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The Release Candidate For Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" Is Out
First time accepted submitter Type44Q writes "Well, the latest edition of Mint is finally here (the release candidate, anyway); according to The Linux Mint Blog, 'For the first time since Linux Mint 11, the development team was able to capitalize on upstream technology which works and fits its goals. After 6 months of incremental development, Linux Mint 14 features an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience. We're very proud of MATE, Cinnamon, MDM and all the components used in this release, and we're very excited to show you how they all fit together in Linux Mint 14.'"
Whomever started this naming version releases by nick name should be shot. Is this named Nadia because that is the wife of the main developer and he had to show some love otherwise he's never get some love again?
Me, If i developed anything and name it nice names, like "Fuckoff" "sloppyshit", "kludge", and "ididyourmom"
I guess we all need to feel cool.
Be seeing you...
Would it hurt to include a few words explaining what the hell Mint even is or why we should care there's a new version?
It's an OSX clone with Windoze Start button technology!111
EFF posted an article about full-disk encryption (FDE) in Ubuntu 12.10 and how easy it is to set up through ubiquity, the application used to install Ubuntu. The article also mentions that the next version of Mint, which is based on Ubuntu and therefore uses ubiquity for installation, should have the same easy FDE option.
FDE is good for privacy and security; as EFF's article notes, having it be as simple as possible to set up can only be a good thing. If this new version of Linux Mint features this FDE option, I will strongly consider switching to it, and will certainly try it out at the very least.
Why, I hardly knew her.
I've quite happily settled into Mint Cinnamon for the last year. That followed a year or two of Ubuntu - pre-Unity, Windows of various vintages, and a MAc G4.
Mint "Just Works". Installs easy, does everything that I want without headaches.
And with Vista in a Virtual machine I can even run Quickbooks, the single program that forced to boot into Windows once a month for bookkeeping and invoicing.
I've got enough years of computers behind me that I really want easy, reliable, and stable. Mint does all of those things.
Three Squirrels
For the first time since Linux Mint 11, the development team was able to capitalize on upstream technology which works and fits its goals.
Does anyone know to which upstream technology this is referring?
Been using mint debian edition as my daily desktop for awhile. I'm really loving the polish and look of Mate on Mint. Went with the debian edition as I'm tired of Ubuntu and its anti competitive behavior. But the biggest issue I'm running is neither are rolling releases. I have a mixed LMDE and Debian testing running which has been mostly ok.
Also, running mate which is based grtk2 you have to use a theme that looks good on gtk2 & gtrk3.
I see the mate team talking about moving to gtk3, but no idea if its really being worked on or not. And compiz being decommissioned and having to be forked, its incredibly frustrating. Gnome3 is not an option, cinnamon might be. Mate just works the way I want.
I like the idea that Mint includes a lot of stuff out of the box (mp3 etc). However most people now have moved onto the Unity interface. I don't see that as an option, which makes it seem a bit ancient.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Why is it a news story whenever a major Linux disto is released? There are mailing lists for this type of thing.
Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros. But I don't. So just for stupid people like me, could all these breathless distro update announcements take just a little time to explain why I should give a shit about their distro? What does it have to offer that better-known distros do not?
...whereby it dies on closing the lid on a toshiba NB550d, I shall sacrifice many fatted oxen on the appropriate altar.
Nadia sounds like a Communist KGB-Evildoer Agent ! "Bill" to the rescue !!!!!!!
Linux Mint is a distribution of Linux that is based off of Ubuntu. Like Ubuntu, it uses Debian packages.
When Ubuntu made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("Unity") and the GNOME project made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("GNOME Shell"), Linux Mint in turn made the decision to support those of us who loved GNOME 2. We have two options: MATE and Cinnamon. Both are well-supported by Linux Mint (and in fact primary development on both is by Linux Mint guys).
MATE is simply a fork of GNOME 2. For reasons that are not clear to me, GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 cannot co-exist on the same system... something about library conflicts. (Doesn't Linux have library versioning that should make it possible to avoid these conflicts? Eh, moving on.) The MATE project did a mass rename on everything in GNOME ("libgnome" -> "libmate", etc.) so MATE can co-exist on the same system with GNOME 3. So, those of us who loved the smooth polish that came from man-decades of development in GNOME can still use it.
But MATE isn't the future. From what I have heard, the library underpinnings of GNOME 3 really have improved over GNOME 2, and the new technology is a step up. Who wants to be locked into a frozen clone of GNOME 2 forever? Thus, Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a project to build on top of GNOME 3 and provide a user experience similar to GNOME 2. New plugins, new themes, etc. all go together to make a very usable desktop; but GNOME 3 apps will work seamlessly with it.
Many disgruntled Ubuntu users have abandoned Ubuntu for Linux Mint. Mint is now the top Linux distribution on distrowatch.com; I'm not sure it was even in the top ten before the whole Unity/GNOME Shell fiasco, but now it's number one.
A comment I have seen multiple times on Slashdot from different people: the Linux Mint guys are focused on making their users happy, rather than making something new. Where the GNOME Shell guys promise a "consistent and recognisable visual identity", and Mark Shuttleworth (the head Ubuntu guy) said "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not voting on design decisions.", the Linux Mint guys promise that you will "Love your Linux, Feel at Home, Get things Done!"
Linux Mint has always focused on making a beautiful system that is out-of-the-box usable. Now they are one of the top choices for people who have rejected Unity and GNOME Shell.
For me, the most important part of the announcement is that they have the password keeper working right now. I'm using Linux Mint on a laptop at work, and I can't connect to Windows shares; I'm hoping the new updates will sort that out for me.
Since this is based on Debian packages, I can probably just update in place without needing to do a full re-install.
P.S. One of my biggest complaints about GNOME 3 is that I can no longer take sit a Windows user down and just say "it works pretty much like what you are used to". You may like GNOME Shell and you may think it is better, but you cannot argue that it is very different, and it would take a bit of training before a guest could use it. Linux Mint, on the other hand, works a lot like pre-Windows 8 versions of Windows; with a little customization and theming I'll bet you could fool people into thinking it was actually Windows XP.
Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Which while being a little late is still nice.
the last 3 versions of mint have been nothing but a headache to me, good luck to you mint, but I am done riding this bus of half broken, poorly executed, mess
I was thinking of switching from Ubuntu to PCLinuxOS, because I want to use a computer without ever needing to reinstall, in other words, rolling releases.
Mint looks really nice, but I don't think it has rolling releases.
Has anyone else used that PCLinuxOS, and how is it? Any better rolling releases distros out there that aren't too hard to install and set up?
I know they have a XCFE port of mint. But if Mint is basically Ubuntu why would I want to switch from Xubuntu to xcfe mint? I'd like th try mint but as long as I'm on xcfe then I see no reason to move.
The debian edition of mint is usable (though less friendly than ubuntu version) and is a rolling release. It updates slow though and I'm used to distro versions where I can easily know what version I'm running.
Cinnamon Carter, no?
I actually donated to Linux Mint about a month ago, and yet I've given up Linux (again) for Windows 7 (again) due to a lack of comparable software (no, 80% functionality isn't good enough compared to the 100% I get with Windows unfortunately). So I feel kinda stupid for donating and yet still abandoning the operating system. Then again, I do appreciate Linux on an intellectual level so hopefully it helps.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
Who the fuck modded this insightful!? Yes, Sherlock, it's the 14th letter of the alphabet. Thanks for your "clue".
Why the vile? Here, have some knowledge:
Names of full releases, see the pattern? Female names alphabetically.
Ada
Barbara
Cassandra
Daryna
Elyssa
Felicia
Gloria
Helena
Isadora
Katya
Lisa
Maya
Nadia
I have trouble taking Mint seriously. I only hear about it when people complains about Unity.
No, seriously, every single time I hear about Mint is because there's some controversial thing about Ubuntu and a lot of guys come in saying "I moved to Mint years ago because I am tired of $NEWS_TOPIC". At times there are also Mint comments even if the news about Ubuntu are good (I am sure I saw a "I moved to Mint..." routine on a few of the Steam for Linux news reports in Ubuntu-related news sites).
I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is. Until I find a real happy user as opposed to someone complaining about Canonical in every Ubuntu-related news, it just sounds like haters got busy inflating scores (wouldn't be the first time something of the sort happens). Everyone I know uses the same usual subjects, and while anecdote is not proof, I've met a sizable amount of Linux users from being a developer. Not even a single issue reported by Mint users.
So, is there someone using Mint for any reason that is not spiting Canonical? I'd like to know, just to make sure I receive information not coming from people giving the impression of being zealots. They seriously need some PR as opposed to just say bad things about the competition.
It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".
I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is.....It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".
You should read through the comments. People on the whole love Debian, and love Ubuntu's spin on Debian. Most mint users also *love* Ubuntu. What they don't love is "Unity" They love "Cinnomon". In fact thats what they talk about in the summary.
Unity
====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface)
Cinnamon
=======
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.
People are not zealots, they are exercising choice on a platform that allows it. In fact Mint is basically Ubuntu with Unity replace with Cinnamon. In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.
Cinnamon Is...http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
What?
I had Mint 13 running out of the box perfectly on my Trinity laptop. It didn't support dual-GPU (that's fglrx's problem though) but the integrated APU graphics worked well and overall was great. I broke it trying to do an early backend upgrade to 12.10 and have since installed Kubuntu because I didn't want to wait for Mint to update, but didn't want to install Amazon adware either.
Yet another Debian based distribution that tries to keep quiet about it.
Why not just run the real thing?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Cinnamon Is...http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
Sigh! Humor much?
Besides, Barbara Bain was way hot back in the day.
subj
My host is Mint 12 with VirtualBox 4.1.2_ubuntu. I've been running an LMDE guest just fine.
This installation made it past the language pack downloads into a testing hardware, then put up a notice that the installer crashed. I tried to repeat the exact same installation, and this time I get a message during disk setup that "The creation of swap space in partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) failed." I didn't reboot the virtual machine between attempts.
There's gobs of free disk space on the host OS. I had configured 512MB of system memory on a 12GB virtual disk.
So the installer crash corrupted the virtual disk hardware? Hmmm, interesting.
distributions reach version 14 and you still not sure whether they are worth a look.
Nothing against Mint, but yeah..
Ubuntu based XCFE distros are screwed anyway. They by design were made for low spec hardware but guess what? 12.10 based anything does not work on non-PAE CPUs... Like, for example, those great pentium M based T41 thinkpads.
One thing people like to cite about Linux Mint that makes it a "better" distribution is that it comes with MP3, DVD, etc. stuff right out of the box.
There's a very good reason why Ubuntu and other major Linux distributions do not come with these installed by default, even if they are free and open-source implementations: they still infringe software patents and they can get sued into oblivion by the companies that own them if they were to distribute them. That and it probably would cost too much money to license them properly for inclusion in an OS you download for free.
I have the feeling Linux Mint and its users will find out the hard way that one of its best "features" is legally questionable and leaves them wide open to being ruined completely. Once the companies which own these patents find out who they can sue, they will gladly do so without remorse.
Disclaimer: IANAL
is it's based on Unity. Why not just base off Debian. It makes me feel like I want to use Debian. I can even use Hurd kernel with it now, and enjoy even more squirrely freedom loving goodness. But seriously, we need freedom folks..
We used to only depend on the kernel, then we started to become more dependent on the window manager, the manager running on top of that manager etc.
Someone needs to start making sexy-looking Blu ray drives to stave off net dependence too imo. I want a walkie talkie net - a torrent based internet that is an alternative to the internet. I want us to be more linux-like in our development as opposed to entering the market of Apple and MS. I'm switching to Debian to take a step back for the first time in my life since Slackware - another great OS
Too many steps "forward" in the wrong direction, i.e. backwards. We need to think more laterally about our overall development.
Excuse me. I feel guilty about succumbing to smart phones and I'm ranting.
Don't get me started on them. For one thing, a smart phone that ways over 140 grams just isn't very smart.
Ubuntu screwed up with Unity, which did more to divide the Linux landscape than any other event in recent history. Mint has been working harder than anyone to make sure people can work hard with a useful desktop. Thank you all.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Does anyone else hate those awful, awful little scrollbar handles?
They disappear, and all you've got is that inscrutable little line to figure out where you have to HOVER. BEFORRRRE you can click to scroll. And then they vaporize a split second after you move your mouse off them, and then you have to track it down, and hover properly again. It's awful, and it makes me want to kill myself.
(...and oh yeah, I hate that ugly Firefox icon in the default theme. it really sucks, and I go out of my way every single time to return the normal Firefox icon to it's expected state)
a) linux is not an operating system, linux is a kernel,
b) GNU/linux is an operating system
c) about linux, search on http.//kernel.org and it's identified as a kernel
d) GNU vecause refers to the GNU'S Not Unix Project started 27 September 1983, many thanks to Dr. Richard Matthew Stallman
developer of GNU/GCC; GNU/GDB; GNU/EMACS; GNU/MAKE.....
e) read http://paolodelbene.pbworks.com/Richard_Matthew_Stallman_en
f) Mint is only only a distribution, it's one of many, as one of many, is a distribution totally Non Free Software
g) the distribrutions totally Free Software are GNU/linux Blag; GNU/linux Dragora; GNU/linux Dynebolic; GNU/linux gNewSense;
GNU/linux Musix; GNU/linux Parabola; GNU/linux Trisquel; GNU/linux Ututo
h) Free Software Foundation partecipated to the develop of GNU/linux gNewSense and GNU/linux Ututo, for that i know, it seems is working
on GNU/linux Trisquel
i) from http://www.gnu.org
What is Free Software?
“Free software” http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
j) always from http://www.gnu.org
What is GNU?
GNU is a Unix-like operating system that is free software http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html —it respects your freedom. You can install Linux-based versions of GNU http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html which are entirely free software.
k) from http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
Free GNU/linux distributions
The FSF is not responsible for other web sites, or how up-to-date their information is.
Below are the complete, ready-to-use GNU/linux http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html distributions we know follow the Guidelines for Free System Distributions. http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html They have a firm policy commitment to only include and only propose free software. They reject non-free applications, non-free programming platforms, non-free drivers, or non-free firmware “blobs”. If by mistake they do include any, they remove it. If you have found such non-free software or documentation in one of these distributions, you can report the issue and earn GNU Bucks. http://www.gnu.org/help/gnu-bucks.html
Other distributions are making efforts to move toward a completely free system. We thank them for their ongoing work to achieve that goal, and hope to list them here some day.
In addition to their own sites, many of these distributions are available from mirror.fsf.org. http://mirror.fsf.org Feel free to download or mirror the distributions from there, preferably using rsync. Free distribution maintainers can request a mirror for their project by mailing the FSF sysadmins. sysadmin@fsf.org
We list companies that sell hardware preinstalled with a free GNU/linux distribution http://www.gnu.org/links/companies.html separately.
Individual GNU packages http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html (most of which are included