TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

LinuxMint has impressed me in the past. It offers a stable base of Ubuntu along with several useful pieces that aren't included for legal reasons and packages it all into a pleasant looking sytem. I expected much of the same with this release.

Install:

The installer is pretty much identical to Ubuntu Hardy, so I won't get into that. On reboot and login I was given some last-minute configuration dialogs.

I've noted this before, and I'll say it again: I like being given the choice to enable root and turn off fortunes. I was less than impressed by the fact that my regular user was still given sudo privileges after I enabled the root account, though. The end result was the same as if I'd simply not enabled it, so the choice is pretty futile.

I realize that Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and Ubuntu does everything with sudo. However I'd like to be able to make Mint behave the same as other distributions if I choose to enable the root account.

This means that when I want to do something administrative it should ask me for the root password rather than my regular user account, and my regular user should not be given sudo privileges.

Why does this matter to me, especially since I generally use Ubuntu on my personal computer? Well it's just principle. In theory it's a lot harder for someone to infiltrate and screw up my system if the root and regular user accounts are completely separate.

I make my user password hard to guess, and my root password close to impossible to guess, and in order to do anything terribly damaging an attacker would need at least root.

Using the default Ubuntu and Mint setup, an attacker needs only to crack the user password (which is in theory easier to do) in order to make system-wide changes.

The first thing I tried was wireless drivers. Although a graphical configuration screen was available for NDISWrapper, I was unable to get my Broadcom card to work. I attempted to install Nvidia 3D drivers as well, but the script failed when it couldn't find GLIBC. Apparently Linux Mint does not include the "build-essential" packages by default.

I attempted to add "build-essential" using the disc, but I couldn't find a way to define the disc as a source. In regular Ubuntu this is done in "Software Sources." I looked around on the CD itself and could find no packages, so manual installation was out of the question.

Software Selection:

Firefox, OpenOffice, Pidgin and GIMP (with a custom splash) were present as were a Sun Java VM and GCC. MP3 and WMV/MPG codecs were also installed.

Synaptic is available for package management, but there is also MintInstaller (called "Software Portal" in the menus), which offers a sort of Google search for a particular program. I tested it in the VM with "Gweled," a small game I enjoy. Neither of the first 2 search tabs found anything, but the third apt search did.

I had better luck with FileZilla. If found, it will take you to a website that lists the package, a description and gives an "Install Now" button. Clicking that downloads the appropriate files and you're off. Although it's an interesting feature, I don't see any benefit to this over Synaptic.

Conclusion:

Mint is more useful out of the box than plain Ubuntu for me. On the desktop (Rig 2) this is nice, because even if I can't play 3D games or get my wireless card to work I can at least listen to music and write code on it. The default look and feel is more pleasant as well.

However, even with the multimedia codecs it installs I can't help but ask myself why I'd choose Mint over regular Ubuntu. Given the choice, I'd still go with the devil I know. I know its limitations, and I can work around them. There's too much unfamiliar territory in Mint.

Mint is not going onto Rig 2 until I can easily install both wireless and 3D drivers (or those get included so I don't have to install them myself). Until then, distributions like Mandriva One still have a leg up in that regard.