Linux Mint 21.2 Promoted To Beta With Desktop Improvements, HEIF & AVIF Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Mint 21.2 Promoted To Beta With Desktop Improvements, HEIF & AVIF Support

Linux Mint as the popular desktop Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu LTS releases and known for their Cinnamon desktop is out today with their 21.2 "Victoria" beta release for testing...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Mint-21.2-Beta

[Danny3]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

[AnErrupTion]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

The Linux Mint team dropped the KDE edition because they had too much editions and wanted to focus on the others.
Why would Cinnamon rebase on a newer version of GNOME? They're doing just fine right now and they have diverged so much that it wouldn't make any sense.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they make Debian their new main base instead of Ubuntu, since LMDE already exists.

[stormcrow]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

..A lot of work, for what gain exactly? You willing to contribute the man hours? There's a lot more to maintaining a distro's desktop environment than just recompiling every patch cycle! Someone (else than the current team) would have to do it.
..I'm sure at least some of their user base (especially me) don't want a newer version of Gnome for many reasons, several of which have to do with major regressions in a11y in underlying libraries.
..Which gains users... what, exactly that they don't already have access to? To satisfy your obvious Canonical grudge?

To turn the argument around, I see nothing in your argument to convince a Mint user to care. Your opinion. If Canonical ever makes it too burdensome to continue basing Mint on Ubuntu, I'm sure the Mint maintainers will evaluate where to go next. Cool is so subjective. One person's cool is another's "meh". Did you ever stop to think that a desktop OS shouldn't be "cool", it should just get out of your way so that you barely notice it? For me, Mint is very near to the point of me just not noticing it.

[billyswong]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I can't comment on 1st and 3rd point, but for the 2nd point, right in the new feature page https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_victor...n_whatsnew.php

Pix, which was originally based on gThumb 3.2.8, was rebased on gThumb 3.12.2.

I don't see where you get the "refuse" to "rebase" opinion. Not working fast enough (probably because of lack of manpower) is not a refusal to work.

[ipsirc]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

There is only ONE developer, just like 10 years ago: clem.

[Danny3]

..A lot of work, for what gain exactly? You willing to contribute the man hours? There's a lot more to maintaining a distro's desktop environment than just recompiling every patch cycle! Someone (else than the current team) would have to do it.
..I'm sure at least some of their user base (especially me) don't want a newer version of Gnome for many reasons, several of which have to do with major regressions in a11y in underlying libraries.
..Which gains users... what, exactly that they don't already have access to? To satisfy your obvious Canonical grudge?

To turn the argument around, I see nothing in your argument to convince a Mint user to care. Your opinion. If Canonical ever makes it too burdensome to continue basing Mint on Ubuntu, I'm sure the Mint maintainers will evaluate where to go next. Cool is so subjective. One person's cool is another's "meh". Did you ever stop to think that a desktop OS shouldn't be "cool", it should just get out of your way so that you barely notice it? For me, Mint is very near to the point of me just not noticing it.

KDE Plasma and Gnome are the most popular desktop environments, which means they have the most users.
And pretty much every Linux user first chooses a DE that they like and then chooses the distro that supports it well.
So, Linux Mint misses a lot of users by not support the first 2 most popular DEs.
And with more users, of course it comes more money from donations, more bug reports, maybe a few developers too and a few people who will recommend it to others by spreading the word.
Don't yo think it's better to have a distro with more money and developers to fix more bugs, build more packages in its repository, add more features?

Have you seen how many people are complaining about black screen, freezes, multi-monitor or windowing problems or that some game doesn't work correctly on Linux Mint?
What's one of the main causes for that?

Also, have you seen that none of their offered DEs offer Wayland support?
Do I need to tell you also what you gain by having Wayland support, with better, privacy, security, tear-free, multi-monitor, multi-GPU support and this year or next year HDR support in KDE Plasma at least, besides other things?

I can't comment on 1st and 3rd point, but for the 2nd point, right in the new feature page https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_victor...n_whatsnew.php

I don't see where you get the "refuse" to "rebase" opinion. Not working fast enough (probably because of lack of manpower) is not a refusal to work.

Their lack of manpower might come also from the fact that they just dropped or refused to support the two most popular DEs.

Nobody or really very few people would still want to help you with donations or time, when you ignore their needs.

How the hell can just tell somebody (by their actions) that having better privacy, security, tear-free experience, colors, power efficiency and in the future HDR is not important to have?
In my opinion Wayland has become just too important to ignore.
I would definitely not use a distro that avoids any DE with Wayland support and keeps me away from using Wayland.
As for not having enough manpower to rebase Cinnamon.
They could just drop it alltogether and start from scratch from the latest upstream Gnome.
How hard could it be to modify then Gnome to creat a traditional layout and workflow?
Especially for them who have experience with Gnome.
I heard that PopOS developers did something like this.
As for the rest, they could just use Debian 12 as a base, that also has all DEs build and available and treats them like first-class citizens and start tweaking from there.
If I were to start a distro from scratch today, I would start from there and then make tweak and improvements on top of it.

Anyway, for a person that it's daily driving Wayland for 3-4 years and enjoying the things it solves, it's hard to understand why people can put up or wait for Linux Mint to have Wayland support or anything modern.

Maybe it's indeed the fact that their users don't know any better or just don't care or don't run into some issues as they don't have displays with advanced features like 10-bit colors, Adaptive sync or multiple monitors.

[woddy]

Too many derivatives of derivatives, a distribution still requires manpower and sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of work is done that is useless, except to create yet another derivative-distribution or yet another DE.
What are we going to do with all these DEs? I'm not saying user experience isn't important, but in the end they are all the same or similar, many of us enjoy trying new DEs, but most people, just need a modern system that works.

[abott]

Good but...
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

1. I love KDE, it's my only main besides cinnamon on mint for my laptops, and who gives a fuck if they don't support KDE. They don't have to.

2. It forked for a reason, why the fuck would you rebase years later? That sounds like a solid years worth of work for no reason, how stupid to even suggest.

3. They don't have to do that, either. And I don't care, even though I use mint. Seriously. Imagine just rewriting all your docs to go from Ubuntu's way to Debian's way. Why the hell would you do that either?

Make your own fork and fix it or shut up, what worthless points.

[stormcrow]

KDE Plasma and Gnome are the most popular desktop environments, which means they have the most users.
And pretty much every Linux user first chooses a DE that they like and then chooses the distro that supports it well.
So, Linux Mint misses a lot of users by not support the first 2 most popular DEs.
And with more users, of course it comes more money from donations, more bug reports, maybe a few developers too and a few people who will recommend it to others by spreading the word.
Don't yo think it's better to have a distro with more money and developers to fix more bugs, build more packages in its repository, add more features?

Have you seen how many people are complaining about black screen, freezes, multi-monitor or windowing problems or that some game doesn't work correctly on Linux Mint?
What's one of the main causes for that?

Also, have you seen that none of their offered DEs offer Wayland support?
Do I need to tell you also what you gain by having Wayland support, with better, privacy, security, tear-free, multi-monitor, multi-GPU support and this year or next year HDR support in KDE Plasma at least, besides other things?



Their lack of manpower might come also from the fact that they just dropped or refused to support the two most popular DEs.

Nobody or really very few people would still want to help you with donations or time, when you ignore their needs.

How the hell can just tell somebody (by their actions) that having better privacy, security, tear-free experience, colors, power efficiency and in the future HDR is not important to have?
In my opinion Wayland has become just too important to ignore.
I would definitely not use a distro that avoids any DE with Wayland support and keeps me away from using Wayland.
As for not having enough manpower to rebase Cinnamon.
They could just drop it alltogether and start from scratch from the latest upstream Gnome.
How hard could it be to modify then Gnome to creat a traditional layout and workflow?
Especially for them who have experience with Gnome.
I heard that PopOS developers did something like this.
As for the rest, they could just use Debian 12 as a base, that also has all DEs build and available and treats them like first-class citizens and start tweaking from there.
If I were to start a distro from scratch today, I would start from there and then make tweak and improvements on top of it.

Anyway, for a person that it's daily driving Wayland for 3-4 years and enjoying the things it solves, it's hard to understand why people can put up or wait for Linux Mint to have Wayland support or anything modern.

Maybe it's indeed the fact that their users don't know any better or just don't care or don't run into some issues as they don't have displays with advanced features like 10-bit colors, Adaptive sync or multiple monitors.

Like many others, I don't care about Wayland. At all. Don't confuse your wants and needs with others needs. Wayland is actually part of the problem when it comes to the aforementioned a11y issues, and the refusal to address them... a very popular UI system that ostensibly wants to replace X.org with a lot of help that won't deal with accessibility issues. Popularity has no direct impact on feature support. Necessity does. If none of those people bother to think "how would a person with limited hand mobility do..." or "if a person is using a reader for..." or "if a person needs a magnifier app..." then no one is going to handle those issues. This is both the strength, and the fallacy of open source. Open source development is inherently going to be selfish. People are either scratching an itch for themselves, or for their employer. You know who paid for the accessibility features in GTK2 that was eventually ripped out in 3 & 4? Sun, because they saw the benefit in having those features in their OS and GUI. You know who ignored them till they were useless? The "community" building GTK3 & 4 (mostly Gnome devs) and Wayland.

Berating them because they don't do what you want is pointless unless you're willing to step up and help. In the case of GTK/Gnome and Wayland, people have tried to step up and manage the proper interfaces for a11y but were shot down, so no, I couldn't care less about either Gnome nor Wayland. Eventually I had to switch back to Windows and Mac on the desktop because of the deteriorating condition of accessibility in the Linux desktop land. In my case, I need dictation support and the occasional magnifier app like many older people do.

So yeah, I put my money where my mouth is. I gave up because the Linux desktop of the future appears to have no place for the disabled.