In partnership with CompuLab, ThinkPenguin, OSDisc and HELLOTUX, we are proud to announce a new section on our website: The Linux Mint Store.
All the Mint products sold by our partners are now browsable on the website
As a GNU/Linux distribution, we specialize in distributing, packaging and developing software. We’re extremely focused and we do not produce, sell or ship anything. Thanks to a network of strong and reliable partners we are now able to provide Linux Mint products to the community while creating another source of income for the distribution.
Items in the Linux Mint store link to our partners websites where purchases of the items can be made.
I’d like to thank all our partners for the quality of their work and of our relationship with them and all the people who enjoy these items and whose purchases contribute to support our project.
You can visit the store by following this link: http://www.linuxmint.com/store.php
Good stuff. Hope there will be delivery to Africa.
I think I’ll grab me one of those T-shirts. I hope I can get them in “any colour so long as it’s black.” 🙂
Me thinks it should be called: ‘Mint Store’
FYI, The mint store page says T-Shirts are $22 but when you follow the link to the HELLOTUX page they are $33.
Edit by Clem: Thanks Mike, I’ll ask Hellotux about the price change and I updated the price in our store in the meantime.
How can I order and make the payment and get the product In Bangladesh?
Very nice!
The thinkpenguin store wasn’t responding when I tried to browse the goods. Wanted to buy some shirts, but they don’t carry my size. 🙁
Glad to see your store open, though! 😀
Although they are overpriced ($25 is more than 1200 Indian Rupees), I decided to buy a T-shirt. But after added to the cart it shows 38 USD. So dropped the plan (atleast temporarily).
I like the green polo shirt. The price says $25, but when I go to order it the price changes to $38. What’s up with that?
Edit by Clem: Sorry about this, it’s our mistake. My understanding is that they unified the shipping costs Worldwide and now include it in the price (whereas Hellotux previously mentioned $22 and $25 and probably added shipping costs which amount varied depending on the destination). It’s just a guess though, we’ll clarify this with Hellotux.
Hey! But shipping cost is included, isn’t it?
ThinkPenguin.com is aimed at making Linux more readily available to the masses. Our goal is a product catalog that works seamlessly out of the box with free software operating systems. What most companies, users, and even developers don’t understand is how the inclusion of non-free software negatively impacts the user experience.
Most distributions today (including Linux Mint) include some non-free pieces. While these pieces make it easier for users of totally non-free (or almost) operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X) to switch they negatively impact the Linux user experience. Clem and the Linux Mint team have decided to make switching easier by including such pieces. In the long run though it is better for users to move away from being dependent on such pieces.
Ultimately we would like to educate users on how these non-free software dependencies negatively influence this experience. There are many good examples. Some non-free pieces cause system instability (ndiswrapper), other pieces create compatibility issues or prevent certain features from being implemented as they are dependent on a stable ABI (which does not exist as this is not how Linux works), and yet other pieces simply loose support after a release or two (because companies can’t support them). In a worst case scenarios you may even loose support for certain features in a currently supported version of Linux (Oracle’s Java and Adobe Flash 11.2 Firefox fiasco are examples).
So while our web site does need some work it’s not been a first priority. Nor has publicity or other minor issues. Getting a catalog ready that is supported by completely free software has been our #1 priority. Now that the catalog is largely complete we are working on fixing hundreds of tiny issues. However most require a new site, a new platform, and new features for that platform. Adding these features to the old site would be a waste of resources. We are almost done with adding critical features to this new platform (Drupal / Commerce) and will start working on populating it with products. Many of the features which are needed to better support users are being implemented and will be available when the new site goes up (or shortly thereafter). Some of these features include: multi-lingual support, region targeted pricing/advertising (reduces confusions as different regions advertise taxes differently), better product pictures, lots of minor bug fixes, etc.
Update about the price of the t-shirts: The prices in Europe are €22 and €25. In the USA it’s $33 and $38. It was our mistake, we basically got mixed up and wrote down the Euro price in Dollars on the Mint store. I also got a clarification from HELLOTUX on the shipping, they provide free Worlwide shipping, so that’s included in the price.
congratulations on your launch! so much going on, many different demands on your time, eh? well done clem and the linuxmint team.
linux mint t-shirt… shut up and take my money lol I want it shipped to brazil right now!!
I understand what you say, Chris, but the image of Free Software in a lot of people’s minds is that of crudeness and no attention to aesthetics. Mint is seen as an honourable exception, which I think helps it to its premier position in the Distrowatch listing. It is a fine product functionally and aesthetically.
Trevor: I agree that appearances do matter. Don’t get me wrong. A bad product though on a great web site is no good to any one and would negatively effect on our image too. We are putting significant resources into improving the web site. It is being completely redesigned on a new platform. A lot of new features are being added and experts brought in.
Please, focus on making at least one good distro ….. getting commercial is one thing, forgetting what it is all about, the second …. going this direction, will not pay in the long term, same thing with will happen to ubuntu …. shame. Don’t get Microsoft/Google pretentions.
H.
Edit by Clem: Our business plan is built around the idea of focusing on the distribution itself. This doesn’t take focus away from it and it doesn’t generate much revenue either. What it does is to bring the community extra services and products related to Linux Mint. That’s the reason this came so late and the reason why we do not produce or sell items ourselves.
Clem, I migrated to Mint after Ubuntu went to the Unity interface and haven’t looked back since. The store is a great idea and I wish you the best on it. Even at the prices indicated for shirts, with the shipping included, it’s not a bad deal! Your plan for focusing on the distro while offering extra services and products, through the store, is a sound business decision in my view and I support it.
I do disagree with Chris about how “non-free software negatively impacts the user experience”! Anybody who has used multiple OS’s realizes there are good and bad things about the particular OS they are using at any particular time. More importantly, they realize what applications work best for particular tasks. This gives rise to the “non-free software” that Chris seems to be referring to.
Unless you’re paying prices for software like what MS, Corel, Adobe, etc. charge for theirs, you can’t really expect a certain piece of software to be maintained indefinitely. So, it seems to me, only somewhat delusional/clueless users would be “negatively impacted” by these types of software.
Basically, whether you go with all free software, partially funded software, or fully funded software, you’ll never be able to please everyone. There will always be detractors in OS’s and software, no system is perfect. We can only hope to keep them at a minimum, free or funded!
Edit by Clem: I agree. I like software, whether it’s free or not free. I play games too, closed-source games and I really enjoy it. When it comes to using software, I prefer when it’s Free because I can do more with it and because it gives me guarantees long term that I’ll be able to continue to use it freely. When it comes to developing and distributing the programs we write ourselves, Free Software just makes sense. I would recommend to any developer to license his/her technology under GPL, but I also respect those who don’t and for whom closed licensing is a better option. You can feel that philosophy in Linux Mint: everything we do is GPL, and almost every package included in Mint is Free Software, but not because there’s something wrong with proprietary software (there isn’t), but simply by choice, because Free Software makes more sense to us and allows us to do more.
I am interested in buying from Niger Republic if you can ship there. Any chance this country will be added?
I’m not sure how much we actually disagree on these issues. I’m pretty confident nobody here is going to want hardware that is unsupported in a year. That’s what is happening with the non-free components. Either you see these problems or your glossing over them. In the later case your focus is probably different than ours. For the majority of users though they want hardware that works out of the box, that is going to be working in a year, etc. We couldn’t do that if we were shipping systems dependent on non-free software.
We’re not saying you can’t install non-free games. If anything our partnership with Linux Mint is saying the exact opposite. What I’m saying is it is undesirable and there are consequences which are negatively impacting users (hardware/software doesn’t work).
Went to purchase 10 of the foil Mint case badges, had to stop because the cheapest shipping was almost $14usd!
Shipping nearly doubles the price of the badges, can they add shipping via USPS, the contact page shows a location in NJ, USA.
Dontcha think that $33 for a T-shirt is, well, a bit much? Oh, I know: it’s that *embroidered logo* driving-up the cost. Perhaps a silk-screened logo would be okay?
It’s not that I think Linux Mint is overly concerned with appearances — quite the opposite! But (and this reflects the spirit of Free Software) wouldn’t a “cruder” logo be more accessible to (some of) our “spartan” wallets?
I’m getting the feeling that some people here are trying to dissuade purchasers. This information is dead wrong. Within the US the Linux Mint Case badges have free shipping. Outside the US the shipping is $6.99 USD. Some other case badges do have a UK shipping option for $13.95 USD. These same case badges have a free and $6.99 USD option though if shipped from the United States. The S&H doesn’t change no matter how many of the case badges you purchase either. If you have added other items to the shopping cart the S&H will be more though. It should generally add about half the shipping cost of one item. This keeps the shipping down while still taking into account additional shipping costs.
Sorry to say ,,,,, but you must be nuts to believe many if any will buy a low spec laptop at prices shown 🙂 … i just played with config … lol …ended up with 2200USD for a machine i can get for *** 😉
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Also 25 Euro for a shirt? i regret, there has to be another way of promoting “Linux Mint” 🙂
Edit by Clem: There’s plenty of other ways to promote Mint. The simple fact that you’re using it, promotes it and helps us already 🙂 You don’t need to buy anything to promote Mint 🙂 Let me be clear on one thing here. Mint does not discuss pricing with its partners. From a financial point of view, the sales do not matter much to us. Obviously, a small vendor isn’t going to compete with bulk prices on eBay, Tiger Direct …etc. Partners define their pricing based on their estimation of sales and taking into account how much it costs them to produce the item. Linux Mint is mostly interested in making sure the quality of the product is good so that we can brand it and put our name on it. You can find cheaper PCs, you can put the Mint logo on cheaper T-shirts using printing services, you can burn CDs yourself… we don’t need the sales to do well, we’re just happy to be able to provide these items, even if they’re expensive, as long as we’re happy with their quality. You can find figures on our website and get an idea of how much this represents financially. Mint is funded primarily by donations, sponsorships and advertising. Sales are marginal to us. This is not a commercial effort to fund Mint. We like these products and we’re delighted to make them available. Pricing is for the partners to care about and it’s usually the same as the original pricing used by the partners outside of the scope of our partnerships.
I find this post to be very interesting so far. Thank you Clem and Chris for stating your positions on the matter of free and non-free software. I also like AndyK’s comment@17. Actually, being an average user, I feel like AndyK’s comment most closely represents my position on the matter, although I don’t disagree with Clem or Chris. And that’s what I find most interesting. This is the type of content that is most productive in my mind when we just want to discuss things with a reasonable head on our shoulders. No particular entity is being bashed to pieces for the path that they have chosen for themselves–not even MS!
This leads me to the boringly obvious reality, and that is we indeed all have choices, and those choices aren’t limited to only the Linux Community. True, within Linux, we are presented with a particular scope of choices. But there are occasions where that scope will just not do for a particular user. I’ve been using Mint since version 5 and have seen one release stand out amazingly, while the next release has some obvious regressions, due to one or more layers of the complete release. It happens all the time. I have yet to see a Linux Kernel support my Canon Scanner. But if it was important enough for me, I could either buy another scanner that is a known supported device, or I could simply spin up a non-free version of VirtualBox so I can get USB working correctly. While I agree with Chris wholeheartedly on the drawbacks of non-free software, I don’t see a way around this particular issue currently. So I have a decision to make.
But I would also like to say that there has never been an eternally supported non-free software package that I know of, even coming from the expensive offerings of MS or OSX even. And surprisingly enough, even those offerings can be supported only for very short terms, especially if they are garbage to begin with.
In the end, I think this is why AndyK’s comment is most representative of my viewpoint. Absolutely nothing is perfect. But I have carved out quite a usable little niche in the Linux realm in the flavor of Linux Mint. I like to think I have put together a well rounded decision that results in the least complicated, least expensive, and most enjoyable experience for me. Yes, there are small amounts of non-free offerings, but for now, I feel like they are important enough for me, and the only option as of yet. That may change, and because I would rather have free, I hope it does. But I’m not losing any sleep over it.
I just followed the links into the store and on into Desktop computers. The note below the links say 10% gets donated to Linux Mint. However, the actual buy page https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wee-desktop shows Ubuntu as the operating system configuration.
Ubuntu is not Mint. To make matters worse, a person has to type out the distro they would prefer installed, where a drop-menu should exist instead for the laymen. Not only would that open up a new clientèle they’re obviously ignoring, but it’s the right thing to do.
Just got my black Linux Mint laptop skin. Excellent way to show the flag and get folks asking about Mint!
I was disappointed to not see a coffee mug for sale.