Linux Mint 15: C & M

Cinnamon and Mate. Review-like ...
I did it for nostalgic reasons (Mint was my first distro on Linux road; and also because I started this blog as intended help for n00bs.
Both Mint ISOs were 64bit Lives, written with Unetbootin to USB.

# Cinnamon
I didn't bother to install, just clicked around in Live.
It booted OK and desktop looked (again very) traditional Mint.
Cinnamon is simple-user oriented, allright. No question about that. I - as an advanced user - shouldn't whine about things-missing... but I do anyway.

Pros:
- Two panels are possible! Progress!
- Driver Manager: Now separate app.
- Software Sources: Much better usability.
- Get some frills and bling stright from internet. And new data is NOT mixed with default. You can pick what you want to add.
- Classic menu still installable (maybe - as it failed in Live).
- Login Window conf: New place to play.
- Cinnamon is ready for all usual user tasks, and has all ubuntuish 'restricted extras' (codecs, etc) installed.

Cons:
- MintMenu is still not resizable, not very-much-configurable Windowish thingy.
- File Manager Nemo is average. Definitely better than current Nautilus, but despite of various preferences, it's not especially configurable. Partitions list is not very clear and it is not in logical order. If partitions happen to be without labels, then it's probably total mess. (And the same goes for Mate, and it's even worse.) And of course you still can't remove some bookmarks. (And it's even worse in Mate.) Media handling default is clearly for idiot (err... careless?) user - play everything automatically.
- There is 'settings' icon on panel... it behaves ... strange and stupid way? Why it's there?
Desklets: Useless bling. Trying to be KDE?
- Startup Apps: Dumb-user stuff. Very few items there. Has 'maybe-options' all started... and real important things are not shown at all.
- Preferences: Looooong list of things... some of them are in System Settings, others you can get when using those apps. I suppose it's a bit confusing for Mints' intended users.

I think Mint Cinnamon devs succeeded again. It's a distro for a genuine 'User'. Nice. Smooth. Works out of box. Reminds of MS Windows - in a good way.
And it's definitely not for someone who wants to seriously tweak, tune and customize.
It's very good for a common user, and not so good for a tweaker.

# MATE
This one was installed for real. And strange enough - first Live boot hung just before desktop, I wrote USB over and then it booted OK.
As an afterthought - could be the same bug what appears later.
Installer is Ubuntus' usual - simple. Desktop is copy of previous one (Cinnamon).
Boot came with greeter error - but it 'switched' something and recovered. Next time was OK. After that I got some 'recursive error...' and everything froze, reboot - and greeter problem again.
By the way - boot time is twice longer than Debian Wheezys'.
Here, like in Cinnamon, everything is installed out of box.
Some things (Caja, Menu opening, System Monitor, ...) are a bit laggy to open, in operation, or when closing.

PROS:
- The same as in Cinnamon.
Additionally:
- There are no desklets and no strange 'settings'-thing on panel. Oh, good!
- I might be wrong, but there seems to be more configurable items in Control Centre compared to Cinnamon.
- Startup Apps: Sure, a lot more options to check/uncheck, and those are real, important ones.
- Services: Kinda 'Startup Apps' part separately. I am not sure if it's good to separate them... but they are available - which is good thing allright.
- Mint screensaver: Whatever looks better than stone-age Xscreensaver. Good.

CONS:
- There seems to be serious issue with boot and/or greeter.
- Mintmenu looks different here. Still can't resize it. I still don't like it. But classic one is available (pro-thing).
- File Manager Caja seems even less pleasant than Cinnamons' Nemo. List of partitions is especially cryptic, and default bookmarks are ALL undeletable.
- Time/Date on panel is automatically taken from location and not from language used - which is quite bizarre thing to do.
- Preferences and Control Center  are duplicates.
- Compositing seems to be the usual: tearing when scrolling and so on.

All in all: Mate seems better than it was in previous version. Generally a nice desktop for doing all simple user-stuff in most efficient way. It's n00b-friendly. And it leaves a bit more playground than Cinnamon. Definitely recommended to Linux newcomers. The same as with Cinnamon - userfriendly.

Linux Mint 1.41 Mate x 2

December 2012
I got kind of frustrated with my double session installation – especially with uselessly hanging Cinnamon part. And I guess – the moment also marked the beginning of (kinda typical nooby) distro-hopping disease.
I decided to install Mint Mate from ISO. I did it twice. md5 was checked on both occasions, and it was OK.
First install went without problems, but on desktop I started to notice various little nags and bugs (Date/clock widget was configurable only by conf editor, artifacts in menu, sticky-notes behaving silly – and so on). And things worsened. Whole affair ended with format next day.
The second installation lasted longer – and finally I crapped it out with all these exciting updates from development repository. The thing is – it's very difficult not to install new versions of parts of your system... after all, they are available, so easily.
Moral – be very careful about it. Even better – it would be nice to know how to uninstall them (if possible).

MATE INSTALLATION TUTORIAL … or something:
Mint 1.41 Live ISO does not have stright install option – it can be done only through live desktop. It's a bit uncommon... with other friendly-distros there usually is option to install at once.
With second (ultimately good) installation (1. attempt) I got error – which I, as a typical user, can't remember – but the outcome was that installer completely avoided the partitioning part, and started to copy files to … somewhere (I haven't yet found them). I solved the situation by removing the USB-stick in mid-stride and starting installation over. The second attempt with the same image was without any hitch, strange that.
Pleasant is – desktop remains with you all through installation. So you can still play around and whatnot.

- One of the first things is message about amount of space needed and 'it's good to have internet access'. Yes it is. Click next.
- Timezone. Default choice is your current whereabout. OK.
- Language. Also locale-connected. If you want english – like I do – change it. If you are not really Brit, choose US. I did choose UK, then found that keyboard layout is slightly different, and lost 1,5 hour for resolving problem 'yes I change it to US, you silly user, but I forget it for next login, muhaha!'.
- Identity. The usual. To remember – in Ubuntu (and Mint) there is one user and password only. When doing Forbidden Things, you 'sudo' and use the same password as ever. So, it's probably wise not to use very easy/stupid password. Ah, and being only user to login, and changing it 'do not ask password' does not mean that you can sudo without password.
- Account transfer. If you want. I never did – no idea what happens.
- Partitioning. Find correct drive (by empty space you made previously, for example), add partitions (/, swap, home) one by one. They all can be extended ones, Linux doesn't care (every physical drive can have only 4 basic partitions – so, there could be situations when you have to use only extendeds). Types/sizes: ext4-10Gb, swap-2Gb, ext4-10Gb – respectively or use your imagination. Let them to be made.
After that, everything will be installed. Reboot. Enjoy. Or …

TIP: Double boot with Windows. Bootloader goes to MBR (sdb in my case).
Triple boot: Windows + Linux you use + Linux for testing. Temporary(last install) = bootloader goes to root partition – in my case sdb8. Then you reboot, and boot to first, permanent Linux, open terminal and write update-grub. Reboot – and there is your second Linux install added into old boot menu. When you decide to remove your test-installation, format it from the first Linux, update-grub again, and everything is like before.
The point is – if you install new grub onto old one and then remove new installation, your MBR will be fucked, and no more boot for anything (without dedicated repairwork).

Some random features and observations: 
- As Mate is Gnome 2, it's panel can be made transparent. Height can be regulated, width is only 'expanded' or not (fits to items' width). It's possible to place items where you want - different of Xfce-panel where distances between items of one 'group' are not customizable. BUT Mate has ...err... jumble bug - you do something with panel properties - and panel items suddenly re-arrange themselves in silly way.
- mate-config-editor is installed by default. And you probably need it too.
- Installed apps can be considered 'enough and good choice' for average user.
- xsession.errors list is longer than of Xfce. Mate is also more buggy - for me at least - than Xfce desktop.
- Compositing 'checkmark' is under desktop settings (Xfce - in windows tweaks...)

I am not going to describe bugs and nags – first, I do not remember them all, and second – they tend to be very much install-specific, hardware-specific, and generally from where wind happens to blow.
I never managed to try out Compiz with Mate. After reading too much again I came to conclusion that current Mate (1.4) and Compiz are not good bedfellows. So I chickened out - and have to say that at some point one starts to calculate if days of wrestling with something is worth of it. For me – as I have found out later for sure, Compiz is not worth of it. But mileage varies, of course.

Mate 1.4 is nice and traditional desktop. But a bit rough and buggy.

5. Two different sessions

I decided to make my first two-different-sessions install.

Add Mate to already installed Cinnamon, that is.

I tried to install Mate through Synaptic – repository package is 'mint-meta-mate'. No cookie. Synaptic refused to write over one specific file (which name I can't remember), but it was Mint's identity file. Impossible to have two of those, wrote Clem himself somewhere.
Well - me noob, not finding solution, abandoning ze plan (though, I had impression that it is possible to install without this troublesome file... never found out how).

WHINE: 80% of what you find with Google is a crap. Sifting through it can be sometimes a bit too much... Two hours tend to be limit for me – after what I try to find other solution, well, like ignore, delete, format or simple cursing.

But, hallelujah, this time I already had new sneaky plan – to download Mate piecemeal from repository and install it as Mate and not as mint-mate metapackage.

Explaining: Mate is separate/independent DE used by Linux Mint (and already many others). Mints' own DE is Cinnamon. When Mint makes Linux Mint Mate then the original Mate is a bit tweaked and package will be 'mint-meta-mate' (or, if ISO, Linux Mint Mate). If You get Mate from source, in original form, then it doesn't have any Mint's fingerprints on it.

Who didn't catch the difference (DE compared to distro)– other DE-s can be installed as sessions, from inside your existing DE, no ISO-s needed. You install it, log out and have new choice in log-in sessions. Nothing appears in grub boot menu. Comfy, no bootin' every time.

And – no need to add drivers, flash, fonts etc again – those are system-wide.
Well, main menu will be fucked-up - more about this in next chapter.