The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 8 Helena RC1.

Quick steps:

  • Download the ISO or the torrent.
  • While it’s downloading take an overview of the new features and make sure to quickly go through the known issues.
  • After the ISO is downloaded verify the MD5.
  • Burn the ISO at low speed and enjoy testing this RC of Linux Mint 8.

Introduction to Linux Mint 8:

The 8th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular Linux Mint 8 comes with support for OEM installs, a brand new Upload Manager, the menu now allows you to configure custom places, the update manager now lets you define packages for which you don’t want to receive updates,the software manager now features multiple installation/removal of software and many of the tools’ graphical interfaces were enhanced.

This is just a summary of the new features coming with Linux Mint 8. For a complete overview of the new features, please read: “What’s new in Linux Mint 8 Helena”.

System requirements:

A minimum of 512MB of RAM is recommended. Once installed the system works fine with as low as 256MB RAM. The installation process deals with 2.5GB of data compressed on a 700MB CD and it can hang or fail on systems with less than 512MB RAM. If you have between 256MB and 512MB RAM you may have to try to install several times.

Important information and known issues:

As an RC (Release Candidate) this release is targeted at developers and beta-testers who want to help Linux Mint find and correct bugs before the stable release. Please do not use this release as your main desktop. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.

Upgrade instructions:

Upgrade instructions will be published with the stable release.

Feedback and bug reports:

Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 8 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.

Download Linux Mint 8 RC1:

You can download Linux Mint 8 RC1 via torrent or via HTTP:

Size: 688MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 93614f823d9d07c9560dfdb17d4db8fb

Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.com/torrent/LinuxMint-8-RC1.iso.torrent
HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=44

Asia:

Europe:

Northern America:

Enjoy!

Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.

* News about Mint

Preparations for the next version of Mint, Helena, is going on and as our Twitter indicates we are testing the first internal betas of Mint 8 Helena

Mint 8 – Boot sequence will be different

Monthly stats – October 2009

* News about Linux

Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, was released.

Mandriva Linux 2010 was released

GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010

IBM and Ubuntu roll Linux for U.S desktops vs Windows 7

Is Kubuntu Caught in a Downward Spiral?

An open source version of Linux client is being developed for Skype

Security Hole in Kernel Allows Privilege Extensions – if you run ” cat /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr ” and get a vaule higher than zero you are OK. This is an old bug coming to life again

USB stick security flaw puts data at risk – the cracked operating system in this case is Linux kernel 2.6.26

The latest news about the kernel is always found here

* News about Open Source

Drupal Moves Into the White House

ApacheCon US 2009 was sponsored by Microsoft and thawte

Richard Stallman wants the European Commission to block the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle with its proposed acquisition of Sun.

Red Hat invests in the MySQL open source database competitor EnterpriseDB – this could have an impact on the Oracle – MySQL “problem”

* News about IT

A compromise was reached on the EU Telecom package and the amendment suggestion 138.

(Link to a Swedish page, but the compromise text is found in English – I have not been able to find any other good link)

CIA Buys Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets

Mark Shuttleworth praises “excellent” Windows 7

Cnet review of Windows 7

640,000 sites and approximately 5.8 million pages were infected in Q3’09

Facebook Wins $711 Million In Case Against ‘Spam King’

The Windows exploit Gumblar is Reloaded

Internet phone systems become the fraudster’s tool

Facebook users hit by botnet attack (When I googled this I saw that most hits were in Slavic languages)

* Hardware news

New material would allow a fingernail-sized chip store a terabyte

Tilera To Release 100-Core Processor

* Other news

Nokia “Only” Wants $200 Million From Apple In iPhone Patent Suit

Linus Torvalds gives Windows 7 thumbs up 🙂

* Comic of the week


Credit goes to xkcd

* More about Linux Mint

How to donate

Home page

Blog The planet Wiki Forum Twitter Mintcast

* Editors comment

As always – if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.

It’s been  while since that last newsletter, unfortunately I have too much to do to publish more often.

Enjoy life

Husse

Donations & Sponsorships:

Many thanks to the following donors and sponsors for financially supporting Linux Mint:

Donors:

  • $461, Einar Orn Eidsson (Iceland)
  • $182, Jonas K. (France)
  • $117, Gwa Cobbett (United Kingdom) – http://gwa.tumblr.com
  • $101, Kevin W. (USA)
  • $100, Philip C. Freytag aka “phil” (Canada)
  • $100, J.-Yves Lortie aka “amadeus128” (Canada)
  • $100, Charles P Poltrock aka “chuckpo” (USA)
  • $92, Dusan P. (Slovenia)
  • $75, Uwe T. (Germany)
  • $53, Mikael J. (Sweden)
  • $51, Suyog B. (Australia)
  • $50, John Mason aka “merc68k” (Canada)
  • $50, Edward Comer aka “celem” (USA)
  • $50, gazza (Australia)
  • $50, Campbell M (United Kingdom)
  • $50, G. Sheffield (USA)
  • $50, Ernest G. (USA)
  • $50, Enderle P. (USA)
  • $46, Anthony H. aka “anthony2010” (United Kingdom)
  • $46, Richard Cail (United Kingdom)
  • $38, Manuel F. (Portugal)
  • $38, Antonino T. (Italy)
  • $38, Michael Krusch aka “MAD” (Germany)
  • $30 (3rd donation), Marco R. (Italy)
  • $30 (2nd donation), Jonathan B H. (USA)
  • $30, Barrie M R. (Australia)
  • $30, Volker Schulz-von der G. (Germany)
  • $30, Francisco P. (USA)
  • $30, Josef K. (Czech Republic)
  • $30, Russ S. (USA)
  • $30, Abraham L. (USA) – http://www.eggsinthemorning.com
  • $30, Roberto P. (Italy)
  • $30, Jan de G. (Netherlands)
  • $30, Daniel W. (World) – http://www.downloadstube.net
  • $30, Christ L. (Greece)
  • $28, Alison R. (United Kingdom)
  • $28, Philip Watson aka “Eraph” (United Kingdom) – http://www.rakhama.com
  • $28, Nadege Austin aka “nadglobtrotter” (France)
  • $28, Ruben Z. (Netherlands)
  • $25, Anthony S. (USA)
  • $25, Matthew Hancock aka “mwhancock” (USA)
  • $25, Martin Colville aka “colvillem” (Australia)
  • $25, Daniel B. (USA)
  • $25, Sheffoy F. (USA)
  • $25, Philip S. (United Kingdom)
  • $25, Stephen B. (USA)
  • $25, Keith Templeman aka “mansfields1964” (United Kingdom)
  • $25, Michael F. (USA)
  • $25, Donald D’A. (USA)
  • $25, Rod McLaren aka “Ambertone” (Australia) – http://www.ambertone.com.au
  • $23, Cong-Truc T. (France)
  • $23, Massimo Campanini aka “campamax” (Italy)
  • $20 (2nd donation), Blaine R. (USA)
  • $20, Worawit W. (Thailand)
  • $20, Michael H. (USA)
  • $20, Justin Johansson (Australia)
  • $20, Gerald E. (USA)
  • $20, Kazuhiko T. (Japan)
  • $20, William R. (USA)
  • $20, Victor W. (USA)
  • $20, Michael Nordmark (Sweden)
  • $20, Sammasati Enterprises (USA)
  • $20, Tomislav Pintaric (Canada)
  • $20, Ricardo Calimanis aka “ricardo.calimanis” (Brazil) – http://goetti.blogspot.com
  • $20, Mario Castro (Spain)
  • $20, Chris Jones (USA) – http://caringcompy.blogspot.com
  • $20, Juan Carlos C. (USA)
  • $20, Michael D.-M. (Canada)
  • $19, Olivier B. (France)
  • $18, Lee Sturman aka “Hammerlee” (United Kingdom)
  • $15 (2nd donation), Colin Casey (Canada)
  • $15, Dimitris C. (Greece)
  • $15, Joachim W. (Germany)
  • $15, Russell Aldrich aka “Russman” (USA) – http://www.myspace.com/rockinroll69
  • $15, Philip S. (USA)
  • $15, Greg Dawes aka “Greg-NZ” (New Zealand)
  • $15, Nikos K. (Greece)
  • $15, Royden L. (United Kingdom)
  • $15, Jason S. (Canada)
  • $15, Allen B. (USA)
  • $15, Mark C. aka “geekman” (USA)
  • $15, Paul E. (United Kingdom)
  • $14, Francisco C. C. (Spain)
  • $14, Charl P. (Netherlands)
  • $14, Nico W. (Austria)
  • $14, Justin Braime (United Kingdom)
  • $12, Pavel Gelnar aka “wil-m” (Czech Republic) – http://www.brblal.net
  • $10 (2nd donation), Richard G. (USA)
  • $10, Shiva L. (India)
  • $10, Clocktower Arts Monthly (USA)
  • $10, Technadicts (USA)
  • $10, Damon Catling (Australia)
  • $10, Raimond L. (Lithuania)
  • $10, Tom Cordina aka “4Foot” (Canada)
  • $10, Suleyman B. (Turkey)
  • $10, Andrzej W. (USA)
  • $10, Senad S. (USA)
  • $10, Sedat C. (Turkey)
  • $10, Anthony G. (USA)
  • $10, Jeff Walker (USA)
  • $10, Christopher De R. (USA)
  • $10, http://billstoolstore.co.uk (United Kingdom)
  • $10, jmkent aka “Burton” (USA)
  • $10, Ed W. (USA)
  • $10, Paul Thomas aka “liassic” (United Kingdom) – http://www.south-wales.org
  • $10, Ernest L. (USA)
  • $10, Anders B. (Norway)
  • $10, Travis T. (USA)
  • $10, Gavin F. (United Kingdom)
  • $10, MartinF aka “badwolf9” (Switzerland)
  • $10, Kevin B. (Canada)
  • $10, 室津 恵三 (Japan)
  • $10, Daniel C J. (United Kingdom)
  • $10, Priyantha T. (Norway)
  • $8, Dino G. (Italy)
  • $8, Lazaros S. (Greece)
  • $8, Kai P. (Germany)
  • $7, Dave G. (USA)
  • $7, Lukas M. (Czech Republic)
  • $7, Robert M. (United Kingdom)
  • $7, Kostas P. (Greece)
  • $5, Thomas C. (USA)
  • $5, Donna Fontenot aka “DonnaFontenot – DazzlinDonna” (USA) – http://www.dazzlindonna.com
  • $5, Michael K. (USA)
  • $5, Aaron R. (USA)
  • $5, Jim H. (United Kingdom)
  • $5, George238 (Portugal)
  • $5, Chuck W. (USA)
  • $5, Jens Stenneken (Germany) – http://www.stenneken.de
  • $5, Freddy W. (USA)
  • $5, Richard K. (USA)
  • $5, Todd J. (USA)
  • $5, Salvatore D. (Italy)
  • $5, tvardy (Poland)
  • $5, Enrico Galli (Italy) – http://www.egw.it
  • $5, Matthew L. (USA)
  • $4, Patrik R. (Sweden)
  • $4, Kyle H. (USA)
  • $4, Romel S. (USA)
  • $3, Danny J. (United Kingdom)
  • $3, Diego C. (Italy)
  • $3, Remy van Elst (Netherlands) – http://relst.nl/
  • $2, Adam S. (USA)
  • $1, Rain Clark aka “Melon Bread” (USA) – http://otaku-unlimited.net/Forums/index.php
  • $1, Fredrik G. (Sweden)
  • $0.02, Samuel L. M. (Chile)

Sponsors:

Money raised in October:

* Donations: $3828.02 (147 donors)
* Sponsors: $349.9 (39 sponsors)

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

User Stats:

Repartition of Linux Mint users across releases:

  • Linux Mint 7 Gloria: 81% (+3%)
  • Linux Mint 6 Felicia: 11% (-3%)
  • Linux Mint 5 Elyssa LTS: 5% (-1%)
  • Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna: 3% (-0%)

Web Stats:

  • Visits: 2,150,333 (+8%)
  • Pageviews: 3,655,481 (+7%)
  • Page impressions: 1,414,004
  • Search queries: 4,817,791
  • Forum users: 22,485
  • Forum posts: 193,513

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1328 (3rd)
  • Distrowatch (traffic share): 3.9% (2nd)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 25,039th

Events:

  • No releases this month.
  • The LXDE and Fluxbox editions of Linux Mint 7 were cancelled.
  • Clem is now working full time for the distribution.
  • mintCast released 2 episodes of their podcast: http://mintcast.org/

Summary:

  • October 2009 was the (8th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.
  • The overall income is up 8%.
  • Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.
  • The community support has never been so big. 147 people gathered to send us more than $3,800! We also got a single donation of $461 from Einar Orn Eidsson (Iceland). This has never been so high.
  • In terms of events this was a very quiet month. We’ve been working hard on the new upcoming release though and there will be plenty of reasons for people to get excited about Linux Mint 8. November will be eventful and I hope this will please the community, especially after seeing how much it’s been supporting our project. Many thanks to all the donors and sponsors behing Linux Mint and congratulations to them, to us and to this project for another fantastic month.