<div dir="ltr">Some years ago, I tried installing Mate on Ubuntu from some PPA, but the result was not entirely satisfactory. No instability, but the help system wasn't ported, and there were other usability issues. I'm going to try Mate again now that I know there is a package for it in the Ubuntu Universe repository.<div><br></div><div>On Ubuntu, the Mate and xfce desktop environments are part of the Universe repository. The Universe repository is enabled by default on new Ubuntu installs. This repository isn't officially supported by Canonical, the way that Main and Restricted are, but I usually don't have a problem with software from Universe. Note that most of the software available by default in Ubuntu, including most of the software pulled from Debian, is in Universe.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't think that installing software packages from the Universe repository can be expected to cause instability, otherwise they wouldn't enable this repo by default. I've been running Ubuntu with multiple DEs installed for at least 10 years, haven't seen it to be a problem.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">I guess that with a DE-centric distro like Mint, you are getting full support from the distro maintainers for the DE. However, note that t</span>here are official Ubuntu variant distros for different desktop environments like KDE, Mate and XFCE. I assume these distros are just varying the default set of packages used by the base install, so if I install the 'kubuntu-desktop' package, I'm getting the same KDE with the same level of support as if I installed the Kubuntu distro?</div><div><div><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 16 August 2018 at 10:51, Ron Singh <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ronsingh149@gmail.com" target="_blank">ronsingh149@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Huh! I had no idea that ZFS was supported in native Ubuntu, I thought they stopped at XFS. Good to know.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>Doug, any reservations about having multiple DTs on one Linux install? I am fearful of dependencies stepping on each other and rendering an unstable system.<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="m_6989348021944003221gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks,<br><br>Ron Singh<br><br></div></div></div></div><div><div class="h5">
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 9:54 AM, doug moen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:doug@moens.org" target="_blank">doug@moens.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>The reason I stick with Ubuntu is that it has the largest software ecosystem.</div><div>* For me, the ZFS support is a requirement. That's not available in any other distro.</div><div>* For users of my open source project, the open source AMD GPU driver is too buggy, and the closed source driver, which works, is only supported on Ubuntu LTS, Red Hat and SUSE. (You can avoid this problem by getting an Nvidia GPU.)</div><div>* This doesn't affect me right now, but if you want to run commercial proprietary software on Linux, you have the most choices if you stick with the big 3, which are: Ubuntu LTS, Red Hat and SUSE.</div><div><br></div><div>I agree that you should choose the desktop environment that is right for you. However, I really hate the idea that I should install a different distro if I want to try out a different DE. Ideally, the choice of DE should be just be another package that you install.</div><div><br></div><div>In Ubuntu 18.04, I can use</div> $ apt-get install mate-desktop-environment<div>to install Mate, or</div><div> $ apt-get install xfce4<br></div><div>Then I can have multiple desktop environments available, and choose one when I log in.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 15 August 2018 at 17:25, Ron Singh <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ronsingh149@gmail.com" target="_blank">ronsingh149@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,255)">I really appreciate their choice to adopt a lot of the basic window management keyboard shortcuts/etc.This really takes away a lot of the cognitive 'switching desktops' friction out for me... </span>"<br><br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Exactly! I really appreciated Mint's efforts to give great control to the user on the types of updates to apply and their key bindings. After almost 2 years of using GNU/Linux primarily with Xfce and Cinnamon DTs, I have the following perspective --<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">- Xfce ---> Intuitive efficiency, the desktop does *not* get in the way, the desktop to go fast and play hard, viscerally lean<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">- Mate --> Intuitive, albeit somewhat plodding as one maneuvers to the command to execute<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">- Cinnamon --> Pure visual nom-noms that is still intuitive, easy to negotiate, superb contextual video/audio switching, all at a reasonable hit on RAM and CPU utilization<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">- Gnome3 --> WTF??? I have to fight though my rage as I try to do some sort of a "system-level" query/command without invoking th terminal<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">- KDE(Plasma5) - Wow...Just way too busy for me with significant CPU/Memory utilization which hurts a laptop battery life something fierce.<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> <br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">I went exclusively laptop back in 2006, so I have no idea how these DTs would play on juicier desktop/tower systems.<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> <br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="m_6989348021944003221m_3109736250484416230m_6464178828614732117gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks,<br><br>Ron Singh<br><br></div></div></div></div><div><div class="m_6989348021944003221m_3109736250484416230h5">
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Stuart Seeley <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stuart@lowlevel.ca" target="_blank">stuart@lowlevel.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">I've suffered through a lot of broken distributions over the past 20 odd years... and I have to say I'm really impressed with Mint 18.2.<div><span style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">For me, it truly is the first time I completed the installation and almost nothing was broken... </span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Side note:As someone who has to work with Windows everyday, I really appreciate their choice to adopt a lot of the basic window management keyboard shortcuts/etc.</div><div>This really takes away a lot of the cognitive 'switching desktops' friction out for me... <br></div><div><br></div><div>Stuart</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 10:18 AM, Ron Singh <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ronsingh149@gmail.com" target="_blank">ronsingh149@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Agreed -- back in November 2016 when I decided to try this Linux thing my only visibility into Linux was a Live Ubuntu 10.04 cd that I booted, stared uncomprehendingly at for a few minutes and went back to my Windows XP. That was 8 years ago. Flash forward to late 2016 where I tossed distro after distro, at least 40 onto 3 low-cost laptops to see which one(s) fitted my sensibilities. It was a HUGE learning opportunity for me, not just from a for and fit standpoint, but something of the innards of the Linux communities online.<br><br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">I settled on Mint 18.2 where *nothing* is broken and OpenSUSE 42.3.<br><br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Not sure if it's me and my very limited knowledge, but I have a number of frustrations with anything based off Ubuntu 18.04, seems like the early point releases of Debian 9-based distros and distros built on Ubuntu 16.04.1/.2/.3 have fared well for me. Fedora made me cry, too many barriers to entry for me,<br><br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">So, as a 22-monto noob, I would highly recommended Mint 18.2 preferably with Xfce. Cinnamon is quite appealing too and would be an excellent desktop if he has a laptop/desktop from a recent vintage.<br></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="m_6989348021944003221m_3109736250484416230m_6464178828614732117m_3382148007431929070m_4428407419193770102gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks,<br><br>Ron Singh<br><br></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:53 PM, William Park via kwlug-disc <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kwlug-disc@kwlug.org" target="_blank">kwlug-disc@kwlug.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I think the best way to start learning Ubuntu (and Linux) is by using<br>
it. Pick a task he would do in Windows, and try doing that in Linux.<br>
-- <br>
William Park <<a href="mailto:opengeometry@yahoo.ca" target="_blank">opengeometry@yahoo.ca</a>><br>
<br>
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:01:32PM -0400, Daniel Allen wrote:<br>
> Hi folks. I have a friend who is moving to Sault Ste Marie (to start at<br>
> Algoma) in a few weeks. He's also just now deciding he'd like to switch<br>
> from Windows to Ubuntu. There doesn't seem to be any LUG in the Sault. But<br>
> does anybody happen to know any LUG-type people up there?<br>
> I'm not sure what to advise him about starting with Ubuntu- he might be<br>
> able to get himself up and running ubuntu himself, but it'd be easier with<br>
> some community...<br>
> Thanks for any contacts I can pass along.<br>
> -Daniel<br>
<br>
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