Rage3D Kombuting, Linux Mint edition

[Lupine]

This special installation of Kombuting is dedicated to Linux Mint: we installed the No.1 Linux Distribution (according to DistroWatch) and we post our findings. Work, gaming, customization, problems we encountered and how we came to solve them. So if you are curious about running Linux, this should give you an idea about what to expect.

Kombuting: Linux Mint edition

[DiaperJe|\|i3]

Great article! Nice to see some Linux lovin. Haven't tried Cinnamon yet. I have been pretty much strictly XFCE since Ubuntu went Unity. Still use gnome at work (Redhat). XFCE not the prettiest but pretty enough, lightweight and extremely easy to use.

Tried out Windows 8 for a while and while it is very fast it lacks cohesion. It feels like someone superglued a windows phone on my windows pc. 7 is still the best windows OS to date.

Between Kickstarter and Steam I'm considering building a dedicated linux gaming build.

[bman212121]

Nice article Lupine! I'm actually pretty impressed with how well Mint handled everything you threw at it. I thought for sure when you tried to switch from Cinnamon to gnome 3 it was going to crash and burn. I fear updating gnome-shell as every time I've done it I'll be back at the command prompt for days figuring out what broke.

I also like Gnome 3 better as you start to get used to quickly pushing the mouse into the corner and opening up a full screen menu. The window preview is also very handy to move between several open windows.

When it comes to games PlayOnLinux actually does work well. I've tried many times before to use WINE and it never went well. Having a simple graphical interface that will automatically download the correct version of WINE that is known to work with your program, and make the configuration changes really helps get you off the ground.

For Steam it's actually better to just install it through PlayOnLinux because then you can try to install steam games directly to the box. I have a feeling if there is going to be a Linux based Steambox this might be the configuration used. It allowed me to download Torchlight II directly from steam and install the game. (If you use the Native client it won't even attempt to download the game) There are a couple of config file changes that needed to be done to disable AA since it caused graphical corruption, but after that I was up and able to play.

I definitely might give Mint a try someday as it sounds like it works well. On the software side it seems like they are getting closer and closer to having a fully working graphical experience for Linux. For hardware it seems like you had about the same luck I've had with Ubuntu in the past. I've always been put off by Ubuntu because some piece of hardware wasn't working right. There is nothing worse than spending an hour installing to find out that your sound card makes a popping noise every 5 seconds or you go to click on something and the computer freezes up. When I was more of a novice user trying to find solutions for problems like those ruins the experience. But if you are using a bit older hardware and everything goes smoothly, it can provide something fun to tinker with.

[Lupine]

Originally Posted by bman212121

Nice article Lupine!

Thank you. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. Oh, wait, Kombatant did all the work. Oops!

Yes, I enjoyed reading it too, and plan to break out Linux again here soon, for the first time in years. I fit the category of Linux noob, so am one of those that would be beating my head repeatedly against error messages. Interesting how some of the issues seen a decade ago, like manually partitioning if you're not using the full disk, are still present. Reminds me, time to go degausse my CRT again.

[FiggyG]

Good read. I just installed Mint 14 on all my machines here, but the laptop got the 32-bit Mate edition... it's ancient. It's been amazing to use so far, and I've been playing games from the Humble Indie Bundle. I'm rather surprised the GTX 680 didn't at least give you VGA

[Kombatant]

Thanks for your kind words guys Yes, even though I had to troubleshoot quite a few issues, I like Mint as well, especially compared to Ubuntu, which I feel has lost its way the past couple of years. To give you an idea, two years ago, after running Ubuntu for many years, I tried Debian Squeeze just for kicks. The result was (after I troubleshooted 3 times the issues I had with Mint ) a system much snappier than Ubuntu, utilizing almost half the RAM!

I plan to do more open source things in the future since I work with Linux daily, so stay tuned

[Dr. Zhivago]

Thanks for the write-up. I appreciate the detail. However, all this does for me is reiterate how not-ready-for-prime-time Linux is. I install every few years on various hardware configs and it just seems to me to be still so unpolished. Why do I need to use the command line so much? Why is is such a pain to install drivers or software packages?

Anyway, I'm glad you're happy with it and that it works for you.

Peace.

[Sazar]

Nice write-up.

I haven't messed around with Mint for a bit, but I am liking the review

How's driver support for old Intel IGP's?

[Kombatant]

Originally Posted by Dr. Zhivago

Thanks for the write-up. I appreciate the detail. However, all this does for me is reiterate how not-ready-for-prime-time Linux is. I install every few years on various hardware configs and it just seems to me to be still so unpolished. Why do I need to use the command line so much? Why is is such a pain to install drivers or software packages?

Anyway, I'm glad you're happy with it and that it works for you.

Peace.

I won't argue with you there, and I think you can read my frustration at some points of the review about that exact same thing.

Originally Posted by Sazar

Nice write-up.

I haven't messed around with Mint for a bit, but I am liking the review

How's driver support for old Intel IGP's?

Should work beautifully out of the box afaik.

[DarkFoss]

Great review..it's been a few years since I tried Mint happy to see they are improving with every release.
Imo it was long overdue that other linux distro's ported Mandrake/Mandriva's Software Control Center.

I do like debian but I'm too big a fan of Kde to switch and will be sticking with Mageia for some time yet..but always nice to have alternatives

[DiaperJe|\|i3]

Originally Posted by Dr. Zhivago

Thanks for the write-up. I appreciate the detail. However, all this does for me is reiterate how not-ready-for-prime-time Linux is. I install every few years on various hardware configs and it just seems to me to be still so unpolished. Why do I need to use the command line so much? Why is is such a pain to install drivers or software packages?

Anyway, I'm glad you're happy with it and that it works for you.

Peace.

I dunno, I don't think you ever HAVE to use the command line anymore. However, like powershell, there's a crapload of things you can do with a little time investment.

grep -i -r ftw!

[Athlon-pv]

Been using Suse for good few years now , reading your installation story is something which I find funny.
The reason is that Linux still needs a good amount of user input or manual installation which is okay by me (for you too) but the idea that Linux will at some point not need this or more or less be stupid proof is wishful thinking.

The whole thing doesn't look like Linux is better then Windows which is somewhat beside the point. Linux allows (once installed) better performance less of a change of screwing up your installation, less of a hassle regarding certain programmes which on the windows side are down right dangerous (name any fave MS app that comes free with windows, which requires a day job of checking if they are up to date or still not patched for backdoors that have been reported (no not notepad)).

My gaming machine is still windows based, but my net(note)book been linux based always, the performance is great. I miss 0 applications (maybe winamp (read somewhere there is a native linux version somewhere?).

Maybe as a followup to your article "bite size" information on what Valve is doing with steambox see where that is going ?

[Hyrax]

I used Mint in the past and it has been excellent. Much better than the vanilla ubuntu. It had trouble with my ancient laptop. Could not detect the screen properly so it was extremely difficult to use.

For my main rig, I like using Mint. It pretty much detected everything out of the box. It was a better experience than XP. Tempted to start using the LiveDVD again and perhaps get in the habit of using that to make online purchases as an extra layer of protection.