 So, over the course of the last three years, I have had some fairly spicy Linux Mint takes. I have at one point called Linux Mint Useless. I've talked, I'm blue in the face about how I don't really care for their development path and I've talked about how Cinnamon is good, but the distribution itself doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so I have, like I said, had some spicy takes and I would also say that my views on it haven't, while they have evolved over the course of the last three years, they're not as evolved as some Linux Mint users would like them to be. Let's just put it that way. So what I wanted to do today was kind of codify my Linux Mint takes into one video and just kind of discuss why I don't really particularly care for Linux Mint all that much. Now, before we jump in, two things. First, if you leave a thumbs up on this video, I'd really appreciate it. Even you Linux Mint users out there who are no doubt frothing at the mouth. I'd appreciate a like from you because I think you'll probably not hate me as much as you think you will by the end of the video. But that's beside the point. And the second thing I just want to point this out. And this is if you take one thing away from this video, this is what you should take away. Use whatever you want to use my opinion as a Linux YouTuber as a Linux user as whatever as a human being does not have any influence over what you use or what you prefer to use, whether you like it or you don't like it, whatever, those are your opinions and you can have them just like I can have my opinions. All these are is just a fit opinions. I'm not spewing facts here, folks. This is just me. This is are the things that I think and that's all I can ever do. I can't say things that other people think so that would make no sense, whatever. Beside the point, right? Anyways, so use whatever it is that you want to use. If you are a diehard Linux Mint fan, I'm happy for you. I'm a diehard open Sousa fan. I don't know if you can actually see this. I have stickers to prove it. And I need to stop moving the microphone because I'm sure that's really annoying to people who use headphones. So also, my boom arm needs some tightening anyways. So if you are a Linux Mint fan, good, I'm happy for you. I like people to enjoy what they use just as much as I like to enjoy what I use. I take enjoyment out of other people enjoying what they use. So at the end of the day, use whatever you want. I'll be happy for you as long as you're happy for me, right? But that doesn't mean that I can't have some rather spicy opinions on Linux Mint itself. And that's what I want to kind of talk about today. So my biggest overall complaint about Linux Mint has been over the course of the last three years and remains that I don't think that they do a good job of developing their projects. Now that doesn't mean that they're bad developers. They're not. They're excellent developers. They have some fantastic projects out there. They are good stewards of open source projects that they didn't start but have taken over because they wanted to continue them. They are overall fantastic developers. But I have never agreed with their method of having two different distributions under the same name that it seems like they both get somewhat neglected by. So what I mean by that is that they have the main mothership, which is Linux Mint, and that is based on Ubuntu. It has three different editions, Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce. So they have three different ISOs that they maintain just for that one particular distribution, which is a lot for any distra maintainer to maintain, right? And especially one as popular and well thought out and well developed as Linux Mint, that still is a big project to maintain. But that's not all they do. Obviously they have all the side projects that they do in terms of applications and the things that go into Cinnamon itself because Cinnamon is also a Linux Mint project. You know, so they have all of that stuff that goes along with it, but they've also have another complete distribution that they maintain as well with its own editions. And that is the Linux Mint Debian edition. So my argument has been always that they have divided their focus on two different paths, basically, because they want to have a backup in case Ubuntu screws screws them. And while I can understand their qualms with canonical, despite the fact that they continue to use Ubuntu, and I understand that they don't want to have 100% trust, they don't put all they don't want to put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to developing the canonical based version of their base distro, right? They want to have something to fall back on in case that goes away. I understand that. But it feels like they decided that they weren't going to make a choice. They're going to do both. And by focusing on both, their attentions have come to the point where it feels like both have been somewhat neglected. They're both very slow, slow moving. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with a very slow and stable distribution. We all know that in terms of, you know, Debian, that is a slow and stable distribution. And it works just fine for them. And really, I mean, to be honest with you, probably they don't have to put much effort into developing the Debian version in between versions of Debian because Debian only comes out every two years or so. And, you know, not much goes into it between then in terms of actually from the development developer's perspective, the big work comes from the Debian project themselves. They're the guys doing the work on that stuff. So when it comes to my opinions on them dividing their efforts, I'm sure from a development perspective, they've done a good enough job of time management and all that stuff. But from a user perspective to me has always felt like they have decided that they want to do both. And sometimes it just feels like one is is more neglected than the other and it kind of switches back and forth. So that's always been just my opinion on it. I don't have any like scientific proof over any of that stuff, whether you know, so that's always just been my feeling. So take it as a grain of salt. That's that's my main argument against the next man is just it feels like they should pick one and that if they were to pick one, they'd be able to put more attention into the one that they picked and make it even better than they are separately. If that makes any sense. So that's my big argument for Linux, but there are others to be had. When it comes to the their reasons for having both the Ubuntu version and the Debian version, they've managed to make the two distributions as close to each other as possible. And why I think that that's a bad thing is that they put a lot of effort into making Ubuntu not Ubuntu. So they've taken out snaps. They've taken out a lot of the stuff they've used and started using their own repositories. All those things are perfectly fine. But basically what they're it feels like they're doing is trying to make Ubuntu as close to Debian as possible, which is silly considering that they have a Debian addition. They could just focus on that and how they have Debian. And if they wanted to have something that was a little bit more faster moving, they could actually have a development version that uses testing or whatever. They could do that if they wanted to, right? But because of the way they do it, it's just not the way they've it's just not the way they've chosen to do it. And it feels weird. If it feels like they've stripped out all the pieces that make Ubuntu Ubuntu, which then just leaves them with Debian, but with Ubuntu repositories, when they could very easily just use the Debian addition, add some Ubuntu repositories to it and just have one focus. And it would make things so much easier for them. Now, guys got to remember, I'm not a developer at all. So my opinions don't matter shit. Pardon the pardon my French, if you will, they just my opinions don't matter to these people to the developers, they shouldn't matter to the users. This is just me spewing stuff out of my mouth to make a video and expressing what I actually think. But at the end of the day, they can do whatever they want. But my reason rationale for not use for not recommending Linux Mint is that it makes it really hard to recommend a project that doesn't really seem to have a vision for where they want to go in terms of their distribution. Now, I think when I make an argument against Linux Mint, a lot of people think that I'm saying that Linux Mint is bad. But in terms of a distribution, I'm not an Ubuntu user. I'm not a Debian user. Now, I'd if I were to choose between Ubuntu and Debian, I would always choose Debian over Ubuntu. But that's just me. My argument has never been that Cinnamon itself, which is the primary flagship desktop environment for Mint and is developed by the Mint team is bad. My argument isn't that it's bad. In fact, Cinnamon is a fantastic desktop environment has always been a fantastic desktop environment. And while it does move slower than, you know, other desktop environments, that's not necessarily a bad thing. We see what happens when desktop environments move too fast, KDE, and end up being somewhat of a buggy mess. Sorry, KDE. I don't I don't mean to pick on you, but sometimes I do, right? So moving slow in terms of being a desktop environment doesn't make it a bad thing. And in fact, what I would say is that Cinnamon is kind of like the more modern version of XFC. XFC is my favorite desktop environment. But it is kind of outdated. And it really, really, I mean, the XFC guys take slow moving to another level. We all know that. So I've always thought of Cinnamon as a faster moving more modern version of XFC. Well, they're they're not obviously one to one. They're definitely different things. They do some things, at least in similar manner. It's kind of the same thing with Mate, right? They have some very obvious similarities in the way they do things and they move in a similar pace. Now, I think that Cinnamon is the golden gem of the Mint Empire, right? It's the thing that they have to hang their hats on. This is the thing that we've created. It's ours. And while, yes, you can get it on other distributions, it's if you want the premier cinnamon experience, you should use Linux Mint. That is their best argument for Linux Mint. And it's a good one because Cinnamon is a good desktop environment. So I think that when people hear me say I don't care for Linux Mint, what they're hearing is Mate doesn't like Cinnamon. That's not at all the thing. And really, when it comes down to the whole Mate not liking Mint, it's not that I don't care for the distribution itself. I'm not a Ubuntu user. If I were to use one, I'd use the Debian edition. Like I said, my dislike of it comes from their development, the way they do the development. The distribution itself is just fine. It works fine. If you're if you're interested in using a distribution based on Ubuntu or based on Debian, Mint is a good option for you because it installs very easily. It's obviously very, very stable, has access to a lot of software, doesn't comprehend to install the snaps, which is a plus in my books. So it has a lot of stuff going for it. It's just not for me because I don't really, I just don't really agree with the way that has been developed. But whenever I think about this, I have to ask myself this question. If it was developed the way that I'd want it to develop developed, they chose them. They made a decision. They made a choice. They choose either the Ubuntu version or the WNF. If they made that choice based on my recommendations, but they're not going to, and that's fine, they shouldn't. If they made that choice, would I then be happier with Linux Mint than I am now? And I think the answer to that question is yes, I think I'd be happier to use it because and I would go further and say I'd be happier to recommend it simply because it removes some of the confusion that some users may have when you're making a choice between the two different versions. Now, here's the thing is and you can tell that they've done this for a reason. When it comes to downloading links, if you go to their website, finding the LMDE ISO while not hard, it's not front and center. So they too have considered the fact that having two different versions can be a little bit confusing. So they have their main flagship versions very easily linked to on the front page. You can get to the download links very, very easily. The LMDE stuff is up in a menu that you actually have to know is there in order to access. Now, I think that's the way that it should be if they're going to continue down this course. But you can tell that my argument is at least somewhat valid in that they have at least considered having both of them up front for absolute equal choices amongst their users is not a grand idea because it just broadens the confusion of the user because we all know that the vast majority of people who use Linux Mint at least for the first time are going to be fairly new Linux users. Now, it doesn't mean that that's even their largest part of their audience. A lot of people come to Linux Mint after having used other Linux distros. So, you know, if they use Ubuntu or they use Arch or whatever, a lot of people end up on Linux Mint and use it as their daily driver and end up being Linux veterans using Linux Mint. There's nothing wrong with that. But one of the distributions that we recommend to new Linux users is Linux Mint. So they have taken into account the idea that having two different versions can be confusing. So they've buried one of them away, kind of made it the redheaded step child, if you will, they've they've moved it out of sight just a bit because it would take away from the main flagship, which is what they want people to pay attention to. So all of this goes to say is that I have my thoughts on Linux Mint are kind of all over the place. I truly understand that also go back to the thing that I said in the beginning is that my opinions on this don't matter. I the reason why I made this video is because I always get asked like, like people come across that video that I made in my first year of YouTubeing. It was my first viral video in the in the fact that it got like eight or 900 views at the point. So I made that video a few months before Distritube shouted out my channel on his channel. So before I got my first 1000 subscribers, and it was that Linux is useless video was the first one that got, you know, eight or 900 views. It was like, I was, by the way, freaking ecstatic when I got that much. I and I pissed people off on that video, even when it was first published. I didn't care. I thought it was awesome because I got 1000 views or close to 1000 views on that thing right out the gate. It was I thought I was MrBeast. It was nuts. But so I may even today people see that video and they leave comments on other videos asking me about my opinion on Linux mitt. So I thought I'd make something more recent that I could put out there and just say my opinions on Linux mitt don't really matter. They are nothing that you should take into account when making your choice because when it comes to my opinions, they're all based on how the development goes, right? And that most of that stuff doesn't affect the users whatsoever. For what it's worth, the direction of Linux mitt, they seem to do a fairly good job, even though they're arguing, even though their attention span is on both projects at the same time, they seem to do a good job of passing that time back and forth. We don't ever see a Linux mitt Debian edition take five or six months after the next the Debian version comes out that it's going to be based on. So they do a good job of pushing out the updates when they need to be updated. It's not like elementary OS where you can go three or four years without ever seeing an update even though many different versions of Ubuntu have come out since then, right? Even though you know it's still being developed, we just don't know when the next version is going to come out or if it will come out or if the project is still going to be around in a year. Linux mitt is here to stay obviously. And that's I think a good thing. And they do a good job of developing not only their distributions and their various projects. And at the end of the day, that's really all that matters. Some random dude on the interwebs making a YouTube video about Linux Mint at the end of the day doesn't have any impact on what they do or on your decision to use Linux Mint. So as I said at the beginning, use what you want to use. And those are just my opinions as such as they are. So yeah, that's it for this video. If you have any thoughts on all this stuff, you can leave those in the comment section below. I swear, though, if anybody threatens to murder me because of my opinions on Linux Mint, I will just shut the comments off. I actually think I've made almost 1000 videos. And of those 1000 videos, there's two that don't have comments on them. One, because YouTube would not accept comments on them, because apparently I can't make videos about alternative ways to watch videos on YouTube. So they turn the comments off on that for whatever reason, it stayed monetized for whatever. That's matter. That's the other one. And the other one is the Linux Mint. So those are the only two videos I've made that have the comments turned off. So don't make me add a third one. If you're gonna give me your opinions on Linux Mint and they're contrary to mine, be kind. And it's fine. I'm happy to have people disagree with me. So that's it for this video. If you liked it, again, thumbs up on the video. 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