Linux Mint 20.1 Released With Web Apps, IPTV Player, Cinnamon 4.8 Integrated

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Mint 20.1 Released With Web Apps, IPTV Player, Cinnamon 4.8 Integrated

Linux Mint 20.1 is out today as the latest version of this user-friendly, desktop-focused Linux distribution built off Ubuntu 20.04 LTS...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Mint-20.1-Released

[danmcgrew]

From the lead-in article:

"...Cinnamon 4.8 brings performance improvements around 4K usage and more, better Flatpak support, Zstd support in its file roller, improved thumbnail capabilities, and a variety of other, totally minor, enhancements...". There. Fixed that for you.

Mint has been a sad case ever since it became nothing more than an Ubuntu Version, with the whole-hearted adoption of Ubuntu 16.04, starting with Mint 18. That's when it lost its VERY-long reign as the number-one Linux distribution. It hasn't helped that Clement Lefebvre has lost all his original focus--originality, hard work, the listening-to of his 'customer base', among others--, and whole-heartedly embraced that insanity which grips most all 'modern' distros: the NEED to crank out a more-bloated. more-feature-filled, more buggy, more regressions, no-support-whatever version IN LESS THAN SIX MONTHS!
"Support? We don't have time for that! We can't pay any attention to your whining about bugs, regressions, no Q-A and no validation testing. We've got to work on the NEXT greatest, biggest version for you, which you want--and demand--in less than six months!"

Who's to blame for this sorry state of affairs? Not the distro-makers, but all those short-sighted individuals who have forced them into this position by equating "latest, greatest, biggest, most-feature-filled" with personal technical competence.

It is extremely laughable that members of this extremely large, and highly vocal, contingent which is, in effect, destroying most Linux distributions, are among the least technically competent, and hold up the existence of the "latest, greatest, and biggest" on their personal machines as proof of their technical superiority...when they never really learned how to use Linux--or any other operating system, for that matter--from the very beginning.

[ThoreauHD]

I know people crap on Mint, because it's just Ubuntu. But with their 3 month delayed release cycle, it's more like ubuntu without the paper cuts. Useful for when you have a newbie with a thinkpad, and their bios/EC is suddenly rewritten by accident.

It's justva safety net for normies, and their cinnamon implimentation just works aka no bleeding edge. There is still a place for it, and besides that they are sitting on so much bitcoin, they could start their own civilization on Mars. No corporate(Amazon) dependencies or shits given. The same can not be said for shuttleworths baby.

[unis_torvalds]

Mint is not just Ubuntu. They've ripped out all of Canonical's Snap malware from Apt (which automatically re-installs itself on Ubuntu 20 if manually removed).

Edit: The Snap store is not technically malware. I'm being hyperbolic.

[Danny3]

When even their flagship (Cinnamon) is not as good as other desktop environments, I find no reason to use LInux Mint.
KDE Plasma is way ahead of Cinnamon and light years ahead other desktop environments.
But yeah, they were too lazy to keep it.

[Charlie68]

Personally, I believe that derivatives usually ruin "parent" distributions, which is why I avoid them. Obviously there are exceptions, Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, but it was born with the aim of making it easy to use a Debian, now installing Debian is no longer that difficult, but it once was.
Same goes for Manjaro ... indeed this type of distribution can even help the parent distribution, another matter are the dozens of derivatives that have yet another DE as their sole reason for existing and little else.

[danmcgrew]

Personally, I believe that derivatives usually ruin "parent" distributions, which is why I avoid them. Obviously there are exceptions, Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, but it was born with the aim of making it easy to use a Debian, now installing Debian is no longer that difficult, but it once was.
Same goes for Manjaro ... indeed this type of distribution can even help the parent distribution, another matter are the dozens of derivatives that have yet another DE as their sole reason for existing and little else.

Excellent observation.

It is, however, a sad and unfortunate fact--but very 'prove-able' simply by an investigation of all of Mint's history since version 17.3--that Mint's slow demise towards obscurity and irrelevance is solely of Mint's own making. At one point, it seemed as if a return to 'the halcyon days' was possible. That point has long since disappeared.

[kneekoo]

Linux Mint is yet another OS. There's no reason to throw crap at anything just because it's not your favorite OS/DE/etc.

@danmcgrew: I assume you don't use Linux Mint, which is probably why you don't know why and how they have a new release each 6 months. They only used Ubuntu LTS releases as the foundation for Mint since 2014. Each "point release" is an update for those LTS-bases releases, which are good to have as separate ISOs when you have to do fresh installs. They're largely bug-fixing releases with a few new stuff like kernel updates and others. So they only release BIG stuff on major versions. The point releases are usually only significant for Cinnamon, which is a great DE for a lot of people (just as KDE and others are great for others).

Surely you understand that not everyone likes or needs the same things. That's why there are so many distros out there, and why people keep using them.

[danmcgrew]

Linux Mint is yet another OS. There's no reason to throw crap at anything just because it's not your favorite OS/DE/etc.

@danmcgrew: I assume you don't use Linux Mint, which is probably why you don't know why and how they have a new release each 6 months. They only used Ubuntu LTS releases as the foundation for Mint since 2014. Each "point release" is an update for those LTS-bases releases, which are good to have as separate ISOs when you have to do fresh installs. They're largely bug-fixing releases with a few new stuff like kernel updates and others. So they only release BIG stuff on major versions. The point releases are usually only significant for Cinnamon, which is a great DE for a lot of people (just as KDE and others are great for others).

Surely you understand that not everyone likes or needs the same things. That's why there are so many distros out there, and why people keep using them.

This is what happens when you spout personal opinion rather than fact... and the reason you spout personal opinion rather than fact is because you're too self-centered and too lazy to believe anything other than your closely-held, wrong, personal opinions.

Simply starting with the very first statement and assumption of your illustrious, self-aggrandizing comment: "I assume you don't use Linux Mint, which is probably why you don't know why and how..."

I have used Mint Linux for years, ever since I switched from Ubuntu 10.04 (since you don't seem to know anything, that corresponds to the year 2010)
I use Mint Linux on all my computers.
I use, and will use Mint Linux 17.3, the VERY best of all the modern 'Mints'--and indeed, most all 'modern' Linux distros--until I find another, better, Linux distribution which suits my purposes. It hasn't happened yet, but MX-Linux 18.1 is an outstanding contender.

Apart from your opening--wrong--salvo, with which you demonstrated that you are (1) only spoiling for a fight, and (2) out to demonstrate how smart you are; all of the rest of your illuminating comment is just as wrong.

Don't get me wrong--we all did learn something from your comment; likely not what you had in mind, however.

Try again, fanboy. This time, use facts.

Dunning-Kruger strikes again.


“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.”― Issac Asimov, 1980

“You are entitled to your own opinion; you are not entitled to your own facts.“--Daniel Patrick Moynahan

"There's no defense against stupidity."--Friedrich Nietzsche

[kneekoo]

Ha! Did you assume I'm American with your Asimov quote, or why did you bring up the US' cult of ignorance? And do you realize that your comments come out as hateful against Mint? That easily leads others to believe you would use another distro, just because it makes no sense to use something you have strong feelings against.

So you complained about them cranking out a buggy release each 6 months but you didn't back that up with anything other than skewed personal opinions about what they should do, disregarding the fact that Mint is one of the most popular distros - meaning lots of people actively use it successfully and enjoy using it. And you claim you know what you're talking about but you're stuck with Mint 17.3 - released 5 years ago and no longer updated since almost 2 years ago. Have you tried a newer Mint seriously? Have you reported bugs and followed through? I have.

I first tried Mint on version 2.2 and I went through all of them on real hardware since version 3. Then I switched to Mint full time in 2009. On occasions I tried other distros, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, but I went back to Mint because it was as close as an OS could get to my needs. There were always some bugs that affected some people, which is the case with any OS/software. So I don't know what made you feel like Mint is in a sad state, other than your strange way of considering periodical updates to LTS releases as something bad. Mint 18 and 19 were great as well, just as 20 is. So what did really trouble you or your hardware with newer Mint releases?

By the way, I'm on Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon and it's super smooth on my Intel Core i5-4690K (+integrated graphics) with 16GB DDR3 and a Samsung 860 Pro SSD.