What the heck has happened to Linux?

[Jamesbeat]

I may be late to the party here, but providing there's nothing wrong with my OS, I tend to stay at least one release behind to avoid the teething problems associated with using the latest version.

So, I 'upgraded' to Ubuntu 11.10 the other day, and was horrified to discover that my desktop had been replaced with a stupid social media tablet OS (Unity).

So, I tried Linux Mint, which still uses Gnome. Or so I thought.
Actually, it uses Gnome 3, which isn't Gnome at all, it's a stupid social media tablet OS!

I can't right click on my desktop, I can't make shortcuts, I can't even minimize windows and the new menu system is reminiscent of Windows.

It seems that both of these desktops are designed to make it easier for people to find their files and apps, but only for the type of person who doesn't care where their files are actually stored.
Instead of making things easier, I found myself having to point and click my mouse much more than before.
I know where all of my stuff is, get out of my way!

It's clear that they have both dumbed down their GUI's to make their distros more accessible to new Linux users, which is commendable, but to cripple it for power users is obscene.

The real irony is that I don't even consider myself to be a power user. Sure, I use my computer for more than facebook and twitter, but I'm not an IT professional.
I feel that the people being targeted by these new GUI's are people who probably don't need to use a computer in the first place, and would be better served by a smartphone or tablet.


I expect these types of systems on my cellphone, because my cellphone has a small screen and no keyboard/mouse.
I don't have a real estate problem on my computer screen, and it comes with a keyboard and mouse.
I feel like Unity and Gnome 3 are catering to the lowest common denominator in terms of hardware, and it seems like tablets have caused a race to the bottom for the desktop.


I tried to get used to Unity, and gave it way longer than it really deserved (over a week) before deciding I simply couldn't live with it.
I really made a genuine effort to get used to it, because using Ubuntu has many advantages which I don't want to live without.
Gnome 3 lasted a day and a half.

I'm trying to love KDE, but it messed up almost as soon as I installed it.
From a clean install, I tried to use the 'moron software center' or whatever it's called. First time worked ok, second time crashed. Now it crashes every time I try to open it.
I never liked KDE anyway because it's too similar to Windows, but this is the icing on the cake.


So where do I turn?
Linus Torvalds shares my opinion of Gnome 3 (it's an 'unholy mess') and has switched to Xfce (which presumably means he shares my opinion of Unity too).
I have tried Xfce, and while I do believe that it's the best of the lot at the moment, it's a bit too simple for my taste.
I guess I either have to use Xfce or install an older version of Ubuntu that still has Gnome 2.x, but this is less than ideal.

[/rant]

[funkymeeba]

e17 puts all the rest to shame. You should give it a shot.

[sth]

Try dwm if you have work to do

[Jamesbeat]

Thanks for the quick replies and heads up.
Bodhi looks interesting, and should run pretty fast, since it has very low system requirements.

I guess I am just wary of using a new distro. I tried GOS a few years ago, and support waned and my system gradually went senile.
Ubuntu has been great for me because of the enormous backing it has. I felt like I could just stick with it and not have to mess around changing distros every few months, but I just can't live with Unity or KDE.

Incidentally, I just tried to shut down my laptop with Kubuntu installed, and it hung.
This is from a fresh install I did yesterday, and the only thing I did was install and use Firefox.

[sth]

Have you tried Linux Mint?

[kps]

I'm using KDE (Kubuntu at work) primarily because its programs at least let me override the stupid Windows convention of usurping Control for menu shortcuts.

[Soarer]

Did I ever mention ...

Posts 52,269

Probably!

[Findecanor]

This is why I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It should receive updates into 2013. By then, Ubuntu will need to have got their act right or people will have abandoned them for another distribution.

BTW, I use Window Maker as my window manager and Gnome 2 on the root window. Metacity does not do it for me.

[Jamesbeat]

Sth: yes I did try Mint, it uses Gnome 3...

Ripster: where did you get that photo of me?!

[sth]

This is why I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It should receive updates into 2013. By then, Ubuntu will need to have got things right with their next release or people will have abandoned them.

BTW, I use Window Maker as my window manager and Gnome 2 on the root window. Metacity does not do it for me.

I think you're vastly overestimating the vocal minority that seems to hate Unity. I don't have enough experience with it to judge, but I work with folks that use vanilla Ubuntu + Unity every day and love it.

There's a world of distros out there; Ubuntu is and should be free to continue developing whatever product they want. They don't need to do anything especially when they are developing a product on their time and dime to give away for free. They sure as hell don't make any money off of home users/hobbyists.

@Jamesbeat: Gotcha. I was under the impression they were using a combination of GNOME 3 and MATE stuff, but I don't keep up with GNOME and it's offshoots these days. If you like GNOME 2, MATE might be an option; otherwise XFCE is going to be as close as you'll get.

[Jamesbeat]

10.04 is what I 'upgraded' from.
I'm tempted to just throw it back on there and wait and see how all this pans out.

Either that or get a copy of Windows *canned laughter*

[iMav]

As others have mentioned, you are not stuck with the default WM.  You can still "revert" to the "Ubuntu Classic" and remove Unity all together if you want.  

My x120e (lenovo thinkpad) has some serious issues with the open source ATI video drivers, so am currently installing the proprietary (catalyst) ones.  Running Fedora 16 right now as I decided to change it up (ubuntu has been my desktop standard for a while now).

[davkol]

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[Vyr1s]

Based on the apparent knowledge of your replies and terminology, I would ask, why are you even using Linux?
I mean the title of this thread should be for ubuntu or Unity, not linux as a whole.
Thought their may have been a huge kernel change I missed!

With that being said, the whole point of linux, is an open source platform.
As such, any changes pushed by distro holders, that you do not agree with, change it.
You can configure just about everything in linux and make it run however you wish.

One of the greatest things is that it's not necessary to use any piece of poo that comes by default. Unlike on Mac O$ X or M$ Windows.

Um what poo comes with M$?
Last time I checked it comes with a stock OS with next to no 'pre-installed software'.
I do agree that Apple has bloated most of their releases with their own bloatware.
However, talking about distros in general, specifically ubutntu (and spin offs) are the base linux kernel with pre-installed SW/'bloatware'

Personally I am a huge fan of Gentoo.

[sth]

I do agree that Apple has bloated most of their releases with their own bloatware.

Huh? New Macs get iLife. OS installs are VERY barren. They're slightly more capable than a fresh unmodified Windows install (built in PDF support comes to mind).

Personally I am a huge fan of Gentoo.

Oh nvm, it all makes sense now. Have fun compiling

[Soarer]

Based on the apparent knowledge of your replies and terminology, I would ask, why are you even using Linux?
I mean the title of this thread should be for ubuntu or Unity, not linux as a whole.
Thought their may have been a huge kernel change I missed!

Maybe your head is stuck so far up your own ass that you can't hear what the OP is saying. I'll paraphrase:
Why oh why is there this seeming trend towards tablet UI in the major Linux distros?

[Vyr1s]

Maybe your head is stuck so far up your own ass that you can't hear what the OP is saying. I'll paraphrase:
Why oh why is there this seeming trend towards tablet UI in the major Linux distros?

Oh man, you made me lol good sir, thanks!

I will reiterate what that statement was about;
The growing trend is across all OS window managers last time I checked.
I am trying to point out it's not a change with linux, it is a change with the theme in a window manager or front end environment.
It bothers me that people compile that into a general representation of something.

For example;
My return key stops working (because I have spilled a beverage into it). Obviously it is my computer that is not working and I am now mad at Microsoft because Windows will not work properly when I hit return.

But beyond that, for the OP sake, they are free to change the manager settings or theme, or swap to a different one.
This is the beauty of an opensource platform.

[fossala]

Try OpenBSD with cwm. Simplicity perfected.

[telepete]

I always run Suse. I love it. KDE ftw as well. KDE is not like Windows because KDE does what I tell it to. Problems I had with it were easily fixed.

Sent from my TF101 using Tapatalk

[Jamesbeat]

I thought that 'What the heck has happened to the desktop environments bundled with the more mainstream Linux distributions' didn't quite have the same ring to it.

And it's not just Ubuntu, it's Mint (Gnome 3) too, and they are the two main players.
Linux is all about choice, but I feel that the choices offered by the two most popular distros are pretty awful.

I use Linux because it's stable, secure, and does what I want it to without getting in my way.
I have been using it for seven years now without any major hitches.
I enjoy the 'It just works' philosophy that Ubuntu has, and because Canonical has almost always lived up to that, I haven't really had much need to mess about with it too much.

I didn't realise that my lack of knowledge of the correct jargon disqualified me as a Linux user, I just use it as an operating system, not a way of life.

[sth]

Try OpenBSD with cwm. Simplicity perfected.

I just looked up screens of CWM and proceeded to barf on my keyboard. Good thing it's my ****ty rubber dome work board. CWM looks too distracting, have you tried DWM? once you get the hang of it you can just keep the bar hidden and operate like ratpoison on steroids.

[IvanIvanovich]

Why are there new environments like Unity? Because there is a huge push in the tablet space where an environment like that is needed.
As pointed out, use a different package or even different distro. You don't have to use it. It's not Windows 8, you still have a choice to not have to use a touch centric interface.

[Vyr1s]

What's wrong with "What the heck has happened to Unity"
Or "What the heck has happened to the Ubuntu UI"

The abruptness of your current title supports the fact you just want more people to come read your rant then actually talk about the topic.
Seven years on the OS _should_ mean that you understand this as a theme concern with the mainstream demographic, and the simple fix is to change the theme or change managers.
If the bigger concern, is that you are not a power user, and are having issues getting other options working, then ask for help.

Interchanging 'linux' with a distro, and a problem with an app vs the OS, does limit your credibility.
And often based on these ques, really question why you are doing something.
I thank you for your reasons, and accept it as a personal choice. Nothing wrong with that.
Just trying to ascertain if you are a fanboy vs someone who has made this choice.

Often the fix to something is with what they are doing, rather than how they are doing it.

[Vyr1s]

Why are there new environments like Unity? Because there is a huge push in the tablet space where an environment like that is needed.
As pointed out, use a different package or even different distro. You don't have to use it. It's not Windows 8, you still have a choice to not have to use a touch centric interface.

Got to think outside the current scope.
These GUI simple designs are amazing for 'simple' users as well as touchscreen displays.
While the current market has a draw to touchscreens being phones, tablets, and other handhelds.
A lot of this is getting ready for the market to make the jump to touchscreen LCDs for desktop PCs.

[SidusNare]

Gnome isn't Linux
Gnome 3 isn't Linux
Ubuntu isn't Linux

The biggest advantage to GNU/Linux is being squashed in the name of ease of use. If you want easy get a Mac, if you want cheap and easy, use Ubuntu, if you want powerful use just about anything else from the UNIX world. I would recommend Debian for someone that wants to learn. I use Gentoo on all my systems, but thats a bit far off the deep end for a beginner. If you have a handle on how Linux works, try LFS (Linux from scratch) if you don't fail or go insane, you will know quite a lot about how Linux works, and what it actually is.

Linux/GNU/UNIX is powerful because it is flexible, narrowing it down to point and click is ridiculous.

If it were easy it wouldn't be very useful.

PS: Mac "Apple Thumper" fanboys, you are using UNIX, welcome to the club.

[Jamesbeat]

My main gripe is not with Unity itself, I'm sure it would be ideal on a tablet.
The problem is that it seems that the general consensus within the industry is that people don't want or need desktop computers any more now there are tablets.

I don't have a tablet, but I do have an iphone.
I love it. I'm typing on it now.
However much I love my iphone though, I don't want to turn my desktop computer into one.

I'm sure Unity is great if all you use a computer for is to let the world know via twitter that you just got your nails done.
I'm also sure that the more you restrict the OS, the less likely inexperienced users are to mess it up, but to take away the ability to minimize windows or creat a shortcut on your desktop? No thanks, Gnome 3.

What I don't like is that, for the first time since switching to Linux, my computer is trying to tell me what to do instead of the other way around.

[sth]

Got to think outside the current scope.
These GUI simple designs are amazing for 'simple' users as well as touchscreen displays.

Man i remember when i thought my choice of de/wm made me better than other people. Ah, to be a teenager again...

[sth]

PS: Mac "Apple Thumper" fanboys, you are using UNIX, welcome to the club.

Are you trying to be incendiary here? I'm not aware of any Mac users that dislike the BSD underpinnings; they either don't know/care or it's a selling point.

[SidusNare]

BTW, I use Window Maker as my window manager and Gnome 2 on the root window. Metacity does not do it for me.

WindowMaker is great, if occurred to me recently that if you took OpenDarwin and loaded it up with a full GNUStep stack and Window Maker, you would have a very new NExT Workstation, especially if you put it on Apple hardware.

I started out with RedHat, so I got used to Gnome, but I use window maker when Gnome is screwed up or on resource limited machines, its great.

[SidusNare]

Are you trying to be incendiary here? I'm not aware of any Mac users that dislike the BSD underpinnings; they either don't know/care or it's a selling point.

I am trying to raise awareness that a lot of the cool things we do in Linux can be done on a Mac now, Like you said "either don't know", a lot of them don't.

[Soarer]

I'm noticing a common trend with the gentoo users... lol.

[sth]

I'm noticing a common trend with the gentoo users... lol.

Rice is nice.

[Jamesbeat]

Vyr1s: it's not just Ubuntu with Unity, it's also Mint with Gnome 3, and probably a lot of other less well known distros too.
I know that Linux isn't a desktop environment, but for a lot of people (myself included to an extent) the two are intertwined when it comes to everyday use.
I was using 'Linux' in a more general, perhaps even slang way.
When people ask me whether I use Windows or Mac, I don't say "Neither, I use GNU/Linux", I say "Linux".

When I wrote the title of this thread, I was paraphrasing in the same way, because a thread title is similar to a headline and should be kept short.

I understand that it is important (often critically so) to speak correctly and use the correct terminology, but I also think that pedantry is bad too.

The problem with saying 'what's happened to Unity' or 'what's happened to Ubuntu' is that it's not just Ubuntu/Unity that's the problem.
Unity IS what happened to Ubuntu, and the problem is that the other major alternative (Mint) is using Gnome 3, which is also horrible.
I think you knew what I meant once you read the thread.

I'm not a power user, but I have picked up enough knowledge to, for instance, install different graphical environments and switch between them. The problem is that they seem to have ruined Gnome.

[fossala]

I just looked up screens of CWM and proceeded to barf on my keyboard. Good thing it's my ****ty rubber dome work board. CWM looks too distracting, have you tried DWM? once you get the hang of it you can just keep the bar hidden and operate like ratpoison on steroids.

How can you like DWM and not like CWM they are simerlay (keyboard driven) just one is a tilling and the other is floating. Anyway the best 2 tiling window managers are Xmonad and Stumpwm.

[sth]

How can you like DWM and not like CWM they are simerlay (keyboard driven) just one is a tilling and the other is floating. Anyway the best 2 tiling window managers are Xmonad and Stumpwm.

dwmis tiling+floating and has almost no visual distractions. I don't like Xmo, stump, awesome et al. They're like mutant ogre behemoths compared to dwm, but I can see why the people who like it like it. I just have no need for the fluff, but these days I use linux/BSD as a utility rather than a daily workstation.

[Soarer]

I think you knew what I meant once you read the thread.

No doubt. Don't feed the trolls!

[Daniel Beaver]

Ahhh... window manager and desktop environment discussions. Love this stuff.

I agree with the OP's rant about Unity, and the weird direction which the Ubuntu project is headed. Unity's unforgivable sin, in my mind, is that it fails at it's intended purpose: to be a good netbook and tablet interface. I spent a lot of time struggling with it on my tablet (an atom-based plaything I bought on a whim a few months ago), as well as on my 11 inch laptop (sort of a semi-netbook). The whole interface is sluggish, non-intuitive, and inefficient. While I appreciate the effort to efficiently manage screen real estate, it comes at far too much of a cost in usability. As a tablet interface, it fails spectacularly - they don't even have a decent virtual keyboard. Even KDE's nascent Plasma Active provides a better user experience, to say nothing of Windows 8.

Gnome 3 at least has some redeeming features. It's fairly snappy, and has an over-arching design paradigm that makes sense. Unity, by contrast... I can think of nothing good to say about it. I think canonical would do very well to trash it and try a customized version of Gnome3 in the next Ubuntu. But whatever... the beauty of Ubuntu (and Linux in general) is that you can run whatever the hell desktop environment you want.

I've pretty much converted to KDE4 at this point on my travel laptop (with Ubuntu server edition as a base). It is the most complete and functional desktop environment out there right now, and I appreciate the "everything just works" aspect of it. The extreme feature bloat sometimes is bit much, but performance is pretty good regardless. Plus, with compiz you can get tiling using the Grid plugin (super-essential!).

All the servers at work run an old version of Gnome. It's fast, and perfectly serviceable. I hope Red Hat sticks with that for awhile (Fedora drank the Gnome 3 koolaid already)

I always like trying out other desktop environments. Bodhi has been impressing me lately (an E17 Ubuntu variant). It's too bad that none of the major distros ever embraced E17, it really does have so much potential. XFCE, openbox, LDXE and the like are all quite serviceable, of course. Knoppix, in particular, has a very slick config of LDXE - worth checking out. The tiling WMs are really interesting too: dwm, awesome, xmonad, i3, wmii, scrotwm, ion3. Awesome is probably the most usable, IMO (Sabyon has a nice Awesome based version of the distro). For netbooks and small laptops, I think tiling WMs make a lot of sense. A combination of tiling, virtual desktops and window tagging lets you manage a normally unwieldy number of apps on a very small screen.

Anyhow... I'm still using Windows 7 on my work computer, as well as on my gaming computer. Applications are more important than the OS, and the applications I need run on windows. A combination of Launchy, bblean and WinSplitRevolution gives it all window managing functionality I need

[Soarer]

Quite so. Programming Windows apps is what puts food on my table, and even when not programming I'm generally using apps for which there simply aren't contenders on Linux. Another aspect - even if there were contenders, we wouldn't use them, because if they processed the data incorrectly it would then be our fault - using a de facto standard app (which implies a Windows app, in our case) allows us to pass the blame :-)

I wish I had the time to mess about with stuff more than I do, but these days I want to have acheived something at the end of it... something more than knowing how to 'configure' and 'make' an OS. Been there done that.

Anyway, edit to add something on topic... the default desktop environment install should be usable on a typical desktop without pissing about, or it doesn't deserve its name! Anything less is worthy of a good rant!

[BigDov]

I'm a big fan of crunchbang for a no-nonsense approach to the desktop....it's over the top geeky and very minimalistic. I can't speak to the latest version and if they have or haven't changed it up, because I'm at least 2 releases behind (other things going on keeping me from messing around in Linux-land).

[In Stereo!]

What happened to Linux? It has moved on. I personally rather like Unity, not sure why people are complainting about it and actually I never heard real, concrete complaints just some random *****ing about not being able to lay back for a moment and trying to understand the workflow.

[IvanIvanovich]

I'm a crunchbanger too, and I HAVE to stay releases behind, since they dropped support for anything older than i686 on statler. My Via C7 has no cmov, so I can't update. Same goes with many other distros, dropping support for older hardware. I see that as a bigger issue than what desktop manger there is.

[Jamesbeat]

The problem (for me) with Unity is that it seems to have traded enormous icons for simplicity.
There are two types of simplicity, one good, one bad.
Simple can be good if it makes the OS transparent, it is bad if the OS railroads you into a particular workflow, especially one that is harder to use than your current workflow.
I don't like the dock at the left hand side of the screen, but I have to hack the OS to move it?
For me, it makes everything more difficult.

I'm not arguing that it is bad, but I do think that Ubuntu has followed their philosophy of making Linux easy to use too far for my tastes.
If that means that more people get turned on to Linux, then that can only be a good thing.
The problem for me is that simplifying it has also made it difficult to use if you don't fit the description of the user that Canonical has in mind.

The real problem for me is that the other obvious choice for me (ie a distro that is popular and still uses Gnome, ie Mint) is also out of the question because Gnome has also been changed in (to me) a negative way.

As I said, I'm not a power user, and I liked Ubuntu. I can use the command line for basic stuff, but I prefer the GUI.
I liked the Ubuntu software center for its simplicity compared even to Synaptic.

I will now have to mess around with my OS instead of just using it.

[Grimey]

Ubuntu for the underlying OS is perfectly fine by me.  I am in the boat as several users here as I am still on 10.04 LTS for my home and work machines.

I code in a Linux/BSD environments for other Linux environments.  I love the Unix tools and openness of everything we use (not all the time of course).  I understand the complaint in this thread is more directed at the WMs of modern distros, which I would agree with.  The "engine" underneath it all is still a beautiful tool and it just gets a shinny exterior now and then when people decide we are doing something wrong.  

The modern day WMs used to annoy me, but as with many things in life I have had to come to the conclusion that I am not the target audience.  Luckily for me someone will keep making some bare bones distros that I can throw my *box WMs on.

[davkol]

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[tobydeemer]

Had to chime in on this one. I use GNU/Linux daily for work (both server CLI and desktop). Since I'm not going to go the Unity/Gnome3 route, since I have an Android phone for that crap...

I've moved most systems to XFCE 4.8, which can be made to look and function almost exactly like Gnome2 with about ten minutes of work. And I've moved my two work systems to Window Maker. Takes a little more tuning, but far and away worth it in the end. Function is *excellent*, and system resource usage is almost non-existent.

Tried Unity on a system for kicks and just to see... Resource usage was ridiculous for the supposed "benefits".

[xcrx]

I use XFCE on arch. I don't understand how I use to use windows all the time. It is so restricting.

[Tricks]

I use linux professionaly and did upgrade to unity, rolled back to gnome, and then was forced to use unity again as I need to know whats going on there
The only advantage is the full screen working environment out of the box, I hate looking for my apps in the sidebar, I hate typing in the search field for apps that are not 100% compatible to that lame sidebar...

[rknize]

I feel your pain, OP.  I've been a long-time Debian user (20+ years).  I started using Ubuntu when Warty came out.  It was like having Debian that "just worked" on desktops and laptops, for which it was notoriously unreliable.  I still use Debian on my servers.  When Natty came out, I knew the writing was on the wall.  They were planning to remove their classic "fallback" mode (which didn't work very well anyway) on Oneiric.  I can't manage all of the workspaces and windows I have to manage using Unity's approach.  Unity is fine for my personal laptop, which only has a few browsers and terminal windows open at a time.  Back then, Linux Mint was still holding out with GNOME 2.  However, they couldn't hold out forever.  The rest of the GNOME-based world is moving to GNOME 3.  I'm just not a KDE guy.

GNOME 3 does not mean that you have to use the Shell.  However, Mint is probably one of the only examples that provides an alternative.  With the latest release, you can use Linux Mint in one of three ways:

- GNOME Shell: this is the default.
- Cinnamon: this is a Shell replacement meant to provide the GNOME 2 desktop approach using GNOME 3.
- MATE: this is a fork of GNOME 2 that can co-exist with GNOME 3.

Long term, Cinnamon is probably the right approach and MATE is more of a stop-gap.  At the moment, Cinnamon is a little rough around the edges as it coming entirely from the Linux Mint developers.  MATE is a separate project and has been coming along nicely.  All that said, consider giving the Shell a try.  The extensions are what make it leaps ahead of Unity and also allow you to ease the transition over from the traditional app-menu-based system.

To give an example, after my tango with Natty and after trying out Mint's official "Lisa" release I settled on Mint's LDME (Linux Mint Debian Edition).  It's a rolling distribution that follows Debian Testing, but throttles the changes in the form of update packs.  The last official update pack (UP3) is getting a bit long in the tooth as it is still using GNOME 2.  UP4 is being tested now and I've had it installed on my MacBook Pro.  I've been trying to give the Shell a fair shake (as I did with Unity on the laptop) and I find I am more productive than I was with Unity.  A few days ago I put it on my home workstation (I am on it now).  With the right extenstions (check out the "Frippery" ones), it has been working fairly well.  I use 8 work spaces here and am able to manage them OK.  I have more like 10-12 at work, as I do a lot of things at once now and depend on the workspaces to be my brain context.  I won't take the plunge at work just yet.

Another option that I tried again, briefly before switching to Mint, is Xcfe.  It used to think of itself as a super-light weight, GNOME-like desktop.  Now it is getting a little more fancy (and bloated) and I can see it filling in the gap that GNOME 2 is leaving behind at some point down the road.  At the moment, it's still a bit too utilitarian for me.   Filling in the super-stripped-down role that Xcfe used to have is LXDE, but I digress.

Good luck!

[Jamesbeat]

Thank you for that long and incredibly helpful reply!
I've been too busy over the past few days to think about this mich, but come Monday, I'm going to tackle this problem in earnest.
There are a lot of options, none of them ideal, but it could be worse. Mint alone offers several different distros as you point out, so I guess I'll start my search there.

The real thing I'm afraid of is adopting a less well established distro and then finding that support has been dropped a few months down the line.

I'm pretty sure I'll be installing my home folder on a separate partition from now on to make switching distros less bothersome.

[rknize]

Yes, that was a concern of mine as well.  I hadn't paid much attention to Mint before this.  Turns out they are the #4 distro, by certain counts anyway.