Tried Mint and then trashed it
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GNU/Linux Mint 19.2 released lately. As usual, I tried its Live environment in VM, backed up its wallpapers (/usr/share/backgrounds), and then immediately trashed it.
The distribution, like Ubuntu, is full of non-free software. Yet I do love its wallpapers. It is possible to download its "mint-backgrounds-xxx" packages and then extract their contents, but I don't like the way in which the wallpapers are organized in the deb packages.
BTW, Mint 19.2 (MATE edition) comes with MATE 1.22, which is already in Debian sid (unstable).
I like Fedora's wallpapers also.
Mint Tina wallpapers are here.
The contents of the deb or tar.gz package seem a bit cluttered. There are so many symbolic links among them, and I can't tell which files are real wallpapers and which are symbolic links. Chances are that I tried to copy a group of wallpapers to make an offline backup, but in fact I just copied a set of symbolic links. Twenty-four years ago, when I first tried Windows 95, I tried to make a backup of my documents to floppy disks. I simply dragged the files from hard disk to floppy disk, but I only copied a set of links (*.lnk) to floppy disks. Weeks later, when I tried to restore said documents after a hard disk failure, I was disappointed that there were only link files on my floppy disks, and all documents had gone along with the broken hard disk. According to Microsoft's documents, Windows 95 was "smart" enough to automatically take the most appropriate action when users performed a drag-and-drop operation, either to copy, move or create links. I'm not sure whether GNU/Linux's file manager is even dumber than Windows... (Hopefully not.)
I think that despite people who use Debian or Ubuntu or Mint etc would have interest in the feeling "free" more or less and those distros have big market share in the Linux world, the OSs that are strict with software freedom like Trisquel seem to have quite small market share. What is the cause of the much difference of the number of users, do you guys think? I had hardware problems such as a touchpad did not work or WIFI did not work with Debian, Ubuntu, too.
As you mentioned there is the hardware problem. People also want to be able to do the same things they are used to with proprietary software, there are companies or individuals that distribute convenient software (games, drivers) for GNU/Linux systems, making them non-free. This is one little bit why I think free distros are not as popular as their non-free counter parts.
Not all users cherish their freedom, so they are likely to use a non-free distribution like Ubuntu and Mint (and to some extent, Debian, as well) for the sake of convenience (or so-called "user experience" or "user friendliness"). However, one major negative effect of such non-free distribution is that they covered up users' awareness of the freedom issue.
For example, some friend of mine purchased a few Realtek WLAN cards, just because they were readily usable under Ubuntu and the drivers were "open source" (containing non-free firmware blobs). He thought that those cards were respecting users' freedom, but actually obviously not.
> there are companies or individuals that distribute convenient software (games, drivers) for GNU/Linux systems, making them non-free.
I see. You mean free software world needs a super enjoyable original game.
> He thought that those cards were respecting users' freedom, but actually obviously no
Sometimes it might be better that we don't know if we can be happy then.
I don't understand well why despite they push open source, they seem to collect users's information (etc). So does that mean it is open source spyware? They seem not to have normal beliefs. It's OK if sold? It is difficult to judge which is better between closed source spyware and open source spyware. It looks like war criminals. Which is worse between perpetrators and instigators. I was just commanded, so I did. So I am innocent, sir.
And that's why "open source" misses the point that free software is trying to make. For them is all about convenience; it's convenient to use non-free drivers if it makes their devices to work.
But sometimes I wonder if people have something like desire to be peeped.
Because of boring routine work, life. For something exciting.
OTOH they want to be majority. They want not to be flagged as so-called a risk factor of society by goverments. Regarding it as the risk factor is an unbeliebable old fashioned idea but actually their brains are so, so it can't be helped. It is just risk of those great politics and its friends's private life so usually it is neither risk of a society/country nor nothing. (Ahh...)
If they are not serious idiots (Ahh...), probably they have thought about their computers's security/privacy at least once. If they thought once, that means they always have to have the doubt that "Someone might be peeping at the screen of my device". They always notice the feelings regardless of most people uses eavesdropping devices. Especially officers have the quite stronger feelings stupidly. And more petty, more lack the sense of risk fortunately. That must cause the universal depression (ironically it must decrease the crime rate) and a strange sense of solidarity, and here possibility of dynamic inversion, so it becomes the strange security feeling. Insecure means secure in that context. I mean, using Windows, Mac, even Ubuntu or Mint must bring the strange security feelings, is my guess at a considerable reason of the difference of number of users. So I hate cowards. But if they really want security/software freedom and they just lack knowledge, like those who believe those cards are respecting users's freedom, they might chose those software after all. The causes must be complicated but the difference of number of users seems too much.
A lot of iOS applications demand access to the cameras, the michrophone, etc. Usually those apps have nothing to do with cameras. I always think that their bad habits are far beyond my imagination so that would mean those many employees must peep at their customers's bedrooms.
In that case, it is opposite because the instigators can say that they did that selfishly. I did not order such a thing. So I am innocent, sir.
Update: In Mint's main repository, each versions' wallpapers are organized in directories named "mint-backgrounds-xxx". There are two packages in each said directory, in .deb and .tar.gz format, respectively. In each package, either .deb or .tar.gz, there is a directory named "backgrounds" (which I overlooked before) that contains original wallpaper files. Other directories can be neglected, as what they contain are symbolic links to the files in the "backgrounds" directory. I recommend that the .tar.gz package be used, since it's harder to extract the .deb packages (first use "ar x" (in the package "binutils") to extract the .deb package, then use "tar Jx" to extract the resulting .tar.xz package).
For brevity, just download the .tar.gz packages, extract them and make backups of the "backgrounds" directories. Enjoy its wallpapers (some very nice natural scenery photos), but never try the distribution itself, for the sake of freedom.
I linked at the top to the acc.umu.se ftp mirror. Just click on the link, open with archive manager, proceed to the folder and extract to your local storage.
The path is:
/mint-backgrounds-tina/backgrounds/linuxmint-tina/
Sweden is too far away from me, so I use a local university's mirror.
I already have wallpapers from old releases, too.
You installed Mint just for the Wallpapers? XD
I remember when I used Arch, I installed the Ubuntu SVN theme and even compiled the Ubuntu Xorg font rendering patch XD.
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