A quick scan at the hits-per-day rating over a DistroWatch reveals Mint keeps climbing while Ubuntu keeps falling:
Said honestly, I can’t say I’m surprised. In the Linux community there’s been quite a lot of backlash over the default Unity interface that was released in June 2010. And when I say “backlash”, I’m not putting that mildly. Some hate it so much that they’ve dumped using Ubuntu outright for another distro, and what they switched to was probably Mint.
On the 11th of this month, Linux Mint 12 KDE RC was officially released, so for you KDE fans out there that like to stay on the cutting edge, you can check out what’s new in 12 and stay ahead of the pack with KDE 4.7.4.
Did Ubuntu really screw up that bad with the Unity UI?
Many Linux users would say yes to this. When I tried it personally, I found it almost unusable, but that’s just me.
Sound off: Does Unity suck, and is that enough of a reason to switch to Linux Mint?
Voice your opinion with a comment or two.
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Unity has not been a good thing, it reminds me of a smart phone interface. It is such a dramatic difference to the Gnome 2 and KDE GUI that it leaves the end user feeling helpless. I believe mint has always been the choice even prior to Unity for its hardware detection, codecs, and flash intergration. For an office desktop, openSuse has been my choice.
I’m way behind on what’s been going on with Linux, but loaded Mint 11 on an old E-machine recenty and was very impressed. 12 was a no go on this particular machine.
Just stay with Ubuntu 10.4 – it does not “feature” Unity. I have not seen a good reason yet to go to Ubuntu 11.
Well, I will be the other side, then – after a bit of a learning curve, I actually have come to love Unity, especially the Dash. I have tried the Gnome 3 interface, which is good for kids, the KDE, which looks like RedHat, and the old interface as well as CentOS, Mint, Chrome, OpenSuse, FreeBSD, XP, yadda….
The thing that I really like is that it IS different; it works well for someone like me who likes a mix of command line and GUI; and it is intuitive (once you get to know it…). I dislike the lack of customization thatis available now on the Dashhome, but it is my understanding that this is coming, either through the OS, or through tweak/hack.
Interesting. It is encouraging to hear something positive about it. I played around with it for a week or longer and I just couldn’t get a feel for it. I understand it and how it works but it doesn’t feel right. Oh well, to each his own.
The problems I’ve had with Linux systems is that sometimes the updates break some function of the computer. On my desktop Ubuntu with its dep package system failed to shut the computer down. In fact all Linux systems based on dep did the same thing. Switching to Mandrive, using rpm, resolved the problem, then a recent update crashed the sound system. I installed Mageia all is good for now. I installed Mint on my new laptop and so far has worked flawlessly after updating to the newest kernel which had better support for the RTL8188ce wireless. Unity is installed on a older laptop which works well except the side panel keeps popping out when I get the mouse to far over the left side of the screen. That’s the only irritation I have with Unity.
I’ve been using Linux Mint since version 4.0 and haven’t looked back. I do have a box I distro hop on and in my opinion Ubuntu is causing it’s own problems. Changing things around just to be different doesn’t make sense to me. Take Windows 8, now that will be a big failure for Microsoft.
Well… I don’t hate Unity. During the time that I used it I managed to adapt to the “Unity way” very easily. I can take it or leave it. Gnome Shell on the other hand is a total fail as far I’m concerned. I’ve come to be pretty fond of XFCE. As for KDE, the jury is still out. I was a fan of that desktop prior to KDE 4.x. It is however getting better in my opinion.
Well… I don’t hate Unity. During the time that I used it I managed to adapt to the “Unity way” very easily. I can take it or leave it. Gnome Shell on the other hand is a total fail as far I’m concerned. I’ve come to be pretty fond of XFCE. As for KDE, the jury is still out. I was a fan of that desktop prior to KDE 4.x. It is however getting better in my opinion.