LMDE 201101 32-bit re-spin

As re-spin of the LMDE 201012 32-bit ISO was made available under the name “201101”.

The new ISO comes with an up-to-date live kernel which addresses the following issues:

  • “Black screen of death”, live session hanging with a black screen.
  • Installer hanging while configuring Grub.

Explanation of the problem:

A liveCD contains two systems: One that is decompressed, copied during the installation and eventually used post-install, and another one (smaller and with minimal functionality) which is used to boot the liveCD itself, decompress the filesystem and get an operational live session running on top of it. As such, the liveCD comes with two kernels, one of which is used for the live session and the other which is actually installed on your system. In theory, these two kernels should be identical to avoid mismatches since the live session uses the live kernel but relies on the kernel files present in the compressed system. In practice this was never an issue (until now) for the following reasons:

  • On a frozen base (Ubuntu for instance), kernel changes and updates are minimal and the difference between two kernels could be insignificant in the scope of the liveCD.
  • Linux Mint is extremely conservative when it comes to changing base elements such as the kernel and as a consequence, Linux Mint ISO releases based on Ubuntu always use the exact same kernel as their Ubuntu base.

The Debian live CD we’re basing LMDE on is built by us from scratch. Unlike Ubuntu-based releases, LMDE doesn’t rebase itself with each release, it continues to use the same base which is simply updated using the repositories. LMDE 64-bit is relatively new and so the difference between its two kernels is insignificant. LMDE 32-bit was built in August 2010 and the difference between its old live kernel and its modern embedded one were quite dramatic and affected modesetting with the “nouveau” driver. On some hardware, it also affected the configuration of Grub.

The problem was hard to spot but easy to fix. The live kernel was updated in the ISO and after a lot of testing we were happy to see the 201101 successfully boot and install on a large variety of hardware.

We failed to detect the issue prior to releasing for the following reasons:

  • Significant infrastructure problems around Christmas: Our testing server in London was taken offline by the host and this created a lot of problems. Additional stress was put on various team members around Christmas (car accident, water/electricity shortages, financial problems, DSL upload speed maxed at 128kbps) which made it extremely hard for many of us, including myself and Ikey, to be available and to work efficiently.
  • New challenges specific to the rolling nature of the Debian base: Mintconstructor wasn’t designed to update the kernel and this was an entirely new challenge for us. It’s something we simply did not see coming.
  • Lack of RC releases: Unlike other releases, LMDE didn’t benefit from any public testing.

201012 was leaked and tested by a few people within the team and the community (I’d like to thank especially Justin, ArcherSeven and Gazza for their help with testing 201012 and actively supporting the resolution of the problem in 201101). I personally tested 201012 remotely in a virtualized environment. It passed QA with all test cases successful and it behaved perfectly on the hardware it was tested on.

Long term solutions:

  • QA: We go through a lot of testing but most of it is functional and regression testing. We’ll be adding hardware specific test cases to our QA process to ensure our releases always successfully boot and install on Intel, ATI and nVidia chipsets.
  • Test server: Without going into the details. The availability of a test server is extremely important in our process. Though it didn’t cause the issue, the lack of a test server affected our communication, our speed and our responsiveness to tackle the problem. At the moment it’s holding the testing on the KDE edition. We’ll be getting a new testing server this month.
  • MintConstructor: Our construction tool will be modified to detect mismatches between the live and embedded kernels and to allow maintainers to perform an update if necessary.
  • RC releases: We’ll be considering introducing RC releases for LMDE or involving the community and getting more people to test the ISO before it gets approved for a release.

Workaround for LMDE 201012 32-bit users:

If you downloaded LMDE 201012 32-bit and all you’re getting is a black screen, you might just be a kernel argument away from a successful boot. The solution is to download 201101, but you can save 1GB of download and a new DVD by using the following arguments:

  • For ATI chipsets: radeon.modeset=0
  • For nVidia chipsets: xforcevesa or nomodeset
  • For GeForce and Generic: nouveau.modeset=0
  • For Intel: i915.modeset=0

This should give you a live session in low resolution. Since the embedded kernel is already up-to-date, you don’t need to configure anything post-installation and your system should then boot in high resolution.

Download links:

Md5 sum: daeabb182b016cd62bfced5483441b5a

Torrent: 32-bit

HTTP Mirrors:

To all the people who got disappointed by the incident affecting our 32-bit Christmas release, I’d like to apologize. This has been a really stressful experience for the development team and I understand your frustration. This is a new base, and the first time we come across this particular challenge. We already started addressing our infrastructure problems and we’re coming out of this incident with a better QA process and a better technological expertise. As you can see, we’re starting the new year in style. We’re probably as proud of LMDE as we are sorry for this incident. Many people enjoyed this desktop in 64-bit already, some managed to run the 32-bit ISO in low resolution or find a workaround, and this re-spin will allow those who were left out since Christmas to finally enjoy LMDE in the New Year.

Many thanks to all the people who contributed feedback or helped solving this situation. Happy New Year to everyone!

87 comments

  1. Thanks for all your hard work on this .and a very happy new year to all the mint team.
    time to get that new 2 tb drive up and running in style

  2. Just wanted to send the whole team a great big THANK YOU!!! for both this, and the 64 bit edition. 32 has been great on my test box, and the 64 edition has a home waiting on my main PC. Been waiting on these since the first rumors long ago, and it’s been well worth the wait. Great Job!

  3. I was having this problem in LMDE 64-bit and in Julia, not just LMDE 32-bit. There has to be something else causing this, as well. Also, I want to note that nVidia Quadro users want to use nouveau.setmode=0 just like GeForce users.

  4. Didn’t have any problem to install the 201012 in Virtual Box and will be keeping it. A happy linux gnu year to all.

  5. Thank you very much Clem, 2011 will be the year that Linux Mint will reach the TOP spot of distributions, we are already a solid 2nd!. The community is enthusiastic about the direction LM has taken.

    Happy New Year to all of you

    Linux Mint really rocks!!!

  6. DEAR CLEM,

    what an insightful post of yours. What you describe (kernel issue) is so perfectly plausible (especially in hindsight, of course…)

    This is proving just how serious you and all the team take your task and the aim for quality.

    QUITE HONESTLY, this incident and your reaction to it BUILDS A LOT OF TRUST in the projects and yourselves. If ever a glitch does happen again in Mint, it will be in good hands to be solved.

    You question yourselves and improve and that is how it should be.
    Nothing like other distros (including, definitely, Ubuntu in the last couple years) where they get superficial at times in solving problems.

    I guess the rest of the Mint community concurs.

    I, for one, actually use LMDE-64, so was lucky enough to enjoy it over Christmas already πŸ™‚

  7. Thanks you a lot !
    I have two questions about the future of Mint:
    – LMDE is a rolling release but will you publish a “Squeeze Mint” distro or do we just have to replace the entries of the sources.list ?
    – I tried to install the package that contains the debian mint modifications over debian squeeze (i forgot the package name), but it does not seem to install the cgroup patch. This roll me to the question: “Will the new modifications like the cgroup patch be applied dynamically over the time ?”. This is a crucial point because it is the main purpose of a rolling release distro.

    1. H. : It’s following “testing” so it’s always rolling. The boost performance, over time, will be integrated upstream in the kernel itself. The user-mode configuration we performed here is done on the CD. You can of course apply it to your system, but it’s something you’ll need to do yourself, it doesn’t come as an update. I agree with you on the rolling aspect of the distribution, but there’s an important element to consider when it comes to “somebody’s” system… if something relates to the base or the user’s data and is likely to risk the stability of his/her system, we don’t introduce it as an update.

  8. Hi Clem,
    — > no blackscreen this time .. great work!!

    I will install this new 201101-LMDE-re-spin next week.

    Thx!

    Greetings from Germany! & Have a good time!

  9. Thanks for your explanation, Clem. The Sept version worked so well, but I broke it in early Dec, so I was kinda dismayed that the 201012 version didn’t work on my desktop. My laptop is 64 bit and that works great! I’ll be trying your suggestions above, but I’ve stopped seeding the 201012 version and will start the 201101 right away.

    BTW, Eric (above) says he had troubles with other veersions of Mint, well, me too. Neither Isadora nor Julia would load on my desktop, but I like XFCE, so have sucked it up and am waiting for Merlwiz to work his magic. πŸ™‚

  10. I attempted to download from Linux Freedom but the page is being reported being a malicious site, both in firefox and chrome.

  11. Hello Clem
    no blackscreen this time with a perfect installation.
    marvelous job, it’s a wonderful gift for 2011.
    thousand thanks from France and happy new year

  12. Great Job, no more modeset to boot the live cd. Runs great on a Panasonic CF-27 Mk IV Toughbook. First modern full featured distro that works on this 11 year old computer.

  13. i have a problem πŸ™
    i’m installing LMDE now and Installer stops at this step copying usr/share/linuxmint/mintinstall/installed/osmo.png

    1. Uriel: Check dmesg and run the installer from a command line by typing “sudo live-installer” to get more information on what is occuring.

  14. Hi, I tryed the workaround but don”t work, I still get the black screen, am I doing somtething wrong? I have a Nvidia 9500 GT, on the grub screen I press TAB to edit options, and i tried wrting noevau.modeset=0 before –, I also tried nomodeset, but I always get the black screen. I undestand wrong? Thanks in advance

    1. @go: One of the boxes here has the same chipset as you (nVidia Corporation G96 [GeForce 9500 GT]) and it’s booting without using any kernel argument. Check the MD5 of your ISO and make sure you’re burning it at low speed. If everything is correct then the problem is elsewhere (try to boot using the compatibility mode or look for other kernel arguments.. maybe it’s to do with ACPI?).

  15. 201012 started fine on my Athlon xp1800/ATI Radeon 7000/VE this time, by using “radeon.modeset=0”. It also didn’t mess up my HD settings in BIOS, like it did the first three times I tried it last weekend. Both Gparted and the LMDE installer showed no partitions! It somehow got reset to CHS, instead of LBA. All I had to do was go into BIOS and redetect the hard drive. Go figure!

    Oh, and the broken system I mentioned above — turns out mint-update wouldn’t — so I used Synaptic to update mint-update, and now it’s updating. I love it when things fix themselves. Now I don’t need to install the new one.

    All’s well that ends well, and y’all are trying to make that happen. So, Happy New Year!

    SK

  16. Много благодаря! Π‘Π΅Π³Π° Π²Π΅Ρ‡Π΅ всичко Π΅ Π½Π°Ρ€Π΅Π΄.ЧСстита Нова Π³ΠΎΠ΄ΠΈΠ½Π°!Π‘ΡŠΠ΄Π΅Ρ‚Π΅ Π·Π΄Ρ€Π°Π²ΠΈ!

  17. Just to add that I had problems with LMDE 32 bit…in it’s first release!! The first problem turned out to be hardware, I was trying to get it to work on an older PC running an Intel motherboard that’s no longer supported by newer kernels. Can’t remember what happened with the second try, maybe just didn’t like it. Retried and installed a couple of weks back, just before the newer installer was released. Was surprised (and delighted!) that it just upgraded itself to Mint 10-wasn’t expecting that! And it worked flawlessly.
    I guess I’m saying this to say, HANG IN THERE! This thing works great, and while there are always some “kinks” to work out, it freakin’ rocks when it gets going. Awesome system, and I couldn’t make Debian work to my satisfaction no matter what i did. Keep up the good work, and mo’ betta’ to ya’.

  18. Hello to the team,
    And a very happy new year to all of you! Thank you for your emergency work during the festive season! I am presently torrenting and looking forward to using the respin.
    201009 worked quite allright, 201012 was an unmitigated LiveCD-and Grub-disaster on several computers. Keeping fingers crossed!

  19. Hi Clem,

    could not wait & have installed today.

    You have well done & did a very great Job with the re-spin of 201101-LMDE-32bit-ISO.

    No problems by burning/booting and installing this new release.

    Simply GREAT!!!

    Thx a lot!!

  20. I use Debian myself, but I wanted to grab this for my brother, I thought it’s the perfect way to introduce him to a quality Linux easy enough to use and maintain as he’s a Linux noob. It was very disappointing to talk up Mint the way I did and then sit there with a CD that wouldn’t even boot to live πŸ™‚ But you know you guys don’t actually owe anything to anyone, it’s not like I bought the CD, but I guess you owe it to yourselves to maintain the high standards you set for yourselves, and I think your reaction to the problem is exemplary.

    My one suggestion would be to simply not do any releases when overwhelmed by problems. You’re not Ubuntu to have crazy deadlines, you can actually have new versions out when you’re ready.

    All the best and thanks for your good and hard work.

  21. Kudos to everyone involved for their (very) hard work over the last week+. And a special ‘atta boy’ for giving us a thorough explanation for what happened. Keep up the good work!

  22. thanks Clem I’m going to Download the Iso again!

    I think that may be is wrong because i was trying to open the image that couldn’t copy “osmo.png” but it looks damaged

  23. @Clem: I checked the md5 as soon as downloaded, and istalled it succesfully with virtualbox, and tried the compatibility mode, but maybe it’s the acpi problem you mentioned, I don’t even know what acpi is, but if I remember well I have to use the option noacpi on older release. I’ll try this option and let you know. Thank you very much for your reply.

  24. Thanks for the new release and the hard work !
    Unfortunately, after downloading and burning the 201101 spin it still doesn’t work on my computer (a 2 years-old Asus laptop with a Ati Radeon HD 4570) : I still have to use the “radeon.modeset=0” trick in order to boot, and at the end of the install process the installer hung on grub configuration – with a dead MBR bootloader as the result (I had to use a Windows rescue CD to repair my computer).

  25. I’ve managed to download LMDE 201101 32bit and installed it smoothly onto a Thinkpad T410 (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M).

    Everything is working perfectly, including wireless, bluetooth.

    Feedback as follows:
    – nvidia not detected automatically like in the normal Linux Mint
    – if a LiveDVD instead of LiveCD is used, then space may not be a main concer, maybe include CJK input?
    – the image/picture used in grub can be more attractive/higher resolution (seems likes a 800 X 600 image)

    Anyway, everything works, what more can I ask πŸ˜€

    Thanks!

  26. Congratulations both on fixing the problem so quickly and on an excellent piece of technical writing. Your clear explanation left me feeling even more confident about the level of expertise behind Mint and considerably better informed about how LiveCDs are constructed.

    Happy to help with future testing.

  27. I have never seen a development team that transparent and organized and forward-thinking as yours.

    It is not an incident that your distribution is one of the best. Its because of you. And there is no need to apologize for anything, you have done the best job you could’ve ever done – and to apoligize where others would praise themselves shows your greatness. Its rare in this world.

    Thank you!

  28. I am still having the black screen issue on this release. I have an intel 82830 graphics chip. xforcevesa and nomodeset. I can try stuff if someone give me instructions. But I don’t know a lot linux. any help would be great

  29. @Clem & the Team: The time you spent over the Christmas/New Year holidays to solve these issues shows a level of professionalism and caring for your Community that is unmatched by any other distro. What you and your relatively small team have accomplished in only 4-5 short years is nothing short of amazing. I have no doubt 2011 will bring us wonderful things from Linux Mint.

  30. I just downloaded the new LMDE 201101 32 bit and in live mode works well on the AMD 3800+/NVIDIA 2600 video desktop and my DELL Inspiron E1505 which wouldn’t boot the 201012 32 bit version. The laptop wireless works properly and video works the way it should.

    Thank you Clem and staff for fixing the 201012 32 bit boot problems in a very timely manner.

    I was able to boot the 64 bit version of LMDE 201012 on the desktop and an install on an old spare 30 gig HD seems to be working well.

    The 32 bit version of LMDE 201101 may eventually replace the GNOME LINUX MINT 10 on the 6 computers in the church computer lab I have built and maintain.

  31. Very good reaction time on the fix. But too late for me – and that’s a good thing.

    I figured that as long as LMDE 32-bit wasn’t working for me (the usual reasons…), I’d have a whack at the 64-bit.

    It’s totally awesome. I was worried about Skype (it’s my only phone these days), but I’ve had no troubles with it since I bagged PulseAudio and went straight Alsa.

    64-bit is so much faster than the 32 (I did get the earlier version installed and sort of working; until I did the upgrade). It feels so much more stable. Compiz works great. *Everything* works great – and it’s been awhile since I could say that about /any/ Linux distro.

    And I can use the USB functional version of VirtualBox. Plus, HandBrake is easily twice as fast.

    Sheesh. /Why/ was I using 32-bit again?

  32. Hello, I am a novice with Linux,I tried many but the one I like more is Julia Kde, I have the idea to make my students to learn about it and start a business installing it on a portable hard drive, as I already successfully did,and you have a portable Linux system ready to use in almost any computer able to boot on a external hard drive it is very easy, if some one wants to know how, please supply my email address to them. I am downloading the gnome version, I attempt the 2010 version but failed. When the economy improves I will collaborate ($$$$) and help with the translations that so far is the only thing that is not MINT QUALITY.

  33. I installed the LMDE 201101 and no problems at all. Thanks a lot Clem, I never have to install another OS again. My only problem is I don’t know how to install the Nvidia 8400 gs drivers, but I might not need to because right now my resolution is very good using the default settings, the only thing I cant do is Compiz.

  34. Great explanation to the problem with the 201012 32 bit version of LMDE. Downloading the new version as I type and will be trying it on my netbook in the next couple of days. Thanks Mint Team for all your work finding the problem & a resolution.

  35. I’m an Ubuntu and an occasional Linux Mint user. I have to *really* commend Clem and the Mint team on their communication to the community. The exhaustive post by Clem on the issue with the previous ISO is praiseworthy for its frankness and openness in dealing with issues. Other distros (and organizations)…take note on how to communicate with the outside world and keep them informed of any potential issues.

    Keep up the great work!

    -Anshul

  36. I was lucky I got the newest, fixed LMDE 32 bit called 201101! Burned at max speed witout issues. It boots noticeable faster than Ubuntu based, 32-bit Mint 10.

    Unlike Mint 10 which didn’t have disk utility and whose gparted crashes (both important to me as a Live DVD for rescue purposes) the 201101 LMDE has both and they work flawlessly, too! LMDE 32-bit 201101 is now my main rescue and showcase Linux DVD.

    Just about the only thing I missed in the 201101 LMDE Live DVD is aptoncd which has always been part of Mint’s default apps. No matter, this is still a great distro.

    Thanks a lot!

  37. Great job that Clem & team has done, keep up the good work! Everything works fine here. The 64bit was a christmas present and the 32bit is a new-year present, thank you and happy new-year to you all!!

  38. I would like to extend my thanks to the openess you have shown. This is my first go a LMDE, and I hope to enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed Isadora Main, LXDE and XFCE, as well as Julia Main.

    I have to admit that I’m somewhat nervous trying LMDE, but I need to evolve, much like the rolling release cycle of LMDE.

    Thanks,
    Dave

  39. Thanks for the hard work to the whole team.
    Been using the distro since the initial release on both a netbook and laptop with excellent results.
    Keep up the good work

  40. Hello, Finally I Can Boot in it without setting the Radeon.modeset, it even seems to boot up faster.(32 Bit Version)

    However, I’m just trying to install it, I hope GRUB will now install without Problems

    But ALl in All, A Fast Solotion, thats great.

    keep up the work, Bye Bye Ubuntu πŸ˜€

  41. Decided to give the respin a try and now it installs. Thank you.

    P.S. Still not impressed by the installer though. πŸ™‚

    Bjarne

  42. Sweet! LMDE 201101 32-bit re-spin .iso –> USB stick via Unetbootin; installed on an external hard drive for “pseudo dual boot” on a T60 running WinXP. Installation very fast & smooth; boot & general response time much faster than Windows.

    Thanks, Mint team!

  43. Thank you so much Clem, the team and all of you!
    Installed 201101 32 bit on my production machine and runs wonderfully, without problems… Runs even smoother than Linux Mint 10 and Ubuntu 10.10… and I consider it the best!!!

    Thank you again and there`s no need to apologize!!!
    Thank you so much again, and best wishes for the new year to all of you!

  44. Machine is Dell Latitude D600, ntfs,LM9,swap,LMDE. 201101 smooth live boot, installed OK, grub to sda/MBR, “out of disk” upon reboot. Tried again, grub to sda4 (lmde), grub prompt upon reboot, but no errors. Reinstated grub LM9 (looks nicer), upon reboot and selecting LMDE: kernel panic. Rebooted, went into LM9 recovery, updated grub, rebooted, success!
    LMDE updates went smoothly, and I have now set LMDE as primary OS.
    Well done, thank you for all your work, and all of that during the festive season and general mayhem!

  45. Loving LMDE64 on my Macbook 4.1 I’ve tried just about every distro out there, and LMDE runs by far the best. Nothing that OSX can do that LMDE can’t. Only things I had to do was get the latest wireless drivers from broadcom and compile them up to get full speed out of the card, and manually set up the webcam. Installed with Refit handling the EFI to boot, and LMDE is now my only OS on my Mac. Kudos guys. Excellent piece of work.

  46. Still hanging due to KMS issue at the login screen (black screen with just a movable cursor, which has nowhere to click).
    LG E210 laptop, Nvidia GF 8200 GPU.
    The same thing is happening with the stock Debian Squeeze kernel if KMS is not disabled, so it’s not a real Mint fault.

  47. LMDE 201101 installation was successful on the Samsung netbook N148P. Clem and the team, thank you! Support, please samsung-tools (voria) and Deadbeef player.

  48. My best wishes for the new year to Clem and the team and many thanks for the great job done.
    I wish it was emphasized that this is a rolling distribution, with which it is not so important to release a regular full iso. Instead, in my experience installing Debian I am convinced that the surest way to get fast and trouble-free installation on different types of hardware is using the netinstall. Just download a mini.iso of only 10 MB to boot a minimal system that will perform the installation from the internet and then choose the desired version using tasksel. It would be very useful to have a netinstall like Debian with a choice of Mint-Gnome, Mint-KDE or other desktop environment, with the great advantage to download only the packages you need and immediately get a fully updated operating system without the need for additional updates at the end of the installation. I’d like to know the opinion of Clem on this.

  49. Downloaded 986MiB from torrent at 900KiB/s, with max rate at 1.13MiB/s, in 18 minutes. Downloading from 33 or 44 connected peers. Its like 10 base T speeds. Woot!

  50. You gentlemen comprise one class outfit.

    You’re the reason I dumped WinXP for Mint9 on an Acer 11.6″ netbook, have Mint9 LXDE on an HP 2133 Mininote, and am getting ready to dump Win7 home premium for Mint 10 on a new Acer 15.6″ notebook.
    You all are the best!

  51. Hi Fans πŸ™‚

    If I look at the Differences between Sept.10-LMDE-32bit and Jan.11-LMDE,
    I have to say:
    The Sept.10-LMDE-32bit is much better, than the new re-spin..

  52. Hi Giorgio,
    here are two LMDEs running.
    – Sept.-LMDE installed at the day, this release was coming out.
    No problems since that day. Fast & great.
    – re-spin-LMDE installed on Jan.02, also a good release.
    But there are many things, which must be installed (after First-updating), because they are not in-there by installation.

    Important Kernels and progs must be installed afterward by tipping and loading ..
    I hope, you know, what I mean.

    I have problems by telling in English this things rignt, sry.

    Greetings from Germany.

  53. Installed with /boot on ext4 and / on btrfs: at first reboot (or after an update-grub) I need to enter in grub edit mode to change root mount from ‘ro’ to ‘rw’ otherwise LMDE cannot boot.
    After that all works fine… what’s wrong about grub configuration?
    (for now, I’ve edit /boot/grub/grub.conf to make fix permanent)

    other Q: why, on /etc/fstab, root swap and proc are mounted twice? what is the correct entry of the two?

    Thanks Mint Team, LMDE is the distro of my dreams! I add my vote for a LXDE release (my favorite DE)

  54. I have problem with installation LMDE . Problem is with the most stupid file: Weather-clear-night.svg. Second time, with second downloaded DVD installation stopped when it start to copy Weather-clear-night.svg. Wtf?
    Installation is on Sun VirtualBox but VB is OK. I try to install other linux on them and it was ok. Somebody can help me?
    Ou and now the Installer is dead. XD lol!
    Sory for my English.

    P.S. I think you should make only a Debian Edition ;).

  55. Ok – the original LMDE worked fine in VMware player…. but this one is refusing to see the mouse and then – after changing from Bridged to NAT netwrking – I got a mouse for a few minutes and then it crashed – totaly unresponsive.

    I’ll play with it for a bit longer… but I’m most likely going to stick with Mint 10 as my virtual webserver.

  56. I have a suggestion which may help reduce the impact of such problems in the future. Why not set up an LMDE testing repository, along with testing releases (or beta releases or release candidates) of the live CD/DVD? Adventuresome users and testers would get early updates, or a live CD/DVD with possible occasional bugs, such as the ones in the 201012 release, but if it is stable for say a week, then it gets moved forward to full release status. People with a release candidate which becomes the full release version of course would not need to re-download it. Rather than having multiple mirrors for people to download the test releases, server capacity would help to ration access to the test downloads.

    Those more interested in a stable system would wait for the full release. The testing release could roll updates much more frequently between releases, so that for example, it might at some point reflect a partial upgrade to Mint 11.

    If only some parts of this suggestion are useful to you, that is still great πŸ™‚

  57. Hello, I Just wanted to write here again

    The Installation went nearly Fine, but there was again a tiny problem with GRUB.

    I installed GRUB into /dev/sda5, this here is the Mint Debian Partition.

    But It didn’t work, so I still had the grub rescue problem. But I could fix it with the LIVE CD and a nice Tutorial on Ubuntuusers.de πŸ˜€

    However, it runs fine, only Openshot seems to have Problems on Files which he hadn’t problems in Ubuntu.

    But thats all, I’m Lucky now,Thanks for this Release πŸ™‚

  58. Christian Says:
    January 7th, 2011 at 9:49 am
    I installed GRUB into /dev/sda5, this here is the Mint Debian Partition.

    For sure, you have another OS on your HDD first!?
    After Installation:
    Did you make first an sudo update-grub in this OS,
    which was on the HDD first?

  59. Installed LMDE amd64 new version 201012 successfully on my pc. On start up it shows some hardware IO errors and hangs up for a while then successfully starts. Though I am enjoying it. But still some minor issues are there which I hope will definitely get resolved in future. Thanks a lot to LMDE Team from all Indians.

  60. I found a bug in the install process although it seems to be more of a “feature” that is only documented on page 17 of the manual. When I got to the screen asking for a user name and computer name the box to proceed remains grayed out if you use any capital letters in either of those entries. There is no error message nor any explanation of restrictions on those entry fields anywhere I could find except for a small italicized comment on page 17 of the PDF version of the English manual.

    I’m not sure why the restriction exists since my other computers do fine on my network with capitalized names. Perhaps those with operating systems that care force everything lower case; I believe Ubuntu does this. I don’t advocate recasting a user entry without some sort of notification. However it is far worse and much more frustrating to just bring the install process to a grinding halt with no notice on the screen about how to proceed. Granted it is documented, albeit briefly and unobtrusively, in the paper manual. However it certainly puzzled me for a few hours and I’ve been installing Linux and Windows systems for some time.

    As a proposed fix I’d suggest an easily spotted notification on the install screen in question stating “Capital letters and special characters are not allowed in usernames or computer names”; something like the password strength notification only this would be useful information to someone installing the system.

    Otherwise, the new Linux Mint seems very polished and complete. I used Mint 5 off and on some time ago and was pleased with how little tweaking was needed to get all the hardware running reasonably well on my laptop and how few packages I had to download before I could do anything useful.

    Max L.

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