Greetings,
I have a question regarding Linux Mint and Ubuntu. I saw some topics saying that Linux Mate is not stable since Ubuntu focus in Unity. Is this true or not ?
Also, i’d like to know, apart from graphical interfaces isn’t Mint the same as Ubuntu since it was based on ubuntu ? I saw in Distrowatch that Mint has x2 more points than ubuntu. I’d like to know what can mint do that ubuntu can’t.
Best regards
I’ve used Mint Mate fairly extensively prior to moving to Ubuntu Mate. It is a bit less stable than Ubuntu Mate, in my opinion. One example, of the top of my head, would be an issue with disappearing Caja icons. Also, their forums are pretty quiet. so, if you have a problem, you can find you have quite a wait on your hands finding any help. For underlying OS stuff, I would just tend to go on to the Ubuntu site for help.
Hi
If I’m not wrong, the success of Mint is well-founded as Ubuntu changed from Gnome2 (Mate is a reincarnation of Gnome2) to Unity, because many users had been uncomfortable with the new Ubuntu Desktop. My supposition is, that Ubuntu Mate could change the proportion back to Ubuntu. But anyway, that’s not a competition. Every Distro has its benefits!
In my case: Mint is build up of Ubuntu, so I prefer the original like Ubuntu Mate. And further, the forum here is very friendly and normally you will get help in a short time.
Best way is, you go testing both Distros in Virtal Machine…
Sorry, wrong linked -> not to gravy45 but to xedoc 
“Linux Mate” is not a thing.
Ubuntu MATE is not developed by Canonical, the company that does Ubuntu (Unity), so it doesn’t matter that they focus on Unity because they have nothing to do with the development of Ubuntu MATE. Canonical provides infrastructure like build servers and such but the development of Ubuntu MATE is handled by the Ubuntu MATE Team.
No, Mint also creates their own applications as well as includes extras such as proprietary codecs and such by default.
Mint created Cinnamon (unique desktop to Linux Mint), Mint Updater, Mint Kernel Manager, and many other things separate Mint from Ubuntu.
So the answer to the question “isn’t Mint the same as Ubuntu” is in fact, No.
With that said, is Mint fundamentally similar and compatible with Ubuntu? Yes. Mint is based on Ubuntu so applications and packages that are compatible with Ubuntu are also compatible with Mint. The core system that Mint uses is based on Ubuntu so they are very similar in that aspect but Mint does a lot of unique development as well.
This is because some people like Cinnamon and MATE, before Ubuntu MATE existed the simplest solution was to use Linux Mint MATE. This means that people using Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint MATE, Linux Mint KDE, Linux Mint XFCE and etc. are all counted as Linux Mint. So every version of Linux Mint is counted simply as “Linux Mint” where as all of the Ubuntu Flavors are split up.
Ubuntu Unity is the only version of Ubuntu that is counted simply as “Ubuntu”.
If you were to combined all of the Ubuntu Flavors into one stat you would see that Ubuntu is vastly outmatching Linux Mint in HPD (to Distrowatch).
Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Studio = 4103
Ubuntu+ = 4103
Linux Mint+ = 2917
Side note - Distrowatch is not a definitive source for usage at all. Distrowatch only provides data for how many people go to the webpages for each distro on the Distrowatch website, they only track hits to their website. They do not track usage of the distros at all, and this is not really even possible.
Fundamentally they can both do everything the other can except for a few things.
Ubuntu can’t run Cinnamon very well because Cinnamon was developed by Linux Mint for Linux Mint so they don’t care if it works well in Ubuntu (proper) or not.
Linux Mint can’t run Unity very well either for the exact same reason.
However, in terms of applications in general, Ubuntu and Linux Mint can pretty much do the same thing as the other. Of course, Linux Mint would not exist without Ubuntu but still they are fundamentally similar and compatible.
Sorry for the long reply but I wanted to try and make it as clear as possible.
Thank you for reply. It has answered all my questions. 