Goodbye Linux Mint Mate 17.3, Hello Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1

[csandste]

Swapped this out last month. Wanted to wait until Mate was at least at the .1 change.

The good--

• Like the different interfaces available through Tweak. I've settled on Contemporary. I've done two installs on friends and family and I think they settled on Mutiny and Cupertino. All this variety, easily switched is a big plus in my mind.
  • 
    Mint had a bit of trouble connecting through my usb-Wi-Fi. Sometimes had to try to hit a neighbor's wi-fi in order to clean things out. Sometimes had to swap out wi-fi antennas. No such problems with Linux Mate.
    • 
      Full updates are automatic. I always kept Mint on level 3. Never had any trouble, but was a bit concern about the age of Mint's bones after a couple of years of partial updates. (realize new Mint regresses if you have an update problem, so Mint 19 may be superior for updates).
  • 
    
    The bad--
    • Chrome and Gmail seem to have slowed down, but this might because of ongoing Google bloat. Have switched to Firefox as my primary browser and it seems much faster, especially with tracking protection on. Then again, my computer is getting very old and was bottom of the line to begin with. I'm sure none of the computers I'm supporting would install Win10 at all. They barely functioned with Win7.
  • 
    Linux Mint comes with much prettier backgrounds-wallpaper. Not much of a problem, because it's certainly easy to load your own.
• 
  
  
  Anyway, a month in, I'm very happy with Ubuntu Mate. I was already installing it on friends computers and I now prefer it for my own, although absolutely no disrespect to Linux Mint. It's great too.

 

[Zee09]

Mint was my go to in the beginning years.
Never had any luck with Ubuntu
But I bailed years ago....

 

[Ifixyawata]

Would you reccomend this or a different Linux distro for an old old Sony laptop? Currently running XP (gasp)

 

[MONKEYMAN]

I went to Mint or Mint Xfce to Ubuntu on the computers I use the most. I love Night Light. Allows me to use a bigger monitor without straining the eyes.

I use Chromium for Outlook and noticed it really bogs down like something is running in the background. This is a 10 year old laptop with Mint 18.3 Xfce. With Firefox everything has no problem with speed.

I do have the newer version of Mint Mate on another Thinkpad. Like it but Night Light is a must have.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by csandste
Swapped this out last month. Wanted to wait until Mate was at least at the .1 change.


That is very, very odd. Mint **is** Ubuntu for the most part: The Mint team uses Ubuntu's software repositories for all but a small handful of Mint-developed utilities. I can only think that it is because Canonical (Ubuntu) is a little more aggressive with kernel updates than Mint and the newer-ish kernel was what made Ubuntu stand out for you.

 

[csandste]

I had already decided to switch to Ubuntu Mate 18.04 but wanted to wait until .1 was out. Still getting a certain amount of kernal updates and error messages. I'm sure these will be straightened out during next year. Don't think everything has to be constantly updated to the latest thing if it's still supported. Missed out completely on Linux Mint 18.xx as 17 was working just fine. Realize the Linux Mint 19 is based on Ubuntu 18.04.

 

[csandste]

"I do have the newer version of Mint Mate on another Thinkpad. Like it but Night Light is a must have."

This the same as Red Shift? That's included with Ubuntu Mate.

 

[zorobabel]

Originally Posted by Ifixyawata
Would you reccomend this or a different Linux distro for an old old Sony laptop? Currently running XP (gasp)

I like MX-Linux...

 

[csandste]

Chief Ubuntu Mate guy Martin Wimpress is not an overly big fan of Linux Mint, mostly because of its partial updates. Haven't heard any of his opinions on Linux Mint 19.

 

[csandste]

Originally Posted by Ifixyawata
Would you reccomend this or a different Linux distro for an old old Sony laptop? Currently running XP (gasp)


Easy install on ten year old, low end technology. If you need something even lighter try Peppermint Linux which is a very lightweight mishmash of Xubuntu, Linux Mint and a bunch of other stuff but is really light weight. Designed to run web apps almost natively but you can install Libre Office or anything else you want. Try Ubuntu Mate or Linux Mint Mate and if it's too heavy wipe it out and try something even lighter like Peppermint or Lubuntu. It's all freel.

 

[csandste]

Now we need a real Linux user to extol the glories of Arch Linux.

 

[Zee09]

Anybody remember the Lindows OS.
I got ripped on that back in the day...lol
I think it was back in 2002 or so. Worthless crap.

 

[csandste]

Originally Posted by Zee09
Anybody remember the Lindows OS.
I got ripped on that back in the day...lol
I think it was back in 2002 or so. Worthless crap.

Changed name to Linspire and peddled by Wally World IIRC

 

[Zee09]

Originally Posted by csandste
Originally Posted by Zee09
Anybody remember the Lindows OS.
I got ripped on that back in the day...lol
I think it was back in 2002 or so. Worthless crap.

Changed name to Linspire and peddled by Wally World IIRC


Yeah later I got ripped by Linspire. I still have the pc they sold me. I never threw any away.
Got a basement full. lol

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Originally Posted by csandste
"I do have the newer version of Mint Mate on another Thinkpad. Like it but Night Light is a must have."

This the same as Red Shift? That's included with Ubuntu Mate.

Red Shift does not shift it red enough for my eyes. I have it running in every computer that does not have Night Light. Night Light gives me a pinkish looking screen. Windows 10 also has Night Light which is pretty good also.

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted by csandste
Now we need a real Linux user to extol the glories of Arch Linux.


The real ones use Slackware and never react to threads like this

They are true masochists, but few know Linux innards like they do.

 

[JeepWJ19]

Originally Posted by Y_K
Originally Posted by csandste
Now we need a real Linux user to extol the glories of Arch Linux.


The real ones use Slackware and never react to threads like this

They are true masochists, but few know Linux innards like they do.


Nothing hard about Arch, have had it for 3 years. Slackware Im too lazy to touch.

Never understood the Mint following. It's based almost entirely off of Ubuntu LTS. Might as well just use Ubuntu LTS. Hmmmphh

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Originally Posted by JeepWJ19
Never understood the Mint following. It's based almost entirely off of Ubuntu LTS. Might as well just use Ubuntu LTS. Hmmmphh

For me it was more similar to Windows. Plus when I tried Ubuntu it did not play well on older computers. Now I use Ubuntu most of the time. The recent release is more user friendly and works well on older computers.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Y_K
Originally Posted by csandste
Now we need a real Linux user to extol the glories of Arch Linux.


The real ones use Slackware and never react to threads like this

They are true masochists, but few know Linux innards like they do.


You haven't Linux'd until you've done LFS, though Gentoo is pretty close

I cut my teeth on Slackware, was the first distro I ever used back in the 90's.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by JeepWJ19
Never understood the Mint following. It's based almost entirely off of Ubuntu LTS. Might as well just use Ubuntu LTS. Hmmmphh

There are some subtle but noticeable differences. Of course, one can change desktops right within any distro, if one wants to change the feel. With Mint, most multimedia things work right away without tinkering, which isn't always the case in Ubuntu. That doesn't matter to me since I have no problem downloading codecs, but for others, it's just less work. Some get a little antsy at Ubuntu doing slightly different upgrade streams than Mint. Of course, Mint liked to confuse people with their lack of secure boot support (which is immaterial to experienced users, but not novices), but I think that's all fixed now.

Overkill, I've only compiled from source when necessary, and can't see starting an OS from the ground up would be a lot of fun. In the end, it might be gratifying in the same way as completing a marathon.