Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released

The Mint team deserves big kudos for striving to maintain a Gnome-panel-like desktop experience. IMO both Gnome-shell and Unity are arrogant usability nightmares; thankfully the Mint team is still keeping traditional usability alive in the Gnome environment.

I run Ubuntu 10.10 as my main OS and it screams. I Installed Mint 12 on a test partition and it is a significant slow down, particularly regarding all things UI. Ubuntu puts out a pretty steady 50fps with translucent desktop cube in 1920x1200, Mint 12 can barley transition between workspaces without a choppy slow down. 5-10 second lock up whenever I use ctr+alt+T. Window color inversion (and apparently most of compiz) is broken. Installing nvidia post release caused Gnome to become totally inoperable, I had to boot with Gnome-No-Effects option. I prefer Mint's Gnome 3 to Ubuntu's Unity, but speaking practically, staying with 10.10 is my only true option. I am disappointed.

They made DuckDuckGo a partner. I think that means they will have at least little bit of money.<p>I also think this could be a pretty big blow to Google because I just tried DuckDuckGo and it is working really well. I think I am going to try to switch over. Giant companies like Google make me uncomfortable.

The push to Unity made me try alternate window managers. I've ended up sticking with Awesome, which is a pretty sweet tiling window manager. More minimalistic than it needs to be, but still, the core functionality is great. I have multiple workspaces with different tiling schemes for different tasks - one for general purpose, one for terminal hacking (spiralling terminal windows), one for bug fixing (side by side windows w/bug tracker &#38; Emacs), and one for prolonged development (full screen Emacs with a little terminal for building)

I had great hopes for this release. The fglrx drivers are fething up the "shiny" gnome 3 desktop environment, not to mention I haven't seen anything great about it either -which I am coming to that shortly. MATE is... same as gnome3, I haven't seen anything special about it either. As for gnome 2, why I cannot add widgets to taskbars blows my mind...<p>As far as I can see, and ironically, these new releases have less usability than their older and "geekier" versions. I mean back in linux mint 9 I could find compiz settings in 2 clicks. Now I cannot even see a compiz settings button anywhere. I mean, what the hell was wrong with my rotating cube desktop? Sure, it wasn't breaking any "productivity increase" reports but it made me happy to work with my linux box, not to mention all of the mac &#38; win people looking with envy to these effects which my pieceashit netbook can pull off while their overpowered books can't.<p>Two popular distros (I mean ubuntu and linux mint currently) had created an end goal it seems: "We want to be the mac of the linux world!". In the old days it was "we want to be the windows of the linux world" and this decision killed kde4. But the correct direction is to be an unique experience. Compiz did that, and as far as I can see none of the big mothers of the software world (yes I am looking at you m$ and apple) has a similar software to that!<p>TL;DR:Don't macify yourself.

This may be the first time I'd want to try a non-KDE desktop. Excellent job Mint team!

Just installed Linux Mint Debian Edition. I'm conflicted. It seems nice, but a number of things don't work, the biggest being the nvidia drivers. Turned a bunch of old stuff into a standing dual-screen multimedia center in the garage, so plenty of room for fun and education, not sure I'd switch to it full time.

I'm switching my Linux box and a friend's machine to Linux Mint (from Ubuntu), and was going to use v11. I want a simple desktop and something solid that isn't going to be buggy or difficult to setup. I basically use the terminal, emacs, Ruby, and a browser (Chrome).<p>Should I stick with v11 or go ahead and install v12 now? Would it be better to wait a while to let any bugs shake out, or should 12 be pretty solid now?

Is it better than Ubuntu? Can I have a few workspaces? I think to leave Ubuntu as it became slow for me and Unity is really not cool at all. What do you think?<p>P.S. Can I transfer all my files from Ubuntu to Mint easily?

Just tried this in a VM , Mint's interpretation of Gnome3 is better than Ubuntu's at least. No way to add additional panels though (afaik) which is a major bummer.

installed Mint 12(lisa) on a virtual machine but some things are missing. I've been thinking of abandoning Ubuntu for Mint. Will wait for some more time.

I am not convinced by their "Fresh Upgrade" that looks like a fresh install! Ideally we should be able to upgrade automatically like Chrome or Windows or Wordpress. The future of Linux is here.

honest question: why are so many people hating on unity? is it the launcher bar?