 Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel today. I'm going to be talking a little bit about Linux Mint now Linux Mint has a tendency to put their Foot in their mouth they have foot mouth syndrome a lot Last year they got into a big brouhaha with canonical over the chromium snap. They've Gone back and forth over whether or not Linux Mint either wants to exist like their main developer has Written many times or at least a couple times over how he's you know, sick and tired of the distro and May not want to develop it anymore And and that has put people up in arms because people really like that's next minute and Linux Mint is a good distro. I have my own problems with it. I think they should have focus issues But those are all beside the point this time The matter is updates they came out in their most recent blog blog post or in a recent blog post and Said this Now this is from its floss. I have the actual Blog posts up here and I'll link to it in the video description But I just thought I would read this out here because there's one word here and I've already highlighted it, you know, but In some cases the update manager will be able to remind you to apply updates Not a big deal. All update managers reminds you to apply updates Pac-Man has a Thing called Pemac that actually runs in the background Has a demon that runs in the background and reminds you updates Ubuntu's reminds you of updates They have a nag bar that comes out to even LTS users to remind them to update to upgrade Not a big deal. So so far so good in a few of them it might even insist This is where they're gonna get in trouble. This is where they've caused a lot of Internet angst Because the word insist usually means they're not going to take no for an answer insist has meaning it only really has one meaning you can't you know find some other meaning for it to mean something else it mean usually means we're going to insist you do these updates and We're gonna keep insisting until you do the updates and there's no way to Say no, that's usually what insist means And not usually that is what insist means We don't want it to be dumb or getting your way though. So You're already walking it back a little bit. It's here to help if you are handling things your way It will detect smart patterns and usages So basically if you are already updating it's not going to Nag you as much as it would other people. I guess It will also be configurable and let you change the way it set up. So that last sentence it Is usually the sentence that has been ignored by other Linux media outlets Because there's been a ton of headlines saying Linux Mint is going to force you to upgrade in this one You know this one here's Linux Mint is going to force you to upgrade just like Windows I could see how you'd say that because the word insist has meaning remember it has one specific meaning It doesn't have any other meanings The sentence here it will also be configurable and let you change the way it set up Usually means that they're going to allow you to turn this off. So usually when it comes to updates everything in terms of their naggable things that allow them to send you updates and Notifications those things are all turned on by default. That's standard practice across all Linux distros You can turn them off That's also standard practice practice and it looks like it's going to be the case here You can turn this off But because of the way they've phrased it they've used that word insist they've Caused a lot of drama that is completely unnecessary Because of that one word they've basically said we're going to force you to update we're not going to take no for answer because again, that's what insist means and Yeah, we're gonna allow you to turn it off, but Maybe we're not it gets even more complicated than this because they created this brew ha ha with this blog post here and then they had to go through and change, you know They had to go through and write another blog post or something that they've sent out to some media outlets here This is from Clem. He's the main developer on Linux Mint I'm gonna read this out because I want people to hear this and wonder just what the hell he's talking about because And all you had to do was come out and say no, we're not gonna force people to update We want people to update as much as possible. Therefore, we've created a system that is going to persist and Nag I guess nag I mean that there'd be another word that they could use it's nicer than nag, but they're gonna consistently Notify users of updates and You can turn this off or whatever. I mean, obviously they could put it in some kind of PR, you know spiel or whatever, but That's not what they did here. They've muddied the waters many users think that users should be applied But don't do it often Either because they haven't gotten around to automate the process or they thought they do it often But they don't or for some reason or for some They even got used to that little orange dot in their system tray and don't really pay attention to it anymore Given these users giving these users a reminder after a while is something they might appreciate They're the people we're doing this for So basically this this Paragraph here is just saying there are people who don't update we're gonna start nagging them to update again, not a problem with that every Distribution does that I Don't I mean, I'm pretty sure Linux Mint already does that I mean because it's I mean, of course they do I mean They do I'm sure they do some users don't update because they decide not to some of them need to Some of them don't need to maybe they're offline or running limited functionality and safe environments These are usually corporate customers Some of them don't want to by choice, which is kind of repeating the first sentence But okay, some of them take updates at particular moments and in particular condition for instance on a critical production You don't apply to updates randomly You do so when you're fully ready and available reminding someone who already knows he's not interested Just leads to frustration. So we don't want to target users like this This is the first Bonacotention I have with them there when he's talking about here is they've decided that they're going to somehow come up with a system That determines what kind of user you are How they're going to do that haven't said maybe they don't know themselves. Whatever where they're gonna get that information I don't know. I mean, it's really weird really vague maybe a little creepy Because there's gonna be some kind of demon on your computer that's paying attention to when you update and if you don't update often enough or Whatever it should just nag you and you know, if that was the way it was, you know, fine Whatever you haven't updated in a while. It gives you a notification But this makes it feel like it's somehow monitoring you and Paying attention to your patterns and they're gonna try to do some kind of AI bullshit or whatever It's weird and it gets weirder. Some users don't update because it's not them who installed or maintain their OS basically gives a Example of installing on a dad's computer Whatever Anyway, the bottom line is this we know we have very different groups of users We know tuning the software too much for one particular group can antagonize the others We're doing this for that first group of people First of all, what first group of people? Oh The way he's when he says that he's talking about the first group of people I mentioned up here the people who are Who don't think to do it very often. I guess is what he's talking about here and Well, obviously also have everyone in mind you can't please everyone Clem you just can't First update manager will try to assess what kind of user you are Creepy because before it reminds you of this it will want to know whether or not you're likely to want to be reminded How are you gonna figure that out? I? Want to know everyone wants to know it's a little creepy Second like anything else that is useful to some but potentially annoying to others You will be able to configure things the way you want That last again, they saved the best part for the last sentence The matter what they do no matter what? Magic they put in the background to try to determine what kind of user you are which again is weird they buried the lead in Fixing their PR problem their PR problem was we're going to insist you do updates That was their PR problem the solution to fixing that PR problem is what we're gonna nag you more often to do updates but We're gonna allow you to turn this off if you don't want to You can make the choice just like you can on every other Linux distribution. That was how you fix it That's how you get away from the weird PR mess that they managed to always get themselves in Instead he spent four paragraphs here talking about Why people don't want to do updates and different scenarios about why they wouldn't want to do updates and then Explaining some very vague solution. They've come up with to determine whether or not you're kind of the kind of person Who wants to do updates or not and then? Very less sentence they fixed the problem The PR problem. It's just so weird. Linux Mint has some issues Huh, I like Linux Mint more than I used to After my first video I could In my first video about links man. I called a useless distro. I Recanned to that in my next video when I actually reviewed the damn thing and I realized that the reason why Linux Mint exists is because of Cinnamon the cinnamon desktop cinnamon desktop is very very very good Not for me, but I can understand if you're coming from Windows. Do you want something that looks like and feels like Windows? Cinnamon is a good Option for that. There's not very many good options like that unless you're going to go into like something like the Zoran or something You I mean Ubuntu doesn't look anything like Windows. So, you know My solution was just use Ubuntu, but it doesn't look anything like Windows So that's the reason why cinnamon exists. That's why Linux Mint is perfectly fine to exist I still think that they have a focus problem. They should probably focus on the Debian edition. I think that that's a better Area for them to focus on They also do some weird like outside of the box apps like a IPTV Application that they've somehow decided to code. That's really weird So, I mean I have my own problems with links, but I think my biggest problem is their developers are Weird like I mean everybody's weird, right? Yeah, I'm not the the poster boy for malady No, I mean I have Harry Potter things on the wall I mean everyone has their quirks, but I think somehow there's like a Some kind of barrier between them being able to Say what they want in a way that doesn't piss a whole bunch of people off Don't use that word insist it it's good insist implies force implies Not taking no for an answer and they use the word and that's what pissed people off and then in their walkback statement They made it worse. They went through and and just pushed out babble at you like It was like maybe what 500 words or something. Maybe not even that of What I mean, I don't even know I mean they're talking about some kind of system that they're setting up but They had exactly one sentence in there that fixed the problem Like we're going to allow you to turn this off. That's how you fix it. And that's the way it should be I mean there's other lies. They have no problems. That's what whatsoever with this very weird announcement anyways That's just I just a lot of times. I don't cover news But this one I felt like I had to get out there a couple of because Linux Mint is not going to force you to do updates It's not no matter what kind of weird System they come up with to determine whether or not they should nag you to do updates They're not gonna force you to do updates. They can't okay I mean, I suppose technically they could just turn on automatic updates by default that piss a lot of people off But you could still go in and turn that off. That's an option. I mean, it's easy option to you know do So that they're not going to force you to do this I mean because it said even if they went through and turned on automatic updates You could still turn it off and you just think you just use your system the way you want to do it That's the Linux way their problem comes in and communicating how they're going to move forward and try to get more people to update their systems The way they did it was just weird so Without all that I mean, let's just move on to the The social shall we follow us on Twitter Twitter comm slash Linux cast Facebook comm slash Linux cast you can also Support us by subscribing to the channel hitting the notification icon Bell or by going to patreon comm slash Linux cast where you'll find all sorts of Different perks depending on what tier you choose to support us as tier two and three Patrons will get early access to our podcast and coming up very soon You'll get early access to all of our videos outside of these news ones obviously because I like to post those right to the YouTube channel, but You can get all those perks by going to patreon comm slash Linux cast and I'd like to thank our current patrons Devon see and Marcus B I call these producers, but I mean that's just because that's what youtubers call patrons. Anyways, thanks fellas Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time