for instence mint only uses .mint or getdeb.net which ubuntu has alot of packages from ubuntu server.

i suggest that they should combine

There’s no need to dual boot any more….

Install your first choice OS, then use Virtualbox, or Xen, or VMWare, or even Red Hat and Windows 2008 has its own virtualization built in. My point is, why should you have to restart your computer to boot to another OS? You shouldn’t, just fire it up in a VM.

Linux Mint 9 just came out a couple months ago. I’ve tried it as well. For me, it is full of bugs. However, Mint 8 works perfectly for me. I’ve ran it on two systems… A latest and greatest laptop, and a supped-up 6 year old desktop. It installed every driver on both of these PCs. I’ve also gotten all the apps I need to use working with relative ease on Mint 8.

I suggest you try Mint 8 for now, and perhaps wait another couple months before trying Mint 9. Hopefully they’ll get the bugs worked out soon.

Other distro’s I’ve used…. Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, and Puppy. Gentoo and Fedora are nice for servers, but Puppy and Mint are much better for workstations. Mandriva… I could never get it to work and that was probably around December of last year.

1) That’s a post-install script that happens to checks what Linux-based OS you’re running. If you’re using GNOME, open up your system monitor and go to the “system” tab. You’ll see “Release” with the operating system release you’re using right after that. The script fails because it CHECKS for THAT SPECIFIC VARIABLE (or a similar one) and since it says you’re running Mint instead of running Ubuntu specifically, it quits itself. For Pete’s sake, just edit the script to check if you’re running Mint instead of Ubuntu (or remove the whole “checking” part) and I PROMISE it will work 100% CORRECTLY.

2) Remastersys works fine (I’ve used it myself with Mint). Remastersys isn’t in the Ubuntu repositories either. If you actually TRY to use Remastersys with Mint, I can guarantee it will work fine as long as you don’t screw up the system too much (like, completely changing the repository lists).

3) Did you actually TRY installing Dropbox? The patch IS FOR FLUXBOX, NOT GNOME. I’m running Dropbox on mint right now using the official .DEB from their website and it works great, absolutely no problems here. Besides, if you thought about it, you’d see absolutely no reason for Dropbox to NEED a patch to work on ANY Linux distribution (I have the official Dropbox running on Ubuntu, Mint, AND Arch Linux right now).

4) Read the Linux Mint User Manual. Read the Linux Mint About page. Read the Wikipedia article. Open up the Synaptic Software Sources. Or maybe INSTALL Mint and look at the installation slide-show! You can very plainly see that Linux Mint isn’t afraid to admit they’re “standing on the shoulders of giants”, particularly Linux itself, the GNU project, Debian (which Ubuntu is based on, but they seem a little afraid to admit it unlike Mint) and Ubuntu are listed. They removed the wallpapers that come with Ubuntu because they want to have THEIR OWN IDENTITY. Is that so much a crime?

I’m sorry for yelling, but your comments lack very little evidence and it shows how little you actually know about how Linux-based operating systems work. If it’s “so horrible” for Linux Mint to be based on Ubuntu and change things that EVERY OTHER DISTRIBUTION CHANGES, why is it any better for Ubuntu to base itself on Debian and ask people to “support them”? Clem (the Linux Mint project owner) advocates supporting ALL free software, not just Mint! It’s not any worse for Mint to ask people to support them than Parted Magic, Debian, Ubuntu, or anything else to ask to support them for their efforts! If Ubuntu died one day, then Mint would just move on to be based on Debian or Fedora or Arch or something and there won’t be any huge differences because LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS ARE ALMOST 100% INTER-COMPATIBLE BY DESIGN.

Get your facts straight. Stop hating on Mint for barely any reason. Realize that Mint isn’t doing anything worse than Ubuntu is doing (if not, then better than them).

1) That’s a post-install script that checks what Linux-based OS you’re running. If you’re using GNOME, open up your system monitor and go to the “system” tab. You’ll see “Release” with the operating system release you’re using right after that. The script fails because it CHECKS for THAT SPECIFIC VARIABLE (or a similar one) and since it says you’re running Mint instead of running Ubuntu specifically, it quits itself. For pete’s sake, man, just edit the script to check if you’re running mint instead of Ubuntu and I PROMISE it will work 100% CORRECTLY.

2) Remastersys works fine (I’ve used it myself with Mint). Remastersys isn’t in the Ubuntu repositories either. If you actually TRY to use Remastersys with Mint, I can guarantee it will work fine as long as you don’t screw up the system too much (like, completely changing the repository lists).

3) Did you actually TRY installing Dropbox? The patch IS FOR FLUXBOX, NOT GNOME. I’m running Dropbox on mint right now using the official .DEB from their website and it works great, absolutely no problems here. Besides, if you thought about it, you’d see absolutely no reason for Dropbox to NEED a patch to work on ANY Linux distribution (I have the official Dropbox running on Ubuntu, Mint, AND Arch Linux right now).

4) Read the Linux Mint User Manual. Read the Linux Mint About page. Read the Wikipedia article. Open up the Synaptic Software Sources. Or maybe INSTALL Mint and look at the installation slideshow? You can very plainly see that Linux Mint isn’t afraid to admit they’re “standing on the shoulders of giants”, particularly Linux itself, the GNU project, Debian (which Ubuntu is based on, but they seem a little afraid to admit it unlike Mint) and Ubuntu are listed. They removed the wallpapers that come with Ubuntu because they want to have THEIR OWN IDENTITY. Is that so much a crime?

I’m sorry for yelling, but your comments lack very little evidence and it shows how little you actually know about how Linux-based operating systems work. If it’s “so horrible” for Linux Mint to be based on Ubuntu and change things that EVERY OTHER DISTRIBUTION CHANGES

( These are the first mission-critical applications I just attempted to install on the brand new Linux Mint 9 yesterday. The fact that they don’t work on Mint is a total deal-breaker. )

Applications that Don’t Work with Linux Mint

ubuntu-10.04-start
fails with the error: “You are not running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS”

remastersys
it’s not even in the repositories, and I’ve read of many problems
with trying to use it with Mint

dropbox
apparently there is some sort of a patch program included in Mint, but sorry…
I don’t trust that. I want the actual supported version of dropbox on my machine.

It appers that the developer has spent most of his time removing the word Ubuntu from occurring or appearing anywhere within the OS. This includes everythig from removing all wallpaper that does not have the “Linux Mint” logo on it, to renaming actual core programs to remove the word “ubuntu” from the name, and replace it with “linuxmint”… which of course breaks lots of things. Lots of apps will not run on Mint for this reason…. unless the developer specifically provides a “Mint-ified” version of the app. What a horrific nightmare. He seems most concerned that the user has NO IDEA that he is actually using Ubuntu. He wants the user to only know about Mint…. and thus only DONATE to Mint…. Ok. Whatever. He is definitely correct about one thing. Mint is NOT Ubuntu.

Some programs written SPECIFICALLY for Ubuntu will not run on LinuxMint.

It’s a simple concept. It’s a simple fact.”

A simple concept that would work if we were talking about Windows/Mac, yes. Linux, though? What sense would it make for Linux-based operating systems to be so highly incompatible with each other? I can download and run any Linux program I want on Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, or OpenSUSE and it will work the same on EVERY OS as long as they follow upstream standards. Ubuntu is not so different from any other Linux OS to be completely incompatible with everything else and vice versa.

1: Linux Mint and Super OS both use the official Ubuntu repositories.
2: Linux Mint and Super OS both have different default software and configurations than Ubuntu.
3: Any application made to run on “vanilla” Linux can run without much difficulty on Linux Mint and Super OS, as well as Ubuntu.
4: Since Linux Mint and Super OS BOTH use the OFFICIAL UBUNTU PACKAGES than anything that is GUARANTEED to work on Ubuntu Linux WILL WORK on Linux Mint or Super OS since they are BASED ON IT.

Ubuntu Tweak, Remastersys, PPAs, and several “Ubuntu-only” things work perfectly on BOTH OSs. Get your facts straight before you make claims like that.

PS: Linus Mint 9 is out today. BASED ON UBUNTU 10.04.