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Introduction

Cinnamon 1.6 (along with Muffin 1.1.0 and Nemo 1.0.1) was released yesterday. You can read the release announcement and an overview of the new features at: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=207

These technologies are brand new and we do not recommend you upgrade to them. They were however added to the Romeo section of the LMDE and Linux Mint 13 repositories for Cinnamon enthusiasts to get an early taste of what is coming next. As we receive more feedback and bug reports, the Cinnamon 1.6 branch will mature, with a series of small point releases (1.6.1, 1.6.2 etc..) and will eventually replace Cinnamon 1.4.

Warnings

Be aware that Cinnamon 1.6.0 and Nemo 1.0.1 are brand new:

  • Translations in 1.6.0 are only complete for French, German and Dutch (click here for the dev. status on translations)
  • Cinnamon 1.6 introduces many new features and 1.6.0 is the first public release, so we’re expecting bugs 🙂
  • Most themes aren’t compatible with Cinnamon 1.6 yet. If you upgrade to Cinnamon 1.6, we recommend you use the default “cinnamon” theme.
  • Nemo 1.0.1 is stable but it comes without support for most popular extensions (dropbox, extract-here..etc..)
  • Nemo 1.0.1 isn’t supported by most themes out there and doesn’t support Nautilus themes, so it won’t integrate with your theme as nicely as Nautilus does.

How to enable Romeo

To enable Romeo, click on Menu->Preferences->Software Sources. Then tick the “Unstable packages (Romeo)” checkbox.

Note: Make sure to disable Romeo after you upgraded Cinnamon. We use Romeo internally to test packages before they reach the repositories so pointing to it is usually a bad idea.

How to upgrade to Cinnamon 1.6

Once you’ve enabled Romeo, launch the Update Manager and click on “Refresh”.

Select the Muffin and Cinnamon packages as illustrated above and click the “Install Updates” button.

When you’re finished, disable Romeo in the Software Sources, terminate your session and log in Cinnamon again.

You can run “cinnamon –version” in a terminal to make sure you’re using 1.6.0.

Nemo 1.0.1

Using Romeo you can also install the “nemo” package.

Nemo will replace Nautilus in Cinnamon and Linux Mint going forward. This project was announced at http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=198

Note: Although Nemo is Cinnamon’s official file browser, Cinnamon does not depend on it, so you can continue to use Cinnamon with Nautilus, Marlin or any other file browser.

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Current Status

  • It is not safe to upgrade any package unless your mirror points to UP5
    • Here is the current status of the LMDE mirrors:
      • debian.linuxmint.com (USA): UP5
      • http://debian.lth.se (Sweden): UP5
      • http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr (France): UP5
    • To change which mirror you’re pointing to:
      • make sure “mint-debian-mirrors” is installed
      • open a terminal and run the following command: mint-choose-debian-mirror
  • Make sure to read http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/update-pack.html
  • If you experience issues or if you’re going through the update at the moment, don’t hesitate to connect to the IRC chatroom (irc.spotchat.org, #linuxmint-debian)

Introduction

Update Pack 5 was released as the “latest” update pack today. If you’re not using Linux Mint Debian, please ignore this post.

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.

… to check your APT sources

  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.

… to know more about Update Pack 5

In the “Update Pack Info” window, make sure to read all the information related to Update Pack 5. 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 5

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

Will LMDE get new ISO images with Update Pack 5?

Yes, in the coming weeks/months, the following editions will be released either with Update Pack 5 or Update Pack 6 (depending on whether UP6 is a quick/short follow-up update-pack or not):

  • Cinnamon
  • MATE
  • Xfce

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Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

 

Platinum Sponsors:

Blue Systems - Netrunner

Gold Sponsors:

Opera

Dedicated Hosting Server *

Silver Sponsors:

R1Soft

Milton Security Group

Bronze Sponsors:

ThinkPenguin.com

Vault Networks *

AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting

7L Networks Toronto Colocation *

  

Community Sponsors:

To become a sponsor or see the full list of Linux Mint sponsors, please visit: http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php

Donations:

$4698 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 222 donors: http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

  • $250, Anjum S.
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  • $31.36 from 35 smaller donations

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3608 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 7,621st

Events:

Developer of the month:

Each month we feature one developer and explain his contributions to the community. Development is a lot of fun and it doesn’t take much to get started. If you’re tempted to join the team, don’t hesitate to follow our development on http://github.com/linuxmint and come and chat with the developers at #linuxmint-dev (irc.spotchat.org).

This month’s “developer of the month” is: esteban1uy, 13 years old!

Don’t be fooled by his age, he’s new in the development team but he did 3 really cool things this Summer. Have a look:

  • First, he helped people on the forums troubleshoot a bug in Cinnamon 1.4 which made the desktop crash when using LibreOffice. The developers were running out of ideas, people didn’t know what to do so esteban1uy led the investigation, spent a lot of time talking to people, learnt about debugging C code and finally found the cause of the problem. A week later he had a patch ready, muffin was upgraded and people’s desktops didn’t crash anymore… that was on the forums and it made people very happy 🙂
  • Then, he made Cinnamon2D happen. The development team had given up on using llvmpipe. He led the R&D on software-rendering, clutter configuration, and came up with the idea of removing shadows… It’s a bit technical to describe in simple terms, but although he didn’t implement Cinnamon2D, it wouldn’t be in Cinnamon 1.6 if it wasn’t for him (note that Cinnamon2D is there for troubleshooting, there’s still a lot of work to be done before it enables anyone to have a decent Cinnamon desktop using software-rendering).
  • Right now, he’s working with dalcde on “bumpmaps”. The gaming industry calls this “tessellation”. The idea is to give artists the ability to define transparent textures which look a bit like sculpted glass. For instance, a honeycomb bumpmap would make your menu look like that:

Bumpmaps will come in Cinnamon 1.8. If you see esteban1uy, don’t buy him a beer, that would be inappropriate, but don’t hesitate to give him a pat on the back.

News and summary:

  • In its October 2012 issue, Linux Format ranked Linux Mint as the “Best Distro 2012”.
  • Very few announcements were made during the summer but a lot of work was done in preparation for Linux Mint 14. MDM received important bug fixes, compatibility with all GDM themes and support for user lists and user “faces”. Nemo was announced as the new Cinnamon file browser and received a lot of usability improvements. Cinnamon itself is getting ready for a massive 1.6 release and a huge number of new features. MATE continues to impress with an even more polished 1.4 release. All of these technologies are significantly ahead of the versions used by Linux Mint 13 and the gap between now and the end of November, when Linux Mint 14 is out, means they can mature and receive bug fixes to ensure a stable and impressive release.
  • There are now less LMDE mirrors than before but they sync the entire 600GB LMDE archive, including “latest” and “incoming”. This, along with a new feature in LMDE which tests the speed of each mirror and interactively asks the user which one to use when the list of mirrors is changed, should guarantee a better upgrade and better speeds than previously observed with UP4. Update Pack 5 itself is almost ready and received positive feedback from “incoming” testers.
  • This release cycle was a breath of fresh air for the development team. The ability to rely on Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce and KDE and the limited scope for regressions coming from upstream allowed us to spend more time and focus in development. With UP5, Cinnamon, MATE, MDM and Nemo almost ready, we’re switching focus towards mintInstall and Jockey (which is being replaced upstream and which features we’d also like to see working in LMDE).
  • Finally, we received a lot of donations despite the summer holidays. Many thanks to all our sponsors, partners and donors!