I think that’s more an apt problem then a mint one, the only apt distro I haven’t had that happen to me on is Debian.
Mint still has messed up repos tho
Maybe more of a stability issue?
I think that’s more an apt problem then a mint one, the only apt distro I haven’t had that happen to me on is Debian.
Mint still has messed up repos tho
Maybe more of a stability issue?
Honestly, I’ve been out of the Debian tree for about 3 years now. I don’t know if it’s really the right way around.
The reason it happens is because Mint overloads the Ubuntu repositories and things get out of sync. Then you get problems.
I would put an asterisk by Lightweight on Gentoo
That’s fair. I’m thinking that it can be lightweight if you USE=bindist
(I think)
On one hand, you can build your packages to have minimal CPU or RAM footprint; on the otherhand, you have to compile all of your packages.
So on one hand, it can be the most lightweight distro if you want; on the otherhand, you have to go through a CPU murderfest to install and update.
Doesn’t mint use a different kind of apt from the normal apt?
That would be news to me
well that’s an abomination
This is tempting me to lower the score on user-friendliness.
add a Respects Your Freedom
Yay!
Oh, my bad. I guess that’s down to Gentoo now, huh.
There’s some levels of grey in there. Debian ships systemd by default, but does support other init systems with official packages like runit-init.
Ubuntu, by virtue of inheriting those packages, do as well (though I doubt any of their tooling like do-release-upgrade supports it).
MX Linux, which you have slated for review, is a systemd-free distro.
So it’s still a valid consideration… just not a “Fedora depends on Gnome” thing. Fedora depends on systemd, not Gnome, because Fedora KDE requires it too. By contrast, Gnome on Gentoo still does not depends on systemd because they’ve created replacements for systemd dependencies.
Debian - Opinionated 7
Mint - Opinionated 6
Solus - Opinionated 1
Ubuntu - Opinionated 5
I think there might be a mixup there. Solus is very opininated which would be fitting if lower score reflects more developer control. Debian having a rating of 7 would fit for being flexible and having a higher score.
But I think Ubuntu is more flexible than Mint. Historically, Mint has made changes on top of their package management using (I forget the term they used) sets. Their GUI used to rank packages in order of the safety of their upgrades, giving them a red, yellow, green ranking.
The underlying tools (dpkg, apt) were not aware of those changes, and Mint sometimes depended on those features to perform safe upgrades. I consider this a limitation on what tools a user can use to manage their system.
Not sure if this was something that was missed in evaluation, or if it was just confusion on the numbering scheme, but I think the Ubuntu and Mint values should be flipped in that assessment.
Also, before everything gets lost in the nitpickery…
This is a great resource, and thank you for taking the time to do it!
Yeah, the apt wrapper. I was thinking mint is less opinionated because they officially support both debian and ubuntu base, and they officially support multiple DEs out of the box.
If you think it should be the other way around, I’ll have to think about that. Maybe just split the difference on them and rank them equally?
I think this is important though, it’s how we get great resources!
I’m extremely happy to do it!
Measurements for “Respects your freedom” should be not black and white as it is to the FSF, but should scale like:
=10: No proprietary software at all
>7: Proprietary repos are available- but not enabled by default
>5: Software repos are separated by proprietary and OSS
<5: Software repos are mixed.
With extra or less points for the default install including proprietary software such as binary firmware blobs and kernel bits
The higher the score in this category, the lower the score in user friendliness I would imagine.
I don’t disagree with that logic, it’s a tricky question.
If Ubuntu Mate is going to be ranked seperately, I think LMDE probably should be, too. The differences between Mint and LMDE are greater than Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate, I think.
That’s fair. I’ve gone back to the drawing board on if Mate will be separate.
I like this.
<3 is proprietary software installed by default? (@solus)
I would just give a point penalty for that, because most distros will have some installed by default, usually in the form of wireless firmware etc
I don’t know enough about it to understand why it’s bad or have an opinion on it. I’ve never had issues with it and it seems to just make things more consolidated. I wish I understood more about why it’s bad or good but someone somewhere thinks it’s a good idea.
One thing that really sold mint for me starting out is how any of the DE options are set up like windows. For someone trying out Linux for the first time, they are likely coming from windows. Having to relearn how you interact with a desktop is overwhelming at first, or at least that’s how I felt when I started on Ubuntu 5.04 with gnome. Perhaps some don’t want that but I sure did… To the point where I went as far as making gnome look like Vista
Sort of a joke I know, and I look back now and cringe but this is the mind of a new Linux user.
This might be a dank meme but it also has it’s roots in truth and hits home to my first time using Linux.
Wouldn’t that make all of them fit in the <5 category?