FAQ
From Linux Mint
Contents |
General
Is Linux Mint suitable for home users?
Yes, definitely. We believe Linux is the best operating system on the market. There are more than 300 active Linux distributions and we're working hard at becoming the best alternative for your desktop. This is a tough competition as there are other great desktop operating systems and distributions out there. We have faith in the quality of our desktop and a lot of great ideas. If your computer is a PC and you have more than 512MB RAM you should try Linux Mint and see what you think about it. We like hearing about your experience and taking your suggestions on-board so please give us your feedback.
Is Linux Mint suitable for companies?
Yes, Linux Mint supports two tracks: A standard track with new releases every 6 months and an LTS (Long Term Support) track with releases every 2 years. Releases are supported and maintained as follows:
- Standard releases receive bug fixes and security updates for a period of 1.5 years
- LTS releases receive bug fixes and security updates for a period of 3 years
- In addition, the latest standard release and the latest LTS release both receive backports, improvements and new features.
Licensing, patents, codecs
Why is there a Universal Edition and a Main Edition?
Linux Mint respects the GPL and it also respects the copyrights and licenses of the proprietary software it distributes. However it uses technologies that have been patented in some parts of the World. Most countries do not recognize the legitimacy of software patents so for most of our users this is not a problem. But if you're unlucky and you live in a country where software patents are legally enforcable, you need a version of Linux Mint which is free of patented technologies, and this is what the Universal Edition is about.
Why does Linux Mint include proprietary drivers?
It doesn't. If it did, it would be legally wrong (because it would violate the GPL) or ethically wrong (if some dirty trick was used for the user to link the code to the kernel for instance).
What about proprietary software?
We believe in open source and release all our work with the corresponding source code. We owe a lot to the Free Software movement and to the GPL but we also owe a lot to all the developers who contributed ideas and tools and who made software better and better throughout the years. Some of them released their source code as well and thus granted us more freedom and more flexibility. Others released their software with proprietary licenses and although this didn't give us the freedom we would have liked it still contributed to make software better. We like Software in general, Free Software even more, but we do not believe in boycotting Proprietary Software.
Release process
When is the next release coming out?
When it's ready. We do not commit to any deadlines, we commit to quality, a process, a series of tests and until the development team is fully happy with a particular ISO, it doesn't get released.
How can I track the progress made by the development team on an upcoming release?
- When an edition is getting close to being released, we publish tweets on it: http://twitter.com/Linux_Mint
- When an edition gets publicly released we announce it on our blog: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog
If I installed an RC (Release Candidate) how can I upgrade to the stable release?
It is always possible to upgrade from an RC to a stable release. Upgrade instructions are published on the day of the stable release, either within the announcements or in the release notes.
