[waldojim]

Ok, here goes. I decided to try Mint 12 since everyone is calling it 'THE' hot stuff of the day.

If anyone has tips, disagrees, whatever - then at least do me the favor of reading first.

First and foremost, Linux Mint is once more, one of the easiest distros in the world to install. I was done in less than 15 minutes. As always Linux Mint absolutely destroys Windows install times. For once, Linux Mint even detected the RAID controller, and even the RAID array. This is a very welcome change.

That is all the good I have to say. And I am sorry in advance to everyone.

This OS is a MESS. There is a very serious identity crisis going on, and unfortunately no resemblance to stability. I have used my reset switch more in the last 20 minutes that I have in the last year.

List of complaints:

• Graphical corruption: This machine has yet to make 5 minutes without some form of graphical corruption, be it lose the entire display, or have menus that cannot be read. This is not only distracting, but makes using the system impossible in some cases.
  
• Proprietary drivers installation broken. After updating the system, I went to the usual hardware drivers page in an attempt to activate the ATI/AMD drivers. I had two options Post-Release Update and normal. The first ended up with nothing more than a failed message, the latter just didn't work. BOTH though ended up in a hard reset with the desktop became totally unresponsive.
  
• Mix of Gnome shell and Gnome 2. Normally I don't mind a new interface, but the desktop is making my life harder, and consuming more space than needed. Task bars at the top and bottom with part of my programs duplicated seems like a waste to me. Not only that, but I don't want the stupid half arsed list of programs when I stick my mouse in the corner of the screen.
  
• Cannot use a stretched display, or a separate desktop on each display. The attempts force me into a hard reset.
  
• Network printer detection is broken. The software said firewalld isn't running (the firewall is btw) and that there are several other programs needed. Did it include a way to fix it? No. How about a way to open up multiple "settings" sessions so I can leave that up while I try to understand the cryptic message? No. Just a great big denied, and go to away message. Guess I won't be printing here either.
  
• Default resolution is 1024x768 on both of my displays. This is a minor annoyance normally, but considering how unstable the "settings" page is...
  
• They make you "unlock" settings pages individually, instead of when you get into the main settings location. Normally this isn't an issue, but this is where you can see how quickly this was thrown together. There is no consistency from one setting to the next. Some have a little golden lock in the bottom corner, some have a nice big "Unlock" button, and others still don't even have one, simply prompting you when you make the change.

Now then, a couple quick points worth mentioning, and to end up beat:
Updating the system was FAST. 5MB/sec download consistent, and all 250 updates were installed in about 5 minutes. Pretty darned quick if you ask me.
The included wallpapers have been updated. They even include some VERY high resolution landscapes.

To the Mint team:

Take your time next time. There really isn't any rush. Get the OS done right, and release to us a product that can at least FEEL complete. I won't bother logging back into this version of Mint, and will probably find something else for this partition tomorrow.

Last notes:
This test was conducted on my "Main" rig seen in my signature. The raid setup mentioned before is a 2x320GB raid that houses WINDOWS and Windows alone. Linux is sitting on a dedicated 500GB Hitachi drive. There are 8GB of ram, and I set up an 8GB swap partition. This was tested with a Samsung 23" and Acer 23" monitor. The filesystem was set up as EXT4, and none of the Windows NTFS partitions mounted. The Over clock is in place, and has been thoroughly tested. The exception being the video card, as that is a soft OC.

[linuxrants7xpg]

waldojim, on 04 December 2011 - 02:47 AM, said:

Ok, here goes. I decided to try Mint 12 since everyone is calling it 'THE' hot stuff of the day.

If anyone has tips, disagrees, whatever - then at least do me the favor of reading first.

First and foremost, Linux Mint is once more, one of the easiest distros in the world to install. I was done in less than 15 minutes. As always Linux Mint absolutely destroys Windows install times. For once, Linux Mint even detected the RAID controller, and even the RAID array. This is a very welcome change.

That is all the good I have to say. And I am sorry in advance to everyone.

This OS is a MESS. There is a very serious identity crisis going on, and unfortunately no resemblance to stability. I have used my reset switch more in the last 20 minutes that I have in the last year.

That's very strange. I've had no problems with my installation. I doubt that makes you feel better about yours.

waldojim, on 04 December 2011 - 02:47 AM, said:

List of complaints:

• Graphical corruption: This machine has yet to make 5 minutes without some form of graphical corruption, be it lose the entire display, or have menus that cannot be read. This is not only distracting, but makes using the system impossible in some cases.
  
• Proprietary drivers installation broken. After updating the system, I went to the usual hardware drivers page in an attempt to activate the ATI/AMD drivers. I had two options Post-Release Update and normal. The first ended up with nothing more than a failed message, the latter just didn't work. BOTH though ended up in a hard reset with the desktop became totally unresponsive.
  
• Mix of Gnome shell and Gnome 2. Normally I don't mind a new interface, but the desktop is making my life harder, and consuming more space than needed. Task bars at the top and bottom with part of my programs duplicated seems like a waste to me. Not only that, but I don't want the stupid half arsed list of programs when I stick my mouse in the corner of the screen.
  
• Cannot use a stretched display, or a separate desktop on each display. The attempts force me into a hard reset.
  
• Network printer detection is broken. The software said firewalld isn't running (the firewall is btw) and that there are several other programs needed. Did it include a way to fix it? No. How about a way to open up multiple "settings" sessions so I can leave that up while I try to understand the cryptic message? No. Just a great big denied, and go to away message. Guess I won't be printing here either.
  
• Default resolution is 1024x768 on both of my displays. This is a minor annoyance normally, but considering how unstable the "settings" page is...
  
• They make you "unlock" settings pages individually, instead of when you get into the main settings location. Normally this isn't an issue, but this is where you can see how quickly this was thrown together. There is no consistency from one setting to the next. Some have a little golden lock in the bottom corner, some have a nice big "Unlock" button, and others still don't even have one, simply prompting you when you make the change.

I agree the top and bottom seems kind of like a waste of space. I love the "stupid half arsed list of programs" though. At first I was a little put off by it, but after using it for a bit, I've really grown to love it. It's like a dashboard where all of your stuff can be found in one place. Your installed apps, your running apps, your desktops, an Exposé like window selector, and a search option. Really, the bottom bar could go and I'd be happy as a lark because of this dashboard.

I'd try it with only a single monitor. Linux has had some difficulty in the past with multi-monitor configurations. I've never tried it myself as I don't have space on my desk for more than one monitor, but it could be worth a shot.

My network printer detected perfectly on the first try. I have an old Epsion Workforce 435. Popped up immediately.

My firewall detected correctly first try.

My resolution came up default at 1600x900, which was automatically detected.

I never noticed the unlock thing until you mentioned it. Weird.

waldojim, on 04 December 2011 - 02:47 AM, said:

Now then, a couple quick points worth mentioning, and to end up beat:
Updating the system was FAST. 5MB/sec download consistent, and all 250 updates were installed in about 5 minutes. Pretty darned quick if you ask me.
The included wallpapers have been updated. They even include some VERY high resolution landscapes.

To the Mint team:

Take your time next time. There really isn't any rush. Get the OS done right, and release to us a product that can at least FEEL complete. I won't bother logging back into this version of Mint, and will probably find something else for this partition tomorrow.

Last notes:
This test was conducted on my "Main" rig seen in my signature. The raid setup mentioned before is a 2x320GB raid that houses WINDOWS and Windows alone. Linux is sitting on a dedicated 500GB Hitachi drive. There are 8GB of ram, and I set up an 8GB swap partition. This was tested with a Samsung 23" and Acer 23" monitor. The filesystem was set up as EXT4, and none of the Windows NTFS partitions mounted. The Over clock is in place, and has been thoroughly tested. The exception being the video card, as that is a soft OC.

It's weird how one person can have such a positive experience with an OS, and one can have a negative one. I thought that maybe it was something to do with the hardware involved, so I ran a quick GeekBench on my system. I didn't buy it, so it won't let me run the 64bit version, so this is the summary of a 32bit GeekBench:

http://linuxrants.co...BenchMark01.png

[waldojim]

I do not doubt the fact that others have had better success with Mint 12.

Understand, that many of my complaints are based around things that should work consistently.

If the graphical corruption, and difficulty with drivers is because of my dual display setup. Then we have a nasty regression, and this points to further product testing. If this is actually a new problem, again, we need more testing. This is a feature that DID work correctly in previous versions.

The firewall was working, though it is overly simplistic in nature, it was easy enough to understand that it was on and doing its job. That said, the printer configuration thing still couldn't tell it was on. It also needed a host of other packages in place, and didn't bother giving me an easy way to install them.

Now, my post was meant only to point out that people are certainly not going to have the same experience with Mint, depending on hardware. I may try this out on the laptop for a while to see what it does, but I have even less hope for it, considering the video card arraignment.

Still, I will continue - as always - to be fair, and give an OS a fair trial. I am sorry to see Mint slip up like this, as it has been my primary Linux choice for years now. Hopefully, they will learn, and the next edition will be a step up.

[linuxrants7xpg]

waldojim, on 04 December 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

I do not doubt the fact that others have had better success with Mint 12.

Was thinking about that bottom bar tonight, and how little I use it. Pretty much a waste of real estate, so removed the bottom bar. Pretty simple to do. Just open Advanced Settings (Gnome Tweak Tool), and in the Shell Extensions turn off the extensions "Window List Extension" and "Bottom Panel Extension". It vanishes like it was never there. Haven't found a way to remove the top bar (or really looked for one), but I'm sure there's a way to do it. Of course, with the success you've had with Mint 12, you're probably already moved on to another distro.

[waldojim]

Truthfully, I haven't had the time to mess with it. Been doing other things...

[OpSec39]

hmm, Minty, is it like a polo-mint round with a hole in the middle?

Try some re-spins of Archbang or Crunchbang..

Pros: Excellent software management infrastructure; unparalleled customization and tweaking options; superb on-line documentation. Very stable; remarkable quality control; includes over 20,000 software packages; supports more processor architectures than any other Linux distribution.

Cons: Conservative - due to its support for many processor architectures, newest technologies are not always included. Discussions on developer mailing lists and blogs can be uncultured at the best of times. Occasional instability and risk of breakdown.

Distributed with no warranty "this can make your PC go Crunch && Bang!"

Crunchbang was originally based on Ubuntu but they've swapped over to Debian/Testing && Debian/Stable, supports Liquorix Kernel's && SELinux out of the Box

Archbang supports GrSecurity Extensions out of the Box over the past decade, grsecurity has provided webhosting companies and other users of Linux the highest level of security available.

This post has been edited by OpSec39: 10 December 2011 - 04:35 AM

[OpSec39]

Firewall wise I've always been fond of UFW (uncomplicated firewall) with its front end GUFW, broken in the debian repo so the best way to get a fully working GUI is download directly from the launchpad PPA for both UFW && GUFW and then it works out of the box with maybe a little GCC compiler action on your part with the bog standard ./configure && ./make && ./make install

As for tweaking the Desktop UI thats down to individual preference, I edited most of the setup to use Gnome instead of XFCE and that means editing things like the power-manager startup etc.. Maybe not for novices, what some people might call a bleeding edge distribution.

And if your bog standard Stock kernel can not find your hardware, you'll need the Wiki articles for help on finding a compatible module to inject into the kernel with modprobe.

Also check out packages like fake ARP daemon and arp-tables, xidentd, dsniff, wireshark, deluge.. etc

I really like the look of Mint 12 but am happier with Debian Stable.

This post has been edited by OpSec39: 10 December 2011 - 05:38 AM

[bigjohnl]

Mint 12 is woking fine for me. It is strange that the OS is giving some users so much trouble.

[Evildave]

A lot of variables to cover, but what sort of graphics card is having the problems?

I see 'proprietary ATI/AMD drivers' are 'broken', which should be telling us something about it probably being broken from there up, which might cover a lot of your other display+display settings complaints.

If you could put the specific model number of ATI hardware into a google search with AMD, someone else might have had the same problems, and found a solution.

[waldojim]

Evildave, on 30 January 2012 - 04:43 PM, said:

A lot of variables to cover, but what sort of graphics card is having the problems?

I see 'proprietary ATI/AMD drivers' are 'broken', which should be telling us something about it probably being broken from there up, which might cover a lot of your other display+display settings complaints.

If you could put the specific model number of ATI hardware into a google search with AMD, someone else might have had the same problems, and found a solution.

That was all tested using the machine in my sig. Namely an i5 750 with an AMD 5770 video card. It also has 8GB of ram for what that is worth.

[Evildave]

https://www.google.c...770+Mint+driver
Well, a bit of browsing tends to indicate others having problems with that card. So at least you're not alone. I know that's not materially helpful, but you're not the only one to get stuck, and the issue is known.

[Jaer007ll]

Take your time next time.

This post has been edited by bcappel: 10 February 2012 - 09:38 AM