Ubuntu vs Mint

[Elroy Jetson]

I have a MacBook Pro 8,3: early 2011 with 2.2 GHz i7 (sandybridge), 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD. It hasn't been supported by macOS for years now, and has the infamous dead ATI (now AMD) discrete GPU. I found a hack to disable the GPU, so I am running on the Intel integrated video.

 

I put Mint 19.3 on it, and it mostly works, except the microphone doesn't work. It was working when I originally installed Mint. I am suspicious that it broke when I started experimenting with different music player apps, all of which have trouble importing my iTunes library (mostly of CDs I ripped myself, so not encrypted). That is another problem...

 

One of the suggestions was to update the system, as the ISO Installed still had the 5.0 kernel, while the most recent is 5.4. So I updated, and the misery began. Fortunately I used clonezilla to backup first.

 

After the update, Mint froze at the logo when rebooting. Booting into recovery mode worked. I tried downgrading back to the 5.0 (and the 4.15) kernel, neither worked.

I finally restored my system partition from the backup. It still didn't work. I finally restored the boot loader partition, which then worked, so I guess the update hosed the bootloader or grub. Microphone still doesn't work.

 

Power management also stinks. When running Mac OS X, I can go ~3 hours on battery. With Mint, barely 1. It also gets very hot, even when idle.

 

So after all this, I'm concerned with the fragility of Mint. I'm wondering if I should install Ubuntu on top of Mint and see if it works any better. Does Ubuntu tend to be more stable than Mint? I know Mint is based on LTS Ubuntu and is generally a major version behind.

 

 

 

[NinJake]

Try a lightweight distro. Maybe something like Lubuntu?

[Master Disaster]

My experience with Mint has always been negative so I struggle to recommend it. Also didn't I hear they're ceasing development of Mint?

[Elroy Jetson]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

My experience with Mint has always been negative so I struggle to recommend it. Also didn't I hear they're ceasing development of Mint?

 

I don't think so, Supposedly Mint 20 is close to being released.

[mockedarche]

10 minutes ago, Elroy Jetson said:

So after all this, I'm concerned with the fragility of Mint. I'm wondering if I should install Ubuntu on top of Mint and see if it works any better. Does Ubuntu tend to be more stable than Mint? I know Mint is based on LTS Ubuntu and is generally a major version behind.

I've actually heard that mint is more stable than Ubuntu. Its important to remember stable and compatible are different. Usually mac stuff and a lot of more volume purchased machines are better supported. If I was you I would put ubuntu on a usb and try it live to see if you have issues and if you do then do the same but with manjaro.

[Levent]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

My experience with Mint has always been negative so I struggle to recommend it. Also didn't I hear they're ceasing development of Mint?

No? Mint 20 is due for release very soon.

OP, being on the latest version of the linux kernel is not always a great idea. As long as your hardware is supported in the LTS kernel (in Mint's case its 4.15) I would suggest you to stick to it. Also keep timeshift enabled next time, it saves heap of time in case of issues like this.

[Elroy Jetson]

2 minutes ago, Levent said:

No? Mint 20 is due for release very soon.

OP, being on the latest version of the linux kernel is not always a great idea. As long as your hardware is supported in the LTS kernel (in Mint's case its 4.15) I would suggest you to stick to it. Also keep timeshift enabled next time, it saves heap of time in case of issues like this.

 The 19.3 ISO is the 5.0 kernel. Should I install the 4.15 kernel? Will the 4.15 kernel know how to read the config files created by the 5.0 kernel?

[Kon-Tiki]

I've been using Mint for a little over two years now as my main OS and am very pleased. Also, development of Mint is nowhere near of being stopped. The contrary is the case according to the Mint blog. I also haven't heard complaints about Mint being more unstable than Ubuntu.

Regarding the OPs problem: I'd recommend reinstalling Mint if that's an option for you, or as @Ohsnaps recommended, try a live USB stick with both Ubuntu and Mint 19.3. Be informed about the snap package system being part of Ubuntu 20.04, though. I'm personally not a fan of it (and thus happy that it won't be enabled by default in the upcoming Mint 20).

[Elroy Jetson]

3 minutes ago, Kon-Tiki said:

I've been using Mint for a little over two years now as my main OS and am very pleased. Also, development of Mint is nowhere near of being stopped. The contrary is the case according to the Mint blog. I also haven't heard complaints about Mint being more unstable than Ubuntu.

Regarding the OPs problem: I'd recommend reinstalling Mint if that's an option for you, or as @Ohsnaps recommended, try a live USB stick with both Ubuntu and Mint 19.3. Be informed about the snap package system being part of Ubuntu 20.04, though. I'm personally not a fan of it (and thus happy that it won't be enabled by default in the upcoming Mint 20).

I'm wondering if I should try installing Mint 19.2 rather than 19.3 to get the 4.15 kernel.

[Kon-Tiki]

You can try, I wouldn't see a problem in doing so

[Elroy Jetson]

Just now, Elroy Jetson said:

I'm wondering if I should try installing Mint 19.2 rather than 19.3 to get the 4.15 kernel.

I read that the update process for Ubuntu is fully baked, while with Mint not so much. One of my concerns is the Mint updater hosed my system.

[Kon-Tiki]

Updating between major OS versions is always something that can fail, independently of the OS. I've updated my system (Mint) four times or so (I believe I started out with 18.3) up to the recent version. And so far it still runs fine

 

[Elroy Jetson]

Basically my goal is to figure out if Linux is something I can use a primary OS. I'm thinking of building a new PC and don't want to run Windows. Apple doesn't currently produce any hardware that interests me. Before I take the plunge I want to figure out if Linux is ready for prime time.

 

I will be building a high power machine, so I'm not really interested in investigating a stripped down low powered distribution, but one that is complete enough to be competitive with my Mac.

[Kon-Tiki]

That's an important info Mobile hardware (in my experience) is more likely to have hickups. Standard PC parts (I assume you're going to build a tower PC of some kind) are pretty good as far as compatibility is concerned.

Also, a 2011 i7 is very well capable of running Linux (Mint) perfectly well (way over minimum recommended specs). I have an old laptop from 2011 featuring an i5 that runs on Linux without any problems. I believe the thing you'll want to look out for is whether the software you need runs on Linux (natively or via emulation or a VM) or whether there are alternatives for you.

[Nayr438]

45 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

My experience with Mint has always been negative so I struggle to recommend it. Also didn't I hear they're ceasing development of Mint?

They keep going back and forth. One month they talk about ending Mint, the next they are talking about moving to debian, then they start announcing useless new features and updates. I wouldn't recommend it for just that alone. They don't seem to know what they want to do.

 

Ubuntu already having fairly outdated packages, then Mint makes it worse by holding packages back. I have also seen a mix of newer packages with outdated dependencies. I wouldn't doubt people have more issues.  I have just always found Mint to be a mess.

 

I personally dislike Ubuntu, but Ubuntu is 10x better than Mint imo.

[Kon-Tiki]

I disagree with @Nayr438. While it certainly is subjective which features make sense or not, the development in recent years has not been at a point I could remember at which the devs stated they were planning to end the development of Mint.

3 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

the next they are talking about moving to debian

I guess you're referring to LMDE (the Debian based version of Mint). LMDE has been around for several years parallel to the Ubuntu based mainline Mint. It is, apart from being an OS for it self, a "backup" if you like in case Ubuntu should not be available or viable to use as a base for Mint any more in the future. So far the devs are not stating that development will be moving away from using Ubuntu imminently.

 

10 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Ubuntu already having fairly outdated packages

That's partly a feature rather than a bug and lies within the nature of a LTS (Long Term Support) release in contrast to a rolling release: Packages are less frequently (or not at all) updated during the life cycle (typically five years) of the OS to maintain compatibility. This does not mean, however, that all packages are kept untouched. A lot of them get frequent security updates and some (like Firefox, Thunderbird) also feature updates.

 

Whether you prefer Mint over Ubuntu, vice versa or whether you like a completely different OS like Manjaro, CentOS or openSUSE the most is a personal thing

[Elroy Jetson]

1 hour ago, Kon-Tiki said:

That's an important info Mobile hardware (in my experience) is more likely to have hickups. Standard PC parts (I assume you're going to build a tower PC of some kind) are pretty good as far as compatibility is concerned.

Also, a 2011 i7 is very well capable of running Linux (Mint) perfectly well (way over minimum recommended specs). I have an old laptop from 2011 featuring an i5 that runs on Linux without any problems. I believe the thing you'll want to look out for is whether the software you need runs on Linux (natively or via emulation or a VM) or whether there are alternatives for you.

My plan is to run mostly linux native apps - Python (Anaconda), R, Libre Office, Firefox/Waterfox. I think it is possible with some work to get macOS running in a VM, which I still need to investigate.

 

I'm toying with the idea of building a Threadripper system (not the 64 - way too pricy). I want to keep it for a loooonnngggg time. It would be nice to end up with a macOS system that is faster than anything Apple currently produces.

 

[Kon-Tiki]

This would basically lead you into the world of Hackintosh. LTT (unsurprisingly orchestrated by Anthony) did some videos about that and also a video about running MacOS in a VM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATnpEOo3GJA

However I'd not count on Apple not to introduce some changes that make virtualisation more difficult or break your VM with an update