The key differences compared to Ubuntu 8.04

[infz]

Hi everybody,

I'm a long time Ubuntu user, and now one of my friends talked to me about Mint. So I started surfing the pages looking for things of interest.

The one thing i couldn't find a answer to was the key differences to Ubuntu?

Is Mint also a "scheduled release" distribution, like every 6months there's a new release? Or does Mint update programs all the time/after a little testing? The thing i "hate" about Ubuntu is that after the release they kind of forget the release and start to develop the next version. There's no updates (some backports maybe), just security updates. So how does Mint compare to that?

And is there any other differences, except the Mint tools?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

[Husse]

It's a little bit hard to answer you in detail, since the main edition and the other editions do not share the same history
But the main edition forked off Ubuntu with Barbara based on Edgy and has evolved "in parallel" with Ubuntu. Files and applications added and removed, not always the same as Ubuntu, but same enough for Mint to be compatible
This seems to make Mint a bit more stable and have more hardware working (but of course some that works in Ubuntu won't work in Mint - that's computers...)
Apart from that the difference is the artwork and the Mint tools not least only one panel and the slab like mintMenu
I probably forgot something
In all, though the difference might not seem so big the end result differs widely....

[infz]

Thanks for a quick reply.

Still, what's the philosophy behind Mint considering packages and package updates? Do you guys go the ubuntu way, like no package version upgrades after release? I think I read somewhere that there are software that are getting all the updates that the software makers do for them (I mean like firefox etc)?

But in whole, theres pretty much nothing that divides ubuntu from Mint (except some software and artwork and the tools)?

[belovedmonster]

But in whole, theres pretty much nothing that divides ubuntu from Mint (except some software and artwork and the tools)?

Plus the fact it's a forked version of Ubuntus underlining code and should be more stable
Plus it's got all the codecs and extra you need out of the box
Plus you are totally underestimating the power and usefulness of Mint tools.

I'm not much a technical person so I cant tell you about the code base or how many backports there are or any of that junk. All I know is Mint is the extra 15% of polish and care and ease of use that Ubuntu should have but doesn't.

In Mint you also have a distro where at any point you want you can message the main developers and your suggestions can actually make a big different in the way the distro goes. I certainly feel that a lot of my personal contributions are making their way into the distro. Try doing that with Ubuntu, it wont happen.