I have to say, I totally agree with this review. Last night I was installing Windows 7 RC on my Dell Latitude D810. Though it is a HUGE improvement over Vista, I was left feeling empty and not fully satisfied. Then today while at a client, I went to distrowatch and saw Mint 7 RC1. As soon as I got home I downloaded it and installed it on the same laptop. For a minute I was tempted to dual boot............I didn't. This distro is awesome and I feel completely at home now. Sorry Windows 7. Maybe it just took too long for MS to release a decent OS.

Windows 7 is NOT a decent OS but i agree with all of you opinions of Mint, it does rock.

Windows 7 is great OS, if 80% of people use windows, and 2% use linux...
If linux community wants to compete with windows in any way they need to work together on less versions of linux (not x different distroes) and make them more appealing to current windows users, then they would have more user support, so more programs, games, professional tools...

"Windows 7 is great OS, if 80% of people use windows, and 2% use linux...
If linux community wants to compete with windows in any way they need to work together on less versions of linux (not x different distroes) and make them more appealing to current windows users, then they would have more user support, so more programs, games, professional tools... "

Hypothetical situation, 80% of computer users to decide to leap from a building, does majority of usage make it the smart thing to do? Hardly. I've recently made the transition from Windows(used religiously since 95) to Linux, Mint Fluxbox in particular(an AWESOME CE). I've been using Linux six months and I can say hands down that Windows isn't even in the same league as Linux. And why exactly should Linux be confined to only -one- flavor? If you took the time to read and experiment you would see that every distribution has something different to offer; unlike windows, Linux is completely versatile. With windows you get four different different choices in which the only difference is an animated desktop wallpaper feature, that in the end will be 200 dollars in difference of cost. Why should Linux appeal to windows users? The flexibility of this operating system demands your attention, and your time, God forbid you LEARN anything about the computer you're using. You want Linux to be "dummy proof" like Windows? hide all of the configuration options? Limit your personalization? Linux doesn't treat people like morons, using it requires some education, because hey guess what? it turns out an OPERATING SYSTEM is a complex thing! who knew!

Wooow it just rocksss!!!Its awesome and I like it a lot!Another great mint distro!
Barely can wait to get my hands on final version.
C ya soon Gloria:-)

Am I the only person (who's not actually a closet Windows fanboy) who honestly thinks that Linux looks like s**t on a desktop? Something isn't quite right - in fact, it's just left of being completely wrong but I can't for the life of me put my finger on what it is.

I use Centos 5 on my dedicated server - easily dealing with a bunch of sites and a dreamboat to work with even from a shell - so no one can accuse me of being a close M$ fan but all this WOW and PHWOAR seems to come threw rose-tinted spectacles. So far everything seems rooted in the last millennium.

Perhaps it's this apparently stubborn need for the developers to stick with a Windows 9x look?

What's missing?

Answer is simple, all the viruses and mall ware and all that rubbish plus the sluggishness

Windows, ha.

sounds like all you care about is appearances, well said chucky :)

No, you're not alone. You can twick all you want. But still, you're not going to get 100% working general purpose desktop OS. And that's what's missing. And this alone completely overshadows availability of 20 different desktop environments and 256 shades of pink you can use to paint your window border with.

I bet a lot of Loonix fanboys use MS Windows more often than they like to admit to (because it makes them not cool in their 'I hate Microsoft' Church).

I use Mint 6 Felice (Gnome/KDE) for a week now after all sorts of OS's and computers over 25 years. I was rather happy with PCLOS and Ubuntu (8.04; latest 8.10). I'm completely happy now with Mint. And I know Mint 7 will be perfect. They know very well what they are doing overthere. Windows-people can cross over to Mint. Yes, I'm serious.

Awesome, i have to download it, i have Felicia, and i love it, then i saw this review and im in shock!!. Love this review, lets see how long its gonna take for the final realise.

This looks like yet another solid mint release. I feel Mint is the real king of easy to use distro for noobies. the only problem i have with it is the mint menu has some kinda bug that makes it act weird skiping rapidly between items (doesnt happen all the time and not a show stopper but would be very cool if it were fixed)

i have given ms the flick, use Felicia full time and cant wait for Gloria. thanks so much for your efforts. i cant wait for the release of Gloria. i am a bit baffled at the negative comment above, obviously a person who doesn't know you can change what ever you like to what ever you like in Linux :)

It's true. There are a couple of things missing from your Cent OS dedicated server, but it's not anything you should try to change. An unbranded dedicated server does not necessarily have to look like a Desktop/Laptop OS, nor should it be made to look like one either.

For instance, your Cent OS server is missing Compiz Fusion, not only that but I bet your dedicated box is missing the 3D graphics card that would fully take advantage of Compiz Fusion. And while the effects of Compiz Fusion are not shown on these posted screenshots, those effects are very cool, they engender a completely silly but still very positive emotional response, and I personally never get tired of playing with them (this is definitely something that I never felt before).

Absolutely beautiful distro. Kudos to the devs. If they can fix the X3100 Intel GMA bug it will be even better. The bug was introduced in Ubuntu 9.04. I am 0 certain that this distro will convert many LiNUX sceptics.

Please note that the new Windows 7 RC7100 is also very good as well.

Can't wait for both OS's to get final.

Regards,
Ivan Kolevski

Time will tell about the Intel video bug. Which by the way is not an Ubuntu only problem but has appeared in many different distros. I do believe its linked to the kernel and I do believe there is a work around for it but I'm not sure. Anyway I'm looking forward to to testing the latest Mint when it becomes final.

Mint has become my desktop distro of choice, as of the Felicia edition. I'll upgrade to Gloria when its finalized. If Ubuntu is to seriously compete for the desktop, they need to seriously analyze what the Mint team has done. They've made a lot of things that used to be tedious into simple, painless, and aesthetically pleasing menus.

Currently I dual boot XP and Mint on my personal Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. The only reason I still have XP is because of Outlook, though I'm considering redoing the partitions and installing Windows/Outlook to Vbox.

I work as an IT Director for a fulfillment company in Georgia, and all our servers, minus the Exchange Server, run CentOS. CentOS is wonderful as a server platform, but I can't think of any reason to have it as a desktop. I have well over 10 years of experience with Linux, first using Slackware 3, and I've used most all the major (and a few minor) distros except for Debian. What Canonical has done is nothing short of amazing, but the Mint team have put polish on it.

There's no reason the Linux desktop has to look like Windows, as many Mac users would agree. I think the Linux desktop only lacks consistency of controls for inexperienced users. There are an overwhelming amount of tweak choices for most people. I've turned my children and several friends on to Linux with Mint, and they get along quite well.

Well I used the last version of Linux mint and it ruled. All the bundled codecs make it great for media junkies like myself.

However, there were no drivers for my dell port replicator and it didn't have drivers for my nvidia 8400m gs built in. Again so very sad. At the end it couldn't even see my NTFS partition table much less edit it.

I tried Ubuntu 9.04 and tried to install it to a flash at least, but all it did was copy the live CD.

Linux needs to make their OSs installable on flash memory so any changes or modifications to the OS will stay and you can walk around with the next best thing to a laptop or desktop PC, ur operating system.


PS, why is gnome so ugly?

KDE3 and 4 are gorgeous and so well laid out.

Maybe they should get the guy who did the AERO/IPHONE/B-BERRY STORM interface to redo gnome.

Veer,

I agree with about gnome....but mint spends so much time on beautiful wallpapers and menus and layout etc etc, but then go and use crap tango style icons from the 90s. If they put some effort into compiling a consistent svg icon theme from all that are available at gnome-look.org, something that looked beautiful like everaldos crystal project from kde or snow or glass etc

But obviously you haven't heard of unetbootin....that will install most distros to a flash drive, either download the iso and choose it, or select the distro from the dropdown list and it will download it for you and put it onto your flash drive and make the flash drive bootable.

I love this version of LinuxMint because versatilty and some many difference of Ubuntu ! Fast boot and beautiful desktop.. LInuxMint is my OS principal since 1 years.. Fist felicia and now Gloria.. I hope a 64 bit version stable for few a time..

J'aime beaucoup LinuxMint pour sa versatilité et sa relative bonne différence d'avec Ubuntu..
Un beau desigh.. Un boot rapide.. Ma première version a été Félicia et maintenant Gloria.. J'ai hâte de voir la 64 bit arrivé..

Although Fedora is my favourite platform I am tempted now in also trying Mint. That's the problem with Linux: everytime something new to look forwards to what for instance Microsoft is lacking. For many years now I am a Linux only user, before I used to dual-boot, not anymore thus. I love Opensuse though Suse seems always to have some kind of a problem, especially with codecs. Ubuntu is great and I admire people like Mark Shuttleworth in a certain respect. He is the man who brings Linux to the people and Red Hat to the enterprise. In my opinion there are a bit too many Linux flavours what makes life though (figure of speech). Now I have to check Mint out but hope to remain with Fedora.

Already an ardent ubuntu / debian fan...can't wait for Mint for the "complete out of the box experience"!! yaay! good review..

I absolutely LOVE the artwork!
Who ever did it is nothing short of a genius.
Does anyone know who the artist is, and has he/she done anymore artwork.

Go Linux Mint go!

@ John Smith:
I did Mint Dew which is featured in the release candidate, we'll see if Clem decides to keep it in the final release.
I've done some artwork for various distros over the years, mainly for Linux Mint though.
It can be found at my deviantART page: http://zwopper.deviantart.com/

Cheers!

//Zwopper

Centos by definition is behind the curve (a Linux distribution for servers) and uses old, stale code that's stable. Try a up-to-date Linux like Fedora 10 or Mandriva with KDE4 and see how that looks.

I did not see Mint 7 yet at this moment.
I saw PCLOS, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora and other names that LINUX takes.
Linux is not perfect. Will never be. The same with Windows.
I like them all, and I always use Windows to complete Linux and Linux to complete Windows no matter name, version or position in some top 10.
Sorry for my bad english but I hope you got the idea.

they do. any linux CD is cake to put on a USB and install
Grab Unetbootin > Point it at the ISO > install > Reboot
It's cake....er pie