Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: 05.08.2009 at 02:32pm
Section: Reviews
One of the distributions I've enjoyed working with in the past is Linux Mint. It's been one of the best new user distributions in quite some time and I've found it to be very easy to both teach and work with. It's also incredibly stable and reliable, with great hardware detection and features.
Now some might point to Ubuntu for all the credit I'm giving to Linux Mint, saying that it was Ubuntu who made all that possible. Maybe so, but there's a lot more beyond what Ubuntu started that Linux Mint has added to their distribution to make it better. Hence why I always say that Linux Mint is Ubuntu done right.
Of course a more accurate description might be "Ubuntu Improved!", which it essentially is. But wow, what a great list of improvements! But enough fawning over this distribution. As is customary with each new release of a distribution, I require myself to give it as fair a shake as humanly possible, and this even includes my favorites.
And since Mint has done nothing but improve since it first came to my attention a couple years ago, there's always that nagging question: Did it get better once again, or did it finally fall from it's perch of greatness? Mint 6 Gnome didn't, so there's hope here. But this is Mint 6 with a whole new flavor of KDE. So all bets are off.
LiveDVD
The LiveDVD, weighing in at a comfortable 1.1gb, boots in a reasonable amount of time, but is noticably slower than it's predecessor, Mint 5 KDE, and slower than the Mint 6 LiveCD. It also suffered from a number of video crashes while loading, again something that Mint 6 Gnome didn't have.
Now before anyone starts pointing fingers, I want to remind everyone that just because this is KDE4 and not Gnome, doesn't mean the fault lies with KDE. In this case it turns out that the fault lies with Xorg and the Nvidia driver. (oh gee, surprise, surprise)
A simple ctrl-alt-backspace seems to cure the issue by forcing Xorg, the Nvidia driver and KDM to reload. I didn't have a test machine loaded with an ATI card to test with, so I can't say if the problems would appear with a system running an ATI card, but they do with Nvidia cards.
Once the system loads the desktop, you're greeted by a very interesting, but simple KDE 4 desktop. The first thing that's open is the desktop folder, in which is the Mint 6 KDE install icon. If you simply close that and ignore it, you can wander around the KDE desktop and explore the amazing eyecandy of KDE 4 all you want.
The desktop is fairly spartain and pretty standard for a KDE4 desktop. Unlike previous editions of Mint KDE, there's not a lot of specialized modifications to the desktop. Well, there is, but most of it is hidden out of plain sight. For those of you knew to KDE4, you'll find that the look and feel of the system is different.
It is, and quite a bit so. KDE4 is focused around a lot of eyecandy, with usability interspersed. And because of this eye candy, you'll find that the system runs a bit slower than before. Of course, given that most new machines are in the 3.5ghz and higher category, or running multiple cores, the only ones to really see a true performance hit will be those on older systems. IE, Athlon 3000 or P4 and below.
If you're on a 64 bit system, you shouldn't see much, if any degradation in performance, even with all the new eyecandy. Also, users knew to KDE4, but who have used KDE 3.5 and below, you'll notice that Konqueror is no longer the file manager. It's been replaced by a rather interesting program called "Dolphin".
I can't really say how well Dolphin works as a file manager, as I haven't had enough time playing with it yet to make a final decision, but overall, if you're used to Konqueror, then you should take to Dolphin fairly quickly, as it appears, at least at first glance, as nothing more than an upgraded version of Konqueror.
Also, for those of you who get into Mint 6 KDE and notice that it's now using the new multipart KDE menu called "Kickoff", and you find it difficult to maneuver or just generally annoying (I liked the concept, but hate it in practice), then you will be pleased to know that a "classic" menu is offered that gives you the same look and feel as the old KDE 3.5 menu "Kicker".
The LiveDVD also sports a very nice collection of applications, including many that users will be familiar with, and a few that are new. There's also several programs that have been updated to run specifically with KDE 4, including Amarok and Mint Install.
Numerous other Mint assistance programs, such as Mint Install, Mint Update and Mint Upload, have undergone some upgrades as well, adding new features and fixing bugs. Mint 6 KDE also comes with a Windows installer called Mint for Win, which is essentially the Wubi installer for Ubuntu rewritten for use by Mint itself.
Other than those few things I mentioned, and a few core updates (Kernel 2.6.27, Xorg 7.4, KDE4) there's not a lot that's new with Mint 6 KDE, well aside from the major move to KDE4 from 3.5. That in itself was a huge step up, so it's understandable that other major upgrades were held off until that was done, which then leaves one in eager anticipation of the next release which should see a sizable amount of secondary upgrades.
Performance wise, aside from the obvious minor performance hit brought on by KDE 4, it's really a pretty decent LiveDVD with reasonable speed.
Install
Installation can be started from one of two locations: Either the KDE menu, or the desktop folder. If you closed the desktop folder, then don't panic. You can easily get to the install link through the KDE menu.
General installation is a lot of the same as in the past, where you simply click next, next, next and answer a couple quick and simple questions in the middle. But otherwise, it's just as simple as it's always been. There is a noted improvement in overall install time, so that's a welcome improvement.
Once you're done, simply reboot, pop out the CD, and begin enjoying your new system. I could say more here, but there's nothing really much to talk about. If you're read my previous reviews, what happens here is more or less a clone of those.
Installed System
The install system, unsurprisingly, is identical to the LiveDVD. Or at the very least I couldn't see any major differences. One thing that does stand out though is that I believe the Mint team has set a new record for the most updates required after a first time install. There were 271 of them!!
Now again, this is due to the late release of the distro and other things outside of their control, but the fact that so many updates are required is actually quite hilarious.
Hardware and speed wise, the system is flawless, again, save for the stupid Xorg + Nvidia driver problem. I suspect that in that pile of 271 patches there's a bug fix for that, so unless you've got some really weird configuration that causes the weird video crash issue seen in the LiveDVD still, once you update that issue should go away forever. Or at least until Nvidia decides to hose their driver again.
I say that because, at the time of the writing of this article, there's a rather ugly, well known issue with the current Nvidia proprietary drivers. I could preach long and hard about how this would be fixed already if the drivers had been open source like ATI's, but I'll save that rant for another time.
Conclusion
Overall, despite it's late arrival (blame that on KDE, since the Devs were waiting for the release of KDE 4.2 before they shipped the final version, which IMHO was a wise choice), Mint 6 KDE is once again an excellent distribution.
Admittedly it requires slightly beefier hardware than previous releases, but given the natural life cycle of the vast majority of systems, this shouldn't be an issue at all, as it'll work on all of the most common systems and hardware specs.
And I am still going to say that Mint 6 KDE is user friendly, even though KDE4 has a slightly larger learning curve than 3.5 did, and is still on the upward swing towards full maturity. But even so, the entire system is well worth checking out and using.
For more information, don't forget to visit the Linux Mint homepage.