Linux Mint 12?… I’ll stick with Ubuntu
I have for many releases (since Mint 6 or 7) been a Linux Mint user. Previous to that I was an Ubuntu user (since 6.06 Dapper). I switched from Ubuntu to Mint for a number of reasons. The cleaner designer and generally better theme. The MintMenu which I found worked very well and far better than the standard and rather dated Gnome menu’s in Ubuntu. Also Mint was more stable than Ubuntu despite being forked from it. I switched across my desktop and laptops, as well as my parent’s desktop and laptop. During all of this time I often played around with other interfaces, (Avant Window Navigator being my favourite) but generally stuck with Gnome2. This all changed when Ubuntu/Mint progression came to a crossroads…the switch to Gnome3 or Unity from the trusty old Gnome2.
Early Days
During the first two releases of Unity I hated it. It was buggy and clunky. From what I can remember 10.04 (Lucid) had the first cut of Unity in the “netbook” edition of Ubuntu. Even in 10.10 (Maverick) I didn’t take to Unity. It wasn’t until 11.04 (Natty) that I started to see the design behind Unity.
The Switch
Being a little impatient waiting for Mint 11 (it comes out when it’s ready, usually a month after Ubuntu), I installed Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty) on all of my systems. It took some getting used to but after a bit of tweaking I found a set-up I liked and got used to the Unity interface despite the lack of customisation.
Many people moan about how Unity impedes usability, but for me I find it very effective with a little tweaking. I had previously been using Avant Window Navigator a lot (which I like), so the design and usability was very similar.
Why Unity?
The key for sticking with Ubuntu for me was my netbook. Back in May 2011 I was preparing for my cycle trip from London to Perth, and I spent some time setting up my netbook to take with me. What I liked about Unity was that it gave me more screen estate on my 1024×600 resolution screen. This was less of an issue on my desktop and laptop as they have much higher resolutions. On both of those I have the Unity bar showing permanently (ie no auto hide). So on my netbook I have the screen estate I want. And on my laptop and desktop I have the Unity bar permanently showing, so always know what is open. No loss of usability in my opinion.
Trying Linux Mint 12
While on my travels I spent a few weeks in Hanoi staying with my brother. This gave me the time to download Linux Mint 12 and try Linux with a Gnome3 set-up. It started off fairly disappointingly as upon booting up all I would get is a black screen. I could hear the start up sound, but didn’t get any visuals. After some playing around I got the live-usb to work although it wasn’t in the correct resolution. Not a problem, I managed to install Linux Mint 12 which was the important thing.
Gnome 3
The Mint theme is very slick, although my first thought was to lose the two bar set-up as I was losing a lot of my netbook’s vertical screen estate. This wasn’t a simple thing to do, so I skipped past it.
Trying to customize the panels I found as hard as Unity, ie you get very little control. The main issue I had with it was how it functioned. I found it unintuitive compared to Gnome2 or Unity. The design and layout of Gnome3 is clunky and poorly thought out in my opinion. It lacks direction which is probably reflected in the design changes applied to Gnome3. It’s a long way from the simplicity of Unity and Gnome2, and as Mint 12 has it set-up, with less screen estate too (I’ve read Mint 13 will have a single bar layout).
Mint’s saving grace and an excellent decision was including Mate (ie Gnome2) as part of the the release. For my folks it may still be a good option. For me though, I’m looking to move forward and have already adapted to Unity. If I weren’t to use Unity I would probably go with Gnome2 but instead of the panels, using Avant Window Navigator.
Sticking With Ubuntu
So for now I’m sticking with Ubuntu. Oneiric 11.10 was a good release and has been stable on my Asus EEE netbook. Unity is also working very well for me. My typical usage of browsing, listening to music, messaging and coding in Ruby has been fine in Unity. It is by no means perfect though. On occasion there are a few annoying bugs and issues (like the Unity bar not appearing) and the right-click menu on a launcher not functioning properly. Aside from those minor issues, it works very well. Hopefully come 12.04 those bugs will have been fixed and there will be more options that can be set as well as putting the Unity bar along the bottom rather than on the left.