The future will be better tomorrow - Dan Quayle
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Linux Mint 12 is released with two desktops
LINUX ORGANISATION Linux Mint has released Lisa, the 12th version of its distribution.
Linux Mint has been enjoying an upsurge in popularity as rival distribution Ubuntu has faced a prolonged backlash over its Unity user interface. To avoid the same fate, Linux Mint ships with two desktop user interfaces, a Gnome 3 desktop with Mint Gnome Shell Extensions to make it look more like Gnome 2, and the beta desktop Mate.
Linux Mint is hoping its Mate, which is a fork of Gnome 2, will appeal to those who prefer Gnome 2 out of the box. However the developers urge, "MATE is at a really early stage of its development and isn't stable yet. It was included in this release to gather more feedback and help it get the maturity it deserves."
Desktops aside, Linux Mint 12 has new themes and the latest version has a new default search engine, Duck Duck Go, which claims not to store any user data. The outfit also announced that it has a new business model that will see search engines share the revenue generated by Linux Mint users with the Linux distribution.
Linux Mint's tactic of sticking with the Gnome 2 desktop is a clever one. Although Canonical deserves some credit for making the bold move to Unity in its popular Ubuntu distribution, clearly a large subset of Linux users prefer Gnome 2 and this could be Linux Mint's big chance to outshine the Linux distribution upon which it is based. µ
Tags: Software
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Geez that Mint 12 is ugly. Long live Unity...
What would be truly optimal would be to have the best of both worlds. Most people wouldn't care if it took an extra thousandth of a second to process email, and most of the time a computer doesn't have to do much beyond maintaining the operating system. More powerful computers is an awesome idea, but what's even better would be a computer with a sub-watt idle state when all it's doing is waiting for someone to use it.
Some of us use Ubuntu 'cos we don't buy new PCs. Unity 3D and 2D run like dogs on older systems.
It about saving the planet! Though when an ARM PC arrives it will be better to use that as the power consumption on an old PC will make the ARM better