Slashdot Mirror

I might as well start submitting DistroWatch updates:


Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 18 "KDE", an edition of the Mint family featuring the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' KDE edition. Linux Mint 18 is a long-term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. This edition of Linux Mint features the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop environment. The default display manager is SDDM. The APT sources include the Kubuntu backports PPA, which provides updates to newer versions of the Plasma desktop. The update manager received many improvements, both visual and under the hood. The main screen and the preferences screen now use stack widgets and subtle animations, and better support was given to alternative themes." Here is the brief release announcement, with further details, screenshots and videos provided in the new features page as well as the release notes. Download: linuxmint-18-kde-64bit.iso (1,622MB, SHA256, signature, torrent).

I might as well start submitting DistroWatch updates:


Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 18 "KDE", an edition of the Mint family featuring the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' KDE edition. Linux Mint 18 is a long-term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. This edition of Linux Mint features the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop environment. The default display manager is SDDM. The APT sources include the Kubuntu backports PPA, which provides updates to newer versions of the Plasma desktop. The update manager received many improvements, both visual and under the hood. The main screen and the preferences screen now use stack widgets and subtle animations, and better support was given to alternative themes." Here is the brief release announcement, with further details, screenshots and videos provided in the new features page as well as the release notes. Download: linuxmint-18-kde-64bit.iso (1,622MB, SHA256, signature, torrent).

I still have an official Ubuntu install CD from when it meant anything to own it, before they turned to the dark side of the force, before they collected so much personal information, before they implemented the festering piece of crap known as Unity.

Mint with Cinnamon is probably the arguably desktop Linux, currently.
https://www.linuxmint.com/down...

Whoa, there, Cowboy. I'm all for that stuff about votin' and duty (feel a duty comin' on myself). But do you really expect Congress to take action on... Windows 10? You really think that's a good idea?

Think it through, friend. The best that would happen, Congress holds a hearing, which is Beltway-code for "photo-op" and "time I don't have to spend doing stuff that matters". A few Microsoft execs get subpoenas to answer questions and stay in 5-star hotels, Congress-people reveal how ignorant they are about computers, and the execs respond with carefully worded answers scripted by their lawyers. Gets a few mentions on the evening news, then once the cameras go dead they all get together for beers, get toasted and throw money all over the place.

That's the best you can hope for. The worst that can happen is Congress declares Windows as a matter of national security, designates Microsoft a disaster area, and places the company under a specially appointed "computer czar" who will hold committee meetings until all bugs are ironed out or the funding runs out, whichever comes first. Satya might be released from Guantanamo Bay in about... 20 years. Throw Ballmer in there, too, 'cause this is all his fault anyway.

You really want to avoid "downtime"? Linux, seriously. There are pentiums out there been running Slackware since 1998 that haven't crashed yet. Might get boring, can't play the latest games, and plugging in a Kindle might not do anything at all (what part of "no warranty" do you not understand?), but you can completely stop sweating about Microsoft, totally, and feel smug about it, too.

I got off the Microsoft train in 2006.
A decade later, I regard it as one of the best decisions that I've ever made in my life.

If you're a Windows user and ready to leave it behind, start here: Download - Linux Mint

I prefer this: https://www.linuxmint.com/

Sometimes Linux won't even run on its own. Such as after installing updates. But, I suppose that's Microsoft's fault too.

Here is the rationale for the GTK3 X-apps and a couple finished example of them.

http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/

It's about how Gnome 3 has crapified gedit, evince etc. and uses non-standard GUI elements - Gnome-specific parts of GTK3 - in client-side decorated windows.
Another reason is to remove a few dependencies, and in particular remove some of the distro-level hackery where Mint had gedit locked at version 2.30, so you couldn't install gedit 3. More generally it's part of removing warts that have historically made Cinnamon difficult to run on other distros, or some Gnome 3 applications on Cinnamon or Mint.

Earlier blog post on it
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2985

Here is the rationale for the GTK3 X-apps and a couple finished example of them.

http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2016/02/the-first-two-x-apps-are-ready/

It's about how Gnome 3 has crapified gedit, evince etc. and uses non-standard GUI elements - Gnome-specific parts of GTK3 - in client-side decorated windows.
Another reason is to remove a few dependencies, and in particular remove some of the distro-level hackery where Mint had gedit locked at version 2.30, so you couldn't install gedit 3. More generally it's part of removing warts that have historically made Cinnamon difficult to run on other distros, or some Gnome 3 applications on Cinnamon or Mint.

Earlier blog post on it
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2985

No, it's different with Linux Mint:
https://www.linuxmint.com/sear...

The thing you're missing is that in Linux, the browser is built from sources by the distro, not supplied by Firefox, so distros can and do make customizations. Linux Mint makes money by making certain search engines default on the version Firefox they package. This is different on Windows where users download a pre-built Firefox directly from Mozilla's site, and presumably Mozilla makes money the same way.

Yes, but why do you recommend a crap choice?

Some better ones:

https://linuxmint.com
https://kororaproject.org
https://getfedora.org
http://alpinelinux.org
http://www.ghostbsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
https://www.freebsd.org

It's working just fine now, but it won't always. Brace yourself for shit like this.

If you're really ticked off and looking to get rid of Windows, you could do worse than to check out Linux Mint.

You can download it here: https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Certainly, it's not for everybody. If you can name 10 reasons why you absolutely cannot leave Windows, then it's probably not for you.
However, if you just a need a machine for a little e-mail, web browsing, YouTube, etc. you really can give it a try.

It might turn out to be the OS that you were always looking for.

They're in their 70s

What they use besides a browser? https://linuxmint.com/ isn't sufficient?

I have Cinnamon/Debian on one machine and Cinnamon/Mint on another. I have no idea what you mean by "added troubleshooting". You understand that most of Mint's packages are pulled directly from upstream, yes? And that the major distros do not generally have a preferred DE? Other distributions also have their own testing and QA processes;

What I meant to imply was that the other distributions' testing and QA processeses may not include Cinnamon as well as Mint's does.

Now, you're right. I've never installed a non-distribution sanctioned DE. Maybe it will work just as good as the original with no added polishing needed. I'm just skeptical things will be that smooth. (And I'd find it hard to believe any of the desktop environments have zero bugs.)

I have Cinnamon/Debian on one machine and Cinnamon/Mint on another. I have no idea what you mean by "added troubleshooting". You understand that most of Mint's packages are pulled directly from upstream, yes? And that the major distros do not generally have a preferred DE? Other distributions also have their own testing and QA processes; I'm not sure if you meant to denigrate those or whether you simply didn't know they existed.

In any case, avoiding bugs does not usually mean using whatever the developers consider to be the latest "stable" release. There is no substitute for a long real-world testing cycle. Even if there were reason to believe that Cinnamon were buggy on other platforms, that would make it buggy software. Which is hardly an advertisement.

in the project's monthly newsletter.

in the project's monthly newsletter.
FTFY

in the project's monthly newsletter.

in the project's monthly newsletter. FTFY

First you should ask yourself why there is a whole separate distribution just to support a different desktop.

Because Xubuntu users want to have only the Xfce desktop, without having to install the Unity desktop first, which, if you're never going to use it, means you're just wasting hard disk space.

We have had a recent lesson in this fallacy in the case of Mint. Mint is also a copy of Ubuntu and it exists primarily as a platform for the Cinnamon desktop. But because they were slow to handle security problems, Mint was hacked and code compromised. I don't trust Mint to this day. So I suggest starting with a secure and solid Ubuntu base and just perfect your desktop on that distro.

What an odd point of view. Linux Mint got hacked through Wordpress running on its web site. They weren't "slow to handle security problems"; they dealt with it as soon as they found out about it, which was almost immediately. And If you had checked the MD5 checksum of the hacked ISO, you would have seen that there was a problem with it.

As its leader, Clement Lefebvre, wrote in response to a comment on his blog, "...we’ll probably also contract a security firm to look into the bottom of this for us, we’re software developers not intrusion experts."

Take your idea to its logical extreme, and we would just have one Linux distro with a number of different desktop environments. Nobody wants that, except you, maybe.

Their website got hijacked a few weeks ago and was serving malicious install images, yeah. http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2994

Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th, 2016!

#####

"I'm sorry I have to come with bad news.[1]

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn't impact many people, but if it impacts you, it's very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn't affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.

How to check if your ISO is compromised?"

Continued @: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2...

[1] Written by Clem on Sunday, February 21st, 2016 @ 1:44 am

#####

https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux...

https://lwn.net/Articles/67661...

https://twitter.com/Linux_Mint...

"I'm sorry I have to come with bad news.

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn't impact many people, but if it impacts you, it's very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn't affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.

How to check if your ISO is compromised?"

Continued @: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2...

Some support for running Mate + Compiz was introduced in Mint 17.2, and in Mint 17.3 that's been a bit expanded.
There is a "Desktop Settings" applet to switch between window manager, compositing enabled or not. I don't care much for compiz myself, but it's a button click affair and you can go there too if you prefer to disable the software composito.

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_r...
http://linuxmint.com/rel_rosa_...

Some support for running Mate + Compiz was introduced in Mint 17.2, and in Mint 17.3 that's been a bit expanded.
There is a "Desktop Settings" applet to switch between window manager, compositing enabled or not. I don't care much for compiz myself, but it's a button click affair and you can go there too if you prefer to disable the software composito.

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_r...
http://linuxmint.com/rel_rosa_...

The penitent information that the story blerb doesn't mention is that 17.3 'Rosa' isn't available via the update manger yet. (An upgrade option should be in the "edit" menu.) But, according to Kirk M.:

"Once the new version of the Mint Update Manager is released (next week sometime, there will be an LM blog announcement as well) the option to upgrade to 17.3 will be included usually in the "Edit" menu. By default, the Update Manager will only continue to update your current install (17.2 in your case) unless you specifically choose to upgrade to 17.3. Just click on the option to upgrade listed in the "Edit" menu, sit back and relax until it's done. Reboot.

It shouldn't be any more complicated than installing normal updates since the base remains the same. Your current kernel should stay the same as well (not upgraded to the newer kernel thatâ(TM)s automatically installed during a "clean" install) which is a decent safety factor for those that upgrade."

However, upgrading via the command line can be done right now. According to this website, just issue the following commands:

sudo sed -i 's/rafaela/rosa/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Reboot; you're good to go.

I'm just taking a wild guess here (my even-older machine has Intel audio), but did you by any chance try running the 'Driver Manager' program in 17.2?

And then there's this page, might be of some help: http://community.linuxmint.com...

Not all the time. http://www.linuxmint.com/downl...

The 10" 2-in-1s [like ASUS Transformer Book T100] have a whole bunch of things not working in Debian

Debian is but one choice. Linux Mint or Ubuntu or openSUSE work with about everything

Key word: "about". I looked at the instructions for getting Linux Mint up on a Transformer Book, and it appears you have to buy a compatible USB NIC and plug it in so that you can download the driver for the built-in Wi-Fi. I looked up Ubuntu, and Wi-Fi is "buggy" and suspend is "not working". Nor has anyone had luck with openSUSE. Google couldn't turn up anything about PC-BSD on the T100; I can't tell whether this means it "just works" or just that nobody has tried it. I wouldn't bet on the former.

Different DPI on monitors is not a trivial problem.
It might get solved, but on a future version of Gnome, KDE or Cinnamon running on a future version of Wayland.

A shameless quote from Clem here :
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2...

Edit by Clem: I’m not 100% sure, but I think that’s not possible with Xorg. The wayland developers talked about implementing this feature but although promising for the future, wayland is still too early to consider.

It is perhaps possible to hack up a partial solution by running a secondary X session or X server just for the second monitor. Would be fun if that works (although the two screens are now "islands" that only share the mouse pointer)

Take a telling? Is that English?

Its a colloquialism.

Long version is I'm "telling" you something that either through stubbornness, or inability to grasp what I'm telling you, you simply refuse to accept it.

If they don't support it, why was it the link I was brought to from their own home page a year ago?

You can still download Linux Mint1.0 beta.You can download every version of Linux Mint. The Linux world is not Windows - pretty much any version of any flavor of Linux is still available, including Mint 16. And Mint 16 isn't a Long Term Support (LTS) release now. http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre... shows us that the oldest LTS version is Mint 13, supportted until April 2017 - Next up is the Mint 17 and 17.x series, supported until April 2019

There is also an LTS version names "Betsy", but that's oriented toward experienced and "adventurous" users. I'm no certain I'd recommend it to anyone personally except for experimenters.

You can use the wayback machine to see it. I stand by everything I've said, and I've noticed you continue to dodge the fact that showing a end-user 404 errors when trying to update is wrong. Why didn't it just tell me exactly what you said?

I don't even care why you got 404 errors. It's not dodging your question, its pointless. its just another symptom that there were no longer updates available for Mint 16. And that's just how it works.

If I were to analyze what happened to you, I'd say you downloaded a package that was nearly obsolete at the time you downloaded it. That's no crime. If you aren't familiar with the Linux ecosystem, it can happen.

But your reaction is all wrong. Instead of allowing that you might have made a mistake, you've decided to indict the whole ecosystem rather than say "Oops!

All I'm saying is that your complaints are all due to being pissed about downloading an obsolete - or nearly obsolete - system, and expecting it to be supported after it is obsolete. Myself and a whole lot of other people don't have that problem. Why? Because we are using supported versions. And when 17 goes obsolete in 2019, we'll just move on to another supported version - what we won't do is complain about no updates any longer for 17.

Because your problem is only a problem for you, and your expectation of support for an obsolete package, and insisting that you were somehow misled.

But to accept any of that, you would have to take some telling.

Linux Mint 16 was obsolete early last year? It was released on November 13, 2013 (http://www.tecmint.com/linux-mint-16-installation-guide/). I have no idea what your point is. I installed it last year, then this year (1 year later) updates didn't work. I don't know any other OS which no longer supports updates after 1 year, let alone shows a '404' when this (if it ever) occurred. Do you still not get it? I don't know how else I can explain this to you. It's like talking to a 5 year old child who thinks he knows everything, except I assume (hope) you're older than that.

It's really kind of pathetic, but you just do not take telling, and you are so damn dense that a person that takes the time to educate you, gets nothing but abuse.

Thes are the supported versions of Linux Mint:

http://www.linuxmint.com/downl...

That would be 2, 13, 17, 17.1, and 17.2

Not that Linux Mint 16 is not on that web page

Now go here:

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre...

Linux Mint 16, code name Petra, package base Ubuntu Saucy, has been officially obsolete since July 2014. Says so right on the Linux Mint website. Go tell them it is still supported.

Anyhow If you can't rake any telling, far be it from me to educate you. I hope you are just a troll. TTFN

Linux Mint 16 was obsolete early last year? It was released on November 13, 2013 (http://www.tecmint.com/linux-mint-16-installation-guide/). I have no idea what your point is. I installed it last year, then this year (1 year later) updates didn't work. I don't know any other OS which no longer supports updates after 1 year, let alone shows a '404' when this (if it ever) occurred. Do you still not get it? I don't know how else I can explain this to you. It's like talking to a 5 year old child who thinks he knows everything, except I assume (hope) you're older than that.

It's really kind of pathetic, but you just do not take telling, and you are so damn dense that a person that takes the time to educate you, gets nothing but abuse.

Thes are the supported versions of Linux Mint:

http://www.linuxmint.com/downl...

That would be 2, 13, 17, 17.1, and 17.2

Not that Linux Mint 16 is not on that web page

Now go here:

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre...

Linux Mint 16, code name Petra, package base Ubuntu Saucy, has been officially obsolete since July 2014. Says so right on the Linux Mint website. Go tell them it is still supported.

Anyhow If you can't rake any telling, far be it from me to educate you. I hope you are just a troll. TTFN

Not sure if you're stupid or retarded. Let me break it down for you:

Well, since yuou've descided to go with the insults, let me break it down for you.

If you are having a metric ton of trouble, and others are not......

You have the issue, not me, and not all all the others who don't have your issue.

You aren't doing it correctly, that much is clear from your posts.

You are using an obsolete version of Mint, and if you installed it a year ago, it was obsolete when you installed it. Are you likewise pissed off about no more updates for XP, or no direct seamless upgrade fom XP to Windows 10?

Because that is exactly your complaint.

Use a long term supported package, here's a list of them in mintland - http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre... along with the obsolete versions, of which yours is one.

There might be a clue in all this for you, although I fear you won't take it.

--Been done.

http://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/vigor

/ *MIC DROP* // slashies :b

... http://www.linuxmint.com/

He's not doing it wrong. Not even 6 months ago I installed Linux Mint on my HP envy laptop, and it took me 2 days to get it fully working. Why? Partially UEFI, partially bugs in the installer, and mainly no network driver (had to compile my own with a manual patch). This doesn't even include having to install new drivers to ensure it doesn't overheat, nor the fact that "suspend" still doesn't work.

You can read about my experience here http://forums.linuxmint.com/vi..., but quite frankly nobody cares (no replies....). Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.

... here is the link : http://www.linuxmint.com/ ;)

Go here or here or here or here.

All have excellent upgrades available to any version of Windows.

With a little luck, maybe folks will realize this take matters into their own hands?

Given the way people completely freaked out the Windows 8 UI, the hope that people will ever switch to Linux en masse and the even worse UX options is just laughable at this point.

CAPTCHA: atheism, which is quite appropriate. I use all three of the major desktop OSes and you know what? They *all* suck.

With a little luck, maybe folks will realize this take matters into their own hands?

They were spreading the same crap about Windows 8 machines. I haven't found a machine yet that I can't install Linux onto.

I haven't yet found one that I can. I've asked several people who claim that there is no problem, how do I get into UEFI setup, to turn it off (or add my own keys)?

http://www.top-password.com/bl...

Ubuntu

https://help.ubuntu.com/commun...

Mint

http://community.linuxmint.com...

Placing the ads on our machines directly is a bullshit move. How about we protect our fucking privacy by not having this shit on our machines in the first place.

I agree! Here's how to start.

From:
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/...

All the features Nautilus 3.4 had and which are missing in Nautilus 3.6 (all desktop icons, compact view, etc..)
Open in terminal (this is part of Nemo itself)
Open as root (this is also part of Nemo)
File operations progress information (when you copy/move files you can see the percentage and info about the operation on the window title and so also in your window list)
Proper GTK bookmarks management
Full navigation options (back, forward, up, refresh)
Ability to toggle between the path entry and the path breadcrumb widgets
A lot more configuration options

Short term, it’s also likely to gain the following:
A proper status bar
A layout which is more similar to Caja, where the pathbar/path-entry field is below the main toolbar and only spans accross the view pane
Configurable toolbar buttons for hidden features (view-selection, zoom levelsetc).

It is quite an old post and some of may not be true anymore, but basically gnome3 dumbed down the file manager (like windows did with removing the up navigation button). They do not mention it but I also like the dual-pane mode (aka midnight commander mode)

I've been a Debian user for a long time but for my wife's laptop or Linux installs on friends machines I almost always turn to Mint.

They're still going to support Upstart & Systemd. The LMDE release was always a rolling release locked to Debian Testing.

They've continued GNOME2 in MATE DE along with the GNOME3 fork Cinnamon.

I've personally transitioned to FreeBSD for my desktop & server needs but if a friend wants to get into Linux with a decent GUI I point them to Mint. Ubuntu has gone full "Windows 8.1" in trying to appease the lowest common denominator when most people just want a desktop they recognize.

I've been a Debian user for a long time but for my wife's laptop or Linux installs on friends machines I almost always turn to Mint.

They're still going to support Upstart & Systemd. The LMDE release was always a rolling release locked to Debian Testing.

They've continued GNOME2 in MATE DE along with the GNOME3 fork Cinnamon.

I've personally transitioned to FreeBSD for my desktop & server needs but if a friend wants to get into Linux with a decent GUI I point them to Mint. Ubuntu has gone full "Windows 8.1" in trying to appease the lowest common denominator when most people just want a desktop they recognize.

Have the same issue with wifi on my HP laptop. This solution from Linux Mint forums worked for me: http://forums.linuxmint.com/vi...

--You can add Linux Mint Debian Edition to the non-systemd camp:

http://www.linuxmint.com/downl...

xfce has a taskbar..

Wow, cool! Time to check out out again. Thanks.

I've used Lubuntu on some repurposed netbooks it has LXDE desktop. Pretty clean. http://lubuntu.net/ Otherwise Mint with Xfce is nice : http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2...

http://www.linuxmint.com/

If your daughter knows how to install Linux, which nowadays isn't very hard depending on the distro, you can always check their site.

Most major distros provide a list of hardware that should be compatible, to avoid having to mess with drivers and such.

Here are a couple of links :
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/
http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn