Introduction

So that was fast… the very same day of its release, Mint 7 Gloria RC1 gets reviewed. You’d almost think the ISO was leaked or something (#cough#). The name of the reviewing website is interesting as well: “Too Much Green”. The author is Rich Bosomworth and his review is available here: http://toomuchgreen.mebbi.net/2009/05/7-up/

Happy reading everyone.

Comments:

Rich said “It also boasts a full range of ready to roll Wi-Fi drivers to get you connected from the word go.

–> While this is true, it’s not really worth mentioning anymore. Back in the times when mintWifi was designed, this was a significant innovation compared to Ubuntu. A lot of efforts were made upstream though and whether it’s by Canonical or the kernel team, the difference between Mint and Ubuntu isn’t that big when it comes to hardware support anymore. Ndiswrapper is installed by default and so is ndisgtk, and these are the two most significant differences when it comes to Wifi.

Rich said “[…] it was a shame not to see a Twitter client

–> What do people think? I was under the impression that most Twitter readers were either using the site or an RSS reader. If you think a Twitter reader is a must on the desktop then please speak up in the comment section. I definitely don’t want to clutter the list of featured apps in mintInstall, but I’m happy to add things if they’re missing. Let me know.

Rich said “Mint also comes with something called ‘Pulse Audio‘. Basically this is a ’sound/audio’ server package with streaming support for Airtunes, however as I haven’t used it myself I can’t really comment in any depth

–> PulseAudio is probably one of the most under-estimated innovations of these past few years. It’s a complete sound server and I could go on all day about why it’s absolutely fantastic. I’ll definitely try to post about this in the future. If mintCast is interested, it would be interesting for them to address the topic.

Rich said “in fact for home use I honestly don’t think it can be beaten, this new version rocks.

–> If it’s not beaten by another distribution, it will be by Mint 8. I don’t give it more than 6 months 🙂

Many thanks to the reviewer for such a quick response and for his feedback. The comment section is open for your feedback and I’m personally interested to know your thoughts on what’s missing in the list of featured applications.

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1.

Introduction to Linux Mint 7:

The 7th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular the menu system, the application manager and the upload manager now provide new features such as “Suggestions”, “Featured applications”, “SCP and SFTP support”. The underlying base of the operating system was also strengthened with a new adjustment mechanism which makes Linux Mint more robust and less vulnerable to Ubuntu package upgrades, and the introduction of virtual and meta packages which simplify upgrade paths and the installation of multiple desktop environments.

For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 7, please read What’s new in Gloria.

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.

The upgrade path from Linux Mint 6, the User Guide and the translation of the Mint tools will be finalized for the stable release.

The root password is now set as the same as the one chosen during the installation. A blog post will follow to explain why and how this was implemented.

If you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.

The artwork coming with this release will be there in the stable release but won’t be set as default. We’d like to gather as much feedback as possible about this, so please tell us what you think of it.

Feedback and bug reports:

Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 7 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.

Download Linux Mint 7 RC1:

You can download Linux Mint 7 RC1 via torrent or via HTTP:

Size: 686MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: 652fd4aa2122bd94a8b9aa0aa668f692

Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.com/torrent/LinuxMint-7-RC1.iso.torrent
HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=38

Europe:

Northern America:

Rest of the World:

Enjoy!

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

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

In this episode:

  • Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” released
  • System76: Ubuntu PC Maker’s Revenue Up 61 Percent
  • Linux Foundation Announces Winners of “We’re Linux” Video Contest
  • Install Org-mode the easy way
  • Website of the week: The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide
  • User feedback

Direct links: