I sense a lot of confusion sometimes when it comes to the difference between LTS and standard releases, or the compatibility between Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Which Mint release is based on which Ubuntu release? How long is it supported for?
So here’s a cheat sheet for everyone, to clear things up and make it easy to remember:
Just curious… What’s the reason for the x.04 and x.10 versioning scheme in Ubuntu? It seems quite strange.
The x.04/x.10 are the months that the software is released. They always come out with their new product in April and October, hence the “.04/.10” respectively. It took me some time to figure that out myself. 🙂
It stands for the month the version is published. x.04 for April (4th month) and x.10 for October (10th month).
X.04 is the version coming in April (4th month) and X.10 in October (10th month).
Ubuntu versions are the year and the month they were made! 8.04, for instance, came out in April of 2008.
Further to what Jared said, Ubuntu “Dapper Drake” came out two months later than planned, hence its number was 6.06.
Thanks, that’s very useful. There is just one thing that is a bit unclear to me: the time of the release.
For instance, are Karmic and Helena going to be released the same day? the same month?
Additionnally (and I’m going to document a bit about this too) how much is Mint based on each Ubuntu release. What I mean is the following: do you remove stuff from the ubuntu releases (I’m not talking about graphics/themes, but more about functionality/applications etc) or do you just add stuff?
If the correct answer is the second one, then Linux Mint is even cooler than I thought it was 🙂
just thought I’d point out that it’s possible Ubuntu’s next LTS release will change to 10.10 depending on the stability of gnome 3.0 If this is the case, obviously Mint’s LTS would change too.
Nice graphic Clem. It would be interesting to see it all the way back to Mint 1.
Lantesh: OK, I’ll add the previous releases.
Aziz: Mint releases usually come a month after the release of Ubuntu they’re based on. We don’t only add to Ubuntu, we modify some of it and we also remove some of their components. With each Ubuntu release we review their changes and decide whether or not they should make it into Mint. Features introduced by Ubuntu and included in Mint are usually mentioned in the “Upstream improvements” section of the release notes.
To simplify the link with the ubuntu release, why to not have the same first letter? Even if a jump has to be done (as Ubuntu made at the beginning)
For example, K…a for the next release based on Karmic.
@herisson:
Then we’d miss four letters to think of names for :'( lol.
Thanks for the updated Graphic Clem. I switched from Ubuntu to Mint during the days of Mint 4 Daryna, so I was a little foggy on things before that.
To add to what Aziz asked, where can we see what was removed / modified from Ubuntu?
PS: The ‘Notify me of follow-up comments via email’ plugin for WordPress would be useful here.
Iolanda, Janica and Katerina the next names for Mint lol
Clem, what software did you use to make the graphic in?
ooo… p.s. why do all mint names end in ‘a’?
@herisson: Sorry, I don’t agree. Mint is unique, let’s keep it that way.
Just wondering, how are the names for Mint picked? Does clem pick them out of a hat? Is there some voting mechanism?
My vote(s), if anyone is actually reading this, for the next three are: Iveta, Jindra, and Katerina. :p
Isla?
Hm… i vote for the next three are: Isabella, Jessica, and Karina
Best Regards
The names are voted on by the community in the forums
They go in order of the alphabet and are always female names
So 7 Is Gloria
8 will be Helena
voting should start soon on 9 if not already
When is this name voting, that would be cool
Tim: Inkscape. The first 26 releases will end in ‘a’, and then we’ll probably go for ‘e’ 🙂
Great scheme to understand next releases times. ^_^ Thanks
Hi Clem,
Thanks for the graphic, but it seems you made a mistake for the standard releases Edgy~Gutsy and their Mint counterparts: support has already ended (between Apr.08 and Apr.09). Unless you are mixing up Desktop version support and server edition support.
As for Edgy, standard support was supposedly dropped in July, am I right?
yeah! well i wanna know, which diferencies have mint and ubuntu, i don´t kon which are the diferencies, and i have a lot of dudes, cause i´m always have been used windows, but i´m just disenchanted windows wanna control us… well, could you tell me? why is better mint or ubunt? which is the compatibility of the formats of the documents like word, excel, powerpoint, etc..
i´m mexican understand me i´m not the best to speak english, like you can see, but i think that i´m explicit, i just think
To JOAB: Is not precisely correct to compare Mint to Ubuntu. Mint is based on Ubuntu; it is a modification/custimization, an evolution if you will to better suit its particular community. Better to compare Mint to another “sibling distro,” such as Ultimate Edition (as of this post, v2.3 for both UE & UE Gamers’ Edition) – for they are both built upon/from Ubuntu.
The customized editions will generally come with more applications pre-installed (and often with newer versions). They will have a customized repository source list with a lot of overlap in the core repos.
For a Windows user wishing to see (much) more choices in every aspect of the computing experience, those are two excellent distros to try out. Another such is Mandriva (which is not built upon Ubuntu).