back to article Fresh releases of Xfce, Mint, Cinnamon desktops out in time for the holidays

Fancy spending time refreshing your setup over the holidays? Two of the more popular Windows-style FOSS desktops are about to drop new point releases, one for higher-end machines and one for lower-end kit. Cinnamon is the default desktop of Linux Mint, but it's also included in lots of other distros. Release 6.4 appeared on …

  1. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

    I shudder every time I read anything about snap packages. Tried them on my previous machine and they were an absolute nightmare to get rid of.

    Never, ever again. No way.

    1. bazza Silver badge

      They're getting harder to avoid, as are Fedora's equivalent.

      The fragmentation in Linux of "How to Distribute Software" is the biggest barrier to adoption outside the limited world of enthusiasts / experts. Windows and Mac just sorted it out, once, and haven't had to think about it in years and years and years.

    2. Liam Proven (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      > they were an absolute nightmare

      I am keenly interested in specific details. What went wrong, why, how, when?

      I installed a new work machine at the start of Sept. I nuked a former test box, switched from BIOS mode and MBR to UEFI and GPT, so I had to totally wipe and reinstall.

      As an experiment, I installed the latest Ubuntu Unity and went all-in on Snaps. Anything I needed to add, if it's available as a snap, I installed the Snap.

      It was my daily driver for the next ~3 months. Aside from Panwriter and the web browsers, basically everything else a Snap. It has been absolutely fine. This is a 13 year old machine with `/home` on a spinning hard disk. I have not seen any delays loading apps, updates are smooth and transparent, and I ignore the clutter in the output of `mount` or `df -h` because frankly I don't need those every day. Everything just works, I don't have a dozen additional repos cluttering my `/etc/apt` tree, and I have done a major version upgrade (24.04 -> 24.10) and nothing whatsoever broke or needed to be re-enabled.

      It was less work than installing `deb-get` and adding a bunch of custom repos, and the version upgrade was far less hassle as a result.

      The tooling really has matured now.

      1. blu3b3rry

        Curious to read.

        My elderly 2011 MacBook pro has been happily running Ubuntu Budgie since version 23:10 with pretty much all software I use installed as Snaps (Spotify, Firefox, Discord, Steam, Thunderbird and Telegram Desktop off the top of my head). Been over a year now and it's still running fine to the extent it doesn't need maintenance beyond a weekly update check. Everything feels nice and stable - I read a lot about issues with snaps, but yet to find any trouble myself.

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          My objection to snaps is with the security and updates issues. At the moment (Linux Mint XFCE) if a vulnerability is found in a library that gets patched and bingo! every application which uses it is now - effectively - patched too. If I was using snaps I would have to trust that the maintenance team for every single package I had installed were sufficiently on the ball to issue an updated snap. If just one of them doesn't, my system is insecure and I might as well be using bloody Windows.

  2. mouse_vulture

    Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

    TLDR; If you are prefer to customize your OS, xubuntu 24.04 *minimal* is bare bones perfect, and beautiful.

    Once installed, it is easy to uninstall netpain.yaml err, I mean netplan, to use the old, rational, more directly configurable raw text method (though you'll lose the shell's gui network manager and must use the terminal to config). Same with snapd, very easy to uninstall. Thankfully, the absurd cloudinit is not installed with the minimal release - though that sluggard too can be easily uninstalled, which you must do with other ubuntu flavors. So after a few tweaks, you're left with a beautiful OS. If you run in a VM, you'll need to reboot several times before it becomes very stable (I think due to the re-compiled modules, guest extensions, and other factors). Once done, running `systemd-analyze blame` will inform where any remaining sluggards are holding up your OS.

    https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/24.04/release/

    Finally gave up my Win 7 box. So now comes the long road to finding alternative apps. So far, nano and Sublime-text are ok replacements for Textpad but will very much miss foobar2k and a powerful file explorer replacement such as xplorer2.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

      Nothing against Xubuntu, but it seems like it'd be more straightforward to install Debian and carry on.

      1. Liam Proven (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

        > it seems like it'd be more straightforward to install Debian

        It depends what you want.

        I can and do use both, but Debian takes more work, and its components tend to considerably be more dated. Getting up-to-date bits onto it needs considerable effort and it requires you to do things that Debian folks frown upon.

        An Ubuntu variant will typically be built from considerably more current stuff out of the box when it's relatively new, and if the LTS is looking a bit old and tired then you can run an interim release, and in a release or two it will _become_ an LTS and then you can stay on the LTS cycle if you're happy with it. But more saliently, Ubuntu variants come with much more current versions of critical bits like Firefox, and if they do not provide the versions you want of the tools you want, Ubuntu straightforwardly supports adding external repos and updating bits of the OS independent of the rest. Debian doesn't.

        Being happy using Debian requires a commitment to the slow release cycle, just as running RHEL (or a RHELative) or SLE does. Don't add new bits: you'll break it. Live with the old version. You'll be fine in a year or two. What's the rush?

        Edit: plus, Ubuntu variants tend to look prettier. ;-)

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge
          Linux

          Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

          Linux Mint Cinnamon / Zorin OS / Windows 10 installs here on my workstation. Not a tri-boot, I load them onto independent drives and boot to them with BIOS as needed. That way, they have no idea of the others. I have Windows for gaming exclusively, but am slowly moving to Steam Linux as that matures. VR is a tougher proposition, but I have faith.

          Your assessment is right on. I started on raw Debian, moved to Ubuntu, then Kubuntu, before landing here.

          I do major upgrades annually and apt upgrades weekly. YMMV, of course.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

          I was referring more specifically to the thread parent post which talked about first uninstalling netplan, snapd, possibly cloudinit, several reboots for stability(?) if it's a VM, systemd-analyze blame, etc. to get Xubuntu into a desired state.

          Maybe I misunderstood the intent, but that sort of activity isn't typically needed with Debian, whether minimal/basic/headless server installs, or graphical XFCE et al.

          I'll concede the follow-up point from Liam about up-to-date bits being easier to run on *ubuntu, but the replied-to post wasn't focused on that afai can see. Me neither, fwiw. Horses for courses.

          > Edit: plus, Ubuntu variants tend to look prettier. ;-)

          Heh heh, well okay, if you like browns and oranges. :-)

          Personally, I'm happy enough with boring ole blues and greys and such from stock XFCE when I have a gui. Aside from that, most computers look like yellow or green text on a black xterm background to me. ;-)

      2. mouse_vulture

        Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

        In the past...

        - I primarily use BSD/Linux for servers and rarely client shells

        - I could never locate a Debian.Server.iso image (spent an hour+ over the years)

        - Thus, I gave up and mentally blocked out Debian as a possible OS

        - But I would have preferred Debian server because Ubuntu is becoming an MS-like, over-engineered OS

        Funny, a bit of context

        You know that one killer app that drives people to or away from a platform? For me the drive to Linux client was a humble utility called yt-dlp, a media downloader. The newer official version no longer supports Windows 7. Funny because of an MS attempt to kill Windows 7 (and soon Windows 10) using artificial obstacles, made by the MS Marketing Dept, drove me off their windows platform to Linux Client. I could have kept my Internet box's Windows 7 running modern apps via little hacks no problem, including an yt-dlp unofficial build, but the simplicity of having an OS that doesn't get in your way is new and very refreshing. I write software for a living so this new "perspective" will lead to interesting pathways.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

          IME if you want a "Debian Server" install without jumping too many hoops, you can get pretty close by using the standard ISO media, and during software selection uncheck everything except "SSH server" and "standard system utilities".

          It's a reasonable starting point, at least for headless servers.

          You still end up with a system with a few hundred packages installed, but not a couple thousand like you might find on your average laptop or workstation with a full graphical desktop and all the ornaments.

          You can't really compare package counts vs. e.g. FreeBSD (yet, unless you're using pkgbase), but from a diskspace standpoint a Debian installed like this compares pretty favorably with a BSD -- handful of GB or less, generally.

        2. katrinab Silver badge
          Meh

          Re: Xubuntu 24.04 minimal is a great substitute for Win 7

          Just get the regular Debian installer and do a minimum install. Then after it is done, install whatever you need for your server workload.

  3. eldel

    Foobar 2k will run under wine. Alternatively Strawberry is a reasonable player.

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