by ·229 Comments

Before we go through the news I’d like to thank you for your donations, your help and your generosity.

Codename for Linux Mint 18.3

Linux Mint 18.3 will be called “Sylvia”.

Backup Tools

The feedback you gave us last month helped us further improve our backup tool and identify the need for a system restore utility.

We talked to Tony George, the developer behind Timeshift.

Timeshift is an excellent tool which focuses on creating and restoring system snapshots. It’s a great companion to mintBackup which focuses on personal data.

The two applications will be installed by default and complement each others in Linux Mint 18.3.

We’re currently working with Tony to improve translations and desktop integration for Timeshift, add window progress support into it and improve its support for HiDPI.

If you want to help translate it please head over to https://translations.launchpad.net/linuxmint/latest/+pots/timeshift.

On Github, Timeshift is available https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift.

System Reports

At the end of the last development cycle I mentioned the idea of a tool which would bring information to users and help them troubleshoot issue. This is an ambitious project and we’re still not sure it will land in the next release, at least not fully…

I say not fully because this tool received its codename (“mintReport”), because we started implementing it and because one of its feature is now completely ready and will be shipped with Linux Mint 18.3.

That feature is the gathering of crash reports.

Using apport as a backend, a report is made whenever an application crashes.

MintReport lists these reports and generates stack traces for them:

Non-experienced users rarely know how to produce a stack trace and that information is crucial to developers when they’re not able to reproduce a bug.

This tool will make it much easier for anyone to produce these traces.

It also suggests the installation of debugging symbols (-dbg packages) when these are missing and warns in case of mismatches.

Linux Mint 18.3 will ship with mintReport and debugging symbols by default.

Cinnamon improvements

HiDPI will be enabled by default in Cinnamon 3.6.

The configuration module for cinnamon spices (applets, desklets, extensions, themes) was completely revamped:

Nemo extensions are now able to pass the name of their configuration tool to Nemo in order to get a “Configure” button in the Nemo plugins dialog:

This makes it easier to integrate extensions properly and not clutter the application menu.

Other improvements

The Driver Manager was given better HiDPI support and better detection of CPUs and microcode packages.

Synaptic dialogs (used by the Software Sources, Language Settings and the Update Manager) received support for window progress.

The toolbar of the PDF reader, Xreader, was improved. The history buttons were replaced with navigation buttons (history can still be browsed via the menubar). The two zoom buttons were switched and a zoom reset button was added to make Xreader consistent with other Xapps. As we speak Xreader is also getting support to detect your screen size, so that 100% zoom means that what you see on the screen is exactly the size the document would have on paper.

In Xplayer, the media player, the fullscreen window was improved to look cleaner and to be more consistent with the player’s window mode.

Nemo-preview received support for animated GIFs.

Translations for Nemo extensions, cinnamon-session and cinnamon-settings-daemon are now handled by cinnamon-translations (and thus will be greatly improved).

Sponsorships:

Platinum Sponsors:
Private Internet Access
Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:

Acunetix
Sucuri
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
Goscomb
BGASoft Inc
David Salvo
Thomas K		 Community Sponsors:

Donations in August:

A total of $9,151 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 429 donors:

$218, Benedikt R.
$200 (5th donation), Radomír Č.
$200 (2nd donation), B
$109 (2nd donation), DvW informatiemanagement en advies
$109 (2nd donation), Volker Meyer
$109, Cyril M.
$109, Jens H.
$109, Sandro P.
$109, Frederic S.
$109, Norbert J.
$109, Martin L.
$109, Mohammad A.
$109, Till J.
$100, Dave J. aka “cube”
$100, Ean P.
$100, Sparo V.
$100, Friedrich A. C.
$100, Carl M.
$82, James T. aka “jamest”
$80 (2nd donation), Pierre-elie H.
$54 (2nd donation), J. F. .
$54, Sylvain G. aka “Chewie”
$54, JosuKa
$54, Francis M.
$54, Jan B.
$54, Miguel V.
$54, Yannick B.
$54, Tim B.
$54, Juergen G.
$54, Nejdet C.
$54, Claudia K.
$54, Angel M. A.
$50 (20th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (16th donation), Robert D B.
$50 (4th donation), Thomas T. aka “FullTimer1489”
$50 (3rd donation), TehGhodTrole
$50 (3rd donation), John C.
$50 (2nd donation), Jesper D.
$50, Graeme H.
$50, Rajeswari S.
$50, Kenneth D. V.
$50, Colin B.
$50, Dan O.
$50, Nick L.
$50, Robert S.
$50, Eric M.
$50, Edward J.
$50, Erwin D.
$50, Janice G.
$50, Charles S.
$50, Robert O.
$50, Lawrence T.
$50, Gregory S.
$50, Frederic G.
$50, Richard P.
$50, Thomas P.
$50, Eric S.
$50, Sebastian aka “Seb”
$44, Rik K.
$40 (2nd donation), Roy V. K.
$40 (2nd donation), Robert F. aka “robfish”
$40 (2nd donation), Soumyashant Nayak
$38 (33rd donation), Mark W.
$38 (2nd donation), Bjarte O.
$36 (2nd donation), Milan V.
$35 (3rd donation), Borisov G. aka “method”
$35, Norman S. M.
$33 (90th donation), Olli K.
$33 (2nd donation), Sachindra Prosad Saha aka “Love you grand dad”
$33 (2nd donation), Lars N.
$33, Anestis P.
$33, Regina M.
$33, Ayman A.
$33, Osvaldo F.
$30 (4th donation), Johannes B.
$30 (4th donation), Anonymous User
$30 (3rd donation), Caleb P.
$30 (2nd donation), Paul S.
$30, יוסף כהן
$30, Etienne B.
$30, Michel D.
$30, Devon B.
$30, Dirk P.
$30, Dennis B.
$27.75, Steven M.
$27 (5th donation), Peter M.
$27 (2nd donation), Frederik M.
$27 (2nd donation), Mario K.
$27 (2nd donation), Ralf D.
$27, Martin S.
$27, Alexander H.
$27, Kalheinz S.
$27, Andreas Lahrmann
$25 (73th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (11th donation), Kwan L.
$25 (5th donation), Widar H.
$25 (5th donation), Charles W.
$25 (3rd donation), Michael M.
$25 (2nd donation), Roberto O. L.
$25 (2nd donation), Tommy T.
$25, Percy Winterburn aka “Percy”
$25, Gareth J.
$25, Pieter V. D. R.
$25, Gordon M.
$25, Wesley A. S.
$25, John R.
$25, Martin L.
$25, Carl S.
$25, Wayne K.
$25, Sky High, Inc.
$25, Leash
$25, Imagez A.
$25, Tommy T.
$22 (9th donation), Derek R.
$22 (5th donation), Rüdiger K.
$22 (5th donation), Henrik H.
$22 (4th donation), www.dogpanions.co.uk
$22 (3rd donation), Paul N.
$22 (3rd donation), Ralf O.
$22 (3rd donation), Vesa K.
$22 (2nd donation), Frank C.
$22 (2nd donation), Mr S. J. W.
$22 (2nd donation), Nicolaas V. D. R.
$22 (2nd donation), nobody
$22 (2nd donation), Alberto A.
$22, Bernhard J.
$22, Niels K. S.
$22, Borut K.
$22, Erich K.
$22, J-luc P.
$22, Dick B.
$22, Ovidiu F.
$22, Heinz B.
$22, Bernard F.
$22, Mark N.
$22, Mathias W.
$22, Nico D.
$22, Tony M.
$22, Gerard D.
$20 (29th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$20 (28th donation), Go Live Lively
$20 (26th donation), Utah B.
$20 (17th donation), Larry J.
$20 (11th donation), Jeffery J.
$20 (6th donation), Jason H
$20 (6th donation), Alistair G.
$20 (3rd donation), George M.
$20 (3rd donation), Allen G.
$20 (3rd donation), T. P. .
$20 (2nd donation), Donald M.
$20 (2nd donation), Daniel O.
$20 (2nd donation), Dayton L.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael E.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael M.
$20 (2nd donation), Stijn K.
$20 (2nd donation), Larry R.
$20, Luc C.
$20, RRKMAT
$20, Christian L.
$20, Richard B.
$20, Greg R. H.
$20, Shawn M.
$20, A M. K.
$20, Harold P. A.
$20, Jonathan O.
$20, Robert T.
$20, Raymond B.
$20, Matthew M.
$20, Muntasir S.
$20, Franco C. M.
$20, Jose M.
$20, Irvin H.
$20, Edward F.
$20, Juha M.
$20, J B. P.
$20, Robert P.
$20, Gordon S.
$20, Tony L.
$20, Michael D.
$20, Robert Z.
$20, Mladen M.
$16 (8th donation), Johann J.
$16 (5th donation), Linux Hardware Guide
$16 (4th donation), Radomír Č.
$16 (2nd donation), Joss S.
$16, Aleksander V.
$16, Wilfried J.
$16, William S.
$16, Gérard T.
$16, Jacques L.
$15, Gerald F.
$15, Мальцев М.
$15, gmq
$15, Patrick F.
$15, gmq
$15, Jose D. C.
$15, Ralph W.
$15, Andrew P.
$15, Hans G. H.
$15, Louy R. T.
$13 (16th donation), Anonymous
$13, Iain C.
$12 (77th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (23rd donation), JobsHiringnearMe
$12 (7th donation), Johann J.
$12, ROBBICOM.de
$12, Carsten F.
$11 (9th donation), Gerard C.
$11 (8th donation), Queenvictoria
$11 (6th donation), Andreas M.
$11 (4th donation), W. Georgi
$11 (4th donation), Manuel C. aka “Manel”
$11 (3rd donation), Nigel B.
$11 (2nd donation), Yann S.
$11 (2nd donation), Philip E.
$11 (2nd donation), Bengt J.
$11 (2nd donation), Andre H.
$11 (2nd donation), Andrew R.
$11 (2nd donation), Paul B.
$11 (2nd donation), Yann S.
$11 (2nd donation), Max P.
$11, Kai Berk Özer
$11, Francesco R.
$11, Gilbert G.
$11, Lee
$11, Thomas J.
$11, Jean-Christophe H. aka “Jic”
$11, Marc B.
$11, Konstantin M.
$11, Fm K.
$11, Philip C.
$11, Dirk S.
$11, Florian S.
$11, Alberto T.
$11, Franklin P.
$11, Günther S.
$11, Janne P.
$11, Peter R. S.
$11, John B.
$11, Thomas P.
$11, Thomas B.
$11, Jacek M.
$11, Lois S.C.
$10 (21st donation), Thomas C.
$10 (12th donation), Frank K.
$10 (12th donation), Paul O.
$10 (12th donation), Christopher R.
$10 (11th donation), HotelsNearbyMe
$10 (8th donation), Dinu P.
$10 (7th donation), Lance M.
$10 (6th donation), Gary P.
$10 (5th donation), Nelson I.
$10 (5th donation), Bartosz Wierucki
$10 (5th donation), Terrance G.
$10 (4th donation), Agenor Marrero
$10 (4th donation), Jason D.
$10 (3rd donation), Don Bhrayan
$10 (3rd donation), Gary L.
$10 (2nd donation), Doyle B.
$10 (2nd donation), Felipe L. L. aka “Neubius”
$10 (2nd donation), Tyler B.
$10 (2nd donation), Horacio R.
$10 (2nd donation), Antone H.
$10 (2nd donation), Hussain H.
$10 (2nd donation), Michael B.
$10 (2nd donation), Ray M.
$10 (2nd donation), Thomas H.
$10, Betty T.
$10, Miguel P.
$10, Vishal G.
$10, Hans G. H.
$10, Alan T.
$10, Danyle V.
$10, Josme A. D. S.
$10, Frank W.
$10, Christopher P.
$10, Pedro G.
$10, Jeff F.
$10, Shoot Around Corners
$10, Michael S.
$10, Marino W.
$10, André S.
$10, Ian M.
$10, Tobias K.
$10, John L.
$10, Christopher J.
$10, Дроник В.
$10, Cesar L. P.
$10, Sandel C.
$10, Michael W.
$10, RHEV
$10, Christopher G.
$10, Tommaso S.
$10, Roberto C.
$10, Chi F. T.
$10, Gustavo A. B.
$10, Ba T. N.
$10, Eric P.
$10, George G.
$9.99, Eric G.
$9, Victor H.
$8 (3rd donation), Udo M.
$7, Martin K.
$5 (16th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (9th donation), Jim A.
$5 (8th donation), Guillaume G. aka “Tidusrose”
$5 (8th donation), Kouji aka “杉林晃治”
$5 (7th donation), Kouji aka “杉林晃治”
$5 (7th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (6th donation), Aliki K.
$5 (6th donation), John M.
$5 (5th donation), Paul S.
$5 (5th donation), Lazada Philippines Voucher
$5 (5th donation), Blazej P. aka “bleyzer”
$5 (4th donation), NAGY Attila aka “GuBo”
$5 (4th donation), Michael J. N. J.
$5 (4th donation), J. S. .
$5 (3rd donation), Bongoville
$5 (3rd donation), RexAlan
$5 (3rd donation), James F.
$5 (3rd donation), Keith K.
$5 (3rd donation), Russell S.
$5 (3rd donation), Laurent M aka “lolomeis”
$5 (3rd donation), Jimmy M.
$5 (3rd donation), Stefan B.
$5 (2nd donation), Wiktor M. aka “wikuś”
$5 (2nd donation), Thomas D. Y.
$5 (2nd donation), Russell S.
$5 (2nd donation), Leandro Cortese aka “AriX”
$5 (2nd donation), Matteo A.
$5 (2nd donation), Johan H.
$5 (2nd donation), Jerzy D.
$5 (2nd donation), Mik aka “mikstico”
$5 (2nd donation), Arkadiusz T.
$5 (2nd donation), Alexander R.
$5, Michael P.
$5, Ramla L. M.
$5, Peter G.
$5, Robert R.
$5, Pablo Santos
$5, Andrzej P.
$5, Erly T. O.
$5, Simon S.
$5, Mateusz K.
$5, Jens B.
$5, Jake M.
$5, Hannes G.
$5, Star Tipster
$5, Ricardo S. C.
$5, Jean M.
$5, Stefano C.
$5, Gianni S.
$5, Dennis
$5, Edwin S.
$5, Felix G. F. G.
$5, Robert O.
$5, Ian R.
$5, Pietro F.
$5, rptev
$5, Wiryanto Y.
$5, cheval a vendre
$5, Pilar G. C.
$5, Luca P.
$5, Ingo J.
$5, Sara A. C.
$5, Verpackungsdruck aka “Klischeeherstellung”
$5, David H.
$5, Kurt W.
$5, Vitor P. S.
$4 (7th donation), David Y.
$3.95 (11th donation), Matthew B.
$3 (3rd donation), SEO Sunshine Coast
$3 (2nd donation), Maxime H.
$3 (2nd donation), Gianluigi M.
$3, Martin
$3, Diane R.
$3, Marius S.
$3, Marcelo S. P.
$3, Ширяев К.
$3, Nicolas P.
$2.5 (3rd donation), Wojtek N.
$62.88 from 48 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 2679 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 4169

by ·140 Comments

First, I would like to thank you for your donations and for your support. It’s a real pleasure to work on improving Linux Mint not only because it’s fun to develop and integrate software and technology but also because we see how happy and excited you are about what we do.. and that’s an amazing feeling for us.

Last month we unveiled some of the improvements we prepared for Linux Mint 18.3, we’ll it’s been a month since, so let’s unveil some more 🙂

Backup Tool

The Backup Tool was almost entirely rewritten. We reviewed its features, the way it looks and the way it works.

We decided to limit its scope.  We wanted this tool to do less and to do it better.

You won’t need to enter your password to run the Backup Tool, because it no longer runs as root. When backing up data you no longer need to go through options or to select a source and a type of backup. This tool is now dedicated to making a backup of your home directory, nothing less and nothing more. It saves all your files into a tar archive. When restoring a backup, files are restored in the exact same place they were before, with their original permissions and timestamps.

Of course when performing a backup you have the option to exclude files and directories and the items you exclude are remembered for future backups (the idea is to make it easy for you to perform new backups regularly).

By default, your cache and settings, which are located in .hidden directories and files at the root of your home directory are excluded from backups. You have the option to include some of them, and these are also remembered for future backups.

Saving your software selection is also much simpler than before. Rather than showing you thousands of packages to choose from (you can get the exact number of packages installed on your computer by typing “dpkg -l | wc -l” in a terminal), the Backup Tool now simply lists the packages you installed from the Software Manager.

Under the curtain, the code is now also much smaller and much more modern. Performance and stability were improved, in particular around data compression and multi-threading. Like it was done for the Software Manager, the APT backend was switched to Aptdaemon.

Window Progress

When an application is busy doing something it usually shows you a progress bar. Instead of mindlessly looking at the bar and waiting for it to reach 100% people usually seize the opportunity to do something else or distract themselves on the Web while waiting. The problem is.. how do you know when the application is ready if you can’t see its progress bar? How can you keep an eye on the progress of the operation after you minimize the window or focus other windows on top of it?

Some applications like the USB Stick formatter or the Nemo file operations worked around that problem by changing their window title to indicate their progress. That way their percentage is visible not only on their titlebar but also in the panel window list.

Windows 7 did even better, they implemented a mechanism which allows applications to communicate progress to their environment.

We decided to make this possible in Linux by implementing it in LibXapp.

LibXApp is a C library available in most distributions. It provides dynamic bindings to many languages via the GIRepository.

Here’s an example in Python:

As you can see, the application is able to communicate a progress (50% in this example) to the window manager by simply calling XApp.set_window_progress(window, 50).

In Cinnamon 3.6, that progress is visible in the window list:

The library also provides a useful class called GtkWindow which derives from Gtk.Window and provides these features through the instance directly:

In this example, the same result is achieved by calling set_progress(50) on the window itself.

Window progress is coming to Linux Mint 18.3. So far it is supported by Cinnamon and it was implemented in:

  • Nemo (file operations)
  • The Backup Tool
  • The Software Manager
  • The Driver Manager
  • The USB Stick formatter
  • The USB image writer

We’re also considering adding support for it in MATE, Caja and Synaptic (this includes all applications using Synaptic such as the Update Manager, the Language Settings and Software Sources tools, removal of applications from the menu etc etc..).

Other improvements

The Cinnamon network applet received the ability to rescan for wireless networks.

The Upload Manager and the Domain Blocker were removed from the default software selection. They will continue to be available in the repositories but they will no longer be installed by default.

Sponsorships:

Platinum Sponsors:
Private Internet Access
Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:

Acunetix
Sucuri
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
Goscomb
BGASoft Inc
David Salvo
Thomas K		 Community Sponsors:

Donations in July:

A total of $11,318 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 451 donors:

$1000, Brandon Z.
$300 (4th donation), Am33r
$200 (2nd donation), Walter W.
$200 (2nd donation), Chris K.
$200, Michael M.
$163, Alexander A.
$109 (4th donation), Marco L. aka “MAR9000”
$109, Thomas W.
$109, Michael G.
$109, Tero Pohjasniemi
$100 (8th donation), Philip W.
$100 (4th donation), Pasi K.
$100 (2nd donation), jjhd
$100, Daniel P.
$100, Jon B.
$100, Roderick G.
$100, Anon.
$100, Arthur Z.
$100, DAXEON, LLC
$87, AllanR & MargaretR
$75 (5th donation), Ernest M.
$70 (9th donation), Doug L.
$64.32, Liran Nuna aka “LiraNuna”
$54 (3rd donation), Chema Cortés
$54 (3rd donation), Vladimir O. aka “Vlad The Impatient”
$54 (3rd donation), Matteo T.
$54 (2nd donation), Roland H.
$54 (2nd donation), Thorbjørn H.
$54 (2nd donation), LenG
$54, Walter D.
$54, Marcel H.
$54, Mark A.
$54, Freywald aka “Ju”
$54, Thomas L.
$54, David T.
$54, Jeroen V. B.
$50 (16th donation), Philippe W.
$50 (7th donation), George H.
$50 (5th donation), Bruce N.
$50 (5th donation), Adam H.
$50 (5th donation), Jeffrey M. T. aka “JayBird707 Thanks Clem & Crew ”
$50 (3rd donation), Mark M.
$50 (3rd donation), James B.
$50 (2nd donation), Grant W.
$50 (2nd donation), Greg M.
$50 (2nd donation), Christopher S.
$50 (2nd donation), Jesus J. L. M.
$50 (2nd donation), Derek L.
$50 (2nd donation), Marion S. aka “Linux4Today”
$50 (2nd donation), B. W. .
$50 (2nd donation), Mike M.
$50, Gene F.
$50, Snap Programming and Development LLC
$50, Mark C.
$50, Peter B.
$50, Donald S.
$50, Steven Foerster
$50, Helmut S.
$50, Tim P.
$50, Michael B.
$50, Philip F.
$50, Paulo S.
$50, Helio A. K.
$50, Douglas S.
$50, Sebastian P.
$50, Thomas P.
$50, Eric O.
$50, James R.
$40 (4th donation), M. J. Stewart aka “Mason”
$40, Benoit F.
$40, Barry M.
$38 (12th donation), Joachim M.
$35 (32nd donation), Mark W.
$35, Joe K.
$35, Anthony D.
$33 (89th donation), Olli K.
$33 (4th donation), Karl M. H.
$33 (3rd donation), Jean-claude M.
$33 (2nd donation), J. C. .
$33 (2nd donation), Vincent M.
$33, Ton K.
$33, Benjamin E.
$33, R. Sch.
$33, Giovanni B.
$33, Henk H.
$30 (4th donation), Nasser Bader aka “VIRUS”
$30 (2nd donation), Mike M.
$30 (2nd donation), John McKinney
$30, Beat K.
$30, Paul S.
$30, Charles W.
$30, Chris W.
$30, Garfield D. S.
$30, Adam G.
$30, Herb S.
$30, Christian S.
$29, Thierry P.
$27 (12th donation), Ky LMDE
$27 (7th donation), Dick B. aka “Dick”
$27 (7th donation), Martin C.
$27 (4th donation), Aaron M.
$27, Malcolm N.
$27, Dave S.
$25 (72th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (28th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (10th donation), Jeffery J.
$25 (9th donation), Kevin S.
$25 (8th donation), Larry I.
$25 (6th donation), Michael C.
$25 (6th donation), Steve Glyn.
$25 (4th donation), Lisa R.
$25 (4th donation), Bruce N.
$25 (3rd donation), Robert K.
$25 (3rd donation), Michael S.
$25 (2nd donation), Gene B.
$25 (2nd donation), Sébastien B.
$25 (2nd donation), Chris G.
$25, Michael S.
$25, Amit L.
$25, Derek W.
$25, Will B.
$25, Michel L.
$25, Hiram D.
$25, Kurt C.
$25, Rolf M.
$25, Steve P.
$25, Wesley M.
$25, Edward F.
$25, Allyn C.
$25, Pranav M.
$25, William C.
$25, K M. D.
$25, Nikos M.
$25, George Parke aka “Drake”
$25, Audie M.
$25, John Brines
$25, Myron J.
$25, Buddy M.
$25, Brad J.
$25, Murray C.
$23, Savao B.
$23, iT Support Services
$22 (8th donation), Derek R.
$22 (7th donation), Per J.
$22 (4th donation), Andreas M.
$22 (4th donation), Andreas M.
$22 (3rd donation), André M.
$22 (3rd donation), Michael S.
$22 (2nd donation), Mirko A.
$22 (2nd donation), Alain MAILLARD
$22, Gabriele D.
$22, Lombard V.
$22, Jose R. N. A.
$22, Hiri aka “Hiri”
$22, Pavol C.
$22, Thierry G.
$22, Jan W. T. B.
$22, Philippe A. aka “Philippe”
$22, Armin F.
$22, Richard L. F.
$22, Christoff H.
$22, Guzmán C. V.
$22, Jan B.
$22, Samuel P.
$22, Ramón D. S.
$22, Heinz-dirk B.
$20 (9th donation), Matej V.
$20 (6th donation), Platypus Products
$20 (6th donation), Carsten Wehner
$20 (4th donation), James N.
$20 (3rd donation), Daniel H.
$20 (3rd donation), Joseph L.
$20 (3rd donation), Ho-leung N.
$20 (2nd donation), Jonathan C.
$20 (2nd donation), Ho-leung N.
$20 (2nd donation), Noel C.
$20 (2nd donation), Ralph C.
$20 (2nd donation), a donor
$20 (2nd donation), Charles O.
$20 (2nd donation), Peter C.
$20 (2nd donation), Mark R.
$20 (2nd donation), Justin Oros
$20, Riyanto S.
$20, ArtGirl
$20, Peter S.
$20, Kevin O.
$20, Chris H.
$20, Willebrordus W.
$20, Troy T.
$20, Shane P.
$20, Daniel B.
$20, Petrus M.
$20, Christopher M.
$20, Lubos C.
$20, Niels A.
$20, Jean S.
$20, Jacques T.
$20, Harald W.
$20, Igor N.
$20, Leon
$20, Justin R.
$18.2 (7th donation), François P.
$18.2 (4th donation), Martin I.
$18.2 (2nd donation), Benceno el Sepulturero
$16, C M. K.
$16, Torsten J.
$16, Steffen S.
$16, Thomas T.
$16, Linda S.
$15 (27th donation), Carlos W.
$15 (8th donation), Michel C.
$15 (2nd donation), Kurt H.
$15 (2nd donation), Joseph F.
$15, Andrei D.
$15, Alessio P.
$15, Harris B.
$15, Chi U. C.
$15, Benny R.
$15, Lawrence S.
$15, CW P.
$13 (15th donation), Anonymous
$13, Thorsten K.
$12 (76th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (22nd donation), JobsHiringnearMe
$12 (12th donation), Stefan M. H.
$12 (9th donation), Rufus
$12 (6th donation), Johann J.
$12, Cari R.
$12, Michael W.
$11 (11th donation), Hans P.
$11 (10th donation), Hans P.
$11 (7th donation), Joshua R.
$11 (7th donation), Artur Hapetta
$11 (6th donation), Paul A.
$11 (5th donation), Tomi P.
$11 (5th donation), Marc V. K.
$11 (4th donation), Piotr L aka “xpil”
$11 (4th donation), Denis D.
$11 (4th donation), Kevin M.
$11 (4th donation), Thorsten H.
$11 (3rd donation), Dionisios K.
$11 (3rd donation), Jotam
$11 (2nd donation), Gerard D. W.
$11 (2nd donation), Robert S.
$11 (2nd donation), Rodrigo D.
$11 (2nd donation), Marcel S.
$11 (2nd donation), M. T. .
$11, Marvin D. F.
$11, Gerard F.
$11, Jan W.
$11, Andreas B. aka “Böhni”
$11, Robert B.
$11, Alexandre M.
$11, Catalin C.
$11, Mario D. S.
$11, Daniel-Gabriel N.
$11, Giacomo P.
$11, Thomas G.
$11, Wolfgang B.
$11, Stojan C.
$11, Martin A.
$11, Andreas Z.
$11, Mark H.
$11, Carles M. C. R.
$11, Daniel J.
$11, Martin U.
$11, Alfons K.
$11, Petra M.
$11, Eduardo M.
$11, Viviana V.
$11, Fabio F.
$11, Folkert D. P. G.
$11, Manfredi T.
$10 (20th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (18th donation), Slartibartfast
$10 (16th donation), Larry J.
$10 (12th donation), Mike C.
$10 (11th donation), Frank K.
$10 (11th donation), Paul O.
$10 (10th donation), RentalCarsnearMe
$10 (10th donation), Ke C.
$10 (9th donation), Hans P.
$10 (9th donation), Wilson G.
$10 (7th donation), Masaomi Yoshida
$10 (7th donation), Garland
$10 (7th donation), Dinu P.
$10 (6th donation), Andre Cardoso
$10 (6th donation), Rick R.
$10 (6th donation), Hemant Patel
$10 (6th donation), Chris K.
$10 (6th donation), Lance M.
$10 (5th donation), Tyler B.
$10 (5th donation), Rick R.
$10 (4th donation), Gary N.
$10 (4th donation), Sergey A.
$10 (3rd donation), Edsil W.
$10 (3rd donation), Martín P. D. L. G.
$10 (3rd donation), Yun-Jhong W.
$10 (2nd donation), Andreas M.
$10 (2nd donation), Gary L.
$10 (2nd donation), Goh A.
$10 (2nd donation), Philip S.
$10 (2nd donation), Kasugai N.
$10 (2nd donation), Stephan G.
$10 (2nd donation), Syed M.
$10 (2nd donation), Evgeny T.
$10 (2nd donation), Meirion L. J.
$10 (2nd donation), Thiago P.
$10 (2nd donation), Adis H.
$10 (2nd donation), Jack G.
$10 (2nd donation), Roy D.
$10, Bruce G. Jr.
$10, Ric D.
$10, Kondratyuk M. V.
$10, D D.
$10, Thomas H.
$10, Viacheslav Z.
$10, Paul S.
$10, Ratheeshkumar PK aka “Ratheesh”
$10, Tretyakov D. aka “Tabletko”
$10, David W.
$10, 陳 志瑋
$10, Brian Milot Sr
$10, Zadain.com
$10, Simon B.
$10, Jeremy E.
$10, Fernando G.
$10, Benny F.
$10, Fabian A.
$10, Peter H.
$10, Emilio C.
$10, Joseph J.
$10, Phillip S.
$10, Joe S.
$10, Horacio R.
$10, Caleb F.
$10, Robert G.
$10, Peter V.
$10, Marcio Mazzucato aka “MarcioMazzucato”
$10, Brian L.
$9 (4th donation), Sabine L.
$8.97, Fred M.
$8 (11th donation), Kevin O. aka “Kev”
$8 (6th donation), Rockford C.
$7 (13th donation), CV Smith
$7 (12th donation), CV Smith
$7 (3rd donation), Kari H.
$7, Willy W.
$6, Antonluigi F.
$5.75, Stephen K.
$5 (15th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (12th donation), Kjell O. B. aka “kob”
$5 (11th donation), Albert J. P.
$5 (10th donation), Snorri Gylfason
$5 (8th donation), Jim A.
$5 (6th donation), patrick p.
$5 (6th donation), Kouji aka “杉林晃治”
$5 (6th donation), Eric H.
$5 (6th donation), Olaf B.
$5 (5th donation), Mark Coumans aka “omtefotograferen”
$5 (5th donation), Scott L.
$5 (4th donation), Lazada Philippines Voucher
$5 (3rd donation), Neil M.
$5 (3rd donation), J. S. .
$5 (3rd donation), Ketil Ervik aka “Ketil”
$5 (3rd donation), Richard L.
$5 (3rd donation), Yano Y.
$5 (3rd donation), Leszek Bober aka “lechu_b”
$5 (3rd donation), Pierre G.
$5 (3rd donation), Andre P.
$5 (3rd donation), Giuseppino M.
$5 (3rd donation), Konstantin S.
$5 (2nd donation), aka “Cachafaz”
$5 (2nd donation), Kai U. J.
$5 (2nd donation), Jozo M.
$5 (2nd donation), Michael P. K.
$5 (2nd donation), Kostas V.
$5 (2nd donation), Quaulpappen
$5 (2nd donation), Richard A.
$5, Kamil Ł.
$5, Joseph P. aka “oops”
$5, Jason C.
$5, Quintin C.
$5, Alexis B.
$5, Jaladhi T.
$5, Robert K.
$5, Alex M. aka “Kebuda”
$5, Brian C.
$5, Miguel I. G.
$5, Pertti M.
$5, Thorsten K.
$5, Dawid W.
$5, Wiktor M. aka “wikuś”
$5, Nenad G.
$5, KSB inc
$5, James A.
$5, Jean F. D.
$5, Jarrett B.
$5, Cassiano P. V.
$5, Juan C. T. Jimenez
$5, Brett C.
$5, Tattoo Ideas
$5, Chris P.
$5, Goto M.
$5, Kristian A.
$5, Marco K.
$5, James K.
$4 (7th donation), Alessandro S.
$4, Norbert F.
$4, Dan
$3.13 (6th donation), Chetverikov K.
$3 (16th donation), RoDi – zalohovanie dat
$3 (6th donation), Alessandro S.
$3 (5th donation), Klaus Heckenbach
$3 (4th donation), Klaus Heckenbach
$3 (2nd donation), Wojtek N.
$3, Rene E.
$3, Dan Sieger aka “Sieger ”
$3, Maxime H.
$3, Marx G. V. D. L.
$43.5 from 31 smaller donations

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

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by ·100 Comments

Many thanks to all the people who donated to us. Thank you for your support.

I hope you enjoyed the recent release of Linux Mint 18.2 and the upgrades in LMDE.

The development cycle for Linux Mint 18.3 was started and some really exciting improvements landed already.

The software sources tool was ported to GTK3 and now supports HiDPI.

Cinnamon gained support for HybridSleep.

The login screen is more configurable than before. Options were added for automatic login as well as the ability to hide the user list and enter user names manually (this is useful for LDAP users). Panel indicators can be enabled/disabled and now show tooltips. And last but not least, the Slick greeter now supports numlockx.

Although app stores already existed in Android and iOS and similar concepts had been developed in PCBSD at the time, Linux Mint was one of the first distributions to introduce a Software Manager. This manager is still really good but it needed attention. A huge amount of work went into revamping it, making it look modern and polishing it to give a better user experience.

We’re still working on it at the moment but I can already tell you the following:

  • The user interface looks more modern and its layout is inspired by Gnome Software. Its simpler, more consistent than before and it makes the application look much cleaner.
  • The software manager no longer uses Webkit. The only toolkit used is GTK and the entire application was ported to GTK3, to bring support for HiDPI.
  • The software manager launches 3 times faster than before. Browsing categories and apps is almost immediate.
  • The backend was ported to AptDaemon and the Software Manager now runs in user mode. Consequently you do not need to enter any passwords to browse applications, and if you enter a password to install or remove an app, the authentication is remembered for a little while so you can install or remove other apps without having to enter that password again.

Sponsorships:

Platinum Sponsors:
Private Internet Access
Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:

Acunetix
Sucuri
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
Goscomb
BGASoft Inc
David Salvo
Over The Top SEO
Thomas KSebastien Walker		 Community Sponsors:

Donations in June:

A total of $8,477 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 434 donors:

$217 (4th donation),
$200, Lee B. aka “FlipSide”
$163 (2nd donation), Jack B.
$109 (2nd donation), Udo J.
$105 (16th donation), Jon Espenschied aka “xeno”
$100 (2nd donation), John M.
$100, Edward M.
$100, Nicholas W.
$100, Tan M.
$100, Jan-olof S.
$100, John F.
$100, Tord H.
$100,
$100, Frank S.
$71, kend
$60 (4th donation), Thomas E.
$54 (7th donation), Claude M.
$54 (4th donation), Stefan K. aka “radi1962”
$54 (4th donation), Stefan K.
$54 (2nd donation), Kai-Uwe S.
$54 (2nd donation), Paul S. E. aka “Paul”
$54, Hendrik S.
$54, Michael L.
$54, Galliker S.
$54, Michael R.
$54, Thomas D.
$54, Philippe P.
$54, Roland G.
$54, Axel E.
$50 (19th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (5th donation), Hans J.
$50 (5th donation), Jackson T. B.
$50 (5th donation), Stephen A.
$50 (5th donation), Jason H
$50 (3rd donation), Thomas T. aka “FullTimer1489”
$50 (3rd donation), David P.
$50 (3rd donation), John aka “xargs”
$50 (2nd donation), John V.
$50 (2nd donation), Shermanda E.
$50 (2nd donation), Dwight B.
$50 (2nd donation), Tony Ricciotti aka “Tony”
$50 (2nd donation), Billy Ray Nix Jr.
$50 (2nd donation), Bruce M.
$50, Cecil B.
$50, Julian B.
$50, Peter B.
$50, John B.
$50, eurekatech
$50, Gabriel G.
$50, Farsheed P.
$44 (2nd donation), Tom Van Dyck
$43 (5th donation), Tomas S.
$43, Peter U.
$40, P Reynolds
$33 (88th donation), Olli K.
$33 (3rd donation), Radomír Č.
$33, R. Albert Greig III
$33, Luigi Z.
$33, VVV
$33, Eric P.
$33, Manuel López
$33, Erkki J.
$33, Clifford C.
$33, Jacky M.
$30 (4th donation), Jeff S.
$30 (3rd donation), jowind
$30 (2nd donation), Donald H.
$30, Chungkuan T.
$30, David R.
$30, Jamie W.
$30, Bart T.
$30, Fukai T.
$30, Borisov G. aka “method”
$28, Martin Sladecek aka “Slaado”
$27 (12th donation), Dr. R. M.
$27 (2nd donation), Vincent S.
$27, Andrea J.
$27, Gerhard A.
$27, Cees B.
$27, Daniel B.
$27, Bart V. R.
$27, Gunter S.
$27, Kenneth A.
$27, Rosa A.
$25 (71th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (27th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (9th donation), Bill S.
$25 (8th donation), Mathieu D.
$25 (5th donation), Martin Langsholt aka “mlan”
$25 (4th donation), John C.
$25 (3rd donation), Michael K. S.
$25 (3rd donation), Bruce R.
$25 (2nd donation), Juan O.
$25 (2nd donation), Ian M.
$25 (2nd donation), John W. G.
$25, Paul S.
$25, Diana M.
$25, William C.
$25, Wayne B.
$25, Joeseph B.
$25, Carl C.
$25, Jonathan B.
$25, Jeffry J. P.
$25, Lyle D.
$25, Einar Ó.
$25, Ralph D.
$23 (4th donation), William C. aka “N4ES”
$22 (9th donation), Ross M aka “ro55mo”
$22 (4th donation), Michal W.
$22 (3rd donation), Carlos N.
$22 (3rd donation), Pete E.
$22 (3rd donation), Bernard D.
$22 (3rd donation), Christian D.
$22 (3rd donation), Frank H.
$22 (2nd donation), Erwin v K. aka “Erwin vK”
$22, Christer L.
$22, Charles L.
$22, Owen D.
$22, Matthias W.
$22, S L. A.
$22, Laurent G.
$22, Matthew O.
$22, Johann K.
$22, Christoph B.
$22, Svend M.
$22, Ulrich M.
$22, Andreas H.
$22, Stefan O.
$22, Fabien aka “fabien85”
$22, Sean R. B.
$22, Kevin H.
$22, Vytautas M.
$22, Manolis V.
$20 (8th donation), Matej V.
$20 (5th donation), Brent S. aka “AFineMan”
$20 (4th donation), Lars Händler
$20 (3rd donation), D. B. .
$20 (3rd donation), Dave V. aka “Dave”
$20 (3rd donation), Mike H. aka “sloan”
$20 (3rd donation), John W.
$20 (2nd donation), Lennart J.
$20 (2nd donation), Borisov G. aka “method”
$20 (2nd donation), T. P. .
$20 (2nd donation), David H.
$20 (2nd donation), Gary A.
$20 (2nd donation), Ike
$20 (2nd donation), Marius G.
$20, Larry R.
$20, Ernst M.
$20, Michael W.
$20, Michael A.
$20, Scott M.
$20, Robert S.
$20, Duncan M.
$20, Chris P.
$20, George T. L.
$20, Michael R.
$20, Johannes M.
$20, Uglyduckling81
$20, Chrissi W.
$20, David C.
$20, Israel Hanukoglu
$20, Roberto O. L.
$20, Jeff B.
$20, Mike P.
$20, João D. P.
$20, Scott H.
$20, Sergey Starosek aka “star”
$20, Christian C.
$20, Elvis
$20, GH FG
$19.99, Aleksandr K.
$16 (3rd donation), Jim P
$16, Sebastian B.
$16, Patrick F.
$16, Henrik N.
$16, Andrew W.
$15, Brodie F.
$15, Valeria C.
$15, Sylvain L.
$15, Radosław S.
$15, Vanja V.
$15, Jerry K.
$15, Charles W.
$15, Graham H.
$14.84, Yuri H.
$13 (14th donation), Anonymous
$13 (2nd donation), Linuxgamer
$13, Edward A.
$12 (75th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (21st donation), JobsHiringnearMe
$12 (6th donation), Raymond M. (retired)
$12 (2nd donation), Stephen R.
$11 (5th donation), Jan P.
$11 (5th donation), Johann J.
$11 (4th donation), Jeffrey R.
$11 (4th donation), Elsukov V.
$11 (3rd donation), Sebastiano L.
$11 (3rd donation), Ian P.
$11 (3rd donation), Peter B.
$11 (3rd donation), Alexander Lang
$11 (3rd donation), André S.
$11 (2nd donation), Roger H.
$11 (2nd donation), Eberhard R.
$11 (2nd donation), Davide A.
$11 (2nd donation), Miguel R.
$11 (2nd donation), Abdulkadir H.
$11 (2nd donation), Chris W.
$11, Stefano F.
$11, Muradashvili A.
$11, Stefan S.
$11, Raymond L.
$11, Hans H.
$11, Harald G.
$11, Andreas F.
$11, Alin S.
$11, J. H. .. V. W.
$11, Antti M.
$11, Lee S. aka “fleamour”
$11, John R. A.
$11, Herbert E.
$11, Roman N.
$11, Carlo S.
$11, Andreas M.
$11, Rok V.
$11, Günter W.
$11, Kan C.
$11, Joachim E.
$11, Brigitte L. aka “tortoischen”
$11, Konstantin O.
$11, Jose Luis Pascual aka “jlpascualgomez”
$11, Wesley C.
$11, Johannes W.
$11, Uwe J.
$11, Joss S.
$11, Madarasz E.
$11, Eduard D.
$11, Adrian K.
$11, Nico M.
$11, X-CA (Jens Trach)
$11, Iwan aka “Hopka”
$11, Colin L.
$11, Peter J.
$10.01, Michael A.
$10 (19th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (15th donation), Larry J.
$10 (14th donation), Julie H. aka “Kjokkenutstyr”
$10 (10th donation), Paul O.
$10 (10th donation), Frank K.
$10 (9th donation), RentalCarsnearMe
$10 (6th donation), Peter K.
$10 (6th donation), Dinu P.
$10 (6th donation), Jannik T.
$10 (5th donation), Aliki K.
$10 (5th donation), Andreas S.
$10 (5th donation), Gary P.
$10 (5th donation), John M.
$10 (4th donation), Terrance G.
$10 (4th donation), Sven A.
$10 (4th donation), Rick R.
$10 (3rd donation), Ash T.
$10 (3rd donation), Jerome A.
$10 (2nd donation), Nilson O.
$10 (2nd donation), Andrej K.
$10 (2nd donation), Ramon S. I.
$10 (2nd donation), Philip Stephens aka “Phandrens”
$10 (2nd donation), Laurencio G.
$10 (2nd donation), K S.
$10, Johan H.
$10, Vincent L.
$10, M. B.
$10, Wendy M.
$10, Jimmy K.
$10, Stephen F.
$10, Gary L.
$10, Marcelo G. P.
$10, Ed L.
$10, Bertrum B.
$10, Brent H.
$10, Avshalom L.
$10, T.s.eggleston
$10, Maarten E.
$10, Gordon M.
$10, Goh A.
$10, Kenneth W.
$10, Sunil K. K.
$10, Michael O.
$10, Cesar Biondo aka “Biondo”
$10, Rafael A. D. S.
$10, Pablo B.
$10, Peter N.
$10, שון מורוז
$10, James L.
$10, Christian Peyrusse
$10, Ricardo F.
$10, Abdulkarim Malkadi
$10, David C.
$10, Luciano Pucciarelli aka “zalza13”
$10, Brenton P.
$10, Cristobal V.
$10, DaveW
$10, Ethan H.
$10, Jorge Leon
$9, Omar Q.
$8, Borisov M.
$7 (11th donation), CV Smith
$7, Julien T.
$7, Ashraf H.
$5 (14th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (14th donation), CB750
$5 (13th donation), Todd A aka “thobin”
$5 (7th donation), Jim A.
$5 (6th donation), Korneliusz M. aka “audiokor”
$5 (6th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (6th donation), David Y.
$5 (5th donation), Niko K.
$5 (5th donation), Vyacheslav K. aka “veZuk”
$5 (5th donation), Dmitry P.
$5 (5th donation), Зайцев П.
$5 (5th donation), Kouji aka “杉林晃治”
$5 (5th donation), Peter H.
$5 (3rd donation), Tomasz U.
$5 (3rd donation), Marcelo S.
$5 (3rd donation), Suleyman K.
$5 (3rd donation), NAGY Attila aka “GuBo”
$5 (2nd donation), J. S. .
$5 (2nd donation), Pierre-marie R.
$5 (2nd donation), Alex Luton aka “Starcross”
$5, Gerardo H. V.
$5, Peng K.
$5, Edmilson F.
$5, Douglas K.
$5, Marcos B.
$5, Jeremy D.
$5, Vitaliy T. aka “doktor.vit”
$5, Andreas S.
$5, Fernando A.
$5, Jozsef P.
$5, Jose Ortiz aka “bandaangosta”
$5, Sven J.
$5, Markus G.
$5, Lars G.
$5, Jhon C.
$5, Ботнев А.
$5, Csaba D. V.
$5, Ermanio C. M. Jnr
$5, Sam E.
$5, Kiryl L.
$5, Arvids Dane
$5, Albin S.
$5, Mark S.
$5, Mark D.
$5, Michael P. K.
$5, Riccardo L.
$5, Alexis S.
$5, Giacomo P.
$5, Leandro F.
$5, Lambertus A. V.
$5, Alfred E.
$5, Mirosław G.
$5, Elite Miner
$5, Rodrigo T. M.
$5, Christophe J.
$5, Grégoire A.
$5, Douglas C.
$5, Renato S.
$5, Chen Y.
$5, M F. M.
$5, Florian L.
$4 (5th donation), Alessandro S.
$3 (2nd donation), N. V. .
$3 (2nd donation), Bongoville
$3 (2nd donation), Stefan B.
$3, Romulo F. D. Q.
$3, Nicholas J. C.
$3, 孙 吉.
$3, Simon K.
$3, Cristiano C.
$3, Scott M.
$3, Pascal L.
$3, Ключников С.
$3, A O.
$3, aka “Windshield Repair Albuquerque”
$3, Nelson E. S. T.
$2 (6th donation), Marcin S aka “KotFryc”
$2 (4th donation), Maciej G. aka “Jodator”
$2 (3rd donation), Klaus Heckenbach
$2 (2nd donation), П. Д. .
$2 (2nd donation), Илья Кругликов aka “Ilis”
$2 (2nd donation), J. G. G. .
$2, Mohamamd W.
$2, Milos B. aka “bOSKE”
$2, Ben M.
$2, Janusz W.
$2, พิชัย เลิศวชิรกุล
$2, Caio L. M. J.
$2, Danny O.
$2, GotKimZua aka “GotKimZua”
$2, Luiz H. R. C.
$36.95 from 35 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 2819 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 4226