Monthly News – August 2015

News

All editions for Linux Mint 17.2 were released and the team is now fully focused on development again.

Cinnamon was the first project to receive attention. Its power applet now shows vendor and model information, box pointers look better, and multi-monitor support was further improved: When switching workspaces, the workspace name now appears on all relevant monitors, output names (i.e. plug names) are shown alongside monitor names (in the screenshot below that allows us to distinguish two identical Dell monitors via the name of their display port).

Output names are also relevant when using xrandr or in the MDM configuration tool, to tell the login screen what monitor to use, and that’s another area we’ve been focusing on.

On Segfault, I explained how to manually set up the MDM login screen when using multiple monitors. In this development cycle we’ll also consider different ways to automate this configuration or to provide ways to generate it easily.

We’re also working on other things in Cinnamon and there are exciting plans for the other desktops and cross-desktop tools, but that’s not finished yet so I’ll talk about it another time 🙂

If you’ve been donating to us, sponsoring us or helping us in any way, thank you very very much. This is the time during the release cycle when we make the most of the freedom you’re giving us, with all the releases out, no funding or commercial aspects to worry about, all the equipment we need and a full cycle in front of us. Many thanks to you all. We’ll continue to post about new features and improvements as they get ready.

Poll of the month:

In 2013 Linux Mint created a new blog called “Segfault”, dedicated to cover technical news and stories from the development team.

Here are the reasons why it was separate from the Linux Mint blog:

  • So technical and development stories could be shared with Linux enthusiasts without getting in the way of official blog posts read by everybody
  • So developers could express themselves on a blog that was more casual and less official

95 posts later, we’d like to get your opinion on Segfault and how you think we can improve things. Don’t hesitate to vote and to comment.

[poll id=”13″]

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Rankings:

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57 comments

  1. You should at least have a link to Segfault on this site so people can go and read it if they’re interested.

    Keep up the good work 🙂

    Edit by Clem: On the right hand side, the “Development News” represent the latest articles on Segfault.

  2. Dear Clem,

    I am very pleasant and respect your team’s working. I think Cinnamon should done a bit to be prefect:
    – My laptop has a AMD Graphic 7600 Radeon and I installed proprietary driver. The issue is that each time I suspend and resume, my background was break as a television screen when it do not connect to any anten.
    – The original theme of Cinnamon should be improved. When an application have both menubar and toolbar, it is not good looking. Please repair the color of them such as Setting. Is is very beautiful.

  3. I’d like to see more posts on Segfault to keep track with what’s going on. Also it would be pretty awesome if there could be a series like “How to get started with Mint/Cinnamon” development.

    Edit by Clem: I’ll try to cover that a bit. In the meantime, did you check the new http://developer.linuxmint.com?

  4. Thank you for letting us vote. Unfortunately I can tick only one of the buttons. I want more posts on Segfault and on Linux Mint blog, because I enjoy reading both.

  5. Because it seems that nobody mentioned it so far: Thank you for including flash hal in 17.2!

    Edit by Clem: You’re welcome, it’s in Betsy too 🙂

  6. Great news as always! The level of information is good as it is. Writing about every possible change made is away from actual development. It’s a little disappointing if something important doesn’t get written about. So far I feel that I get informed pretty well about the upcoming changes/features.

    Edit by Clem: We can’t talk about every single little change. New features are largely covered when a new release is announced (in the “what’s new” page). Improvements not so much.. maybe half of them and very briefly, it depends how technical they are as well. During the release cycle though we can cover more development stories than we do at the moment.

  7. More information on this blog will be nice because this blog looks like it’s dead compared to Segfault.

    Merging them is also a good option and I don’t think that there is too much tech information on it. Also there will be less maintainance and this blog will receive more attention from the users. I voted for merging.

  8. First of all i would like to congratulate all the Linux Mint Team or Developers for Excellent work they’ve done with all of their distributions. i am personally using Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon and so far i am very much satisfied and pleased with it. i voted for the merging of the two because every bit of information and ideas might be useful for future development of better releases. ordinary users like me may not have much to contribute in terms of technical. but software development world does not always revolve around technical information. i believe that much of the development in most facets of technology today had come and started first as simply an idea. i am learning python programming. and someday when i make it big with software world, i will never ever forget to mention “Linux Mint 17.2” as my Chosen Linux Operating System and Where I Started.

  9. I would just like to add something too in addition to my earlier post. I hope that future releases of Linux Mint will not completely remove support for old crt monitors that have limited resolution of up to 1024×768 pixels. as not all starting programmers in the world have enough money to always buy a good computer monitor. i am also using just a built-in graphics card. (Intel HD 4500) and so far, everything works perfect on my system. running Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon.

  10. There should be more post on Segfault and there should be more technical doc / tutorials on Linux Mint (these on the community site are often outdated – It would be nice to at least indicate on which version it was tested successfully).

    Most of the time I learn technical things by reading posts on Segfault or by asking questions on the comment of these posts. It’s a pity there is no well structured wiki like on some other distro.

    I do agree that many things of Ubuntu apply to Linux Mint (and many things of Debian apply to LMDE) so there is no need to rewrite things just for the fun, but it would be nice to have a central wiki to all things that are related specifically to Linux Mint and all other Dev made by the Mint team (Cinammon, MATE, MDM, …).

  11. hi together,

    I think, LinuxMint-Blog and Segfault should be merged together and LinuxMint-Blog should cover all posts. I am more here than on Segfault.

    One question: I cannot see the vendor-output of the power-applet in Cinnamon, when I click on the power-applet. It only says “battery fully loaded”, then it showsthe brightness-applet and the energy-settings. Where can I see the vendor-output??

    But referring to the themes, I like them.

    But one question: how can I set nemo-backgrounds in LinuxMint-Debian 2 Betsy?? I would like to do that.

  12. And one question what would be a wish by me is:

    could we have a nicer default-wallpaper for LinuxMint please?? The current one looks quite boring.

    I loved the one called “Fresh.jpg” which can be found in /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-retro/ or even the one called “pr9studio_nature.png in the same folder /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-retro. Or what about useing the one called “Talento-1.jpg” or even the one called “light.jpg” as default-wallpaper which can be found in the same folder??

  13. I like it just the way it is. I have the RSS feed for Segfault on the browser bar of Firefox and the Linux Mint blog bookmarked along with other Mint links. Works perfectly for me!

  14. I like both., i like how the blog sums up everything from time to time, but i like the regular updates on segfault and the tutorials, i can always have more of that, so i’ve voted, more posts on segfault!

    Keep up the good work guys! <3
    Love ya,
    Carlos BrĂĄs (calhaus)

    P.S.: Hope you continue with this lts updated philosophy and also focus on file operations of nemo. 🙂

  15. I understand and like your reasons for the Segfault blog. However, I voted “more posts on the Linux Mint blog.” I guess I am in the minority. That’s fine. It’s just that sometimes 2, 3 or more weeks go by where there are no posts on the LM blog. That comes across as odd (to me). (I know, I know, you are busy working in other areas when you are not posting.)

    BTW, Clem, I wanted to ask: Since August 2015 represents 9 years of Linux Mint (correct me if I’m mistaken), do you have any plans for a 10 Year Anniversary Event next year? Something? Anything? Maybe a convention? 🙂 Start planning now–not that I’m trying to give you more work… 🙂

    All the best and continued thanks to you and the LM Team.

  16. I like it the way it is although I won’t mind changes if that’s what the majority wants.

    There’s one thing that I would like to see ‘fixed’ in both blogs :
    If you want to catch up on comments you can’t see more than the last 5 new posts so I’d like more history there or even a method that stores my last read post# and shows everything I have not read.

    In this blog one has to reread almost everything esp. when Clem comments.
    I’ve also noticed that the numbering is not really fixed as it seems some posts are in moderation or something and get inserted later on.
    Makes it difficult to find references between posts and hard to keep tabs on everything.

    I’m fond of a threaded design; segfault has that, this blog doesn’t.

    But mostly something that indicates what’s new for me and what I have read already.

    Apart from this all I’m a really happy Mint Cinnamon user and have been for years now !
    I think this team has the right balance between all components (technical AND users) to achieve the most pleasing and workable distro.
    I think this is reflected in the ever increasing numbers of users so you’re all definitely on the right path 🙂
    Keep it up !

    rg,rg

  17. I’m very happy to be able to use Cinnamon now!
    The recent improvements have made it lighter and it runs very well on my older machine.
    I’ve turned off all the effects though, but I don’t need them anyway.
    Thanks/Merci beaucoup Clément!

  18. @dangchienhsgs, try to disable Xrandr plugin for Cinnamon.

    sudo apt-get install dconf-tools
    dconf write /org/cinnamon/settings-daemon/plugins/xrandr/active false

  19. I bookmarked the main page http://linuxmint.com and that is where I used to go to read the main news blog. It took me quite a while to discover the segfault blog so I voted to merge them.

    However after voting I was puzzled by “1. Edit by Clem: On the right hand side, the “Development News” represent the latest articles on Segfault.” because on linuxmint.com there isn’t a link to “Development News”.

    Then I figured out that I should change my bookmark to http://blog.linuxmint.com ! Now I can check both blogs from the same page. I feel rather stupid, and I wish I could change my vote to leave it as it is.

    I have changed my bookmark to http://blog.linuxmint.com/

  20. Segfault does contain a range of interesting information for me. I personally quite enjoy seeing the constant improvements discussed and released.

    Though for many, Segfault is difficult to find or find out that it exists. The Linux Mint Start Page in Firefox could include a link to Segfault to boost its publicity. Additionally, finding Segfault through the Linux Mint website is also somewhat difficult. It could be displayed in an obvious position so people can easily find it off the bat (perhaps the sidebar, alongside the main news).

  21. hey together

    one more question:

    how do I install ambiance-crunchy-themes and radiance-crunchy-themes on LMDE 2 “Betsy”?? This would be a thing, what I would also like to see back in LMDE.

    Does anybody have an instruction for this??

    Thanks again and I still love my LMDE Betsy.

    And yes, we should merge Segfault and Mint-Blog into one. This Blog here has to get more alive. It also seems to dead to me. But Mint-Blog is a nice blog. So why not makeing it more vivid??

  22. @ Mintkatze

    To install Ambiance-Crunchy themes in Debian7/LMDE open Terminal and enter following commands in terminal:

    Terminal Commands:

    echo “deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/themes/ubuntu precise main” | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
    sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys F59EAE4D
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install ambiance-crunchy

    http://www.techlw.com/2013/11/ambiance-crunchy-themes-and-myhumanity.html

  23. > Edit by Clem: On the right hand side, the “Development News” represent the latest articles on Segfault.

    The problem is that the link is only shown when you look at blog’s main page. When the user goes straight to some blog post via Start Page (or just linuxmint.com main page), there’s absolutely nothing on the right side. 🙂

  24. “Development News” = Segfault? how would anybody guess that?

    for me the Blog (this page) is a general info place, for the general public to catchup on Mint news and hopefully make a donation too.

    Segfault is a place to see more of the nuts and bolts

    to mix the two would just create a huge volume of info mixed together…

    that said, there needs to be clear cross links for both pages, using the same terms and logos.

    (how come I am no longer shown as a contributor or sponsor? my bank keeps sending those checks!)

  25. Hi, I mostly use LMDE, but still LMDE-1 (MATE). Thats because I love the full featured Compiz, only available in LMDE-1. 🙂
    Compiz is postponed at the moment, I can read at GitHub. Please, when will you start solving that, so we can use it also in LMDE Betsy? 🙂

  26. I like Segfault because the developers can get into more detail about the technical aspects of development! I think the main blog should be about grand view of things (cinnamon 2.8 is released), while Segfault can go into detail about the nuances and intricacies of each component of Cinnamon 2.8!

  27. To me this feels like the worst release ever. Very buggy, at least for my part.

    Got so many different issues with 17.2 Cinnamon, don’t know where to begin.

  28. Hello,

    Congratulations for the work.
    About LMDE 2 mate + compiz, I followed the instructions of zaileion found on
    http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=190&t=193000#p1052119.

    It worked for me (AMD 64, Nividia 500) putting “emerald” in window-decoration and “compiz –replace ccp” in starting programs.
    With the gtk-window-decorator, i can’t configure the window (title, etc;), but it worked too, putting gtk-window-decorator in window decorator. It is 100 times better than the compiz of Linux mint mate 17.2 !
    Thanks to zaileion and to the whole team of Linux Mint.

    Guy

  29. A difficult one. I can see that Segfault combined with the blog – or linked to it – is an attractive idea and I have voted for it.

    On the other had you don’t want to be overwhelmed on Segfault with comments that really don’t belong there and the present set up does avoid that, in my opinion.

    Not a very helpful comment and I do hope that those who run Segfault have the final say.

  30. I thought that by including Segfault as a default bookmark a few releases ago, that the site would have been known by more as the vote reveals? I’m a little bit surprised.

  31. I voted for “There should be more posts on the Linux Mint blog” because I like to see there is a development going on, and I like to see new features coming. But briefly, not technically detailed.

  32. For years, the Linux mint team has delivered real end user Linux workable solutions and along the way the developments and the end results get better and better.

    Historically is often not been delivering for the end user that is a focus in open source – but the Mint folks drive stakes through that and deliver time and time again.

    Thank you very much 🙂

  33. For the last couple of months I’ve been using LMDE2 Mate edition. I have to say, it is AMAZING. Probably the cleanest, fastest, easiest OS I’ve ever used. It is truly an accomplishment. I think if you guys were to switch focus more onto that version, and really get some more people trying it out, Mint would grow even quicker than it already has/is. Thanks again for the awesome OS!

  34. Hi there,
    I’m glad to see you are investigating the way the information is spread out because I believe it is a weak point of LinuxMint. In my opinion, the question shouldn’t be limited to the two blogs though. Let me just copy a message I posted a few times when a new release took place, I hope this will be food for thought for a restructuring of the community, forums, blogs, etc.:

    The first thing I would like to point out here, is actually about contributing with ideas or comments, feature request, bug reports etc. It is very UNCLEAR where one should go to do such things IMHO.

    There is the community website which has an Ideas section, but it seems dated and quite confused. Again this may be my opinion, but there it is: it’s not very encouraging.
    What is that “Score” thing, how are the ideas processed, why is there such a mix of really old things and newer comments?

    Then there is the Launchpad sections for Bug reports and Blueprints. This is probably more aimed at developers, but also looks to me as a confused mix of old and new.

    And finally, the comments on the blog post. This is by far the most popular place to comment, report bugs, suggest ideas it seems. So, this is where I write. But it doesn’t really seem like the more logical place to me.

    So anyway, my first point is that, IMHO, there is some clarification to be done between blog, main site, community site, Launchpad, forums etc.
    Oh, and there are Local Communities and “Planet”, whatever that is

    Oh yeah, almost forgot the Segfault blog


    This page helps a bit:
    http://www.linuxmint.com/getinvolved.php
    But on the whole I think there are way to many places to go to, not mentioning that you have to register to some and that each web page has it’s own look and feel, looking fragmented. It’s not very encouraging for newcomers and I guess the community would be stronger (or at least seem so) if more gathered around less hangouts.
    This may only be a matter of presentation and could be solved by some rethinking and some webdesign, I guess.
    Or maybe it is just me

    Thank you for your consideration.

  35. Oh, there is yet another page that I just discovered reading the posts:
    http://developer.linuxmint.com/contributing.html
    Maybe considering all this would be a distraction from the main development, but I strongly believe a bit of cleaning up and a good structure for the community and for the information would benefit greatly to LinuxMint.
    Thanks for the work in any case,
    Lito

  36. The Segfault news are really interesting but it would be too much for the main website/blog. This place should serve for general information so people without too much time on their hands (or interest) should get the most important news on Linux Mint.

    However, I think the best choice would to promote the Segfault news distinctively on all Linux Mint websites.

  37. I think Segfault could be advertised a bit more- I only came across it through a web search.

    The balance is right as it is- please don’t cave to demands for more posting on segfault. As interesting as it is, I wouldn’t want to see more time taken away from development to maintain it. Also, it’s nice to get one or two surprises at release time! (Yes I can’t resist reading segfault)

  38. @48: “The first thing I would like to point out here, is actually about contributing with ideas or comments, feature request, bug reports etc. It is very UNCLEAR where one should go to do such things IMHO.”

    EXACTLY!

    – LM really needs a consistent system for bug reporting and tracking.
    Ancient example: the mint-stylish-addon appears to be stuck at version 1.0.4 which doesn’t work with other Stylish ‘styles’ and no details of why this package is *still* necessary! I remove it and it comes back with every upgrade. Package never gets fixed AFAIK.

    – The community forum uses a separate login (why) and won’t let me find my package reviews submitted from the Software Manager.

    @42: There is no longer an LMDE Xfce spin. You have two choices – 1)install the xfce4 metapackage on an existing MATE or Cinnamon system, OR 2)install the fine SolydX distro (an LMDE spinoff). I’ve done both and prefer the latter in a ‘production’ mode.

  39. I don’t see “development news” anywhere on the main website. There really should be some obvious banner-link captioned “SEGFAULT – Mint Dev Blog”.

    I would like more posts on both blogs, but I would also prefer they be SHORTER. A constant pulse of short posts shows us non-technical people that the dev team is alive and kicking – not all of us would know to (or can) look at github!

    While I’m posting here, I might as well ask – the next release of Ubuntu (after Wily) is likely going to be LTS. When you make a new version of Mint based on that – probably 18 – is it possible for there to be an upgrade path from 17.3 to 18, rather than requiring reinstall?

  40. Hi Clem,
    Thank you for LM. I think it’s the most usable and functional linux distro currently. Congratulations to you and to all LM developers…
    I’ve installed Cinnamon version on my macbook pro mid2012 and there’s only a problem: the battery drains very quickly….why…? 🙁 On LM forum many people have the same problem with macbook and other laptops…
    KDE version also freezes at boot (during mint logo)…the only way to go on it’s to shutdown from power button and restart…..then it works well…..It happens occasionally but is annoying….
    Do you think you can solve…?
    THX 🙂

  41. I think the present division works well for me. The Linux Mint Blog has the BIG events concerning releases and monthly news that I feel everyone should know about.

    Segfault is more technical. I’m not that technical. I go there when I feel I’m ready to read something a bit above my head! I think there are probably others who would be confused if they were mixed together.

  42. Peter and “J” both suggested that Segfault isn’t very obvious as being a Linux Mint developer blog. I’d take it a step further and say that a blog by developers maintaining an operating system should not include in its name a reference to software being terminated due to a failure state.

    I don’t read Segfault, nor would I unless it was an integrated part of the linuxmint.com site. Combining the two seems like the obvious choice, and applying filters to determine what kind of content you see.

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