Linux Mint isn’t new, version 4.0 Daryna was released in November 2007, but I installed it for the first time yesterday and here are my first impressions.

Based on Ubuntu 7.10

Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna is built upon Ubuntu 7.10, so it shares some of the same repositories. Also adds a few like, packages.medibuntu.org and www.linuxmint.com/repository/. Backports and proposed are not enabled by default though.

More complete than Ubuntu 7.10

One of the biggest complaints I hear is that Ubuntu is lacking in the media area. Linux Mint relieves this by installing many of the popular codecs for media playback by default.

What else is noticeably different (so far)

No games are installed by default. The default installed mail client is Thunderbird rather than Evolution. Amarok rather than Rhythmbox is the default installed music player. A system administration tool called APTonCD is installed by default. “AptonCD is an installation disc creator that builds a disk containing the packages you have downloaded using APT, including those installed by Synaptic, Update Manager, Adept, and other APT front-ends…”.

Linux Mint also uses a different update manager called mintUpdate. Mint also installs a special menu, which I think is called SLAB, I don’t like it so I’ve switched to the normal gnome menu.

Just what I needed

To anyone considering Ubuntu Linux I would HIGHLY recommend Linux Mint instead. Here is a direct link to the download page: Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna.

Everybody likes screenshots (not the default)