The Linux Mint Blog

Monthly Stats – January 2013

Written by Clem on February 24th, 2013

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors:

Silver Sponsors:

Bronze 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
Out of Hours IT Help Ltd
Peter Nilsson
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 $4,556 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 207 donors:

$300, Mayoof R. A.
$250, Yazan H.
$128.77 (5th donation), Hendrik S.
$100, Pat Flanders aka “magic-rat“
$80, Christopher S.
$64.38, Anthony H.
$64.38, Francois G.
$51.51 (2nd donation), Richard C.
$51.51, I really like Linux Mint !
$51.51, Roderick A.
$50 (34th donation), Matthew M.
$50 (5th donation), Bruce R.
$50 (3rd donation), JMB
$50 (3rd donation), Gary M.
$50 (2nd donation), Todd B.
$50, Jacques F.
$50, Robert S.
$50, Dave G.
$50, Michael L.
$50, Douglas W.
$50, Stephen W.
$50, Pavle O.
$50, Perry S.
$50, Jason S.
$44, Vivian S.
$40, L.louise W.
$38.63 (35th donation), Olli K.
$38.63, Jan Joris Vereijken
$32.19 (4th donation), Peter Schallmoser-Schlogl
$32.19 (2nd donation), Markus G.
$32.19, Bartosz K.
$32.19, D P. B.
$32.19, Nandu K.
$32.19, Morten T.
$32.19, Jan Sepp
$31.41, Yin H.
$30 (40th donation), Slavoljub aka “slw”
$30, Elliot P.
$30, Robert M.
$30, J. P. M.
$30, UK Clearance Centre aka “New and Refurbished computers“
$29 (9th donation), Wolfgang P.
$25.75 (4th donation), Pinna A.
$25.75, William M.
$25.75, Jens R. aka “ctron“
$25.75, Jens R. aka “ctron“
$25.75, Roberto R. D. T.
$25.75, Zdzislaw P.
$25.75, Alejandro C. M.
$25.75, Mark P.
$25.75, Panayot R.
$25 (16th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (3rd donation), Greg Freeman
$25 (2nd donation), Pierre L.
$25 (2nd donation), Knut E. E. aka “Animoy”
$25, Nicholas Z.
$25, Scott P.
$25, David D.
$25, Hutch
$25, Lee B.
$25, James C. S.
$25, caribriz
$25, Ronald A. Y.
$24, Yue K. W.
$20 (23rd donation), Tsuguo S.
$20 (7th donation), Juergen G.
$20 (3rd donation), Johan L.
$20 (3rd donation), Donald F.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael W.
$20 (2nd donation), Bryan S.
$20 (2nd donation), Sharmarke A.
$20, Sarah S.
$20, Joel Z.
$20, Joseph W.
$20, David Allen
$20, James P.
$20, Philip King
$20, Trapper
$20, James L.
$20, John H.
$20, David H.
$20, Philip N.
$20, David C.
$20, Klaus Silveira
$20, Stanley R.
$20, Richard H.
$20, Gabriel S.
$20, Chad M.
$20, David C.
$20, Terry J.
$20, Ashwin P.
$20, Curt M.
$20, Paskal L.
$20, Patrick F. aka “Pathin“
$19.31, Marcel D.
$19.31, Chaussier A.
$19.31, John W.
$18, William A.
$15.45 (15th donation), Jarkko K.
$15.45, Guido P.
$15 (5th donation), Greg Dawes
$15, Lewis W.
$15, Warren F.
$15, Edward H.
$13 (2nd donation), Leopold H. Birkholm
$12.88 (6th donation), Jens-uwe R.
$12.88 (3rd donation), Stephan J.
$12.88 (3rd donation), Antonio Gemelli aka “Antowen“
$12.88 (2nd donation), Anonymous
$12.88 (2nd donation), Javier I. I. A.
$12.88 (2nd donation), HJG Gommers
$12.88 (2nd donation), Clinton Aarts
$12.88, Mi
$12.88, Jerome G. -. A.
$12.88, Bogdan I.
$12.88, Rastko P.
$12.88, Jonathan G.
$12.88, Veeti
$12.88, Mandeep S.
$12.87, Johannes T.
$12, Christian P.
$10.3, Juergen M. B.
$10 (23rd donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$10 (3rd donation), Dmytro P.
$10 (2nd donation), Richard G. aka “ForeverLube“
$10 (2nd donation), Marcus K.
$10, Orbmiser
$10, Ken R.
$10, Jozsef K.
$10, Simon J.
$10, Alexey Gorshkov aka “darkgerion”
$10, S B.
$10, Arron Ratcliff
$10, Alex Polevoy aka “dr.allcome”
$10, Pradeep M.
$10, Alexey Solomatin
$10, Douglas G.
$10, Jeff T.
$10, Chris B
$10, Robert L.
$10, Mark B.
$10, Jonathan C.
$10, Paul C.
$10, Jack M.
$10, Alex M.
$10, Kapoyko Y.
$10, Jason S.
$10, Maarten E.
$10, Terence B.
$10, Stuart K.
$10, Sukhvinder S.
$10, Jordan W.
$10, Vasanth S.
$10, Jessy JJ aka “Figuya“
$10, Diaper Cakes
$10, Glenn J.
$9.01, Stefan T.
$7, Silvio Rainoldi aka “ianaz”
$6.44 (14th donation), Ronald Trip
$6.44 (12th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$6.44 (11th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$6.44 (5th donation), Mark W.
$6.44 (2nd donation), Wolfgang Friedrich aka “wof”
$6.44, Luciano Valinho aka “lvalinho“
$6.44, Tomas Mallafre aka “tmallafre“
$6.44, Yannick A. V. D.
$6.44, Wojciech S.
$6.44, Alex V.
$5 (10th donation), Paul B. aka “Dude”
$5 (5th donation), Jerry Jones
$5 (4th donation), Albert J. P.
$5 (4th donation), Sam Ganzha aka “Sammy”
$5 (3rd donation), Edilbert N.
$5 (2nd donation), Mitchell S.
$5 (2nd donation), L M.
$5 (2nd donation), Phillip S.
$5 (2nd donation), GlobalApo.com
$5, Jozsef K.
$5, Wayne C.
$5, Iikka I. aka “IDex”
$5, Brian L.
$5, Frédéric S.
$5, One Click Cash
$5, Martin P.
$5, Prabu U.
$5, Jose M. D. A.
$5, Phillip S.
$5, Thomas P.
$3.86 (2nd donation), Martin J.
$3.86, Vrettos M.
$3.86, Ignacjanskie Centrum Formacji Duchowej aka “icfd.pl“
$3.22 (3rd donation), tete
$3.22, Sorin M. S.
$3 (9th donation), Web Design Company
$3, Custom T-shirts
$3, Wojciech G.
$2.58 (2nd donation), Normunds Mazurs
$2.58, Simon Hutley
$2.58, Guillaume aka “Voyance“
$11.24 from 8 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3694 (1st)
Alexa (website ranking): 6,239th

Events:

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).

In Linux Mint 15 Olivia, Cinnamon won’t only handle the desktop, the file browsing and the window manager, but also the screensaver and the control center. This will provide better integration and a better user experience.

All your settings will be in one place and they will all be relevant to your Cinnamon desktop:

The screensaver is also tightly integrated with Cinnamon and MDM. You can switch users (like you did with GNOME Screensaver) and you can also set an away message for people to see when you’re not there.

This message is visible on your screen while you’re away.

It’s a very simple feature which was primarily designed for companies where employees might be looking for each others and the ability to set away messages might prove useful.

Of course it’s configurable. You can turn it off altogether and you can set a default away message, which then appears on your screen when the computer locks itself automatically or when you don’t enter any message.

The artwork and layout of the screensaver itself are not final.

The goal of these two projects (known on github as “cinnamon-screensaver” and “cinnamon-control-center”), within the scope of Cinnamon 1.8 and Linux Mint 15 is to replace GNOME components which no longer fit well within Cinnamon, to provide a more coherent desktop and to improve its level of integration. Of course once we’re in control of their maintenance we also take the opportunity to innovate and enlarge the scope of the Cinnamon project. With that in mind, towards Cinnamon 2.0 and Linux Mint 16, these projects will continue to be developed, and they will gain new features. The screensaver for instance isn’t currently a “screensaver”, since all it does is locking the screen. We’re experimenting with webkit (we’ll talk more about this and MDM in a future blog post) and we’ll be looking at the possibility to make Cinnamon Screensaver compatible with screensavers written in HTML5.

News and summary:

The new LMDE ISOs passed QA and were released yesterday. They were initially planned for January but time was spent on improving the installer, adding plymouth and DDM and we ran into a few issues with networking and name resolution which had to be fixed prior to the RC. Our apologies for the delay.
About 2/3 of the features planned for Linux Mint 15 were implemented. The team is extremely focused at the moment and the development is going really well. MATE 1.6 and Cinnamon 1.8 will be released at least a month before Linux Mint 15 to ensure we have time to properly test and integrate all these new features.
Many thanks to our sponsors, partners, donors and all the people who support us and allow us to work on Linux Mint.

Posted in Main Topics | 22 Comments »

Linux Mint Debian 201303 RC released!

Written by Clem on February 23rd, 2013

The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 201303 RC.

Screenshots

LMDE 201303 MATE Edition

LMDE 201303 Cinnamon Edition

Highlights

Update Pack 6
MATE 1.4
Cinnamon 1.6
Installer improvements (graphical timezone and keyboard selection, support for installation on multiple HDD, slideshow, webcam and face picture support)
Plymouth splash screen

If you’re new to LMDE, welcome to Linux Mint Debian!

Important links

LMDE in brief

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a semi-rolling distribution based on Debian Testing.
It’s available in both 32 and 64-bit as a live DVD with MATE or Cinnamon.
The purpose of LMDE is to look identical to the main edition and to provide the same functionality while using Debian as a base.

FAQ

1. Is LMDE compatible with Ubuntu-based Linux Mint editions?

No, it is not. LMDE is compatible with Debian, which isn’t compatible with Ubuntu.

2. Is LMDE fully compatible with Debian?

Yes, 100%. LMDE is compatible with repositories designed for Debian Testing.

3. What is a semi-rolling distribution?

Updates are constantly fed to Debian Testing, where users experience frequent regressions but also frequent bug fixes and improvements. LMDE receives “Update Packs” which are tested snapshots of Debian Testing. Users can experience a more stable system thanks to update packs, or switch their sources to follow Testing, or even Unstable, directly to get more frequent updates.

4. How does LMDE compare to the Ubuntu-based editions?

Pros:

You don’t need to ever re-install the system. New versions of software and updates are continuously brought to you.
It’s faster and more responsive than Ubuntu-based editions.

Cons:

LMDE requires a deeper knowledge and experience with Linux, dpkg and APT.
Debian is a less user-friendly/desktop-ready base than Ubuntu. Expect some rough edges.
No EFI, GPT or secureBoot support.

Additional notes:

About the installer: The live installer is developed from scratch with Debian in mind. It’s configurable and it can be re-used by other Debian-based distributions. We noticed a lack in live technologies and in live Debian installers, so we’re happy to take the lead on this. If you’re a developer and you’re interested in using it, have a look at its source repository and don’t hesitate to contact us so we can help you fork it and merge upcoming changes between our two projects.
About bugs: Please use this blog to report bugs.
Dedicated chat room: #linuxmint-debian is open to LMDE users on irc.spotchat.org.

Download links:

Torrents:

MD5 sums: