Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

[bigbeark]

I've been a dedicated Ubuntu/Linux Mint user for the past 8 years, but I can't understand why anyone would want to load these de-contented distros.

The install has Chromium instead of Firefox. Chromium just plain does not work at all. The repository does not have the flash plugin. You can download Firefox from Mozilla, but it does not self-install. If you download Chrome for Linux from Google, you get a dependency when you try to install.

About the only advantage I can see is you can burn these to CD instead of DVD.

If someone has any insight into these problems, I'd be grateful.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

You can install Lubuntu from CD or USB if you like.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

Lubuntu, 14.04 and 15.04, both which I'm running come with Firefox pre-installed. Chromium is supported and a separate download, but as you noted doesn't come with the flash player automatically installed.

The people who make these distributions pick and choose applications based on their view of the world. Some want to be completely open source with no binary blobs or proprietary code. With these distros, you won't find flash, closed video drivers, etc.

Some people who make distros just want everything to work so they load everything, open source or not. This is where Mint does well.

I use Lubuntu because I have older systems and I wanted a low resource, both in terms of DRAM and disk space, operating system and applications. Even though I have faster systems, I like Lubuntu and it simply flies on faster systems.

I use Chrome and yes it does fail with a missing dependency when you initially install it with sudo dpkg -i , but if you run sudo apt-get -f install, that dependency will be resovled.

I tried Peppermint a while back, but realized I wouldn't be using it as it is mainly cloud focused applications.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

but I can't understand why anyone would want to load these de-contented distros.

BTW, the people who build their own OS from scratch like Gentoo probably ask why anyone would use those "bloated" pre-configured systems link Mint!

[diif]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

A live Linux CD/USB is the best way to do internet banking. No need for Flash to do that or any other addons.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

BTW, the people who build their own OS from scratch like Gentoo probably ask why anyone would use those "bloated" pre-configured systems link Mint!

[Grandpa voice] "Back in my day, all we had was vi... and we liked it!!!!" [/Grandpa voice]

[goontron]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

[Grandpa voice] "Back in my day, all we had was vi... and we liked it!!!!" [/Grandpa voice]

Back in my day we had Unix in many forms. The main ones i have seen are HP-UX and SunOS Unix. Linux didn't mean anything back then.

[ratdude747]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

BTW, the people who build their own OS from scratch like Gentoo probably ask why anyone would use those "bloated" pre-configured systems link Mint!

I run arch (which is like gentoo only package management uses pre-built binaries instead of local building)... and unlike some who would say that, I understand some aren't that "devoted" to the art/science of such advanced distro's. If it works, it works. Now I will tell you that once I figured out Arch, I never plan to go back to anything else (I may try gentoo someday... but I currently don't have any reason to). Arch runs that well, better than ___buntu, debian, fedora, SUSE, or Mandriva ever did.

[goontron]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

^ i really never seen the big deal about arch. The amount of packages available is astounding, and the community is helpful. But other wise..... and IMO the syntax of pacman is daft.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

How about the other way around, I've been a Gentoo users for over 10 years now. Going to Arch probably isn't the normal progression.

Having a fast machine (or two or a pile of them) helps quite a bit with Gentoo...

[Topcat]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

...and things like this are teh reason microsoft still has a chokehold on the market. too many distros, too much "this won't work or that won't work", and too much scattered out mess. Imagine what they could do if all these splintered off groups of distros would come together and make one unified distro that WORKED SEAMLESSLY....and remained free/open source... Kiss M$ goodbye!

[ratdude747]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

...and things like this are teh reason microsoft still has a chokehold on the market. too many distros, too much "this won't work or that won't work", and too much scattered out mess. Imagine what they could do if all these splintered off groups of distros would come together and make one unified distro that WORKED SEAMLESSLY....and remained free/open source... Kiss M$ goodbye!

Ouch. Not gonna happen, as there are (from what I've seen) too many ideological rifts. Ubuntu is about ease of use (the closest thing to M$ style linux IMHO) while Arch is about user control and customization. Sure, a compromise would be a distro like manjaro (arch only with with a graphical package manager and the like)... but the issue there is a lack of support, both from hardware vendors and the distro itself.

And I'm not going to get into the Gnome vs KDE vs XFCE vs Unity war... all I will say is that the issue there is that it violates the common assumption that the GUI is the OS; Windows and Mac OS have a single GUI that is not distinct from the rest of the system; it would be like if the only car Ford made was the Mustang; thus, we'd call Mustangs "Fords" instead of "Mustangs." This confuses people, which adds to the distaste.

Honestly IMHO the main issues are user interfaces, program compatibility, and hardware support... the latter two of which are in a vicious cycle. The former has the same reasons why we still use QWERTY keyboards instead of dvorak, despite dvorak being a superior layout. Everybody knows and is used to QWERTY, and can't be bothered to learn something different. No perceived problem, no desire for a solution. If it aint "broke" (or doesn't appear to be), why "fix" it?

TLDR: As long as people don't see an issue with M$, windows will be the defacto standard.

[diif]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

Whilst Microsoft has a strangle hold in the Enterprise space, With the rise of tablets and smart phones neither of which Microsoft has a large market share Microsoft's strangle hold at home is shrinking.
I've switched a few users to Mint when XP became end of life. A lot had specific software needs, iTunes featured quite heavily. On the whole, whilst there is all the malware and updates and all the other hassles that comes with Microsoft it just works for most users. They can buy whatever hardware and be pretty sure it works.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

I mostly agree, but it is mainly easier for most users to stick with Windows because they are afraid of what they don't know and don't want to have to learn the few little changes in a Windows-like Linux desktop environment. Every novice Windows user I've given a Lubuntu box to has had zero difficulty adjusting.

[Topcat]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

I mostly agree, but it is mainly easier for most users to stick with Windows because they are afraid of what they don't know and don't want to have to learn the few little changes in a Windows-like Linux desktop environment. Every novice Windows user I've given a Lubuntu box to has had zero difficulty adjusting.

Ease of use is the key for the consumer market, and that market is HUGE! Sorry Linux junkies, the days of typing commands is LONG GONE....its fading out rapidly even in the professional IT markets. With tech today, there's no reason in the world why anyone that isn't making 6-figures a year to do it or is just a hardcore geek would need to memorize command lines...and both of those are very small groups. That was fine in the 80's, but we've evolved a trifle since then. ...and this along with all the splintered off distros of incompatibility are the reason that linux never was and never will be the mainstream....and I find that to be sad....because it would have brought m$ to their knees and completely changed the market.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

Proponent to systemd?

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

I guess I probably fall into the Linux junkie group by default as a primarily Linux user and I do like Linux quite a lot. As an old computer tech I'm no stranger to command lines, but for long strings I copy and paste from examples and edit accordingly if needed, like most probably do. To me it's basically not much different than setting up a Windows box, it's about the same amount of work with the plus of not having to navigate through oddly buried windows and such. Add to that that for Windows you've got to add and tweak things that really only a tech should do anyway to bring it up to snuff.

[ratdude747]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

Ease of use is the key for the consumer market, and that market is HUGE! Sorry Linux junkies, the days of typing commands is LONG GONE....its fading out rapidly even in the professional IT markets. With tech today, there's no reason in the world why anyone that isn't making 6-figures a year to do it or is just a hardcore geek would need to memorize command lines...and both of those are very small groups. That was fine in the 80's, but we've evolved a trifle since then. ...and this along with all the splintered off distros of incompatibility are the reason that linux never was and never will be the mainstream....and I find that to be sad....because it would have brought m$ to their knees and completely changed the market.

Hence why Ubuntu and the like have a graphical way to do everything. Almost everything CAN be done from the command line (and usually with more options), but in such distro's, one doesn't HAVE to.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

I believe Linux and OS should stay with its roots and be able to be accessed by the command line. It's the simplest, cheapest way to access a computer, not much needs to actually work properly, just a text interface and a keyboard or serial port. Great for debugging.

Now why I ask about systemd for Linux? It's because it's both unification between all Linux and a way for GUIs to safely modify Linux system daemon states. Normally you'd have all sorts of system daemons with different requirements to starting and stopping - and systemd wants to unify it all so it can control them all. When hardware changes, it can act accordingly. It was designed so that a GUI can easily be integrated, though to appease the general Unix population it was made to have a CLI.

There has been a lot of pushback as systemd violates so many different Unix ideals. But if this is what the user really wants, so be it. I have yet to find anyone who really likes systemd other than the designers, most people are either "meh it works" or "this sucks so bad, get this away from me". If there are actually people who prefer this method I'd like to hear it. But most Unix people (especially die-hards, but that's to be expected) I see heavy pushback to go back to the traditional init scripts that were heavily command line based.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Lubuntu & Peppermint. Why?

I am sure that CLI will never vanish from Linux so I don't see what the fuss is about except for *nix purists being strange about it. There is nothing wrong with Linux having a GUI for people that want/need it. Keeping it completely CLI will kill development for the rest of the world and frankly you're outnumbered.