On Thu, 2009-05-21 at 10:37 -0700, Rob Saul wrote: > Michael Robinson wrote: > > What is the 411 on Linux Mint? Supposedly it is an Ubuntu derivative, > > but that isn't much to go on.
> My only gripe with Linux Mint was the way it handled upgrades, or rather > didn't. This was circa ~ a year ago. The Ubuntu 9.04 desktop image is fairly small compared to Linux Mint Universal. I thought main wasn't for me because I want to put this on an ftp site. I run CentOS 5.3, but it doesn't keep up with the latest Mesa drivers and so it doesn't support a lot of programs. I tried googling for some comparisons between Ubuntu and CentOS and I have to say a comment that CentOS is for people who want Redhat Enterprise Linux that can't afford it rings true, but RHE seems to be so far behind Ubuntu. I realize that an enterprise class system may not need to be on the cutting edge graphics wise, but that is assuming that it isn't an X server. Yeah, I'm one to stick with the same Linux installation for a couple of years, but frankly I find CentOS's antiquated Mesa annoying. I also find it annoying that a lot of old programs one wants to run under WINE won't work on CentOS because of the Mesa issue. As far as the updates issue, if you replace with a new release every 6 months there is no need to update. I guess comparing Fedora to Ubuntu would be more of an apples to apples comparison as would comparing Fedora to Mint. One program I've had particular difficulty with is the original release of Red Alert Command and Conquer which was programmed for Windows 95. I tried wine, it would install but not run. I tried openredalert and another defunct project, they don't work. I tried Windows 98SE on top of vmware workstation 6. That didn't work. I finally installed it on an old computer running 98SE natively. 98SE, even with the open source service pack, is annoying because it crashes a lot. I have the original Warcraft running under freedos natively which is nice because it runs full screen. I'm assuming that Warcraft I is abandonware, but that is somewhat risky. I don't recommend running freedos on anything that is older than a Pentium, I had problems getting fdupdate to work on a 486. Switching between freedos and Windows 98 is somewhat annoying, but it turns out I needed to install my SB16 PCI card under 98 in order to get my hands on the driver for freedos. I wish the freedos community would replace Windows 98 with something that runs on top of freedos, but who knows when let alone if that's going to happen. I'm more concerned about how long it is taking for Freedos 1.1 to come out. I'm interested in Ubuntu and Mint from the standpoint of will WINE work better and will I be free from having to resort to running Freedos or Windows 98SE natively? Some problems like dosbox not wanting to go full screen are probably unsolvable. Ideally, some of these popular dos and Windows games get cloned. Sadly, the freecraft project for example got crushed. There is ReactOS, but it is a clone of NT which has never been a good choice for Windows 9x/dos games. ReactOS probably won't reach beta this year :-( My concern about ReactOS is that in newsletter after newsletter the word seems to be, we are replacing this or we are replacing that and running into trouble because we broke xyz. They are trying to program in the dark, how successful can they be? _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
