A few months back, the latest release of the popular Linux distro Mint was released. Since then, I've been running it on my two machines - a 64 bit desktop and a 32 bit netbook.
Linux Mint 12 was a significant release as it was the first time that the distribution adopted Gnome 3 as it's GUI. This latest version of the interface has itself been controversial because of its significant departure from the its traditional experience.
Mint's release did a reasonably good job of trying to tame the new beast by incorporating theming and extensions in an attempt to try and retain some familiarity but I don't think it's quite worked yet. The repositioning of the taskbar, duplication of functionality (with Gnome's launcher and the Mint Menu) and the noticably slower performance have left me with a poor impression. Not of Mint necessarily - moving on from Gnome 2.x was a necessity - but of what Gnome 3 is at the moment.
Since installing the new system, I've experienced a number of bugs and annoyances from a slow boot, laggy Gnome Shell, GEdit lockups, full system crashes and difficulty with shutdowns and restarts. For this reason, I'm now downloading the release candidate for the KDE edition of Mint 12.
I've used Gnome since I adopted Linux back in 2007 and although have briefly played with KDE; I've never settled down with it always preferring the simple interface of Gnome 2. Now though, I wonder if things will be different. KDE 4 is well developed compared to the recent release of its rival. Perhaps I'll find it a better option. If not though, my third option is to try the Debian edition of Mint - or something else altogether!
Linux Mint 12 was a significant release as it was the first time that the distribution adopted Gnome 3 as it's GUI. This latest version of the interface has itself been controversial because of its significant departure from the its traditional experience.
Mint's release did a reasonably good job of trying to tame the new beast by incorporating theming and extensions in an attempt to try and retain some familiarity but I don't think it's quite worked yet. The repositioning of the taskbar, duplication of functionality (with Gnome's launcher and the Mint Menu) and the noticably slower performance have left me with a poor impression. Not of Mint necessarily - moving on from Gnome 2.x was a necessity - but of what Gnome 3 is at the moment.
Since installing the new system, I've experienced a number of bugs and annoyances from a slow boot, laggy Gnome Shell, GEdit lockups, full system crashes and difficulty with shutdowns and restarts. For this reason, I'm now downloading the release candidate for the KDE edition of Mint 12.
I've used Gnome since I adopted Linux back in 2007 and although have briefly played with KDE; I've never settled down with it always preferring the simple interface of Gnome 2. Now though, I wonder if things will be different. KDE 4 is well developed compared to the recent release of its rival. Perhaps I'll find it a better option. If not though, my third option is to try the Debian edition of Mint - or something else altogether!