* Donations: $4185.33 (186 donors)
* Sponsors: $1414.03 (130 sponsors)

http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php

Rankings:

• Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 2079 (2nd)
• Alexa (website ranking): 11,784th

Events:

• Linux Mint Debian 201108 (Gnome and Xfce) was released
• Linux Mint signed a partnership with UnixStickers.com
• Linux Mint Debian Update Pack 3 was released
• mintCast released 4 podcast episodes: #81, #82, #83, and #84

News and summary:

• This is the busiest period of the year, and with no advertising income generated this month we’re relying solely on your donations and sponsorships. With that in mind, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to the 186 donors and the 130 sponsors who supported us financially. We’ve been lucky and successful since the start of this project, and this is probably the most difficult time since then, but you’ve been here for us, a fantastic community and a great network of partners, which meant we could carry on and afford to continue even without our main sources of income.
• Although we’re in a difficult situation financially, the future looks extremely bright. Our last recorded growth was a staggering 40%. With millions of Internet users Linux Mint is the 4th most popular operating system in the world, and we’re growing much faster than our competitors. Our business model consists in applying all our focus on the product itself, on distributing it for free and on monetizing the traffic and activity you generate on the Web. It’s the same business model used by TV channels and Radio stations, the wider the audience, the more successful it is. We’re currently in the process of choosing our business partners for the search market. Which browser and search engine will be the default in Linux Mint, how much funding will they generate for us and our partners? What default experience will you get out of it? This is all being decided at the moment. The solution we previously had in place needed to evolve, both from a user and business point of view. Going forward we’ll hopefully provide you with a better experience while generating additional funding in the process.
• Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” will be released in November this year with continued support for Gnome 2 but also with the introduction of Gnome 3. The radical changes introduced by the Gnome project split the community. At the time of releasing Linux Mint 11 we decided it was too early to adopt Gnome 3. This time around, the decision isn’t as simple. Gnome 3.2 is more mature and we can see the potential of this new desktop and use it to implement something that can look and behave better than anything based on Gnome 2. Of course, we’re starting from scratch and this process will take time and span across multiple releases. Until then, it’s important we continue to support the traditional Gnome 2 desktop. We’re likely to release two separate editions, one for Gnome 2.32 and one for Gnome 3.2. We’re also working in cooperation with the MATE project (which is a fork of Gnome 2) at the moment to see if we can make both desktops compatible in an effort to let you run both Gnome 2 (or MATE) and Gnome 3 on the same system, either in Linux Mint 12, or for the future. 
  

If you’re a Linux Mint donor or a Linux Mint sponsor, you can now change your details and follow your contributions thanks to a brand new interface.

The interface also shows you exactly how you appear on our website:

And we now also generate a cool new image, which you can use as a forum user-bar, as an email signature, or even as a Web badge. Be proud of the help you’re giving us and show people you’re part of the reason Linux Mint is what is today.

Whether you’re a Linux Mint Donor:

Or a Linux Mint Sponsor:

Donations and sponsorships are extremely important to us. Every month, we receive the financial support of hundreds of people and it was about time we gave a little something back.

I hope you’ll enjoy this new interface and these new signatures, and I look forward to receiving your feedback.

If you’re a Linux Mint donor or sponsor, you access this new interface using the credentials you received by emails.

If you need a new access code, you can visit the following address: http://www.linuxmint.com/dashboard

Last but not least, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all the people who help us by other means. Financial support and associated income is what pays the bills and guarantees we can work on Linux Mint instead of looking for a job, but there are many people out there who help us in various ways. They make our job easier, our community and desktop better and they allow us to focus on what really matters. If you’re promoting Linux Mint, helping with the developement, welcoming and helping other users, creating artwork…. etc… if you feel in any way responsible and helpful within our community, we’d like to thank you as well.

I’m sure you can think of more signatures than we could ever design so here’s an image that can be used as a template:

Feel free to design your own signatures, to add text and additional artwork to them, to place them wherever you want and to make them link to the sites of your choice. Whether it’s on your website linking to us, or on our forums linking to you, be proud of your contribution within our community and encourage others to be as active.

A big thank you to everyone involved.

Introduction

Update Pack 3 was released as the “latest” update pack today. If you’re not using Linux Mint Debian, please ignore this post.

In Update Pack 3, two drastic changes occur:

1. There’s a brand new kernel 3.0
2. The Security and Multimedia repositories are now part of the Update Pack itself.

As usual with updates, and especially with the new kernel, there’s some known problems and workarounds for you to enjoy which are documented in the Update Pack Info window of the Update Manager. The changes related to the Security and Multimedia repositories are documented there as well. I’m taking the opportunity to explain things a little more, here on the blog, and to let you comment and ask questions in case things aren’t 100% clear.

Changing your repositories

The first thing you need to do is to change your Multimedia and Security repositories. Edit your APT sources by typing the following command:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Within this file, replace the following:

• Replace security.debian.org with debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security
• Replace debian-multimedia.org with debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia

Your APT sources, should now look like this:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

Save and close the file.

Using the Update Manager

… to update itself

The Update Manager always updates itself before other packages. If you see an update for “mintupdate-debian“, accept it and wait for the Update Manager to restart itself.

If there’s a new Update Manager available, it will only list itself as an update

… to check your APT sources

At the time of writing this blog post, the latest version of mintupdate-debian is 1.0.4. From this version onwards the Update Manager is able to check your APT sources and tell you if they are properly configured.

1. Click on the “Update Pack Info” button
2. Make sure “Your system configuration” shows up as green and doesn’t show any warnings or errors
3. If you see a warning or an error, follow the instructions given and repeat the process until they’re gone.

Check the system configuration and read the Update Pack information

… to know more about Update Pack 3

In the “Update Pack Info” window, make sure to read all the information related to Update Pack 3. Some of it might be irrelevant to you, but it will only take you a minute and it might you save you hours.

… to upgrade to Update Pack 3

When you’re ready and you know all that there is to know, press the “Install Updates” button.

During the update you’ll be asked a few things. One is quite important.. the new kernel will ask you where to install Grub. Answer with the location of your current Grub menu (which on most systems is “/dev/sda“).

FAQ

Why doesn’t the Update Manager alter my APT sources automatically?

We’re not confortable with updating your system configuration on your behalf. changing your repositories

Why wasn’t Update Pack 3 part of the latest LMDE release (201109)?

For three reasons:

1. It became stable after LMDE RC was released. At this stage, our only concern is quality and testing. Upgrading to Update Pack 3 would have postponed the release by at least a month and another RC release would have been needed.
2. It features kernel 3.0. It made sense to stick to a kernel we know works well for everybody until we get more feedback on the newer one. Because LMDE 201109 came with a 2.6.39 kernel, users can also now enjoy the choice between 2.6.39 and 3.0 and use the kernel which works best for them. If we shipped with kernel 3.0, it would have been much harder for people who wanted to downgrade.
3. There will be new Update Packs all the time, at some stage we need to freeze a release and focus on stability rather than chasing new updates.

Why is the change the APT sources needed?

We used to snapshot the main Debian Testing repository for our Update Packs. We’re now also making snapshots of the Multimedia and Security repositories. This is to ensure a higher level of compatibility between the packages present in all the repositories.

What makes Update Packs better than simply pointing at Debian?

There are people in our community which help us spot and document upstream issues in Debian Testing. Update Pack 3, for instance, has been tested for weeks and we gathered feedback on it from people using the Incoming repositories. Some of these issues are now well documented, and others simply don’t occur anymore as we got the opportunity to fix them before making them available to you. By using Update Packs, you receive the same updates as other users, at the same time, with documentation and with less chances of breakages. Altogether, that makes you less likely to experience problems, and more likely to find solutions when you do.