Mint vs Ubuntu

[lensperson]

Interesting things happening here,
my experience with reviving old computers has found that
playing video was better with mint.
More codecs and implemented with VLC.
Right out of the box without having to apt-get
some dependencies.

[helen]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

I have read your note a few times since it was posted and I am in the dark as to what you are comparing. While the thread title says Mint vs Ubuntu, there is no mention of Ubuntu in the body of the post.

Also there is no mention of what versions of Mint and Ubuntu that you are comparing. I suspect that Mint would be the latest version ot it, which according to Wikipedia is version 12, but what version of Ubuntu were you trying to compare to? The one already on the old computer which might be a few years out of date, in which case it is not a fair comparsion or is it something more recent which it might be fair comparsion between the two operating systems.

[lensperson]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

Esteemed Helen,
I have tried many versions of linux across many old computers.
My observations are just sort of a statistical average from numerous
experiments.
As a photographer I am very interested about how well easy to install
flavors handle video playback.
I apologise for the rather off the cuff nature of my initial post.

[helen]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

As a suggestion for future posting it would be very helpful to state what version of the software you are using. This is important since different versions of the same software title would have different features. And there are times newer releases of the same software title might get worse as well as being better than the previous versions.

[lensperson]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

Point well taken.
The version of mint on the current ancient satellite pro is 8.04.
This device is an eepc 900 running Xandros 4.5.
An old device but still breathing and smiling.

[GregLee]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

I have a little recent experience with Ubuntu 12.04 (none with Mint) on a new computer (none on old), but I did run across a few videos (*.mov) that the Ubuntu standard distribution (totem) wouldn't play, but vlc would. I don't know what's going on there, but it may be that Ubuntu sees a problem with some proprietary codecs that they want to keep their basic system free of. Then there's the matter of playing encrypted DVDs, which the Ubuntu players won't do out of the box, but it's easy enough to import the code to decrypt them. Here's a how-to for that: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...ts/PlayingDVDs. Also, the XBMC player is now part of the latest Ubuntu distribution: http://xbmc.org/.

[lensperson]

Re: Mint vs Ubuntu

Ironically my poor liitle asus bit the dust a couple days ago. I think the 4 gig ssd
went bad I'll keep the wee device and investigate further as time permits.
VLC is a very versatile media player. Mplayer is of course very powerful, but
requires careful study to use to maximal purpose.
I'm posting this from an old toshiba tecra running ubuntu 9.04 from a live dvd.
As usual, getting the wireless to work took a bit of head scratching
This stuff requires patience but is well worth the effort.