While we are a few weeks away from another Mint (16?) edition, I read a lot of bad press about Mint-15. What can my LQ friends tell me about the quality and stability of Mint-15.

I'm currently running Mint-12 (blush) and it is time to finally dance with fresh install down time. I don't read anything that says to stay away from Mint-15, but this close to Mint-next, do I act now or wait?

Merci d'avance,
~~~ 0;-Dan

I am a user of, and generally speaking a big fan of, Linux Mint. That being said, you do need to understand the support cycle to have the best experience.

15 is only supported through Jan. 2014. I personally would not bother to install an operating system that will be obsolete in 4 months... (unless I was planning to install 16 when it is ready, then 17 after that, and so on)

Mint 13 is the "LTS" release with multi-year support.

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As a former Slackware user, who switched to Ubuntu because he was just too lazy to keep configuring Slackware, I decided to give Mate 15 64Bit a go recently. I was Debian 7 with the Gnome Fallback UI (because I refuse to use Ubuntu anymore), but I figured I shouldn't really get attached to fallback as it's being removed from Gnome 3. I installed the Mate desktop (Gnome 2 fork made by the Mint folks) in Debian and worked, but I kind of felt bad using it and not supporting Mint.

I'm typing this in Opera on Mint right now!

I've noticed a couple issue, but on the whole it seems to be pretty decent for a Linux disto. Here are the issues...

1. The default package for Synaptic is a crash prone experimental version. I added the Ubuntu Quantal repo and forced/lock Synaptic (using text editor add the repo and Synaptic for the forcing/locking) to it's stable version of 0.75.12. Not more crashes.

2. The Totem video player seems to play everything at 1 frame every few seconds, as does my Logitec webcam. VLC however works fine with all media. Cheese, the webcam software, is also very slow and crashy.

3. Audacity only records in mono from my webcam, while in other Linux distros and in Windows it will record mono to both left and right channels simultaneously. The trouble with Mint is that it has a list of all input devices by single channel. That said, it plays back on both left and right channels, so it's not like one can only hear the sound from the webcam in one ear/speaker. Minor annoyance, but there it is. Likely solvable as well.

Hmm...

You know, that's really about it for problems. You know, there's the typical stuff associated with setting up a distro for one's hardware and to one's liking, but nothing out of the ordinary. My USB wifi adapter (TP-Link RTL8188eu) worked with a simple make, make install, modprobe. Nvidia 310 drivers installed and worked.

I really like Mint thus far.

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I have run Mint on a couple of computers. It is a nice distro.

I think, though, that snowpine makes a good point. Install an LTS version or wait until Mint 16.

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Mint 12, end of life April 2013.

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php

If you are the sort of person who lets a OS get to 'unsupported' status, go with snowpines suggestion and install Mint 13 LTS.

Just to go a bit further though, I'd suggest avoiding all Mint non-LTS releases from 15 onward. They all have 9 months support max, which isnt long enough to bother with IMO. They are porbably better considered beta/development versions for the next LTS release.

The LTS releases are probably going to be more stable overall as well.

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I'm doing a web search and will report back, but what is the Long Term Support (LTS) plan for Linux Mint? Is it the same as Ubuntu or is it different? If so, how is it different?

Thanks,
~~~ 8d;-Dan

Mint-12 still gets my work done so I felt no compulsion to change.
(grin) I drive my cars until their wheels fall off too...

I typically wait a while after a new edition gets released to see how it gets received in the community. When -12 support ended I started watching -15 news and views only to read lots of mixed reports on quality and stability.

Blushing,
~~~ 0;-/ Dan

Same as Ubuntu, as far as I know. So Mint 13 LTS will theoretically be supported through April 2017.

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It might still get things done, that doesnt make using it safe or sensible. Get an LTS.

One big difference- Mint supports all its dekstop versions for the same length of time.

12.04 has varing support lengths for the different DEs/spins (Lubuntu 12.04 only has 18 months, xubuntu 12.04 has 3 years, kubuntu/ubuntu studio have 5 years).

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Use the source and you can update just about anything. We don't need no stinkin' Debian packages!

KDE version of Mint 15 is the best Linux distro ever, IMVHO.

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Regarding the quality and stability of Mint-15 - (Cinnamon) works for me, but I don't require LTS. YMMV.

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How much hardware do you need underneath for a successful KDE deployment? While I have an Intel® i5™ processor and loads of RAM, all I have is the Intel Integrated Graphics. Is that good enough for a pleasant KDE end-user experience?

Thanks,
~~~ 0;-Dan

The amount of work required to update a Mint release from source files would be a huge amount more work than installing a currently supported version.

Pointless at best, crazy at worst.

Vaires, depending on who you talk to.

I'd say minimum 2GB RAM and a decent-ish video card/video chip. It should run OK to well on a i5 with intel HD graphics.

Do you, or any other gentle readers, know about some way to benchmark test and rate the power of an installed graphics card? I know about GLXGEARS but that seems to be eye-candy rather than any sort of benchmark.


Follow-up:
I found an article that talks about several "benchmark tools" for use with linux.

I have not tried any of these but they might shed light on whether one's graphics hardware has enough horses to carry a KDE workload.



Thanks,
~~~ 0;-Dan

GLXGEARS isn a benchmark, or even 'eye candy'. Its just a very simple test of OpenGL.

I'm not aware of any benchmark or test (like the 'Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor') for KDE 4.X.

You will find gaming benchmarks, but they wont be much use for figuring out if you've got the graphics hardware for KDE 4.X.

Do you have a 'sandy bridge' or 'ivy bridge' i5 with intel HD video, or one of the earlier i5s?