From: ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com   
      
   On 2026-01-29, rbowman  wrote:   
   > On 28 Jan 2026 23:52:15 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:   
   >   
   >> Hence, what I was saying about Ubuntu being the catalyst. I don't know   
   >> why Mint needed to be created in 2011, but I imagine it was because the   
   >> community was offended by Mir or Unity. In Mir's case, Canonical was   
   >> actually trying to fix a problem, so I'm a little surprised that the   
   >> community were against it. Similarly, there was nothing wrong with   
   >> Unity. If people didn't want to use it, they could go ahead and install   
   >> a different desktop environment.   
   >   
   >   
   > Mint was created in 2006 and was a fork of Kubuntu using KDE. It switched   
   > to GNOME2 and was in lock step with Ubuntu. I don't know how it   
   > differentiated itself.  In 2010 LMDE was released but that is still a   
   > minority product and is seen as a way out if the LM maintainers get really   
   > pissed at Ubuntu.   
   >   
   > 2011 was the release of GNOME3, disliked by many and the start of the   
   > Cinnamon project. The switch in the leaderboard might well have been   
   > because of Unity although Cinnamon wasn't ready for prime time in 2011.   
   > I'm not sure it is in 2025 if running under Wayland is a requirement. I   
   > logged into the 'experimental' Cinnamon/Wayland in 22.3 and it lasted   
   > about 10 minutes.   
      
   Mate (basically a fork of Gnome 2) was, I believe, the main desktop for   
   Linux Mint in 2011. Cinnamon was a reaction to Gnome 3 and it took a couple   
   years to develop and polish it. I read they originally tried to use   
   extensions on Gnome 3, before jettisoning that idea by the time Cinnamon 2.0   
   came out. As I mentioned, I'm pretty sure Mate was the main desktop when   
   Ubuntu went away from Gnome 2. (For a while Ubuntu gave you the choice to   
   install Gnome 2 as its "Classic" install. (I'm not sure if the term was   
   "classic" or not.   
      
   A lot of people did not like Gnome 3 because the Gnome decided that they   
   knew better what people should want. A lot of people did not want the   
   desktop to be "revolutionized."   
      
   > GNOME2 lives on in MATE that also goes back to 2011. Fickle public, MATE   
   > is a little too traditional; they want some of GNOME3 but not all of it.   
   > Of course Xfce goes back to the late '90s and is really old school.   
      
   Cinnamon is Linux Mint's own so, I'm guessing, it's probably got the best   
   integration. But I like what Linux Mint has done with Mate and Xfce — all   
   three look and feel pretty much the same. A lot of people use Xfce for older   
   machines because it's lighter. But it's not hard to move from one to the   
   others. I think this is rare in the Linux distribution world. It may only be   
   Linux Mint that does this with three different desktops.   
      
   --   
   "Not just insane... Trump insane."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)