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Items by Clem

November 10, 2008
22:23
Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” RC1 released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 RC1. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support. Introduction to Linux Mint 6 and [...]
October 21, 2008
23:10
Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition. This edition, maintained by Shane Joe Lazar, brings you the best and most essential tools from the Main and XFCE editions on top of an extremely thin desktop and the lightweight Fluxbox window manager. For a complete list of features please [...]
October 18, 2008
18:35
Linux Mint 5 x64 Edition released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

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

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

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

Linux Mint 3.0 Cassandra and Linux Mint 3.1 Celena will reach end of life on October 19th. Both releases were based on Ubuntu 7.04 which is planned to reach end-of-life at the same date. Repositories will remain open for another while but no more updates or security fixes will be made available for these two releases. Users [...]
October 07, 2008
22:56
MintUpload 2, featuring FTP support
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Introduction

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

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

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

Installation

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

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

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

Here’s an example of an FTP upload service:

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

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

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

Translations

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

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

Bug reports and feedback

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

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

Spread the word

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

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

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

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

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

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

Installation

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

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

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

[www.linuxmint.com]

Bug reports and feedback

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

Spread the word

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

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

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

[packages.linuxmint.com]

apt content package

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

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

apt contains filename

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

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

search for keyword in directory

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

clem@mars ~/Desktop $ search help

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

Donors:

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

Money raised in September:

* Donations: $1357.1
* Sponsors: $442.5

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

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

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

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

Note to readers: We’re trying to raise people’s awareness about the Mint project and we’ve added a Digg plugin to this blog. If you find this blog post interesting, please help us spread the word by submitting it as a Digg story or by digging it if it’s already submitted.
September 27, 2008
17:06
Elyssa x64 RC1 released
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Linux Mint is proud to announce its very first 64 bits release: Elyssa x64 RC1.

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

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

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

Introduction to the x64 edition:

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

System requirements:

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

Download x64 RC1:

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

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

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

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

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

Digg the review: [digg.com]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion:

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

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

Happy reading everyone.
Spread the word: More »
September 15, 2008
18:41
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa KDE Community Edition
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

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

[www.linuxmint.com]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forum announcement: [linuxmint.com]
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September 08, 2008
10:17
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa XFCE Community Edition
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

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

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

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

Donors:

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

Money raised in August:

* Donations: $1296.5
* Sponsors: $331.5

[www.linuxmint.com]
[www.linuxmint.com]
Spread the word: More »
September 06, 2008
20:00
Coming up…
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Mint 5 editions:
- XFCE CE (stable) will be released early next week.
- Fluxbox CE (RC) will be released before next week-end.
- KDE CE RC1 was close to being stable, both Boo and Exploder are happy to call it stable. There’s a tiny little glitch with xdg-user-dirs which I want to fix so technically the final ISO will be different but if you’re running KDE CE RC1 you don’t need to wait for the final release, you’re already running a stable system.
- Work on the x64 edition is on hold for a few days.
- There won’t be any time dedicated to the Debian Edition before Mint 6 is out.
- There won’t be any time dedicated to an eventual Enterprise Edition before Mint 6 is out.
- Main and Light (which will become “Universal” and come with language packs) will have a new revision to include the new Firefox, Flash 10 (when it’s stable), and the latest version of the mint tools (mintUpdate 3, mintInstall 5..etc). This “revision 2″ might come after Mint 6 itself, it’s hard to say at this stage.
Mint 6 tools:
- MintUpdate 3 is ready.
- MintInstall 5 is ready.
- OEM support is planned for mintAssistant but work hasn’t started on that yet.
- An upgrade tool is planned and work on this should start very soon now.
- There are no significant improvements planned for the other tools.
- Improvements made for the tools in Mint 6 will make their way into the backport section of the Mint 5 repository.
Other than that:

… well we’ve got plenty of ideas, we’ll see how much we’ll do depending on how much time we’ve got
- [www.linuxmint.com]
Spread the word: More »
September 05, 2008
19:52
Elyssa User Guide available in Greek and in Catalan
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The User Guide for Linux Mint 5 Elyssa was translated in Greek (by Marlene, Grimm, Twin and Ippokratis) and in Catalan (by wuying_ren). Links to both versions were added to the Elyssa Firefox start page.

You can also access the user guide from here: [ftp:]

Edit: Thanks to sdemchenko, it’s now also available in Russian.

Edit: Thanks to [linuxmint-italia.org] , it’s now also available in Italian.
Spread the word: More »
September 03, 2008
17:28
Interview by Help for Linux
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

I recently gave an interview to Pritesh Desai from “Help for Linux”:

[helpforlinux.blogspot.com]

I found some of his questions quite interesting as he went beyond the scope of Linux Mint and talked about other distributions, legal aspects surrounding the codecs and the advantages of Open Source for users and developers.

Happy reading everyone.
September 01, 2008
20:02
mintInstall 5.2
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
I know what you’re thinking.. third announcement about mintInstall in less than a week. Well, things go fast at the moment we’re getting good feedback and I’d like to finalize mintInstall so I can start working on something else (namely x64 and an upgrade tool).

Hopefully, this is the last mintInstall update until Linux Mint 6. Here are the improvements since mintInstall 5.1:
- Under KDE, kdesu is used instead of gksu
- The gksu/kdesu dialog now shows a simple “Please enter your password” message instead of a long and obscure command line (the message is localized of course).
- Known categories (including all categories from the Software Portal) are now localized.
If you missed the previous announcements about mintInstall 5 you can read about them here:
- [www.linuxmint.com]
- [www.linuxmint.com]
MintInstall 5.2 is available in Romeo. If you don’t have Romeo enabled you can get the debs from here:
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
Let us know what you think, report any bug you may find and have a lot of fun with this brand new mintInstall.

To translate mintInstall into your own language, use this forum thread: [www.linuxmint.com]
August 31, 2008
20:01
mintInstall 5.1
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
5 little improvements were added to mintInstall 5:
- A progress bar now appears when mintInstall is refreshing/loading
- A new button called “Versions” lets you see the packages and repositories defined by the mint file, and for each package the available and installed versions.
- The error message shown at startup was replaced with an information message asking you to refresh the application.
- All tables now show rows with alternate colours
- Email addresses are hidden within reviews (joeuser@hotmail.com shows as j…r@hotmail.com)
If you missed the announcement about mintInstall 5, read here:

[www.linuxmint.com]

MintInstall 5.1 is available in Romeo. If you don’t have Romeo enabled you can get the debs from here:
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
Let us know what you think, report any bug you may find and have a lot of fun with this brand new mintInstall.

To translate mintInstall 5.1 into your own language, use this forum thread: [www.linuxmint.com]
August 29, 2008
14:44
IRC Quizz AllStars Table - August 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The IRC Quizz wasn’t popular at all this month. Only one player.. and winner:

1 mocap — 0.225 pts, 2 games. * Congrats! *

There were 1 users playing 2 games.

If you haven’t joined the Quizz yet, it’s very easy:

- In Linux Mint: open up Xchat-Gnome (or Konversation) then when it’s connected join the #pimpmymint channel.
- On other platforms: Launch your favorite IRC client, connect to the irc.spotchat.org server and join the #pimpmymint channel.

Note: Make sure to register your nickname with Nickserv so that the Quizz bot can remember you the next time you log in.
August 27, 2008
11:44
Server hacked (again)
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

We’ve been hit again by this: [www.linuxmint.com]

The good news this time is that we’ll be faster to get rid of it (we’ve got really up to date backups), the bad news is that we’re still obviously vulnerable despite the measures we took the last time. I’ll ask Michael (our sysadmin) to look into this and to find out how this could have happened.

I’ll keep you posted.. I just found out about it a few minutes ago.

Update #1: A backdoor virus was found so it’s possible we got re-infected from the inside. I’m currently re-applying updates to clean the website first.

Update #2: The Wiki, forums, blog, software portal and main website are now clean.

Update #3: I’ll be upgrading the forums to the latest version of phpBb today so they might be offline or disabled for a while.

Update #4: The forums were upgraded to the latest version of phpBB. We’re missing the global announcements and there’s a little problem with the theme but overall they’re back online and they should be working fine.

Update #5: The blog was upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress.

Update #6: The wiki was upgraded to the latest version of MediaWiki. We also know more about the problem now.. the first attack left a virus called PHP.RSTBackdoor.

Update #7: The planet was upgraded to the latest version of Gregarius.

Update #8: All the cleanup is done. All our tools were upgraded to their latest versions and we made new backups. Michael identified malware uploaded via mintUpload. We’re discussing the possibility to restrict, secure or even discontinue the free part of this service.
1:09
mintInstall 5
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
One of the new features planned for the upcoming Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” is the ability to browse the Software Portal ([www.linuxmint.com]) and to install applications directly from the desktop. This feature is now ready and we’d like you to give us a hand in testing it.

We extended the scope of mintInstall and we developed a new frontend which downloads all the relevant data from the Software Portal so you can browse applications and install them without having to use the portal at all. We also defined how the portal and the frontend communicate with each others and formalized the data structure in XML. The frontend itself supports multiple portals (we’ll be talking to tuxsoftware.com for instance, hopefully getdeb.net too, and we’ll eventually publish documentation about this) so although you can only use it to browse the Linux Mint Software Portal right now, it’s only a matter of time before others portals become available.

Here’s a screenshot:

MintInstall 5 is available in Romeo. If you don’t have Romeo enabled you can get the debs from here:
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
- [packages.linuxmint.com]
Let us know what you think, report any bug you may find and have a lot of fun with this brand new mintInstall.

To translate mintInstall 5 into your own language, use this forum thread: [www.linuxmint.com]

Note: There was a lot I wanted to say about this but I’ll save it for the release notes. KDE CE is coming out soon, I need to work on x64 and there are still major developments I want to get done before Mint 6 (an upgrade tool for instance). To keep it short, MintInstall 5 is one of the new features planned for Mint 6 but it will also become available as an upgrade for Mint 5. It will stay in Romeo until we’re happy to consider it stable.. so we’re waiting on your feedback

Changelog:
- 5.0: Initial release
August 18, 2008
18:58
Will the x64 Edition be for you?
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

The PC market is in an interesting situation at the moment. Almost all the computers that are sold today come with 64 bit processors, which obviously support the AMD64 architecture but also i386. Owners of these computers are faced with a choice: running a 64bit operating system (AMD64) or a 32bit one (i386). The reality is that most of the software available at present is available for i386 and not always for AMD64. The older architecture is also more stable and is still seen as a reference by editors and developers. Last but not least, very few applications actually take advantage of the improvements of the new architecture so running an AMD64 operating system may actually not be faster than running an i386 one, and in some cases it could even be slower…

… so here is a new architecture which is ready, which a lot of people have the hardware for, but still… the software world doesn’t seem to be ready for it. I386 is still the predominant reference in the market and people will need a strong reason to change. That strong reason is the amount of RAM i386 can support: 4GB RAM. A budget computer (low to middle-range) now comes with 2GB of RAM and the upper market has already reached 4GB. No matter the performances, many users won’t run an operating system which doesn’t recognize all their memory. So we need to get ready and the same way we’ll have to support i386 after AMD64 becomes the reference architecture, we have to support AMD64 now even though it’s not fully on par with i386 yet.

I started working on the x64 Edition and I’m planning to make it as similar as the Main Edition as possible. Eventually I’d like to replicate all changes made to Main to x64 so that I can maintain both editions and release them at the same time. I’ve asked Chris (known as “lakehousetech” on the forums) to perform a benchmark and he compared the performance of Elyssa R1, Hardy i386 and Hardy AMD64. His results are available here:

[upload.linuxmint.com]

As you can see, none of the three systems clearly outperformed the two others. So based on this benchmark performance wouldn’t be a reason for you to switch to the upcoming x64 Edition, not yet anyway. A real objective reason to make the switch would be if you already had more than 4GB RAM. Other than that we’d recommend you stick to what we do best and what receives most of our attention: The Main Edition.

This is also the reason why we’re considering this an edition rather than declining Main into two architectures. Every 6 months and with each release we’ll of course reconsider our position and re-assess the readiness of this architecture until it comes to par with i386 and we give it the same exposure as our main product.

x64 will start as a separate edition, one for enthusiasts and high spec computers. We’ll put all our efforts into it as it will eventually become our main product but for now we still consider it an alternative edition.

Comments and questions are welcome (I’m sure we’ll get a lot on this topic :)).

Note: It’s hard to say when this edition will be ready. The goal for Mint 5 was to start this edition and have an x64 version of Elyssa. We’re still aiming for this and this is receiving as much attention as ongoing development for Mint 6 (new mintUpdate, Application Manager (new mintInstall frontend), OEM support, Upgrade Manager). Once this edition is in place we’ll want to work on both architectures at the same time so there won’t be any delay between their respective releases.
August 15, 2008
13:09
Server hacked
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Our server was hacked and code was injected into it to make connections on our behalf to pinoc.org and download a trojan called JS/Tenia.d

For more information about this trojan: [us.mcafee.com]

If you visited linuxmint.com in the last two days we recommend you scan your computer to make sure this trojan isn’t present. As this attack exploited vulnerabilities within our PHP code we took the opportunity to clean it all and secure every single page against injections in the future. Linuxmint.com is now clean and secure but we experienced almost 20 hours of downtime and we lost almost 2 days of work into fixing this.

I personally received a lot of emails from the community, warning us about the problem. I haven’t had time to reply but I would like to thank the people who came forward. If you observe a problem in the future please do not hesitate to report it.

I’d also like to thank Michael (d00p) and Mats (husse) for the help they gave me on this. Husse, as always, catches my attention on what matters and if it wasn’t for d00p, our domain would still be down right now. I also apologize for the downtime and for the inconvenience. Comments and questions are welcome.
August 10, 2008
13:46
Distrowatch donates $400 to Linux Mint
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint just received a donation of $400. This is the single biggest donation the project received since it was started in 2006. The donation came from Distrowatch in association with LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com.

Distrowatch is known to donate a part of its income to upstream projects and distributions on a monthly basis. This single donation of $400 makes it the second biggest Linux Mint donor. By the past Distrowatch donated a total of $18,183 to the following projects:

* 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
* 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
* 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
* 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
* 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA (Linux webcam support) ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500)

As you can see Distrowatch isn’t only one of the most popular websites about Linux, it’s also one of the biggest financial supporter of small distributions and upstream projects. On behalf of the Linux Mint distribution I would like to thank Distrowatch, and in particular Ladislav Bodnar, for this donation and for all they’ve done for our project. Linux Mint is a successful distribution but it wouldn’t have been as popular if it wasn’t for websites like Distrowatch which allowed users to know about it in the first place. Today, we’re receiving the biggest donation since we started Mint. I feel really grateful. Thank you Distrowatch, Ladislav, and also thanks to LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com for being part of this.

Many thanks for supporting us,

Clem.
August 08, 2008
2:21
mintUpdate 3 released!
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog
Introduction

We made a very controversial decision when we released Linux Mint 3.1 Celena. We decided to remove the Ubuntu update manager and a lot of people criticized us for doing that. As it turns out it was one of the best decisions we ever made (arguably and according to us.. of course). MintUpdate came right in time for the release of Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna and since then it regularly got updated to become one of the best update managers.

Today we’re going to rise the bar even higher with the release of mintUpdate 3 and we’ll be introducing yet another innovative idea: The ability to view the history of applied updates. The reason why mintUpdate was developed in the first place was to avoid uneducated updates but even with our 5 levels of filtering most users still blindly apply level 3 updates. With this new feature, after their system is damaged not only will they still be able to cry, but they’ll be able to tell us what updates they applied.. so we can in turn get a better idea of which level 3 packages should get a level 4 or 5.

New GUI

The graphical user interface was changed to look less minty (I know.. some people won’t approve and get emotional here) and more like other Linux tools. This is also to encourage other distributions to adopt what we think is now the best update manager on the market.

New features

All updates applied via mintUpdate are noted. The tool remembers the package name, the old and new versions, the level and the date of the update. From the view menu, you can now see the history of applied updates. The idea is to clear that list after you made sure everything was fine. This way, in case problems occur after you’ve applied updates you can narrow down the cause of the problems by identifying which update caused the regression.

MintUpdate runs in both user and root mode. Under Gnome, the proxy settings don’t always apply to root sessions so we introduced Proxy support. This will also make it easier for KDE users.

Improvements
- Log files are now saved in /tmp so they don’t take unnecessary space in /usr/lib and in /home anymore.
- The Internet detection was improved and the domain used for the ping is now configurable.
- The routine which checks for the updates (called checkAPT) was improved as were its ties with mintUpdate itself.
- The status reporting was improved. Logs are now clearer and show more information. In the GUI, status is now also reported via a status bar.
- The configuration moved from /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/config to /etc/linuxmint/mintUpdate.conf and is now persistent (it won’t be affected by package updates).
Package and notes

Version numbers: We’re changing the way we assign version numbers to our tools in order to make it easier for them to be translated. The major revision number will change everytime the GUI is affected and a new set of translations is needed. All other changes will make the minor revision to be incremented.

MintUpdate 3 is availabe in the Romeo repository: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com elyssa romeo

The current version is v3.1 and is available here: [packages.linuxmint.com]

Non-Mint users will also need: [packages.linuxmint.com] or [packages.linuxmint.com]

Translations

mintUpdate 3 is currently supporting English and French. Please help us translate it by following the instructions written on this forum thread: http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=15695&p=95945

Feedback and bugs

Please post comments here on the blog if you find bugs in mintUpdate 3. Give us feedback also if you like it and if everything’s fine so we can eventually consider it stable and move it down to stable repositories.

Changelog
- 3.0: Initial release
- 3.1: Fixes a typo in the translation file.
- 3.2:
  - Creates /etc/linuxmint if it’s not present (handy for non-Elyssa systems)
  - If ping fails, tries to read google.com. This improves Internet detection on systems where ping is sometimes too slow.
  - New translations: Italian, Catalan, Swedish, Czech, Japanese, Slovak, Norwegian-Bokmal, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugual & Brazil variations).
August 05, 2008
19:20
Elyssa KDE Community Edition RC1 (BETA 045) released
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint 5 Elyssa KDE CE RC1 (BETA 045) was released today.

Links: Release Notes

Please report bugs here in the forums: [www.linuxmint.com]

Have fun and don’t hesitate to send us comments and feedback.
August 04, 2008
21:58
Donations & Sponsorship - July 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

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

Sponsors:

- $70, Philippe Lotz, MBA, International Consulting & Coaching (alsaphil - France)
- $52, Linuxmint-Shop.de (Germany) - http://www.linuxmint-shop.de
- $45, Linux-Onlineshop (Germany) - http://www.linux-onlineshop.de
- $40, Az Van (newW2 - USA)
- $36, LinuxISOS.de (Germany) - http://www.linuxisos.de
- $20, TOPIMMOBILIEN (Tim - Germany) - http://www.immobilien-es.com
- $20, Espen H.
- $12, Sito3p.com (Italy) - http://sito3p.com/g_Go?Src=LinuxMint
- $10, Tuxdevil Outsourcing LLC http://www.tuxdevil.net
- $10, MXD Internet Solutions (Filip Oscadal - Czech Republic) - http://www.mxd.biz
- $10, Dimitris Athanasiou (RHO, Greece) - http://www.speedtest.gr
- $7, Panagiotis Papasaikas (Greece) - http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ppapasai/
- $5, Vassilis Skoullis (Greece)
- $5, linuxmint-italia.org (Pietro Martino / prior123 - Italy) - http://www.linuxmint-italia.org
- $5, Robert Holland
- $5, Kevin Gabbert
- $2, LinuxMint-Forum.de (Germany) - http://linuxmint-forum.de/
- $2, Khurt Williams (USA) - http://islandinthenet.com/
- $1, Lintelligence.de. (d00p - Germany) - http://www.lintelligence.de
- $1, Linuxmint.de (d00p - Germany) - http://www.linuxmint.de
- $1, Ian Egland (Echolynx - USA)
- $0.5 Martijn van Loon (aapiethaaap - Netherlands)

Donors:

- $100 Michael Muller (USA)
- $100 S B Furniture Ltd (UK)
- $80 Antonio Marcos L.A. (Spain)
- $60 (in 2 donations), Andreas L. (Norway)
- $50 Alan D S. (USA)
- $50 (2nd donation) Edward B. (USA)
- $44 Heiko H. (Germany)
- $24 Paul D. (Netherlands)
- $20 Barry P. (UK)
- $10 Jan T. (Germany)
- $10 James R. (USA)
- $2 Luis M. (Portugal)

Money raised in July:

* Donations: $550
* Sponsors: $359.5

http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php
August 01, 2008
11:28
News about Mint Editions
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

KDE CE

Boo is experiencing problems with the installer. Language packs are correctly downloaded but not correctly installed by Ubiquity. This results in the selected language not being used by KDE and it’s delaying the release of KDE CE RC1. At this stage we believe the problem comes from a conflict in the Ubuntu repositories.

XFCE CE

Merlwiz finished his work on this edition. The ISO should be uploaded to our servers very soon now and it will then be tested by Exploder to see if it can be released.

x64

I started working on the x64 Edition. Since I’m starting from scratch on this edition there’s a lot of work involved but the progress is good so far and things are going fine. It’s too soon to know how long it will take for this edition to be ready yet.

Fluxbox CE

Shane submitted BETA 042 to Exploder, who only reported 4 bugs.. none of which were major issues. The next ISO from Shane is likely to pass Exploder’s tests and we’ll then be looking at a public release.

Other developments

mintInstall 4.0 has been in Romeo for a while now. Please provide feedback about it so we can move it to Elyssa.

mintUpdate 2.8 is going to bring a lot of changes and improvements to our update manager. It should be released in Romeo in the days to come. Please translate it (in the forums) as much as you can.

Flash 10 beta 2 is in Romeo. Please provide as much feedback as possible so it can make its way towards Elyssa.
July 28, 2008
9:44
IRC Quizz AllStars Table - July 2008
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

After a whole month of tough competition here’s what the All Stars table looks like for July 2008:

1             dafdaf — 2.497 pts, 16 games. * Congrats! *
2               mitd — 0.175 pts, 2 games.
3             vacant — 0.096 pts, 1 games.
4               alex — 0.093 pts, 1 games.
5          MeansWell — 0.079 pts, 1 games.
There were 5 users playing 21 games.

Congratulations to Dafdaf!

If you haven’t joined the Quizz yet, it’s very easy:

- In Linux Mint: open up Xchat-Gnome (or Konversation) then when it’s connected join the #pimpmymint channel.
- On other platforms: Launch your favorite IRC client, connect to the irc.spotchat.org server and join the #pimpmymint channel.

Note: Make sure to register your nickname with Nickserv so that the Quizz bot can remember you the next time you log in.
July 25, 2008
1:17
KDE CE RC1 Delayed
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Exploder found a problem in BETA 044 which was supposed to be released this week. It’s related to language support so we decided to postpone the release of RC1 until we get this fixed.
July 21, 2008
13:22
Upcoming releases
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

I’m planning the following three releases:

Friday 25 /07–> KDE CE RC1
Friday 01/08 –> XFCE CE Stable
Friday 08/08 –> KDE CE Stable

I’ll also be rolling out an R2 on Main and its new Universal Edition. Once all of this is out I’ll be experimenting with the x64 edition.

Shane is also working on the Fluxbox CE but I’m not sure how it will fit into all this at this stage, in terms of delays and schedule.

Note: The Universal edition will replace the Light Edition. It will come without codecs but with a .mint file to install them on the desktop, it will contain language packs for all major languages, a vanilla Grub (non-graphical) and it will come as a DVD.

Note: We’ll release “when ready”, as usual. Dates don’t mean much to us and that’s why we usually don’t communicate them. I’m only giving these dates to give people an idea but if something needs fixing then we’ll be releasing later that that of course.
July 17, 2008
16:34
Elyssa XFCE Community Edition RC1 (BETA 025) released
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

Linux Mint 5 Elyssa XFCE CE RC1 (BETA 025) was released today.

Links: Release Notes

Please report bugs here in the forums: [linuxmint.com]

Have fun and don’t hesitate to send us comments and feedback. The Stable release should come in two weeks.
July 16, 2008
14:58
Linux Mint 5 Article: The Perfect Desktop
» ‎ Linux Mint Blog

You’ve probably read an article from Falko Timme before. He’s famous for his “The Perfect Desktop” series. Falko recently looked at Linux Mint 5 Elyssa and detailed how to make a “fully-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop”. The article doesn’t try to review Elyssa but is more like a tutorial for novice users to quickly get a fully ready desktop up and running.

Link to the article: [www.howtoforge.com]

Comments:

Falko said: “Linux Mint 5 is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 8.04 that has lots of packages in its repositories (like multimedia codecs, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth, etc.) that are relatively hard to install on other distributions; it therefore provides a user-friendly desktop experience even for Linux newbies.”

–> Yes. This is one of the strength of our distribution. Thanks to Debian and Ubuntu we’re already sitting on one the biggest collections of packages. On top of this we’re actively trying to “import” extra packages and to maintain them in their latest version. For instance we’ve added Frostwire, ArgoUML, some GTK engines, Open Arena, Opera, Picasa, Real Player, Songbird, sunbird, Western Quake 3, Wine-Doors and we’re thinking of adding Urban Terror and Sopcast too. The more we grow as a distribution the more active we’ll become in maintaining our own packages.

Falko said: “When you log in for the first time, you will most likely see an open lock icon in the lower right corner which means that updates for the installed software are available.”

–> I really like the fact that Falko recommended the use of mintUpdate rather than APT or Synaptic to upgrade the system because by using APT or Synaptic the user would also apply all level 4 and 5 updates, which is considered a risk for the stability of the system. Having said that, I would also recommend to apply level 3 updates selectively. Starting with mintUpdate 2.8 level 3 will be considered unsafe by default.

Falko explained how to install various packages via Synaptic.

–> I don’t think Synaptic is appropriate for this kind of thing. I thought Falko should have given a command line to run here, it would have been much quicker. Anyway, this is an opportunity for me to talk about something I never mentioned before: Software packs. We can easily publish a .mint file in the software portal which will install a set of applications. This way, we can define packs. One particular pack which immediately comes to my mind is one that would install all the codecs and transform a Light Edition into a Main Edition. The .mint file could even be stored on the CD or on the desktop.. it doesn’t have to be only in the portal. We’ll have to think of other uses of this but if the idea of software packs becomes popular this is something we can easily implement. Who knows, the “Perfect desktop for Mint 6″ could be as simple as “install this mint file: click here”, technically we’re not far from it.

Conclusion:

I didn’t have much to say about this article. It’s quite well written and I’m sure it will help many people in getting their desktop closer to what they want. The instructions about VMWare in particular are quite handy. Happy reading everyone.
July 14, 2008

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