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Linux Mint 18 KDE Now Available (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the affinity-for-linux dept.

Clement Lefebvre, otherwise known as the man behind Linux Mint, announced on Friday the release and immediate availability of the final version of Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" KDE Edition OS. Sarah KDE has been available in beta for a few months now, but you can get the Live ISO images from the company's website. The new version is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) distro, Lefebvre said. The new version comes with Plasma 5.6 desktop environment and associated apps. BrianFagioli writes: If you have at least 2GB of RAM, the Linux-based operating system could bring your aging computer into 2016 and beyond. Plasma offers plenty of options to 'make it yours', but it can sometimes be confusing -- there can be such a thing as too much choice. If after installing it you find it overwhelming, I would suggest going with the tried and true Cinnamon desktop environment instead. That seems to be the major focus of the Linux Mint team too. The Mint team is also including the Kubuntu backports ppa, which it promises will provide newer updates to KDE Plasma. Fans of the desktop environment should enjoy this immensely.

24 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. systemd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    no thanks!

  2. 2GB is not a "aging computer" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Many netbooks still come with one gb. Linux getting obese again. Time to stop eating so much eye Kandy.

    1. Re:2GB is not a "aging computer" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      2GB is near obsolete

      Spot on. 4 GB RAM is basically the minimum these days for comfortable computing. 2 GB is doable, but extremely slow and painful. The person you replied to talked about 1 GB netbooks. I had one way back when netbooks first were a thing. I had an HP Mini, and it was absolutely dreadful. Even in it's heyday, a netbook was painful. I ran a super barebones Arch install with i3wm and it was still extremely slow and painful. Windows was completely unusable.

      Unfortunately, that's just how it is now. We can bitch and complain about it, but that isn't going to change anything. 4 GB is just the baseline for RAM now.

      Bullshit.

      I have a 1GB netbook. I run straight openbox on top of X. No performance issues whatsoever.

    2. Re:2GB is not a "aging computer" by zoom-ping · · Score: 2

      Many netbooks still come with one gb.

      Have you been in a coma?

    3. Re:2GB is not a "aging computer" by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

      I use XFCE myself.

    4. Re:2GB is not a "aging computer" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yup. Utter bullshit.

      I have an XP machine with 2Gb RAM which is used mainly to run Logic Audio 5.5.1. I did a track last week that had 18 audio files and 12 VSTs. It ran perfectly.

      Truth is modern operating systems are bloated pieces of shit with innumerable unwanted, unnecessary services and other crapola that think they can run all the time stealing CPU cycles performing pointless shit that I do not want.

      Similarly I also did a great little song using my old Atari ST1040FM. 1Mb of RAM but using CLAB Creator it's rock solid and just works. Saved the finished MIDI data to a 720Kb floppy disk to boot.

      Modern technology has become bloated crap. Hipster cretins writing crap using Gbs of shitty "frameworks" which need 4Gb of RAM just to draw a capital letter "A" on the screen (with fancy shading, etc. etc.)

      The story of Mel seems more pertinent every day !

  3. Windows virtual machine? by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    I recently got a chance to see someone using unbuntu inside linux and I'm curious how this works. Is it running a virtual machine or re-implementing the low level system calls or what? If it needs to talk to the network or use a USB device is it a virtual connection to the Windows Drivers or does the linux have to have it's own drivers.

    Finally, since it's ubuntu does this mean I could give it a linux Mint character or is that pointless since it is using Windows as the desktop

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Windows virtual machine? by Arashi256 · · Score: 1

      You download and install VirtualBox. You define a new virtual machine (File -> New) for the operating system you want to run as a virtual machine. You define it's memory, ethernet, HDD size, etc. You attach the operating system ISO file to the virtual optical drive of the new virtual machine you created and then you start it. It installs the operating system as normal and now you have an operating system in a window in your physical operating system. That's it. Hardly wizardry.

  4. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I've been given to understand that Mint is the most popular distro on Slashdot.
    And KDE happens to be my personal religion, but Mint has taken a while to get this one out.
    It's obvious to me why this matters.

  5. Not yet ready for prime time by DougDot · · Score: 1

    The Mate version, anyhow. A couple of weeks ago Linux Mint 18 thoroughly borked my Intel Pentium G4400 Skylake desktop. It went through the install with no issues. I rebooted, did all the updates, rebooted and voila: Black Screen Of Death, X was totally hosed.

    I diddled with it for about a day and could not make it work trying just about everything, so I rolled back to Mint Mate 17.3.

    1. Re:Not yet ready for prime time by DougDot · · Score: 1

      Again, the Mate version had serious issues a couple of weeks ago.

    2. Re:Not yet ready for prime time by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

      We've got it, thanks.

  6. Betanews - groan by itomato · · Score: 2

    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).

  7. Let the fighting commence! by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    Oh look, a new version of a distro has come out!

    Quick everyone, lets flood the forums with complains about using systemd and about not using systemd is.

    Also, a new distro story is never complete with out arguments over bout how crappy gnome is, or kde, or unity, and oh, I dunno, lets throw twm in there too. I haven't seen complains about twm for quite a while now.

    The last thing I wanna read about are the genuine efforts of the distro maintainers to improve their operating system!

    1. Re:Let the fighting commence! by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Just imagine, if Lennart Poettering was alive 74 years ago he would have been strangling Jews with his bare hands.

      Interesting tactic. Skipping over the whole systemd/pulseaudio thing and going straight for Godwin's Law is definitely more efficient. Saves on ramp up time.

  8. lacks multimedia support by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    If you're looking for multimedia support in the browser, particularly if you plan on running from the live DVD rather than installing (after all, if you want to install you don't need a live DVD and might as well install Debian), then 18 isn't for you. Grab a copy of 17.3 while you can still find it.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  9. been running it for weeks by drewsup · · Score: 1

    fast, stable, no gremlins so far... using xfce on an old L500 Tosh Satellite, my usual compliments to the mint team,great work again!!

    1. Re:been running it for weeks by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 1

      I've been running Mint 18 Cinnamon for a while, but this article is specifically about the KDE edition, which was only just released.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  10. How about a link to the Linux Mint page? by sconeu · · Score: 2

    The Linux Mint announcement of Sarah

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  11. Kernel is 4.4... by LTIfox · · Score: 1

    Can they override Ubuntu on this? For a long term support release they have really fucked up choosing the kernel version. Skylake support is buggy as hell. People are forced to manually upgrade kernel to 4.6...

    1. Re:Kernel is 4.4... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's a decent reason to go with UbuntuMate instead. That way you get the better security coverage provided in the Ubuntu update methodology (and more frequent kernel updates). That combined with the superior Mate and Cinnamon UIs from the Mint side is a pretty good compromise.

    2. Re:Kernel is 4.4... by syzler · · Score: 2

      The 4.6 kernel series is already end of life, 4.7 is only marked stable, and 4.8 hasn't yet been released.. Currently Linux Kernel 4.4 is the latest longterm Linux kernel and is projected to be supported until Feb. 2018. With the exception of kernel 3.2, support will end for the other Linux longterm kernels either this year or next year.

      If you are creating a long term support release of a Linux distro, it makes sense to choose a longterm support kernel over either an EOL kernel release or an unreleased kernel (which likely bring its own set of issues). If the distro did choose to kernel without long term support, they would be on the hook for back porting critical patches into the kernel. Since they did choose a long term kernel release, they can focus on what sets Mint apart, maintaining their Cinnamon interface, rather than maintaining a custom kernel release.

      On a related note, Alpine Linux and Slackware Linux also chose the 4.4 kernel.

  12. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's currently the most popular linux distro according to this site

  13. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm not subscribed to distrowatch and so was happy to see the new article here. I'm downloading it now as it looks like KDE is a better choice for me that Cinnamon. Had it not been for my regular browsing of Slashdot I wouldn't have seen this.