. Other packges included in Mint that are not part of ubuntu are : tomboy and sunbird (and a few text-mode apps).
Simplicity: Ubuntu has always been simple but mint takes it a step further. For starters it already comes pre-loaded with java 1.6, Flash 9, and a boat-load of various media codecs. Furthermore it includes Envy, a tool that makes installation of proprietary nvidia and ati drivers as simple as 2 mouse clicks and it works extremely well. It also has a first-run wizard which helps you enable/disable some things such as the possiblity to do kernel updates (which they recommend you disable for stability purposes).
Artwork: If you are tiered of the "Human" orange-brown theme then Mint might have the solution, its a black-green-white theme that is actually very appealing. see screenshots (on their site) for details. Grub is also fancier (ala Suse style) which gives it a nice first impression.
Note that Mint's mirrors are slower than ubuntu so downloading the iso and mint-specific packages of their repo will be slower than ubuntu. No, apt-get upgrades don't take forever since mint basically uses the stock feisty sources.list save a few modifications.
overall rating:
cons: as with traditional ubuntu its still a bit on the slow side, though i've noticed under gnome it takes up about 30 or 40mb less to idle which is fairly nice. boot times aren't the greatest either unfortunately. the GTK Xorg config tool is a complete fail, and their "recommended" settings for the first time wizard fail too.
