I’d like to thank everybody for the feedback given on the artwork. I had to close the comments section as we were getting too many of them, but I got the opportunity to read most of them and we’re now in a position to make a decision. I think we’ll either go for Fresh or we’ll keep the same artwork as what was in Linux Mint 7. Either way, all three wallpapers will be present in the default installation and available for people to choose from.
Feeds
1529 items (1529 unread) in 18 feeds
-
Linux Mint Blog (374 unread)
-
Twitter (101 unread)
-
Alberto Milone
(76 unread) -
Linux Geeks United
(115 unread) -
Линукс MINT (ru)
(50 unread) -
Linux Manua (fr)
(65 unread) -
Mint-Italia
(122 unread)
-
linuxmint.pl (pl)
(70 unread) -
Liteweb (fr)
(24 unread)
-
Shane Joe Lazar
(24 unread)
-
-
linuxmintusers.de
(26 unread) -
Handleidingen
(44 unread)
-
Open Daily
(10 unread)
-
linuxmint-fr.org
(17 unread)
Videos
(117 unread)
-
YouTube (117 unread)
Podcasts
(251 unread)
-
TLLTS (podcast)
(140 unread) -
LAS (podcast)
(111 unread)
«
Expand/Collapse
Linux Mint Blog (100 unread)
-
Mint 8 – Artwork
» Linux Mint Blog -
Which dress for Helena?
» Linux Mint BlogLinux Mint traditionally uses a dark background and a light theme.
Linux Mint 3.1 Celena, 4.0 Daryna, 5 Elyssa and 6 Felicia looked like this:
Mint 3.1 Celena
Mint 4.0 Daryna
Mint 5 Elyssa
Mint 6 Felicia
We were happy with this theme and it suited most people.
When Linux Mint 6 Gloria was ready to come out people wanted something new, a new artist called Zwopper had surfaced in the community, and there was a new popular style available for Gnome called Shiki. I remember being nervous about changing the theme and so we decided to go for it in the RC release and see what would happen next. The success of the new theme was phenomenal and so we decided to keep it for the stable release. As a consequence, Linux Mint 7 Gloria looked radically different:
Mint 7 Gloria (Shiki theme, Dew wallpaper)
The artwork used for Linux Mint 7 (above) was Shiki for the theme (as opposed to Murrina in previous releases) and “Dew” (by Zwopper) for the wallpaper.
In Linux Mint 8, my intention was to keep the Mint 7 theme and to use a new wallpaper from Zwopper called “Fresh”:
Shiki theme, Fresh wallpaper
Many members of the development team commented on the wallpaper and expressed concern about it. The “Fresh” wallpaper was kept in the default installation (it’s available in the “Appearances” tool in your Mint 8 RC1 desktop) but the default wallpaper was changed to a new one, which was designed by Johonunu. The team was much happier with this new wallpaper and so Linux Mint 8 RC1 ended up looking like this:
Shiki theme, Johonunu wallpaper
The reason I’m talking about all this, of course, is because I see a lot of concern in the feedback I’m receiving for this RC. Many people aren’t happy with this default wallpaper and I don’t know if it’s just that those who like it simply don’t feel the need to say it, or if, really, that wallpaper just isn’t popular.
I know we’re only talking about the looks here, and there are more important things to focus on, but we have time to think about this before the stable release. No matter what people say, the first look, the general impression given by the desktop actually means a lot. Even if people change the wallpaper and the looks then-after, the first impression is nonetheless very important, so it’s important to get it right.
I’ve created a poll below. I would like people not to just look at the screenshots, but to go in the “Appearances” tool and to try the different themes and the different wallpapers before making up their mind. A wallpaper can look very different in a screenshot than when it’s actually used as your wallpaper. One of the options is to organize a paid contest to quickly get new wallpapers on a website like 99designs.com for instance. It’s not my preferred option, not because of the money it would cost but because we would potentially run out of time in asking you what you though of the “new” one.. it’s an option nonetheless, so if you think none of Dew, Fresh, or the older themes are suitable, then please vote that option.
Finally, this is a poll, not a vote. Decisions are taken in accordance with what we think is best and our judgement relies on your feedback. Many thanks in advance for taking part in this poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
-
Linux Mint 8 in your language
» Linux Mint BlogIntroduction to translations:
All it takes for Linux Mint 8 to support your language is for you to translate it.
In Linux Mint, non-translated sentences or words simply show up in English. So if nobody contributes the translations we need to support your language, your experience with the desktop won’t be as good as it could be, since some tools will show up in your language, some others in English, and some even feature a mix of the two languages.
Translating Linux Mint is easy and it doesn’t take much time. You read a sentence in English and write the translated sentence in your own language. Every now and then we collect all the translations and package them into a package called “mint-translations”. Users are notified of an update via their Update Manager and the new translations get integrated within their desktop.
How to translate:
For translations, we use a popular website called Launchpad. First, you need a Launchpad account. You can register at this address:
Once you’re logged in your Launchpad account, click on your name in the top right corner of the screen to access your personal page. Then click on the edit sign beside “Languages” and select all the languages you’re fluent in.
You’re now ready to translate, head towards the translations for Linux Mint 8 at this address:
Here you can see the progression of the translations for each language. When the number of “untranslated” and “Needs review” items both reach 0, then Linux Mint is fully translated in your language.
In Launchpad, you can submit translations for untranslated items but you can also contribute corrections (i.e. alternative translations) when you see translations you don’t find accurate. You can also flag translations for “review” in which case somebody will have to look into it and chose among the available translations for a particular item.
Guidelines:
When you translate, think about the user and the application you’re translating for. Try to be coherent with the rest of the desktop, for instance Gnome calls “it” a “Trash”, not a “Bin”, so use “Trash” instead of “Bin”
You can also open the application you’re translating for and see if you can identify where in the application is the sentence you’re currently translating.
Your translation should reflect the message given to the user more than the accuracy of the terms that are used. Literal translations should be avoided. If a sentence makes sense in English but not in your own language don’t hesitate to rephrase it. What matters is the message and the general meaning, what is said to the user, and the action he’ll consequently take, the accuracy of the translation word for word doesn’t matter at all.
Don’t force your language on users when it doesn’t sound natural. All languages use foreign words and when it comes to the Internet, computers and IT, a lot of these words come from English. Some languages “invented” their own versions of these words in an effort to protect themselves against English. If, for a given word, people still use the English term, then please do so. An example of this in French would be “televersement” instead of “upload” or “mel” instead of “email”. Please avoid these terms. The same way the accuracy of the translation is less relevant than the reflection of the original meaning, following the dictionnary is less important than speaking the “natural” language most people would expect.
Teams:
In Launchpad, Linux Mint uses a “structured” translation policy. This means that anyone can suggest translations, and if a particular language isn’t assigned a particular translation team, anyone can also confirm and apply translations for that language.
Teams are formed to review and organize translations for a particular language. So if you’re member of a translation team you can review other people’s translations and decide which translation is better suited for a particular sentence.
If you feel you don’t need a translation team (for instance, Italian was fully translated without any translation team) then that’s fine. If you think you do, then don’t hesitate to contact me via Launchpad [https:]] ) and I’ll create a team for your language and add you to it.
The list of teams can be seen here:
If there’s already a team for your language and you feel you should be part of it, simply click on it and then apply to be a member of it.
Goals:
The most important goal is to get Linux Mint fully translated in most languages before we can release the stable version of Helena. Missing translations is considered an issue which can delay the stable release of Linux Mint 8. Please take your time though, quality is more important that delays.
Once this is done, we’ll then collect translations on a monthly basis and update the mint-translations package so users can get newly translated items via their Update Manager.
Working together:
Translations are a community effort. All the development team does is to provide the environment for it to happen. The tools we develop were adapted to show in any language and support the format used by Launchpad. As for us, we make sure things work but all we ever do when it comes to development is to get the English version of the software ready. After that, for it to show up in your language, the magic is performed by you
Many thanks to all the people who already helped in translating Linux Mint and thanks in advance to all of you.
Thank you, merci, gracias, khop kun khrap
-
Linux Mint 8 “Helena” RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 8 Helena RC1.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading take an overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing this RC of Linux Mint 8.
Introduction to Linux Mint 8:
The 8th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular Linux Mint 8 comes with support for OEM installs, a brand new Upload Manager, the menu now allows you to configure custom places, the update manager now lets you define packages for which you don’t want to receive updates,the software manager now features multiple installation/removal of software and many of the tools’ graphical interfaces were enhanced.
This is just a summary of the new features coming with Linux Mint 8. For a complete overview of the new features, please read: “What’s new in Linux Mint 8 Helena”.
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.
Important information and known issues:
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. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
Upgrade instructions:
Upgrade instructions will be published with the stable release.
Feedback and bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 8 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Download Linux Mint 8 RC1:
You can download Linux Mint 8 RC1 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 688MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 93614f823d9d07c9560dfdb17d4db8fbTorrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Asia:
- [ftp.jaist.ac.jp] (Japan)
- [ftp.riken.jp] (Japan)
Europe:
- [gd.tuwien.ac.at] (Austria)
- [mint.nano-box.net] (Bulgaria)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [linuxmint.cybermirror.org] (Germany)
- [ftp:] (Germany)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
Northern America:
- [mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca] (Canada)
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
The Mint Newsletter – issue 96
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintPreparations for the next version of Mint, Helena, is going on and as our Twitter indicates we are testing the first internal betas of Mint 8 Helena
Mint 8 – Boot sequence will be different
Monthly stats – October 2009
* News about Linux
Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, was released.
Mandriva Linux 2010 was released
GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010
IBM and Ubuntu roll Linux for U.S desktops vs Windows 7
Is Kubuntu Caught in a Downward Spiral?
An open source version of Linux client is being developed for Skype
Security Hole in Kernel Allows Privilege Extensions – if you run ” cat /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr ” and get a vaule higher than zero you are OK. This is an old bug coming to life again
USB stick security flaw puts data at risk – the cracked operating system in this case is Linux kernel 2.6.26
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Drupal Moves Into the White House
ApacheCon US 2009 was sponsored by Microsoft and thawte
Richard Stallman wants the European Commission to block the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle with its proposed acquisition of Sun.
Red Hat invests in the MySQL open source database competitor EnterpriseDB – this could have an impact on the Oracle – MySQL “problem”
* News about IT
A compromise was reached on the EU Telecom package and the amendment suggestion 138.
(Link to a Swedish page, but the compromise text is found in English – I have not been able to find any other good link)
CIA Buys Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets
Mark Shuttleworth praises “excellent” Windows 7
Cnet review of Windows 7
640,000 sites and approximately 5.8 million pages were infected in Q3′09
Facebook Wins $711 Million In Case Against ‘Spam King’
The Windows exploit Gumblar is Reloaded
Internet phone systems become the fraudster’s tool
Facebook users hit by botnet attack (When I googled this I saw that most hits were in Slavic languages) * Hardware news
New material would allow a fingernail-sized chip store a terabyteTilera To Release 100-Core Processor
* Other news
Nokia “Only” Wants $200 Million From Apple In iPhone Patent Suit
Linus Torvalds gives Windows 7 thumbs up
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
It’s been while since that last newsletter, unfortunately I have too much to do to publish more often.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Monthly stats – October 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $461, Einar Orn Eidsson (Iceland)
- $182, Jonas K. (France)
- $117, Gwa Cobbett (United Kingdom) – [gwa.tumblr.com]
- $101, Kevin W. (USA)
- $100, Philip C. Freytag aka “phil” (Canada)
- $100, J.-Yves Lortie aka “amadeus128″ (Canada)
- $100, Charles P Poltrock aka “chuckpo” (USA)
- $92, Dusan P. (Slovenia)
- $75, Uwe T. (Germany)
- $53, Mikael J. (Sweden)
- $51, Suyog B. (Australia)
- $50, John Mason aka “merc68k” (Canada)
- $50, Edward Comer aka “celem” (USA)
- $50, gazza (Australia)
- $50, Campbell M (United Kingdom)
- $50, G. Sheffield (USA)
- $50, Ernest G. (USA)
- $50, Enderle P. (USA)
- $46, Anthony H. aka “anthony2010″ (United Kingdom)
- $46, Richard Cail (United Kingdom)
- $38, Manuel F. (Portugal)
- $38, Antonino T. (Italy)
- $38, Michael Krusch aka “MAD” (Germany)
- $30 (3rd donation), Marco R. (Italy)
- $30 (2nd donation), Jonathan B H. (USA)
- $30, Barrie M R. (Australia)
- $30, Volker Schulz-von der G. (Germany)
- $30, Francisco P. (USA)
- $30, Josef K. (Czech Republic)
- $30, Russ S. (USA)
- $30, Abraham L. (USA) – [www.eggsinthemorning.com]
- $30, Roberto P. (Italy)
- $30, Jan de G. (Netherlands)
- $30, Daniel W. (World) – [www.downloadstube.net]
- $30, Christ L. (Greece)
- $28, Alison R. (United Kingdom)
- $28, Philip Watson aka “Eraph” (United Kingdom) – [www.rakhama.com]
- $28, Nadege Austin aka “nadglobtrotter” (France)
- $28, Ruben Z. (Netherlands)
- $25, Anthony S. (USA)
- $25, Matthew Hancock aka “mwhancock” (USA)
- $25, Martin Colville aka “colvillem” (Australia)
- $25, Daniel B. (USA)
- $25, Sheffoy F. (USA)
- $25, Philip S. (United Kingdom)
- $25, Stephen B. (USA)
- $25, Keith Templeman aka “mansfields1964″ (United Kingdom)
- $25, Michael F. (USA)
- $25, Donald D’A. (USA)
- $25, Rod McLaren aka “Ambertone” (Australia) – [www.ambertone.com.au]
- $23, Cong-Truc T. (France)
- $23, Massimo Campanini aka “campamax” (Italy)
- $20 (2nd donation), Blaine R. (USA)
- $20, Worawit W. (Thailand)
- $20, Michael H. (USA)
- $20, Justin Johansson (Australia)
- $20, Gerald E. (USA)
- $20, Kazuhiko T. (Japan)
- $20, William R. (USA)
- $20, Victor W. (USA)
- $20, Michael Nordmark (Sweden)
- $20, Sammasati Enterprises (USA)
- $20, Tomislav Pintaric (Canada)
- $20, Ricardo Calimanis aka “ricardo.calimanis” (Brazil) – [goetti.blogspot.com]
- $20, Mario Castro (Spain)
- $20, Chris Jones (USA) – [caringcompy.blogspot.com]
- $20, Juan Carlos C. (USA)
- $20, Michael D.-M. (Canada)
- $19, Olivier B. (France)
- $18, Lee Sturman aka “Hammerlee” (United Kingdom)
- $15 (2nd donation), Colin Casey (Canada)
- $15, Dimitris C. (Greece)
- $15, Joachim W. (Germany)
- $15, Russell Aldrich aka “Russman” (USA) – [www.myspace.com]
- $15, Philip S. (USA)
- $15, Greg Dawes aka “Greg-NZ” (New Zealand)
- $15, Nikos K. (Greece)
- $15, Royden L. (United Kingdom)
- $15, Jason S. (Canada)
- $15, Allen B. (USA)
- $15, Mark C. aka “geekman” (USA)
- $15, Paul E. (United Kingdom)
- $14, Francisco C. C. (Spain)
- $14, Charl P. (Netherlands)
- $14, Nico W. (Austria)
- $14, Justin Braime (United Kingdom)
- $12, Pavel Gelnar aka “wil-m” (Czech Republic) – [www.brblal.net]
- $10 (2nd donation), Richard G. (USA)
- $10, Shiva L. (India)
- $10, Clocktower Arts Monthly (USA)
- $10, Technadicts (USA)
- $10, Damon Catling (Australia)
- $10, Raimond L. (Lithuania)
- $10, Tom Cordina aka “4Foot” (Canada)
- $10, Suleyman B. (Turkey)
- $10, Andrzej W. (USA)
- $10, Senad S. (USA)
- $10, Sedat C. (Turkey)
- $10, Anthony G. (USA)
- $10, Jeff Walker (USA)
- $10, Christopher De R. (USA)
- $10, [billstoolstore.co.uk] (United Kingdom)
- $10, jmkent aka “Burton” (USA)
- $10, Ed W. (USA)
- $10, Paul Thomas aka “liassic” (United Kingdom) – [www.south-wales.org]
- $10, Ernest L. (USA)
- $10, Anders B. (Norway)
- $10, Travis T. (USA)
- $10, Gavin F. (United Kingdom)
- $10, MartinF aka “badwolf9″ (Switzerland)
- $10, Kevin B. (Canada)
- $10, 室津 恵三 (Japan)
- $10, Daniel C J. (United Kingdom)
- $10, Priyantha T. (Norway)
- $8, Dino G. (Italy)
- $8, Lazaros S. (Greece)
- $8, Kai P. (Germany)
- $7, Dave G. (USA)
- $7, Lukas M. (Czech Republic)
- $7, Robert M. (United Kingdom)
- $7, Kostas P. (Greece)
- $5, Thomas C. (USA)
- $5, Donna Fontenot aka “DonnaFontenot – DazzlinDonna” (USA) – [www.dazzlindonna.com]
- $5, Michael K. (USA)
- $5, Aaron R. (USA)
- $5, Jim H. (United Kingdom)
- $5, George238 (Portugal)
- $5, Chuck W. (USA)
- $5, Jens Stenneken (Germany) – [www.stenneken.de]
- $5, Freddy W. (USA)
- $5, Richard K. (USA)
- $5, Todd J. (USA)
- $5, Salvatore D. (Italy)
- $5, tvardy (Poland)
- $5, Enrico Galli (Italy) – [www.egw.it]
- $5, Matthew L. (USA)
- $4, Patrik R. (Sweden)
- $4, Kyle H. (USA)
- $4, Romel S. (USA)
- $3, Danny J. (United Kingdom)
- $3, Diego C. (Italy)
- $3, Remy van Elst (Netherlands) – [relst.nl]
- $2, Adam S. (USA)
- $1, Rain Clark aka “Melon Bread” (USA) – [otaku-unlimited.net]
- $1, Fredrik G. (Sweden)
- $0.02, Samuel L. M. (Chile)
Sponsors:
- $75, John Ritchie aka “Aging Technogeek” (USA)
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) – [www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com]
- $40, Az Van aka “newW2″ (USA)
- $20, Scott P. (USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN aka “Tim” - [www.immobilien-es.com]
- $15, Linux in the HAM Shack aka “HamShackLinux” (USA) – [blacksparrowmedia.com]
- $11, cheap vps hosting – [www.neosurge.com]
- $10, Rechtsberatung, Steuerberatung, Internetrecht (Tim) aka “Tim” – [www.rechtsundsteuerberatung.de]
- $10, Todd W.
- $10, Stitz Computers, LLC (USA) – [stitzcomputers.com]
- $10, Brandon P.
- $10, Gustav Holm aka “Gustav” (Sweden) – [gustavholm.com]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs aka “JpBя” (USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) – [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $7, Unixmen – [www.unixmen.com]
- $5, Christopher D.
- $5, Linuxmint-FR.org (France) – [www.linuxmint-fr.org]
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Contact lenses (Ireland) – [www.eye-care-4u.com]
- $5, Stuart C.
- $5, DLX Company (USA) – [www.dlxcompany.com]
- $4, Ian E. aka “EchoLynx ” (USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, NVISN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING (USA) – [www.nvisn.com]
- $2, funkelectric (Spain) – [www.funkelectric.com]
- $2, Scott M.
- $1, Prasad.S.R (India) – [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $1, Cyprus Property (Cyprus) – [www.leptosestates.com]
- $1, Cyprus Resale (Cyprus) – [www.cyprusresaleproperties.com]
- $1, Surf in Peace (United Kingdom) – [www.surfinpeace.co.uk]
- $1, Busybits aka “Submit Website” – [www.busybits.com]
- $1, Expert Bookings (Romania) – [www.expert-bookings.com]
- $1, very-clever.com – [www.very-clever.com]
- $1, LinBoo.com – [linboo.com]
- $1, Erin G.
- $0.9, Michael K.
- $0.5, Nottingham web design (United Kingdom) – [www.drawmyattention.co.uk]
- $0.5, Dedicated Servers Hosting – [www.dedicatedservershostingdeals.com]
- $0, Martijn van Loon aka “aapiethaaap” (Netherlands)
Money raised in October:
* Donations: $3828.02 (147 donors)
* Sponsors: $349.9 (39 sponsors)
http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 81% (+3%)
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 11% (-3%)
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 5% (-1%)
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 3% (-0%)
Web Stats:
- Visits: 2,150,333 (+8%)
- Pageviews: 3,655,481 (+7%)
- Page impressions: 1,414,004
- Search queries: 4,817,791
- Forum users: 22,485
- Forum posts: 193,513
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1328 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 3.9% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 25,039th
Events:
- No releases this month.
- The LXDE and Fluxbox editions of Linux Mint 7 were cancelled.
- Clem is now working full time for the distribution.
- mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- October 2009 was the (8th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.
- The overall income is up 8%.
- Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.
- The community support has never been so big. 147 people gathered to send us more than $3,800! We also got a single donation of $461 from Einar Orn Eidsson (Iceland). This has never been so high.
- In terms of events this was a very quiet month. We’ve been working hard on the new upcoming release though and there will be plenty of reasons for people to get excited about Linux Mint 8. November will be eventful and I hope this will please the community, especially after seeing how much it’s been supporting our project. Many thanks to all the donors and sponsors behing Linux Mint and congratulations to them, to us and to this project for another fantastic month.
-
Mint 8 – Boot sequence
» Linux Mint BlogThere’s good and bad news about the boot sequence in the upcoming Linux Mint 8.
The Ubuntu developers implemented a new splash technology called xsplash which I find much more powerful than the older usplash. There’s a lot of underlying reasons involved in using xsplash but in this blog post I’d like to focus on the graphical part. The visuals produced by xsplash are nice-looking and it’s now easy to produce good-looking animations.
The problem in Ubuntu 9.10 and Linux Mint 8 though is that it is not possible to rely solely on xsplash and so it has to be used in combination with usplash. So when you boot the system you’ll see usplash, then xsplash, then GDM, then xsplash and then finally the desktop. We’ve made our usplash, xsplash and GDM artwork coherent and so did Ubuntu so even though the whole thing could be more integrated, that’s not a big problem for now and it still looks better than in the previous releases of both distributions.
The real problem is for users who like to customize their system. Xsplash isn’t a mature technology yet and it simply doesn’t take any configuration. It’s easy to tweak but it’s not themeable. To modify its looks you’ll have to modify the system files it uses and tell mintUpdate to ignore xsplash related package updates (this is a new feature in mintUpdate coming in Mint 8, so thankfully that’s quite easy to do).
Grub 2 replaces Grub and just as Grub wasn’t complete without its gfx-boot patch, Grub 2 isn’t complete without its new gfxmenu patch. According to some of the Grub developers though the patch is considered for inclusion and likely to be integrated soon. So the decision is for Linux Mint 8 to use Grub 2 and to wait for it to support gfx-menu.
That basically means our Grub menu will look more like this:
Than like this:
I know we got people used to nice boot menus in the previous releases and most of you will probably miss grub-gfxboot, but at this stage it makes more sense to stick to the official Grub branch and to patiently wait for them to support this feature.
GDM also comes with a lot of changes.
In brief, the boot sequence in Mint 8 is going to radically different than in Mint 7, with pros and cons compared to it, but overall with a general feeling of improvement. I hope most of you will appreciate it, if you’ve tried the RC of Ubuntu 9.10 you probably have an idea of what’s coming up. Unlike previous releases of Linux Mint, we’ll use the same technology than Ubuntu this time around and we’ll make our best to produce nice artwork for it.
-
The Mint Newsletter – issue 95
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintPreparations for the next version of Mint, Helena, is going on
Miscellaneous news from Mint
Windows license refund donated to Mint
Linux Mint 7 User Guide updated to version 1.0.7
A new website has been launched for Dutch speaking minters
* News about Linux
Google Summer of Code has again been a huge success for KDE this year.
The cost to develop KDE would be about US $ 175 million
Ubuntu to store copies of all users’ address books
Pulse Audio developer angry with Ubuntu for the way Ubuntu implements Pulse audio
Gentoo celebrates 10 years with a live DVD
Novell creates the openSUSE Boosters team
Stallman and de Icaza quarrel (again….)
Debian pushes development of kFreeBSD port
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source OpenSSH celebrates it’s 10 year anniversary with the release of version 5.3 The London Stock Exchange will switch to a Linux-based platform trading system, but it’s not because of a love of open source.
* News about IT
EU and Microsoft reach anti-trust agreement
Comedy Is an Uninvited Guest at Microsoft’s ‘House Party’ (for Windows 7)
The “porn industry” behind Google’s temporary removal of Pirate Bay? Seems plausible …..
Informed P2P User Act (in the US) to clamp down on filesharing software
Music piracy costs money; does fighting it cost more?
OPERATION PHISH PHRY Major Cyber Fraud Takedown
Microsoft and Red Hat announce the certification of their operating systems, on each other virtualization platforms
Facebook Now Has 30,000 Servers
* Hardware news
Dell releases world’s first Moblin netbook
DRAM study turns assumptions about errors upside down
World’s Smallest Linux Networking Server
* Other news
EGNOS ‘Open Service’ available – provides better precision in satellite navigation in Europe
The Nobel prize for physics in 2009 was awarded for things now in daily use in IT – fibre optics and CCD – the base for the digital camera
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
It’s been while since that last newsletter but although a lot is happening behind the scenes there has not been much to report
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Windows license refund donated to Mint
» Linux Mint BlogI was recently contacted by a person called Graeme Cobbett. In his email he told me he got his Windows license refunded and donated that money to Linux Mint. Of course, as you can imagine, he felt pretty happy about it and he wanted to let people know how he did it.
So here’s his article on the topic. Good reading everyone!
Hello, my name is Graeme Cobbett. Today, I donated $112 to Linux Mint. But I didn’t fund this myself: Microsoft gave me the money. Here’s how I did it.
This is the story of how I bought a new notebook PC, replaced Windows with Linux and got a refund for the operating system I didn’t want. Not many people do that last bit about getting a refund, but perhaps you can too, if you have a calm attitude and persevere then it can be straightforward.
1. Choose your new computer.
Take a look at the vast array of new PCs on the market. Does the one you like come without Microsoft Windows? Unless it’s a netbook, probably not. Even if you do strike lucky, chances are it costs the same (or even more in some cases) than the equivalent with Windows. So you are probably kinda fixed with buying a copy of Windows you don’t want.2. Don’t switch on your new computer yet!
You can only reject your software license if you do not use it. You’ll need to use another computer to do step 2:3. Download Linux.
This one’s pretty easy. First, you choose what kind of Linux you want. I got Linux Mint because, being based on Ubuntu, it has a huge support base so you can easily Google for help. But unlike Ubuntu, it comes ready to play DVDs, music files and Flash files with no tinkering. If you use Windows to download your replacement operating system, the only tricky bit is that you have to use a special utility like Isorecorder to burn the file. ( [isorecorder.alexfeinman.com] ).4. Test Linux to make sure it works
You can do this on your new computer without starting Windows: just put your newly-burned CD or USB stick into your computer before you switch on. Not everything might work perfectly first time. For example, on my Dell Studio 1555, the sound didn’t work. So I just googled “Dell Studio 1555 Ubuntu Sound” and found a step-by-step fix which fixed things straight away.5. Reject your software license
Have you ever read the Microsoft Windows End User License Agreement? It’s pretty scary what you commit yourself to. If you buy Dell, then as soon as you start Windows then you agree to a second set of scary software terms. So reject them. Email is probably the best way: unlike support phone lines it’s free, you can make your case concisely, and if your vendor makes an offer you have proof right in your inbox, so they can’t go back on their word. Don’t delay – for example, Dell like you to do this within 7 days. Here’s what I wrote:“I do not agree to the terms of the Dell Software Licensing Agreement or the Microsoft Windows End User License Agreement.
“I confirm that I have not used any of the software, have not opened or broken the seal on any software packet and have deleted all preloaded or embedded software from my Dell.
“1. How may I promptly return the disks and other software items to you?
“2. How will you refund the cost of the software? I note that Windows Vista Home Premium retails at £133.96, Microsoft Works at £39.99 and Cyberlink PowerDVD at £39.99 today, which means a total refund of £213.94 is due.
“best regards”
6. Argue the case
I was all fired up for this bit. The article at [www.linux.com] covers your bases really well: I recommend looking there if your vendor tries to reject your request the first few times.So, I was all ready for a pitched battle with Dell when they replied within 48 hours offering this:
“The software Cd’s can be returned to Dell.
“However, the refund for Cyberlink PowerDVD cannot be arranged as this software is already preinstalled on the system.
“The amount that would be refunded for Vista Home Premium is £57.82+vat
and for Microsoft Works is £3.86+vat”Brilliant! With tax, that adds up to about £70 (US$110), enough for me to overlook their nonsense about the DVD software. I made sure never to say “I accept your offer”, instead preferring “thank you for your offer. You may collect the CDs on [date].” Then, if they screw me around later, I can take them to court for full retail.
7. Gently persevere
So then comes the interesting bit. Dell arranged to collect the software from me but their collection agent didn’t show. Why would they? That’s going to cost them £70 ($110). They had me over a barrel, asking me to wait at home for a whole extra day. So I upped the “firm” factor with a message:“On 27th August 2009, I wrote to you rejecting your software license terms. You wrote back on 31st August saying I could have a refund if I returned the software CDs.
“You offered to collect the CDs on 11th September. I lost a day’s work waiting at home for you to collect the CDs but you did not collect them. You have acknowledged this but not offered me an explanation.
“You now say I may not have a refund unless we arrange for you to collect the software CDs another time. I cannot afford to take another day off work, so I offered to post them to you. You declined my offer.
“I would like to give you another chance to make amends. Please grant me a refund now. If you are unable to do this, please send me a copy of Dell’s formal complaints procedure so that I may raise my complaint at the appropriate level.”
Dell knows that if I refuse a reasonable request by them then a small claims court will throw out any legal claim I make. So I played nice until they realised they would have to let me use regular post to send the CDs.
So eventually I got my refund. It took me 12 email exchanges in total, and Dell probably didn’t get a refund from Microsoft for the license. But I suspect that every time someone secures a license refund, it has a more than proportionate effect on the PC manufacturers’ next round of negotiations with Microsoft, gently loosening their tight monopoly grip on the operating system market.
8. Donate your refund to Linux Mint
Because you’re one of the good guys. Or just because you get a nice squidgy feeling from the idea that your the money you got back from your unwanted Microsoft software is keeping free, open-source software ahead of the game. Pat yourself on the back! -
Misc. news
» Linux Mint BlogWe’ve been very busy working on the upcoming Linux Mint 8 lately and I haven’t taken much time to communicate with the community, so here are some news of what is going on at the moment:
- The development of the LXDE edition never really started and so this edition is cancelled.
- Shane, the maintainer of the Fluxbox edition, had to focus on personal matters and is likely to be unavailable in the future. The maintenance of this edition might be delegated to another member of the team, to myself or to a new person in the near future, but in the meantime there will not be a Fluxbox edition of Linux Mint 7.
- A lot of new features and improvements were made for mintUpdate and mintInstall. Both tools are ready to be included in Linux Mint 8. Among other things, mintUpdate now comes with better error handling and the ability for the user to block particular updates based on the name of the package. The graphical interface was also enhanced.
- Linux Mint 8 will come with support for OEM installs.
- Drastic changes were planned for mintBackup and mintUpload and were partly implemented. Both tools are however far from being stable at the moment and so we might reduce the scope of these developments or include the old versions of these tools in the upcoming Linux Mint 8. For mintBackup, the ambition was to rely on rsync, for mintUpload it was to implement a brand new concept called an “Upload Manager”.
- I resigned and left the company I used to work for. To compliment the income generated by Linux Mint I also take part in contracting work based on the distribution itself. So in other words, I’m now working full time on Linux Mint and on projects based or related to it.
- The members of the team were asked to provide commercial support to customers buying it from Linux Mint, and are given the money generated through this activity. Although this isn’t enough for them to work full time on Linux Mint, it generates an income which helps them invest more time working on our project. So far, emorrp1 and husse joined in on that scheme. As we go along and as the overal income gets bigger, more money will be spent on the team and directed towards the people who are devoting their time to make Linux Mint better.
Now, with all I’ve said, you probably have even more questions than before
I would like to apologize for being so silent and for not giving more frequent news. A lot is happening under the curtains at the moment… we’re all running as fast as we can and sometimes in different directions, when Linux Mint 8 comes out, I hope the work we’ve put in it will be worth it and that you’ll enjoy it a lot. As always we’re planning to release in the end of November. In the meantime I’ll try to give you more news update and I’d like to thank everyone for their patience. -
Monthly stats – September 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $600 (3rd donation), Philippe Lotz aka “alsaphil” (France)
- $150 (2nd donation), Alan D S. (USA)
- $100, Carl – Y. B. (Sweden)
- $100, Phillip N. (USA)
- $100, Marcos Scriven (United Kingdom) – [www.aboxo.com]
- $75, John Di Stefano (Canada)
- $50 (3rd donation), Gordon Hilliard aka “ghilly” (United Kingdom)
- $50, Serge-Etienne Parent (Canada)
- $50, Rev. Bernard Quinn aka “Chiff” (Australia)
- $50, Tim L. (USA)
- $50, Hawkeye_52 (USA)
- $50, Peter S. (Australia)
- $50, Wayne W. (Canada)
- $45, Jason A. (United Kingdom)
- $45, Pau Carre Cardona (Spain)
- $44, Oerpen T. (Germany)
- $41, Ronnie Rosenqvist aka “DrRP” (Sweden)
- $40, Mary M. (USA)
- $39, Jean-Paul Genette (Belgium)
- $37, Manuel F. (Portugal)
- $30, Marvin W. (USA)
- $30, Daniel W. (World) – [www.downloadstube.net]
- $28, Dewi P. (World)
- $28, Soulakellis K. (Greece)
- $28, Frantisek Sofka aka “peso00 ” (Czech Republic)
- $28, Francisco C. C. (Spain)
- $28, Christoph H. (Germany)
- $28, Joakim R. (Finland)
- $26, Haynes J. aka “Wi11i@m” (USA)
- $25, Norman Skiba aka “GrayWizardLinux” (USA) – [www.k-9training.us]
- $25, Douglas A. (USA)
- $25, Jan Z. (Sweden)
- $25, Mark B. (Australia)
- $25, Rich Hladky (USA)
- $25, M H R. (Australia)
- $25, Jay Stewart aka “jag1182″ (USA)
- $25, Denys F. (Canada)
- $25, Ronald T. (USA)
- $22, Steven Rattray (United Kingdom)
- $20, Ricardo Calimanis aka “linux.nyx” (Brazil) – [goetti.blogspot.com]
- $20, Mark C. aka “geekman” (USA)
- $20, Jay Butcher (USA)
- $20, Chris Kemp-Jackson (Canada)
- $20, Andrew A. (USA)
- $20, William R. (USA)
- $20, Dalibor Saula (Australia)
- $20, Jens B. (USA)
- $20, Finn-Erik H. (Norway)
- $20, Tim C. (United Kingdom)
- $15, Nigel Dyer aka “NigelDyer56″ (United Kingdom)
- $15, Jim H. (United Kingdom)
- $15, Russ W. (World)
- $14, Stephen M. (Ireland)
- $14, Lasse H. (Finland)
- $14, Marek Polasek (Czech Republic)
- $14, Mikkel M. (Denmark)
- $14, Lee Sturman aka “Hammerlee” (United Kingdom)
- $14, Holger F. (Germany)
- $14, Enrique O. (Spain)
- $14, MJH van der W. (Netherlands)
- $11, Nick Koumaris (Greece) – [www.lightrap.net]
- $10 (2nd donation), Douglas S. (USA)
- $10, Scott M. (USA)
- $10, 室津 恵三 (Japan)
- $10, William S. (World)
- $10, John C. (USA)
- $10, Troy C. (USA)
- $10, Michael N. (Sweden)
- $10, Zoran (USA)
- $10, Serguei S. (Russia)
- $10, Adnan C. (Germany)
- $10, James G. (USA)
- $10, Kevin C. (USA)
- $10, Grzegorz G. (Poland)
- $10, Leonardo S. (USA)
- $10, Garrett H. (USA)
- $10, Christopher B. (United Kingdom)
- $10, Ryan J. (USA)
- $10, Raphael C. (USA)
- $10, Matt E. (USA)
- $10, Karthikanand K. (United Kingdom)
- $7, Florian G. (Germany)
- $7, Evzen H. (United Kingdom)
- $7, Isabel F. (Portugal)
- $7, Motta L. (Italy)
- $7, Ralf S. (Germany)
- $6, Loonie Bazaar (Canada) – [www.looniebazaar.com]
- $5, Havary Camara aka “justflea” (Brazil)
- $5, Kris Occhipinti (USA) – [www.bashscripts.info]
- $5, Stephen B. (USA)
- $5, Daifallah A. (Saudi Arabia)
- $5, Khuong D. N. (United Kingdom)
- $5, Tobias H. aka “bisato” (Germany)
- $5, Mateus H. (Brazil)
- $5, Eaves L. (USA)
- $5, Enrico Galli (Italy) – [www.egw.it]
- $5, Lubos Rendek (World) – [www.linuxconfig.org]
- $5, Marcus H. (USA)
- $5, Michael K. (USA)
- $5, Slavoljub M. (Norway)
- $3, Nils K. (Germany)
- $3, Mohd Z. (Malaysia)
- $2, Lubomir J. (Czech Republic)
- $1, Jaime M. (World)
- $1, B F (Suriname)
Sponsors:
- $105, R1Soft – [www.r1soft.com]
- $75, John Ritchie (Aging Technogeek – USA)
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 – USA)
- $25, American Broadband Family of Companies (USA) – http://www.americanbroadbandservice.com
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim – Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $20, Scott P. (USA)
- $15, Russ W.
- $11, cheap vps hosting – http://www.neosurge.com
- $10, Stitz Computers, LLC (USA) – http://stitzcomputers.com
- $10, Rechtsberatung, Steuerberatung, Internetrecht (Tim) – http://www.rechtsundsteuerberatung.de
- $10 Gustav Holm (Sweden) – http://gustavholm.com
- $10, Brandon P.
- $7, Unixmen – [www.unixmen.com]
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя – USA)
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal – France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 – Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Christopher D.
- $5, DLX Company (USA) – [www.dlxcompany.com]
- $5, Stuart C.
- $5, Paul S.
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx – USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, Funkelectric (Spain) – [www.funkelectric.com]
- $2, NVISN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING (USA) – [www.nvisn.com]
- $2, Ryan Lewon (vt102) – [vt102.com]
- $2, Scott M.
- $1.5, Farbyte (UK) – [farbyte.com]
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $1, Cyprus Property (Cyprus) – [www.leptosestates.com]
- $1, Недвижимость на Кипре (Cyprus) – [www.leptos-estates.ru]
- $1, Cyprus Resale (Cyprus) – [www.cyprusresaleproperties.com]
- $1, Prasad S.R. (India) – [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $1, Surf in Peace (UK) – [www.surfinpeace.co.uk]
- $1 Jakub Jasiulewicz (Poland) – http://jasiulewicz.pl
- $1, Erin G.
- $1, Greg Flynn (South Africa)
- $1, Liquidvps.net – http://www.liquidvps.net
- $0.9, Michael K.
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap – Netherlands)
- $0.5, Nottingham web design (UK) – [www.drawmyattention.co.uk]
Money raised in August:
* Donations: $2951 (105 donors)
* Sponsors: $481.9 (46 sponsors)
http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 78% (+3%)
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 14% (-1%)
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 6% (-1%)
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 3% (-0%)
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,981,352 (+6%)
- Pageviews: 3,409,953 (+2%)
- Page impressions: 1,363,287
- Search queries: 4,423,092
- Forum users: 21,397
- Forum posts: 184,959
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1304 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 4.1% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 27,745th
Events:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria XFCE was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- September 2009 was the (7th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.
- The overall income is up 10%.
- Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.
- The community support is outstanding: 105 people donated last month for a total of $2951 and our sponsors raised $481.9.
-
The Mint Newsletter – issue 94
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintPreparations for the next version of Mint, Helena, is going on
A new mintInstall has been presented in the blog – here, here and here
A new Mint KDE logo has been selected
* News about Linux
Good News, id Tech 5 Is Likely Coming To Linux (gaming engine for Rage and Doom)
GNOME 2.28 Released
ARM Joins The Linux Foundation
Virtualization Leader Citrix Joins The Linux Foundation
Ubuntu 10.04 : The Lucid Lynx. Shuttleworth says it won’t stink
Red Hat Reports Strong Second Quarter Results
Stallman says Miguel de Icaza is basically a traitor
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Nokia has packaged KOffice for Maemo 5 environment (cell phones)
Firefox With WebGL Brings Powerful 3-D Graphics to the Web
* News about IT
France Passes Tough Internet Piracy Bill (the toughest?)
Microsoft sues scareware scammers
New FCC “Net Neutrality” Rules
Google Chrome Frame an open source plug-in that brings HTML5 and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer
Dell to pay $4 million in fraud case
Dell to buy Perot Systems for $3.9 billion
Palm Ditches Windows Mobile
Hacker Forum Got Hacked
Earn 43 cents every time you infect a Mac
Cisco addresses 12 individual vulnerabilities
* Hardware news
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
I have been working long hours lately and there’s a lot to do in the forum so this edition is much delayed
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Mint 8: beta-testing the new mintInstall
» Linux Mint BlogI’d like to thank all the people who sent us feedback during the recent development of mintInstall. We’re still happy to receive ideas and suggestions at this stage, but we’re also getting close to a usable product. Because the number of changes was so great and because I know many of you are interested in running this newer version, I decided to publish DEB packages for this beta of mintInstall.
Here’s how the interface looks:
To install this application, you first need to install a DEB package called “mintinstall-data”, and then another DEB package called “mintinstall”. Both packages can be downloaded at this address:
Give us your feedback, don’t hesitate to report malfunctions or ideas for further improvements.
This is already the 3rd blog post about mintInstall so we’ll move to something else after that. If we have the time, we might go down the same feedback/dev_iterations process for mintUpdate.
-
Mint 8: mintInstall improvements [episode 2]
» Linux Mint BlogTo tell you the truth, I had plans to work on the OEM installation and on mintBackup at this stage of the release cycle (I’m still hoping to work on these before the release of Mint 8). I thought I was done with mintInstall and I was quite happy with the improvements made so far. But the feedback I got from my initial post was good, constructive and I just couldn’t ignore it.
So I decided to make the jump and to give mintInstall the ability to install multiple applications at a time. There’s also going to be a “View” menu with the ability to choose the visible columns, and I’m also planning to make changes in the application view, but the main thing here, is the fact that you can now see what’s installed, and click apply after a series of additions/removals. The GUI is dramatically changed because of this.
So here it is:
As you can see, the little colored squares indicate the status of the application. They tend to follow the aptitude classification (”i” for installed, “p” for available). Because of the nature of the Mint files, some rare ones are “special”, which means that when you install/remove them, the change is done immediately, not when you click apply.
I’m happy with the overall look but I’m aware of the fact that certain elements can be confusing, so I’m asking for feedback once again and hopefully with your bright ideas we won’t only get these great features, but also an intuitive and elegant interface to go with it.
-
New Mint KDE logo
» Linux Mint BlogWe have a new logo for the KDE edition of Linux Mint:
The SVG source is available on the Linux Mint Artwork Portal.
Congratulations to the artist, Henrique Perticarati, for the fantastic work he’s done on this logo.
-
Mint 8: mintInstall improvements
» Linux Mint BlogI’ve been really silent lately and I haven’t communicated much with the community on what I was working on and what was happening. I was in France this summer on a 3 months unpaid leave. This gave me the opportunity to see how my life would be affected if I was to leave my job and I’m happy to say the experiment was a total success. So more on that later, but I just wanted to apologize for being absent, as a lot of things are happening around here and they’ve kept me away from this blog.
The development on the upcoming Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’ started in the Summer and a series of improvements are already implemented. Today, I’d like to show you the impact on one of our most popular application: mintInstall.
Less branding:
We decided to remove the Linux Mint branding on the applications we develop so for mintInstall, this means you won’t see written “mintInstall” in the menu, but “Software Manager” (or the localized equivalent in non-English systems):
Same thing in the window title:
The icon is changed as well, from the Linux Mint logo, to an relating to what the application does. In the case of mintInstall it’s now a yellow star.
These changes make more sense for the users, they make the overall operating system look more coherent, more elegant and more professional and finally they make it easier for users and developers of other Linux distributions to reuse our technology.
APT status and removal of applications:
When an application is listed, mintInstall now queries APT to find out whether it’s installed on the system and what versions are installed and/or available. This process is almost immediate and doesn’t impact the responsiveness. This basically means that, looking at an application, you’ll be able to see if it’s already installed or not, you’ll be able to see its version and you’ll be able to install it but also to remove it from mintInstall.
In the example below, mintInstall shows you that Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 is installed.
If you click on the Remove button, the dependencies are calculated and the following dialog appears:
Note that this method of removing applications is similar and visually identical to removing applications from mintMenu.
Similarly, if you’re looking at an application which is not installed on your system, mintInstall shows you the available version and gives you the opportunity to install it:
No more refresh:
The refresh button is gone. To avoid too many hits on the Linux Mint server the data available to mintInstall isn’t up to date with the data present online in the software portal. Every now and then the team refreshes that data by exporting the content of the portal’s database to XML meta-data. In brief, and in simple terms, you had no way of knowing when this data was updated. You could click on the “Refresh” button every day and get nothing out of it, and when the data was finally updated you had no way of knowing about it. So this is gone now.
The data is now “refreshed” by us and packaged into a new package called mintinstall-data which mintinstall depends on. So basically, when the data is refreshed, you get a Level 1 package update in mintUpdate and you never have to worry about anything else.
The screenshots are not part of the data, they’re downloaded one by one, in the background, while you’re looking at the applications in mintInstall. If you’re not connected to the Internet while you’re doing that, no problem, it just fails silently without even you knowing it was trying to download anything. No lag, no error message, and no more long download sequences for you to get “all” the screenshots.
Graphical Interface:
The graphical interface was improved. It’s busy, full of controls and it has to fit on those netbook screens which are getting more and more popular, so changes had to be done.
This is how mintInstall looked in Linux Mint 7 Gloria:
And this is how it looks at the moment:
We got rid of the Refresh button and of the progress bar at the bottom. The border sizes of many of the components was reduced. The space was used differently, in particular for the screenshot, and the action buttons.
What’s coming next:
You can submit your comments here. If you have ideas you can register blueprints, and if you want to look and modify the code, you can have a look at our git repository.
Next time I’ll go through the mintUpdate improvements we prepared for Linux Mint 8 Helena.
-
The Mint Newsletter – issue 93
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ XFCE released!Ubuntu – Mint cheat sheet
New Bulgarian mirror for ISO downloads and package repositories.
* News about Linux
Debian switching to upstart
Third Plasma Summit Lifts KDE Desktop To Higher Grounds
VIA Technologies, Inc. Joins Linux Foundation
Linux 2.6.31 kernel released on 9 September, 2009 with support for USB 3.0
According to Greg Kroah-Hartmans blog the contribution from Microsoft to the kernel is at risk to be rejected – no one answers his calls
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Microsoft Forms, Funds New Open-source Foundation – CodePlex
Sam Ramji is leaving Microsoft – ah well he is to be the president of CodePlex
And Miguel de Icaza leaves FSF for CodePlex after what was obviously a conflict with Richard Stallman
* News about IT
iPhone passcode bugs revealed
Steve Jobs is back at work, Apple says
Microsoft attack Linux at the retail level
Enterprises Confront the Ugly Truth of Hidden Malware in Their Networks (by Trend Micro)
The “pirate site” OiNK was shut down
DoJ decides that Microsoft-Yahoo deal deserves more scrutiny
* Hardware news
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
I have been working long hours lately and there’s a lot to do in the forum so this edition is much delayed
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Ubuntu – Mint cheat sheet
» Linux Mint BlogI sense a lot of confusion sometimes when it comes to the difference between LTS and standard releases, or the compatibility between Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Which Mint release is based on which Ubuntu release? How long is it supported for?
So here’s a cheat sheet for everyone, to clear things up and make it easy to remember:
-
Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ XFCE released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” XFCE.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing Linux Mint 7 XFCE.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 XFCE:
The XFCE Community Edition aims to provide a version of Linux Mint which uses the XFCE desktop.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7 XFCE, please read “What’s new in Gloria XFCE?“.
System requirements:
A minimum of 3GB of free space and 256MB RAM are needed. For a comfortable experience we recommended to have at least 512MB RAM and 10GB of free space.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7 XFCE:
You can download the XFCE Edition via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 694MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: cee9c5fe119d749cf30b82e0a53b5a75
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Asia:
- [ftp.jaist.ac.jp] (Japan)
- [ftp.riken.jp] (Japan)
Europe:
- [gd.tuwien.ac.at] (Austria)
- [mint.nano-box.net] (Bulgaria)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp:] (France)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (United Kingdom)
Northern America:
- [mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca] (Canada)
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Oceania:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
- [ftp:] (Indonesia)
Upgrade instructions:
Upgrade instructions will be published in a few days.
Feedback, ideas, bug reports:
We look forward to reading your reviews and your feedback. If you find bugs, don’t hesitate to report them at [https:]] and if you have ideas that you would like implemented, don’t hesitate to register blueprints at [https:]]
Enjoy!
Enjoy this new version of the XFCE edition and don’t hesitate to send us your feedback. Congratulations and thanks to the maintainer, Merlwiz, for the excellent work done on this release.
Have a lot of fun and thanks for using Linux Mint.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 92
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintMonthly Stats – August 2009
August 2009 was the (6th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.Unfortunately Shane informed us that he will not be able to make any more Fluxbox editions, due to personal reasons
Clem may work on it instead* News about Linux
Simon – speech activated user interface for KDE
openSUSE to default to KDE
Canonical Unveils The Ubuntu Software Store
Tuxera, the company founded by the open source NTFS project NTFS-3G, signs up with Microsoft
Slackware 13.0 released (old but alive )
Another kernel bug, Mint users are likely (but not certain) to be safe, but if you installed Wine or Dosemu you’re at risk
Quake live also for Linux in your browser
Skype 2.1 for Linux Beta – needs Qt so it’s not for Gnome
Foresight Linux to base itself on Fedora
PySide a Nokia project for Qt
OpenShot – a new non linear Video Editor for Linux
The Linux kernel is growing fast – a report
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Pidgin 2.6.1 adds XMPP Voice and Video support (but not on Windows yet)
* News about IT
EBay Sells Skype To Marc Andreessen
The US customs will have the right to seize any laptop, camera, mp3 player and the like “even if there’s zero evidence of illicit activities” as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced
Bill would give the US president emergency control of Internet. How this would effect the world outside the US is unclear
Opera 10 released
IBM X-Force(R) Report Reveals Unprecedented State of Web Insecurity
New Attack Cracks Common Wi-Fi Encryption in a Minute
Pirate Bay temporarily disappeared from the internet after a court decision
BitTorrent Site Mininova Loses Copyright Ruling
Microsoft opens up for open source – The PHP Toolkit for ADO.NET Data Services
Australian Federal Police “forgot” to set a password on a computer used to break up an underground hacker forum, and hackers broke into it
* Hardware news
One Billion Wi-Fi Chipsets to Ship in 2011 Alone
* Other news
Single molecule, one million times smaller than a grain of sand, pictured for first time by IBM researchers
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
Someone asked me to use this one – I think it’s funny
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
I have been working long hours lately and there’s a lot to do in the forum so this edition is much delayed
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Monthly Stats - August 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $163, Adnan Z. (Germany)
- $120, Nicolas B. (Germany)
- $102, James Marsh (Australia) – [www.engadinecycles.com.au]
- $100, Micah Gravel aka “micahman” (USA)
- $74 (2nd donation), David F. (Ireland)
- $74, Badr R. (France)
- $74, Matthias R. (France)
- $60, Jim Duffield aka “sapperk9″ (Australia)
- $50, Andreas Rumpenhorst (Germany)
- $50, James Donaldson (USA)
- $50, Robert D. (United Kingdom)
- $50, William G. (USA)
- $50, Stefano Candotti aka “Stevewonder” (Italy)
- $50, Eric Pate (USA) – [www.carolinagreenpc.com]
- $50, Billy S. (USA)
- $50, Andre D. (USA)
- $44 (2nd donation), Wolfgang P. (Austria)
- $44, Francisco C. C. (Spain)
- $37, Thomas G. (Germany)
- $37, Bernhard M. (Germany)
- $30, Mark O’D. (World)
- $30, David C. (USA)
- $28, Pau Carre Cardona (Spain)
- $27, Jeffrey K. (USA)
- $25, Gavin Engel (USA)
- $25, Ed D. (USA)
- $25, Clifton Rhodes (USA)
- $25, Sudheer S. (United Kingdom)
- $25, Paul Bary (USA)
- $20 (2nd donation), Dan B. (USA)
- $20, Dalibor Saula (Australia)
- $20, Amiel H. (Australia)
- $20, Sven S. (Australia)
- $20, David Brown (Canada)
- $20, Jonathan P. (USA)
- $20, Winston G. (USA)
- $16, John B. (United Kingdom)
- $15, Matthew G. (USA)
- $15, Slavoljub M. (Norway)
- $15, Paul George (United Kingdom) – [www.paulgeorge.me]
- $14, Patrick Baumann (Germany)
- $14, Iain G. (United Kingdom)
- $14, L G DE L. (Netherlands)
- $14, Charl P. (Netherlands)
- $14, Claudio Gabriele N. (Italy)
- $14, Bruno M. (Italy)
- $14, Joseph W. (United Kingdom)
- $14, Gunter D. (Austria)
- $13.13, Mac C. (USA)
- $11, Mongolisch-Deutsch.de aka “rmbw” (Germany) – [www.mongolisch-deutsch.de]
- $10 (2nd donation), Richard G. (USA)
- $10, Henry W. (USA)
- $10, Dmitry O. (Russia)
- $10, Ludovic G. aka “Lewdsquirrel” (Canada)
- $10, Kevin M. (USA)
- $10, Tom Perry (United Kingdom) – [twitter.com]
- $10, Ralph N. (USA)
- $10, Bob H. (Australia)
- $10, Christopher G. (USA)
- $10, Anthony N. (United Kingdom)
- $10, Steinar M. (Norway)
- $10, Donald D’A. (USA)
- $10, MuddBuddha (USA) – [muddbuddha.com]
- $10, John P. (Australia)
- $10, Marcel P. (Canada)
- $10, Chaitanya K aka “thegoodmelon” (India)
- $10, Krzysztof J. (USA)
- $10, Gabriel S. (World)
- $7, Geoffroy M. (Canada)
- $7, Marcus Wikstrom aka “mece” (Finland) – [twitter.com]
- $5 (2nd donation), Matthew O. (Ireland)
- $5, Malcolm B. (USA)
- $5, Francesco Coiro (Italy)
- $5, Apollo V. Melo aka “teflashfire” (USA) – [militarylinuxusers.blogspot.com]
- $5, Doug Berch (USA) – [dougberch.com]
- $5, Venkatesh B. (United Kingdom)
- $5, Helen J. (United Kingdom)
- $5, Peter Hope-Tindall aka “hopetindall” (Canada)
- $5, Brandon P. (USA)
- $4, Johan T. (Sweden)
- $2, Remy van Elst (Netherlands) – [relst.nl]
- $2, PartEase (USA) – [www.partease.com]
- $1, Viktor Semenovskiy (Russia) – [ubuntunnru.blogspot.com]
- $1, Pierre G. (Belgium)
Sponsors:
- $310, R1Soft – [www.r1soft.com]
- $100, Host Color (USA) – [www.hostcolor.com]
- $75, John Ritchie (Aging Technogeek – USA)
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 – USA)
- $25, American Broadband Family of Companies (USA) – http://www.americanbroadbandservice.com
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim – Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $20, Scott P. (USA)
- $15, Russ W.
- $11, cheap vps hosting – http://www.neosurge.com
- $10, Stitz Computers, LLC (USA) – http://stitzcomputers.com
- $10, Rechtsberatung, Steuerberatung, Internetrecht (Tim) – http://www.rechtsundsteuerberatung.de
- $10 Gustav Holm (Sweden) – http://gustavholm.com
- $7, Unixmen – [www.unixmen.com]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя – USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $6, Attila Vecsei (Finland) – http://www.vecsei.net
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal – France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 – Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Christopher D.
- $5, DLX Company (USA) – [www.dlxcompany.com]
- $5, Stuart C.
- $5, Paul S.
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx – USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, Funkelectric (Spain) – [www.funkelectric.com]
- $2, NVISN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING (USA) – [www.nvisn.com]
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $1, Cyprus Property (Cyprus) – [www.leptosestates.com]
- $1, Недвижимость на Кипре (Cyprus) – [www.leptos-estates.ru]
- $1, Prasad S.R. (India) – [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $1, Surf in Peace (UK) – [www.surfinpeace.co.uk]
- $1 Jakub Jasiulewicz (Poland) – http://jasiulewicz.pl
- $1, Erin G.
- $1, Greg Flynn (South Africa)
- $1, Liquidvps.net – [www.liquidvps.net]
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap – Netherlands)
- $0.5, Nottingham web design (UK) – [www.drawmyattention.co.uk]
Money raised in August:
* Donations: $2162.13 (85 donors)
* Sponsors: $775.5 (42 sponsors)
http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 75% (+7%)
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 15% (-5%)
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 7% (-1%)
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 3% (-1%)
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,874,462 (+12%)
- Pageviews: 3,341,385 (+10%)
- Page impressions: 1,381,550
- Search queries: 4,131,663
- Forum users:20,272
- Forum posts:175,325
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1279 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 4.2% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 28,272nd
Events:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria KDE was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 5 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- August 2009 was the (6th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.
- The overall income is up 24%.
- Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.
- The community support is outstanding: 85 people donated last month for a total of $2162 and our sponsors raised $775.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 91
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintMint 7: Flash in full screen with Firefox 3.5.x – a fix
Clem has commented on a review of the Gloria KDE edition
* News about Linux
Security flaw in the kernel discovered, it’s in all kernels for the last 8 years, but it is only local, it cannot be used remotely
This is the second flaw discovered in about a month (previous one here Standard Mint does not have a kernel that is at risk for this one) Patches exist for both
Several vulnerabilities regarding the parsing of XML data have been found – this affects some libraries in Mint, check the link to see which
Debian decides to adopt time-based release freezes
Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — “I’ve Had Enough” – and Linus Torvalds starts programming TTY
Microsoft Acknowledges Competition from Linux
Dell: Linux v Windows netbook returns a ‘non-issue’
Novell – More Support for the openSUSE Project (not so long ago Novell fired developers for openSUSE)
openSUSE Cuts Maintenance Cycle to 18 Months
Moonlight 2.0 goes Beta
A possible change of direction for Foresight Linux
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
KDE 4.3.0 released
Khronos Releases OpenGL 3.2 with easier portability of Direct3D applications.
Nokia says Qt is the best framework, and is to drop Symbian and makes Qt a subdomain of Nokia.com (no more Trolltech or qtsoftware) Qt is used by KDE
* News about IT
Twitter DOS attack targeted Georgian blogger
Twitter-based Botnet Command Channel
Zeus botnet’s Real Host cut off from the internet (Zeus is alleged to be the world’s biggest cybercrime botnet)
Three indicted in largest U.S. identity theft scheme, according to some sources it was simple: Theft Of 130 Million Credit Card Numbers Didn’t Take Much
Researchers hijack computer during software update
OpenDNSSEC Launched to Help Drive Adoption of DNSSEC
Researchers find insecure BIOS ‘rootkit’ pre-loaded in laptops
Bootkit bypasses hard disk encryption
Microsoft at a loss in Word patent case?
Microsoft Finally Joins HTML 5 Standard Efforts
Microsoft IE 8 shines in Web browser security test paid for by Microsoft
* Hardware news
eXtreme Power Suppply Calculator Helps Accurately Select a PSU – more important than you may think
* Other news
Microsoft and Nokia announce close cooperation, Office Mobile comes to Nokia smartphones – could this cooperation “kill” Windows Mobile?
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Mint 7: Flash in full screen with Firefox 3.5.x
» Linux Mint BlogDescription of the problem:
As we’re upgrading the repositories with Firefox 3.5.2, Exploder suggested we fix an upstream bug in Firefox 3.5 which makes the application crash when Adobe Flash is used in full screen mode. To be precise, the problem occurs when going back from full screen to normal view.
The fix suggested consists in pre-loading Flash with Firefox and it apparently works with any hardware spec. It doesn’t work in 64 bit though, and so for x64 users, the solution is different. For this reason, we decided not to fix this bug in Linux Mint 7 Gloria, but to let you know about the problem and how to fix it manually.
Solution for Main, Universal, and Community editions:
As root, edit /usr/bin/firefox-3.5 and add the following as the second line (below “#!/bin/sh”):
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
Solution for x64 edition:
Right click on the Flash content, go to Settings and disable the “Hardware acceleration”.
Note:
Firefox 3.5 is not installed by default in Linux Mint 7. Read this post for more information.
-
Mint 7 KDE Review: IT Lure
» Linux Mint BlogI haven’t “answered” reviews for a while now so I just couldn’t resist when I saw Linux Mint 7 KDE get its very first review. Not to mention that the author brought up a series of interesting points… so let’s start with the reading and then we’ll discuss.
Link to the review:
Happy reading everyone!
Discussion:
Danny says: “[...] the team [...] made a highly anticipated announcement: Linux Mint 7 KDE released!”
–> Most distributions adopted Gnome as their default desktop, but KDE is still the most popular among Linux users. It’s been hard for KDE fans lately, with support for many important components better handled under Gnome, with the controversy over the stability of the initial KDE 4 releases, and with Mint 6 KDE finally released just a few days prior to Ubuntu 9.04 because of issues with the desktop. There’s a lot of anticipation with each KDE release. Comments flourish on the blog, we’re #1 in Distrowatch’s hype-o-meter, the torrents activity figures are high… that’s for sure, this release didn’t go un-noticed.
Danny says: “The KDE version of Mint 7 (about 1.1 GB) won’t fit on a CD.”
–> When it comes to KDE, and because of the popularity of the desktop itself, people have a lot of expectations. I’m not saying Community Editions don’t deserve this, it’s just that our resources are limited and so we make more compromises. The KDE edition would deserve support for both i386 and amd64 architectures and it would be within my goals to make it fit on a 700MB liveCD. This might happen in the future as some of us start working full time on the project, but for now this entirely depends on Jamie “Boo” Birse’s (maintainer of the KDE edition) availability. Most of our development is also done in GTK and although its integration within KDE “looks” nice it also means the media needs to contains both QT and GTK librairies…
Danny says: “Gloria’s default green wallpaper was quite a star when revealed by Clem. If you liked that, you’ll certainly like this one. It’s basically the same, except it’s blue. The same sky, the same water drops, but blue.”
–> The KDE edition got its own blue logo and most of the artists within our community provide standard and wide versions, blue and green. The Mint 7 artwork was done by “Zwopper”, it was very popular among the community and very successful after the release.
Danny says: “The latest, 4.2.4 version of K Desktop Environment certainly feels more stable and less of a resource-hog than previous ones, so using it didn’t make my good ol’ single core Pentium 4 machine develop an inferiority complex.”
–> The development team was really impressed with KDE 4.2.4. Of course, as it happened, KDE 4.3 was just released… I guess with time, and with more resource, we’ll become more and more efficient and we’ll need less time to release the KDE edition. Since the release of their respective Ubuntu bases, Mint 6 KDE took 160 days to be released, Mint 7 KDE took 102 days.
Danny says: “As I knew Canonical didn’t bother to update their repositories with the latest version of Pidgin in order to be able to connect to Yahoo, I wanted to see if Mint did something about that. Nope, still at 2.5.5. Before adding the third party source, I downloaded and installed it, just for the heck of it and, surprise, surprise, I was online. Apparently, the Mint team couldn’t include the latest version so instead they changed the server in the account preferences. Still, that isn’t a permanent solution, as certain features (such as avatars and file transfer) don’t work, but it’s better than nothing.”
–> Ah ah, it looks like we were caught
I can’t remember whether Pidgin 2.5.8 (or another version) was available at the time…Danny says: “If there is one thing that I find highly annoying about Kubuntu-based OSes, it has to be this: NVIDIA drivers installation. Though it quickly recognized my chipset and recommended the 173 series, when I clicked “Activate”, the selection grayed out on me and nothing happened. NOTHING! Restart the application, try again, restart the system, try again. Nope. Still no response. Usually, depending on your luck and how the planets are aligned that day, the darn thing will work after a few tries. Luckily, the Minties (is it too wrong if I call the Linux Mint team that?
) are probably aware of that issue and included the awesome EnvyNG driver installation program that quickly and smoothly took care of the problem.”–> Would that be covered by bug #368558 in Launchpad? Either way, polls were made within the community as to whether or not we should stop including Envy by default. Results showed that half of the people installing 3D drivers for ATI/nVidia under Mint prefered Envy over Jockey, so Envy is still included by default in all editions and in the KDE edition, because there’s enough room on the liveDVD, it also comes with its GUI.
Danny says: “When you open the most awesome software manager available for Linux, mintInstall, for the first time, you’ll notice that it doesn’t take as much time to load as it used to, as screenshots for the most popular applications are preloaded; for the rest, the pics are downloaded as you access them. If you want ‘em all, click the “Refresh” button and they’ll slowly but surely be loaded. That’s a great improvement if you ask me, as waiting several minutes to access the repositories for the first time was a bit frustrating in the previous version.”
–> We got a lot of feedback on mintInstall and people were really disappointed about its performance and lack of responsiveness when it came to downloading screenshots and to refreshing the meta-data. So in Mint 7 we included the meta-data by default, making the tool usable without any refresh, and we multi-threaded the downloads of the screenshots. The current dev snapshot of mintInstall (planned for Linux Mint 8 ) also comes with new features such as the ability to uninstall applications, and to see their status and their version number. We also further reduced the lag and increased the responsiveness of the interface.
Danny says: “Of course, Flash videos, MP3s and most video formats play out of the box in Linux Mint 7, so yay!”
–> We’re currently discussing this within the team. The proposition is to move from having the codecs installed by default, to having the installer download and install them… like it’s done for the language packs. There would be an extra checkbox in the advanced section of the installer for people to uncheck if they don’t want to have the codecs. The discussion is still ongoing, no decision has been made so far, and your opinion is valuable. People, please comment on this.
Danny says: “It was a bit sad to see no games available out of the box, considering the fact that the distro had already “spilled” over the 700 MB CD limit, so 1.5 GB instead of 1.1 wouldn’t have been such a big difference.”
–> I never considered games as a part of an OS. Accessories yes, calculators, and all.. but games? Isn’t a game something people add, play a lot with, get bored with, uninstall, and eventually abandon for another one? And then again, solitaire, minesweeper and “office” games like that are indeed very popular. Do we need them? Should they be included by default? If so, which ones? Please comment.
Danny says: “If you have kids (I used that instead of children because it starts with a K! Get it? K! From KDE? How funny is that? – don’t answer).”
–> I must be a real geek.. I thought that was hilarious, yet, I know it’s not something I’d tell my wife.. or my friends.. or anybody
–> Actually, did you ever notice that symetry between the “g” and the “K” in “geek”? Ok ok, sorry… –> []
Danny says: “You can call mintNanny and do some good old fashioned domain blocking. But with today’s highly computer-literate youth, they will probably blaze past your wall of protection. Nonetheless, a welcomed addition.”
–> They will eventually, and in the meantime they’ll be challenged, busy and focused and that is very good for their development.
Seriously though, mintNanny is a small utility and it can be handy in certain cases and in certain families but it has limitations of course and it lacks flexibility. Parents looking for a strong parental control system will need to install alternative solutions.Danny says: “Another tool straight out of Mint’s laboratories is mintUpload that unfortunately wasn’t pre-configured to use the default Mint server. If you use any other upload services, you can add them to this nifty interface too. Beware though, you won’t find mintUpload in the applications menu, as you can access it through the right click context menu on individual files.”
–> The development of mintUpload was delegated to Philip Morrell aka “emorrp1″ and we currently have 3 developers working on it. This tool is going through massive changes at the moment. In Mint 8, it will appear in the menus as an “Upload Manager” which will dynamically generate context menu items for the upload services defined by the user. It will also support multiple uploads, which we’re hoping will be multi-threaded, and we’re also talking about an eventual panel applet which could be used by the user to drop files and see them automatically uploaded to the service of his/her choice. On the server side, we’re having issues with the “Default” service and I don’t know if it will be continued. We’re thinking of opening the specifications instead so that we can bring and maintain a catalogue of pre-defined services to the user.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 90
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ KDE released!Monthly stats for july shows another good month for Mint
Clem writes “July 2009 was the (5th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint”
Bugs are on Launchpad now, but we keep the bug forums open so you can report in the forum and we will carry it over if it’s a real bug
mintCast episode 19 new link – the mintCast site is reorganized
* News about Linux
Introducing The Linux Foundation Visa Platinum® Rewards Card – support Linux when you buy. So far only available in the US
SUSE Studio a project to custom Linux, fast & simple
CentOS is in crisis, but it seems to be resolved
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
* News about IT
Firefox downloaded more than a billion times
Spam about 92 percent of all mail according to McAffee
Google Sells AOL Stake at $717 Million Loss
Adobe confirms Flash contains Microsoft dev code bug
Microsoft Wave launched – a site that presents MS future plans
Microsoft, Yahoo! agree on Internet search partnership
* Hardware news
Hacker Says iPhone 3GS Encryption Is ‘Useless’ for Businesses
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ KDE released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ KDE.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy Linux Mint 7 KDE.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 KDE:
The KDE Community Edition aims to provide a version of Linux Mint which uses the KDE desktop.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7 KDE, please read “What’s new in Gloria KDE?“.
System requirements:
A minimum of 4GB of free space and 256MB RAM are needed. For a comfortable experience we recommended to have at least 512MB RAM and 10GB of free space.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7 KDE:
You can download the Main Edition via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 1.1GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum: 60d7b284446b6fdaf58cba91446ff5ff
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=42Asia:
- [ftp.jaist.ac.jp] (Japan)
- [ftp.riken.jp] (Japan)
Europe:
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp:] (France)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (United Kingdom)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxfreedom.com] (USA)
- [ftp.cs.rose-hulman.edu] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Rest of the World:
Order Linux Mint 7 KDE on DVD:
Our partner on-disk.com ships Linux Mint 7 KDE Worldwide for as little as $10. They also contribute $5.41 to Linux Mint for each DVD sold.
Linux Mint 7 KDE can be purchased as a liveDVD, as a virtual machine or as a live media (Flash/SD/CF):
Upgrade instructions:
Upgrade instructions will be published in a few days.
Feedback, ideas, bug reports:
We look forward to reading your reviews and your feedback. If you find bugs, don’t hesitate to report them at [https:]] and if you have ideas that you would like implemented, don’t hesitate to register blueprints at [https:]]
Enjoy!
Enjoy this new version of the KDE edition and don’t hesitate to send us your feedback. Congratulations and thanks to the maintainer, Jamie Boo Birse, for the excellent work done on this release.
Have a lot of fun and thanks for using Linux Mint.
-
Monthly Stats - July 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $217, Achim Leybach (Germany) – [www.leybach.de]
- $200, American Broadband Family of Companies (USA) – [www.americanbroadbandservice.com]
- $200, Bob Osborn (USA)
- $150 (2nd donation), Alan D S. (USA)
- $101, Gavin Engel (USA)
- $100, Ronald S. (USA)
- $74, Richard L. (United Kingdom)
- $73, HJG Gommers (Netherlands)
- $72, Frans Van O. (Netherlands)
- $72, Frederick W. (Ireland)
- $51, Rupert Halliday aka “rhalliday” (United Kingdom)
- $50, Benjamin W. (USA)
- $50, Roland Stohler (Switzerland)
- $50, Peter Jonsson (Sweden)
- $50, Virtual Dedicated Server VDS Hosting Provider (Canada) – [compevo.com]
- $50, Leonard O. (United Kingdom)
- $50, Bodyartforms (USA)
- $44, Lucien B. (France)
- $44, Marco T. (Italy)
- $43, Francisco C. C. (Spain)
- $40, David A B. (USA)
- $37, Manuel F. (Portugal)
- $35, David N. (Czech Republic)
- $30, Adam S. (USA)
- $30, Richard B Thompson (USA)
- $30, James M. (Australia)
- $30, Pawel B. (Poland)
- $28, g.premper (Germany)
- $28, Emmanouil Parousis aka “Till” (Greece) – [tilltheblog.blogspot.com]
- $28, Gilles D. (France)
- $28, Luis H. O. (Spain)
- $26, David Bandiera aka “daba” (Belgium)
- $25 (2nd donation), William S. (USA)
- $25, Nicholas G. (USA)
- $25, David P. (USA)
- $25, Greg J. (USA)
- $25, Robert L. (USA)
- $25, Robert S. (USA)
- $25, upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. aka “lurker” (Canada) – [worldcadaccess.typepad.com]
- $20, Simon Teppett (United Kingdom)
- $20, Mario P. (Italy)
- $20, Keith D. aka “kpd001″ (Canada)
- $20, Nick M. (Australia)
- $20, Jean Morin (Canada)
- $20, Graham C. aka “gee7″ (United Kingdom)
- $20, SCN aka “scn” (Thailand)
- $20, Gerardo Alberto F. R. (Mexico)
- $20, Sri G. R. J. (USA)
- $20, Nathaniel Elam aka “nelamvr6″ (USA)
- $20, Maurice H. (USA)
- $20, Thomas T. (USA)
- $20, Nektarios K. (United Kingdom)
- $20, David S. (Czech Republic)
- $20, Anthony G. (United Kingdom)
- $18, Flessner Enterprises (USA)
- $17, Gordon W. (United Kingdom)
- $15, Matthew G. (USA)
- $14.5, Jackson W. (USA)
- $14, Mark W. (United Kingdom)
- $14, Robert B. (United Kingdom)
- $14, Damien G. (France)
- $14, Richard Farrell aka “Vyper68″ (United Kingdom)
- $14, Alan H. (United Kingdom)
- $14, Michael B. (Germany)
- $10 (5th donation), Frank Bechstein (Germany) – [www.gamer-site.de]
- $10, Ole Reidar Gunnberg (United Kingdom)
- $10, Jamie Cameron aka “jamiec” (United Kingdom)
- $10, Jordan L. (USA)
- $10, Charles H. (USA)
- $10, Leon O. (Australia)
- $10, Raphael C. (World)
- $10, Vjaceslavs L. (Latvia)
- $10, Karolis Pocius (United Kingdom) – [karolis.pocius.lt]
- $10, Simen D aka “Winxzy” (Norway) – [www.winxzy.info]
- $10, Gustav Holm aka “Gustav” (Sweden) – [www.gustavholm.com]
- $10, Slavoljub M. (Norway)
- $10, Libor F. (Czech Republic)
- $10, Chris G. aka “Chris_G” (USA)
- $10, Danie van der Merwe aka “Danie” (South Africa) – [dvdmerwe.googlepages.com]
- $10, 聶 聡 (Satoshi J.) (Japan)
- $10, Jonathan H. (New Zealand)
- $8.21, Christopher S. (United Kingdom)
- $7, Ben W. (USA)
- $7, Reza S. (Germany)
- $5, Holger S. (Germany)
- $5, Scott B. (USA)
- $5, Ian T Davis aka “ian@m5j21″ (United Kingdom) – [www.iantdavis.btinternet.co.uk]
- $5, Christopher Vogel (Germany)
- $5, Platypus Products (USA)
- $5, Radu Bogdan Draghiciu (Romania)
- $5, Karin K. aka “Kalhandra” (Australia) – [profile.myspace.com]
- $5, Michael K. (USA)
- $5, Joachim Bergstrom (Norway)
- $3.5, Corey K. (Canada)
- $3, Winton Technologies (USA)
- $2, Gowri S. M (India)
- $1, Ruben C. M. (Spain)
- $1, Abdu S. (Saudi Arabia)
- $1, Tony F. (Ireland)
- $1, Mohd R. R. (Malaysia)
Sponsors:
- $100, Host Color (USA) – [www.hostcolor.com]
- $75, John Ritchie (Aging Technogeek – USA)
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 – USA)
- $25, American Broadband Family of Companies (USA) – [www.americanbroadbandservice.com]
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim – Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $20, Scott P. (USA)
- $11, cheap vps hosting – [www.neosurge.com]
- $10, Stitz Computers, LLC (USA) – [stitzcomputers.com]
- $10, Rechtsberatung, Steuerberatung, Internetrecht (Tim) – [www.rechtsundsteuerberatung.de]
- $10 Gustav Holm (Sweden) – [gustavholm.com]
- $10, Progboys.Com (UK) – [www.progboys.com]
- $7, Unixmen – [www.unixmen.com]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя – USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $6, Attila Vecsei (Finland) – [www.vecsei.net]
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal – France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 – Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Christopher D.
- $5, DLX Company (USA) – [www.dlxcompany.com]
- $5, Stuart C.
- $5, Paul S.
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx – USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, Funkelectric (Spain) – [www.funkelectric.com]
- $2, NVISN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING (USA) – [www.nvisn.com]
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $1, Cyprus Property (Cyprus) – [www.leptosestates.com]
- $1, Недвижимость на Кипре (Cyprus) – [www.leptos-estates.ru]
- $1, Prasad S.R. (India) – [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $1, Surf in Peace (UK) – [www.surfinpeace.co.uk]
- $1, Alex Smith (UK) – [nullroute.me]
- $1 Jakub Jasiulewicz (Poland) – [jasiulewicz.pl]
- $1, Poker Bankroll (France) – [www.thebankrollers.com]
- $1, Erin G.
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap – Netherlands)
- $0.5, Nottingham web design (UK) – [www.drawmyattention.co.uk]
Money raised in June:
* Donations: $2984.21 (100 donors)
* Sponsors: $465.5 (42 sponsors)
http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 68% (+8%)
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 20% (-6%)
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 8% (-1%)
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 4%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,673,439 (+7.26%)
- Pageviews: 3,037,810 (+3.32%)
- Page impressions: 1,237,530
- Search queries: 3,698,209
- Forum users: 18,984
- Forum posts:165,650
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1275 (4th)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 3.9% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 27,636th
Events:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria XFCE RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria KDE RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- July 2009 was the (5th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.
- The overall income is up 5%.
- Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.
- The community support is outstanding: 100 people donated last month for a total of $2984 and our sponsors raised $465.
- A lot of work was done on the upcoming Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’ and on the releases of the community editions. Launchpad and Github were adopted and will have a positive impact on our efficiency. The real challenge is still ahead as Linux Mint lost its novelty factor within the Linux community and hasn’t managed to catch the attention of the media in order to compete with widespread commercial operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 89
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” XFCE RC1 released!Firefox 3.5 available in Gloria and Firefox 3.0.12 also available through mintUpdate (security fixes)
Command line – improvements
We are changing our workflow and will use Launchpad and git -
As Mint grows we need tools to handle the growth (announcement in the blog)
Bugs on Launchpad
Blueprints on Launchpad – Blueprints for Helena
Translations in Launchpad (for Helena)
Code on github – mintUpload (and later perhaps more) is maintained by “emorrp1″ – his github
I forgot to mention that we had large scale vandalism in the wiki – we have to lock it down until we can figure out a way to monitor edits
We also had two massive spam attacks in the forum – registered spam bots laying dormant since early May, late April. Can’t do much about it sadly
mintCast episode 19
* News about Linux
Microsoft contributes to the Linux kernel – possibly because of a violation of the GPL licence
Zero day attack code for the Linux kernel (No version used by Mint though – Mint is safe from this)
Gran Canaria Desktop Summit
Shuttleworth about GNOME 3.0 (and Ubuntu will stay brown)
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Launchpad is now open source
* News about IT
Cloning passport card RFIDs in bulk for under $250 (link to Youtube) If you search for Chris Paget and Rfid you’ll fine a bunch of scary examples. And it’s not only passports – you can get a cloning device for less that will clone the rfid used for bus fares
PCs Used in Korean DDoS Attacks May Self Destruct
Microsoft admits new ActiveX zero-day bug
Imageshack Hacked
* Hardware news
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Mint to use Launchpad for translations, bugs, blueprints and github for code hosting and version control
» Linux Mint BlogWe recently announced that Linux Mint was now using Launchpad for bug tracking. The decision was also taken to use Launchpad for blueprints and for translations.
We’re also starting to use code hosting and version control. Although Launchpad does that as well the decision here was to use github.
Development has started for Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’ and mintUpdate in particular already features many of the planned improvements.
Thanks to Launchpad and Github it is now possible for me to show you what’s planned, what’s done, how it was done, but also to let you contribute code, bug reports, ideas and translations all throughout the development cycle.
So let’s have a look…
Blueprints
This page shows you what’s currently planned for Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’:
As you can see work has already started for some of the blueprints and some have already been implemented. New blueprints are likely to be added in the coming months and you can follow their status on that page.
If you have an idea and you’d like us to implement it (or at least consider it), you can submit a blueprint by visiting the link below and clicking on “Register a blueprint”:
Translations
Translations are done in Launchpad. For Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’, it’s happening right here:
So far only mintUpdate is available. Other tools will appear on this page as they are adapted to Launchpad and to the specifications we designed for Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’.
Bugs
You can report bugs and follow their status on this page:
Code
Developers interested in following the evolution of the source code, and in the changes made to it can visit our github page:
At the moment only mintUpdate is available over there. Other tools and projects will appear on github as we start working on them for Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’.
Note that mintUpload is now being developed by Philip Morrell and that his gitbub page is here:
If you know git, python, glade and there are changes you’d like to see in our tools, don’t hesitate to clone them, to hack the code and to point us to your git repository. We’ll be glad to consider them for inclusion and to eventually merge them back on the main branch.
——————
I wanted to talk about mintUpdate and how we’re improving it in Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’, but you can already see that in the blueprints and even what’s been done so far both in terms of improvements and code changes. I’ll post about this tool in the near future and I’ll illustrate the improvements with screenshots and explanations. In the meantime, please help with translating it and don’t hesitate to get involved.
If you have git installed (”apt install git git-core”) you can download the latest development snapshot of mintUpdate by typing:
git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/mintupdate.git
This will download mintUpdate and place it in a “mintupdate” directory. Enter the directory and type “./test” to overwrite your version of mintUpdate with this one and launch it. Of course if you’re Italian (for instance) you could type “LANGUAGE=it ./test”, that would work as well
-
Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” XFCE RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” XFCE Community Edition RC1.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing Linux Mint 7 XFCE RC1.
- Send us your feedback and submit your bug reports in the dedicated bug thread.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 XFCE:
The XFCE Community Edition aims to provide a version of Linux Mint which uses the XFCE desktop.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7 XFCE, please read “What’s new in Gloria XFCE?“.
System requirements:
A minimum of 3GB of free space and 256MB RAM are needed. For a comfortable experience we recommended to have at least 512MB RAM and 10GB of free space.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7 XFCE RC1:
You can download the XFCE Edition via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 693MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 9a34d2f80337a6bc3a5e92c690d36499
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Asia:
- [ftp.jaist.ac.jp] (Japan)
- [ftp.riken.jp] (Japan)
Europe:
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Oceania:
- [ftp:] (Indonesia)
Upgrade instructions:
Upgrade instructions will be published with the stable release.
Feedback and bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 7 XFCE RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
Linux Mint bugs now on Launchpad
» Linux Mint BlogThe decision was taken to use Launchpad to track bugs on Linux Mint:
Philip Morrell (emorrp1) now acts as our bug supervisor.
-
Firefox 3.5 available in Gloria
» Linux Mint BlogMozilla released Firefox 3.5 and you can now install it in Gloria. The package name is “firefox-3.5″.
To install this package, you can use Synaptic, mintMenu, mintInstall, or simply the terminal:
- apt update
- apt install firefox-3.5
Once installed, your system will have both Firefox 3.0 and Firefox 3.5 and the item called “Firefox” in your menu will continue to point to Firefox 3.0.
To launch Firefox 3.5, you can use the command line and type “firefox-3.5″ or you can click on the “Shiretoko Web browser - Firefox 3.5 Beta” item in your menu.
Don’t mind the fact that it’s called “Shiretoko” and that it mentions “Beta”, this version of Firefox is the stable 3.5 version. Upstream, Ubuntu decided to keep version 3.0 as the main Firefox version for Jaunty Jackalope users and since Firefox 3.1/3.5 was made available as a Beta (3.5b4) at the time, they apparently decided it should keep its beta name (Shiretoko).
You cannot run both Firefox 3.0 and Firefox 3.5 at the same time. To run one version, make sure all instances of the other one are closed.
If you like the new version of this browser, you can change your Firefox menu item and make it point to Firefox 3.5 by editing the file /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop as root, and by replacing the line “Exec=firefox %u” with “Exec=firefox-3.5 %u”.
Finally, if you want to have a look at the new features in Firefox 3.5, you can read the following articles:
-
Command line - improvements
» Linux Mint BlogThe terminal just got better as little improvements were made in apt (/usr/local/bin/apt) and a new “highlight” command was introduced in mintsystem.
Improvements in apt:
- apt was completely rewritten in Python
- The search, show, content, contains, version, policy, depends, and rdepends now come with color highlighting
- sudo is now only used when necessary, so “apt search” for instance doesn’t require a password anymore.
- The help was improved and is now shown by simply typing “apt”.
- A new help command shows the Debian APT equivalent of the apt command you typed.
- And for the APT addicts among you, Super Cow Powers were added.
highlight:
- highlight is a new python script placed in /usr/local/bin and provided by the mintsystem package
- it highlights keywords in different colors
- for instance “lspci | highlight VGA USB Ethernet Wireless” shows the normal output of lspci but with “VGA” highlighted in red, “USB” in green, “Ethernet” in yellow, and “Wireless” in blue.
Of course there’s nothing new or revolutionary here, just a few incremental improvements. The terminal is extremely important, and although almost everything can be done graphically nowadays, it represents for many people a simpler/faster way to achieve what they want. It’s always been more precise, more exhaustive… in many respect, a better tool, than most alternative graphical user interfaces, so it’s only natural we make it as confortable as a terminal can be.
Comments and ideas are welcome. These commands can certainly be improved further. If you think something’s missing please speak up.
Note: The commands and improvements mentioned above are available in mintsystem, versions 7.4.9 or greater.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 88
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” KDE RC1 released!How to upgrade Mint 6 Felicia x64 to Mint 7 Gloria x64
Monthly Stats - June 2009Mint is really doing well
We have done some small improvements on the website
We have done some improvements in how donations are handled
mintCast episode 17
mintCast episode 18
* News about Linux
New Linux patch could circumvent Microsoft’s FAT patents
Google OS Could Put Squeeze on Other Flavors of Linux
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Why free software shouldn’t depend on Mono or C# by Richard M. Stallman
* News about IT
HTML 5 drops open source video codec
Apple’s Steve Jobs back at work
Pirate Bay sold for $8 million
Google peels ‘beta’ label off Gmail, other Google Apps
China’s Internet backdown lauded by firms, activists
Cyber attacks against the US and South Korea - North Korean origin?
Security delayed or security denied? A very serious IE bug known a year
Allegation: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - if you want help from us, use Microsoft products
* Hardware news
Dell’s Online Price Error Troubles Worsen in Taiwan
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
The bug
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
How to upgrade Mint 6 Felicia x64 to Mint 7 Gloria x64
» Linux Mint BlogWarnings:
- This upgrade path is for the x64 Edition only, from a Mint 6 Felicia to a Mint 7 Gloria system.
- There is no guarantee that it will work for you. In fact this is quite a risky process. If you’re experienced and if you know how to troubleshoot and solve common Linux problems (in particular X11, kernel modules and APT problems) then you’re probably OK. If you’re a novice user we recommend you perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint 7 x64 instead.
- You should make backups of all your data before upgrading.
Upgrading graphically:
- Open a terminal and type the following commands: “apt update” and “apt install mintupgrader-felicia-x64”
- Open mintMenu and run “Menu->Administration->Upgrade to Linux Mint 7″
- Follow the instructions. Choose the default options. Ignore errors (in particular GPG and gtk2-engines-aurora errors).
- Once the tool is finished upgrading, reboot the computer.
- Eventually, if you noticed errors the first time, run the tool again (it should be faster and if things failed the first time it will resume the upgrade).
Upgrading from the command line:
Open a terminal and type the following commands:
- gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list (Change all occurrences of “felicia” to “gloria”, and all occurences of “intrepid” to “jaunty” then save the file and close the editor)
- apt update
- apt remove mintassistant
- apt install linuxmint-keyring
- apt update
- apt install mint-info-x64 (choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)
- apt install mint-meta-x64 (choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)
In the terminal, repeat the following commands until both show no upgrades available:
- apt upgrade
- apt dist-upgrade
Then type the following commands:
- apt install mint-meta-x64
- sudo rm -rf /boot/gfxmenu/default.message
- sudo ln -s /boot/gfxmenu/linuxmint.message /boot/gfxmenu/default.message
Finally, open “Login Window” from the menu, click on the “Local” tab and choose the Arc-Wise theme. (If after rebooting you get an error about the theme at the login prompt, repeat this step.)
To get GDM to play the default Linux Mint sound, open “Login Window”, click on the “Accessibility” tab, and set the sound for “Login screen ready” to “/usr/share/sounds/linuxmint-gdm.wav”.
-
Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” KDE RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” KDE Community Edition RC1.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing Linux Mint 7 KDE RC1.
- Send us your feedback and submit your bug reports in the dedicated bug thread.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 KDE:
The KDE Community Edition aims to provide a version of Linux Mint which uses the KDE desktop.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7 KDE, please read “What’s new in Gloria KDE?“.
System requirements:
A minimum of 4GB of free space and 256MB RAM are needed. For a comfortable experience we recommended to have at least 512MB RAM and 10GB of free space.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7 KDE RC1:
You can download the Main Edition via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 1.1GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum: 9284040a97c6a0ebc45c68b8932a7c17
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [ftp:] (Indonesia)
Upgrade instructions:
Upgrade instructions will be published with the stable release.
Feedback and bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 7 KDE RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
Donations - improvements
» Linux Mint BlogThe number of donations raised to 88 last months for a total amount of $2402 given by the community. This is brilliant, as this money helps us work on Linux Mint but it also gives us the luxury to focus solely on the distribution itself without the need to engage in a support-centric business model or in other Linux-related commercial activities.
Together with advertising and sponsorships, donations represent a growing and significant income. We’ve been able to purchase everything we needed, and although we haven’t hired anyone yet, this allowed me to free 3 months from my employer this year and is now slowly giving me the independence I need to either work half of the time or even full time on the distribution in a near future.
We’re heading towards a situation where some people will work full time on the project, and where the income comes from its success and its user base. This is fantastic. It’s not easy to fund an Open Source project, especially without commercial backing, but we’re slowly getting there and this allows us to fully focus on the project itself.
So, there were 88 donors last month and as you can see that’s a lot of transactions to account for, a lot of emails to send and a lot of statistics to maintain. As the number of donations grew it was decided to process donations in batch at the end of each month. This meant that the stats on the website regarding donations were a month late, and that someone sending us money could be left without receiving an email or even a thank you note for as long as an entire month…
To address these problems, we’re going back to processing donations one by one. Donors help us a lot so it’s important that we thank them as soon as we become aware of their donation. The stats on the website are now being kept up to date and a new section on the donors page reports the donations for the current month.
In the background the process was automated so this also represents an improvement for us and less time spent in gathering information when it comes to publish the monthly stats in the end of each month.
We can now show more information, faster and be more responsive than before while spending less time on maintaining the stats. Donations are a very important aspect of the funding of Linux Mint and so it was necessary for us to bring these improvements.
As the leader of this project I would like to apologize to all donors who, in the past, waited for long periods of time without being thanked or in some cases without knowing that we had received their donation.
I also take the opportunity to thank all of them. This community is showing a lot of support for our project and this is extremely motivating.
-
Monthly Stats - June 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $116, Oscar T. (UK)
- $100 (2nd donation), John Ritchie (Aging Technogeek) (USA)
- $100, Douglas M. (USA)
- $100, Terry M. (USA)
- $100, Egyirba H. (USA)
- $72 (5th donation), Theodore T. (UK)
- $72 (2nd donation), Carlos C. (Portugal)
- $72, Emil D. (Ireland)
- $72, Patrick L. (Switzerland)
- $72, Bjorn A. (Sweden)
- $72, Muharem H. (Germany)
- $58, Giovanni S. (Italy)
- $50 (2nd donation), Jonathan B. H. (USA)
- $50, Robert P. (Australia)
- $50, Protecting Our Future (USA)
- $50, Anthony F H. (USA)
- $50, William R. (USA)
- $50, John W. (USA)
- $43 (8th donation), Temel B. (Germany)
- $40 (4th donation), Philippe W. (Switzerland)
- $36, Andreas H. (Germany)
- $35, Adam S. (USA)
- $30, Gabe G. (USA)
- $30, Krzysztof K. (Poland)
- $29 (2nd donation), DB. (Dick) (Netherlands)
- $29, Emmanouil P. (Greece)
- $29, Robert S. (UK)
- $29, Aldo R. (Italy)
- $25, Eddie F. (Australia)
- $25, William S. (USA)
- $25, Majestic Combined Services [MCS] (USA)
- $25 (3rd donation), Gordon Hilliard (ghilly) (UK)
- $25 (3rd donation), Michael G. (subslug) (USA)
- $21, Julio S. (Portugal)
- $20 (2nd donation), Douglas S. (USA)
- $20 (2nd donation), Colin C. (Canada)
- $20, John A. (USA)
- $20, Glenn E. (USA)
- $20, Nebojsa R. (Canada)
- $20, Curtis O. (USA)
- $20, David F. (USA)
- $20, Harreson S. (Canada)
- $20, Juha A. (Finland)
- $20, Craig B. (Australia)
- $20, Douglas T. (USA)
- $20, Donald P. (USA)
- $20, Brian G. (Canada)
- $15 (4th donation), Kevin S. (kevinrs) (UK)
- $15, Jonathan R. (Canada)
- $14 (2nd donation), HeLikesMint (Germany)
- $14, Pablo P. (Belgium)
- $14, Morten F. H. (Denmark)
- $14, Subtlekiss (UK)
- $14, Fernando C. P. (Spain)
- $14, Slavoljub M. (Norway)
- $10 (5th donation), Henry W. (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), Dan B. (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), Richard G. (USA)
- $10, Matko G. (Croatia)
- $10, Jorn L. (Norway)
- $10, Edward F. (Australia)
- $10, Michael S. (UK)
- $10, John P. (Australia)
- $10, Mairin C. (Ireland)
- $10, Andrew M. (USA)
- $10, Charles E. (UK)
- $10, John D. (UK)
- $10, Joseph G. (USA)
- $10, Robert David J. (UK)
- $10, Maurice R. (Canada)
- $10, John R. (USA)
- $8, Dag Eirik A. (Norway)
- $7 (3rd donation), Jindrich R. (Czech Republic)
- $7, Socrates D. (Greece)
- $7, Andre J. (Germany)
- $7, Rowena J. (UK)
- $7, Stanislav G. (Germany)
- $6, John H. (UK)
- $6, Sergey P. (Russia)
- $5.5, Stephen M. (USA)
- $5.25, Aneesh A. (India)
- $5, Hamed K. (USA)
- $5, Mark S. (UK)
- $5, Arvind D. (Mauritius)
- $3, Luca M. B. (Italy)
- $2, Tomas H. (Slovakia)
- $1, Shane L. (USA)
Sponsors:
- $105, R1Soft - [www.r1soft.com]
- $100, Host Color (USA) - [www.hostcolor.com]
- $75, John Ritchie (Aging Technogeek - USA)
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $20, Scott P. (USA)
- $10, Progboys.Com (UK) - [www.progboys.com]
- $7, Unixmen - [www.unixmen.com]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя - USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $6, Ferenc A. V.
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal - France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Christopher D.
- $5, DLX Company (USA) - [www.dlxcompany.com]
- $5, Stuart C.
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, Funkelectric (Spain) - [www.funkelectric.com]
- $2, NVISN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING (USA) - [www.nvisn.com]
- $1, BusinessSale - http://www.webvaluer.org
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $1, Cyprus Property (Cyprus) - [www.leptosestates.com]
- $1, Недвижимость на Кипре (Cyprus) - [www.leptos-estates.ru]
- $1, Prasad S.R. (India) - [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $1, Surf in Peace (UK) - [www.surfinpeace.co.uk]
- $1, Poker Bankroll (France) - [www.thebankrollers.com]
- $1, Erin G.
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)
- $0.5, Nottingham web design (UK) - [www.drawmyattention.co.uk]
Money raised in June:
* Donations: $2402
* Sponsors: $498.5http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 60%
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 26%
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 9%
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 4%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,559,894 (+13.17%)
- Pageviews: 2,939,104 (+9.17%)
- Page impressions: 1,303,421
- Search queries: 3,250,028
- Forum users: 17,862
- Forum posts: 156,267
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1350 (4th)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 4% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 29,001th
Events:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria x64 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria x64 RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- The community continues to strongly support the distribution. 88 people donated money in June for a total of $2402.
- The amount of money received from our sponsors grew to $498.5.
- All indicators show that the release of Linux Mint 7 created a boom in the size of our user base and that its growth is now getting back to normal.
- On Distrowatch, Linux Mint is slowly loosing its popularity as the novelty factor isn’t there anymore and the news related to the distribution aren’t relayed in the press and on Linux related websites. Linux Mint isn’t new anymore, but it isn’t as established as other distributions yet and de facto not considered a “major” within the Linux community even though the size of its user base can in times be as much as two to three times larger than the ones of projects like SUSE, Fedora or Mandriva.
- The Overall income is up 29%, and June 2009 was the (4th consecutive) best month ever since the start of the distribution.
- In brief: Finances have never been so good, Linux Mint sits in a very comfortable position on the Linux home desktop market second only to Ubuntu, its user base continues to grow but the distribution needs to engage in marketing, ads and/or promotion campaigns to get the attention of the medias. Now that Linux Mint is known to most Linux users and that it gathers the second biggest share on the market, it needs to get itself known to others and to compete with other desktops such as Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS.
-
Small improvements on the website
» Linux Mint BlogReviews and interviews related to Linux Mint are now tracked on the website: [www.linuxmint.com]
A list of download mirrors was published and we’re also starting to mirror the repositories. There was a period of downtime a few days ago and while our server was down we were unable to provide users with an alternative way of contacting our repositories. We’re hoping to solve this issue by providing users with repositories mirrors and a list kept up to date at the following address: [www.linuxmint.com]
Finally, the screenshots were updated to show Linux Mint 7 and changes were made to the donors and sponsors pages to better explain why we need donations, what sponsoring is, and how it works.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 87
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintUpgrading from the RC is very simple (described in the blog post)
mintCast episode 16
A little downtime on the repositories
An interview with Clem following this review
* News about Linux
Linus Torvalds on 2.6.31
Multitouch for Linux - on Youtube
The triumph of Linux as a supercomputer OS
Canonical shut down Ubuntu Satanic Edition store
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
* News about IT
Thousands of sites using Joomla at risk
Woman fined millions for music file-sharing in US
Publishers: DOJ “focused on Google” in book settlement probe
SHA1 almost cracked - you only need a supercomputer to crack it now
Nine Ball attack strikes 40,000 Web sites
Google to Try More Security on Gmail
What’s New in Firefox 3.0.11
Researchers Build Anonymous, Browser-Based ‘Darknet’
Rumors that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant
In issue 84 I reported that file sharing in Sweden dropped drastically after the Pirate Bay verdict and start of the IPRED directive It is now back on the same level as before - link in Swedish
Windows 7 to XP downgrade extended by a year
Blogger: Windows 7 UAC Feature Still Vulnerable
Microsoft gives up YouTube chase
* Hardware news
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 7 x64 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” x64.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the videos and the overview of the new features in Linux Mint 7, read the User Guide and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5 (as described in the user guide).
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy Linux Mint 7 x64.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 x64:
This x64 edition of Linux Mint 7 is almost identical to the Main Edition but compiled for 64 bit processors (Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad, AMD Athlon X2 64 and all x86-64 compliant processors). It comes with all the improvements featured in Linux Mint 7 Gloria Main Edition.
System requirements:
An X86_64 64 bit processor (Intel Core 2, AMD X2 64, etc…) .
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.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation. A blog post will follow to explain why and how this was implemented.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7 x64:
You can download Linux Mint 7 x64 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 694MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 87a2c48f43f83278f37cd547be74ea74Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [ftp.df.lth.se] (Sweden)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Order Linux Mint 7 x64 on CD/DVD:
Our partner on-disk.com ships Linux Mint 7 x64 Worldwide for as little as $10. They also contribute $5.41 to Linux Mint for each CD/DVD sold.
Linux Mint 7 x64 can be purchased as a liveCD/DVD, as a virtual machine or as a live media (Flash/SD/CF) from here (select 64bit when choosing the “Computer type”):
Upgrade instructions:
To upgrade to Linux Mint 7 x64 from Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1, launch mintUpdate, enable the “dist-upgrade” option in the preferences window and refresh the list of upgrades. Make sure to apply all level 1 and level 2 upgrades.
An upgrade path for Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” x64 users will be published in a few days.
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun with “Gloria” and let us know what you think. Reviews will be answered and your feedback will be used to improve the distribution before the next release. We hope you enjoy this release as much as we enjoyed making it and we wish you a very nice experience with Linux Mint.
-
A little downtime on the repositories
» Linux Mint BlogOur repositories are unavailable at the moment. We’re working on the issue and we’re hoping to have them up and running again in a few hours.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Edit: It was just a little glitch with the server. The repositories are working again.
-
Interview: tech-no-media
» Linux Mint BlogFollowing his review of Linux Mint 7 Gloria, I got to talk to Erlik and we had a little interview:
Happy reading everyone.
-
Mint 7 Review: tech-no-media
» Linux Mint BlogGloria was reviewed by Erlik from tech-no-media:
Happy reading everyone.
Comments:
Erlik wrote: “after about a minute I am in front of a very nicely designed login prompt with a 10 second countdown to login. Maybe they should have made the CD autologin faster, as the wait could worry newbies.”
–> This autologin usually happens fast and in the background so most people don’t see it. On slower machines the login process isn’t fast enough and GDM has enough time for you to see the prompt. It’s a minor annoyance that we should get fixed upstream.
Erlik wrote: “No network connection however. I have a look in the start menu for help: the menu is very Windows like and the control center easily accessible. The hardware driver applet tells me that I will need to download a legacy driver for my Broadcom wireless adapter.I am not too surprised as I know from my old Mint 3.0 installation that this adapter is badly supported on Linux.”
–> Broadcom wireless chipsets have always been troublesome. The Hardware Drivers application is designed to pop up 60 seconds after you’ve logged in. It’s an upstream application so I’d have to check in the code to make sure it’s designed to start automatically on the live session as well.
Erlik wrote: “There is a welcome screen waiting for me: I am offered the option to see the new features of Linux Mint 7.0, download a pdf manual or visit the Linux Mint forums. These are very good starting points for users new to Linux.”
–> We got some feedback from a review made on Linux Mint 6. The review was extremely positive but the reviewer was confused by mintAssistant and found it disturbing to be asked about a root password and the activation of fortunes in the terminal. He had a point and we decided to throw mintAssistant in the bin and to start with a new application. MintWelcome doesn’t try to mix everything, it just welcomes new users. A lot of people were unaware of the User Guide, the Release Notes or even the new features so such an application was needed. As for the root password and the fortunes in the terminal, they had to be implemented in a different way. Fortunes are activated by default and we’re planning to patch the Ubiquity installer in the future to ask the user whether to disable them or not (probably in the “advanced” section, or in a new “options” section). The root password is activated by default and set to be the same as your own password. For this as well we’re thinking of patching the Ubiquity installer.
Erlik wrote: “There is also a message appearing on the screen to tell me that a new restricted driver is available.The driver applet is also present in the system tray, just where a Windows user would expect to find it. I click on this driver applet and the missing wireless driver is flagged for my attention. I click activate, enter my password and the missing driver is installed automatically. I enter my wireless access point name, disable and enable networking and then I am connected through Wifi: all my hardware works! I tried to suspend and wake up the machine and this worked flawlessly too.”
–> Credits go to Ubuntu on this one. They designed the hardware drivers application and made it extremely easy for people with exotic hardware to get the proper drivers installed on their machine.
Erlik wrote: “The first thing that strikes you when starting Linux Mint 7.0 is how the design is polished. Not only is the theme and wallpaper superb, but everything seems to be just where someone straight out of the Windows world would expect it to be. Although this is no Windows copycat, it is much easier to get used to immediately than Ubuntu.”
–> The look and feel was built around a popular theme called “Shiki” and the “Mint Dew” wallpaper made by Zwopper one of the artists from the Linux Mint community. There is no intent to make Linux Mint look like Windows but we also use ideas and copy them from other operating systems when they seem good to us, no matter where they come from. Ease of use is important to us and I think it’s important to Ubuntu as well. In my opinion, both distributions make an easier desktop to use and maintain than Microsoft Windows.
Erlik wrote: “One thing that is very different from Ubuntu is the start menu: it looks like an improved version of Windows start menu. On the left pane you have shortcuts to important places like your home folder, the software installation applet, control center, command line (terminal) and quit button. On the right pane you have either your favorite applications or a start menu. This is a good design decision, as it allows users that just want to surf, email and play music to do that without having to search for the proper application, but at the same time all the other applications are only a button away.”
–> The concept behind the Linux Mint menu is for the user to be able to perform as many tasks as possible (both simple and advanced) in the most confortable and trivial ways. It’s not only geared towards novice users but also towards experienced ones. From the menu you can launch applications of course but you can also remove them, search for or install new ones, set them to run automatically when you log in… etc. Initially mintMenu was a fork of a project called USP which itself was inspired by SUSE’s Slab menu. Windows also has an advanced menu, particularly since the release of Vista, and although it shares similar features with mintMenu (filtering for instance) it’s extremely different in both its layout, what it lets the user achieve and how one can interact with it.
Erlik wrote: “Given how good Linux Mint is why would you install anything else? Well, there are a few caveat. First Linux Mint does not have a big support corporation behind it like Ubuntu. This means that it is more difficult to purchase paid support and that there is no software shop where you can purchase commercial applications like PowerDVD for Linux.”
–> This is very true. In brief, Linux Mint is still a very small project and it lacks the resources and structure necessary to offer adequate paid support. In comparison to Ubuntu, Linux Mint cannot support big corporations. We also recently stopped to offer paid support to small companies and individuals as our current structure wasn’t fitted for this activity and we could not guarantee satisfying response times.
Erlik wrote: “The second point is that there is no “one click upgrade” option right now, although I think that the Mint developers are working on a solution for that.”
–> Well, I both agree and disagree on this. First, let me agree on the fact that upgrading Ubuntu isn’t only easy it’s actually trivial. Upgrading Linux Mint is easy as well, we’ve got a graphical upgrader for that, and although it goes through a few more steps than its Ubuntu equivalent, it does the job. What’s important though, is that upgrading a system like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is risky and that users who aren’t experienced with APT, Xorg, kernel modules and so on can end up with a broken system that they’re unable to fix. In that regard both Ubuntu and Linux Mint need to work on the issue as it’s not enough to make the upgrade path easy, the risk has to be communicated to the user and proper workarounds, restoration paths, “plan B”s, or whatever will make this operation 100% safe will have to be implemented.
Erlik wrote: “The Final point is that the inclusion of multimedia codecs in the main edition could bring some users into legal a gray area in some countries, however a version of Mint without the codecs, the universal edition, is also available for those users.”
–> The choice is made by the user at download time instead of post-installation as it is the case in Ubuntu.
Erlik wrote: “If Linux Mint continues to provide such high quality releases I may well switch back from Ubuntu by the time of the next Long Term Support release.”
–> We’ll sure try
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 86
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintLinux Mint 7 x64 RC1 released!
A call for Promotional materials
* Special news
* News about Linux
Fedora 11 released - lots of news
Intel contributes to the new 2.6.30 kernel - and the present problems with Intel graphics seems to be solved
The Linuxfoundation opens up for Individual Membership
Acer Will Use Moblin Linux Across Its Products
Intel to buy Wind River for $884 million
Enabling DRM in the kernel?
More Linux on Dreamhack - probably the largest LAN party in the world (Linux link in Swedish as it takes place in Sweden)
Hymera is high on Distrowatch - at lest for me a new distribution
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Solaris will disappear - long live OpenSolaris (the blog post in the link is written by ian in debian)
OpenSolaris ported to ARM
Dell bundling open source applications for SMBs
StormOS Enters Beta - StormOS is a mix of Solaris and Ubuntu
* News about IT
VAServ Hack Results in Massive Data Loss - as many as 100 000 sites destroyed or badly damaged
Square your search results with Google Squared - a new Google service
Google docs have added .docx and .xlsx to the list of file formats possible to use
Data Breach Exposes RAF Staff to Blackmail
* Hardware news
Linux will be the first operating system with official USB 3.0 support.
Gigabyte presents motherboard with a BIOS that has 16 MB - that’s the size of RAM in the mid nineties
Elitegroup molds porcelain HTPC
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
I’ll try not to reuse a comic this week
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 x64 Gloria RC1.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO or the torrent.
- While it’s downloading look at the videos and the overview of the new features in Linux Mint 7, read the User Guide and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5 (as described in the user guide).
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1.
- Report bugs on the dedicated forum thread.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7 x64:
This x64 edition of Linux Mint 7 is almost identical to the Main Edition but compiled for 64 bit processors (Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad, AMD Athlon X2 64 and all x86-64 compliant processors). It comes with all the improvements featured in Linux Mint 7 Gloria Main Edition.
System requirements:
An X86_64 64 bit processor (Intel Core 2, AMD X2 64, etc…) .
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.
Important information and known issues:
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. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The upgrade path from Linux Mint 6 x64 will be finalized for the stable release.
Feedback and bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Download Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1:
You can download Linux Mint 7 x64 RC1 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 694MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 2bbef299edcdbdc17f9ace19b5f8d24dTorrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
Promotional materials
» Linux Mint BlogA call was made on the forums to all artists within the community. The goal is to produce promotional materials for Linux Mint:
Linux Mint is becoming an important project and so it’s time for it to get good promotional material and to give people the means to efficiently promote it. In comparison to other projects, we’ve made almost no efforts at marketing Linux Mint. I guess you’re all aware of the marketing campaigns lead by Microsoft and Apple, and we can also appreciate the quality of the material provided by projects such as Fedora and OpenSUSE. Our desktop is among the best available, we’re growing fast and it’s been done with people talking to people and our popularity slowly spreading from ear to ear [...]
If you want to take part and help producing marketing/promotional materials, please visit this forum thread: [forums.linuxmint.com]
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 85
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintLinux Mint 7 “Gloria” released!
How to upgrade Mint 6 Felicia to Mint 7 Gloria
Gloria is a success! We have more visitors to our forum and irc than ever before.
The Monthly Stats - May 2009 confirms the impression - the best ever month
The forum was flooded with spam on May 30 and 31. On June 1 we implemented counter spam measures in the registration process. The result is truly amazing. From what I (Husse) can see as admin this stopped about 50+ spambots from registering every day!
mintCast Episode 15
* News about Linux
Ubuntu Picks Up X Input 2 Support In PPA
Canonical developers aim to make Android apps run on Ubuntu
HP snubs Moblin, rolls out Mi Linux-Atom netbook
Linux distributor joins Moblin
KOffice 2.0.0 Released
The CentOS-5.3 i386 Live CD is released
According to IBM a Global Survey Shows Linux Desktop Easier to Deploy Than Expexpected The survey has also been interpreted as the exact opposite..
Transmission 1.61 Plugs CSRF Hole - a cross site scripting vulnerability in the browser interface - anyone using a version prior to 1.61 and the browser interface is at risk
550 Days Later, Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux Appears Dead
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
OpenSolaris 2009.06 released
Compliance Is The Goal - FSF on the lawsuit against Cisco
“Ubuntu One” name creates confusion (Mark Shuttleworth’s response)
* News about IT
New DNS Bug and Fix Announced
EU pushes music industry to open up online rights
IBM exec calls Vista the best recruiter for Linux
Google Wave a new communication service introduced
Russian company Digital Sky Technologies takes $200m stake in Facebook - value drops
Pornographic videos flood YouTube
Mozilla Labs Introducing Jetpack, Call for Participation
University of Michigan first to sign new digitization agreement with Google
* Hardware news
A Laptop Cooled with Ionic Wind
Gainward and Palit blast AMD for their GPU product policy
* Other news
eBay fakes: L’Oreal fail in High Court test case
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to cathbards-grove
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Due to the apparent success of Gloria and subsequent growth in the number of posts in the forum I find it difficult to do everything in time.
That is why this newsletter is so late
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Repositories were down, working fine again.
» Linux Mint BlogEdit: The repositories are working fine again. Sorry for the downtime and the inconvenience.
Original message below:
We’re experiencing problems with the server hosting our repositories. As we can’t access it remotely we’ve ordered a manual intervention and we’re currently waiting for this to happen.
In the meantime you can use Linux Mint just as you did before but:
- mintUpdate will be slower to refresh (it will try to download the latest safety rules from that server, then timeout, then work normally)
- you will see error messages when updating your APT cache
- the website [packages.linuxmint.com] will be unavailable
- you SHOULD NOT upgrade from Mint 6 to Mint 7 (wait until this problem is solved before upgrading, otherwise you’ll miss all the packages maintained by Mint and you’ll only get an update on the Ubuntu package base itself)
Our apologies for the inconvenience. We’re trying to fix this problem as quick as possible.
-
Monthly Stats - May 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $147, Andrew K. (Russia)
- $147, Daniel F. (Germany)
- $147, Rodney M. (Australia)
- $110, Aleksandr A. (Russia)
- $100, 12EasyHosting (USA)
- $100, Loyal B. (USA)
- $100, Terry B. (USA)
- $100, Reject the Herd (USA)
- $77, Peter T. (Australia)
- $74, David N. (Czech Republic)
- $74 (2nd donation), Eric H. (Germany)
- $74, Marwan B. (Ireland)
- $73 (5th donation), John Trapp (foggytown – USA)
- $72, Sean R. (USA)
- $60 (2nd donation), William R. (USA)
- $50 (3rd donation), Arron J. (UK)
- $50 (2nd donation), Barry Patterson (UK) - [www.redsandstonehill.net]
- $50, Lauro F. (Switzerland)
- $50, Paul M. (UK)
- $50, Andrew F. (Australia)
- $50, S R W. (Malaysia)
- $50, Krishna M. (USA)
- $50, Rodney C. (USA)
- $50, Scott P. (USA)
- $44 (2nd donation), Uwe S. (Germany)
- $44, Jonas G. (Sweden)
- $41 (5th donation), Peter Fitzsimons (UK)
- $35, Fernando G. (Mexico)
- $30, Lipton C. (UK)
- $30, Bernard B. (USA)
- $30, Juergen G. (Canada)
- $29 (3rd donation), Marco R. (Italy)
- $29 (2nd donation), Peter Kasbergen (PiEp – Netherlands) - [www.piep.nu]
- $29, Gilles J. (France)
- $29, Frans N. (Netherlands)
- $29, Diego C. (Ireland)
- $25 (2nd donation), William S. (USA)
- $25, James M. (USA)
- $25, Michael F. (USA)
- $25, Colin C. (Canada)
- $25, Joel O. (USA)
- $25, Daniel B. (USA)
- $25, Joseph K. (USA)
- $25, Mike E. (USA)
- $22, Stephen P. (UK)
- $20 (2nd donation), David S. (UK)
- $20 (2nd donation), Carl K. (USA)
- $20, Paul G. (USA)
- $20, Mike D. (USA)
- $20, Dale B. (USA)
- $20, Paul G. (USA)
- $20, Sam R. (USA)
- $20, Sebastian C. (Australia)
- $20, Bill E. (USA)
- $20, Kenneth S. (USA)
- $20, Gary V. (USA)
- $15, Kostas G. (Greece)
- $15, Ole P. (Denmark)
- $15, Herman V. (Belgium)
- $15, Pavel U. (Czech Republic)
- $15, Jakub G. (Poland)
- $25, Richard G. (USA)
- $15, Tim K. (Germany)
- $15, Urs M. (Switzerland)
- $15, Daniel W. (Switzerland)
- $15, Catalin T. (Romania)
- $15, David B. (Ireland)
- $15, Andrew A. (USA)
- $15, Nikos A. (Greece)
- $15, Pawe P. (Poland)
- $15, Carl B. (Belgium)
- $15, Zak McG. (Australia)
- $10 (9th donation), Phillip Blake (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), Justin Peterson (USA) - [www.jp23.net]
- $10 (2nd donation), David Morris (DPMorris – USA)
- $10, Garry K. (USA)
- $10, Jonathan H. (New Zealand)
- $10, Clemens N. (USA)
- $10, Mark C. (UK)
- $10, Csaba S. (Hungary)
- $9, Georgetta B. (Romania)
- $9, Agostino G. (Italy)
- $8, Clyde N. (USA)
- $7, Monika P. (Estonia)
- $7, Lennart B. (Germany)
- $5, Jose P. (USA)
- $5, Marijan D. (Croatia)
- $5, Khalil S. (USA)
- $2, Bruno L. (Brazil)
- $1, Zekeriya t K. (Turkey)
- $1, Julie S. (USA)
Sponsors:
- $100, Host Color (USA) - [www.hostcolor.com]
- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $50, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - http://www.linux-onlineshop.de
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $10, Lucas W.
- $8, Unixmen - [www.unixmen.com]
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя - USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal - France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, Sohier C.
- $5, Christopher D.
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $2, Funkelectric (Spain) - [www.funkelectric.com]
- $1, BusinessSale - http://www.webvaluer.org
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $1, Prasad S.R. (India) - [saysprasad.wordpress.com]
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)
Money raised in May:
* Donations: $3135
* Sponsors: $396http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 4%
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 11%
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 37%
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 48%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,378,407 (+12.45%)
- Pageviews: 2,689,945 (+15.06%)
- Page impressions: 1,425,021
- Search queries: 2,564,610
- Forum users: 16650
- Forum posts: 146441
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1408 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 4.3% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 31,388th
Events:
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 3 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- We’ve received a fantastic amount of support from the community last month. Donations have never been so high. 91 people donated money in May for a total of $3135. That’s about 3 times the average we normally get.
- All indicators show a boom in the size of our user base.
- Among Distrowatch visitors, Linux Mint (4.3%) has twice as many users as Mandriva (2.1%) and Fedora (1.8%) and 3 times as many as OpenSuse (1.4%).
- The Overall income is up 33%, and May 2009 was the best month ever since the start of the distribution.
-
How to upgrade Mint 6 Felicia to Mint 7 Gloria
» Linux Mint BlogWarnings:
- This upgrade path is for the Main Edition only, from a Mint 6 Felicia to a Mint 7 Gloria system.
- There is no guarantee that it will work for you. In fact this is quite a risky process. If you’re experienced and if you know how to troubleshoot and solve common Linux problems (in particular X11, kernel modules and APT problems) then you’re probably OK. If you’re a novice user we recommend you perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint 7 instead.
- You should make backups of all your data before upgrading.
Upgrading graphically (easier):
- Open a terminal and type the following commands: “apt update” and “apt install mintupgrader-felicia-main”
- Open mintMenu and run “Menu->Administration->Upgrade to Linux Mint 7″
- Follow the instructions. Choose the default options. Ignore errors (in particular GPG and gtk2-engines-aurora errors).
Upgrading from the command line (faster, safer):
Open a terminal and type the following commands:
- gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list (Change all occurrences of “felicia” to “gloria”, and all occurences of “intrepid” to “jaunty” then save the file and close the editor)
- apt update
- apt remove mintassistant
- apt install linuxmint-keyring
- apt update
- apt install mint-info-main (choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)
- apt install mint-meta-main(choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)
In the terminal, repeat the following commands until both show no upgrades available:
- apt upgrade
- apt dist-upgrade
Then type the following commands:
- apt install mint-meta-main
- sudo rm -rf /boot/gfxmenu/default.message
- sudo ln -s /boot/gfxmenu/linuxmint.message /boot/gfxmenu/default.message
Finally, open “Login Window” from the menu, click on the “Local” tab and choose the Arc-Wise theme. (If after rebooting you get an error about the theme at the login prompt, repeat this step.)
To get GDM to play the default Linux Mint sound, open “Login Window”, click on the “Accessibility” tab, and set the sound for “Login screen ready” to “/usr/share/sounds/linuxmint-gdm.wav”.
-
Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 “Gloria”.
Quick steps:
- Download the ISO.
- While it’s downloading look at the videos and the overview of the new features in Linux Mint 7, read the User Guide and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
- After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5 (as described in the user guide).
- Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy Linux Mint 7.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7:
The 7th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular the menu system, the application manager and the upload manager now provide new features such as “Suggestions”, “Featured applications”, “SCP and SFTP support”. The underlying base of the operating system was also strengthened with a new adjustment mechanism which makes Linux Mint more robust and less vulnerable to Ubuntu package upgrades, and the introduction of virtual and meta packages which simplify upgrade paths and the installation of multiple desktop environments.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7, please read What’s new in Gloria.
Introduction to the Universal Edition:
The Universal Edition is a customized version of the Main Edition with the following differences:
- It comes as a liveDVD instead of a liveCD
- It comes with built-in support for English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese/Br, Portuguese/Pt, Arabic, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Galician, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Norwegian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Romanian, Slovenian, Catalan, Greek, Czech, Slovak, Marathi, Norwegian [nynorsk], Croatian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Hindi, Finnish, Hebrew, Serbian, Belarussian and with partial support for Basque and Bosnian.
- It comes with no codecs, no support for restricted formats and no proprietary components.
- It features an extra item in the Sound & Video menu which launches the installation of all missing codecs via a built-in .mint file
- It uses a text-based version of Grub instead of the graphical grub-gfxboot which comes with the Main Edition.
The purpose of the Universal Edition is to bring a localized live system to non-English speaking users of Linux Mint and to facilitate the distribution of Linux Mint in countries where software patents are enforceable.
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.
Important information and known issues:
For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation. A blog post will follow to explain why and how this was implemented.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
Download Linux Mint 7:
You can download the Main Edition via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 697MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 64e2a290fb51f8e7a9d058355fe93d0e
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]And for the Universal Edition:
Size: 1.3GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum: f50fe4665952c5abd887f403c6409963
Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Order Linux Mint 7 on CD/DVD:
Our partner on-disk.com ships Linux Mint 7 Worldwide for as little as $10. They also contribute $5.41 to Linux Mint for each CD/DVD sold.
Linux Mint 7 can be purchased as a liveCD/DVD, as a virtual machine or as a live media (Flash/SD/CF) from here.
Upgrade instructions:
To upgrade to Linux Mint 7 from Linux Mint 7 RC1, launch mintUpdate, enable the “dist-upgrade” option in the preferences window and refresh the list of upgrades. Make sure to apply all level 1 and level 2 upgrades. Among level 3 upgrades make sure to select gtk2-engines-aurora, gufw, smplayer, and nautilus-sendto.
An upgrade path for Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” users will be published in a few days.
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun with “Gloria” and let us know what you think. Reviews will be answered and your feedback will be used to improve the distribution before the next release. We hope you enjoy this release as much as we enjoyed making it and we wish you a very nice experience with Linux Mint.
-
ETA for a Mint 7 stable release?
» Linux Mint BlogI can see that’s the question on everybody’s lips right now.. “when is Mint 7 going to be released?”. You probably saw on twitter that LinuxMint-7-DEV-052.iso was approved by Exploder and that it passed all the tests… and yet, no sign of it in the mirrors and no announcements on the website
I just want to ask the community for a little more patience. There’s very little left to do before the release but we can’t afford to skip any steps.
- LinuxMint-7-DEV-052.iso wasn’t fully tested by myself, and although it was maintained by me and approved by Exploder, I still want to make sure about a few things before I approve it myself.
- The Universal edition is going to be released at the same time as the Main edition, so that needs to get approved as well. I’m testing LinuxMint-7-Universal-DEV-007.iso right now. It looks good but I need to make sure it passes all the tests and that it’s easily upgradable to a Main Edition with a single click of the mouse.
- The User Guide needs to be updated and that will take a day or two.
- Once everything is fine, it will take up to 48 hours for the ISOs to propagate on the download mirrors.
After that, we’ll be ready for a release.
The upgrade path from Mint 7 RC1 is working fine. The upgrade path from Mint 6 will need to be tested and the upgrader will eventually need to be updated. This won’t hold the release though and we’ll make an announcement for Mint 6 users a few days after the release.
Please be patient and my apologies for the time this is taking.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 84
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintThe stable release of Mint 7 Gloria has entered the testing phase - if all goes well we are only a few days from release
Language support in Gloria
The RC1 has been reviewed several times alreday - here are some more reviews - this and this and this one in German
mintCast Episode 13 and 14 There is something strange with the links - both say episode 13
Monthly stats - April 2009 This April was the best month ever for Mint
* News about Linux
AMD Releases R600/700 Programming Guide - will it lead to better open source 3D drivers?
Zenwalk Live 6.0 release
Another critical patch from Adobe - also for *nix
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
* News about IT
Greece halts Google Street View
Mozilla Prism introduced An application that lets users run web applications directly on their desktop
French Assembly passes ‘three strikes’ HADOPI law (it has now been passed by the senate as well)
File-Sharing in Sweden Decreasing drastically after the Pirate Bay verdict and start of the IPRED directive
US missile defence details bought on eBay
FAA’s Air-Traffic Networks Breached by Hackers
UC Berkeley computers hacked, 160,000 at risk
Heartland breach costs at $12.6M - and counting
‘Hacker’ threatens to expose health data, demands $10M
ZeusTracker and the Nuclear Option - the demise of a botnet
New Wave of “Gumblar” Hacked Sites Installs Google-targeting Malware - Windows only
The European Commission wants software makers held liable for code
* Hardware news
Intel loses chip share to AMD
Intel Fined By European Commission
Netbook runs on AA batteries
‘Echologic’ Linux netbook for Eur 130 in Spain (link in Spanish)
* Other news
Brain scanning may be used in security checks
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 7 Gloria entering testing phase
» Linux Mint BlogI would like to thank all the people who helped translating Gloria. The response from the community was amazing. The ISO is being finalized today and it includes full support for the Mint tools in 37 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese/Br, Portuguese/Pt, Arabic, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Galician, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Norwegian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Romanian, Slovenian, Catalan, Greek, Czech, Slovak, Marathi, Norwegian [nynorsk], Croatian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Hindi, Finnish, Hebrew, Serbian and Belarussian.
Basque and Bosnian are also partially supported.
The ISO is estimated to be around 696MB including fonts for all the languages mentioned above to be displayed correctly out of the box.
The Universal Edition will also include the related language-packs for all these languages to work fully from the live DVD and in a fully localized Gnome environment.
I would also like to thank all the people who helped in testing the RC1 release of Linux Mint 7. 51 bug reports were catalogued and analyzed. And after triaging them all and releasing some fixes we’re now in a position to finalize the ISO.
The spreadsheet below shows the bugs which were looked at:
The ISO will now go into testing, and once approved by myself it will be submitted to the team and seeking Exploder’s approval for a stable release. We release when ready and if anything goes wrong we’ll just take more time so I can’t give an estimated release date but we’re getting close and we’ll make it worth the wait.
Again, many thanks to all who got involved. Many improvements were made since RC1, both in terms of bug fixes and language support and that is thanks to you.
-
Language support in Mint 7 - Halfway there
» Linux Mint BlogMany of you answered the call and helped with the translations. As you can see below we already have full support for 15 languages:
Among other things, missing translations are holding the stable release of Linux Mint 7. There are 15 languages for which only some of the tools were translated. This is a pity as efforts were made by the translators and yet some of the tools will show up in English to users speaking these languages. Some other popular languages are missing here as well.
This is an on-going effort and we’re receiving more translations every day so I’m confident about this. If you can help with the translations, please visit the translations forums and help improve the support for your language:
The sooner we’re done with this the sooner it can be integrated within Mint 7 and the sooner we’ll be able to release it as stable.
Many thanks to all the people for the help we’re getting from them.
-
Monthly Stats - April 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $100 (4th donation), Erik Anderson (deadguy - USA)
- $100, Dar D. (Canada)
- $100, John R. (USA)
- $100, Terry L. (USA)
- $70, Michael P. (Greece)
- $53, Gabriele C. (Italy)
- $50 (3rd donation), Harvey Elliott (UK)
- $35 (5th donation), Jerry Jackson (UK)
- $35, Bernhard M. (Germany)
- $30, Geoff P G. (Australia)
- $28 (2nd donation), Marcos Antonio S. (Italy)
- $28, Jonathan McK. (UK)
- $28, Frederic S. (France)
- $28, Uwe S. (Germany)
- $25, Jerry W. (USA)
- $25, Christopher P. (USA)
- $21, Michael B. (Germany)
- $20 (2nd donation), Phillip H. (Australia)
- $20, Thomas K. (USA)
- $20, Summers MBM (USA)
- $20, Matthew L. (USA)
- $20, Robert M. (USA)
- $20, Ronald M. (USA)
- $20, James F. (USA)
- $20, Robert B. (USA)
- $18, Ariel G. (USA)
- $18, Jack H. (USA)
- $15, Michael C. (Australia)
- $14 (2nd donation), Marco R. (Italy)
- $14, Taras Z. (Russia)
- $10 (4th donation), Henry W. (USA)
- $10, David M. (USA)
- $10, Douglas R. (USA)
- $10, Nicholas S. (USA)
- $10, William S. (USA)
- $10, Goran C. (Canada)
- $10, Nate D. (USA)
- $7, Michael D. (Germany)
- $7, Tomas O. (Slovakia)
- $7, Tjutju T. (Indonesia)
- $5, Laurens Van W. (Belgium)
- $1, Mauro P. (Italy)
Sponsors:
- $100, Host Color (USA) - [www.hostcolor.com]
- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $50, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - http://www.linux-onlineshop.de
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $10, Jim Rogers (USA)
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя - USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $5, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - http://www.speedtest.gr
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal - France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, MPD Digital
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $1, BusinessSale - http://www.webvaluer.org
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $0.5, Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)
Money raised in April:
* Donations: $1192
* Sponsors: $385http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 6%
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 16%
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 65%
- Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1: 13%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,225,840 (-4%)
- Pageviews: 2,337,877 (-4%)
- Page impressions: 1,036,845
- Search queries: 2,483,442
- Forum users: 15689
- Forum posts: 141049
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1428 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 2.9% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 34,772th
Events:
- Linux Mint 6 KDE CE was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox CE was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
Summary:
- April 2009 saw the release of the last two community editions (KDE and Fluxbox) which had been released as RCs the month before and the jump made by the development team from Linux Mint 6 to Linux Mint 7.
- Although the growth observed in April was only between 1 and 4%, last month was the best month ever for Linux Mint since the start of the project.
-
Mint 7 RC1 review: Techmiso
» Linux Mint BlogScott Jarkoff wrote a very nice review of Linux Mint 7 RC1 on techmiso.com:
I just have one comment: mint4win isn’t functional in this RC release. It will be fixed in the stable release.
Happy reading everyone.
-
Mint 7 RC1 review: DownloadSquad
» Linux Mint BlogIntroduction:
Lee Mathews wrote a mini-review of Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1 on DownloadSquad.com:
Happy reading everyone.
Comments:
Lee writes: “you can install Mint from within Windows using Mint4Win (Wubi, modified).”
–> Just a precision about this. As written in the release notes, mint4win does not work in this RC release and it will fixed for the stable release.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 83
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” RC1 released!Gloria has already been rewieved by Softpedia and here
A call for more translations to Gloria
* News about Linux
Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring released
Sabayon Linux 4.1 KDE: Stable release
Linux fast-boot tech targets Windows users
A Gaming Team For Ubuntu Has Been Started
Vulnerability in Adobe Reader for all OSes including Linux (in javascript)
Linux Breaks 1% on the Client However such figures are very unreliable
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Open Invention Network seeks prior art to burn FAT patents
The Spanish free software association Hispalinux is protesting plans by the Spanish government to massively introduce Microsoft’s operating systems and applications on school computers.
* News about IT
Taking over the Torpig botnet - interesting information on how a botnet works
Hackers Break Into Virginia Health Professions Database, Demand Ransom
Nefarious Conficker worm racks up $9.1 billion bill - and is supposed to stop working on May 3
UK plan to monitor all internet use
Pirate Bay Verdict Gives Urgency to Italian Case
And interestingly DVD sales rise in Sweden after the verdict (link in Swedish - have not found one in English)
GeoCities has closed down
The first Yahoo email client
Swine Flu Outbreak Headlines Used For Spammer’s Gain
ID thieves advertising on YouTube
Microsoft looks to Facebook with Windows Live
Windows bugs never really die
Google Joins Mozilla, Blames IE for Chrome Bug
Cloud security stokes concerns at RSA
Researcher argues for CERTs with teeth
* Hardware news
nVidia’s GT300 specifications revealed - it’s a cGPU!
Qualcomm, Broadcom reach $891 million settlement
Acer Revo Ubuntu Nettop GBP 149, Windows Model GBP 249
* Other news
* Comic of the week
We also use packages….
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
I am convinced that I collected more news but they have vanished
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Mint 7 RC1 review: Softpedia
» Linux Mint BlogIntroduction
RC releases don’t usually get reviewed, so I’m quite excited to see Softpedia give it a look. Softpedia has been full of great feedback in the past (back in the days when I was maintaining it, I remember them improving the look of the KDE edition for instance). They’re also an important website in the Linux community, one of the few with bookmark by default in Firefox.
The author is Daniel Pop-Silaghi, let’s go straigth to his review: [news.softpedia.com]
Happy reading everyone.
Comments:
Daniel says: “I was greeted with what instantly became my favorite login screen ever.“
–> Credits go to two artists from our community: Zwopper for the background (called Mint-Dew) and Cathbard for the logo. We also need to credit the artwork it’s based on, Shiki and Arc-Colors. There are discussions within the team about the logo being hidden. I think it looks fine but Exploder, Zwopper and Cathbard are looking into improving it, either by removing the logo or by moving it elsewhere.
Daniel says: “The wallpaper displays a green cloudy sky seen through a window covered with water drops – a great choice, as it’s non-intrusive and lets you read the white icon text without having to squint. Felicia was more on the black side so it’s nice to see more green from a minty distribution. Of course, the old themes and wallpapers are still available, as not everybody will be pleased with Gloria’s default artwork.“
–> I have to be honest with you, I thought we were taking a risk with this. I personally love the new artwork but I saw it as some kind of “love it / hate it” kind of thing. The decision was to feature it prominently in the RC release and then to go back to the previous one as default for the stable release. I hear a lot of people saying great things about it though and I don’t know what to think. I want to wait until the novelty factor is gone and see what people think before we can make up our minds. Whatever we decide these two themes will be installed by default of course so switching between them will remain extremely easy.
Daniel said: “I frugally mentioned something about the Mint Menu, but I like it so much that I have to write more about it. At first, one will think that it’s the same old expanded GNOME menu, but Linux Mint has some aces up its sleeve.“
–> The features in mintMenu aren’t well known at all by most of our users. I see people people launching Synaptic just to remove an application, I see people searching down the list for what they’re looking for.. looking at items one by one with the empty filter at the bottom, most people never use the favorites…etc. It think we need to take the aces up our sleeves and put them on the table for everybody to see. We started a screencast project which unfortunately didn’t succeed, we’ll need to take the matter into our own hands and dedicate time to make these features known.
Daniel said: “I have no doubts that Gloria will be a glorious release!“
–> Oh no, here we go with the puns. I should have thought about that before calling her like that…
-
Mint 7 Gloria in your language?
» Linux Mint BlogAll Mint tools are localized. “If” given the proper translations, they can virtually run in any language. Otherwise they just default to English.
We have a week or two before the stable release and whether these tools will support your language or show up in English instead depends entirely on you
Link to the translations: [forums.linuxmint.com]
How to translate: [forums.linuxmint.com]
How to test a translation: [forums.linuxmint.com]
When replying and posting a new translation:
- Make sure to indicate which language you’re translating for
- If possible, take the time to test your translations
Many thanks in advance to all the translators. We’re hoping to use an automated tool to coordinate the translations in the future, but if we all get to it this week on the forums, we’ll quickly get to a stable release with full support for most languages.
-
Mint 7 RC1 review: Too Much Green
» Linux Mint BlogIntroduction
So that was fast… the very same day of its release, Mint 7 Gloria RC1 gets reviewed. You’d almost think the ISO was leaked or something (#cough#). The name of the reviewing website is interesting as well: “Too Much Green”. The author is Rich Bosomworth and his review is available here: [toomuchgreen.mebbi.net]
Happy reading everyone.
Comments:
Rich said “It also boasts a full range of ready to roll Wi-Fi drivers to get you connected from the word go.”
–> While this is true, it’s not really worth mentioning anymore. Back in the times when mintWifi was designed, this was a significant innovation compared to Ubuntu. A lot of efforts were made upstream though and whether it’s by Canonical or the kernel team, the difference between Mint and Ubuntu isn’t that big when it comes to hardware support anymore. Ndiswrapper is installed by default and so is ndisgtk, and these are the two most significant differences when it comes to Wifi.
Rich said “[...] it was a shame not to see a Twitter client”
–> What do people think? I was under the impression that most Twitter readers were either using the site or an RSS reader. If you think a Twitter reader is a must on the desktop then please speak up in the comment section. I definitely don’t want to clutter the list of featured apps in mintInstall, but I’m happy to add things if they’re missing. Let me know.
Rich said “Mint also comes with something called ‘Pulse Audio‘. Basically this is a ’sound/audio’ server package with streaming support for Airtunes, however as I haven’t used it myself I can’t really comment in any depth”
–> PulseAudio is probably one of the most under-estimated innovations of these past few years. It’s a complete sound server and I could go on all day about why it’s absolutely fantastic. I’ll definitely try to post about this in the future. If mintCast is interested, it would be interesting for them to address the topic.
Rich said “in fact for home use I honestly don’t think it can be beaten, this new version rocks.”
–> If it’s not beaten by another distribution, it will be by Mint 8. I don’t give it more than 6 months
Many thanks to the reviewer for such a quick response and for his feedback. The comment section is open for your feedback and I’m personally interested to know your thoughts on what’s missing in the list of featured applications.
-
Linux Mint 7 “Gloria” RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1.
Introduction to Linux Mint 7:
The 7th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular the menu system, the application manager and the upload manager now provide new features such as “Suggestions”, “Featured applications”, “SCP and SFTP support”. The underlying base of the operating system was also strengthened with a new adjustment mechanism which makes Linux Mint more robust and less vulnerable to Ubuntu package upgrades, and the introduction of virtual and meta packages which simplify upgrade paths and the installation of multiple desktop environments.
For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7, please read What’s new in Gloria.
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.
Important information and known issues:
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. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
The upgrade path from Linux Mint 6, the User Guide and the translation of the Mint tools will be finalized for the stable release.
The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation. A blog post will follow to explain why and how this was implemented.
If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
The artwork coming with this release will be there in the stable release but won’t be set as default. We’d like to gather as much feedback as possible about this, so please tell us what you think of it.
Feedback and bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 7 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Download Linux Mint 7 RC1:
You can download Linux Mint 7 RC1 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 686MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 652fd4aa2122bd94a8b9aa0aa668f692Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
mintCast - Episode 12
» Linux Mint BlogEnclosure: [download]
Charles Olsen, Rothgar and David Foley published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!
In this episode:
- Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” released
- System76: Ubuntu PC Maker’s Revenue Up 61 Percent
- Linux Foundation Announces Winners of “We’re Linux” Video Contest
- Install Org-mode the easy way
- Website of the week: The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide
- User feedback
Direct links:
-
Back to technical matters
» Linux Mint BlogAs requested, I removed all political contents from this blog. Apologies to the team and the community for the initial wording and for posting it here. I now have a personal blog for this, and as this project has nothing to do with politics, there is no room for it on linuxmint.com.
I fully understand that. I would like to thank all the people, through their emails and comments, who made me realize it. Mistakes are made sometimes and thus feedback, once again, was extremely valuable.
-
Palestine
» Linux Mint BlogAs outlined by a lot of people, this should have been posted elsewhere as it is of personal nature and it didn’t represent a decision made by or applied to the team or the distribution.
The post was consequently moved to: [eclelef.blogspot.com]
Apologies to the development team.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 82
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 7 roadmapLinux Mint podcasts, no 10 , 11 and 12
A positivie review of Felicia KDE CE (in Italian)
Another nice review by ExtremeTech
Twitter for Linux Mint (quick news)
* News about Linux
SimplyMEPIS 8.0.06 is released
Many versions of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty, have been released - check Distrowatch for a list
UbuntuOpenWeek - this newsletter may be published a bit late for that
Winners and runners-up for the “We’re Linux” Video Contest.
Alcatel-Lucent Networking Embraces Linux, NAC
Shuttleworth: Oracle a Litmus test for Linux, Ubuntu
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
* News about IT
Tomboy 0.14.1 Stable Release for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X
How a cybergang operates a network of 1.9 million infected computers
Brutish SSH attacks continue to bear fruit
.NET Framework Rootkits
Evidence suggests first zombie Mac botnet is active
Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project
F-Secure Says Stop Using Acrobat Reader
Apple’s quarterly earnings beat the street
* Hardware news
IBM Technology Alliance Announces Availability of Advanced 28-Nanometer, Low-Power Semiconductor Technology
CSIRO could scoop billions from Wi-Fi patent
Intel GN40 netbooks held back by Windows XP
* Other news
Pink Floyd frontman performs on CD to back British hacker
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
To get this published without further delay I have not put in everything I have - some will have to wait for the next release
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 6 review: ExtremeTech
» Linux Mint Blog -
Linux Mint 7 roadmap
» Linux Mint BlogHi,
I’ll try to be brief as I’m extremely busy working on the upcoming Linux Mint 7 release. I haven’t communicated much in the last few days so here’s a quick post to let you know what’s going on.
- Ubuntu 9.04 is planned to be released today and the very first DEV ISO for Linux Mint 7 Gloria (LinuxMint-7-DEV-001.iso) was successfully built last night.
- The development of the new features coming in Linux Mint 7 is finished.
- We’re now starting to deploy them on the brand new Ubuntu 9.04 base.
- It’s too soon to say how long it will take before an RC release but no risks have been identified so far.
- Some of the new features of Linux Mint 7 are:
- “Suggestions” and hotkey support in mintMenu
- “Featured Applications” in mintInstall
- Service configuration tool, SCP and SFTP support in mintUpload
- mintWelcome, which replaces mintAssistant
- new artwork
- A lot of bugs were also fixed and some of the GUIs were enhanced.
- For a complete list of improvements and bug fixes, please read the roadmap.
- Some planned features had to be postponed:
- OEM installation
- Theming and layout choice in mintDesktop
- Slot-mechanism in mintMenu
- Packages section in mintInstall
- moonGrub
The new artwork is based on Shiki-Wise. It looks fantastic but it also presents a few usability problems. I’m planning on releasing it as the default artwork for the RC release and eventually switch back to the traditional artwork and have this new one as an alternative for the stable release.
Please be patient and if you connect to the Gloria repositories to give the new features a try, please remember that Mint 7 isn’t stable yet. Screenshots and updates will follow as we get closer to the release.
-
mintCast - Episode 11
» Linux Mint BlogEnclosure: [download]
Charles Olsen, Rothgar and David Foley published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!
In this episode:
- The News (Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox release, Linux Mint 6 KDE release, Linux needs critics)
- Rothgar: Presto, Portable Ubuntu, User interview Part 2
- David Foley: How I came to Linux, Overview of Virtualbox
- Linux Format Magazine
- Website of the week: Linux Online
- User feedback
Direct links:
-
mintCast - Episode 10
» Linux Mint BlogCharles Olsen and Rothgar published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!
In this episode:
- The News (Linux Mint 4 Daryna reaches end of life, Red Hat CEO questions relevance of desktop Linux, Spam in Twitter, DRM, user restrictions and content protection in Windows, Windows upgrade gone bad)
- Rothgar: User interview Part 1
- Website of the week: [www.ubuntupocketguide.com]
Direct links:
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 81
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintThe Mint 6 KDE and Fluxbox Community editions were released
The special Google search in Mint will be tweaked - it is a major source of income and a minor source of irritation so we will do something about it
Twitter for Linux Mint (quick news)
* News about Linux
Sabayon Linux 4.1 “GNOME” edition released
Portable Ubuntu - run Ubuntu as a Windows application (no it’s not Wubi)
Intel Looks To Make Large Contribution To GCC
Intel aims for 2-second boot time with Moblin Linux platform
Bug Tracker Helps Mop Up Linux Kernel
Ubuntu 9.04 due April 23, includes native ARM port
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Hungary Hungry for Open Source
* News about IT
Sentence in the Pirate Bay trial - one year jail term. This is certain to be appealed and end up in the supreme court, so it will take years before it’s closed
According to some sources Sweden would have problems with WTO and similar organisations if the sentence was not guilty (link in Swedish)
When the EU IPRED directive became Swedish law internet traffic was halved (link in Swedish but the diagram is “multilingual”
)Facebook passes 200 million users
Spam E-mails Killing the Environment, McAfee Report Says
Canonical blog - Microsoft, FUD and the netbook market
Will Linux overtake Windows on netbooks?
Teenager Michael “Mikeyy” Mooney fears being sued for creating Twitter worm
Verizon Business 2009 Data Breach Study Finds Significant Rise in Targeted Attacks, Organized Crime Involvement
Patent infringement - Microsoft ordered to pay Uniloc $388 million
Amazon.com Disputes Hacker’s Confession
* Hardware news
The ATI Catalyst driver leaves old cards to use legacy drivers (link for Windows, but it is the same for Linux)
Intel chips get new logos, star treatment
Intel Drops A Load Of G45 Programming Documentation
Intel CEO says PC sales ‘bottomed out‘
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” KDE CE released!
» Linux Mint BlogOn behalf of the team I am thrilled to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 KDE. Congratulations to Jamie Boo Birse, maintainer of this edition, for the integration of a fantastic KDE4 desktop and the excellent work he’s done for this release.
This edition is based on Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Linux 2.6.27, Xorg 7.4 and it comes with KDE 4.2 and Amarok 2.0. For a complete list of new features read: Whats new in Felicia KDE CE?
System requirements and known issues:
You need 256MB RAM to run the Live CD or install. To install, you need a minimum of 4GB of free space on your hard disk. Once installed, Linux Mint 6 KDE CE can run with 256MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to have at least 512MB RAM.
Order Linux Mint 6 KDE on CD:
You can order the Linux Mint 6 KDE live DVD for $10 from our partner on-disk.com:
For each CD sold, on-disk.com contributes $5.41 back to our distribution.
Download Linux Mint 6 KDE:
You can download Linux Mint 6 KDE via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 1.1GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum: 8f51c714c8b0a63877a30b9e84bf388fTorrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
- [distroplanet.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
Asia & Oceania:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
- [mirror-fpt-telecom.fpt.net] (Vietnam)
Have fun!
Enjoy this new version of the KDE edition and don’t hesitate to send us your feedback. Congratulations and thanks to the maintainer, Jamie Boo Birse, for the excellent work done on this release.
Have a lot of fun and thanks for using Linux Mint.
-
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” Fluxbox CE released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox Community Edition. Linux Mint Fluxbox Community Edition is based on Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid, Linux 2.6.27, Fluxbox 1.0.0 and Xorg 7.4. Included is an all-new menu system, Mint-FM2, Slim as a display manager, Live CD features that should make it easier to install on low-end machines, a brand new “Software Manager”, FTP support in mintUpload, proxy support and history of updates in mintUpdate, mint4win (a Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows), and much more minty goodness. For a complete list of new features read: What’s new in Felicia Fluxbox CE?
Introduction to the Fluxbox Edition:
The Fluxbox Community Edition is built with the emphasis on a lightweight and yet fully functional desktop centered on the Fluxbox window manager. Even though we strive to provide out-of-the-box readiness for all your hardware and common computing tasks, Linux Mint Fluxbox CE is easily configurable to run on lower-spec hardware with the tools needed for doing so readily available.
For a list of know issues and for upgrade instructions, please visit the Release Notes.
System requirements:
- x86 processor
- 128 MB of system memory (RAM)
- 2 GB of disk space for installation
- VGA graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
- CD-ROM drive
Order Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox on CD:
You can order the Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox live CD for $10 from our partner on-disk.com:
For each CD sold, on-disk.com contributes $5.41 back to our distribution.
Download Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox:
You can download Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 613MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 501afcf7c00a2be3a2492101b336fa26Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.com]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
- [distroplanet.com] (USA)
- [mint.ez.by] (USA)
Asia & Oceania:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
- [mirror-fpt-telecom.fpt.net] (Vietnam)
Have fun!
Enjoy this new version of the Fluxbox edition and don’t hesitate to send us your feedback. Congratulations and thanks to the maintainer, Shane Joe Lazar, for the excellent work done on this release.
Have a lot of fun and thanks for using Linux Mint.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 80
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintBoth Mint 6 Felicia KDE CE and Fluxbox CE have been approved as stable and will soon be released
Both editions promise to be outstanding.
Monthly Stats - March 2009
We hope you enjoyed our April fools prank
Please update to Firefox 3.0.8 to protect from dangerous bug
* News about Linux
Debian adds (officially) a version based on the FreeBSD kernel
Red Hat CEO questions desktop’s relevance in Linux debate - not the first time
Suse Linux Enterprise 11 takes steps to work with Windows also on the desktop - Novell seems to disagree with Red Hat
CentOS 5.3 released
How Fedora got hacked last autumn - someone got hold of a valid key
What Flavor of Linux is Right For You? Mint we hope
KDE gets its own Brainstorm
Numerous developers quit PCLinuxOS
This is interesting - a small distribution called Billix allows network installation of Damn Small Linux, Ubuntu Jaunty/Intrepid/Hardy, Fedora 10, Debian, and Centos.
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Mono 2.4 and MonoDevelop 2.0 released
* News about IT
The downadup/Conficker worm should have done something on April 1st - nothing happened as you may have noticed
Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network
A new method to monetize scareware - Windows only
‘Cybercrime exceeds drug trade’ myth exploded
Researchers unveil persistent BIOS attack methods (scary - code in BIOS without the use of any vulnerability.)
HP OpenView Buffer Overflows - the potential for damage is large
Expert cites “major problem” with security policy compliance
Microsoft and TomTom Settle Patent Infringement Cases
Sun Intros VDI 3, a Sun-Only Virtual Desktop Set
Silicon Graphics goes bust for second time (Hope this is not an April fools prank - published April 1)
Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter
I.B.M. Withdraws $7 Billion Offer for Sun
* Hardware news
MIT Graphene Chip Could Reach 1,000 Gigahertz
A Step Toward Superfast Carbon Memory
Sniffing keystrokes via laser and keyboard power
A computer the size of a large matchbox
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to Cathbard - [cathbard.com]
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
This newsletter is much belated - a cold has stopped me from working / Husse
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Monthly Stats - March 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $100, Bill S. (Canada)
- $100, Jack W. S. (Denmark)
- $100, Richard M. (UK)
- $50 (2nd donation), Herbert L. (UK)
- $50, Andrew B. (USA)
- $50, Jamie G. (UK)
- $50, Larry B. (USA)
- $50, Clive B. (UK)
- $41, Andreas S. (Germany)
- $34, Peter K. (Netherlands)
- $34 (2nd donation), Lothar S. (Germany)
- $30, Robert P. (USA)
- $27, Bernard L. (Norway)
- $25, Gary B. (USA)
- $25, Dean Di P. (USA)
- $25, Tim B. (USA)
- $25, William S. (USA)
- $25, Paul B. (USA)
- $25 (2nd donation), Jim D. (Australia)
- $20, Felipe M. V. (Mexico)
- $20, James T. (USA)
- $20, Yance F. (USA)
- $20 (4th donation), Jaxon L. (USA) - [um-reloaded.blogspot.com]
- $20, Syrinx (Canada)
- $20, Jose D. G. (USA)
- $20, Matthew W. (USA)
- $20, Seth S. (USA)
- $15 (3rd donation), Brian B. (USA)
- $15, Jacob S. (USA)
- $15, Andrew M. (Australia)
- $14, Asgeir K. (Norway)
- $14, Eniko V. (Italy)
- $14, Marion T. (UK)
- $14, Germano S. (Italy)
- $14, Robert B. (UK)
- $10 (2nd donation), Richard Garrison (garrisonr – USA) - [www.richard-garrison.com]
- $10 (3rd donation), Henry W. (USA)
- $10, Steven M. (USA)
- $10, Dan B. (USA)
- $10 (2nd donation), Jindrich Radic (Czech Republic)
- $8, Israel V. (USA)
- $7, All-Access Customer (USA)
- $7, Matthias Z. (Germany)
- $7, Frantisek Z. (Slovakia)
- $7 (2nd donation), Wilken S. (Germany)
- $7, Eoin S. (Ireland)
- $7, Giuseppe P. (Germany)
- $5, Alex K. (USA)
- $5, Sean D. (USA)
- $5, Timothy K. (USA)
Sponsors:
- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $50, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - http://www.linux-onlineshop.de
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $10, Jim Rogers (USA)
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя - USA)
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - [www.andrew.cmu.edu]
- $5, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - http://www.speedtest.gr
- $5, Vassilis Skoullis (Greece)
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal - France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, J. Cain (ronnoc - USA) - [realestatepointe.blogspot.com]
- $5, LA Express
- $5, MPD Digital
- $3.5, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $1, BusinessSale - http://www.webvaluer.org
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $1, Expert Bookings - http://www.expert-bookings.com
- $0.5 Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)
Money raised in March:
* Donations: $1256
* Sponsors: $300http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.phpUser Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 7.99%
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 19.76%
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 72.24%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,277,408 (+18.66%)
- Pageviews: 2,437,531 (+17.62%)
- Page impressions: 1,019,289
- Search queries: 2,630,797
- Forum users: 14266
- Forum posts: 131709
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1482 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 2.5% (3rd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 37,932th
Events:
- Linux Mint 6 KDE CE RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox CE RC1 was released: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 4 Daryna reaching end of life: [www.linuxmint.com]
- mintCast released 3 episodes of their podcast: [mintcast.org]
- Don Cosner, our release manager, also known as Exploder had a baby
Summary:
- We’ve had a really successful month. If we ignore the depreciation of the US dollar our income went up 31%. Both sponsorship and donations were up as well. Of course we’re comparing a 31 days month with a 28 days one, but still, the results are extremely good.
- The activity also grew on the forums and the traffic got bigger on our start pages, indicating a growth of our user base.
- Our Distrowatch rankings went down but their website only covered 2 of our releases this year. In comparison Ubuntu hit their frontpage 6 times with 4 Alphas, 1 Beta and 1 revision release. This is not a complaint and Distrowatch have explained their stand on this, but our apparent lack of activity partly explains the figures. We’ve also lost our novelty factor and if Mint is still quite new in some circles it is well known by now among Distrowatch visitors. The traffic share is at 2.5% which is very good but not accurate since it’s only based on the figures for April, which just started.
- 20% is the share of Elyssa LTS among Linux Mint users. It is quite low. Mint 5 LTS will get updates, the latest tools and innovations, long after Mint 6 and even Mint 7 will be made obsolete. It represents the best alternative for people who don’t want to upgrade every 6 months. In fact people moving away from Linux Mint 4 Daryna, which is about to reach end of life, are typical users who do not follow Linux Mint with each new release and instead of migrating to Linux Mint 6 Felicia which will be replaced by Linux Mint 7 Gloria in a few months they would be better off opting for Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS. We made changes to our download page to put more emphasis on Mint 5 LTS and we’ll make our best to promote it more efficiently. This is a sign of a lack of communication and we’ll address it.
-
Linux Mint 2 released!
» Linux Mint Blog
The team is proud to announce the immediate release of Linux Mint 2!
Linux Mint 2 is a giant step forward. Based and compatible with Windows Vista, with full DirectX support it comes with all the tools you need to start being productive: a text editor, a disk defragmenter, a command prompt, the demo of an antivirus and some 3rd party software to play the first 10 minutes of your favorite DVDs!
For as little as $299 you can get your copy of Linux Mint 2 shipped to your door step. Each copy sold comes with a certificate of “guaranteed sense of security” which protects you against our own software patents Worlwide!
Happy April fools day everyone and thanks to Shade Vortex for the idea and the artwork. -
The Mint Newsletter - issue 79
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint mintCast - Episode 9 Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna reaches end-of-lifeLinux Mint now has a forum at LinuxQuestions.org
New packages are continuously added to the community repositories - merlwiz79 has made a .deb that makes the “software-sources” application work on Mint
* News about Linux
LINUX MASCOT: Tux to make way for Tasmanian Devil
And this is what’s new in the latest kernel 2.6.29
Gnome 2.26 released
The ext4 data loss issue (by one of the devs)
Chromium on Ubuntu ! [HOW TO]
digiKam 0.10.0 release for KDE4
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Richard Stallman: You may be running non-free programs on your computer every day without realizing it—through your web browser.
Khronos Launches Initiative to Create Open Royalty Free Standard for Accelerated 3D on the Web
* News about IT
Microsoft, Lexmark to cross-license patents
TomTom gets allies in Microsoft Linux patent lawsuit fight
The next version of Firefox will be 3.5 not 3.1
Flaw makes Twitter vulnerable to serious viral attack
Facebook could be monitored by the UK government
Facebook defends its security and privacy tools
Songbird Bug Accidentally Wipes Users’ iPods, but the Bug Bites the Dust
Pwn2Own 2009 Day 1 - Safari, Internet Explorer, and Firefox Taken Down by Four Zero-Day Exploits
Safari Cracked in Seconds at Pwn2Own Hacking Competition
Researcher hacks just-launched IE8
First worm directed at home routers - infects devices which has weak username/passwords
The downadup/Conficker worm will do something on April 1st - probably no funny april fools joke
Microsoft and Yahoo talking again
Semantic Search Could Secure Google’s Future
Firewalls often do not filter ipv6 which is a major security hole (link in Swedish - sorry no good link in English)
Romanian police arrest Pentagon hack suspect
Aussie ISP pulls out of firewall trial
Pirate Bay Announces IPREDATOR Global Anonymity Service
* Hardware news
* Other news
This is a bit odd - Credit card skimming malware targeting ATMs
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd - [xkcd.com]
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna reaches end-of-life
» Linux Mint BlogLinux Mint 4.0 Daryna will reach end of life on April 18, 2009. This release was based on Ubuntu 7.10 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. Users of Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna are asked to migrate to Linux Mint 5 LTS Elyssa (Long Term Release which will be supported until April 2011) or Linux Mint 6 Felicia (which will be supported until April 2010).
Announcement from Ubuntu: “As with the earlier releases, Ubuntu committed to ongoing security and critical fixes for a period of 18 months. The support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 7.10 will reach end of life on Saturday, April 18, 2009. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 7.10.”
Note: Linux Mint follows the Ubuntu release cycle with a new release every 6 months, a lifespan of about 1.5 years per release and 3 years per LTS release. LTS stands for Long Term Support. Linux Mint 5 is an LTS release.
-
mintCast - Episode 9
» Linux Mint BlogEnclosure: [download]
Charles Olsen and Rothgar published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!
In this episode:
- Possible data loss in Ext4
- French Police Save Millions Switching To Ubuntu
- Desktop Linux is ready for the mainstream
- Org-mode
- Emacs
- Linux Mint on a HP/Compaq TC1100 Tablet PC
- Website of the Week: Zero Punctuation
Direct links:
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 78
» Linux Mint Blog* News about MintMonthly Stats - February 2009
mintCast - Episode 8
Email problems in Forums now completely solved
Short news about Mint from Twitter/Identica
* News about Linux
The Linux Foundation is taking over Linux.com.
OpenSUSE hard hit by Novell’s layoffs
KDE 4.2.1 released
FFmpeg 0.5 released
Xandros introduces Presto
Codeweavers to incorporate DX 10 (roadmap)
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu
The Open Source replacement for Flash called Gnash has reached 0.8.5
* News about IT
One small mistake (if it even was a mistake) almost brought down the entire internet
What happened and why (why - basically not all routers on the internet are Cisco routers)
New Variant of Koobface Worm Spreading on Facebook (as always Windows only)
IT pro gets four years for building botnets
Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission
Exploit can hit Adobe Acrobat Reader for Windows without even opening the file.
BBC team exposes cyber crime risk
L0phtCrack is back!
CSRF vulnerability in GMail service
Safekeeping Twitter Accounts
Security vendors to block police hacks
Arbor Networks Unveils the World’s Most Comprehensive Internet Monitoring System
* Hardware news
Intel Kept Global Chip Crown in 2008, AMD Fell From Top Ten
IBM Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZTIC) - a USB pen drive for safe banking business
* Other news
Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop
The Bush administration listened to “everything” according to papers just released
* Comic of the week
I’ll report about this trial when the sentence has been passed
Credit goes to xkcd - [xkcd.com]
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
mintCast - Episode 8
» Linux Mint BlogEnclosure: [download]
Charles Olsen and Rothgar published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!
In this episode:
- The News (Linux Mint 6 XFCE, Ballmer: Linux bigger competitor than Apple, World of Goo, Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 May Not Be Easy)
- Main topic: Linux User Groups (LUGs)
- How to join a Linux workstation to an Active Directory domain with Likewise
- How to share a keyboard and a mouse between two computers with Synergy
- Are there too many Linux distributions to choose from?
- Website of the Week: The Linux Distribution Chooser
Direct links:
-
Monthly Stats - February 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships:
Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:
Donors:
- $100 (2nd donation), Bob Donnelly (rdonnelly - USA)
- $65, Bernd van D. (Netherlands)
- $65, Kevin D. (USA)
- $50, Jason S. (USA)
- $50 (3rd donation), Edward B. (USA)
- $50, Phillip B. (New Zealand)
- $40 (2nd donation), Arron J. (UK)
- $35 (4th donation), John Trapp (USA) - [foggytown.com]
- $30 (2nd donation), Kurt Frank (Australia)
- $30 (2nd donation), Gordon Hilliard (ghilly - UK)
- $30, Michal G. (USA)
- $30, William S. (USA)
- $30 (2nd donation), Brian B. (USA)
- $26, Vesa L. (Finland)
- $26 (2nd donation), Wolfgang P. (Austria)
- $26, Andreas B. R. (Norway)
- $25, Bryan S. (USA)
- $25 (2nd donation), Michael C. (USA)
- $20, J. M. (USA)
- $15, Ramos-Sandoval Enterprises, LLC. (USA)
- $13, Laurent C. (France)
- $13, Valentin Z. B. (Ireland)
- $13, Jaakko T. (Finland)
- $13, Geert D. (Belgium)
- $13, Jimmy H. (Sweden)
- $10, Lynn H. (USA)
- $7, Wilken S. (Germany)
- $4, Jan V. (Czech Republic)
- $4, Bruno L. (Portugal)
- $1, Selenius (Germany)
Sponsors:
- $70, Philippe Lotz (alsaphil - France)
- $50, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - http://www.linux-onlineshop.de
- $45, Linux Compatible Poker (USA) - http://www.linuxcompatiblepoker.com
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $10, Jim Rogers (USA)
- $7, Jesse Burroughs (JpBя - USA)
- $5, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - http://www.speedtest.gr
- $5, Vassilis Skoullis (Greece)
- $5, linuxmint-fr.org (ludal - France) - http://www.linuxmint-fr.org
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Guillermo Enrique Guglietti (Canada) - http://www.urbancsa.org
- $5, Alex P.
- $5, J. Cain (ronnoc - USA) - [realestatepointe.blogspot.com]
- $2, Joerg Dreckmann (Germany)
- $1, Lintelligence.de. (d00p - Germany) - http://www.lintelligence.de
- $1, Linuxmint.de (d00p - Germany) - http://www.linuxmint.de
- $1, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $1, BusinessSale - http://www.webvaluer.org
- $1, very-clever.com - http://www.very-clever.com
- $1, Busybits - http://www.busybits.com
- $1, linboo.com - http://www.linboo.com
- $0.5 Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)
Money raised in February:
* Donations: $859
* Sponsors: $286.5[www.linuxmint.com]
[www.linuxmint.com]User Stats:
Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:
- Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 9.38%
- Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 26.6%
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 64%
Web Stats:
- Visits: 1,076,529 (+2.26%)
- Pageviews: 2,072,318 (+0.98%)
- Page impressions: 903,986
- Search queries: 2,152,600
- Forum users: 13435
- Forum posts: 126397
Rankings:
- Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1573 (3rd)
- Distrowatch (traffic share): 3.2% (2nd)
- Alexa (website ranking): 40,230th
Events:
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia x64 release: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Linux Mint 6 Felicia XFCE release: [www.linuxmint.com]
- MintCast released 2 episodes: http://www.mintcast.org
- Forums moved to a new dedicated server in Canada: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Interview published in Linux Magazine Italia: [www.linuxmint.com]
- Micro-blogging feeds set up in Twitter and Identi.ca for minor news updates: [twitter.com] and [identi.ca]
Summary:
- Linux Mint seems to be the second mostly used distribution among Distrowatch visitors. The website’s Awstats figures can’t be used to jump to formal or reliable conclusions but it’s been our best indicator for comparing the size of our user base within the Linux desktop market and being 2nd there is for us a great achievement.
- Although all our indicators are in the green (more traffic, more members, better rankings), our overall income is down 10% this month. We could observe a stagnation earlier in the previous months but it seems the global economical crisis has finally hit us. Our donations and sponsors are down, and it seems our advertising with Google has taken a huge hit. Either Google reduced our margin or more than likely a lot of advertisers went away. The income generated by our website through advertising is only half of what it once was even though our traffic kept going up.
- A large number of users migrated to the latest Linux Mint 6 Felicia but most of them came from the LTS Linux Mint 5 release… with 10% of our users still running Linux Mint 4 Daryna.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 77
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” Fluxbox CE RC1 released! Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” KDE CE RC1 released! I have forgotten to mention an interesting interview with Clem (the founder of Mint) perhaps because it is in this blog a bit down* News about Linux
Carmack: Quake Live on Mac, Linux ‘high on my priority list’
Nouveau Becomes The Default Nvidia Driver In Fedora 11
Red Hat returns to the Linux desktop
VMware, Novell hatch virtual appliance scheme
Dreamlinux 3.5 released
The latest news about the kernel is always found here
* News about Open Source
Microsoft sues TomTom over Linux and other patent claims
Note on Microsoft TomTom Suit: Calm Down, Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst
UK government backs open source* News about IT
Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4?
Popular passwords include ‘1234′ and ‘password’
Experts sound scam threat warning for fake anti-virus websites.
Attacks prompt Microsoft to fix Excel flaw
* Hardware news
* Other news
* Comic of the week
Credit goes to xkcd - [xkcd.com]
* More about Linux Mint
How to donate
* Editors comment
As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment.
Enjoy life
Husse
-
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” KDE CE RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogI think I can speak for the team when I say we’re all really excited about this release. It’s new, it looks fantastic and it’s our first ever KDE4 release. I would like to congratulate Boo for the excellent work he’s done on this edition, and I’m proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 KDE RC1.
This edition is based on Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Linux 2.6.27, Xorg 7.4 and it comes with the latest KDE 4.2 and Amarok 2.0. For a complete list of new features read: Whats new in Felicia KDE CE?
System requirements and known issues:
You need 256MB RAM to run the Live CD or install. To install, you need a minimum of 4GB of free space on your hard disk. Once installed, Linux Mint 6 KDE CE can run with 256MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to have at least 512MB RAM.
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. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
Feedback and bug reports:
The testing will last for 2 weeks. Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 6 KDE RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Download Linux Mint 6 KDE RC1:
You can download Linux Mint 6 KDE RC1 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 1.1GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum: 327238cf350ef684cddcaaf1a7206fefTorrent download: [www.linuxmint.de]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” Fluxbox CE RC1 released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox Community Edition. Linux Mint Fluxbox Community Edition is based on Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid, Linux 2.6.27, Fluxbox 1.0.0 and Xorg 7.4. Included is an all-new menu system, Mint-FM2, Slim as a display manager, Live CD features that should make it easier to install on low-end machines, a brand new “Software Manager”, FTP support in mintUpload, proxy support and history of updates in mintUpdate, mint4win (a Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows), and much more minty goodness. For a complete list of new features read: What’s new in Felicia Fluxbox CE?
System requirements and known issues:
- x86 processor
- 128 MB of system memory (RAM)
- 2 GB of disk space for installation
- VGA graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
- CD-ROM drive
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. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.
Feedback and bug reports:
The testing will last for 2 weeks. Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.
Download Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox RC1:
You can download Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox RC1 via torrent or via [HTTP:]
Size: 623MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: ba7bda91a26b72bbbe621cece56bf485Torrent download: [www.linuxmint.de]
HTTP download: [www.linuxmint.com]Europe:
- [cesium.di.uminho.pt] (Portugal)
- [mirrors.cytanet.com.cy] (Cyprus)
- [mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net] (UK)
- [ftp.heanet.ie] (Ireland)
- [ftp.klid.dk] (Denmark)
- [ftp.cc.uoc.gr] (Greece)
Northern America:
- [mirror.amarillolinux.com] (USA)
- [linuxmint.secsup.org] (USA)
- [ftp:] (USA)
- [linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org] (USA)
Rest of the World:
- [mirror.aarnet.edu.au] (Australia)
Enjoy!
Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.
-
The Mint Newsletter - issue 76
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” XFCE CE released! The forum has moved to Canada - works much better now and we finally managed to fix the problem with no activation mails * News about Linux Gtk+ 3.0 Theming API Hackfest - introduced QGtkStyle makes Qt look like Gtk+ Linux Version of Chrome To Use Gtk+ HP and Canonical [...] -
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” XFCE CE released!
» Linux Mint BlogThe team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 XFCE Community Edition. Based on Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Linux 2.6.27, XFCE 4.4.2 and Xorg 7.4, Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” XFCE CE comes with a brand new “Software Manager”, FTP support in mintUpload, proxy support and history of updates in mintUpdate, mintDisk and [...] -
News update
» Linux Mint BlogExploder gave the go ahead for LinuxMint-6-XFCE-DEV-042.iso to be released. I’ll be running a few final tests on it this week-end and we should see a stable release next week. Boo uploaded LinuxMint-6-KDE-DEV-112.iso to the team. As you can see by the build number, there’s been quite a lot of work done on this edition. Exploder [...] -
Interview - Linux Magazine Italia
» Linux Mint BlogHere is an interview by Vincenzo Ciaglia of Linux-Magazine Italia. The Italian version of this article is on issue number 97 of the magazine: [www.linux-magazine.it] The English version was posted below. Happy reading everyone! Interview in English: [Vincenzo Caglia]: - Hi Clement, thank you for your availability. We want to introduce you to our readers. Can you tell [...] -
Forums are down
» Linux Mint BlogThe forums are currently down as we’re trying to solve some email problems with the server. I would like to apologize for the inconvenience. -
mintCast - Episode 7
» Linux Mint BlogEnclosure: [download]
Charles Olsen and the mintCast team published another episode of their podcast. Happy listening everyone! In this episode: The News (Linux Mint 6 x64 Edition, KDE 4.2.0, Wine 1.1.15, Microsoft updates forcing an extension into Firefox, Debian 5.0, Linux Genuine Advantage) Main Story: Linux in your pocket (USB stick, Unetbootin) Review: Sony PRS505 digital book reader Tip: KVM switches and [...] -
The Mint Newsletter - issue 75
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint The forum has moved to Canada - works much better now. For the time being activation and notification mail are not sent, unknown why The XFCE Community Edition (CE) is almost ready for its final release The KDE and Fluxbox CEs are almost ready for their first RC to be released * News about Linux Finally Lenny [...] -
Mint forums travel to Canada
» Linux Mint BlogThanks to SevenL Networks Inc, our forums are now hosted in Canada, on a brand new dedicated server. This will ease the load on both the forums and the main website which until now were hosted together in Germany and were using the same database. If you experience login problems make sure to clear your browser [...] -
The Mint Newsletter - issue 74
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint Linux Mint 6 x64 released! mintCast - Episode6 Monthly Stats - January 2009 * News about Linux KDE 4.2.0 Release Announcement Nomad & Compiz++ To Merge Back Into Compiz Dell Offers Enterprise Linux Operating System from Novell to Address Growing Market for Thin Clients There’s a problem with Google Earth 5 a solution can be found here * News about [...] -
Linux Mint 6 x64 released!
» Linux Mint BlogOn behalf of the team I am proud to announce that Linux Mint 6 Felicia is now available in 64 bit! I would like to thank all the people who helped us test the Release Candidate and who gave us some feedback. This release comes with all the innovations featured in Linux Mint 6 Felicia and [...] -
mintCast - Episode 6
» Linux Mint BlogCharles Olsen and the mintCast team published another episode of their podcast. Happy listening everyone! In Episode 6: The News (64bit plugins in x64 edition, screencast and community repository projects, DRM in Gears of War and in Microsoft’s music store) Main Story: Asus eeePC netbook Rothgar’s segment: Linux Mint on a Sony Vaio VGN-TT190 Tip: Printing graphics to PDF Website of the Week: -
Monthly Stats - January 2009
» Linux Mint BlogDonations & Sponsorships: Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint: Donors: $139, AvanceIT (UK) - [avanceit.co.uk] $100, Upinderjit S. (USA) $100, Geoffrey U. (USA) $66, Andre B. (Germany) $66 (4th donation), Theodore T. (UK) $66, Peter K. (Switzerland) $60, Richard G. (USA) $50, Steven W. (USA) $50 (2nd donation), Harvey Elliott (UK) $50, Stephen C. (USA) $25, Sohier C. (Canada) $25, Kevin S. [...] -
The Mint Newsletter - issue 73
» Linux Mint Blog* News about Mint x64 Edition - News Update Very few bugs were found in Linux Mint 6 x64 RC1 and RC1 users will not have to download the stable release Join the team - 2 new projects coming up The Linux Mint Screencast Project The Linux Mint Community Repository Project mintCast - Episode 5 * News about Linux Linux and the [...]
