Linux Mint 15 XFCE: Heaven in a distro.

SUNDAY I wrote about using Debian Sid, how utterly wonderful it was, and why it beat Ubuntu-based distros hands down. I still hold to that. However, in the past 5 days I have gone from Sid, to testing, to Linux Mint.

My realisation, is that its not Ubuntu itself that sucks, but its massively bloated desktop environments. In fact, I tested flash today, I always use Paramore - Still into you in 1080p as my test. In Wheezy, Sid and Testing; This video works near perfect, on a laptop that is 5 years old, and runs Intel 4500 graphics. I put Linux Mint Debian Edition with Mate, and its stuttering and wants to incinerate my GPU. 

The reason I have to move is simple, in Debian, my Bluetooth headphones just don't work as well, and I'm lazy, I hate blueman-applet, and use the gnome one instead as it works better, but Debian causes me agro with it, and enjoying the uninstall/install process more than actually using my OS, I decided to burn some DVD's, and have a hunt for the perfect distro.

I firstly inserted an old LM14 Cinnamon DVD, connected to my headphones without issue, I was intrigued. Knowing that this DVD was quite old, I downloaded LMDE Mate, LM15 Mate, and burned them to DVDs. I have yet to bother with the LM15 DVD, as I had an epiphany that it was Mate which was bloated, and for some reason it doesn't work well with flash.

I was having none of this.

I decided to take a leap of faith, download Linux Mint 15 XFCE, burned it to DVD, tested it in livecd, and it was as good as Debian XFCE, almost (I always say almost) no stuttering, with compton theres no screen tearing (using special settings: compton --opengl --vsync opengl-swc --paint-on-overlay). So I have installed, and it works like a charm. 

Of course, in a few days I may decide that Debian is just too special to give up, It takes an equal amount of tweaking (such as installing awesome window manager and killalling most of XFCE) to get it how I want it, but to know that Linux Mint XFCE is equally as fast as Debian, with newer packages, and that I could use it without really telling the difference between the two, works both ways.

But..bluetooth works SO much better, and installing pulseaudio was no bother, AND I know that my next set of updates likely won't break my computer. So..I'm kind of torn. I'll give it another week and see how it goes. But yes, I am in heaven at the moment, the whole reason I installed debian was because everything was so slow when I was using Ubuntu based distros before. There is nothing worse than watching 1080p films in VLC and they're jerky and you feel like you're missing something. All those problems are now solved, and this pleases me greatly.

A nice clean desktop, Awesome, on XFCE, on Linux Mint 15, looks no different than it did on Debian

This is the beauty of linux, its so configurable, and this of course stems from having so many people working FREELY, not as employees/slaves but as volunteers who want to do it. They work to the best of their abilities because they love to do it, and to them knowing that others are checking their work out, its good because it is done for the love of their work, and the people who will use their software. This is for the people, BY the people in the strictest sense.

Thats why I love linux, and why I don't mind doing a thousand reinstalls a year trying stuff out.

Theology/NWO stuff coming soon.