Why is it that developers feel the need to reinvent the wheel? Or in today’s case why do developers feel the need to make every desktop look like a damn iPad. If I wanted an iPad I would have bought one. I’m digressing.

I’ve always been a fan of Linux Mint. As far as Linux distros go Linux Mint has never failed to disappoint, until now and it’s not their fault.

Linux Mint 12 comes with the Gnome 3 desktop. Much like the Unity taskbar in Ubuntu 11.10, Gnome 3 is another load of crap attempting to ‘appify’ everything. The team at Linux Mint do their best attempt at trying to take that nasty taste out of my mouth by also providing what they call “MGSE” or Mint Gnome Shell Extensions. It didn’t help. This way there are two taskbars on the screen and neither of them are very customizable.

There’s also an option called MATE which is a fork of Gnome 2 but it just doesn’t come close to the awesome menu bar and customizable taskbar of previous versions of Linux Mint.

I remember a day when Linux distros tried to be innovative and not try to copy a closed source company’s model.

Again, this is not an indictment against Linux Mint. After I was done with Linux Mint 12 I re-installed 11 on my computer.