The Linux Mint Blog

Gaming is booming and is one of the most inspiring, exciting and innovative form of art in the IT industry. 2012 was an impressive year. With a global market of $67 billion gaming studios hire the most talented developers, artists, writers, and professionals and provide a huge selection of quality games. The budget and production are so high it’s becoming easier to choose a good game than to find a good movie these days… but most of them work on Windows, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.

Just as “killer-apps”, games are among the top reasons which prevent people from switching completely to Linux. In 2012, 15 games were scored 90% or higher on Metacritic. None of them were released on Linux.

A couple of things happened though and the future might look a little brighter for Linux gamers.

2012 was a big year for “Indie gaming”. Independent developers challenged major studios with games like Minecraft, The Walking Dead and Journey. The fact that a few developers could achieve so much, without resources, changed the perception of many. Then came the Humble Bundles which sent two strong signals: Linux users want games and they’re ready to pay for them.

At the end of last year, Valve and Canonical announced they were working together to bring Steam (which is estimated to have a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games) to Linux. Their efforts paid off and the Steam client is now available and working fine in most distributions.

The screenshot below shows Steam running on Linux Mint 14:

Valve is planning a new gaming console in 2013 based on Linux and the company is currently promoting its Linux client, even to its Windows users. Gaming media, blogs and magazines are covering the news and some of the major studios are considering porting their games to Linux.

If you like strategy games for instance, you’ll be happy to know Paradox Interactive already ported Crusader Kings II.

Crusader Kings II was given a 8/10 by IGN and Gamespot and a 9/10 by Destructoid. It is one of the very good strategy games of 2012. Other popular games are likely to follow; some old ones like Counter Strike 1.6 or Half Life, or brand new ones like “The Cave”.

If you’re into gaming and you’d like to play on Linux Mint, don’t hesitate to get involved and to send Valve your feedback:

• Browse the Steam Linux catalog online at http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/
• Install Steam in Linux Mint with this .deb or add this repository: http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/
• Get involved in the Linux Steam community at http://steamcommunity.com/linux
• Send issues and ideas at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues

We’d also like to hear from you on how you’d like us to improve or facilitate things for you in regards to gaming on Linux Mint.

Note: Most popular games are commercial and developed by major studios, so if they come to Linux they’re likely to become available through Steam. However, if you’re interested in HTML5 or online gaming or if you have ideas on how to further promote Indie gaming and Free Software games, please let us know. Many Windows games also run quite well using Wine. We like for things to work out of the box, but maybe we can help here as well. Don’t hesitate to comment if you’ve some experience to share with Wine or wine-related software.

Linux Mint 15 will be named “Olivia” and should be available at the end of May 2013.

Olivia is pronounced oh-LIV-ee-ah. It is of Latin origin and the meaning of Olivia is “olive tree”. The olive tree is a symbol of fruitfulness, beauty, and dignity.

Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” will feature the following editions:

• Cinnamon
• MATE
• KDE
• Xfce

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors: Silver Sponsors: Bronze Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors: Community Sponsors: Alyx Biologicals B.V. Merchant Hubs Online Coupon Codes Windows VPS Hosting Kamal G Mark Cohen +++ PDF Reader for Android +++ BearElk Technologies, LLC Caturix Craig D M Hamilton Free Bounce House Helmut Kleinhans Kristian S. levitra Mahendra Tallur Poobies – Weihnachtskarten Sascha Reinsch SEER Interactive The Survival Monkey Unixmen- Linux News & Howtos

To become a sponsor or to see the full list of Linux Mint sponsors, please visit: http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php

Donations:

A total of $7,786 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 288 donors:

• $206, Damijan A.
• $200 (8th donation), Mohammed A.
• $200 (3rd donation), Connie E.
• $133.92, Fireman
• $128.77, Michael H.
• $124.52 (3rd donation), John M.
• $120, Alexander P.
• $100 (3rd donation), Warren A.
• $100 (2nd donation), Jackson T. B.
• $100 (2nd donation), William H.
• $100, Terrell F.
• $100, Bryan L.
• $100, Cameron M.
• $100, Richard S.
• $100, Matthew P.
• $100, Ronald N.
• $100, Goritskaia M.
• $100, John Collins
• $99, Khanh Tablet Inventor
• $80, Robin S.
• $77.26, Frison F.
• $75 (7th donation), Richard H.
• $74.74, Tamer S.
• $64.38 (2nd donation), Robert B.
• $64.38, Constant
• $64.38, Gavin H.
• $64.38, Günter K.
• $64.38, Moreno R.
• $64.38, Markus M.
• $64, Erik E.
• $62.26 (2nd donation), Kirsti D.
• $62.26 (2nd donation), Alberto P.
• $62.26, R. W.
• $62.26, Heinz B.
• $62.26, Thomas W.
• $62.26, Radovan R.
• $51.51, Andres
• $50 (39th donation), Slavoljub aka “slw”
• $50 (33rd donation), Matthew M.
• $50 (32nd donation), Matthew M.
• $50 (7th donation), bdantas
• $50 (2nd donation), Roman K.
• $50, Glenn Sheffield
• $50, Thomas K.
• $50, Paul B.
• $50, Murali B.
• $50, Nathan C.
• $50, Lewis Charitable Fdn aka “LCF”
• $50, Temel B.
• $50, Jeff W.
• $50, David D.
• $50, David I. aka “bodam”
• $50, Bruce I.
• $50, Paul H.
• $40 (2nd donation), Pedro E.
• $38.63, Ines R.
• $38.63, Isak S.
• $37.36 (34th donation), Olli K.
• $37.36 (2nd donation), Vadim M.
• $31.13 (2nd donation), Dick B. aka “Dick”
• $31.13 (2nd donation), Rudolf B.
• $31.13 (2nd donation), Matthias H.
• $31.13, Jolyon H.
• $31.13, Davide D.
• $30 (9th donation), Philippe W.
• $30 (2nd donation), Vavai
• $30 (2nd donation), Ghost7
• $30, Haavard B.
• $30, Sebastian Bartsch aka “SBartsch“
• $30, Gabriele G.
• $30, Andrew W.
• $30, Knut E. E. aka “Animoy”
• $29.62, Raffaele P.
• $28.64, Björn L.
• $25.75 (3rd donation), Mark Coumans aka “omtefotograferen“
• $25.75 (2nd donation), Jim aka “Jimbo”
• $25.75, Daniel K.
• $25.75, Andrea G.
• $25.75, David B. aka “Jimbow”
• $25.75, Josemi
• $25.75, Stig R.
• $25 (15th donation), Ronald W.
• $25 (8th donation), Vance R. aka “helmsdeeper”
• $25 (2nd donation), Fu Y. C.
• $25 (2nd donation), Andy N.
• $25 (2nd donation), Charles R.
• $25 (2nd donation), Hot Tubs
• $25, Edward F. S.
• $25, William K.
• $25, Jon M.
• $25, Michael W.
• $25, Devendra R.
• $25, Jonathan A.
• $25, Jason L.
• $25, Ernie
• $25, Chris C.
• $25, John H.
• $25, Dani Kupak
• $25, Trevor J.
• $25, Rick & Eileen B.
• $25, Bob T.
• $24.9, Friedrich B.
• $24.9, Michael S.
• $24.9, Igor C.
• $24.9, Peter B.
• $24.9, Christian B.
• $24.9, Juan C. D. L. V. S.
• $24.9, Alessio M.
• $20 (22nd donation), Tsuguo S.
• $20 (3rd donation), Ken de Montigny
• $20 (3rd donation), Kevin Safford
• $20 (2nd donation), Ronald D.
• $20 (2nd donation), Todd M.
• $20 (2nd donation), Raman V.
• $20 (2nd donation), Jorgebadad aka “jungle_boy”
• $20 (2nd donation), Michael T.
• $20, Dave R.
• $20, Robert E. S.
• $20, Robert S.
• $20, Pouria A.
• $20, Aaron L.
• $20, Sharon O.
• $20, Lee M.
• $20, Gaurav S.
• $20, Eugen T.
• $20, Charles O. .
• $20, Sigurd L. aka “sigurd1701“
• $20, Arseny P.
• $20, Michael M.
• $20, Steve R. C.
• $20, Pat L.
• $20, Cedric H.
• $20, Narate T.
• $20, Alberto P.
• $20, Rodolfo D. N.
• $20, Paul A.
• $20, Thibault D.
• $20, Lars H.
• $20, Victor Zambrano aka “Don_Vito”
• $19.31 (6th donation), Zoe Q.
• $19.31, Florian H.
• $18.68 (2nd donation), Robert P.
• $18.68, Björn G.
• $18.68, Jas G.
• $18.68, Daniel F.
• $18.68, Volker B.
• $18 (5th donation), Dominik K. aka “doke“
• $17.76, Sam H.
• $15 (2nd donation), Zonic System General Trading – F.Z.E
• $15, Christian P. F.
• $15, J. P. Juchem Neto
• $15, Roger B.
• $15, stratus_ss
• $15, Steven K.
• $15, ice-beam
• $15, James T.
• $15, Michael K.
• $15, Eric D.
• $15, Adam T.
• $12.88 (7th donation), zerozero
• $12.88, Wieger W.
• $12.88, Piotr O.
• $12.88, Lothar R.
• $12.88, Joseph Mc D.
• $12.88, Rok O.
• $12.88, Dieter G.
• $12.8766, Rob K.
• $12.87, Jozef R.
• $12.45 (4th donation), Joachim M.
• $12.45 (2nd donation), Luca D.
• $12.45, Edoardo C.
• $12.45, Dirk P.
• $12.45, Axel B.
• $12.45, Marc P. S.
• $12.45, Sampo P.
• $12.45, Elmar S.
• $12.45, German J. H.
• $12.45, Sebastien P.
• $12.45, Christian N.
• $12.45, Víctor A. R. G.
• $12.45, Terry T.
• $12.45, Javier I. I. A.
• $12.45, Mariano P.
• $12.45, R.G. Molenkamp
• $12.45, Hannu J.
• $12.45, Pierre-louis B.
• $11.5 (9th donation), Matt R. aka “kiswa”
• $10 (22nd donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
• $10 (7th donation), Henry W.
• $10 (6th donation), Eduardo O.
• $10 (3rd donation), Scott S.
• $10 (2nd donation), Kamil G.
• $10 (2nd donation), Alexey aka “hellman”
• $10 (2nd donation), Jose M.
• $10 (2nd donation), Dmytro P.
• $10 (2nd donation), Christian S.
• $10, Orhan Kupusoglu
• $10, Niels Z.
• $10, Erwin P.
• $10, Ivan R.
• $10, Fauzi Rachman aka “Flashque“
• $10, Ganesh Karanjkar
• $10, Lee B.
• $10, Michael T.
• $10, Terry F.
• $10, John T.
• $10, Simon E.
• $10, Aristeidis T.
• $10, Berry J.
• $10, Roger A.
• $10, Dean D.
• $10, Jtalk
• $10, Neill F.
• $10, Robin H.
• $10, Thomas O.
• $10, Taisir B.
• $10, Pamino F.
• $10, Raphael C.
• $10, Paolo P. A.
• $10, Hugo B. L.
• $10, Thomas A.
• $10, Yuriy B.
• $10, Mitchell S.
• $10, Jerome L.
• $10, Nicolas D. P.
• $9.96, Antonis P.
• $9.96, Davide N.
• $9 (23rd donation), John A.
• $8, Nyan H. T.
• $8, Russell F.
• $7, Jeffrey S.
• $6.44 (6th donation), SilFox
• $6.44, John R.
• $6.44, Alessandro D.
• $6.44, Jens R.
• $6.23 (10th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
• $6.23 (4th donation), Mark W.
• $6.23, Luis A.
• $6.23, Raffael M.
• $6.23, aka “hardlink”
• $6, Miwa K.
• $5.01, Kuchma R.
• $5 (16th donation), Antonina K. aka “Tonya”
• $5 (4th donation), Christopher R.
• $5 (4th donation), Jerry Jones
• $5 (3rd donation), Roman Nikolaevitch aka “rv82″
• $5 (2nd donation), Amit Barnwal
• $5 (2nd donation), Brooke Dukes aka “BandonRandon“
• $5, GlobalApo.com
• $5, Gary B.
• $5, Nick T.
• $5, Etienne D. K. L.
• $5, Miloserdov S.
• $5, Hamza Umar Boyd aka “TheDynamicHamza21“
• $5, Estate Agents London
• $5, Gábor F.
• $5, Bo S. Y.
• $5, Kristian
• $4.5, Jason G.
• $3.86, Ravi R.
• $3.86, Audran M.
• $3.74 (4th donation), Kjell O. B. aka “kob”
• $3.33 (2nd donation), Kuchma R.
• $3.03 (3rd donation), Louis Pilfold aka “Pop”
• $3 (8th donation), Web Design Company
• $3, Surprise.md
• $29.36 from 22 smaller donations

If you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Rankings:

• Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3575 (1st)
• Alexa (website ranking): 6,202nd

Events:

• Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” KDE was released
• Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” Xfce was released
• LMDE Update Pack 6 was released
• The Linux Mint 14 OEM installation disks were released
• Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” Xfce RC was released
• Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” KDE RC was released

Latest development:

Development is a lot of fun and it doesn’t take much to get started. If you’re tempted to join the team, don’t hesitate to follow our development on http://github.com/linuxmint and come and chat with the developers at #linuxmint-dev (irc.spotchat.org).

This month we’re giving you a preview of some of the new features we implemented in the LMDE installer.

The timezone selection is now graphical and features a World map:

The keyboard selection now also features a graphical representation of the selected keyboard layout:

On the “User info” screen, you can now select a picture for your user which is then used in the login screen and the lock screen. If your computer has a webcam you can also click the “Take a photo” button and take a picture of yourself.

The installer also features improvements from Schoelje and Bluematt:

• UI improvements
• A slideshow
• Support for manual partitioning and installing on multiple disks

Supporting webcams, calculating lattitude/longitude and map projections and rendering complex graphics was particularly challenging. We were able to find inspiration and bits of code in other installers such as Ubiquity or on websites like StackOverflow. The development of these features was extremely exciting

Other than the new installer, LMDE also received the new DDM (written by Schoelje) and a Plymouth splash screen.

News and summary:

• Many thanks to our sponsors, partners and donors. As always we received a fantastic amount of support from you! Donations are traditionally high after a main release and Linux Mint 14 was very popular. This month’s donations were at an all-time high. You’ve never supported us that much before, so I’d like to send all donors a big thank you here!
• The new LMDE ISOs are almost ready and they should enter QA sometime this week. As previously announced, LMDE will come in two separate editions for MATE and Cinnamon.
• The team is almost entirely focused on the development of Linux Mint 15. The roadmap is ambitious but everything is going really well so far. We’ve got a lot of improvements to show and we can’t wait to share our excitement and to show you what we’re working on. You can follow some of it on Github or stay tuned for the next “Monthly Stats” where we’ll starting previewing some of it.
• Although this post comes late in the month, we’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year 2013. We’ve had a fantastic time working on this distribution and interacting with such a great community since 2006. Of course we all knew from the beginning the Mayans were wrong (right?), so here’s to another year of fun and excitement, our best wishes to all of you and our thanks for using Linux Mint. Happy new year everyone!