Saturday, March 22, 2014

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Downloading Problem

 

Indeed. Loyal. I have always enjoyed your posts as well.


Actually I do not "push" people toward anything. People should not be pushed. I did not recommend Ubuntu. I recommended Xubuntu and Lubuntu as a trial, neither of which are from Canonical. I recommended them because they are faster and have an upgrade tool (you seem to be dodging this issue). Newbies should not have to edit their sources list file as root to upgrade versions.

Mint is a great distro for mid level and above users. I do not recommend it for novices. I never recommend Mate unless the user came from a GNOME 2 background. I do not recommend GNOME shell or Unity for newbies unless they have tried it and find it acceptable. I would recommend KDE, XFCE and LXDE. I would not recommend Cinnamon unless they plan on using Mint because it is not widely supported outside of Mint.

Ubuntu has some benefits over Mint. It is still the most widely used distro. It has the most written about it, by a wide margin. It has the largest community and resources. You are less likely to run into conflicts if you use Ubuntu repositories and do not add to them. Mint uses more stock GNOME libraries and Ubuntu is using less and less. There is a gap between the two that is growing, like it or not. That gap is likely to grow as Canonical goes its own direction.

LMDE has its own set of problems. It is neither fish nor fowl. It is not standard Mint and it is not standard Debian. It is based on Debian Testing, but it is not a true rolling release. It is dependent on Mint for periodic update packs which users have complained about as not being regular enough. Even the Mint site says that you need more experience to run it and you should "expect some rough edges". I would never recommend Debian for anybody unless they have much experience. Going the LMDE route is not for newbies.

Users should TRY before they install. Users should not be boxed in and the thought that one distribution can solve all their problems is a trap. Linux is about freedom and choice. Ubuntu is not for everybody. Mint is not for everybody. We do a disservice if we focus people too narrowly.




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