A growing concern about Linux Mint's rising issues and need for contributions

[SpeeQz1]

With the announcement made by a popular influencer there has been a large influx of new users joining Linux Mint.

As more users adopt Linux Mint, the number of reported issues has risen both through GitHub but also through the Discord. Although the team works hard to address these bugs, the limited resources often mean that some issues persist for a long time remaining unfixed and support for newer or more non-standard hardware can lag behind even with the stable release cycle.

This can be frustrating for users who are expecting an out of the box and easy to use system to just work.

Ultimately, Linux Mint’s biggest problem that it will be facing ahead is bridging the gap between its growing popularity and the limited capacity of the development team.

The project’s reliance on community support means that increased participation especially from more skilled users is crucial. Whether through code contributions, bug reports, translations, or financial donations, greater community involvement along with an expansion to the development team is essential to help Linux Mint continue to thrive and provide a robust, user-friendly experience for everyone.

[SantiBurgos1089]

Well, technically what you mention is not "A" but "THE" main concern, not only on Linux Mint but on several Open Source projects (Mint, KDE, GNOME, GIMP, other apps, etc.), because is not like if, just to make an example, I am working full time to Mint (or other project) and I get paid to cater the needs of the project and the rising of the issues around it. Sure, there are others that actually have employees, full time staff and other things as a formal business (like Canonical or Red Hat), but other than that, a lot of the projects that you see here, relies on volunteering.

It may not be a simple thing (behaviors, any possible toxicity on the environment, lack of patience, or maybe other bad things that, unfortunately exists on any group of people), but any person, like you and me can find a way to contribute to any project, be it with money, with knowledge, documentation, time, etc. Mint specifically allows you to participate in discussions in Matrix, IRC (not sure if they still have this open) and Github, which you can use to do your part and contribute, if you are willing to do so

[michaelmrose]

Mint always benefits from more contributors, but user growth doesn’t increase development effort—building for 100,000 or a million is about the same. Most users shouldn’t expect direct access to devs, who focus on the community.

Support does scale, but without more funding, it relies on volunteers. That works if users self-troubleshoot first—search before posting. As user numbers grow, so do potential helpers. GitHub issues, however, don’t scale this way—they’re read by devs, not users.

[cplittlfield]

One of the problems seen on the forums is the expectation that Linux Mint is going to behave precisely the same as the OS the user abandoned. Some of the "issues" raised are simply from the fact that the new user doesn't want to have to learn a new way of doing things. Perhaps not all those issues should be dismissed out of hand, but surely they don't all need to be catered for, either.

[JosephMcc]

I see too often that people have this opinion that more open issues on something like Github means that devs aren't doing enough. This has come up on other Mint repos. To be clear, the issue count means almost nothing. The vast majority of issues you see fall in a "can't fix" category. For something to be fixed, it has to be reproducable by a dev. Most user issue reporting is really poor. Things like not giving enough information. Users tend to leave out a lot and often things can only be reproduced with their exact setups. Also many issues people report as "bugs" fall into the "I don't like the way it works" category. That isn't a bug. It's someones personal preference.

Is help always welcome? Of course. But people need to understand that they will have to deal with sometimes having their work turned down or have to deal with feedback they may not like. You'd be surprised at how many don't take that well.

[cplittlfield]

Why not provide all the information in the original bug report, instead of requiring the devs to ask for it?

There are instructions for filling out a bug report form; they describe the needed information. The devs are not requiring this information to be bureaucratic, but because it's information they need, in order to stand any chance of tracing the bug.

Providing as much information as possible won't guarantee a resolution, but it helps your chances. Also, if others who experience the same problem can add their information, it's a great help to understanding the problem.

[JosephMcc]

but then again it is too much of ask since devs here are already struggling

Who says the devs are struggling? This discussion was started by and is mostly contributed to by people who are not a part of the dev team. In other words, there are a lot of assumptions being made. People are using things like open issue counts, or the fact that the thing "they want" was ignored or turned down, to make that judgement. It's honestly a bit of a ridiculous way to judge.

Like I said, contributions are always welcome but Mint will go the direction Mint wants to go. It will implement the features and changes it wants to implement. Number of devs won't change weather or not what you want gets done.

[michaelmrose]

And on the other hand, many bug reports are closed without any discussion, without allowing to ask or give the necessary additional information that could help developers. This discourages to make bug reports for LM.

People have finite time which may not allow the time to train bug reporters to provide useful reports. This is a service you could literally do right now as making comments helping people give better reports requires no particular permissions.

[nomad3wolf]

@InfoLibre Do you see MX Linux or Manjaro?
They used be above Mint as well.
It's normal for new distros to gain traction and interest.
But it's also normal they fade overtime, because regular users, which make up the majority, like it when the OS just works.
Mint, just works (compared to other distros).
That's why Cachy will (most probably) rise and fall, while Mint will stay on top.

[InfoLibre]

[Secret-chest]

Just because something uses Rust doesn't mean C alternatives should be replaced with it.

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

Money.

Its that simple. Throw the team a few coins.

I donate every year, sometimes twice.

This project is hiughly valuable and goes FAR beyond beiing "an operating system" but a rock solid community with support and passion.

If we want that to continue, make a donation, even if its only a dollar..... but honestly, we all know we are getting more than a dollars value out of it....

[cagdasalagoz]

I want to share my perspective on things,

I'm a long-time Linux Mint user and a software engineer. Recently, I began exploring Mint's repositories to find something I can contribute to. But I wasn't able to find a list of good-starter-bugs or roadmaps for projects. Some of them have open issues with no comment from 5 years ago, some issues are done and merged, yet the issue is still open. I don't want to spend time developing a feature that was asked by one guy 3 years ago and then get it rejected because it's not wanted or needed.

I think keeping the issues up to date, marking them as to-do, or at least displaying some roadmap, would help new people to join the team more easily. I can understand the code even though there's no documentation, but I can't make up some feature on the top of my head and go straight to implementation without knowing if it's required.

Is there any other communication channel that I wasn't aware of?

[Heavygrass]

Having some videos with an overview about how Cinnamon code is organized and designed could help to bring developers.
Most people have no idea where to start even if they have development skills.