Claimed to be the fourth popular desktop operation system in the world, Linux Mint (LM) release 11 has additional reasons to be talked about. With this release Linux Mint decided tread a different path from Ubuntu - by shunning Unity.
Ubuntu, the base of Linux Mint, introduced Unity after a famous break from Gnome 3, the ubiqutous DE in most popular Linux distributions, and a competitor to KDE. Unity's collective licensing methodology faces a strong criticism from the open source developer community.
Some years back KDE faced similar ethical questions due its use of QT as the development platform, as QT was not open source then. Later QT became open source, but later KDE 4 release was initially shunned by most main stream distributions. SuSE/SUSE/OpenSUSE was a major distro to dump KDE somewhere in 2005 and make Gnome as a default DE. Today, KDE 4.6 awes many.
LM 11 was supposed to have come with Gnome 3 - without Gnome Shell or Unity. But it did not happen. So for atleast next six months there will not be any Macish effects on the LM desktop. Perhaps either of Unity or Gnome 3 will make an appearance in the next release.
For most users lack of Unity or Gnome 3 is not a big disappointment. Unity is alleged to be a net-book DE masquerading as a mainstream DE, a no-go for power users. Surprisingly for a net-book avtar, Unity is alleged to be a big battery drainer on laptops. Its whole interface is supposed to be oriented for touch screen users, something many users are not eagerly looking forward to.
Gnome 3 Shell on the other hand has something of a DE for idiots kind of approach. Instead of having many ways of doing things, and hence confuse users, Gnome 3 insists that users should have only one way of doing anything. When an application launches it will be maximized, and user will have to work on the maximized windows. There is no minimize button, as it is not required - user just has to switch desktops to go to another application.
Given the state of affairs at Unity and Gnome 3, LM's play-safe policy might encourage many Ubuntu users to jump wagon. The next few months will prove how this poly is going to pay off for LM. But otherwise LM 11 is quite a flaw less release. Installation of LM 11 is quicker, booting is faster, most of the new applications are here: Firefox 4, Libre Office 3 etc. Software installer and system updater are slightly improved.
After becoming a Ubuntu and then a LM convert since 2009, I have become used to six monthly rite of system updating. I have two different partitions with root of 100 GB and /home of 400 GB. I will not forgot to have my /home backed up in an external drive, to play it safe. My installation will format only the root and install the new system, and /home is left intact. This takes approximately 20 minutes.
After rebooting I will have all my configuration files intact. I will have to re-install all the extra applications, but it is only a dozen or so and doesn't consume much time. I found the system backup application of LM very slow to be of any practical help, and software back and restore too risky to use.
The system overall performs better after the update and I not desperately missing Unity and Gnome 3. However I will be playing with Ubuntu and Fedora live CDs to see how both are faring compared to the old and trusted Gnome 2. The final crossing the bridge will happen in six months when LM decides what to do with either of these. Whole world will be watching with bated breath when it happens!
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