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January 07, 2009
16:19
Temporary problems in the forum
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

For the moment it seems not to be possible to post anything in the forum However it works fine if you just want to look at it, quite possible to view all posts like normal We hope to have it solved soon
January 06, 2009
17:56
mintCast - Episode 4
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Charles Olsen and the mintCast team published another episode of their podcast. Happy listening everyone! In Episode 4: The News (”I’m Linux”, browser market shares, artwork for the podcast) Rothgar’s segment: Overview of multimedia applications under Linux Main Story: Linux for writers Website of the Week: dafont.com To subscribe to this podcast use the following address:
January 04, 2009
15:01
The Mint Newsletter - issue 70
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Merlwiz and Exploder are happy to release LinuxMint-6-XFCE as an RC. A few things have to be checked and/or added to the repositories and Merlwiz needs to write release notes but it’s likely this release will be ready any time now. LinuxMint-6-x64 is ready for testing and will be released soon (at the [...]
13:25
Upcoming releases…
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Happy new year 2009 everyone. Here’s a quick update on what’s going on within the dev team: - Merlwiz and Exploder are happy to release LinuxMint-6-XFCE-DEV-020.iso (that’s how we refer to our internal builds) as an RC (Release Candidate). I need to check a few things, a few packages made for it need to be added [...]
January 02, 2009
13:39
Donations & Sponsorships - December 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint: Donors: - $100 (12th donation), Az Van (newW2 - USA) - $100, R Muir-G. (UK) - $100, Robert C. (USA) - $100, Gary M. (USA) - $72 (2 donations), David F. (Ireland) - $71, Matteo P. (Italy) - $55, Andres V. (Colombia) - $50, Jerry B. (USA) - $50, Dan K. (USA) - [...]
December 27, 2008
23:13
Mint 6 Review: TechieMoe
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Introduction TechieMoe reviews a lot of distributions and he’s consistently reviewed Mint since the release of version 3.1, Celena. He was the first to review Linux Mint 6 Felicia. Although he usually only scratches the surface (which I understand considering the number of reviews he publishes) he knows how to be harsh in his criticism and [...]
13:59
mintCast - Episode 3
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Charles Olsen and the mintCast team published the third episode of their podcast. Happy listening everyone! In Episode 3: Note-taking software under Linux Linux Mint 6 Felicia released Rothgar’s overview of Linux Mint 6 OpenSuse 11.1 released Economist website recommends Linux for netbooks Linux is holding our kids back… To subscribe to this podcast use the following address: [mintcast.org] For more information about this [...]
December 24, 2008
14:27
Merry Christmas and happy new year!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

2008 was a great year for us and we managed to achieve most of our goals. We released Linux Mint 5 Elyssa, our first Long Term Support release, then came three community editions (KDE, XFCE and Fluxbox) and we successfully started supporting a new architecture: amd64. Of course we didn’t manage to do “everything” we wanted. [...]
December 16, 2008
18:37
Donations & Sponsorship - November 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint: Donors: - $500 (2nd donation), Michael Shimanski (USA) - $100, Beat Michel L. (Switzerland) - $100 (2nd donation), Filip Oscadal - [www.mxd.biz] MXD.BIZ - Internet Solutions (peep - Czech Republic) - $65 (7th donation), Temel Balci (Germany) - $50, Jeff T. (USA) - $50, Roger S. (UK) - $40 (2nd [...]
18:34
Donations & Sponsorship - October 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint: Donors: - $200, John A. (Canada) - $91, Michael C. (UK) - $50, Michael B. (Australia) - $50, Harvey E. (UK) - $50, Gordon H. (UK) - $40, James F. (USA) - $40, Richard McL. (Canada) - $33, Jon G. (UK) - $33 (4th donation), Jerry Jackson (UK) - $28, Jose Luis R. [...]
December 15, 2008
22:51
The Mint Newsletter - issue 69
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Felicia final has been released Work is progressing on both the KDE and XFCE editions. * News about Linux Linus Torvalds figured out what the suspend/resume problem was IBM pushes “Microsoft alternative” desktop based on Ubuntu. IBM Lotus Domino 8 and Open Collaboration Client Solution powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux IBM software for Linux Linux Defenders to defend [...]
20:06
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 “Felicia”. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support. Quick steps: Download the ISO. While it’s downloading [...]
December 14, 2008
20:03
Upgrade tool for Linux Mint 5 users
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The upgrade tool is ready. It makes upgrading from Linux Mint 5 to Linux Mint 6 trivial. Now, having said that… this is still a risky operation. Warning The recommended way to install Linux Mint is to perform a fresh install. We’re planning to release Linux Mint 6 tomorrow so I personally recommend you wait until then [...]
December 11, 2008
12:21
Getting ready for the release…
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

As you probably know the release of Linux Mint 6 is coming very soon. In fact the ISO itself is ready and some of you may have already found it in one of our mirrors. Be patient and bear with me for a few extra days. Although the ISO is ready, a few other things [...]
December 09, 2008
14:01
mintCast - Episode 2
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Charles Olsen and the mintCast team published the second episode of their podcast. Happy listening everyone! In Episode 2: Fedora 10 released Wine 1.1.10 Released Backing up your PC: mintBackup, FlyBack, Jungle Disk Microsoft segment - Preview of Internet Explorer 8 (by Adam Hainstock) Listener feedback To subscribe to this podcast use the following address: [mintcast.org] For more information about this podcast please [...]
December 06, 2008
17:51
Note to Mint 6 RC1 users
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

A little bit more than 8% of you are currently running Linux Mint 6 RC1 and you’re probably wondering how “stable” it is and how to upgrade it to the upcoming stable version. Well here’s some good news, it’s very stable and you can upgrade it with only two commands. How stable is RC1? RC1 is fit [...]
December 04, 2008
11:07
mintCast - Episode 1
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

I briefly mentioned mintCast in my previous post but I think it deserves a little more attention. MintCast is a brand new podcast “by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux”. It’s hosted by Charles Olsen, whom I’m sure you’ll get to know very well, and it’s currently aiming at releasing on a biweekly [...]
December 02, 2008
14:30
The Mint Newsletter - issue 68
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Mint is successful but we still cannot afford to have paid staff working on the project. All team members work on Mint in their spare time. This means that family matters (like moving house) can make a team member be absent from Mint for some time. This happens to Clem, the founder [...]
December 01, 2008
16:52
Latest news
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

It’s been a little more than two weeks and you’re probably wondering where exactly is the stable release of Linux Mint 6 Felicia. I was away for two weeks in Florida (great country by the way, I had never been to the US before) and I only got back last week. Then something came up and [...]
November 11, 2008
11:55
The Mint Newsletter - issue 67
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint The first RC of Mint 6 Felicia is released Release notes here We want the community to test it thoroughly the next two weeks Much of the new stuff in Felicia will be ported to Mint 5 Elyssa In fact if you have enabled Romeo (our unstable repository) and installed/updated you will find Felicia familiar. It took [...]
November 10, 2008
22:23
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” RC1 released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 RC1. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support. Introduction to Linux Mint 6 and [...]
November 06, 2008
13:05
The Mint Newsletter - issue 66
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Intrepid has been released and work has started to produce Mint 6 Felicia We will use another approach than earlier and make the production more scripted which will make the editions a bit more like each other Some of the news in Felicia have been presented earlier in the blog. This includes the new [...]
October 24, 2008
14:20
The Mint Newsletter - issue 65
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox released! Work on Mint 6 has started and we hope to release soon after Intrepid (main and 64 bits) * News about Linux Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution Ubuntu explains OpenOffice.org 3.0 decision Why is openSUSE released on Thursdays The latest news about the kernel is always found here * News [...]
October 21, 2008
23:10
Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition. This edition, maintained by Shane Joe Lazar, brings you the best and most essential tools from the Main and XFCE editions on top of an extremely thin desktop and the lightweight Fluxbox window manager. For a complete list of features please [...]
October 18, 2008
19:08
The Mint Newsletter - issue 64
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Linux Mint 5 x64 Edition released! mintMenu 4.1 was released (and 4.1.1 a small fix for hyphens in the search field) A nice improvement. Clicking on “Software Manager” now brings up the new mintInstall. All the very latest versions of Mint applications are in the Romeo repository. You can either enable it or go [...]
18:35
Linux Mint 5 x64 Edition released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint is proud to announce that Linux Mint 5 Elyssa is now available on AMD64 for 64 bit processors. In the future the x64 edition will be released at the same time as the Main and Light editions. The purpose of the x64 edition is to offer the same desktop features as the Main edition but [...]
October 14, 2008
19:01
mintMenu 4.1
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Introduction Nothing groundbreaking was planned for mintMenu in Linux Mint 6 but it still needed many little adjustments, so here comes mintMenu 4.1 with the following changes: The search command (which is launched when you press enter after typing text in the filter bar) is now configurable. The menu icon is now configurable In the places plugin, “Software Portal” [...]
14:46
The Community Podcast project
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

This is the third attempt at launching a podcast about Linux Mint and this time we want to get something working for and by the community. We’re looking for: a benevolent dictator for this new podcast. Somebody who will be available frequently and who would be the real leader behind this project. people who want to co-host the [...]
11:52
Linux Mint 3.x reaches end-of-life
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint 3.0 Cassandra and Linux Mint 3.1 Celena will reach end of life on October 19th. Both releases were based on Ubuntu 7.04 which is planned to reach end-of-life at the same date. Repositories will remain open for another while but no more updates or security fixes will be made available for these two releases. Users [...]
October 09, 2008
21:03
Weekly Newsletter - Issue 63
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint Lots of improvements leading up to Mint 6 Felicia mintUpload to support FTP mintNanny introduced - a simple tool to prevent children from accessing certain websites Three new commands - search, apt contains and apt content. Mint is now to be on the major distributions page on Distrowatch * News about Linux Bruce Perens: A Big Change for [...]
October 07, 2008
22:56
MintUpload 2, featuring FTP support
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Introduction

MintUpload is the little tool which pops up when you right-click on a file and select “upload”. Until now mintUpload was mostly used as a way to share files by uploading them to a public place somewhere on one of Linux Mint’s servers and by sending the corresponding URL to friends and family members (or to anybody really..). Some people also bought Mint-Space accounts and were able to set up mintUpload to add an additional upload service to it. These people could then share files in a similar manner but instead of using a public storage space and being limited to 2 days, they could use their 1GB of Web space and have their files kept there indefinitely.

Some people mentioned that mintUpload was great at sharing files with others but not so much at actually “uploading” them and we got a lot of requests to add FTP support to that tool.

Initially mintUpload was designed with novice users in mind, people who wanted to share large files with each others and who didn’t know what FTP meant or where to get free web space to store them. After gathering some feedback, we’ve come to realize that mintUpload also got popular with experienced users, people who even had their own FTP accounts and wanted a quick way to upload files to it without launching an FTP client. So we added FTP support to MintUpload by defining another type of service and letting the user define his own FTP services.

Installation

To install MintUpload you need the Romeo repositories. Perform an “apt update” and an “apt install mintupload” in a terminal.

If you don’t have Romeo set up, you can grab the packages from here:
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
Configuration

MintUpload lets you define “upload services” by adding files in /etc/linuxmint/mintUpload/services/

Here’s an example of an FTP upload service:

type=FTP
name=My own FTP service
host=myhost.com
user=myusername
pass=mypassword
path=myuploads

The “path” is optional, it lets you define where within your FTP service you want the files to be uploaded. In this example we’re not uploading them in the root folder, but within a directory called “myuploads”.

MintUpload will use any service defined with that format and saved as a file within /etc/linuxmint/mintUpload/services/.

Translations

MintUpload 2 will be one of the featured improvements coming with Linux Mint 6 Felicia. We’re actively trying to get the community to translate this tool. If you happen to speak another language than English, please help us translate mintUpload 2 by participating to this forum thread:

http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17551

Bug reports and feedback

Tell us what you think by posting a comment on this blog post. Report bugs here as well.

Note: Some people also asked for SFTP support. This won’t be in the scope for Mint 6 but we’ll work on it for future releases.

Spread the word

We’re trying to raise people’s awareness about the Mint project and we’ve added a Digg plugin to this blog. If you find this blog post interesting, please help us spread the word by submitting it as a Digg story or by digging it if it’s already submitted.
21:56
Introducing mintNanny
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Introduction

One of the features Mint has been lacking as a family desktop is the ability for parents to prevent their children from accessing certain websites. Parental control is easy to set up in Microsoft Windows and we got a lot of feedback from people who migrated to Linux and who missed this feature. Of course one could install DansGuardian and a few other packages but it’s not easy, it usually requires the use of a proxy and it’s also quite complex to configure. For Linux Mint 6 we came with a compromise and we decided to implement a minimal set of features but to make it as trivial to use as possible. So here comes mintNanny.

MintNanny is a small graphical interface which lets you “block” domain names. You can’t block domains for particular users or particular programs, the block is for everyone on the computer and for any protocol. When you “block” a domain in mintNanny it basically adds an entry to your /etc/hosts file and defines that domain’s IP address as being 0.0.0.0. This results in your computer not being able to communicate with the domain anymore. So if there are domains you really don’t want your children to have anything to do with, put them in mintNanny.

Remember that mintNanny blocks domain names, not IP addresses so if your children are smart enough to ping the domain from another computer they’ll be able to access it via its IP address.

Certain domains use subdomains and redirect to them so you might have to block them to. For instance if you want to block somewebsite.com you might also have to block www.somewebsite.com. As a rule of thumb try to access the website after you block it to see if your block was efficient enough.

Firefox caches DNS resolutions to speed things up. This means that it remembers where a website is until you close it. In other words, after you block a website, you’ll have to restart Firefox.

Installation

To install MintNanny you need the Romeo repositories. Perform an “apt update” and an “apt install mintnanny-gnome” in a terminal (or “apt install mintnanny-kde” if you run KDE).

If you don’t have Romeo set up, you can grab the packages from here:
Translations

MintNanny will be one of the featured improvements coming with Linux Mint 6 Felicia. We’re actively trying to get the community to translate this tool. If you happen to speak another language than English, please help us translate mintNanny by participating to this forum thread:

[www.linuxmint.com]

Bug reports and feedback

Tell us what you think by posting a comment on this blog post. Report bugs here as well.

Spread the word

We’re trying to raise people’s awareness about the Mint project and we’ve added a Digg plugin to this blog. If you find this blog post interesting, please help us spread the word by submitting it as a Digg story or by digging it if it’s already submitted.
October 06, 2008
10:01
Mint 6: 3 new commands
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Three new commands made their way into Romeo last night: search, apt contains and apt content. All three of them are provided by mintSystem 5.5.

If you have Romeo set up as a repository simply type “apt update” and “apt install mintsystem”. Otherwise you can get the deb from here:

[packages.linuxmint.com]

apt content package

“apt content” shows the content of package, it’s a shortcut for “dpkg -L”. For instance, if you type “apt content mintsystem” you should see the following:

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ apt content mintsystem
/.
/usr
/usr/local
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/bin/apt
/usr/lib
/usr/lib/linuxmint
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/icon.png
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/python
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/python/configobj.py
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/templates
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/templates/apt.conf
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/templates/preferences
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/GPL.txt
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/version
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/version/mintInstall
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/version/mintInstall/portals.list
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/version/mintInstall/release.id
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/version/mintInstall/sources.list
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/mintsystem
/usr/share/doc/mintsystem/copyright
/usr/share/doc/mintsystem/changelog.gz

apt contains filename

“apt contains” tells you which package contains a particular file. It’s a shortcut for “dpkg -S”. For instance if you type “apt contains /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/GPL.txt” you should see the following:

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ apt contains /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/GPL.txt
mintsystem: /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintSystem/GPL.txt

search for keyword in directory

“search” lets you search for files containing a particular keyword. You can get a list of options by typing “search –help”:

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ search help

usage: search [arguments] [options]
arguments:
for text
in directory
options:
-c | –case-sensitive
-s | –show-filenames-only

“search” is easy to use. Let’s take an example and search for “workgroup” in /etc/samba. We type “search for workgroup in /etc/samba” and we see the following:

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ search for workgroup in /etc/samba
/etc/samba/smb.conf.ucf-old:26:# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
/etc/samba/smb.conf.ucf-old:27: workgroup = MSHOME
/etc/samba/smb.conf:26:# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
/etc/samba/smb.conf:27: workgroup = MSHOME

We can refine the search by adding “–case-sensitive” or only show filenames by adding “–show-filenames-only”. For instance:

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ search in /etc/samba for workgroup –case-sensitive –show-filenames-only
/etc/samba/smb.conf.ucf-old
/etc/samba/smb.conf

Let us know what you think and if you find any bugs. These will eventually be backported into Elyssa and will be featured as some of Mint 6’s improvements.
October 01, 2008
22:28
Donations & Sponsorship - September 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:

Sponsors:

- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $81, Linuxmint-Shop.de (Germany) - [www.linuxmint-shop.de]
- $76, LinuxISOS.de (Germany) - [www.linuxisos.de]
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - [www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com]
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $30, LinuxMint-Forum.de (Germany) - [linuxmint-forum.de]
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - [www.immobilien-es.com]
- $10, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - [www.linux-onlineshop.de]
- $10, Tuxdevil Outsourcing LLC [www.tuxdevil.net]
- $10, Jim Rogers (USA)
- $10, MXD Internet Solutions (Filip Oscadal - Czech Republic) - [www.mxd.biz]
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - [www.urbancsa.org]
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - [www.linuxmint-italia.org]
- $5, Alex P.
- $5, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - [www.speedtest.gr]
- $5, Vassilis Skoullis (Greece)
- $5, Robert Holland
- $1, Lintelligence.de. (d00p - Germany) - [www.lintelligence.de]
- $1, Linuxmint.de (d00p - Germany) - [www.linuxmint.de]
- $1, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $0.5 Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)

Donors:

- $200, Peter M. (Canada)
- $101, Frans Van O. (Netherlands)
- $72, V. Mark L. (Ireland)
- $72, Rafael G. V. (Spain)
- $72, Florian B. (Germany)
- $72, Christophe W. (Switzerland)
- $72, Gerard R. (France)
- $72, Matthias R. (France)
- $51 (2nd donation), Richard Svendsen (Norway)
- $50, Coleman D. (USA)
- $50, Theo L. (Switzerland)
- $50, David M.    (USA)
- $50, Paul V. (Canada)
- $50, Ennien A. (Canada)
- $45 (4th and 5th donations), Andreas L. (Norway)
- $29 (6th donation), Temel Balci (Germany)
- $29 (2nd donation), Vincent V. (France)
- $21 (4th donation), Frank Bechstein (Germany)
- $20, IT Servants (USA)
- $20, Tim V.-B. (UK)
- $20, Nathan H. (USA)
- $15, Robert N. (USA)
- $14, Carl K. (USA)
- $14, Marc M. (Belgium)
- $14, Costas K. (Greece)
- $14, Thorsten M.-R. (Germany)
- $14, Robert H. (Germany)
- $14, Daniel A. (Luxembourg)
- $10, Theodore P. (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), Henry W.    (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), James R.    (USA)
- $5, John S. (USA)
- $5, Bryan T. (USA)
- $0.1, Rytis S. (Lithuania)

Money raised in September:

* Donations: $1357.1
* Sponsors: $442.5

[www.linuxmint.com]
[www.linuxmint.com]
September 30, 2008
0:22
Mint 6: MintUpload to support FTP
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

MintUpload will support FTP as well as the already supported “Mint-Space” protocol. Users will be able to define FTP “services” with a name, a hostname, a username, a password and even an optional path. There is no immediate plan to add a graphical configuration tool to mintUpload but it will be possible to add FTP services by simply adding files in /etc/linuxmint/minUpload/services/. Here is an example:

type=FTP
name=My FTP Server
host=myftp.mydomain.com
user=me
pass=topsecret
path=uploadDirectory

FTP support in mintUpload will be one of the featured improvements coming with Mint 6 and it will also be backported to Linux Mint 5 Elyssa. It already works “in lab” and a package should hit the Romeo repositories this week.

Note to readers: We’re trying to raise people’s awareness about the Mint project and we’ve added a Digg plugin to this blog. If you find this blog post interesting, please help us spread the word by submitting it as a Digg story or by digging it if it’s already submitted.
September 28, 2008
20:21
Weekly Newsletter - Issue 62
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint
Elyssa x64 RC1 released

If any of you have ideas for how we can make Mint more known please feel free to leave a comment.

* News about Linux

Gnome 2.24 released

Released final versions lately

Pardus Linux 2008.1 ; Vector Linux 5.9.1 ; sidux 2008-3

Gentoo is having problems and cancels the 2008.1 release. They state “we overstretched our human resources during the prolonged 2008.0 release process” To bad…

An alternative to MS Exchange on Linux

The latest news about the kernel is always found here

* News about IT

The Netherlands Patent Office changes to open source software. The entire Netherlands public sector is to change in the long term

The European Parliament adopts a legislative report about telecom. It’s supposed to stop some attempts to block filesharing - however I can’t find that in the report linked to. More about it

Mozilla Releases 9 Updates To Firefox, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird

Zend Teams With Adobe to Marry PHP and Flex

Greenpeace ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’

Users fail to spot fake pop-ups

‘Uncloneable’ biometric passports pass the test

Wikileaks posts a hack of Palin’s e-mail account on Yahoo

Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail all vulnerable to Palin-style password-reset hack

‘Password Recovery’ Services may be crackers that gets you in deep trouble

Researchers discover PDF exploit packs

In-depth manual and automated assessments found nearly 97 percent of sites carry a severe vulnerability.

The notorious service provider Intercage is (was) a severe vulnerability in itself and got cut off from the internet

* Hardware news

First True 3D Processor Created, Runs at 1.4 GHz

New ‘On/Off Switch’ Protects RFID Cards From Hacks

Asus ships software cracker on recovery DVD

* Trivia and other links

* More about Linux Mint

How to donate

You find the Wallpaper of the Month in the Blog

Home page

Blog The planet Wiki Forum

* Editors comment

As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment here

Enjoy life

Husse
September 27, 2008
17:06
Elyssa x64 RC1 released
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Linux Mint is proud to announce its very first 64 bits release: Elyssa x64 RC1.

The purpose of the x64 edition is to offer the same desktop features as the Main edition but in a 64 bits environment. We received a lot of requests to support the X86_64 architecture (commonly referred to as “amd64″) and we’ve managed to come with an edition which is almost 100% in par with our main desktop.

As an RC (Release Candidate) this release is targeted at developers and beta-testers who want to help Linux Mint find and correct bugs before the stable release. Please do not use this release as your main desktop.

The x64 Edition aims to be as similar to the Main edition as possible, but due to the nature of its architecture, its package base and its origins it defers in the following ways:
- Linux Mint x64 Edition was forked from Ubuntu Hardy as opposed to Ubuntu Edgy for the Main Edition,
- Linux Mint x64 Edition comes with a java plugin implemented by OpenJDK, as opposed to Sun for the Main Edition.
- Linux Mint x64 Edition comes with Xchat instead of Xchat-Gnome
- Linux Mint x64 Edition comes with Flash 9 instead of Flash 10
More packages are available for i386 than they are for amd64 and we also believe the Main edition to be a bit more stable than will in time be its 64 bits equivalent. The Main edition only recognizes RAM to a maximum of 4GB though and even on computers with less than 4GB RAM the performance gain provided by x64 over the Main edition can significantly enhance the user’s experience.

Introduction to the x64 edition:

We published a mini-benchmark and an introduction to the x64 edition within the release notes. To have a better idea of what x64 can do for you, please read http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_elyssa_x64.php

System requirements:

A minimum of 512MB of RAM is recommended. Once installed the system works fine with as low as 256MB RAM. The installation process deals with 2.5GB of data compressed on a 700MB CD and it can hang or fail on systems with less than 512MB RAM. If you have between 256MB and 512MB RAM you may have to try to install several times.

Download x64 RC1:

Size: 682MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 65a436f5ee945abceae18e5393d34213
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.de]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]

Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.norhex.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
- [ftp:] (Vietnam)
Test x64 RC1, report bugs and feedback:

The purpose of this Release Candidate is to gather as much feedback and bug reports as possible before the final release.
- Depending on your hardware x64 Edition could potentially be faster and show better performance than the Main edition. We’re interested to know how both editions compare so don’t hesitate to measure your boot time, and common scenarios and compare them on the same computer with the Main edition. Contact us by email and send us your benchmarks and your conclusions.
- Participate in testing the Release Candidate CD. If you find bugs please report them here: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Tell us what you think and give us feedback on this release by commenting here on this blog.
September 23, 2008
20:56
Raiden’s Realm reviews Elyssa KDE CE
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

This is the first review I’ve seen of Linux Mint 5 KDE CE so I’m delighted to get some feedback on this release. The reviewer, Steve Lake, also reviewed Linux Mint 5 by the past so I was interested to see how he compared KDE CE with the Main edition.

Link to the review: [www.raiden.net]

Digg the review: [digg.com]

Steve mentions the “LiveCD” here and there. As you probably noticed he actually refers to a live DVD, KDE CE being more than 700MB. By the past KDE CE came with a smaller ISO called “miniKDE” and for the first time since the start of this edition… it doesn’t. The reason for this is that we wanted to free Boo (Jamie Boo Birse, maintainer of the KDE Edition) so that he could start working on Mint 6. A lot of work has gone into this edition and it got released very late within our release cycle (The Main edition was released in June). The KDE edition failed to come with QT frontends for the Mint tools and hasn’t made the transition towards KDE 4 yet so there will be a lot of work for Linux Mint 6.

Steve says: “But once on the desktop I found that not much has changed since Mint 4 KDE appearance wise. Mint 5 KDE has as usual a beautiful selection of preinstalled software ready to use in the LiveCD, including Gimp, Inkscape, Thunderbird, Firefox, Scribus, Open Office, Krusader, Mplayer and many others. So every major important KDE and Linux app is there and ready for you to use. The menu hasn’t changed from the previous KDE version either, but there does appear to be more tools for those who enjoy using Compiz for 3d effects. Don’t expect to get Compiz working until you install the system, becuase for some reason, Compiz hates LiveCD environments.”

–> The look and feel in Mint 5 is a refinement of what was already there in Mint 4.0. Verdegal made the artwork for Daryna and what he produced was enhanced by another artist called Jernau. His work and improvements impacted all editions. Of course the KDE CE didn’t come with as many changes as the Main edition in that respect (extra themes for instance) but it improved the overall look and feel nonetheless. Screenshots of Daryna KDE CE are still visible here.

–> There are shortcuts in the menu to enable/disable Compiz. As Steve said, it works better once the system is installed, especially if you need extra drivers. I’ve had some success with Intel chipsets directly from the liveDVD though.

Steve said: “Speed and performance were very good for the entire LiveCD experience. It had a few loading lags, but nothing terribly bad, just normal stuff. Stability was good and the system did a great job with everything it needed to do. So, other than the initial scare due to a hardware glitch on my end (bad video card), the whole system ran perfect, and did just as good as its Metacity based cousin.”

–> Some benchmarks suggest that KDE uses less resources than Gnome. It used to be other way around a few years ago.

Steve said: “I’ve never seen any Linux distribution up to this point actually detect a network share on my network before and add the icon for it on the desktop. Mint 5 KDE did. So if I wanted to jump on my samba share, all I needed to do was double click and away I went. That’s a nice little added feature, especially for new users unfamiliar with how to get at such shares in a Linux or KDE environment.”

–> I’ll let Boo comment on this as I’m not sure whether we should thank him for adding this, myself for some reminiscence of the Network-Autobrowsing feature (introduced in Mint 4.0 and removed in Mint 5.. well in the Main edition at least) or upstream developers from KDE, Kubuntu or even 3rd party packages. Community Editions are tested and released the same way as other editions but the maintainer himself is responsible for the implementation and as far as the quality of the ISO is good he can make a lot of decisions without involving the team.

Steve said: “Linux Mint 5 KDE Edition uses the Linux 2.6.24-19 kernel, a newer Linux kernel known for great improvements in power management. That’s a nice thing to see.”

–> Elyssa KDE CE upgraded its package base to Ubuntu 8.04.1. That’s another difference with the Main edition. I prefered the conservative approach, Boo did a nice job with upgrading to 8.04.1 so this release comes with a 2.6.24-19 kernel.

Steve said: “One thing you may notice when you first get the system installed is that Mint needs 123 (117 initial + 5 additional) updates right away. That’s a lot of updates for something that’s just been freshly installed (and recently released). A lot of them seem to be upstream Ubuntu application and core system updates, but nothing that I wouldn’t advise against installing.”

–> This is something I insist on within the team, I’m very conservative when it comes to updates and I usually recommend to stay on par with was tested the most. In this case the package base is 8.04.1, every update after that makes the base differ from what was known as the latest stable Ubuntu release. This is a very controversial topic of course and people don’t like to think that package updates can potentially introduce new bugs but it’s something very important to us. We even developed our own package update manager (mintUpdate) to make sure users were selective in applying updates.

Steve said: “One thing that didn’t really show up properly until the installed version was the battery and power management. Mint 5 KDE has a new power management taskbar tool that is different from the old Kpower, and it seems to handle power management better, even though it couldn’t seem to detect my processor speed for some reason. Oddly enough, Kpower, the one tool that gave me good power management before is gone. And while the new tool does seem to offer better power performance, it leaves something to be desired in comparison to Kpower.”

–> We looked into that Boo and I. I’ll have to check the archives for that but I remember I was concerned with the message dialogs not being user-friendly when the battery ran out of power. On the other hand the previous tool had more features than the new one… I can’t remember whether it was kde-guidance or kpowersave in the end but the solution chosen by Boo pleased Exploder (Mint’s release manager) and this went forward. I’d love to hear more user feedback on this.

Conclusion:

I’m always looking forward to reading reviews about Linux Mint. It doesn’t only spread the word about what we’re doing it gives us important feedback and it also gives us the opportunity to talk about various things and to explain our choices, our decisions and why such and such features were implemented the way they were. Many thanks to Raiden’s Realm for reviewing this release.

If you want to help spread the word about this review, you can do so on digg.com. For questions and comments to us please comment here on this blog, and for questions and comments to Steve please post here.

Happy reading everyone.
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September 16, 2008
13:08
Weekly Newsletter - Issue 61
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa KDE Community Edition is released

If you have RC1 (aka beta045) you don’t need to do anything. The difference between the two is that a bug that duplicated some folders in home is fixed

Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1 is released

Keep your eyes open - more news soon.

* News about Linux

The next Ubuntu is to be called Jaunty Jackalope (let’s hope it becomes more than a myth…)

The talks at Ubuntu Developer Week are found here

Ubuntu puts all man pages on the internet

Mark Shuttleworth on design, user experience and development

Lenovo denies ditching Linux

The spread of the Linux virus Linux/Rst-B according to Sophos (quite a few root infected boxes out there)

The latest news about the kernel is always found here

* News about IT

The invaluable NoScript for Firefox plug-in just got a tad better.

A new version of VLC

ZoooS takes OpenOffice to web

Google to have data center at sea?

HP is trying to make Windows better

The Association of National Advertisers (US) wants the pact between Google and Yahoo stopped

Google-backed satellite project aims to give 3 billion more people Net access

Google closes hole in Single Sign-On service

Language of text messages can give you away

French oppose sinister government database

The major Internet outages so far in 2008

Phishing Cyber Gang Upgrades to Fast-Flux Botnet

Study: Weak Passwords Still Main Security Defense

San Francisco hunts for mystery device on city network

Threat From DNS Bug Isn’t Over, Experts Say

* Hardware news

Cisco pushes ‘network memory‘ to alleviate high-speed bottlenecks

Intel vPro and the future of tech support

Ultrasound to give feel to games

Startup introduces ‘unclonable’ chip technology

USB-stick with hardware AES-encryption has been cracked
* Trivia and other links

Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider (because of the risk of creating black holes) and it has already been hacked.

VMware Fusion Helps CERN Physicists Analyze Data From Coolest Place on Earth

* More about Linux Mint

How to donate

You find the Wallpaper of the Month in the Blog

Home page

Blog The planet Wiki Forum

* Editors comment

As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment here

Enjoy life

Husse
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September 15, 2008
18:41
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa KDE Community Edition
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

We are proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 5 KDE Community Edition:

[www.linuxmint.com]

I would like to thank Jamie “Boo” Birse for maintaining this edition. Our last poll indicated that 11% of Linux Mint users were running KDE CE so I’m sure this will come as great news

Notes:
- If you previously downloaded RC1 you do not need to upgrade/reinstall.
- There won’t be any miniKDE ISO coming with this release.

Forum announcement: [linuxmint.com]
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September 12, 2008
21:39
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox Community Edition RC1 is out and available for download. I hope there’ll be numerous testers and that we’ll receive plenty of feedback.

Please find all relevant information about this release at this address: [www.linuxmint.com]

I’d also like to thank and congratulate Shane Joe Lazar for maintaining this edition and for the quality of this release.

Have fun with it and don’t forget to give us feedback.

Forum announcement: [linuxmint.com]
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September 08, 2008
11:49
Weekly Newsletter - Issue 60
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

* News about Mint
XFCE CE (stable) has been released

Fluxbox CE (RC) will be released about a week later

KDE CE RC1 was close to being stable. There was a tiny little glitch which now is fixed so hopefully it will be released any time soon. If you have the latest beta (045) you have the final, but with the glitch not fixed - and you will be told how to fix it

Work on the x64 edition is on hold for a few days, so we can release as per above

There won’t be any time dedicated to the Debian and Enterprise Editions until after the release of Mint 6 Felicia

There will be a revision 2 of Elyssa main around the time when Felicia is released

This and more is found in a blog post by Clem

mintInstall 5.1 and 5.2 was released in Romeo (the unstable branch of our repositories)

An interesting interview with Clem

* News about Linux

UbuntuDeveloperWeek first week in September

This is the Year of the Linux Desktop Breakout (heard it before?)

Linux under attack: Compromised SSH keys lead to rootkit

Open source release takes Linux rootkits mainstream - it cloaks itself by burrowing deep inside a server’s processor and availing itself of debugging mechanisms available in Intel’s chip architecture. What about AMD?

In defense of Ubuntu (by Jonathan Corbet)

Use of community Linux distributions like Ubuntu, CentOS and Debian are on the rise in the enterprise, PC world AU claims

Gentoo developer moves away from Gentoo

The latest news about the kernel is always found here

* News about IT

The Internet’s Biggest Security Hole (Not the DNS problem)

Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. (This is not the security hole You have to wait for an ad before you get to the article)

U.S. to deploy DNSSEC in two years

The Brittish Home Office is considering to track in real-time every kind of electronic activity undertaken by citizens. They are not alone both Germany and Sweden have similar plans as noted in earlier editions of the newsletter. And the US backed Echelon has been running for a long time

Cisco buys PostPath, targets Microsoft Exchange

Mozilla introduces Ubiquity which is an application that is to connect other applications

Changes in the development of Ecmascript (Ecmascriptis the basis for javascript if not javascript in itself)

Microsoft to Acquire Greenfield Online in a transaction valued at approximately $486 million (US).

This is “fun” - Microsoft patents ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’

Mozilla’s Google deal extended Here’s another article on that

Google to buy GeoEye satellite imagery

Google releases the Chrome browser (so far just for Windows)

A comic strip is used to introduce Chrome

Google Chrome takes more than just inspiration from Mozilla

If Google’s new browser isn’t even available on Linux, why is this great news for Linux?

Comcast sets monthly bandwidth limit for customers

A glitch in a computer, one of just two in the US that play the vital role of distributing flight plans brought air traffic to a standstill in the US

Engineer accidentally deletes cloud computing on FlexiScale

Facebook Application Transforms Social Network Into Botnet

The evil genius of XP Antivirus 2008

Attackers are increasingly using encoding

The Number of Machines Controlled by Botnets Has Jumped 4x in Last 3 Months

TeliaSonera IC launches child porn sites blocking service for free use by any ISP

Neo-Nazi forum hacked

Headcount for Bank of New York Mellon’s lost backup tapes rises from 4.2 million to 12 million personal identities

Skype ignores PayPal siphoning hijack scheme

* Hardware news

ATI to Enable High-Definition Video Playback on Linux-Based Computers.

Bad soldering behind nvidas problems?

Intel acquires Linux distro developer

* Trivia and other links

China counters U.S. invisibility cloak - this is almost scaring

* More about Linux Mint

How to donate

You find the Wallpaper of the Month in the Blog

Home page

Blog The planet Wiki Forum

* Editors comment

As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment here

Enjoy life

Husse
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10:17
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa XFCE Community Edition
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

We are proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 5 XFCE Community Edition.

For a list of improvements, new features, known issues and download mirrors please read the release notes: [www.linuxmint.com]

I would like to thank and to congratulate Merlwiz79 for maintaining this wonderful edition. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we had fun releasing it. Have fun and don’t hesitate to give us some feedback.

Forum announcement: [linuxmint.com]
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September 07, 2008
17:39
Donations & Sponsorship - August 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:

Sponsors:

- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $35, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - [www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com]
- $30, LinuxISOS.de (Germany) - [www.linuxisos.de]
- $30, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - [www.linux-onlineshop.de]
- $25, Linuxmint-Shop.de (Germany) - [www.linuxmint-shop.de]
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - [www.immobilien-es.com]
- $12, Sito3p.com (Italy) - [sito3p.com]
- $10, Tuxdevil Outsourcing LLC [www.tuxdevil.net]
- $10, Jim Rogers (USA)
- $10, MXD Internet Solutions (Filip Oscadal - Czech Republic) - [www.mxd.biz]
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - [www.urbancsa.org]
- $5, Kevin Gabbert
- $5, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - [www.speedtest.gr]
- $5, Vassilis Skoullis (Greece)
- $5, Robert Holland
- $2, Khurt Williams (USA) - [islandinthenet.com]
- $2, LinuxMint-Forum.de (Germany) - [linuxmint-forum.de]
- $1, Lintelligence.de. (d00p - Germany) - [www.lintelligence.de]
- $1, Linuxmint.de (d00p - Germany) - [www.linuxmint.de]
- $1, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $0.5 Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)

Donors:

- $400 DistroWatch.com (Taiwan)
- $100 Jim Rogers (USA)
- $100 (2nd donation) Alan D S. (USA)
- $75 Jesus L. D. (Spain)
- $50 (2nd donation) Bjørn S. Nielsen (Norway)
- $50 Andrzej P. (Poland)
- $50 Wray H. (USA)
- $50 Ronald K. (USA)
- $30 Arron J. (UK)
- $30 Wolfgang P. (Austria)
- $30 James G. (Australia)
- $25 Vance R. (USA)
- $25 Ron N. (USA)
- $25 Kane M. B. (USA)
- $20 Kenneth B. (Canada)
- $20 Phillip H. (Australia)
- $20 Guillermo Enrique Guglietti - [www.urbancsa.org] (Canada)
- $20 Ryan McC. (USA)
- $20 (3rd donation) Andreas L. (Norway)
- $20 Brendan C. (Australia)
- $20 Jim D. (Australia)
- $20 Chua K. L. (Singapore)
- $17 Lisa B. (USA)
- $15 Bob McC. (UK)
- $15 David O. (UK)
- $15 Guglielmo F. (Italy)
- $10 Michael N. (USA)
- $10 Syed A. (USA)
- $5 Michael G. (Germany)
- $5 Alejandro R. (Uruguay)
- $3 Lothar S. (Germany)
- $1 Remy van E. (Netherlands)
- $0.5 Eder S. (Brazil)

Money raised in August:

* Donations: $1296.5
* Sponsors: $331.5

[www.linuxmint.com]
[www.linuxmint.com]
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September 06, 2008
20:00
Coming up…
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

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