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Title: Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon: Ready For Prime Time
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Published: Jun 10, 2013
Author: Linerd
Post Date: 2013-06-14 19:17:42 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 490
Comments: 39
Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu Linux 13.04. Mint is intended to be easy to install and easy to use for desktop users who prefer a traditional desktop layout. It is available in for both 32 bit and 64 bit Intel architectures. It's also available with two different desktops; the MATE desktop which is a fork of the GNOME 2 series, and the Cinnamon desktop which is based on GNOME 3 and is a fork of GNOME shell to give it a more traditional desktop layout. For this review I'm running the 64 bit Cinnamon edition on my desktop PC with an Intel Core i5 2500k CPU. First Impressions Downloading the 64 bit Cinnamon Edition DVD took about 35 minutes for me over bittorrent. After creating a bootable USB stick, I booted into the Linux Mint 15 Live environment and after a short time exploring the system, I chose to go ahead with the installation. Install time was quite fast and within about 10 minutes I was prompted to reboot the system. On the first boot I was quite impressed with how fast the system started up. I didn't time the first boot, but subsequent boots on my system take about 30 seconds from the boot loader to the log-in screen. After logging in to the system the desktop loaded up and I was shown the Mint Welcome Screen. This is a feature I've come to expect of Linux Mint and provides links to useful documentation and tutorials about the release. System Updates Taking a look around I noticed the Update Manager notifier in the System Tray telling me that there were 30 updates available to install. Clicking on the Update notifier launched mintUpdate and downloading the updates took less than a minute. Installing them all took only an additional 30 seconds. With my system up to date I was on my way. Screen Layout The default screen layout for Linux Mint 15 is a traditional desktop setup. There is a panel at the bottom of the screen that features the main menu at the leftmost side followed by some quick launch icons and then the window list. The far right side holds the System Tray with network and sound controls followed by the clock/calendar and finally a window quick switcher. Linux Mint 15 automatically detected my monitor and set the screen resolution to my monitor's native resolution. Hardware Detection All of my computer's hardware was properly detected and worked on the initial boot. My Nvidia graphics card was detected and the open source Nouveau graphics driver was loaded by default. This allowed for a pleasant boot animation experience showing the Linux Mint logo. Unfortunately, Nouveau suffers compared to the proprietary Nvidia driver when it comes to displaying 3D content. The Linux Mint 15 Driver Manager makes installing the Nvidia driver a snap. Go to the Menu->Preferences->Driver Manager and select the new driver you want to use. Then click on Apply Changes and the system will download and install the selected driver. Once the process completes you are running the new video driver. No need to reboot. This is an awesome step forward in video driver management. Most distros tell the user to reboot in order for the new driver to work. If you were handy with the command line you could kill the X Server, remove the kernel module for the old video driver, add the kernel module for the new driver, then restart X and you were back in business without a reboot. All of that is gone with the new Driver Manager. Bravo to the Linux Mint developers! My wired network card was properly detected and worked without any additional configuration as well as sound and the multimedia keys on my keyboard. Setting up my HP printer was as simple as going to System Settings->Printers and clicking on Add. From that point I just selected the printer from the list and clicked Forward. I was then given an option to provide a name and a location for the printer. With that done, I clicked Apply and then was given an option to print a test page. Done. Rarely is it this easy to install a printer on a proprietary operating system. Media Formats Perhaps the thing that Linux Mint was best know for in its earlier days was that it ships with codecs for proprietary media formats by default. That means the whether you click on a sound file in an open format like FLAC or Ogg Vorbis or one in a proprietary format like MP3, the file will play. The same is true for video files. Linux Mint 15 was able to play any video file I threw at it. Installed Software Linux Mint 15 comes with a broad selection of software pre-installed on the system. For Internet we find Mozilla Firefox for web browsing and Mozilla Thunderbird for email. We also find the Transmission bittorrent client, Pidgin instant messenger and XChat for Internet Relay Chat communications. In the Office menu we find that the Libre Office Suite is installed along with the Evince document viewer for handling PDF's and Postscript files. In the Graphics area you will find the GIMP Image Editor, gThumb, and the GNOME Image Viewer for handling photos and images. Simple Scan is also included in this section for image and document scanning. Under the Sound & Video section you'll find Banshee for managing you music library, however double clicking a music file will launch it into the Totem Video Player instead. This section also includes the aforementioned Totem under the label of Videos, as well as the VLC media player for playing music and videos, and finally, Brasero for copying, authoring, and burning CD's and DVD's. I inserted an encrypted DVD and initially had difficulty getting it to play. I eventually had success with VLC, but I was not able to get it to play in Totem. I installed the Xine media player and it played my DVD without a problem. In the Accessories section you'll find a collection of miscellaneous tools. You'll find an archive manager, calculator, the gedit text editor, and the obligatory terminal emulator. You'll also find the Nemo file manager in this section. Nemo is Linux Mint's fork of the Nautilus file manager. The reason I mention this is that Linux Mint 15 introduces a new feature for Nemo; Nemo Actions. If you've been a GNOME user you may be familiar with the Nautilus add-on called Nautilus Actions. Well, Nemo has now included similar functionality into the base build. You don't need to add a package to use Nemo Actions, it's already there. Right now there's no graphical configuration tool for Nemo Actions, but it's not too hard to edit the well documented example file to create your own action. The Administration menu contains items to control your system and to keep it up to date. It contains mintBackup for creating and restoring backups of either files or installed software. There's the mintNanny Domain Blocker if you want to restrict access to certain websites. And there's also Gufw for configuring Uncomplicated Firewall. For package management you'll find Software Manager which is a category based package manager, as well as the more powerful Synaptic Package Manager. You'll also find the Update Manager in this section. Of course you can also handle package management from the command line with apt-get and the aptitude package manager is also available. Poster Comment: more info at: http://tuxtweaks.com/2013/06/linux-mint-15-cinnamon-ready-for-prime-time/
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#1. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
Would this OS work with dialup modem?
One word. Arch. "Mr. Prime Minister, there is only one important question facing us, and that is the question whether the white race will survive." -- Leonid Brezhnev to James Callahan
I would assume so but I don't know. You can download the iso here and then burn it to a dvd and try it as a live cd. Then, if you like it and it works well for you, you can install it to your hard drive. I chose the Cinnamon version myself but they also have one called Mate. I just have installed mine tonight and all I can tell you is so far so good. Paul Craig Roberts
Arch. As Shirley Q. Liquor says, "To each they own." Paul Craig Roberts
The big name linuxes have a gotten a little bloated of late, IMO. Arch hasn't broken on me (yet.) Say, do you know of any editors or IDEs for linux that sport anything close to Microsoft's Intellisense? "Mr. Prime Minister, there is only one important question facing us, and that is the question whether the white race will survive." -- Leonid Brezhnev to James Callahan
I have no idea since I don't use Microsux and had never even heard of their "Intellisense" until just now.
Paul Craig Roberts
Have you tried Eclipse?
I'll give it a looksee. Thanks.
I stopped reading it when the guy said he had a 2500k cpu.
God is always good!
Eclipse is what I use.
God is always good!
You're welcome. Paul Craig Roberts
What difference does that make? Paul Craig Roberts
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Thanks for the link. I was just curious why Ricky said what he did. Maybe I am dense but I don't know why he was put off by someone else's processor.
Paul Craig Roberts
CPU speed is measured today in Ghz not k is prolly the reason.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Oh yeah, guess that one got by me.
Paul Craig Roberts
A forgivable typo. I've done worse.
Well, I haven't been looking at the latest processors and thought he was talking about the speed of his CPU, instead that was just the name of it. I will read the article now.
God is always good!
It's a good article. So far Mint has been working very well for me. The one quibble I have with it is that the regular login and root login are the same. I like to have a very simple regular login that anyone can use if they need to use the computer but a different one for root (administrator). Not that anyone will be using mine who would log in as root and do anything to it, just that I think the two logins should be different.
Paul Craig Roberts
I've downloaded Mint and am running it right now off the CD. It certainly looks nice. It's the look and feel that Ubuntu abandoned. Debian has been working for it's got a few things about it that are simply... I guess "undeveloped" is the word. I can't run Gimp on Debian because I installed packages to run Wine (WINdows Emulator for running Windows packages directly on Linux) and the libraries are not compatible. There are windows focus issues.... I've read about some people loving Debian for the stability but I've seen some times when a reboot was in order. Running the PC for months at at time does press the limits, but all in all, Debian seems no more or less stable than well made distros. My gut-feeling impression, that people pay me hundreds of thousands of $$ every day to get from me, is this distro is dang good. I'll look at it some more.
If you need a new best friend I'm available! “Anti-semitism is a disease–you catch it from Jews”–Edgar J. Steele “The jew cries out in pain, as he strikes you.”–Polish proverb “I would like to express my heartfelt apologies for the unfortunate and tasteless quotes I published in my tag lines. I am very sorry and ashamed. I never wanted to offend anyone, or to encroach human rights."- Hmmmmm
I also do best friend services. They are only slightly more expensive than my gun-feeling services -- A great bargain, and an excellent Christmas gift!
Thanks Neil, I am glad you like it. Mint should pay you for that recommendation, don't you think? >(;^{] They have yet to offer to pay me but maybe they will pay you.
Paul Craig Roberts
Well, I guess you will be busy for the foreseeable future cashing checks and getting gold assayed and whatnot. Paul Craig Roberts
I had 2 problems with Mint. Mint, which seems to be a GUI on (or in ) a GUI would would display a message that it had crashed on start-up and it would recognize a wired network but not the wireless one. (Broadcom) After 2+ days of eff'in with it I walked away from it.
“Anti-semitism is a disease–you catch it from Jews”–Edgar J. Steele “The jew cries out in pain, as he strikes you.”–Polish proverb “I would like to express my heartfelt apologies for the unfortunate and tasteless quotes I published in my tag lines. I am very sorry and ashamed. I never wanted to offend anyone, or to encroach human rights."- Hmmmmm
I have no idea what caused the problem since I don't have a wireless network. I am sorry it didn't work for you but so far it has met all my expectations and exceeded some (like recognizing my onboard audio right away and not having to fiddle with trying to find something to make it work). It comes with a good number of codecs so most people can start watching videos and playing their music right away. I don't blame you, or anyone, for walking away from something that doesn't work for them.
Paul Craig Roberts
Mint is playing music for me just fine. That's another thing. With Debian I got Rhythmbox and it doesn't work completely right. A lot of the packages work but they are the older releases for some reason.
I've got it working with my wired network. Needed to manually setup the IP since I don't do DHCP, but that was easy enough. About as much patience I'd have too.
So far I have been very pleased with Mint. I know that if the maintainers decide that they don't want to keep it up to date or if they have one guy they depend on for most of it then it can go to $#it too but as long as it keeps working as well as it is now I will keep using it. Paul Craig Roberts
Yes, it does cost more, but since I use it for business, it's a deduct, so who cares? After using it for over six months now, I'd buy it outright even without the deduction, Jim “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Agreed my friend. First, I don't allow auto updates to any of Czar William's govt-friendly, guaranteed-back-door-access-to-NSA products. As far as I'm concerned he's a self declared enemy elite, as is King David and his open and shameless advocacy for one world (one banking system and one wage scale) govt. Billy (Bath)Gates' domestic and foreign derived wealth seems to be well insulated from direct attack by low browed tax goons, and human nature dictates his cheerful to the extreme cooperation with the folks who'd likely work hard at slipping the wedding tackle to others similarly blessed. Between his bulging counting house and his icey embrace of GMO, he's no friend of fearful, reactionary Munchkins (like mee) who are repulsed by such alien thought processes. This is why anonymous agents with long term agendas won't have ready access to my equipment at the machine language level if I can prevent it. Hell, they've prolly perfected a method to bury the next Hoffa among us all, a few molecules per IE user. And, I don't want the little woman or the young'uns accidentally dropping my shields in case someone stumbles upon the proof that the whistle blowers ain't just whistlin' Dixie. How long before unpatriotic websites that are unsuitable for military eyes such as The Guardian are on a national no fly list and are then automatically banned from our computers by stealthily inserted govt porkware?
I also consider Gates an enemy of all mankind but especially Americans. As for the question about unpatriotic websites, don't you imagine that any and all of them considered not friendly enough to the aims of Big Brother are on the shit list?
Paul Craig Roberts
Probably. And, what about new startup publications that will tailor their stories to slip under the wire of the army's censorship standards? This will have a chilling effect on freedom which of course is an ancillary goal of those who will not hear unpleasant truths.
Well, I installed Mint yesterday on my primary machine. It just feels better than Debian, which had a few annoying issues for me. OpenOffice writer was running really slow for some reason. I see what you mean about the screen saver. I think I may have managed to shut off the screen locker. If that's still an issue for you let me know. Like it so far. It installed super fast. I guess the bigger install disk had a lot less to download.
Not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I think what it is called is "hot corners" (actually only seems to be the upper left corner, at least on mine). And when you put your cursor there it makes the browser tiny. Is that what you mean? Not hard to get it back, just click on it and it comes right back but it's just aggravating. Glad you like Mint though. I think just about anyone whose machine it will work on will like it if they give it a fair try. Paul Craig Roberts
I don't have anything like that. Not that I've noticed so far, at least. I'm running the 64 bit version, if that has anything to do with it.
Mine is 64 bit too. If yours is anything like this one you will notice it just as soon as you do it. First time it happened to me I didn't know what was going on but I figured it out. I did some research and found out how to disable it. www.linuxbsdos.com/2013/0...e-linux-mint-15-cinnamon/ 1. Disable the Hot Corner: One of the most annoying features I encounter on KDE and GNOME 3 is the Hot Corner. I’d be moving my mouse around the desktop and boom!, my desktop looks completely different. What happened? The cursor ran into a Hot Corner. In Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon, the Hot Corner is on the top-left corner of the desktop. If, like me, you can’t stand it, this is how to disable it. From the Cinnamon Settings manager, click on Hot Corner. By default, the Hot Corner is enabled in the top-left corner of the desktop. And the default effect is Expo mode. To disable it (Hot Corner), simple select Disabled from the dropdown menu. That takes care of Hot Corner. You will find the hot corners in your system settings in advanced mode. I disabled it and now it is working the way I want it to--which means it is not minimizing anything. Paul Craig Roberts
Okay, when I put the mouse all the way into the top left corner, I get a zoom out effect on the desktops. (I have 2 desktops). And from there I can select any app I got running anywhere on the system and it will zoom into and focus on that app. Is that it? Haven't had that happen by accident. I'll see how it goes.
Yes, the zoom out and minimizing effect is the hot corner. It didn't suit me and I was glad there was a way to disable it.
Paul Craig Roberts
#2. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#3. To: Tatarewicz (#1)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#4. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#2)
One word.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#5. To: James Deffenbach (#4)
#6. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#5)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#7. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#5)
Say, do you know of any editors or IDEs for linux that sport anything close to Microsoft's Intellisense?
#8. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#9. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#10. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#5)
#11. To: Pinguinite (#8)
I'll give it a looksee. Thanks.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#12. To: RickyJ (#9)
I stopped reading it when the guy said he had a 2500k cpu.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#13. To: James Deffenbach, 4 (#12)
article on CPUs, where we are where we may be headed -
#14. To: Lod, Ricky J (#13)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#15. To: James Deffenbach (#14)
#16. To: Lod (#15)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#17. To: Lod (#15)
CPU speed is measured today in Ghz not k is prolly the reason.
#18. To: James Deffenbach (#12)
(Edited)
#19. To: RickyJ (#18)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#20. To: James Deffenbach (#19)
#21. To: Pinguinite (#20)
My gut-feeling impression, that people pay me hundreds of thousands of $$ every day to get from me,
#22. To: Hmmmmm (#21)
If you need a new best friend I'm available!
#23. To: Pinguinite (#20)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#24. To: Pinguinite (#22)
I also do best friend services. They are only slightly more expensive than my gun-feeling services -- A great bargain, and an excellent Christmas gift!
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#25. To: James Deffenbach (#23)
#26. To: Hmmmmm (#25)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#27. To: James Deffenbach (#23)
#28. To: Hmmmmm (#25)
After 2+ days of eff'in with it I walked away from it.
#29. To: Pinguinite (#27)
Mint is playing music for me just fine. That's another thing. With Debian I got Rhythmbox and it doesn't work completely right. A lot of the packages work but they are the older releases for some reason.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#30. To: James Deffenbach (#29)
Mac price.
#31. To: James Deffenbach (#19)
Not that anyone will be using mine who would log in as root and do anything to it, just that I think the two logins should be different.
#32. To: HOUNDDAWG (#31)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#33. To: James Deffenbach (#32)
I also consider Gates an enemy of all mankind but especially Americans. As for the question about unpatriotic websites, don't you imagine that any and all of them considered not friendly enough to the aims of Big Brother are on the shit list?
#34. To: James Deffenbach (#23)
#35. To: Pinguinite (#34)
I see what you mean about the screen saver. I think I may have managed to shut off the screen locker. If that's still an issue for you let me know.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#36. To: James Deffenbach (#35)
Not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I think what it is called is "hot corners" (actually only seems to be the upper left corner, at least on mine). And when you put your cursor there it makes the browser tiny. Is that what you mean? Not hard to get it back, just click on it and it comes right back but it's just aggravating.
#37. To: Pinguinite (#36)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#38. To: James Deffenbach (#37)
#39. To: Pinguinite (#38)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
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