FAQ

What is Linux Mint?

Linux Mint is a free Linux-based operating system designed for use on desktop computers. It is based and compatible with another free operating system called Ubuntu (which is based on another operating system called Debian). This allows Linux Mint to take advantage of the large amount of software packaged for use with Ubuntu and Debian.

Is Linux Mint suitable for companies?

Yes. Linux Mint offers paid commercial support to companies and individuals. Free community support is also available from the forums and the IRC channel. The main purpose of Linux Mint is to innovate and constantly bring the best desktop solutions to its users. For this reason, the release cycle is relatively fast, with a new version being released about every 6 months. Because of this rapid release schedule may make it impractical for some companies (and even individuals) to upgrade with each release, we have a timed support schedule with each release being supported for about a year and a half. We also make periodic Long-Term Support (LTS) releases which are supported for about 3 years and which are guaranteed to provide enough overlap to allow you to upgrade from one LTS release to the next.

Is Linux Mint suitable for individuals?

Yes, definitely. We believe Linux is the best operating system on the market. There are more than 300 active Linux distributions and we're working hard at becoming the best solution for your desktop. The competition is tough, as there are other great desktop operating systems and distributions out there. We have faith in the quality of our desktop and a lot of great ideas. If your computer is a PC and you have more than 512MB RAM you owe it to yourself to try Linux Mint and see what you think about it. If you're running a years-old non-free operating system (such as Microsoft Windows XP, which is rapidly approaching being a decade old) you should definitely be impressed. We like hearing about your experience and listen very carefully to your suggestions, so please give us your feedback.

Why are there so many editions of Linux Mint?

We provide a variety of versions of Linux Mint that are designed to fill different roles:

  • The Main Edition is our flagship release. It is released on as a CD-ROM image and provides full multimedia support out of the box, meaning that you can listen to MP3's watch DVD's and view web pages that require Flash technology right after install. This could get you into trouble if you are trying to distribute it in countries that allow software patents.
  • The Universal Edition is designed to be just that. It is an edition that can be freely distributed even in countries which allow software patents (such as the United States and Japan) and provides an alternate bootloader that makes it likely to work even on systems that don't support the graphical loader of the Main Edition. It is distributed as a DVD image, so it can include support for languages that won't fit on the Main Edition's CD.
  • The x64 Edition is functionally identical to the Main Edition, except that it is created with full support for 64-bit technology. This means that it is not limited to using 4GB of RAM. Even if your computer supports 64-bit, we recommend that you use the Main Edition unless you know that you have more than 4GB of RAM, since 64-bit doesn't provide any other advantages.
  • The KDE Community Edition is a version of Linux Mint built on the popular KDE desktop.
  • The XFCE Community Edition is built on the lightweight and modular XFCE desktop.

Why does Linux Mint include proprietary drivers?

It doesn't. If it did, it would be legally wrong (because it would violate the GPL) or ethically wrong (if some dirty trick was used for the user to link the code to the kernel for instance).

What about proprietary software?

We believe in the open-source philosophy and release the source code for all of our work. We owe a lot to the Free Software movement and to the GPL but we also owe a lot to all developers who have had good ideas and created great tools and who have been working to make software better. Some of them have released their source code as well and have thus granted us more freedom and more flexibility. Others released their software with proprietary licenses and no source code, and although this doesn't give us the freedom we would like, it still contributes to make software better. We like Software in general, Free Software even more, but we do not believe in boycotting Proprietary Software.