Is Mint looked down on by those who use more 'advanced' distros?

[FatDroid]

Hi, hello, alright?

I was doing some Reddit browsing last night and ended up on a Linux sub. It was mostly serious posts and people asking for help with a few things but there was the odd post that was more for poking fun at Windows users and those who have never heard of Linux. Whilst reading through a few of these posts and the comments, I came across a thread of replies where somebody had commented something along the lines of "Mint has been dead for years". That had a lot of upvotes on it, and a load of people agreeing with this.

Now, Im using Mint on this laptop, and I also have 2 other laptops both running Arch, but I only use this one because of how stable Mint is and the fact nothing ever seems to go wrong. Whatever you do on Mint it just runs without issue and that is what got me thinking about that post. With how stable Mint is, everything just working and the fact that there are clearly still enough people using it to warrant anybody maintaining and updating it, is this view something anyone else has heard others have?
As mentioend above I am no stranger to distros such as Arch among a few others and those are something I really enjoy, but knowing I can just turn this laptop on and have it do as I want without it fighting me or making any sort of fuss is a huge selling point for me - Im past the point of being entertained by system maintenance when I have the option to just power on this laptop and have it all doing its job without issue.

 

[Brickwizard]

In my post WHAT IS THE BEST LINUX DISTRIBUTION, WHICH SHOULD I USE ?

I start with, This is the most asked question we receive, and the answer is, NO one distribution is better than any other, some may be a little easier for the newbie moving from Windows, some are designed for a specific task, and a few are for experienced Linux users only.

And I stand by this, I am not an elitist, but there are many of them out there, when i started on Linux ,Arch forums in particular didn't want to know anyone who was a newbie, they are better now but the elitist bit is still around, if you use a GUI you're not a true Linux user to some, you will find a similar altitude on some of Reddit's pages. On the other hand, the mint forums are toxic at times , so take your pick

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@FatDroid
Toxicity on various boards and forums is nothing new, you shouldn't listen to toxic people, the best you can do is to treat them in same way as trolls and spammers.

 

[FatDroid]

In my post WHAT IS THE BEST LINUX DISTRIBUTION, WHICH SHOULD I USE ?

I start with, This is the most asked question we receive, and the answer is, NO one distribution is better than any other, some may be a little easier for the newbie moving from Windows, some are designed for a specific task, and a few are for experienced Linux users only.

And I stand by this, I am not an elitist, but there are many of them out there, when i started on Linux ,Arch forums in particular didn't want to know anyone who was a newbie, they are better now but the elitist bit is still around, if you use a GUI you're not a true Linux user to some, you will find a similar altitude on some of Reddit's pages. On the other hand, the mint forums are toxic at times , so take your pick

Agreed, there is no one distribution better than another, I think people tend to stick with what they hear is good more than anything.
Arch users are honestly the worst community of people I have ever had the displeasure of talking to, not always as individuals but definitely as a whole and this has played a large part of the reason of me coming away from Arch, that and the fact any other distro will do the same things. I have never spoken to anybody yet that has claimed using a GUI is somehow inferior but there is time! And luckliy, I have yet to find anybody in the Minty spaces be toxic at all but again, there is plenty of time for this.

 

[FatDroid]

@FatDroid
Toxicity on various boards and forums is nothing new, you shouldn't listen to toxic people, the best you can do is to treat them in same way as trolls and spammers.

100%. I love Arch and if it didnt have the God awful community it has paired with the eagerness it has to kill itself from my experience, Id still be using it now. I dont listen to the toxic people I'll make my own mind up on things and if others dont like that, that doesnt make it my problem. Cant help being curious though as to whether Mint is somehow looked down on for whatever reason.

 

[dos2unix]

One of my favorite things about this site is... for the most part there is no distro bashing.
I won't say it never happens. But typically no one cares what anyone else is using. As long
as you like it, and it works for you, why would you care what anyone else thinks?

There is a huge sense of community here, and everyone tends to help everyone no matter
what distro they run.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I was doing some Reddit browsing last night and ended up on a Linux sub. It was mostly serious posts and people asking for help with a few things but there was the odd post that was more for poking fun at Windows users and those who have never heard of Linux. Whilst reading through a few of these posts and the comments, I came across a thread of replies where somebody had commented something along the lines of "Mint has been dead for years". That had a lot of upvotes on it, and a load of people agreeing with this.

It comes down to this, the Linux community is mostly toxic and Reddit for the most part as well. I don't think any os user should be looked down upon because everyone just uses what they know or what works for them. By doing this those Windows users will never consider to try Linux because of this because no one wants to jump into a fire.

As mentioend above I am no stranger to distros such as Arch among a few others and those are something I really enjoy, but knowing I can just turn this laptop on and have it do as I want without it fighting me or making any sort of fuss is a huge selling point for me - Im past the point of being entertained by system maintenance when I have the option to just power on this laptop and have it all doing its job without issue.

Different people prefer to use different distributions for different use cases and reasons, everyone is different so what one person prefers or uses doesn't have to be the same for another person. Also besides that the Linux community is mostly toxic, it mostly tribal as well where everythings the distribution they use is better than what someone else use.

In short, just use what works for you(even if that is several distributions) and what you are happy with and having a good experience with. Ignore all other comments about distribution X not being as good as distribution Y or that real Linux users should use distribution X or Y.

I just use Fedora for my desktop and laptop systems because I don't care for the full control and tweaking that Arch gives you, but I still love the Arch distribution. This works for me, but someone else is going to have a different opinion or view and for them another distribution will work better for what they want. It comes down to with Linux and opensource we have the choice of what we want to use.

I don't get why so many people in the Linux community have to argue about which Linux distribution or which software is better than what someone else is using. In the end aren't we all just using Linux because we are free to choose what we want to use because Linux and opensource software gives us that choice.

Keeping an opening mind leaves more room for understanding new ideas and fews when it comes to Linux and opensource software and will probably lead to Linux growing and becoming better and some new users joining instead because normal people in general are drawn to positivivity because it builds people up and toxicity normal people tend to want to stay away from because negativity tends to tear people down.

P.S I even have to watch myself sometimes because I can sometimes even fall into the trap of getting into a state where I can get into a closed mindset where my thoughts and replies can sound torwards being toxic instead of being positive and encouraging. I rather be positive and encouraging but I am not perfect, I just do my best day by day.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Arch forums in particular didn't want to know anyone who was a newbie, they are better now but the elitist bit is still around,

Arch forums are fine, they just don't want to hold peoples hand every step of the way because it being an Linux distributions aimed at advanced Linux users and people who like to do it themselves and because they will have expected you to read the wiki and try things from there yourself first.

I've posted on the Arch Linux forums a long time ago for a specific issue with a new released gpu that wasn't working on Arch Linux and if you provide all the information they require of you and things you have tried, system information, log files etc then you will get a normal response. If you write something like: "HELP: I installed Arch Linux and my system won't boot", then you will get unhelpful answers or you will be ignored. It's what you put in, what you get out on the Arch Linux forums and yes there is still some toxicity there, but even here we get some toxic users every now and then.

 

[FatDroid]

One of my favorite things about this site is... for the most part there is no distro bashing.
I won't say it never happens. But typically no one cares what anyone else is using. As long
as you like it, and it works for you, why would you care what anyone else thinks?

There is a huge sense of community here, and everyone tends to help everyone no matter
what distro they run.

I find it weird that anyone would find issue with the ditro that youre using just beacsue they prefer something else. As I wrote in one of the other replies I'll decide what distros or software I use, if others dont like my choices then that is fine, not my problem. I just want to know if disliking Mint is a thing and if so, why? Its linux the same as any other distro haha.

Ive not spent much time on this forum but in the time I have, nobody seems to complain about anything and this entire site should be mentioned more to those who need help Its great seeing everyone help each other as you do on here.

 

[FatDroid]

It comes down to this, the Linux community is mostly toxic and Reddit for the most part as well. I don't think any os user should be looked down upon because everyone just uses what they know or what works for them. By doing this those Windows users will never consider to try Linux because of this because no one wants to jump into a fire.


Different people prefer to use different distributions for different use cases and reasons, everyone is different so what one person prefers or uses doesn't have to be the same for another person. Also besides that the Linux community is mostly toxic, it mostly tribal as well where everythings the distribution they use is better than what someone else use.

In short, just use what works for you(even if that is several distributions) and what you are happy with and having a good experience with. Ignore all other comments about distribution X not being as good as distribution Y or that real Linux users should use distribution X or Y.

I just use Fedora for my desktop and laptop systems because I don't care for the full control and tweaking that Arch gives you, but I still love the Arch distribution. This works for me, but someone else is going to have a different opinion or view and for them another distribution will work better for what they want. It comes down to with Linux and opensource we have the choice of what we want to use.

I don't get why so many people in the Linux community have to argue about which Linux distribution or which software is better than what someone else is using. In the end aren't we all just using Linux because we are free to choose what we want to use because Linux and opensource software gives us that choice.

Keeping an opening mind leaves more room for understanding new ideas and fews when it comes to Linux and opensource software and will probably lead to Linux growing and becoming better and some new users joining instead because normal people in general are drawn to positivivity because it builds people up and toxicity normal people tend to want to stay away from because negativity tends to tear people down.

P.S I even have to watch myself sometimes because I can sometimes even fall into the trap of getting into a state where I can get into a closed mindset where my thoughts and replies can sound torwards being toxic instead of being positive and encouraging. I rather be positive and encouraging but I am not perfect, I just do my best day by day.

Ive never experienced toxicity in Linux in general, only in the Arch spaces whether that is on Reddit, the Arch forums, or Discord. No OS should be looked down on you're right and the best us normal folk can do to keep others coming in is offer help when asked rather than find issues with others problems.

Other distros do indeed have their place, I have a friend who uses two different distros, Kali for pentesting and Debian for his daily use. His reasoning is he cannot be bothered having all the Kali stuff cluttering up his daily driver. Cant fault that, it makes perfect sense to me and he too doesnt care if others find fault with the way he does stuff.

I particularly agree with the point you make about those arguing over a distro choice. we are all here because we are free to choose, and we all chose our own distros and made them run how we want. Regardless of whether you use Ubuntu, Arch, Zorin or Pop, we are al using what is essentially the same thing in my mind.

Positive and encouraging is the way to be. Linux is never going to grow if those thinking about making the switch from Windows or Mac see nothing but hate online. Surely we all want the Linux userbase to grow, not stay the same for the next millennia or lose numbers.

 

[Brickwizard]

Ive not spent much time on this forum but in the time I have, nobody seems to complain about anything

We have some members who shall we say are strongly Bias towards their favourite distribution and tend to push it, but they are not opposed to helping where they can, Most of us I feel, take the view that anyone wishing to move to Linux, deserve our help whatever Distribution they chose [the one exception is total newbies wanting to install Pentesting distributions when its clearly above them]

 

[FatDroid]

Arch forums are fine, they just don't want to hold peoples hand every step of the way because it being an Linux distributions aimed at advanced Linux users and people who like to do it themselves and because they will have expected you to read the wiki and try things from there yourself first.

I've posted on the Arch Linux forums a long time ago for a specific issue with a new released gpu that wasn't working on Arch Linux and if you provide all the information they require of you and things you have tried, system information, log files etc then you will get a normal response. If you write something like: "HELP: I installed Arch Linux and my system won't boot", then you will get unhelpful answers or you will be ignored. It's what you put in, what you get out on the Arch Linux forums and yes there is still some toxicity there, but even here we get some toxic users every now and then.

I have to disagree with Arch forums being fine, I know there are decent members out there as a post I made regarding an issue with WiFi was getting a lot of hate, and a community member messaged me in private, apologies on behalf of everyone else there and helped me sort it in private. For a member of a forum to do that, and in particular feel he had to apologise because he is sick of seeing nobidy help, that tells me its a common thing for them. I wont say theyre all the same, there is always good and bad in every group but the bad far outweighs the good.

To be completely honest, when it is a post such as the one you used for an example I can sort of see where they are coming from and why they would be annoyed. The Arch wiki is brilliant and it covers pretty much everything but I still dont see why they couldnt just say something along the lines of "If you have tried this and tried that and nothing is helping, have a look at this page in the wiki and see if that helps".
They've got their bad name for a reason, but there are certainly those out there that the rest of them could learn from.

 

[FatDroid]

We have some members who shall we say are strongly Bias towards their favourite distribution and tend to push it, but they are not opposed to helping where they can, Most of us I feel, take the view that anyone wishing to move to Linux, deserve our help whatever Distribution they chose [the one exception is total newbies wanting to install Pentesting distributions when its clearly above them]

Thats going to be the same in anything though isnt it whether that be in computing, music, cars, football, you name it. It's good that folk help where they can, and we should all be focussing on helping over anything else. Pentesting though that is a fair point. Somebody installing Linix for the first time and finding out they can sit monitoring router traffic probably isnt the best haha

 

[kc1di]

Since I started using Linux way back 1990's. I've use most of the major distros. I fine they all have their pluses and minuses. So to me the key is finding the one that works for you and don't overly listen to what other say. Some Forums are toxic other are not and this one of best of them. I use Mint more than any other distro. So if that is looked down upon so be it. But it does what I need and want.

 

[KGIII]

We do get a few people who bash RHEL or Ubuntu, which is kind of amusing from a statistics and history viewpoint. For many of them, it's quite similar to hating your parents. It makes me chuckle and discount other viewpoints they may espouse.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

We do get a few people who bash RHEL or Ubuntu

I might be one of those, my complaint however is not their community but the fact that these are run by corporations.

My dislike was influenced by this article below:

Explaining Why We Don't Endorse Other Systems - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

www.gnu.org

Stallman however doesn't only bash Ubuntu but all other distros that are not GNU, outlining flaws of each, it's a good read I suggest to read.

 

[f33dm3bits]

They've got their bad name for a reason, but there are certainly those out there that the rest of them could learn from.

I haven't been there in a while but a bad reputation is not easily fixed and a good reputation can be torn down just as easily. As an example Nvidia on Linux is fine mostly now days, while people are still hating on Nvidia for experiences from 10+ years back.

Coming back to the Arch forums, if was really that bad I would have expcected the same expriences for the few times I posted on the Arch forums, that was about 5-6 years ago when I last spend some time on the Arch Linux forums and actually made a few topics. And from what I've seen I find r/archlinux way more toxic than from what I've seen and experienced on the archlinux forums.

Getting back to the positive, since I don't use Arch anymore I prefer to spend time time here and also on the EndeavourOS forums since people are a bit more relaxed around there. Although even there you have some control freaks.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@FatDroid / @f33dm3bits :-

I know many folks don't take ME seriously. So what? I couldn't care less, 'cos I know what 'our Pup' is capable of - I've got broad shoulders, me; it's like water off a duck's back.....and in all honesty, what's in a name?

Are you going to seriously tell me that you're taking any notice at all of small-minded individuals? There's 'leaders', and then there's 'sheep'......and any time you get opinions voiced by those viewed as 'leaders', the 'sheep' trip over themselves to agree and up-vote as fast as they can.

My set-up works for me, and my "kennels" are the product of well over a decade of MY work and endless fine-tuning. I use my system; THEY don't. So how can you bad-mouth something you know nothing about.....solely based on a name?

Ignore 'em. They're not worth your time, mate.

As mentioend above I am no stranger to distros such as Arch among a few others and those are something I really enjoy, but knowing I can just turn this laptop on and have it do as I want without it fighting me or making any sort of fuss is a huge selling point for me - Im past the point of being entertained by system maintenance when I have the option to just power on this laptop and have it all doing its job without issue.

I've always liked Dells, and they're very Linux-friendly. The ONLY thing I have to remember to do on this old Latitude is to check which audio card is set to default; this is more my own doing, due to my slightly odd audio set-up (I use a USB headset with its own built-in sound card, and Puppy doesn't always seem to remember it!)

Apart from that, I power-on, and everything just 'works'. Perfect.

And I agree with @dos2unix ; Linux.org IS one of the friendliest fora I know of, 'cos everybody is accepting of what anyone else runs. At the end of the day, most of us just like nattering about, AND helping folks to get the best out of Linux.

And that's as it should be.


Mike.

 

[FatDroid]

Since I started using Linux way back 1990's. I've use most of the major distros. I fine they all have their pluses and minuses. So to me the key is finding the one that works for you and don't overly listen to what other say. Some Forums are toxic other are not and this one of best of them. I use Mint more than any other distro. So if that is looked down upon so be it. But it does what I need and want.

For me this is what Linux is in general. They all have pros and cons, they could be anything from the desktop to the terminal but each of them is fit for any purpose and they can all work for anybody. Mint is fantastic, everything is as it should be and I think more often than not, those that say otherwise are those that like to tell the world they use Arch or some derivative.

 

[FatDroid]

We do get a few people who bash RHEL or Ubuntu, which is kind of amusing from a statistics and history viewpoint. For many of them, it's quite similar to hating your parents. It makes me chuckle and discount other viewpoints they may espouse.

RHEL is a distro that I can understand getting more hate over any others. Thats not to say I agree, but I can defintely see why. At least, if what I have read about it and the software and licensing choices are correct anyway. Ubuntu, I cant understand any hate for it, never had a problem in the few times Ive used it