Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' Release Candidate Is Out

New submitter Anand Radhakrishnan writes "The release candidate for the much-anticipated Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' is available for user testing. Its many new features include Cinnamon Control center, an improved login manager with HTML 5 support, a driver manager, and a lot of under-the-hood improvements. 'A new tool called MintSources, aka "Software Sources," was developed from scratch with derivative distributions in mind (primarily Linux Mint, but also LMDE, Netrunner and Snow Linux). It replaces software-properties-gtk and is perfectly adapted to managing software sources in Linux Mint. From the main screen you can easily enable or disable optional components and gain access to backports, unstable packages and source code.' This release with Cinnamon looks really tempting."

Comments

Obligatory comment

[Anonymous Coward]

When Ubuntu introduced Unity I switched to Linux Mint and haven't looked back.

Re:Obligatory comment

[Adult film producer]

Same deal here. I had no plans on switching and didn't want to but I really had no choice but to leave ubuntu :~(

Re:Obligatory comment

[Anonymous Coward]

...on which it is completely unusable as it runs so slow.

Re:Obligatory comment

[aztracker1]

As someone who regularly uses Mac and Windows, Windows is closer to the Mac, than Unity is to either of them (Maybe not Windows 8, but Windows 7 for certain)

Re: Obligatory comment

[ozmanjusri]

When Ubuntu introduced Unity, I switched to Cinnamon. It's a shame that a DE has divided the biggest desktop Linux community

Why?

That's the the whole benefit of open source right there in one sentence. They did something you didn't like, you weren't locked in.

Re:Obligatory comment

[Clarious]

I still use Unity, it is strangely good after you used it for a while, despite some minor bugs here and there. Unity actually included many useful features from other desktops, such as:
- Menu on top, titlebar on top (when full screen): Saving precious vertical space, esp. useful with my 1366x768 laptop screen. And to be honest, I only care about the menu of the program I am focused on anyway, so one menu at a time isn't a big problem.
- Taskbar on the left, with grouping: same as above, with 16:9 screen I can spare some horizontal space for it. Also you can quickly switch windows with Super + F[1234], something taken from Microsoft Windows 7, it is more useful and faster than Alt-tabbing because you don't have to wait for the list of windows to appear, you always know which keys to press.
- Windows grouping, subgroup switching with Alt+grave (`). Taken from GNOME Shell, help unclutter my windows list, and switching is faster too. I loved this feature of GNOME Shell, too bad it removed the windows list (taskbar) so I can't have an overall view of which windows are on the screen. Same goes for notification area, GNOME Shell removed that part and go for a touch-oriented notification system (tap bottom right for the notification list), which is extremely useless since the notification area (or systray, as in windows) is supposed to always stay on screen so you can have a quick glance.
- Topbar widget/notification is more refined than GNOME Shell, with the later on you have to write an extension in javascript with little to no documentation. With unity you can write one in python, easy.
- Last but not least, Compiz is still better than metacity/GNOME Shell in CPU/RAM usage. With GNOME Shell you are practically running an webkit browser with all the javascript jazz and stuff. So while Compiz/Unity only eats ~90 MB RAM, metacity/GNOME Shell eats about 250 MB. Sure, RAM is fairly cheap these days but that doesn't mean your desktop has to use as much RAM as the sum of the rest of your programs.

Linux Mint with MATE or Cinnamon is okay too. But MATE is just GNOME 2 renamed, it works, but no better than GNOME 2, and with a bunch of leftovers tech such as libbonobo. Cinnamon is, well, nothing special, nothing attractive for me to use, that is it. And I have heard that Cinnamon devs have many problem following upstream too.

Re: Obligatory comment

[Bearhouse]

When Ubuntu introduced Unity, I switched to Cinnamon. It's a shame that a DE has divided the biggest desktop Linux community

Why?

That's the the whole benefit of open source right there in one sentence. They did something you didn't like, you weren't locked in.

Indeed. One of the biggest benefits, but also the biggest disadvantage. This is what stops Linux from gaining traction with a wider market.
Buy a device for windows, (screen, printer, wifi key, whatever), plug it in, works. (Yeah OK, most of the time, especially if you ain't got 64bit). With Linux, it's harder, especially for the non-techie. One distro that all the major OEMs could aim for would really help.
(Spoken as an old BSD wanker, so I suppose I'm part of the "problem"...)

Re:Obligatory comment

[rivercityrandom]

In my experience, if you were to put the Windows 7 task bar on the left side of the screen, color everything purple and orange, and replace the Start Menu with a script that sends all of your search results to Amazon.com, it would look an awful lot like Ubuntu Unity.

ALL HAIL!

[oldhack]

All hail to Debian. :-)

Re:ALL HAIL!

[girlinatrainingbra]

Re: All hail to Debian. :-)

Huzzah! Yes, indeed, all Hail Debian, the basis of these all! It is sad that so much bounds forth from these springs yet so few are aware of the source of these precious waters!!! As I said earlier, to one who dared mock Debian's utility:

Debian has stayed being what it has always been. It's just being used more as the foundation that supports the work of the facade builders and marketers that put a pretty face (or not-so-pretty Tammy Faye Baker clown-makeup face, if you want Gnome 3, imho) on top of all that and market it as if they made the whole thing.

Again, I say to thee, all Hail Deb-Ian ! (also, have you ever seen the canadian cartoon "Being Ian" ? )

Re:ALL HAIL!

[Requiem18th]

I'm undecided about switching to LMDE, aptosid, or just plain sid. On the one hand I like the idea of not ever having to reinstall the OS for upgrades, on the other hand I feel that eventually I'll have to because of an accumulation of botched installs.

Meanwhile the fuckers at Valve decided that only Ubuntu deserves Steam. But then again TF2 runs like molass in linux with an AMD setup.

In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm running Mint now, I think it is MInt 13 or maybe 12. I would have upgraded a long time ago except that in place upgrades are not supported. If I had known that, I would never have left ubuntu for Mint.

Next time I "upgrade" I'm just going to go back to Ubuntu so I don't have to deal with that hassle anymore. In place upgrades always worked fine for me on Ubuntu since I would wait a month or two after release for all the other guinea pigs to work through any problems.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Nimey]

You're supposed to use the backup utility to save your data and package choices, then do a clean reinstall and re-run the backup utility to restore everything.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Yes, I know what you are "suppossed" to do, it is a hassle that I do not need to do with ubuntu. Next up is the argument that I "should" do all that regardless of distribution to which I say my level of backups is sufficient for my needs even if it is not sufficient for Mint's needs.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Just Some Guy]

I love my Mint desktop but haven't tried running and apt-get dist-upgrade yet. If a Debian descendant can't manage that, there's something fundamentally broken about it.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[steveha]

I agree that a distro using Debian packages and APT really ought to be dist-upgradeable. It's lame that it's not.

But the Mint guys are the ones working hardest to let me have the kind of desktop I prefer, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.

You can avoid some pain if you set your computer up properly. Put /home and / on separate partitions. Then, you can upgrade just by running the new installer! The installer always wants to clean-wipe the / partition, but it doesn't care whether you wipe /home or leave it in place. (I always back up the /etc directory, just by copying it somewhere on the /home partition. I also back up a complete list of all the currently installed packages.)

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[fufufang]

You could use Debian Testing with optional packages from Mint. You get the best of both worlds. And Debian just automagically upgrades itself.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[SuperAlgae]

I've done in-place upgrades on Ubuntu at least a couple of times. I never saw a single problem from it. I was surprised it worked so flawlessly since it seems like something that could be hard to get right.

I've not been happy with a lot of Ubuntu's recent decisions, but in my experience this is one thing they got right.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Anonymous Coward]

apt-get dist-upgrade is quite a task actually, especially when you're considering some of the advantages/differences Ubuntu/Mint has compared to Debian, e.g. PPAs/all sorts of package sources. Even Ubuntu dist-upgrade have often been problematic for many people, Mint didn't want to go that road, because it meant a whole bunch of testing and support for myriads of hardware that somehow worked with the previous kernel/init/drivers/etc. but somehow have problems after the upgrade. A fresh install ensures there are no legacy left overs that might interfere or slow things down. In many cases it is fairly simple to upgrade Linux no matter what distro (i.e. backup home, get a list of apps you need from apt-get or any respective package manager, do fresh install and restore home and applications).

You also have the option to go with the LTS release thus needing only to upgrade once in a few years (maybe even around the time you're upgrading the hardware as well).

Or if you REALLY like the Debian way - why not just use Linux Mint Debian edition, which continuously updates to the newest version (aka rolling release). There's also the option to go with pure Debian - the fact that its derivatives are more popular doesn't mean it isn't feasible to use it instead.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Anonymous Coward]

When using UNIX (and Linux) rule #1 is learn to partition your disk. (Incidentally that is also rule #2, #3 and #4).

Say you have a 100 G Disk in your laptop, are using a Debian derivative and is doing a fair amount of SW development, a simple scheme could be:

40 G: /home
20 G: /opt
20 G: /

The remaining 20 G is used to enlarge any of the above partitions, should the need arise.

Now when you 'upgrade' you simply re-install. That will leave /home untouched and only touch the parts of /opt that "belongs" to the distribution. Easy and very, very, very painless.

If you don't partition - well - you should - if you still don't want to then at least stop complaining.

Cheers

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[Sesostris III]

I'm using LMDE XFCE on my main desktop PC, and it is the infrequent updates (and no security updates) that is the most infuriating thing about it. At one time it was a "rolling" release but now it is "semi-rolling". Really an LMDE "Update Pack" release is like a new in-place upgrade of Ubuntu, in that a big-bang approach is taken (and things may break). They also seem to happen around every six months!

On my laptop I'm using the last Xubuntu LTS, and this does get updated regularly with security patches etc. Next time I switch distributions on the desktop it will be either to a proper rolling release distribution (Arch perhaps) or back to Xubuntu (latest rather than LTS) with regular updates and in-place upgrades.

The reinstallation recommended every time there is a new version is the reason I'll avoid Mint Main. If I'm going to reinstall, I might as well install a different distribution.

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[dhart]

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-cinnamon-1-8-on-ubuntu-13-04.html

Re:In place upgrades still unsupported?

[MrHanky]

Having a separate /home partition is a good idea, simply because you can reinstall the whole system, switch to a different distro or whatever, without wiping your personal stuff and having to reinstall from backup. I usually move my old home directory to /home/old first, to avoid conflicting dot files. No space wasted, and lots of time saved.

Not Obligatory...Linux mint is basically Ubuntu

[tuppe666]

When Ubuntu introduced Unity I switched to Linux Mint and haven't looked back.

I'm actually running Ubuntu with Cinnamon installed (I would be running Mint if it wasn't for the delay between their respective releases) . Its kind of sad that Mints main benefit (since Debian rolling releases stopped) is that its everything you like about Ubuntu....great support; almost cutting edge, with backported fixes for stability(although not as Stable as Debian...but that is not cutting edge) with some sensible defaults...because it is basically ubuntu.

Hell I quite like the fact that canonical tried to make Ubuntu pretty (and fast).But the move towards recreating elements rather than *selecting* popular ones (Mer seriously) like say Cinnamon, is going to hurt them. I hope they have success with the phone...where I think Unity (and all the other garbage...like a new package manager) might be a better fit.

So yeah not obligatory...I'm using it with Cinnamon now, and accept Mints roots when I use that (and Debians)

Not is someone could go about producing a rolling (cutiing edge) Debian release (with an enormous rescue me button) then I would look forward to it.

Looking forward to it...

[CFBMoo1]

I've had really good experiences with Mint Cinnamon on my laptop at work. They went the direction Ubuntu should have gone for the Desktop.

How good is it?

[loufoque]

I've been running Ubuntu for a long time, with increased disappointment at each upgrade, not all of which are caused by Canonical.
I had been mostly OK for a time with GNOME fallback, or whatever it is that they call running gnome-panel and metacity. But now I've also had to replace Nautilus by Nemo (Cinnamon's Nautilus fork) because the latest Nautilus introduces too many regressions.

Is Linux Mint what I need? Or should I just consider moving to Debian?

The exodus from Ubuntu...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was late to the party, but I was so disgusted with several of the recent decisions from Canonical (Unity, spyware, ads, removal of Synaptic, steering toward commercial apps when better free alternatives exist, and on and on) that had rendered it marginally useful on the very machines it had once redeemed from the Windows quagmire that I not only switched them all to Mint, but switched them to LMDE- Linux Mint Debian (Cinnamon).

Yes, there are a couple of rough edges, but the general increase in speed and usability has been a relief like a thorn removed from my flesh. It is MUCH better. Whatever advantage the mainstream Linux Mint has over the Debian Edition, I'm more than willing to forgo them to be removed from dependency on Canonical entirely.

A couple of years ago I felt completely differently. Ubuntu did great things for the desktop user and it pains me to have to reject their direction now... but human institutions tend to become evil the moment they think they are indispensable. The nature of open source and the hard work of the folks at Mint have rendered this change of Ubuntu's character ineffective and irrelevant, and I am very grateful for both.

When Ubuntu introduced Unity ..

[dgharmon]

I've been using lubuntu for a long time, so haven't noticed ...

Re:Obligatory response

[Atomic Fro]

They have. They use it do get revenue from your searches.

Re:I wanna live with a Cinnamon Girl

[kernelpanicked]

You know what I love?

Being able to set custom keybindings.
Workspaces...in a grid.
Alt-Tab to any running app on any desktop.

Ya know, all the things that Gnome 3 actually did right (no matter how much I've come to despise it), and the Mint team decided to break. For now I'll just keep on trucking along with XFCE, and if Clem and the gang ever decide to stop fucking with login manager settings and fix some of their outstanding bugs, maybe I'll give Cinnamon another look.