Oneiric and LinuxMint KDE 12

[GreyGeek]

I installed the 32bit LinuxMint KDE 12 distro as a guest OS under VB, just to see how it shaped up with Oneiric.

It IS Oneiric!

Based on "Ubuntu 11.10". Same beauty moles, same warts. Install screens and questions exactly the same. Even the blue shaded screens and halos.

Just different branding: logo, splash screens. But, once you install it and replace the LinuxMint wallpaper with something of your own choice, it's Kubuntu!

(That was an easy review)

[SteveRiley]

What do

lsb_release -a
uname -a

show?

[NickStone]

I installed the 32bit LinuxMint KDE 12 distro as a guest OS under VB, just to see how it shaped up with Oneiric.

It IS Oneiric!

Based on "Ubuntu 11.10". Same beauty moles, same warts. Install screens and questions exactly the same. Even the blue shaded screens and halos.

Just different branding: logo, splash screens. But, once you install it and replace the LinuxMint wallpaper with something of your own choice, it's Kubuntu!

(That was an easy review)

Of course it is Oneiric. Thats what the people / person behind Mint do. They (he) take the Ubuntu disk and repackage it as Mint by adding a few extra applications and changing images. The only version of Mint that is different to Ubuntu is their rolling release which is based upon Debian's rolling release.

[GreyGeek]

What do

lsb_release -a
uname -a

show?

Here's what they say:

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: LinuxMint
Description: Linux Mint 12 KDE
Release: 12
Codename: lisa


uname -a
Linux jerry-VirtualBox 3.0.0-15-generic #26-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 20 15:59:53 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 BNU/Linux

[SteveRiley]

Ah, so they change the LSB branding...I suppose that's to be expected. I haven't ever used Mint, so I don't know much about it other than what I read on various sites. Do they provide their own repos? What's in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d?

[NickStone]

Ah, so they change the LSB branding...I suppose that's to be expected. I haven't ever used Mint, so I don't know much about it other than what I read on various sites. Do they provide their own repos? What's in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d?

Yes Mint uses Ubuntu's repos. Mint 10 used Ubuntu 10.10 repo and Mint 11 (Gnome) used Ubuntu 11.04 repo.

The only difference between Mint and Ubuntu are the extra packages you get with Mint by default (and the change of icons).

[SteveRiley]

I wonder what might be the results of sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop on a Mint system. Could be interesting...

[GreyGeek]

They have seven repositories.
Two are packages.linuxmint.com servers which seem to be related to KDE. (lisa and lisa-kde)
Four are direct links to archive.ubuntu.com
and one is to Medibuntu.org.

There are about 30,000 packages offered.

If you added the two lisa repositories to a LinuxMint installation I have no doubt that
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
would work because that app IS in the LinuxMint KDE lisa repository. So are most of the other "kubuntu-*" applications.
I just got through installing the kubuntu-restricted-addons and kubuntu-restricted-extras packages.
Like I said, it IS Kubuntu!

Edit: Additional thought: Canonical is switching to Unity, built from Debian. IF they remove all Gnome apps and KDE apps to reduce bloat, would that leave LinuxMint in a learch? Don't think so. They could pull their upstream from Debian as well, and stay with their last Kubuntu upload and apply upstream KDE apps and patches directly. It may be what Kubuntu will end up having to do. But, if Kubuntu is no longer dependent on Ubunut/Canonical then why stay with the Kubuntu name?

[Teunis]

That's why I was so surprised with the "But then we'll just go to Mint" reaction of some people to the down-rating of Kubuntu by Canonical.
Would the Kubuntu repo's be pulled Mint loses a lot of it's base.

[theshowmecanuck]

Thanks

Thanks for this info. I've been doing some KDE 'shopping' and was going to try the mint kde, but I'll skip it. Kubuntu is a derivative of ubuntu which is a derivative of Debian. I don't want to add another link in an already tenuous chain. I have some serious concerns around Ubuntu dropping Kubuntu from official status. I absolutely *#(&$ing hate the new Ubuntu Unity (more like disharmony if you ask me). It is so dumbed down that it is too hard to do anything useful or work related. It is harder to do anything useful with the new Ubuntu than jerking off with swim fins on your hands. TRUST ME, I've tried, I know. Ahem errr........

I like KDE so much more than Gnome that there is no way I would ever use any other desktop on Linux. XFCE or whatever it is called is nice, but a bit too trimmed down for my tastes (but their Thunar file manager absolutely rocks compared to Dolphin... KDE should adopt Thunar and send Dolphin to the Japanese tuna plants). And even with the concern over the status, Kubuntu seems to be the only real KDE I can deal with. My only complaint is that they need to get their heads out of their arses on the installer to allow raid and lvm on the installs. This is used too often now not to include it on the standard install (and please shut down all the twits who blather that raid is no substitute for backups... yes we know that already now go away). And it should recognize bios based raid configuration. This 'fake raid' junk is complete horse ****. Who cares if the software is embedded or not, it is all software that controls raid drives; it's not like hardware based does it as a matter of nature... it is still software that does it (even if it is embedded... frankly I think it is a mantra that people just repeat because they heard someone else say it but haven't actually thought about what they are saying). If the on board config makes it easier for the users to set up (and it does, head and shoulders), so should the installer and recognize something that makes life less of a headache. I'm very sure some people are drawn to lesser distributions because of this arrogant oversight.

As for the other KDE distros, I just tried opensuse, and was quickly enmeshed in RPM hell. The thing is that for the first while it felt solid and slick, and I wondered why I stopped using it and Fedora/Redhat/Mandriva/Mandrake years ago. Then trying to remove two packages (unixODBC) so that I could build and install the latest versions from source I was reminded fully: One package was fine (the dev version). The primary unixODBC package however caused opensuse to spit and spew and tell me that it needed to uninstall or downgrade over 600 packages. Pardon me but, what the ****?! It totally hosed my system, and I didn't have a choice about odbc thing because I needed the new unixodbc-gtk that is in beta (it will be nice to get an odbc config utility that works with the latest postgresql odbc drivers finally).

So even though I am a bit freaked about how well kubuntu will fare in the future, I am coming back. Package managers can all be finicky, but rpms are the absolute worst. I don't care if someone wants to tell me that it isn't the system but the guys building the packages. It is the system that lends itself to such idiocy that breeds these idiots. Gahh!

Enough ranting.... thanks for the heads up. I'm off to the Kubuntu site to come back home.

Regards,

BillR

PS FTFY: Anyone who puts a small gloss on a fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from building on it, is Apple. :eek:

[rec9140]

If it were not for KMint aka Linux Mint KDE some 6 years ago, I probably would be rotting in some other OS or out of computers/IT all together! I quit cold turkey after an issue with some drivers/software and some philisophical differences with a certain company.......

KMint and my own are based off Kubuntu, again I left KMint due to several reasons (lack of community involvement by developers, change to Debian (with resulting issues there, Debian BASED is great, pure Debian is an issue... start with DFSG and go from there....) [delayed?], those philsophical reasons on direction, software base (ie: whats included to start with) left me cold and dry....

Kubuntu brings in the polish of Debian and adds more polish (ie: remove the tarnish of the DFSG) , and then I add the final shine to make things work in my view of things.

Since I left KMint.. I have not tried their release of KMint 12, I might/would have if there was more emphasis on KDE v. a 3rd class view after every other version. KMint does great things, don't misunderstand that, they DO GREAT THINGS ON KDE... there again was a parting of philosphies..

theshowmecanuck (I like that.. ) is SPOT on in re DMRAID and RAID in general... Yes I get it HARDWARE like Perc, Adaptec etc. is great... BUT LVM and the nVidia RAID that is on many motherboards is there and should be available to be used... just because YOU (developers) want to stick your head(s) in the sand and ignore the needs of users is not acceptable... (And NO don't trot out the "program it yourself mantra!" OK... select RAID from nvidiaraid OK its programmed! )

If KMint wants to return to its base and maybe possibly kubuntu and KMint could merge to make one REALLY GREATY KDE distro...That would be an absolute dream, and I wouldn't have to create my own. Maybe this is something those higher up the food chain need to review (hint...hint)

Additionally as theshowmecanuck stated... don't even get ME started on RPM's or SUSE (sell out traitors!)

[r]

One thing I know about kde mint that it has better hardware support than any other ubuntu based distros

[rec9140]

One thing I know about kde mint that it has better hardware support than any other ubuntu based distros

KMint = KUbunutu with mostly the missing codex, and a few other things added, KMint dressing so hardware support wise there really should be no difference. I don't know of any kernel changes made by KMint to add modules and other support... now if your talking about supporting certain cliche/fashionista devices then specific software is added that supports those items... this is still a difference in what each distro considers to be the baseline on software.

My view on it is 4GB of DVD space, fill'er up! So what if we have 3 media players, maybe I don't like xyz, but abc is in there and I can try it and go from there.... this one area where neither Kubuntu or KMint and I will ever agree on, nor is xyz and me either. I have a definite it should be in there attitude on things.

[GreyGeek]

A 4GB DVD iso is till TOO BIG for many Americans to download effectively and timely. That leaves a 680KB CD iso as the practical download. A CD limits what can be added to it.
As ISPs squeeze more revenue out of their Copper wires, add surcharges to "bandwidth hogs" (who merely want to use the service they were promised and sold) or cap them, I suspect that ISOs will shrink rather than swell. A "base" iso of less than 120MB, giving the bare bones OS with system tools, DE, browser, email and video codecs will, I predict, become the norm. Users will use Synaptic or Muon to add the offce tools, the dev tools, the graphic tools, the edu apps, etc. as they desire.

[rec9140]

A 4GB DVD iso is till TOO BIG for many Americans to download effectively and timely. That leaves a 680KB CD iso as the practical download. A CD limits what can be added to it..

Not too big... I download them all the time, and more. And yes I use my internet service fully. The lack of internet service, hardware etc. is NOT the distro's issue to cater. A DVD-RW is required in 2012. I've downloaded ISO's on ISDN at 128K because thats all that was available in my area in 2000... so . . . . .

I've heard this refrain and do not accept it. We won't agree on this.