The Hot Seat

What’s the top distro on the famous Distrowatch page hit ranking list? Not Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, or Fedora. According to Distrowatch, the hottest Linux is none other than Linux Mint – an Ubuntu-based, community-driven desktop system that is known for ease of use and efficient out-of-the-box multimedia functionality. Mint has been around since 2006, and many Linux users are familiar with it. We’ve put Mint discs on several issues of this magazine (the latest being the issue that you are holding now). But Mint has found new appreciation recently. Some are calling it the new Ubuntu, which seems a little bit of an overstatement, since Mint is based on Ubuntu (kind of like calling CentOS “the new Red Hat”). Nevertheless, Mint has been on something of a roll recently. Commentators have lauded the simplicity and elegance of the latest release, including Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet, who writes, “…after just a few hours of using Mint, I think that I might be a convert.”