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The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 8 “Helena” KDE Community Edition RC1.

Quick steps:

Introduction to Linux Mint 8 KDE:

The KDE Community Edition aims to provide a version of Linux Mint which uses the KDE desktop.

For a detailed overview of the new features and improvements included in Linux Mint 8 KDE, please read “What’s new in Helena KDE?“.

System requirements:

A minimum of 4GB of free space and 256MB RAM are needed. For a comfortable experience we recommended to have at least 512MB RAM and 10GB of free space.

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.

Feedback and bug reports:

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

Download Linux Mint 8 KDE RC1:

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

Size: 1.1GB LiveDVD
MD5Sum:  011e30de612adeccaa555da16c4ff0c6

Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.com/torrent/LinuxMint-8-KDE-RC1.iso.torrent
 HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=47

Asia:

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.

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A new “Hardware module” was added to the Community website. This module allows you to register your hardware and to search for hardware devices based on multiple criteria.

Here are some typical use cases of this module:

  • You want to buy an nVidia 8600GT video card and you’d like to know if the 3D effects work well with it under Helena and what kind of FPS you can expect when playing your favorite games. You use the hardware module to search for Helena users who own a 8600GT and you check their notes.
  • You’re shopping for a new printer and you’re wondering which ones are well recognized under Elyssa. You use the hardware module to search for printers which work under Elyssa.

Using the Hardware module you can search for hardware using a combination of the following criteria:

  • Model names
  • Brands
  • Types (printers, monitors..etc)
  • Status (i.e. how well it works)
  • Release (i.e. under which Linux Mint release)

At the moment you can’t comment on a particular device, and so therefore you can’t have a conversation with the device owner that others would see but we’ll probably add that in very soon.

Note: Other modules are planned and the community website (http://community.linuxmint.com) is still in ALPHA (so expect things to break now and then).

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Warnings:

  • This upgrade path is for the x64 Edition only, from a Mint 7 Gloria system to a Mint 8 Helena system.
  • There is no guarantee that it will work for you. In fact this is quite a risky process. If you’re experienced and if you know how to troubleshoot and solve common Linux problems (in particular X11, kernel modules and APT problems) then you’re probably OK. If you’re a novice user we recommend you perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint 8 instead.
  • You should make backups of all your data before upgrading.

Upgrading vs a fresh install:

The recommended way to install Linux Mint 8 is to download and burn the liveCD. Another alternative is to upgrade your existing system as detailed in this blog post. Note that we do not recommend you to do this and we insist on the fact that you know the pros and cons associated with it and the risks involved in doing so.

Pros:

  • With an upgrade, you keep the software you previously installed, you don’t need to reinstall it again as you would after a fresh installation of Linux Mint.
  • With an upgrade, you keep your settings and your documents, you don’t need to restore them from a backup. Note that you can also do this with a fresh installation by using a dedicated home partition and that no matter which way you’re upgrading or performing a fresh installation, you should ALWAYS make a backup of your personal data.

Cons:

  • Upgrading is slow, because you need to download the new versions of all the packages. In comparison, the liveCD contains about 2.5GB of compressed data in a single download of less than 700MB and the fresh installation takes between 10 and 15 minutes. Consequently, it’s much faster to perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint than upgrading your existing one.
  • Depending on what’s installed in your system, package upgrades can trigger complicated conflicts. If you’re experienced with APT you’ll probably know how to solve the problem. If you’re not, you could end up half-way between Mint 7 and Mint 8, and if you’re unlucky even with an unusable system.
  • There’s a code-freeze before Ubuntu gets released, and then testing goes on. The same happens with the Linux Mint release, and so what you end up running when you perform a fresh installation is a system that is known to us for its statibility and which has been thouroughly tested. An upgrade applies all available package updates no matter how unsafe they are, from level 1 to level 5, so if there are regressions in these updates you’ll get your system impacted by them.
  • With every new kernel, there are differences related to hardware support. To know if your hardware is fully recognized by the new Linux Mint release you should try out the liveCD and check that things work before making the decision to install or to update your system. There are have been numerous people saying that their wireless cards, their sound device or some other part of their system was recognized with the prior version of Linux Mint or Ubuntu and didn’t work as expected anymore. For some people, the latest release isn’t necessarily the right one. It’s better to be safe than sorry, so if you’re going to download the liveCD to check your hardware support anyway, you may as well go for a fresh install and avoid downloading things twice.

Comparison with Ubuntu:

  • Upgrading Ubuntu is not safer than upgrading Linux Mint. It’s equally risky.
  • Ubuntu doesn’t mention the risks involved in package and release upgrades. Their policy is to fix whatever gets broken and to assume that the regressions caused on your system will get solved by future upgrades.
  • Linux Mint insists on these risks and recommends a prudent approach to upgrades. Our policy is to avoid possible regressions by being selective on the updates we recommend to you.
  • Upgrading Ubuntu is easy, and easier than upgrading Linux Mint. It shouldn’t be though, and if there’s any risk involved in you braking your system, then the least we can do is to write a long boring post about it, to make you think twice about doing it, and to throw warning signs at you before you click on the shiny button :)

Upgrading graphically (easier):

  • Open a terminal and type the following commands: “apt update” and “apt install mint-upgrade-tool-x64”
  • Open mintMenu and run “Menu->Administration->Upgrade to Linux Mint 8″
  • Follow the instructions.
  • If asked, always choose “Replace”.
  • If asked, always choose “I”.
  • When finished, reboot the computer.
  • Change your wallpaper to “Fresh” and your theme to “Shiki-Wise”
  • Run the upgrade tool from the menu again and let the upgrade tool finish all the way to the end.

Upgrading from the command line (faster):

Open a terminal and type the following commands:

  • gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list (Change all occurrences of “gloria” to “helena”, and all occurences of “jaunty” to “karmic”, remove the lines for the Community section of the Linux Mint repository, then save the file and close the editor)
  • apt update
  • apt install mint-info-x64 (choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)
  • apt install mint-meta-x64(choose “Y” or “I” to install the package maintainer’s version)

In the terminal, repeat the following commands until both upgrade commands show no upgrades available:

  • apt upgrade
  • apt dist-upgrade
  • apt install mint-meta-x64
Give us your feedback:
[poll id=”9″]

Troubleshooting:

Firefox:
If after the upgrade your Firefox installation stills shows up as “Shiretoko” or if the search engines aren’t working, try the following commands:
  • apt remove firefox-3.0 firefox-3.0-branding
  • apt remove firefox-3.5
  • apt clean
  • apt install moonlight-plugin-mozilla
  • apt install mint-meta-x64
mintMenu:
If the menu is empty and you can’t see any applications, right click on the menu button in the panel and select “Reload plugins”.