Hi :) Both Cinnamon and Mate (pronounced similarly to Latte) are both supposedly "drop in replacements" for the "Gnome" DE that Ubuntu used to use.
They both started with the same code-base that everyone using a Gnome DE on any distro was familiar with and then just upgraded it. VERY similar to the way LibreOffice has evolved from OpenOffice. The new Gnome was heading in a direction that almost no-one liked - apparently they were moving away from touch and away from accessibility. Hence so many forks appearing and also distros moving to other DEs. Ubuntu found that an almost unheard-of DE was aiming for greater accessibility and opening up greater flexibility for touch gestures and stuff. Also being such a tiny team would give Ubuntu more opportunity to steer them if needed. The Gnome people dug their heels in and wouldn't budge from their plans to return to a by-gone era. Cinnamon and Mate are now well-established, just as LibreOffice is. Doubtless there are many people working in and sharing code and/or ideas between many such projects. It is very possible to install Mate or Cinnamon into most distros now. At the login screen you might see a logo for the default DE, or a drop-down menu, where you can switch from one to another. So you can kinda test-drive different DEs in a single working install of whichever distro. Much of the "under the bonnet" stuff you ask about tends to go with whichever DE was the most recently installed but some stuff remains the same. So it's not a perfect test-drive but might help give you an idea. It's probably best to create a new partition and test-drive some of these things yourself. A virtual machine might be quite good too but a bare-metal install has to deal with the quirkiness of real hardware and might give a better idea of how things really work. Regards from Tom :) On 18 July 2015 at 19:48, Johnny Rosenberg <gurus.knu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Tom, you might want to take a look at Linux Mint (current version 17.2) ; > > if you're using a desktop as your main box, I think you will find the > GUI - > > I personally prefer Cinnamon - far superior to Ubuntu's Unity (Cinnamon > > can, of course, be installed on Ubuntu to replace Unity) and the OS is a > > dream to use. On my triple-boot machine, it boots (from GRUB), for > example, > > much more quickly than Windows 8.1 Pro, which I keep around solely in > order > > to be able to help retirees with their Windows problems. It doesn't > > require, as does Windows, that the machine be rebooted just about every > > time a minor update is installed, and things like the BSOD simply don't > > appear.... > > You guys who use Mint with Cinnamon (from now on I will only say > ”Mint”, but I mean Mint with the Cinnamon desktop every time), I would > like to know a little more about a few details, if you don't mind: > I currently use Ubuntu 14.04 and I have used Ubuntu since 7.04. I was > very impressed by the first version I installed, then even more > impressed for every new version up to 10.10. After that it seems like > the Ubuntu team spied on my. ”Now, let's see what features Johnny > Rosenberg like to use… aha… aha… I see… yes, that one too, ok, let's > remove them!” > > So basically everything that I like with Ubuntu is gone now or doesn't > work. Let's asume that I want to give Mint with Cinnamon a go, what > about the following? > In old Ubuntu version, let's say a wrote a Bash script that I intended > to use with FLAC files. That's not too crazy, because I actually wrote > quite a few such scripts… > Now, I want to run these scripts with on FLAC files without too much > effort. I just want to right click a FLAC file, then ”Open with” and > finally just select my script. > > To make this happen, in old Ubuntu I could just right click a FLAC > file → Properties → Open with, and from there just enter a command > line manually to reach my script. > This is of course impossible in Ubuntu 14.04. There are methods, but > none of them works. I have edited text files, been fiddling around > with Ubuntu Tweak and other tools, but no success. Nautilus Actions > doesn't seem to work properly anymore and so on. It's possible to use > the Script folder (~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts) but then my script > will be available for ALL kinds of files. Not good. > What about Mint in this case? > > I use icons on my desktop. Maybe I shouldn't, but I find it > convenient. I try to have just a few of them, though. Anyway, I want > my icons on certain places and in certain sizes. I size up important > icons, for instance. This works in Ubuntu, but when I logout and then > login again, or restart the computer, all of my desktop icons are the > same size again and placed from up to down, left to right in > alphabetic order… > Does this work properly in Mint? > > My Android phone always appear on different places. If I write a > script that will move files to and from my phone, I need to write > special routines to determine where the phone is located. At the > moment it's at ”/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A001%2C006%5D/”, > for instance. I find that annoying and it reminds me about Windows’ > silly drive letters, which I also find annoying and… well, silly… > What about Mint in this case? Connecting Android devices that is, I > already know that Mint doesn't use drive letters… :P > > > Kind regards > > Johnny Rosenberg > > > > > > So I agree with Jack Wallen - Linux *is* the answer to the question of > > alternatives to Windows. I'd disagree with him just a bit when it comes > to > > «good» and «bad» Windows OSs - the problem with Vista (Windows 6.0) > wasn't > > the OS itself, which was, in fact, a great improvement over XP (Windows > > 5.1) - try defragging the same files on the two systems and you'll see > what > > I mean - but rather that it was released before the manufacturers of > > peripherals like, e g, printers, had gotten around to creating drivers > that > > worked with it, which was a real bummer for consumers. Two years later, > > when Windows 7 (i e, Windows 6.1), which amounted to a Vista SP with a > > better GUI, was released, those drivers were in place, and everybody, i > e, > > Windows users, breathed a sigh of relief, Then came Windows 8 (Windows > > 6.2), a relatively minor upgrade from Windows 7, where the MS leadership > > made the disastrous mistake of forcing the Metro GUI on all users. > However, > > all that had to be done to make the new OS work in a way familiar to > > Windows users was to install the lovely little shell program from > *Classic > > Shell* <http://classicshell.net> , which gave users a GUI almost > > indistinguishable from that of Windows 7. I don't know how many retirees > we > > have saved from throwing their computers out the window by this simple > > expedient. In Windows 8.1 (Windows 6.3), Microsoft started a slow retreat > > back to the familiar start button, but even here the installation of > > Classic Shell was needed to bring relief to users who communicated with > > their computers mainly via a mouse/touchpad and a keyboard, rather than > > sweeping their fingers over a touch screen. I suspect the same thing will > > be true of Windows 10.... > > > > The nice thing about LibreOffice, is that it works like a charm with just > > about any OS. Kudos to the developers, and to the people at the > Foundation > > who make their work possible !... > > > > Henri > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org > > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
