Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' Is Out

An anonymous reader writes "The Linux Mint blog today announced the full release of Linux Mint 15 'Olivia.' Here are the release notes and a list of new features. As before, it's available with either MATE or Cinnamon as a desktop environment. The included version of MATE has been upgrade to 1.6, which saw many old and deprecated packages replaced with newer technologies. Cinnamon has gone to 1.8, which improved the file manager, added support for 'desklets' (essentially desktop widgets), and completed the transition away from Gnome Control Center to Cinnamon's own settings panel. Other new features of Linux Mint 15 include improved login screen applications (one of which is an HTML greeter that supports HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and WebGL), a tool developed from the ground up to manage software sources in Mint, and a vastly improved driver manager. The project's website sums it up simply: 'Linux Mint 15 is the most ambitious release since the start of the project.'"

Comments

Did they fix upgrade-in-place?

[Anonymous Coward]

No?

Well at least now I have an excuse for why I didn't get any work done today.

Re:Did they fix upgrade-in-place?

[bmo]

Well, some people have custom stuff in /etc/ and whatnot, so an in-place upgrade is a lot more convenient.

That said, even on Windows, one should have the system/software and user partitions separated, if only for making a nuke-and-pave more painless. The whole business of having everything in C: is just dumb.

--
BMO

Re:Did they fix upgrade-in-place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever tried to use an NFTS volume for your /home partition? (So it's accessible from Windows.)

Don't bother, you can't. Pulseaudio of all things won't let you.

Cinnamon Window Grouping

[n1ywb]

So when is Cinnamon going to support window grouping "out of the box"? I know there's a 3rd party applet for it, I tried it, it was buggy and kludgy. Despite members of the community clamoring for it, the devs claim that not having it is a "design decision". So it's a design decision to make it frustrating and difficult to find the right window when I have a many windows open, which I usually do, because I'm a software developer and power user? It's a design decision to ignore the requirements of the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition community?/rant

Overall I have to say I've been very happy with Linux Mint. It really "just works" and I wouldn't even consider switching to another distro, the above complaint notwidthstanding. Cinnamon is mostly sexy and cool.

Linux needs more desktop forks

[demachina]

On the one hand it is great that Linux allows people to innovate, and fork when the need arises.

On the other hand the Linux desktop has reached the point that I simply don't want to choose between the myriad of desktops and window managers any more. Just reading Wikipedia on MATE and Cinnamon leaves me shaking my head.

Seems to me that the massive fragmentation of the Linux desktop probably does work for the hard core geeks who can pick the one that scratches their itch. It also gives every programmer who wants to develop a desktop or window manager their own private little place to do it.

On the other hand, Linux on the desktop is pretty much doomed when it comes to any ordinary person just wanting to install it, use it and have it work if the first question they have to deal with is which of 20 UI's and desktops they should pick.

Not sure how you are going to maintain a critical mass of developers and users for testing when resources are scattered across so many, mostly, mediocre UI's and desktops. If you don't have that critical mass, chances are every effort will come up short quality wise.

Developer's thinking about developing a serious app with a lot of UI and desktop integration must cringe at the prospect of doing QA across so many desktop variations and either only support one or give up on supporting Linux all together.

Who would have figured that Android, running a Java front end, would be the one and only place that Linux would have any chance of making it as a consumer OS.

Re:Linux needs more desktop forks

[MrEricSir]

Making your app work with Unity and Gnome 3 is bad enough. Throw in Mate or XFCE and you're fucked. Time is always limited, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my time writing a polished app than an unpolished app that's compatible with many different desktops.

Choices have cost: the Linux community's continued refusal to acknowledge this has left the Linux desktop in a continuous state of disrepair.

Re:Linux needs more desktop forks

[jones_supa]

IMHO, Mr. Torvalds should step in and organize / unify this mess if the Year of Linux in the desktop is to ever happen.

As much as some people here may not like him, Mr. Shuttleworth is doing exactly what you described.

Re:Linux needs more desktop forks

[ADRA]

There is no 'body' in Linux to tackle this problem. The kernel is well managed because by and large its run by one group and they steer with a very clear set of goals. Generally the goals of EVERYONE's use of the kernel is relatively narrow, so there's little need to fork the kernel for any specific work (it usually happens more often as a continuous branch/patch than an actual fork when done).

Now you look into the desktop space, you see many groups operating independently, each of which has philosophical/design/financial/NIH/licensing/etc.. reasons to create another tool vs. using something that people have already invented. You also have the idea that these developers are generally 'chasing innovation' as if they want to invent something that'll be amazing for Z even though we haven't hit X or Y yet.

Ideally, we'd have a world where:
1. Applications were 100% agnostic of Desktop (Any common frameworks would have to be 100% agnostic of desktop, or add very pluggable modular integration so that any desktop could implement)

Eg. If I install Gimp on KDE/XFCE/etc.. desktops, I'd pull in something like this
Gimp
GnomeDependenyLibraries (small direct use libraries)
GTK_compat_common-ui-foundations

Instead, I get
Gimp
GimpDepenenyLibraies (small direct use libraries)
TheKitchenSinkWhichIsMostOfGnome

2. Service layer components should equally be standardized per their function, not per their desktop environment. If they need integration points with the desktop, then as with applications, a clear set of API implementation points should exist to make this straight forward for a desktop developer to implement.

I hate seeing SO many redundant packages being installed because people just don't communicate, or they don't want to use code written by 'those people' or they didn't bother to see that it was already invented, or some other equally pointless meaning. We're generally all adults and we should be doing the mature steps in moving the platform in the right direction. Sadly, unless a very large company comes along and clubs all these other org's over the head with their amazing flexible solution, I don't see things changing any time soon.

Re:Linux needs more desktop forks

[cusco]

This. I am actually looking for an alternative for Windows 8 (the first OS that I've ever seen that deliberately impedes your work flow), but my previous Linux experiences have left a bad taste in my mouth. From the perspective of a 20-year Windows user, there are two things that would make Linux much more attractive. First, a Linux equivalent to InstallShield, one which detects and installs dependencies, allows configuration customizations, shows you what it's going to do, asks your approval, and then lets you know what it's doing as proceeding and gives you usable error messages. The second would be a file manager which gives a new user 1) some idea where is an appropriate location to save user files, and 2) some system that shows users what is an executable file, a config file, a library, etc. as easily as a user can tell from the Windows file extensions.

The idea of repositories is nice, but having to figure out what to do with the tarball, rpm, whathaveyou, file, wandering about until you find the install directory, flailing about until you figure out which is the executable, trying to launch it while guessing which switches are appropriate, and then finding that it requires some uninstalled prerequisite file (or worse, a different version of one you have installed), is absurd. I liked what I got working in the couple of Linux installed I've done (except the bog-slow version of Google Earth), but getting to that point was ridiculously more difficult than it should have been.

I'm afraid that at this point I'm sounding like some of the thousands of (l)users that I've supported over the years, "I don't care how it does it, I just want it to work!" It's true though, I don't want to become an expert user and THEN become productive with the OS/apps, that's the exact opposite of the way the work flow should go. I need to be able to do my work first, and then I'll take the time to experiment and explore further. That's not the fun, flashy stuff that people want to work on, but that's what Linux needs before I'll recommend it to anyone else.

Re:Linux needs more desktop forks

[Grishnakh]

Choices have cost: the Linux community's continued refusal to acknowledge this has left the Linux desktop in a continuous state of disrepair.

It's not "the Linux community's" fault: it's the fault of certain groups, namely the GNOME developers and Canonical. If it weren't for those two groups, we'd still have only two main desktop environments (KDE and Gnome), plus a few very minor players (XFCE, LXDE, etc.). Instead, both Canonical and Gnome decided to try to "innovate" by making crappy new touch-like DEs that so many people hated, it ended up causing a mass defection to XFCE (turning it from a bit player into a much larger player) and spawning not one, but two forks of Gnome (MATE and CInnamon).

If "the community" operated like a democracy, then this never would have happened, because there would have been no popular support for Unity or Gnome3. However, Linux is developer-driven, so whatever the developers want, they get. What's disappointing is that the distros do little to no quality control it seems; remember with KDE4.0 how the distros just went ahead and dumped the 3.5 series and made 4.0 the only one available, even though 4.0 wasn't nearly ready for primetime use? Then with Gnome, they did the same thing, adopting Gnome3 just because the Gnome devs told them it was ready and Gnome2 was "obsolete". Linux Mint seems to be the only distro that actually listens to its users, rather than trying to force things on its users, which is why it's providing both MATE and Cinnamon (and KDE), because that's apparently what users want.

Re:Why do we care about diff distro releases?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because it's interesting to know about different distros than the "chosen one" you use.

Sometimes a new distro highlights can be a turning point for a sick and tired user of an old retro distro.

Re:WTF is Mint

[n1ywb]

I don't view Ubuntu as its own distro. It just piggy backs off of Debian's success and hard work.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Why do we care about diff distro releases?

[TopSpin]

Sure Linux Kernels, but beyond that, who cares?

I do. I have been looking forward to Mint 15 for a while and so have a lot of others. I appreciate that it was posted on Slashdot and I hope others consider trying Mint as a result. Mint deserves the attention because Mint is an antidote to terrible Linux desktop environments.

Re:Anti-semitic OS? No thanks.

[domatic]

Anti-Semitic != Anti-Israel in all cases. Israel is a particular political entity who's actions are not above criticism.

Re:Anti-semitic OS? No thanks.

[Ksevio]

Just because someone is in favor of Palestinians receiving statehood and not having their houses bulldozed doesn't make you anti-semitic.

Re:Why not provide packages for other distros?

[socrplayr813]

I run LMDE (Mint Debian Edition) or straight Debian Testing on my computers whenever possible. They're fully compatible, just add one or the other to your sources. Similarly, I'm reasonable sure that standard Mint is compatible with the Ubuntu repos. I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong

Nice and snappy on a netbook

[Ksevio]

I was looking for a new distro to upgrade an old netbook and installed the RC this weekend (with MATE desktop). It started out a little shakey as the keyboard didn't work, and the mouse wouldn't click (due to a hardware issue and trackpad clicks not enabled), but after a restart and some mouse settings, it's nice and snappy.

Previously had Ubuntu netbook remix and tried Ubuntu with Unity, but that was just so awkward to use with a tiny screen and trackpad, and somewhat sluggish when web browsing.

I'd never tried Linux Mint or MATE in the past, but it seems to be a good combination for a low power computer.

Re:Why not provide packages for other distros?

[RDW]

Would it, in principle, be possible to to provide cinnamon or mate as packages for other distributions, e.g. Ubuntu?

Sure, both Mate and Cinnamon provide these packages (right now I'm running Mate 1.6 on Ubuntu 12.04 and it works very well):

http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?page_id=61

However, you won't them in the official Ubuntu repository. I suspect Mate at least will make it into Universe after Debian adopts it, which now looks like it's going to happen:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=658783

Re:WTF is Mint

[unixisc]

How? Ubuntu came up w/ Unity, which people hated. They flocked to Mint, which then started working on alternatives. First, they offered Mate as the DE, then they came up w/ MGSE and finally, Cinnamon. The work on Cinnamon is about as much as Mint's as Unity is for Ubuntu. Unlike other Ubuntu knock-offs, such as Zorin or Pear or Puppy, Mint listened to what users wanted and came out w/ a DE that people more or less liked, and then offered it to their users. It takes quite a stretch of imagination to call that piggybacking.