Quantcast
Channel: Larry the Free Software Guy » Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 6

Mint, Linux Mint

0
0

On Google+ recently, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols brought back a May 2011 item he posted on Linux Mint because “[w]ith all the chatter on one of my posts about Linux desktops, perhaps it’s time for me to drag out this review of my current favourite Linux desktop.”

It may seem trivial to some, but Steven calls Linux Mint “Mint” throughout the review, and in the back and forth on the comments, that seems to be OK with some. Correction: It seems to be OK with everyone but me. In my opinion, calling it just “Mint” is wrong — especially since the screen shot featured in the article says “Linux Mint” and the symbol is an “LM” — and I find it a little grating to do so, like someone calling me by my last name (Note: Unless you’re a drill sergeant, don’t do that).

So who’s right? Is it “Mint” or “Linux Mint”?

Let’s ask Clement Lefevbre, the lead developer at, ahem, Linux Mint. When I e-mailed him that question — “Mint or Linux Mint?” — he responded with the following:

Hi Larry,

You’re right. The official name is “Linux Mint” and this is what we should call it.

With that said, most people nickname it “Mint”, myself included. I think, when it’s within a conversation or an article, it’s ok to call the distribution “Mint”. It’s like a nickname of sorts. But when referring to it officially, we should use its proper name instead. So for instance, its entry within Distrowatch should not be “Mint”, but “Linux Mint”.

Personally, when I talk about the distribution to other “Mint” users, and when I talk with the other “Mint” devs, we all refer to it as “Mint”. When I adress the public or anyone outside our project, I call us “Linux Mint”.

:)

Regards,
Clement Lefebvre
Linux Mint

So . . . I guess that means that both Steven and I are right then.

A couple of things about Linux Mint, going forward: I’ve used Linux Mint off and on for a couple of years now and I’ve always found it solid; particularly, and most recently, the Linux Mint Debian Edition which runs flawlessly on a ThinkPad R30. Also, I think the naming convention is one of the best: in initial letter order, a woman’s name ending in the letter “a” (I asked Clement once what is going to happen when he reaches “Zelda” — or whatever the “Z” name is — and he said that they’ll start with “A” again, ending the name in “e”)

If it’s up to me, I’ll keep calling it Linux Mint, thank you.

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office. Watch this space.)

Add to Technorati Favorites EFF Binary Freedom Dead button Wordpress button Xfce button dbEntrance button AntiX 7.0 fedora badge Xubuntu GIMP Scribus Kororaa Salix OS Fluxbox Conky Thunderbird LibreOffice Crunchbang Bodhi Linux PostgreSQL identi.ca python

Eliminate DRM!



Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 6

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images