Mint is popular for many reasons. The distribution is easy to use, and its software choices are community driven. The core distribution is based on Ubuntu, and remains sufficiently like Ubuntu to catch the imagination of escapees (permanent or temporary) from the GNOME shell and Unity. But where Ubuntu (and GNOME) have taken a leap of faith in an attempt to anticipate the desires of future users, Mint is intent on satisfying the demands of its current users, which is to produce a desktop that is both innovative and closer to GNOME 2.