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Fixing The Unbroken

Posted in Linux on January 10, 2009 at 5:10 pm

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m attempting to download the Windows 7 beta for the eighth time, while desperately trying to find something to occupy my time that isn’t on my massive “to do” list. I’m bored with Spore, I’ve already been to the gym and I’ve overplayed Guitar Hero. I need a distraction like thinkabouttech.com needs more writers.

One thing that I’ve been meaning to do for a while is upgrade my main machine - I’m still using the Ubuntu 8.04 based Linux Mint “Elyssa” as my operating system, which has now been superseded by the 8.10 based “Felicia”. I’m also still using OpenOffice 2.4, despite everyone going on about how good OO 3.0 is. Yet, I haven’t upgraded either. There are two big reasons for my tardiness - one is that I don’t need the new features offered and two is that my setup is damned near perfect! It boots quickly, I have access to everything I need, it’s stable and is still current enough to get the latest security updates. I find you need a good reason to update - usually something breaking or a feature that you really need, none of which apply to me. As they say - if it’s ain’t broke - don’t fix it! So for this weekend, I’ll be avoiding the upgrade and will play with the cat instead.

However, just for fun, let’s assume I am upgrading. I’ve been pondering over sticking with Mint Linux, or just moving back to Ubuntu. I really like Mint Linux because out of the box it’s how I want it, but I could summarise in two reasons as to why I like it over Ubuntu. One, it comes with the Medibuntu repositories as standard, which gives you better media encoding/decoding and two, the start menu - I really like the start menu, it’s a lot better than the classic Gnome.

However, just as Ubuntu is often accused of not putting enough back into the Debian/Linux code-base - why isn’t Mint making it’s code part of the Ubuntu code-base? It wouldn’t be hard to make the Mint start menu a package that any Ubuntu user could install. I can’t help but feel they are making a lot of work for themselves, especially when they reinvent the wheel in several places. So when I do come round to upgrade, I think I’m going to be heading back towards Ubuntu…

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Comments

Comment by Jof Arnold - January 10, 2009 on 5:14 pm

Big improvements to nautilus mem leak issues in 8.10 over 8.04 though. Suggest you at least upgrade that/gnome.

Comment by Spode - January 10, 2009 on 5:36 pm

Well, if there are - they haven’t been affecting me! Surely these would have been patched in cumulative updates?

Comment by Colin - January 10, 2009 on 7:52 pm

I also agree sometimes it is best not to upgrade if everything you want is working. I stayed with 6.06 for ages on my laptop and only moved to 8.10 for the 3G support.

On the other hand, being new, shiny and having the latest and greatest can be fun

Pingback by Posts about Guitar Hero as of January 10, 2009 | Guitar Hero 3 - January 10, 2009 on 8:38 pm

[…] strong class=keywordHero/strong had seen a rise in download sales of 15-843%.The game had proved Fixing The Unbroken - itpro.co.uk 01/10/2009 Fixing The Unbroken By Andrew Miller in Editorial Posted in Linux on […]

Comment by kamikazejoe - January 10, 2009 on 9:41 pm

How about the pursuit of knowledge as a reason?

Who wants a system that is working completely right? I’d be miserable.

Studying for tests and certificates aside, We computer geeks learn the most when are forced to figure out what went wrong.

Don’t you agree? Or do I have to remind you of the time you deleted COMMAND.COM on your old DOS machine?

Comment by Mark - January 11, 2009 on 11:37 am

Now downloading the mint 6 iso with a view to creating a package in my PPA to provide the nice menu for Intrepid…may or may not work…I think it is written in Python so shouldn’t be too hard to duplicate for Intrepid

Comment by Mark - January 11, 2009 on 11:42 am

Just found an article entitled “Get mintInstall, mintMenu and mintDesktop on Ubuntu” here: http://helpforlinux.blogspot.com/2008/09/get-mintinstall-mintmenu-and.html

Stick with Ubuntu and have some minty freshness too…

Pingback by blog.mled.me » Business Implications of a Linux Ethos - January 11, 2009 on 6:01 pm

[…] valuable than money, especially in the current economic downturn. Yesterday Andrew (Spode) Miller wrote about his happiness to stay sat at an out-dated version of Linux Mint and not waste his time […]

Comment by Spode - January 12, 2009 on 12:53 pm

kamikazejoe - you’re totally right. But when you’ve got other projects on the go satisfying that need, sometimes you just want a working machine