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Hi,

I’ll try to be brief as I’m extremely busy working on the upcoming Linux Mint 7 release. I haven’t communicated much in the last few days so here’s a quick post to let you know what’s going on.

  • Ubuntu 9.04 is planned to be released today and the very first DEV ISO for Linux Mint 7 Gloria (LinuxMint-7-DEV-001.iso) was successfully built last night.
  • The development of the new features coming in Linux Mint 7 is finished.
  • We’re now starting to deploy them on the brand new Ubuntu 9.04 base.
  • It’s too soon to say how long it will take before an RC release but no risks have been identified so far.
  • Some of the new features of Linux Mint 7 are:
    • “Suggestions” and hotkey support in mintMenu
    • “Featured Applications” in mintInstall
    • Service configuration tool, SCP and SFTP support in mintUpload
    • mintWelcome, which replaces mintAssistant
    • new artwork
  • A lot of bugs were also fixed and some of the GUIs were enhanced.
  • For a complete list of improvements and bug fixes, please read the roadmap.
  • Some planned features had to be postponed:
    • OEM installation
    • Theming and layout choice in mintDesktop
    • Slot-mechanism in mintMenu
    • Packages section in mintInstall
    • moonGrub

The new artwork is based on Shiki-Wise. It looks fantastic but it also presents a few usability problems. I’m planning on releasing it as the default artwork for the RC release and eventually switch back to the traditional artwork and have this new one as an alternative for the stable release.

Please be patient and if you connect to the Gloria repositories to give the new features a try, please remember that Mint 7 isn’t stable yet. Screenshots and updates will follow as we get closer to the release.

by ·5 Comments

Charles Olsen, Rothgar and David Foley published another episode of the mintCast podcast. Happy listening everyone!

In this episode:

  • The News (Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox release, Linux Mint 6 KDE release, Linux needs critics)
  • Rothgar: Presto, Portable Ubuntu, User interview Part 2
  • David Foley: How I came to Linux, Overview of Virtualbox
  • Linux Format Magazine
  • Website of the week: Linux Online
  • User feedback

Direct links: