I don't know about anyone else but Mint 19 for me is a Total diaster!!! Can't get anything to work, I have tried three files managers and they are useless, had to install Dolphin to get anything done, permissions are a nightmare. I just can't believe it gets worse every time I boot it up. I am useing Mate but the other desktops don't seem any better. Any suggestions for a replacement that things work on? Sorry for the rant but I have never seen anything like it.
Paul

would be nice to explain what did you try, what did you expect and what's happened? You gave no information to work with....

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I definitely agree with pan64 here. You've provided really no description of exactly what constitutes a total disaster.

I'm going to partially go out on a limb here and conjecture that is partially "may" be you.

Why? Well ... I view your history and see that you've played with Mint distros for 6 or more years. In what I see to be a fairly competent manner. And then I see this very disorganized post describing you trying three different file managers and claim that they are useless. Next you complain that permissions are a nightmare, and you note that you've chosen a certain DE over other ones. I'm seeing not just basic user level capabilities here for Linux, but instead someone who probably knows how to install a package, and likely from source, and knows the impact of some things that one may do with Linux. But yet from how you've described it, you've moved too fast, done pseudo-random stuff here because you "just wanted to get the <swear word> distro to work", this is how it appears.

This is honestly the type of situation where I'd recommend a clean install, and also that you stage it on a spare computer so you can determine if you like what they've done with 19.

Or the more simpler variant is that you just don't "like" version 19.

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I have Linux Mint Mate installed as a secondary system and everything works great. In fact, some things which don't work at all on other Linux systems work out of the box on Mint so I'd go with your second option, the old PEBKAC error.

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what is it that you are expecting your file managers to do, along with everything else that are not meeting your expectations? They might not be coded to do so.

You might be falling into the over expectation zone. So you'll need to slow down and rethink what you are doing. "What does this one do?", school of thought might better suit you until you familiarize yourself with everything you're trying out.

Permissions issues? user gets his ownership to his stuff. Not his stuff he got no permissions to do anything with it. simple as that. Ownership is gained by the user that creates the stuff.

There is some truth to all of your replies. I have been running mint since version 6 and am now running 17,18, and 19 on a triple boot system. Most of the problems I run into I can solve or research then solve or ask. I am sure some of my statements were out of pure frustration and expectation. I was comparing my expectations with 17 and 18. One of them was trying to rename a file and the new name was typing over the old name so I could not read either one, finally gave up after an hour. Another was trying to change permissions of folders. One of them was I needed to move some files into an admin owned folder, I couldn't change the file permissions, and I couldn't change the folder permissions. Just a bunch of little tasks I spent so hours on with no solution. I have been using KDE and MATE just through me for a spin. And yes all I did was complain without any explanations of specific questions. I will do better in the future. Thank you all for the responses.
Paul

Paul, just a quick note that Linux Mint 17 is no longer supported as of April 2019. You would be best advised to turn your triple boot into a double boot.

If you are able to paste here the command line sequence that caused you problems, or screenshots if you were only working on the GUI, along with more background as to what exactly you were trying to do, then we can have a look at it.

I have Mint 19 installed on a triple boot machine, Mint 18,19,and Windoz 10. I have been using Linux for years, Red Hat,Ubuntu,and finally Mint for years. So it isn't like I am totally ignorant of linux, or the command line either. I tried Caja, Nemo and finally wound up installing Dolphin. Maybe it is the fact that I have used KDE for years and years that makes MATE so difficult for me to use,I am making a list of specific questions with details: Here are the first two 1)I changed the background on the long in screen and thing went well, yesterday I go to log in the new screen and it switches to the old log in screen the back to the new one and won't let me in. So I reboot a couple of times and now Mint 19 is not evn listed on the initial distro choice screen. I tried to update the grub and Mint 19 is not listed? So I really don't know what is going on now. Thanks guys for your time
Paul

well by what you says, there sounds to be like something screwy going on with that install.
Have you played the re-install game yet? update system... booting three or more OS'es I can see, but, why two separate versions of MATE, I do not know.

who is controlling the grub? Try switching it to the other OS to see if it is doing the same thing, or picking up all of your OS'es.

supergrub2 (UEFI beta, if you are using uefi) to get into the other one that is not showing up.

i'm on kde neon now cause it's perfect for my needs, but when i revisited linux this last go around after a lot of research i settle on mint cinnamon 19 cause coming from win 10 it looked to have the lowest learning curb. other than a few issues i loved it and would recommend it still. loved it enough to drop win 10 within a month of installing mint. in my book mint is as they say a great starting point for those with limited knowledge of linux. it gives you a easy to use out of the box experience. to be honest if i had tested other distros before settling on mint i might still be on win 10. as for the permissions maybe you should explain your problem and someone here will be more than happy to try to help you with it / them. i needed to get some permission issues addressed and asked here and got all i need to fix my issues. on another note i learned VERY quickly that you need to play attention which distro you are installing software for, install the wrong version of an app and you can break the os. as for file managers wasn't fond of nemo and wanted dolphin, but some things don't work correctly in dolphin on mint, thus one of the reasons i switched to kde neon. the other three reasons are i've always been partial to the plasma desktop, it's also ubuntu based, and for most of the kde software i was able to install the neon-all package. the point i'm getting at is a rant isn't going to help you even if you didn't mean it as a rant without actual info on what's happening no one can actually help you. for any dirstos you have plenty of resources to get help. mint itself has a great community. as for you getting use to mate vs plasma yes there is going to be a learning curve. i got use to cinnamon and added the plasma desktop before going back to kde completely so i could relearn plasma and even though i'm fully on kde now i'm still finding out things i either forgot or never knew.