Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Linux Mint is *NOT* a desktop environment - it is a Linux Distribution. As part of their distribution they also created their own desktop environment, but the name of the DE is Cinnamon, not Linux Mint. And Cinnamon is IMO one of the good things Linux Mint has done - I strongly agree w/ their design goal of a traditional desktop UI. Fortunately, Cinnamon can be & is packaged in other distributions, including Debian.

But Linux Mint is a full Distribution, not just the Cinnamon DE, and as such has a *much* larger scope, and in that larger scope has made decisions that I strongly disagree with. In addition to glaubitz's list, the issue that turned me off of Linux Mint is their very old kernel versions - 3.19 in their latest release. And it's not even an older LTS kernel release; it's a no-longer supported kernel. 3.18 would have been better (assuming they kept up w/ the LTS minor updates, of course).

There are how-to guides out there for upgrading Linux Mint to a more recent kernel, but they're all just about grabbing an Ubuntu or Debian kernel. So it's back to the Frankendebuntu situation, make-your-own monster this time.