Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

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kunta

Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by kunta »

Hello. some days ago, I moved from Windows 7 to Ubuntu.

At this point, I found Ubuntu to habe many, many unbearable bugs (details at the end), so I want to move to another distro.

-It should be a mainstream distro, so it haves wide support, and is easy to find solutions with google, tapping other users experience.
-It needs to be stable.
-Newbie friendly. Maybe Windows user friendly.
-I prefer doing anything with GUI, if possible, including mounting partitions.
-Needs to have a large amount of compatible installation packages. GUI for installation and removal is preferred.
-Should be easy to install, with GUI. But I want to control the partitions it uses (size of SWAP).

I tried an online test to pick a distro, but it recommends me Kubuntu, Linux Mint, and Ubuntu. And I do not trust these distros because of Ubuntu bugs.
I had being eyeing Linux Mint. But I'm scared of it because I read that Mint is Ubuntu tweaked, so I think that it carries or will carry Ubuntu bugs in the future. I'm wrong? What the Mint Community haves to tell me?

My PC is a i7 920 4 cores 8 threads, 6Gb of RAM, 250 GB SSD+ 1Tb HD, Gforce GTX 670 (2Gb). Important: uses an USB wireless network card to get Internet access, and I need to print via a network printed plugged to a windows PC.





Some bugs I found on Ubuntu:
-Failed to install grub at installation time.
-Clock dissapears from the screen sometimes.
-Trouble installing Google Earth. It worked some days, and then stopped working and was impossible to fix. Probably related to a deprecated 32 bit library when running the 64 bit version. But I was not able to fix it with app-get as advised by many websites I googled.
-Frequently clicking on an icon of the bar does nothing. Other times it opens a new instance of the software, but other times switches to the application (as expected). Is not predictable. If many instances are open, sometimes does nothing, and sometimes lets me choose what instance to switch.
-Sometimes switching applications with alt+tab does not shows some applications running.
-Goes to sleep, even when I did anything I googled to stop it from sleeping (caffeine -launchpad.net/caffeine- doesn't works, acpi=off on grub does nothing, etc). I can't leave it uploading/downloading files at night. Many energy options are not available. (I read somewhere that may be caused by swap file being not larger than RAM installed. But Ubuntu installer choose the size of the swap file, so it is an Ubuntu bug)
-Had trouble detecting and installing a network printer shared by a windows PC. After many trials with exactly the same procedure, it worked.
-Sometimes uses a lot of CPU for no reason (Firefox may be the guilty. Not sure about that).
-Sometimes the screen blinks, and I see other application for microseconds lapse. May be caused by the official nvidia driver instead of the one installed by Ubuntu.
-Does haves no control for extra mouse buttons. First days after installation, extra mouse buttons worked as forward and backward buttons on Internet browsers (FFox and chrome). Today they do nothing, even when I made no modification to anything mouse related. I would prefer to use these buttons for copy and paste (ctrl+C and ctrl+v).
-Sometimes the wireless network stops working, and the only way to reconnect is rebooting. It worked far better than under windows, anyways.

I also miserably failed to mount a RAID0 made with Windows 7 (software windows raid. No bios/chipset support). But probably Ubuntu is not guilty. Just useless.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
gtsfer

Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by gtsfer »

You might try Linux Mint Debian Edition. I absolutely LOVE it. Google Earth (ia32-libs - broken package) is easy to fix, I've done it thanks to help on these forums. It's Debian based, not Debian -> Ubuntu -> Mint as "standard" Linux Mint is. And a it's a "rolling release". Try the live DVD first, see what works in that mode. The latest release is very stable imho. I think it addresses all of your issues.
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xenopeek
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Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by xenopeek »

While I think most of the problems you described might be pinned to the desktop environment (the user interface to your operating system), they could also have another cause. Ubuntu uses Unity. Linux Mint gives you the choice between Cinnamon, KDE, MATE, and Xfce. That might already give you a different experience.

You don't mention which release of Ubuntu you tried. Was it 13.10. or 12.04? 13.10 is a development release, most suitable for power users and enthusiasts that don't mind the occasional fudge. 12.04 is the long-term support release, most suitable for users that don't want to upgrade their operating system every 6 months (as you are required to do with the development releases) and prioritize stability above having the newest release of your software.

Linux Mint 13 is the current long-term support release of Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu 12.04. It's supported till April 2017. Linux Mint 16 is the current development release, supported till July this year. Linux Mint 17 is the next long-term support release, it will be released around May/June this year and will be supported 5 years. Every 2 years a long-term support release is done, giving you plenty of opportunities to jump to a new version of your operating system.

As recommended by gtsfer, LMDE might also be an option. It's based on Debian, so cuts out the middle man (Ubuntu gets most of its packages from Debian also). That said, it's based on Debian testing release. If you only care about stability, I can only recommend you skip all this and just run Debian 7 (the stable release). Debian stable (6 though) is also used on the international space station, and it's still flying :wink:
kunta wrote:I also miserably failed to mount a RAID0 made with Windows 7 (software windows raid. No bios/chipset support). But probably Ubuntu is not guilty. Just useless.
I don't use Windows at home, so can't help with this one. But I doubt you can get such things set up without going into the terminal a few times. If this is very important to you, perhaps just stick with Windows 7. Nothing wrong with using the tool that works best for you.
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kunta

Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by kunta »

gtsfer wrote:You might try Linux Mint Debian Edition. I absolutely LOVE it. Google Earth (ia32-libs - broken package) is easy to fix, I've done it thanks to help on these forums. It's Debian based, not Debian -> Ubuntu -> Mint as "standard" Linux Mint is. And a it's a "rolling release". Try the live DVD first, see what works in that mode. The latest release is very stable imho. I think it addresses all of your issues.
Great advice.

I already installed Mint 16 debian cinnamon, and I'm using it to write this post.

the ia32libs fixed the problem with the former ubuntu, but after some days, Google Earth stopped working, and it was impossible to replace it with the 32 bit version.

Thanks you very much.
kunta

Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by kunta »

Yet when I inquiry the linux distro from the command line I get "VERSION="13.10, Saucy Salamander""
$ cat /etc/*{release,version}
DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16
DISTRIB_CODENAME=petra
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 16 Petra"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="13.10, Saucy Salamander"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 13.10"
VERSION_ID="13.10"
HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
wheezy/sid
Is there something wrong with this???
kunta

Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by kunta »

xenopeek wrote:While I think most of the problems you described might be pinned to the desktop environment (the user interface to your operating system), they could also have another cause. Ubuntu uses Unity. Linux Mint gives you the choice between Cinnamon, KDE, MATE, and Xfce. That might already give you a different experience.
Certainly the display manager was buggy. For example after starting some applications, his windows were not drawn.
xenopeek wrote:You don't mention which release of Ubuntu you tried. Was it 13.10. or 12.04? 13.10 is a development release, most suitable for power users and enthusiasts that don't mind the occasional fudge. 12.04 is the long-term support release, most suitable for users that don't want to upgrade their operating system every 6 months (as you are required to do with the development releases) and prioritize stability above having the newest release of your software.
It was 13.10
xenopeek wrote:Linux Mint 13 is the current long-term support release of Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu 12.04. It's supported till April 2017. Linux Mint 16 is the current development release, supported till July this year. Linux Mint 17 is the next long-term support release, it will be released around May/June this year and will be supported 5 years. Every 2 years a long-term support release is done, giving you plenty of opportunities to jump to a new version of your operating system.

As recommended by gtsfer, LMDE might also be an option. It's based on Debian, so cuts out the middle man (Ubuntu gets most of its packages from Debian also). That said, it's based on Debian testing release. If you only care about stability, I can only recommend you skip all this and just run Debian 7 (the stable release). Debian stable (6 though) is also used on the international space station, and it's still flying :wink:
kunta wrote:I also miserably failed to mount a RAID0 made with Windows 7 (software windows raid. No bios/chipset support). But probably Ubuntu is not guilty. Just useless.
I don't use Windows at home, so can't help with this one. But I doubt you can get such things set up without going into the terminal a few times. If this is very important to you, perhaps just stick with Windows 7. Nothing wrong with using the tool that works best for you.
I made that RAID with Windows, and I want to access it, but I will not die without it. It is a RAID0 of old 80Gb disks. Useful to extract large files (like compressed ISO files). I do not want to wear the SSD with so many gigabytes, and using it accelerates I/O
kunta

Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by kunta »

kunta wrote:Yet when I inquiry the linux distro from the command line I get "VERSION="13.10, Saucy Salamander""
$ cat /etc/*{release,version}
DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16
DISTRIB_CODENAME=petra
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 16 Petra"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="13.10, Saucy Salamander"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 13.10"
VERSION_ID="13.10"
HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
wheezy/sid
Is there something wrong with this???
How ironic. I think that I installed Ubuntu based Mint, instead of Debian based, and I'm again with Ubuntu 13.10...

Well, to this point I found no problems.

I do not like much cinnamon, but to this point it works flawlessly. I will give it a chance.
jahid

Post by jahid »

as xenopeek stated, the problems maybe for the unity DE.
and as you are searching for something that is user friendly, and somewhat like windows, i will suggest the KDE version of linux mint. you can choose cinnamon too, it's pretty friendly and any DE will run fast in your pc as you have strong configuration. and i think you can choose the LM main editions or LMDE either of them without having any problems like the previous ubuntu version

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skywolfblue
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Posts: 100
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Re: Ubuntu=bug fest. How about Mint?

Post by skywolfblue »

I'll second the Mint KDE recommendation.

Other possible alternatives, to use Debian Stable with KDE. Or something like Solydk.
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