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It always amuses me when folks give their insightful input in threads, adding comments about their last-century experience getting Linux going. It appears that this guy has a similar reaction.
Itripovermyownfeet shared his thoughts in the Linux Mint subreddit.
This is awful, when I install Linux on the desktop I'm expecting to be able to waste a solid 8 hours chasing down random issues that were solved on all other modern desktop systems by 2008. I went into this hoping and wishing to have to crawl through linuxquestions.org threads from 2006 to figure out why plugging in a second monitor doesn't work with X.org.
I want the peace and quiet that you can only get from spending 45 minutes trying to get alsa/oss/flavor of the week sound manager to work properly. I miss the subtle delicious pain of trying to figure out what I have to do to get Gnome 3 or Unity to provide desktop functionality that came standard with Windows NT 4.
With what you've done here I am no longer able to do any of these things. You've taken the awful travesty of an experience that trying to do anything production on a Linux desktop is supposed to provide and made it usable, sensible, and working out of the box. This is why I can't call Mint a Linux desktop. It's just a desktop... you monsters.
(I plugged a second monitor into my HDMI slot and it just worked. I have literally never experienced that since working with Linux since the days of Redhat 3. You've taken away a cherished time honoured tradition of having a terrible experience using a Linux desktop from me forever.)
Comments by other redditors include:
Gandalfx: Could "reverse trolling" be an appropriate term for this?
Crcr: I know what you mean, Mint has been this way for me since version 12 & it's starting to get old, the usability out of the box drives me nuts.
Foofly: I tried to explain to a friend that the installation experience is better than Windows these days. In addition to having way less driver issues in general. He didn't believe me since his last experience was almost 10 years ago.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Saturday November 28 2015, @10:38AM
One of my chaps from college tried installing it once because the professor in one of our classes was adamant that VM "is not acceptable for intensive daily computing," or whatever the hell was his issue. So while I used a VM for our assignments, he tried to dual boot with mint and ended up wrecking his PC. I know it's an anecdote, and there are plenty of distroes which will wreck your PC if you try dual booting, but because of his experience it has become something of a joke for us :)
Regardless, to make this somewhat on topic, what is a usable distro out of the box that supports Unity games (other than steam OS)? I will most likely stay the hell away form Windows for next PC. Windows 7 has served me well, but I just had to disable a lot of the updates to get away from the Windows10 style tracking, and I'm not looking to repeat that experience. I have used Ubuntu, but the talk around the watercooler is that they are a stone's throw away from doing same thing in order to "monetize" us.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mmcmonster on Saturday November 28 2015, @11:00AM
what is a usable distro out of the box that supports Unity games (other than steam OS)?
Have you tried Linux Mint? It's built on top of Ubuntu (which is build on top of Debian). It's fairly easy to install and gets the job done.
Would just remind you to pick a Long Term Service (LTS) release so your software repositories don't go out of date in a couple years.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:13PM
He said it was Mint, or are you trying to be funny - as someone had modded you.
I'd avoid Ubuntu (and anything derived from it) because, as the GP says, they are steering their users down a path away from the rest of Linux and towards monetization. As you say, Mint is based on Ubuntu, based on Debian, and it is beyond my understanding why something like Mint cannot have been based directly on Debian.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday November 28 2015, @02:53PM
it is beyond my understanding why something like Mint cannot have been based directly on Debian.
There is a Mint based on Debian [linuxmint.com]. From the page:
Then it goes on to explain the difference between LMDE, which is a rolling release, and Linux Mint, which uses point releases.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Saturday November 28 2015, @09:23PM
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday November 29 2015, @05:24AM
Faster, no. I timed startup and it was about 20% longer than with standard Mint.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @09:38PM
He said that a classmate had tried to dual-boot Linux Mint, with disastrous results. Linux Mint could still be suitable for what the poster is trying to do—although he understandably may be reluctant to try it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:06PM
he tried to dual boot with mint and ended up wrecking his PC. ..... there are plenty of distroes which will wreck your PC if you try dual booting
Wrecked it? What, left it a smoking pile of ash?
Seriously, what was the issue? Sounds like the Master Boot Record was corrupted, but that would be a long way from "wrecked".
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday November 29 2015, @08:57PM
That's pretty much what happened. Something with UEFI.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:46PM
I'll just mention that Micro$oft *actively* tries to torpedo dual-boot machines. The only safe option is to wipe Windoze. Boot linux. Enjoy life...
And if you *have* to play games, there is WINE or CROSSOVER that might help.
In the instances where I have had to use M$ Office, wine has filled the gap admirably.
I suspect this "article" is a troll....but windows is actually hostile to other OSes living on a machine!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @05:46PM
There have been some issues but that's due to a macbook pro not exactly being designed to run Windows ;). And none of those issues are due to Microsoft trying to "torpedo" stuff.
Those issues are not being able to wake up from sleep without a BSOD (wake up from hibernate is OK). IIRC it's due to hardware not being set correctly on wake - need a "boot" to get them set, and so a hibernate does that. And that could be because I put an SSD on my mac AND wanted it to be fast with Windows so I did other stuff. Long story.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday November 28 2015, @07:08PM
I use my computer almost exclusively for games and for CADCAM that only runs in Windows. As much as I hate Microsoft, what exactly would Linux do for me?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday November 28 2015, @07:18PM
try using WINE or CROSSOVER for your applications, and see if you can at least reduce the footprint. I would suggest most folks go through a threshold of windows vs alternative. I know I did! But the straw that broke the camels back (for me) was being forced to pay for a phone cable since *only* windows would talk to the phone.
Now days I will not even look back. Libreoffice and latex are just fine for office. Any browser you like. Thunderbird mail client etc etc...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday November 29 2015, @12:12AM
Yeah, but the CADCAM. It's OpenGL intensive, won't run well enough in WINE, and there are no suitable Linux based alternatives. Oh, and it's the core of my career, so I can't just drop it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Saturday November 28 2015, @05:01PM
PclinuxOS will run many Steam games both in the Linux client and Windows Client (using playonlinux) and it's very dual boot friendly :D
Alie
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/