[Mel Thompson]

So this Mint OS is pretty cool, the closest to a fully-functional full-install system yet.
(The live CDs, which are not full-installs, somehow are more consistently functional, possibly because the end user can't be asked to install anything onto a fully-written disk.)

Between its pre-installed MPlayer, which, by the way, works a full 50% of the time, unheard of in any MPlayer install attempt, with codecs all raging, especially after you do all the updates, and its generally willingness to take in Real Player, well, that covers about 90% of my multimedia needs.

But how did the install of the few extra programs needed go so well? Easy, Ubuntu has great install programs, which Mint is largely based on. But Mint, not actually being insane, has this install option where you can simply be a root user, and su, and not have to do sudo. Anything involving sudo, if you google "sudo" and "dosen't work" or something like that, generally reveals that the sudo system is misery. Now, I'm kind of out of context there, since we are, in general committed to bringing the largest amount of suffering the largest group possible. But, forgetting that for a moment, I note that having the option to nix sudo made it a best of both worlds, solid root user control and the actual real performance of line commands, combined with most excellent desktop environment of Ubuntu.

Oh yeah, and this XFCE interface rocks. It's like twice as fast as KDE and Gnome and much more elegant. Oh, right, plus the file system broser is not actually insane like KDE, and is even slicker than Nautilus, and I like Nautilus. I would almost say that a total newbie might be best off doing the Mint install with KFCE.

[Mel Thompson]

Loved the Mint Software Portal where you just select stuff like Real Player, which I'd installed with much labor or various other distros, by merely clicking on an icon that said, "Would you like us to install this for you now?" and I'm like, "OK." And so they do it and it even shows up on my taskbar applications.

(A note of opposition to those who say, "I could never use Mint until they fix their dumb logo. I must say that I find the logo quite acceptable.)

In any case, it's really friendly with printers and has all the drivers. A word to
Newbies: You can practically sleepwalk through the install. I think Mint may
really be coming up. (Okay, there are flaws in the embedded MPlayer, but
still, it works on about 50% of the stuff I like, which is way more than I have
time to watch anyway.) There are various anti-bug tricks to learn, but not
through line commands, just trial and error and points and clicks. I'm almost
losing my curiosity for other distros. (Hmm, now if only that would happen
with relationships.)

Of course there's still Freespire to check out, but I'm going to chill for a while,
since this Mint is flowing so nicely with most of my daily tasks.

[fingal]

I haven't tried Mint yet, but it's attracting attention on Distrowatch in the rankings. It's currently number 6 in the 'page hit rankings'. It sounds good.