Any fellow Linux users on here?

[Angular Chap]

That’s awesome man! I’ve been meaning to try Gentoo out at least once. Definitely wouldn’t install that on my main machine (I don’t want to wait a day to compile Firefox lol), but wouldn’t messing around with it on my VM or my old laptop. You only live once, eh?

I used a spare netbook for playing around with Gentoo, back when those were a thing. It literally did take all day to compile Firefox! (1.6GHz dual core)

Sinking myself into Linux was one of the things that helped me get over my first major burnout. Hope it helps do the same for you.

 

[Chimorin]

I used a spare netbook for playing around with Gentoo, back when those were a thing. It literally did take all day to compile Firefox! (1.6GHz dual core)

Sinking myself into Linux was one of the things that helped me get over my first major burnout. Hope it helps do the same for you.

That’s really cool to hear, I’m glad to hear it helped you through it. One satisfying moment for me on Linux when I was able to get Rayman going for my Dad on his old Dell Vostro from 1999 using Linux Mint XFCE, he was blown away and I will always cherish that memory.

 

[Angular Chap]

That’s really cool to hear, I’m glad to hear it helped you through it. One satisfying moment for me on Linux when I was able to get Rayman going on his old Dell Vostro from 1999 using Linux Mint XFCE, he was blown away and I will always cherish that memory.

Nice! It's hard to beat that satisfying feeling from those kind of achievements. Here's to many more such achievements in future.

 

[FilterFreq]

It makes me cringe seeing people who are substituting their phones as computers these days, and that's a lot of consumers we're talking about.

Clearly they mean they're using Termux and emulated Ubuntu for their automation tasks

 

[vergil96]

I'm looking forward to become a certified Linux admin!

 

[Chimorin]

I'm looking forward to become a certified Linux admin!

If there’s one thing I’ll give Autism, it’s being able to turn our interests into jobs. Well done you for doing so man.

 

[Judge]

Sinking myself into Linux was one of the things that helped me get over my first major burnout. Hope it helps do the same for you.

Indeed, Linux certainly can keep one busy ! Lots of ups- and some downs.

But always a welcome alternative to Microsoft any day.

 

[Chimorin]

Indeed, Linux certainly can keep one busy ! Lots of ups- and some downs.

But always a welcome alternative to Microsoft any day.

Well said. I switched to Linux because I wanted my freedom back. For that purpose, Linux suits me very well.

 

[Judge]

Well said. I switched to Linux because I wanted my freedom back. For that purpose, Linux suits me very well.

Seems to me I read that William Wallace was a Linux user as well. No surprise there though, but I suspect hardware compatibility issues really were issues back then.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I use both Linux (for work) and Windows (for work and home).

Last weekend, on a DOS command prompt, I typed two commands separated by a semi-colon (Linux style) instead of by an ampersand (DOS style) - something like "delete oldfile; process newfile" when I should have typed "delete oldfile & process newfile".

The result was that DOS executed the first command as if the semi-colon and everything that followed it were arguments to the first command and deleted my "newfile". That "newfile" was an 83GB file that took me over a day to download.

I learned a painful lesson about paying attention the OS I'm using.

 

[kriss72]

I use both Linux (for work) and Windows (for work and home).

Last weekend, on a DOS command prompt, I typed two commands separated by a semi-colon (Linux style) instead of by an ampersand (DOS style) - something like "delete oldfile; process newfile" when I should have typed "delete oldfile & process newfile".

The result was that DOS executed the first command as if the semi-colon and everything that followed it were arguments to the first command and deleted my "newfile". That "newfile" was an 83GB file that took me over a day to download.

I learned a painful lesson about paying attention the OS I'm using.

Reminds me of an episode that happened to one of my coworkers many years ago - so he told us of what happened when he was in university and someone had typed something like "rm -r /" and accidental pressed enter by fooling around, so he illustrated this on his windows machine, and thinking it was safe pressed enter to illustrate..... what he had forgotten was that he had some linux tools installed so it was a valid command...

 

[Nervous Rex]

Reminds me of an episode that happened to one of my coworkers many years ago - so he told us of what happened when he was in university and someone had typed something like "rm -r /" and accidental pressed enter by fooling around, so he illustrated this on his windows machine, and thinking it was safe pressed enter to illustrate..... what he had forgotten was that he had some linux tools installed so it was a valid command...

Cue the slow motion "Noooooooo!!!"

When I was in college, I worked at a computer store. This was in the days of DOS 3.0, We had a customer that bought a computer, then brought it back a few hours later for us to reload DOS onto it. They were poking around in the directory with all the DOS utilities in it and deleted two obviously useless files. The files were "." and "..".

 

[kriss72]

Cue the slow motion "Noooooooo!!!"

Exactly

 

[Judge]

Since I finally was able to get Linux Mint 22.0 from randomly freezing, I'm back to my old tricks having fun customizing Mint's GUI.

Still very grateful to @Outdated in helping me out with that!

However this time around I have heeded Mint's advice and avoiding switching over to the Gnome Desktop Manager and using any number of Gnome extensions. I've tried in the past using Gnome extensions within the Gnome Desktop Manager on boot, but it has ended up being less than stable. So this time around I'm sticking to everything Cinnamon as Mint developers suggest.

(OTOH the Gnome Desktop works seamlessly with Pop!OS22.04, but that's another interface !)

Admittedly the Cinnamon extensions are considerably fewer in comparison. Still, I have found there are a lot of things one can do when it comes to customizing the GUI as long as it remains a Cinnamon source. (There are Cinnamon applicable docks out there to try, but even within Cinnamon I found some of them to be less than stable.)

I just wish the "Transparent Panels" extension could work individually with multiple panels. I've always had a preference for semi-transparent panels. But since this is not the case, I seemed forced to have the second panel opaque while the bottom panel is transparent while it serves as a dock of sorts to hold all my favorites icons. Using the "Mint-Y-Teal" icons, which are far more "Mac-like" in appearance. I was able to "lift" all the favorites icons away from the bottom of the screen by simply increasing the panel height to "50".

Here's an example using two panels and different icons to resemble a Mac OS in Linux Mint:

Of course with Linux Mint you still have a very different menu compared to what you can do with the Gnome Desktop Manager. Even then though, Mint offers an alternative extension called "Cinnamenu" that I have always preferred:

This is just to show that I'm using a Cinnamon-supported extension (Mojave-Dark) to allow for a more Mac-like interface. Unfortunately none of the Mac-like extensions work 100% for all applications. Some like Gnome Maps don't work at all and show only the native Mint GUi while others may show some Mac features, but show up in a light instead of a dark mode. Ironically an issue that still exists even with Windows 11.

 

[Outdated]

However this time around I have heeded Mint's advice and avoiding switching over to the Gnome Desktop Manager and using any number of Gnome extensions.

This is only an educated guess here and not proven, but I believe you should be able to use gnome extensions that were created for Gnome2. That's what the Cinnamon desktop is based on. When Gnome3 came out everyone hated it with passion so some people started reworking the older Gnome2 desktop - that was the birth of Cinnamon.

 

[Judge]

This is only an educated guess here and not proven, but I believe you should be able to use gnome extensions that were created for Gnome2. That's what the Cinnamon desktop is based on. When Gnome3 came out everyone hated it with passion so some people started reworking the older Gnome2 desktop - that was the birth of Cinnamon.

Oh, I think I have already. But in the big picture I found just converting to the Gnome Desktop Manager on boot creates a less-than-stable environment in Linux Mint. Since Mint comes so stable "out-of-the box", I just have no desire to spoil that consideration.

I'm actually fine with experimenting with Gnome extensions through Pop!OS22.04. However that will only last though 2027. Pop!OS Cosmic is due probably sometime early in 2025, but has been entirely rewritten in Rust, so using Gnome will be completely out. In following Linus Torvald it would seem there is a bit of an argument between "C" and "Rust" developers at the moment.

I may end up experimenting again with Ubuntu 24 if I'm able to continue using Gnome. Though that version is also supposed to be highly dependent on Wayland, which is anyone's guess as to how stable it may be. (Wayland is also a boot option with Linux Mint, but.....LOL I wouldn't recommend trying it. At least not presently. Definitely not stable !)

 

[Outdated]

I just always hated Gnome, and when Gnome3 came out I was horrified - they copied Windows 8. It wasn't until I started finding shortcomings in different file browsers that I found my way to Cinnamon and I haven't looked back since then. You can get a copy of Ubuntu that's loaded with Cinnamon and no Gnome if you want:

Ubuntu Cinnamon | Ubuntu, traditionally modern

 

[Judge]

I just always hated Gnome, and when Gnome3 came out I was horrified - they copied Windows 8. It wasn't until I started finding shortcomings in different file browsers that I found my way to Cinnamon and I haven't looked back since then. You can get a copy of Ubuntu that's loaded with Cinnamon and no Gnome if you want:

Ubuntu Cinnamon | Ubuntu, traditionally modern

Using so much Gnome through Pop!Os22.04 without incident, I can't really diss Gnome in general. I just know it's not advisable to use in Mint, at least in my experience. And I do try to pay attention to all the notations of Gnome extensions regarding the version and compatibility issues to watch out for. That's true enough, and can be a problem sometimes.

Of course Pop!OS defaults to the Nautilus file manager, while Mint defaults to Nemo. While neither have given me any problems, I do seem to like Nautilus a bit more than Nemo.

Though I also seem to recall as a noob it was a bit disconcerting to discover with Nautilus that I had to perform a terminal command to get root authority in Nautilus. Not any kind of obstacle, but when you're new to Linux, any mandatory terminal use was well...a bit intimidating at first:

sudo apt install nautilus-admin

 

[Judge]

Another thing I like about Linux Mint 22.0 is that it appears to do away with a need for "power toy" apps like the Dconf Editor or Gnome Tweaks. You just have to explore to find how you can carry out simple alterations, like defaulting to centering newly opened windows.

Though I suppose for advanced users the Dconf Editor might still be useful. Of course it's another one of those "toys" that can bring down your entire OS if you aren't careful about using it!

Still cracks me up though that while Microsoft continues to restrict customization in Windows 11, with Linux distros, the sky is the limit.

 

[Judge]

Probably sounds silly, but I've wanted to do this for some time. Nerds just wanna have fun.

How cool! I discovered a second and newer Mint 22.0 extension that is a bit more advanced than the earlier transparent panel extension. So I applied both of them, one to the top panel making it only semi-transparent, and the other to the bottom, making it fully transparent.

As a bonus, I also discovered the "Magic Lamp Effect" also now in the extensions listings of Linux Mint 22.0. It's a whacky effect where if you minimize a window, it reduces itself like watching a "Genie go back into their bottle".

I feel like a kid in a candy store. Having my cake and eating it too.

Not a Mac, not even Pop!OS this time. Just Linux Mint 22.0 Cinnamon. The best of both worlds.