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Introduction

Nothing groundbreaking was planned for mintMenu in Linux Mint 6 but it still needed many little adjustments, so here comes mintMenu 4.1 with the following changes:

  • The search command (which is launched when you press enter after typing text in the filter bar) is now configurable.
  • The menu icon is now configurable
  • In the places plugin, “Software Portal” was replaced with “Software Manager” and now launches the new MintInstall frontend
  • The menu name used to be “Elyssa” and is now “Menu” by default

Also, a lot of bug-fixing and refactoring was done:

  • System plugin refactored (to the user that will look better aligned)
  • Places plugin refactored (this gets rid of a bug that made “home”, “desktop” and “network” take the focus away from the filter bar)
  • Pongo and formatting removed from localization files to make it easier to translate the tool
  • MintMenu now relies on mintSystem to get common data
  • About dialog now shows GPL licence
  • All double capital letters were removed “All Applications”, “All Categories” etc..

Installation

Before you upgrade mintMenu you should make sure to clean your Gconf entries for it. This will make you loose your mintMenu preferences but that’s the price to pay to get the clean new shiny version:

  1. Right click on mintMenu and remove it from the Gnome panel
  2. Open a terminal and type “gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu”

Once you’ve done that you can get mintMenu 4.1 from the Romeo repositories, or you can get the debs from here:

Once the installation is finished, you can right click on the Gnome panel and add mintMenu again.

Translations

mintMenu 4.1 is currently supporting English and French. Please help us translate it by following the instructions written on this forum thread:

http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17836

Feedback and bugs

Please post comments here on the blog if you find bugs in mintMenu 4.1. Give us feedback also if you like it and if everything’s fine so we can eventually consider it stable and move it down to stable repositories.

Spread the word

We’re trying to raise people’s awareness about the Mint project and we’ve added a Digg plugin to this blog. If you find this blog post interesting, please help us spread the word by submitting it as a Digg story or by digging it if it’s already submitted.

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This is the third attempt at launching a podcast about Linux Mint and this time we want to get something working for and by the community.

We’re looking for:

  • a benevolent dictator for this new podcast. Somebody who will be available frequently and who would be the real leader behind this project.
  • people who want to co-host the show or contribute sections to it.

Once a team is in place we want that new podcast to have its own .com so it can generate its own revenue and develop its own model. Our intention isn’t to maintain this podcast ourselves, but to gather a team who will do that independently.

Ideally we’d like to see that podcast release on a weekly basis and cover the topics we talk about in this blog. We’d like it to be something the community would listen to learn more about Mint but also something we’d listen to to know more about our community.

Ideally we’d like:

  • hosts not to read notes, but to speak and improvise.
  • the format of the show to be clear (know what topics you will talk about before you start).
  • the show to be serious without being formal
  • the show to start small if necessary (don’t be too ambitious),  but to guarantee a weekly release.

PS: It takes one man for a project to succeed so if you’re motivated and confident about yourself, please come forward. Of course the bigger the team the better, but if many people are motivated and if they live in different regions of the World and can’t work together for some other reasons we can help launch more than one podcast.

There are many ways Linux Mint can help such podcasts (trafic, audience, content) and many ways these podcasts will help us as well. Let’s make this work, let’s give a voice to our community, let’s look forward to have a place where we can talk.

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Linux Mint 3.0 Cassandra and Linux Mint 3.1 Celena will reach end of life on October 19th. Both releases were based on Ubuntu 7.04 which is planned to reach end-of-life at the same date.

Repositories will remain open for another while but no more updates or security fixes will be made available for these two releases.

Users of Linux Mint 3.x are asked to upgrade to Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna or to perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint 5 Elyssa.

Announcement from Ubuntu: “Ubuntu announced the release of 7.04 almost 18 months ago, on April 19, 2007. As with the earlier releases, Ubuntu committed to ongoing security and critical fixes for a period of 18 months. The support period is now nearing its end and Ubuntu 7.04 will reach end of life on Sunday, October 19th, 2008. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 7.04.”

Note: Linux Mint follows the Ubuntu release cycle with a new release every 6 months, a lifespan of about 1.5 years per release and 3 years per LTS release. LTS stands for Long Term Support. Linux Mint 5 is an LTS release.