 Way back when I first started this YouTube channel. I was doing a Phenomenal job of picking titles that were very how would you say click baity and like I said, I was doing a good job at it and For the most part some of them videos did very well in terms of Or at least in context of it being a very new channel I was getting you know 30 40 views on some of those videos and that was like I'm getting 30 40 views and now I'm getting like a thousand views on videos and I don't know what to do with all those views It's fantastic. Thanks everybody for watching and all that kind of stuff, but back then I was phenomenally happy when a video got 30 or 40 views because The vast majority of the videos especially like the podcast and stuff like that got five or six views so, you know, I was doing everything I could in terms of Manipulating YouTube in order to get some views and that's just what youtubers do One of the videos I did really really pissed a lot of people off and it continues to piss people off to this day I still got a lot of views in this video and a lot of comments that are just very very Angry because of the title of this video and the video is This one Linux Mint is a useless distro. I argued that and in about 15 minutes It was a 15 minute long video and you can tell how long it is based by How old the graphics are which I haven't used these graphics in a long time? This came out in December of 26 December 16th 2020. So this is one of my very first videos I wouldn't be surprised if it's like the 10th video I ever did and this thing has gotten 2,200 views now The vast majority of those came after DistroTube did a shout-out, but Before that I still had like six or seven hundred views like in like early February or so So within a you know a couple months this thing did like five or six hundred views And that was just huge mungus for this channel at that time and like I said This video still gets a ton of views now look at this like dislike ratio. This is by far my most disliked view Video 32 likes 83 dislikes. It's just Even the one that I did most recently the one where I said I was switching to Microsoft Edge Which by the way, this is still Microsoft Edge Even that one got over a hundred likes and only like 30 or 40 dislikes I mean it was the the ratio was much more in the positive realm of positivity or whatever, you know This one here pissed a lot of people off even people who don't like mint Didn't like this video and I don't think that anybody actually watched the video the Average watch time is only like 30 or 40 seconds on this thing So they didn't actually get to the main conclusion of the video Which I'll talk about here in a minute minute, so they just see the title and stop watching now You have to be wondering For those of you who are actually still watching because I'm sure I'm gonna title this video something just as as inflammatory as I titled the other video, but you had to be wondering what's the purpose of you making a new video about Linux Mint and Despite the fact that I've now spent five minutes talking about a video about Linux Mint I'm actually going to talk a little bit about Linux Mint because December 2020 was a quite a long time ago. We're coming up on a year and I'm a much more observant objective Linux user than I was at that point. I was very opinionated then I was very much a arch user I'm much less Entrenched in the cult of arch users than I was at that point So the question I have and what I want to answer today, which is finally getting to the topic of the video Do I still think Linux Mint is a US a useless distro and the answer to that is I kind of do so my Despite me being a more objective Linux user than I was before I still think that I have many problems with the way the developers for Linux Mint do their business and It takes a certain amount of arrogance. I will admit to Proclaim that the Linux Mint dev team are doing a bad job when I put no effort into improving Linux Mint I understand the irony and the hypocrisy and arrogance all that kind of stuff Frankly Linux Mint can do whatever hell they want to do. I don't care. I'm not gonna use it I'm not gonna point anybody towards using it and my main reason why is because I have a I Have opinions on the way Linux Mint does their stuff and mostly I think it's that they spend time constantly reinventing themselves and constantly reinventing things that they don't need to reinvent things like things like a file renaming tool things like an IPTV application, which is just a weird thing to spend time on Unless it's just a hobby, but it didn't feel like a hobby. It felt like a I mean they touted it in our release notes a couple times you know a year ago or something and as if it was a High-end feature of their application. It's just really weird, right and not that it's not cool It is cool, but it's still really weird It's when you have other problems that you can solve within your own distro spending time on that doesn't seem like a great use of time and I Think my feelings on Linux Mint would be a little bit less inflammatory if they didn't just feel like Ubuntu, you know if they feel like an Ubuntu release that has Only existed because they don't like Ubuntu and I mean that's an okay reason to exist. It just feels I Don't know a lot of their stuff feels petty to me They don't really feel like they have good reasons for the reason why they don't like Ubuntu and they also have this side project called LMD, so that's Linux Mint Debut Edition and It feels like a guy's dating You know a pretty girl but has a mistress on the side, you know, you know they've committed to Ubuntu but Not so much that they don't have this side Gig over on the you know on the side To focus on it whenever they feel like it, you know whenever Ubuntu is boring or has pissed them off They go do some work on LMDE and I think that split focus is what kind of just Turns me off a little bit. Just makes me feel a little Weird about the whole project because I asked myself Why does Linux Mint exist and a lot of people use Linux Mint and for good reason It's not a terrible distro, but the real reason I think people use Linux Mint is because Cinnamon exists cinnamon desktop is fantastic. It's really good. It's developed by the the mint team And if you're coming from Windows, there's not a single desktop environment. I can think of Maybe Zoran, but they're shady as fuck. I think There's not there's very few let's put it that way very few Linux is that Linux desktop environments that You can go to from Windows and feel like you're kind of still in Windows and cinnamon is one of those and You can go to older desktop environments that kind of look like Windows, but they're just that they're older and they Feel older Xfce has some traits that Windows has but it's Older, you know mate. You can tell is Older, you know it's Based on an old paradigm And that's not necessarily a bad thing again, but you can tell it Cinnamon feels like a very modern desktop. It is based on the Linux or this is based on the Windows way of doing things so I kind of meandered off the topic but The thing is about Linux Mint is that they have these two diverging paths and It feels as long as they're focused on both of them and kind of have this backup as an LMDE that they have That their focus is always going to be split. There's a reason why They always feel a little bit behind Ubuntu because they're not focusing entirely on Ubuntu and There it always feels like LMDE is kind of abandoned every once in a while because it you know, yeah it gets releases but It doesn't feel like it's their focus it feels like a side hustle and that's exactly what it is That's my entire problem with Linux Mint is that their focus doesn't feel like It's in the right place and I don't I can't even dictate which is the right place I mean just choose one, you know if you're gonna be based on Ubuntu But pull all the stuff that makes Ubuntu Ubuntu out of it snaps basically I mean, that's what Ubuntu has become is Ubuntu has become a A front-end for the snap ecosystem. That's what Ubuntu has become and The Linux Mint guys don't like that. So they still base themselves on Ubuntu, but they rip out snaps So they're kind of like Ubuntu before snaps became a thing. I mean, which is you know, whatever I mean, that's the way you want to focus focus on that don't have the side hustle Or if you really don't like the way Ubuntu does things and you like Debian go focus on the Debian stuff one or the other why focus on both especially when you're such a small team and you're you're The developers are constantly complaining about not having enough time to develop on things I mean, they're always making blog posts and stuff like that about how they don't want to They don't have enough time to focus on the things that matter, but they're always focusing on these the two diverging paths it's very very weird and This video has just become one giant rant against Linux Mint and I didn't want to be the negative guy because this video is gonna Have just as many down votes as that video had back in December, probably even though I feel like I'm a little bit more popular of a youtuber, but I Don't want to be the guy who says well Linux mix sucks because Linux Mint doesn't suck. It's a good distro. It's just I Have philosophical oppositions oppositions not the right the word philosophical Differences that's the word I was looking for I have philosophical differences with the way the mint team does their work it just feels fractured to me and Linux is fractured enough. You don't really need as a team. They really need to laser focus on one way or the other That's my opinion and that's what this whole thing is is it's an opinion, right? I Don't have an event dead against Linux Mint. I want them to succeed Thinking that I have some kind of some of the comments in that video are like why do you hate Linux Mint? Why do you want them to fail? Like I don't want them to fail I want them to be successful because they're a very popular distro And I want them to focus on the things that will make them even more pop, you know more popular I think it's a fantastic idea to have an Ubuntu distro That is more popular than Ubuntu itself because I don't like GNOME. I Despise GNOME way more than I despise Linux Mint and because I don't despise Linux Mint at all But I do despise GNOME and Ubuntu uses GNOME So, you know, if I had it be forced to use Ubuntu I'd have to use one of their, you know flavors and That's why I think that a Linux distro that's based on Ubuntu that is Separate from what Ubuntu does is a good idea. I also think that Linux distro based on Ubuntu that does a really good job of a desktop environment because I'm using Debian right now And they don't do a good job with desktop environments at all. They give you a lot of choice You can install your own, but they're all very default. They don't do anything for customization You have to do all that stuff yourself, which you know fine and dandy, but it's that not new user friendly So if a Linux distro based on Debian that has a beautiful desktop environment sign me up but choose one I mean Choose one choose one. I mean, that's that's that's what I want them to do is to choose one So that is it for this video I've gone on for 15 minutes. I mean it's almost by the time I'm done with this video will almost be precisely the exact length of the Video I did back in December. It's gonna be hilarious I wonder if I can actually get them to be the exact exact link. That'd be hilarious, but I doubt it But anyways, thank you for watching before I go If you want to get in contact with me you can do so at the Linux cache You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast. I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris east coast web gen 2 is fun to Marcus Magland Sven Jack's nice and tool Mitchell mr. Fox art center American camp. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time