Mint's the Best, Less Malware, and Debian vs Ubuntu

The Register's Scott Gilbertson today said that Linux Mint 17.1 was the best distribution "hands down." Elsewhere, Bruce Byfield compares and contrasts Debian and Ubuntu to see which is right for you and Lucian Constantin reports on a new vulnerability found in less programs. There were several reviews in the feeds and Katherine Noyes tallies FOSS Thanksgivings. Linux.com has Linux gift ideas and Serdar Yegulalp summarizes rebootless kernel patching.

Scott Gilbertson today said, "Linux Mint 17.1 is the first example of what the Mint project team can do when they're focused on their own system rather than on making the latest Ubuntu work with Mint." Gilbertson said Cinnamon is quickly becoming the best desktop available in Linux and new version 2.4 brings more polish, performance, and refinement. Gilbertson said the MATE desktop is no longer an afterthought and with Compiz now available it's easy to "trick out." He looked at the other updates as well and concluded, "Having tested the latest releases of most major Linux distros in the past two months - Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Elementary and Mint, I can say confidently that Mint 17.1 with Cinnamon 2.4 is hands down the best of the bunch."

In other reviews, Jesse Smith had mixed impressions of Scientific Linux 7.0 but believes "the strengths of Scientific exist in its predictability and longevity." LinuxBSDos.com recently reviewed PC-BSD 10.1 and said, "PC-BSD obviously brings a lot to the table, but KDE is the best desktop for experiencing all the awesome features that PC-BSD 10.1 has to offer." Dedoimedo.com said of Netrunner Rolling 2014.09, "The installer, plus desktop effects and screenshots, plus the broken package manager, plus half a dozen other woes, and the subpar Flash performance, all of them contribute to the negative feeling about 2014.09." And finally, Linuxed reviewed Ubuntu Mate 14.10 saying, "Overall I am very happy with the performance of the distro. Ubuntu Mate 14.10 is definitely recommended from my side with a score of 9.4/10."

Bruce Byfield said deciding between Ubuntu and Debian depends on the chooser. "Although Ubuntu is derived from Debian, their differences are marked. From installation and desktop to package management and community, what everybody thinks they know about the two may be wrong." He runs down the supported architectures, installer considerations, desktop and software differences as well as administration and package management procedures before getting into the communities. In the end, much like many articles like this, you the reader must ultimately decide, although Byfield added you couldn't go wrong with either.

In other news:

* Thoughts of Thanksgiving for All That Is FOSS

* Four ways Linux is headed for no-downtime kernel patching

* Top 10 Linux Holiday Gifts for 2014 (Slideshow)

* System76 Sable Touch: The state of touch support in Linux

* 'Less' means more to malware authors targeting Linux users