On Sat, 13 Jul 2013 09:47:51 +0100 Bev Nicolson lumos60@gmail.com allegedly wrote:
I'm asking this on behalf of a friend. Thoughts on Mint, please. He's after an operating system that works on a usb stick and wants a 'bulletproof workstation not a server'. Does Mint have better firewall/security than Debian/Ubuntu? He is Puppy aware, by the way. If you have additional contributions on CrunchBang, lob them in too.
Bev.
Bev
I hope this isn't too late to help you out.
I like mint. I moved to it after the ubuntu/unity/gnome3 debacle. Initially I used the LMDE version, but because it is based on debian stable it was a bit behind and the updates weren't frequent enough for my liking (that is good on a server, less so on a desktop IMO). So I moved to the 'buntu based version, but running XFCE as my desktop (it feels enough like gnome 2 to make me happy). I have tried both mate and cinnamon, but have decided to stick with XFCE.
I'm not sure I'd use mint on a USB stick though. There are plenty of other live distros around, some of which even offer persistence. In fact I'd recommend tails (tails.boum.org) as a live distro. It is a specialist "privacy enhancing" tool based on debian which defaults to connecting to the 'net over tor. All the apps on it are torified so you get excellent anonymity and privacy (good news in view of the Snowden revelations). Tor is now just about fast enough to use on a routine daily basis. I'd recommend giving it a try.
I also like crunchbang. I have it installed on an old acer aspire netbook (atom CPU with 1 Gig RAM) where it runs very quickly. The openbox interface is minimalist but clean and useful.
HTH
Mick
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Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
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