How likely is it that Mint will be around 10 years from now?

[Guest]

Clem can't even get 6 out so who knows if it will last another month

[Fred]

avatar850,

Let me frame this answer from a different perspective.

What are the chances of you being around to use Mint in 10 years? What are the chances Mint, 10 years hence, will be anything like what it is today?

Whether you or Mint survives the next ten years is irrelevant. Both you and Mint will be judged by your contributions to mankind; what you leave behind in the next ten years. Your work, your deeds, and your children will live on as testaments to your being or having been here. The quality and worth, (not in money), of these things will determine your worth as a person, dead or alive. The same is true for Mint.

Having lived longer than many, I can tell you with some degree of certainty that the only thing in life that you can rely on is change. How well and how quickly you learn to adapt to change will, to a great extent, determine your happiness and well being.

So the answer to your question again is. It doesn't matter. The worthwhile parts of Mint will live on, either in a later version of Mint or in a form known by some other name.

Now, don't you wish you had never asked, or that I had slept in this morning and hadn't seen your post?

Fred

[bigdee]

Great response Fred.

From another Oldie

[Peter4933]

Nice to hear from some other "Silver Mints". I thought I might have been the only one around! Doesn't all this "Hi Guys" talk get you down, in my younger days we called each other "Chaps"!
Regard to all,
Peter4933.

[slider]

PERFECT answer Fred!

[FedoraRefugee]

This will be an unpopular thought, but I seriously doubt that Linux will be around in 10 years. I believe that we are on the backside of "the golden age of Linux" which started around 2000-2002. This was the time when people like me could actually use this OS and that it was a viable alternative to Windows, even if still a little on the geeky side. But nowhere near as complicated as 93-99 was. Things were GUI, you didnt have to write your own drivers or manually do everything...I think this very distro, Mint, will prove to be the pinnacle of the Linux distro. This one and PCLOS and a handful of others. But I see things falling apart just this last year or so. The Windows clone wannabe's are taking hold. Linux is, even now, no longer Linux. Heck, Fedora 10 will not let the user log into a GUI session as root! Blasphemy! Granted, there is NO reason to log in as root, but that is not the point. Linux is not supposed to lock the administrator out of anything! In the effort to become easier and better we will start seeing Linux become worse and worse. Part of what attracted me to Linux was that if I had a problem I could easily fix it by editing a simple file like xorg.conf or fstab. This is slowly going away in place of automagic crap that never works. People too afraid to copy and paste into a terminal are applying the pressure to phase the terminal out. Soon it will be equivalent to the Windows terminal. People no longer have/want to learn even the simplest things to convert to Linux and their pressure is turning Linux into a Windows clone. Even Gentoo is going more and more binary! Unbelievable! I am all for Mint. I appreciate easier. I like introducing people to Linux. But there is a double edge to this blade. The very things that make Linux what it is are the things people are trying to change to attract yet more people. And the root cause is to try and undermine MS. Of all the stupid motives to use an OS!

This is just my personal rant. I am an old fart too, my first computer was a TRS-80 model 3 and I bought a Vic 20 that same year. I taught myself Basic. I clearly remember the pre-windows days. I remember when hardware ruled. Times change, the reality is we have been very static for 20 years now. Change is indeed in the wind. The MS empire wont last, but it wont be Linux that will unseat the beast from Redmond. As Benny Hill said, I have a glass eye and a crystal ball. But my crystal ball is cloudy. I see things changing but i cant make it out. But I do not think Linux will be around more than a few more years. Maybe I'm wrong. It is nothing short of a miracle that Linus's kernel made it this far. Not bad for what amounted to a science fair project.

[proxima_centauri]

This will be an unpopular thought, but I seriously doubt that Linux will be around in 10 years.

I find it harder to believe that Linux will be erased in 10 years. I guess you mean to say that in 10 years, what Linux will be will no longer what it is today? Of course things will change but that's not necessarily a negative.

I believe that we are on the backside of "the golden age of Linux" which started around 2000-2002. This was the time when people like me could actually use this OS and that it was a viable alternative to Windows, even if still a little on the geeky side. But nowhere near as complicated as 93-99 was. Things were GUI, you didnt have to write your own drivers or manually do everything...I think this very distro, Mint, will prove to be the pinnacle of the Linux distro. This one and PCLOS and a handful of others. But I see things falling apart just this last year or so. The Windows clone wannabe's are taking hold. Linux is, even now, no longer Linux.

What is your definition of "Linux" of before compared to what exists now? I can see the point about loosing complete control over installations and such, but I think there are still plenty of hands-on distro's for users who enjoy it.

Heck, Fedora 10 will not let the user log into a GUI session as root! Blasphemy! Granted, there is NO reason to log in as root, but that is not the point. Linux is not supposed to lock the administrator out of anything! In the effort to become easier and better we will start seeing Linux become worse and worse. Part of what attracted me to Linux was that if I had a problem I could easily fix it by editing a simple file like xorg.conf or fstab. This is slowly going away in place of automagic crap that never works. People too afraid to copy and paste into a terminal are applying the pressure to phase the terminal out. Soon it will be equivalent to the Windows terminal. People no longer have/want to learn even the simplest things to convert to Linux and their pressure is turning Linux into a Windows clone. Even Gentoo is going more and more binary! Unbelievable!

Again, your definition of Linux is what besides command line? Sometimes it's easier to use the terminal than GUI's, sometimes the reverse is true. An operating system should be as efficient as possible, it doesn't degrade Linux by utilizing GUI's for efficiency.

But I do not think Linux will be around more than a few more years. Maybe I'm wrong. It is nothing short of a miracle that Linus's kernel made it this far. Not bad for what amounted to a science fair project.

A little disrespectful for the huge community that supports and develops the Linux kernel and GNU software don't ya think? Not to mention the ramifications from open-source practice and philosophy.

I think you're right that a lot of distro's will become more and more gui reliant, with autoinstallations and configurations - but I don't think that control-based distro's and their users will become extinct either.

[choupique]

But I do not think Linux will be around more than a few more years. Maybe I'm wrong. It is nothing short of a miracle that Linus's kernel made it this far. Not bad for what amounted to a science fair project.

Guess I'll have to finally make that switch to BSD?

[Fred]

FedoraRefugee,

I too am familiar with where you are coming from on this issue. However, I tend to be more of an optimist and prefer to think of the glass as half full as opposed to half empty.

I have seen a lot of pressure from a large influx of new users coming from the Windows world in the last 3 to 5 years, to ignore the CLI and have GUIs for everything. But you know what? Those same people, (the ones that stayed), that complained the loudest 5 years ago, now use the command line just as often and effortlessly as the rest of us old timers.

Microsoft has spent literally billions of dollars convincing people that big shiny GUI programs are the future and the CLI is hard, archaic, and ancient history. After all, it is hard to sell someone a line of text, < rsync -a /home/fred/ /media/sdb1/HomeBackup >, for $50.00.

People are creatures of habit. So when they come to Linux they look for and rely on things they are familiar with, which of course are nice shiny GUIs for everything. Over time they slowly but surely find it more and more difficult to ignore the power and simplicity of the CLI. I call it a deprogramming process.

They do discover that both GUIs and the CLI have their place and best practice usage. It just takes time and patience. None of us give up our addictions easily.

Fred

[FedoraRefugee]

But I do not think Linux will be around more than a few more years. Maybe I'm wrong. It is nothing short of a miracle that Linus's kernel made it this far. Not bad for what amounted to a science fair project.

Guess I'll have to finally make that switch to BSD?

Will BSD be around in 10 years?

Regardless of where the general trend of Linux is going now I do not think it is just going to die. I do think we are on the verge of a major hardware revolution and that software, especially the operating systems, are going to have to evolve. Linux is based (loosely) on the Unix kernel as are most current OSs. I just think this model has seen its better days. MS is on limited time also. Will MS stay current and evolve? Sure, I imagine they will, but I think we will see some new players in the field in the next 10 years. Look at where smart phones are going right this moment. How about Linux? Can it stay open and free? Maybe. I doubt it. It has slipped under the radar for 15 years now, but now it is being pulled apart.

Once again I am the bad guy, but you need to read between the lines and pay attention to what I am actually saying. I mean no disrespect to any GNU/Linux developers. And I also believe that Linux will keep evolving for at least a few more years. I will happily use it as long as it allows me to tinker under the hood. But the days of two geeks in a garage on a Saturday night are all but over. The cost of keeping up with the big corporations is becoming too high, even in open source.

[Fred]

"Those who have tasted freedom will not easily give it up."

I don't remember who said that, but it was somebody smarter and more important than I.

I am depending on the truth of it.

Fred

[Matt S.]

People are creatures of habit. So when they come to Linux they look for and rely on things they are familiar with, which of course are nice shiny GUIs for everything. Over time they slowly but surely find it more and more difficult to ignore the power and simplicity of the CLI. I call it a deprogramming process.

I am basically brand new to Linux (I toyed around with SUSE a few years ago, and set up a dual boot with XP...which wasn't easy for a complete newbie) and eventually went back to XP altogether due to gaming. Mint is my first attempt to do away with Windows for good, and I have accomplished that because of Mints simplicity. What's funny though is your right about people being creatures of habit I think, though for me (being a creature of habit) it was much different.

The first thing I wanted to do was learn the basics of the terminal, and I found this handy link http://www.linux.org/lessons/. I read all the way through the Intermediate course, and absorbed it all pretty well. Up to this point I feel pretty confident in my knowledge of the terminal, and it's only been a few months. The point is, I don't think I would have ever been inspired enough to learn more had it not been for the "user friendly" GUI that Mint supplied me with.

What's even better is I found myself a nice, and shiny GUI toy called "screenlets" for my Minty fresh desktop as well. These have now inspired me to dabble in python to develop my own screenlets. So, I found this (even more handy) link http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide to start me off. It's amazing to me how much knowledge is out there, and the blindfold you wear when OS's like Windows say "please wait...Windows is do something for you....."

Though I haven't been around as long as the people that say, "Linux is evolving into something it shouldn't be." , and "in the effort to become easier and better we will start seeing Linux become worse and worse." I can say from a newbie stand point that if it weren't for the user-friendly distro's like Mint, I wouldn't have learned as much as I have at this point. The shiny, new GUI made me feel like things such as the terminal weren't so daunting of a task after all. Hopefully more people see it the way I did, this is only one persons perspective. Though I doubt I'll be the only one inspired to "try and learn" simply because it's so user-friendly on the outside.

By the way, this is my first actual post, and I'd like to say thanks to the dev team for making my desktop not only easier to use, but easier to understand.

- Matt S.

[Pierre]

M$ Windows IS TOO Expensive - Now !!.

I still remember paying $185 for the W98se upgrade to my W98 1st edition system - Yikes.
& it's no better (value) now.

P.

[mitsuzero]

i think linux mint be more great distro, is not needed nice GUI, but, in this time the beatiful is more important to greatest performance or stability, i can think the mint and other distros can become more efficcient than window$, and more people can take off the blind on their eyes and become part of this family

[Acid_1]

Well, look at Hurd. It's not at all used really, and the only distro I can think of that has it is Debian. Open Source won't die. That's the point behind, even if a company or a person gets tired of their project, it's there for others, and if it's already started, more people are inclined to work on it, cause the basics are already laid. Mint will be around 10 years from now, without a doubt. For me, I wanted to turn Linux into a fancy eye-candy machine. I now use a very basic look and try to save as much as I can resource wise. I almost always have a terminal open, as it's incredibly handy, I even have a shortcut for it -- <Ctl><Alt>T -- and it's the most used for myself. Eye candy is nice, usability is nice, and the ability to tweak things how you want is perfect.

The Windows clone wannabe's are taking hold. Linux is, even now, no longer Linux. Heck, Fedora 10 will not let the user log into a GUI session as root! Blasphemy! Granted, there is NO reason to log in as root, but that is not the point. Linux is not supposed to lock the administrator out of anything! In the effort to become easier and better we will start seeing Linux become worse and worse. Part of what attracted me to Linux was that if I had a problem I could easily fix it by editing a simple file like xorg.conf or fstab. This is slowly going away in place of automagic crap that never works. People too afraid to copy and paste into a terminal are applying the pressure to phase the terminal out. Soon it will be equivalent to the Windows terminal. People no longer have/want to learn even the simplest things to convert to Linux and their pressure is turning Linux into a Windows clone.

You can log in as root, just not by default. Saves the newbies from learning the hard way, besides, why log in as root when you can just use

Code: Select all

gksu nautilus

Do I edit fstab? Yes, all the time, I hate UUID's, as they are terrible, one tiny little partition change and you're screwed.
Automagic takes the big work out of it, and yes, all machines are different, so of course you'll have to do minor changes.

The terminal cannot die. It's not that people just want it to, it's impossible for it. In Windows, in their switch from 9X to NT kernel, removed the dependence on the CLI. So, the GUI runs, and the CMDPrompt runs within the GUI, where as X runs withing a CLI (Sort of). So, even if X crashes, you go back to a CLI, and in Windows if the GUI crashes, you blue screen. That's the most basic explanation. (Plus something to do with running in different rings, if anyone knows what I mean do elaborate).

Linux won't turn into a Windows clone, nor will it turn into an OSX (and thus BSD) clone, which people will claim after it becomes popular (I mean, look at the way the directories are layed out). Face it, if it exists, and users can freely modify it, it cannot die. (Look at Solaris!)

Just my 2 cents.

[FedoraRefugee]

The Windows clone wannabe's are taking hold. Linux is, even now, no longer Linux. Heck, Fedora 10 will not let the user log into a GUI session as root! Blasphemy! Granted, there is NO reason to log in as root, but that is not the point. Linux is not supposed to lock the administrator out of anything! In the effort to become easier and better we will start seeing Linux become worse and worse. Part of what attracted me to Linux was that if I had a problem I could easily fix it by editing a simple file like xorg.conf or fstab. This is slowly going away in place of automagic crap that never works. People too afraid to copy and paste into a terminal are applying the pressure to phase the terminal out. Soon it will be equivalent to the Windows terminal. People no longer have/want to learn even the simplest things to convert to Linux and their pressure is turning Linux into a Windows clone.

You can log in as root, just not by default. Saves the newbies from learning the hard way, besides, why log in as root when you can just use

Code: Select all

gksu nautilus

Two points just because I am feeling grumpy.

You should fully understand what you quote. Yes, you can log into a GUI session as root in Fedora 10, you just have to make an easy settings change. From what I am understanding this may become even harder in F11 though.

Second, believe it or not there is no GKSU or GKSudo in Fedora. There is an app called BeeSU that is close. As far as your question why log in as root? I fully agree to the point where I refuse to help anyone who does this. That was not my point.

Linux has already gone downhill compared to its pinnacle two years ago. They keep adding more and more crap and it is getting less and less transparent. Sure, Linux may still be around in a few years, but it will no longer be what I consider Linux. It is becoming too developed, too complicated. Easier for the dumb desktop user, but too complicated to change and tweak things. Many of us are just hobbyists and not computer programmers. I can change an xorg.conf or an fstab setting, writing policies is getting out of my league. Could I learn? Probably. But why bother. Think I will just switch to Vista or Windows 7 and take up photography.

[Acid_1]

I did miss that you were writing for F10, not Mint. However, just because you cannot easily log in as root, isn't it as simple as simply creating a user and granting them the privileges of root?

Also, I said gksu for that because I thought it was Mint, had it been any other distro, I would say just 'su' then 'nautilus' (or whatever it is for Fedora). I enable su because I prefer it, and I've always been a Ubuntu/Mint guy. Most people don't who use Mint, that's all.

[Fred]

FedoraRefugee wrote:

But why bother. Think I will just switch to Vista or Windows 7 and take up photography.

When I get the grumpies, (is that a word?), I have a piece of pecan pie, go back to bed and take a nap. I wake and get out of bed on the other side, and feel fatter, dumber, and usually happier. This remedy is recommended sooner rather than later, preferably before I do or say something that is harder to undo than do.

Fred

[FedoraRefugee]

I got a little time left. I imagine there will be a few pure distros floating around still for a few years, maybe an LFS project. I could build something like we had a couple years ago, without policykit, packagekit, automagic everythingkit, pulseaudio...with a real xorg.conf and the latest kernel. But the only reason I use Linux is because I like the form and function. I like an OS that I control that does not control me. I like to be able to set things up how i want them to be, not how the maker of the OS thinks I need them. I am typing this from Vista right now, and if I just want an OS that works that is just a means to the end of using my apps/programs, then I dont see any reason to use anything else. It is bug free, came with my computer, doesnt require any work at all, even less than Linux, is perfectly secure with no effort from me, and does the job. Is it fun? No. Could it be a hobby? No. It has no personality whatsoever. But if Linux wants to become like it then why use an imitation when I already have the original.

[Acid_1]

FedoraRefugee wrote:

But why bother. Think I will just switch to Vista or Windows 7 and take up photography.

When I get the grumpies, (is that a word?), I have a piece of pecan pie, go back to bed and take a nap. I wake and get out of bed on the other side, and feel fatter, dumber, and usually happier. This remedy is recommended sooner rather than later, preferably before I do or say something that is harder to undo than do.

Fred

Don't forget the glass of warm milk

Couldn't of said it better myself Fred.