Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” RC released!

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The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” RC.


Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” RC

New features at a glance:

For a complete overview and to see screenshots of the new features, visit: “What’s new in Linux Mint 12“.

Known problems:

  • MATE
  • Nautilus actions
  • Adding PPA repositories
  • Apturl and apt://
  • Moonlight
  • Upstream issues

To get more information about these problems and their solution, read the “Known problems” section of the release notes.

System requirements:

  • x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint 32-bit works on both 32-bit and 64-bit processors).
  • 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 5 GB of disk space
  • Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
  • CD/DVD drive or USB port

Bug reports:

Please report any bug you may find in Launchpad.

Download:

Md5 sum:

  • CD no codecs 32-bit: 3dd08ce9e7efcedbce236293ef44cdb6
  • CD no codecs 64-bit: 8c24c67f93d9aff9c50fdbd2924602c2
  • DVD 32-bit: 30654eac57bcf8210c8360d3b149b204
  • DVD 64-bit: 3f5667e38f3090b1cd226c47fcbc934a

Torrents:

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit CD No codecs ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit CD No codecs ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit DVD ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit DVD ISO:

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun testing the release candidate!

778 comments

  5. Nice job, this looks very good. Have had mint installed in a few hours, no problems so far. I just love MGSE. Ty Clem and the rest of the mint team 🙂

    Reply

  6. Longed for it. I’d probably be using it when stable comes out (currently testing with virtualbox). Had problems with MATE though.

    Reply

  16. I have installed the RC alongside my Mint 11 install, and it looks awesome – I installed Ubuntu 11.10 to see what the gnome-shell was like a few weeks ago, before reverting back to Mint, and Mint’s interpretation is FAR better.
    MGSE helps a lot, as one of my main grievances with gnome-shell was the lack of the taskbar at the bottom to switch between programs.

    One question though, if I install the RC over my Mint 11 install, will it be any different (when updated) to Mint 12 when it is fully released?

    Reply

  19. View Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) in its pristine glory
    ===============================================

    Linux Mint 12 Menu Screenshot (our preference was the old grey Mint Menu)
    ================================================================
    http://i41.tinypic.com/34i0h3p.png

    Applications Panel screenshot:
    ===============================
    http://i42.tinypic.com/xas26h.png

    @Clem Please enable desktop launcher and if possible in right click menu in final release…

    Thank you Clem and team mint for a wonderful distro which is currently ranked No:1 in distrowatch…..

    Reply

  20. There are problems…..
    Live CD loads up and produces a totally blank screen on Llano based machines. (latest AMD A8/A6/A4 based CPU/GPU).
    Exact same thing happens with the 11.10 releases of Ubuntu.
    Previous version of “Mint 11 LXDE” does produce proper video with the above mentioned AMD CPU/GPU systems.

    Reply

  23. thanks,Clem and team !
    works 100% in my system !
    GREAT JOB guys,i love you all !
    *peace to all users of this impressive operating system*
    <

    Reply

  24. Using it now. It’s so beautiful. I’m glad I left Gnome 3 on Fedora for this. Though that was a good experience. I’m enjoying the Mint difference for Gnome 3, especially the icons being smaller in the Activities menu.

    Reply

  26. It’s positively brilliant !
    I have been running it as a dual-function, persistent USBkey for several hours on two different rigs and am very impressed by its top panel versus bottom panel modes. A forum-posting glitch was promptly fixed via an essential, level 2 Update.

    Reply

  27. Clem and team, congratulations for LM12RC, good effort. I installed yesterday and played with it for a few hours. I really feel sad and at the same time very upset with Gnome for creating this “$%&@” (you know what I mean), this is not what Linux is about, this is regression, we can’t call this “new technology”; Gnome3 has not contributed with the advancement of Linux on the desktop with this “&$%#@”, sadly this is a total disgrace on their part for luck of vision and disrespect for the Linux world as a whole. People from Windows and Apple will love this “&@#$%”? Give me a break!!!

    Clem and team, you have my respects.

    Reply

  28. I must say, MGSE with Gnome 3 is brilliant! Congratulations Clem and co, you’re surely on a winner here! Might I make a suggestion though? Trying to read the white text and icons against the light grey colour of the top panel is a terrible strain on one’s eyes. Perhaps the top panel could be the same shade of grey as the bottom panel in the official release?

    Reply

  29. *****Question*******

    If the final release gets changes. Will this version update itself to the same level, or will this require a reinstall?

    **********************

    Reply

  30. Started using it. Looking good. Used the Mate also. Mate is also looking good. Mate is not showing all the programmes. Will come back after using more. Mint menu is much smaller.

    Reply

  31. Excellent work!!! But the Mint Menu in black color does not have a mint touch to it. The upper and bottom bar and the fonts need refinement. The fonts are not properly visible. Need to have better fonts. The MGSE panel fonts also lacks the polish of the old mint. How to create a desktop shortcut ??????

    Reply

  32. If I would like to report a problem but I am not sure whether it is a bug or I just misunderstand are there anywhere else can I report them i.e. in a forum.

    Reply

  34. Wonderful!

    I’ve been using Mint since version 7 “Gloria” and have never been disappointed. I am looking forward to installing it. The several weeks that I’ve been using GNOME 3 probably will help because I have searched for tips and hints. There are several I’ve seen (at MakeTechEasier) aimed at Ubuntu that ought to work perfectly for Mint.

    Remember too, folks, that LXDE is only about 18 megs and can be installed alongside GNOME if you get too frustrated. It’s a pretty good desktop.

    I personally have no plans to use or test Mate. I’m sure there are plenty of Mint fans who will be happy to do so.

    Reply

  35. Looks great! It’s speedy too (working from USB-stick).. But I like my desktop to be a bit OSX like, with the task- and menubar on top of my screen and the close-buttons on the left. How does one doe that?

    Reply

  37. Well, after looking at the screenshots from shelley (on the first preview announcement post), it appears that “Gnome Tweak Tool” is named Advanced Settings and is available, with at least twice as many themes as the one Fedora provides.
    As usual, Linux Mint adds those extra touches to make good things even better!

    Reply

  38. Oh well, don’t really like this update that much. The menu bars are to small.
    There also isn’t a good competitior to the unity launcher.

    Reply

  39. For some time I’m using MGSE extensions on Ubuntu 11.10. Today is time for format and placing Mint 12 (I don’t want to hear anymore for unity). I look forward to the MATE project also.

    Reply

  41. Can we have more screenshot’s please ? [2]

    Can you bring back the Universal Edition,
    I wanna/need a .iso in brazilian portuguese because at my work the internet conexion doesn’t works well and for me Localize doesn’t works. Needs a GUI or..I don’t know..

    Reply

  42. Clem

    have installed on two systems so far. my work pc seems to be doing quite well, although not perfect. my home pc is a different story. for some reason, i’m not getting correct rendering of favorites and such in the gnome panel. could be nvidia issue? possibly. also takes quite a long time to load the DE. it appears that it stalls after authentication takes place, then it resumes and finally brings up the DE. also, there is a brutal delay of closing down apps. when you click the X, it pauses for 30 seconds or more before the system finally frees up and closes out the app. i mention “finally frees up” because during that time, the system is essentially locked up, aside from cursor movement. All things considered, especially being at RC status, the mint team has done far more than their fair share to please all–perhaps to a fault even. looking forward to seeing the final release. thanks so much.

    Reply

  45. Congratulations Mint team to provide such efforts to bring Gnome 3 the it should be.

    Though a lot of work is still needed to make it as usable and polish as Gnome 2 was.

    Here are my opinions (i know things are complicated and maybe some not possible for Gnome 3 today) :

    – not a big fan of mint theme for this release, better keep black and white monochrome one. Not a big fan of transparencies. Grey is ok, but black backgrounds are a pain to read !

    – Gnome 3 look seems still really poor concerning custom

    – really don’t like double panel (bottom and top). Merging both would be terrific if possible, and i prefer it on top of the screen.

    – never really liked Mint Menu, prefer good old one, in my opinion far better ergonomic.

    By the way, really nice job. I don’t know if i will use mint 12 for long, maybe roll back to mint 10 (mint 11 is too buggy on both my computers) till Gnome 3 improve and bugs settles…

    keep faith ! 😉

    Reply

  47. Hi,

    Great work. 64bit works super fast on my Lenovo x121e as a live usb. It does though freeze a bit and I think the windows manager stops working. Do really like the feel of it, the design is good- looks better than 11 – but it is becoming more like ubuntu or fedora. Also, a lot less adjustable than 11. On smaller laptops panels are annoying, even when bottom is removed. A bit impractical how it tends to stay on even when watching a film.
    I think these problems may be party attributable to my lenovo x121e as I guess it is not as well supported yet. And these comments aren’t to detract from the system which works superb and is miles better than Fedora or Ubuntu at the moment. So fast last night.
    Will not as yet though be fully installing. If I did, these problems might disappear. But the lack of modification and screen space is a problem. If MATE would work then I might use that.
    In sum, works well on Lenovo x121e but could work better. Also works well on Dell Inspiron. More Lenovo compatibility please!
    Will probably end up installing 12 when the stable version is out, but wish could see MATE to know if it is as compatible.
    Super.

    Reply

  50. (Please see the link in message 10, by Patches; it looks significant.)

    Lots more I could say, but it’s better to be concise. (P.S. I failed…) Downloaded Lisa RC from heanet.ie, burned it (2nd try; details later, maybe), and altho. not specifically designated as Live, it is. Lower-left menu has a modest show-stopper that I’m sure will be fixed; otherwise, I would have installed it.

    Delightful surprise!: The slider for font scale factor! (Advanced settings –> Fonts –> Text scaling factor.) My live session came up at 1600 x 1200, nice res. on a 21″ CRT, but default text is awfully small. That slider made text size very good in apps., but not the desktop; would be peachy if it also affected the desktop.

    Call this one an “endearing detail”, one of many. (^_^)

    Tried setting monitor dpi (Config Editor–> Desktop–> Font rendering to see whether that affects desktop font size; no effect, but rebooting might be needed. Thinking that perhaps entering a bogus value might give me what I want. Btw, do not assume that a modern monitor is 72 dpi! It’s probably better than that.

    (General query:) Any way to expand the 1600 x 1200 display working area? I have a fairly-large (15 mm or so) black border around the working area at that resolution (but not at 1280 k 1024).
    If I can make desktop (and other) text size bigger, I might use 1600 x 1200 as a default. However, I don’t want to make my monitor work harder and hotter (it’s old) by expanding its scan to fill out the full screen. Furthermore, if I did that, some other res. settings would overscan; no, thanks!

    Had no problems setting monitor resolution; Katya and Lisa come close enough to recognizing my monitor (DEC VRC21-WA): Hardware probe calls it a DEC 19″. /Very/ few distros do this! One more Good Thing in Mint.

    As well, setting my keymap was easy (USA English, Dvorak International with dead keys). Again, sometimes not easy in other distros; none had dead keys. (They take some getting used to!)

    Where is the keymap file for this layout? Apparently, its filename differs from its description.

    Tried to set Dvorak as a DVD bootup option; it either isn’t recognized, or I had bad syntax. (Tried appending “keymap=dvorak”; didn’t work.)

    Interesting:
    [About] in Configuration Editor: Copyright 2001-2004; “An editor for the Mate Configuration System” It surely looks as though some bright mind either remembered or discovered this; so Mate isn’t being written “from scratch”, after all.

    >> BUG: Black-backgnd. menu panel, lower left, like that in Katya: Selecting a major category that has lots of apps. and requires scrolling: Can’t scroll, or didn’t find a workaround. In effect, can’t “get at” lots of apps.
    Wasn’t sure whether to report this. (My machine can be flaky now and then, even with Katya.)

    Software Manager reported 55.941 packages available! Within a day or so ago, in Katya, it reported something like 36,000 plus. Good golly.

    Configurable hardware includes Wacom graphics tablets — so nice!

    As I’m now set up (Lisa live, running from the DVD), the top is only a bar, not a complete panel, as I’d thought. While I have read all sorts of squawks about it, it looks like something I wouldn’t mind having. Am currently running 1280 x 1024 on a 21″ CRT, and it doesn’t look as though it will steal that much space from the working area.

    Looking forward to the release, of course! Please don’t feel rushed.

    Best regards,
    —
    [nb]

    Reply

  51. I do not see any reason to use MGSE.
    MATE is for me enough and excellent. Thanks for your effort.

    This time I mentioned one thing of Mate – missing icon of mint update manager at panel after login.

    Reply

  52. Installed the RC in a virtual machine.
    There seems to be a problem when you install crossover office (office 2000): all of the items in mintmenu disappear, exept for the crossover-icons.
    After the crossover installer has finished, mintmenu disappears completely from the bottom panel.

    I tested it twice; with the same result.

    Reply

  54. Thanks for giving virtualbox users some consideration. Alot of people do not wish to do a regular install with an RC Distro on their desktops, but are curious nonetheless.
    I was surprised to discover that guest additions were activated even during the installation and I used the smaller ISO CD installation.

    Reply

  55. Clem – I have the RC installed on a test partition (desktop PC, quad core, 8 GB, Nvidia GT430) and overall it’s looking good. No crashes yet. Definitely a Gnome 3/Gnome shell I can finally live with. I did file a bug report about the menu editor (Alacarte) missing from the default installation. Alacarte appears to be fully compatible with Gnome 3/Gnome shell or at least I haven’t had a problem using it.

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/889500

    I also suggested that an “official thread” for the RC be created at the forums for confirming possible bugs before actually filing a bug report. Unofficial (non-sticky) threads tend to be many, often confusing and easily become buried rather quickly?

    Reply

  56. I’m a 60 year old non-geek.

    My first computer was an IBM Thinkpad w. Windows 95.
    I use my computer for light office-tasks, a little gaming and photo, plus a lot of web-surfing.
    Current computer is a Compaq Presario V6000, running Lisa RC as only OS.

    With that out of the way, here is my opinion of Lisa…

    1.) As usual, I can’t make wireless work. This isn’t only in Mint it wont work, but also using Ubuntu. 3 years of using Ubuntu or Mint, I have never been able to connect wireless. Oh, well. Just use the cable. No biggie.

    2.) Sound from built-in speakers works fine, but built-in microphone doesn’t. This is also “normal” for me with any flavor of Ubuntu or Mint. Connecting a headset, it’s microphone is fine. So I’ll have to use headset when making Skype-calls. Slightly irritating.

    3.) I guess that I’m slightly pre-senile! When I tried out Ubuntu/Unity, I was completely lost. I couldn’t find my programs! Possibly Unity is a great thing for phones, pads or net-books. But I can’t remember the names of programs, so I can’t search for them, I have to know where to find them. Ubuntu with Unity is therefore completely out!
    I have no such problem with Lisa. (Phew!) Things are more or less where I’d expect them to be. After using Lisa for just two days, I’m getting very comfortable with it.

    4.) Lisa’s desktop is boring, so new wallpaper has been installed. Fine.
    But I miss the ability to place shortcuts on the desktop. Is there a way to do this? Otherwise it is almost as if I was to put the TV’s remote away in a kitchen closet every time i used it. That would be stupid, and a lot of extra steps.

    5.) I’m fine with the top- and bottom bar, but an auto-hide function of bottom bar (or both) would be nice. I also wouldn’t mind the ability to re-position those bars.

    6.) I tried to install “Avant-Window-Navigator” – and it didn’t work well. Messed up my screen badly, but all was fine after un-installing AWN again. That is the only problem I’ve encountered with extra programs so far.

    7.) Boot-up seems a bit slower than with earlier versions of Mint. Just a few seconds, though. Not important for me. Still about 10 times faster than on my “big” machine, running Windows Vista!

    8.) My laptop w. Lisa runs cool and nice, and is like a brand new machine! When Vista was installed on it, I couldn’t use it more than ½ to 1 our, before it got uncomfortably warm, and the fan ran constantly. With Lisa I’ve had it on my lap for about 4 hours now, and haven’t heard the fan run once! Temperature is just a little above “luke-warm” and not uncomfortable at all.

    So: I’m very happy with Mint’s Lisa!

    I think you guys has done an absolutely tremendous job in adapting to new developments, and still show respect for “aging” users like myself, who are not too quick to adapt to radical changes like younger generations might be.

    I can only hope for Ubuntu’s sake that they follow your example, and make their system as user-friendly as Mint Lisa! But whatever they do, I’m done “distro-hopping”, and I will stay with Mint.

    Thank you!

    Reply

  57. A fantastic start to Mint 12 – Congrats to the Linux Mint Team.

    I’ve been using a vanilla gnome shell install on top of Mint 11 for a few weeks now, and I’m really starting to like it, but the improvements here really launch it into another league. I especially like how modular MGSE is – if there’s something I don’t like, I can turn it off, but still keep all the bits I do like. Fantastic! It seems like such a simple thing, but in terms of gnome shell it’s actually quite refreshing. Best of all: A shut down button!!! My ALT key can have a rest now 🙂

    Again, great work!

    —–

    One small oddity (in a virtual machine, BTW) with the menu extension. Turning it off doesn’t seem to work. Turning it off and on again results in multiple instances of the menu in the bottom panel. This can be rolled back to a single instance by turning the bottom panel extension off and then back on, or by logging out and back in (ALT F2 / rt doesn’t have any effect). However, even logging out and back in: a single instance of the menu seems to persist even if the extension is toggled off.

    Reply

  60. where is my post? it’s gone. by the way, mint12 is comfortable, i use mint all the time , keep on! ps: the lxde 11 has problem with starting firefox in livecd mode , anyone too?

    Reply

  61. Thanks Clem,keep up the good work.

    Is there anyway the menu can be put on the top panel? I saw this on Arch running MGSE so it must be possible. Also, as mentioned above, I think the best idea would be to merge both panels if it can be done.

    Reply

  62. Hi! I am from Ukraine. I was tested LiveCD on my Netbook. It’s very very very very beautiful!!!

    Edit by Admin: Removed that last bit… totally inappropriate 🙂

    Reply

  64. TOP PANEL PROBLEM – POSSIBLE SOLUTION

    I posted the solution here:

    http://community.linuxmint.com/idea/view/2043

    Since “community site is down for maintenance” I’ll post it again below, so please accept my apology for the the long comment:

    —————————————————————–

    While reading comments for “Linux Mint 12 preview” I’ve seen that a lot of users really don’t like the top panel and that there is probably no easy way of removing it. I think that a possible solution for this problem would be using “Window Applets” in the top panel:

    http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=103732

    Of course, the Applets would have to be ported to gtk3 – which could require quite time-consuming – that’s why I’d like to outline the advantages of taking such a step. On a positive note, the Applets developer supports the idea – see the above-mentioned site – page 17 of the comments section.

    1. The top panel would actually be changed into a title bar with additional features (like the system tray). Obviously, the title bar of the maximized windows would be removed thus saving some vertical space. This way the upper part of the desktop would be very similar to what the users had for many years – title bar on the very top and window buttons in the very top right hand corner. It is a very important design feature as the Applets’ author puts it: “GNOME violates Fitts’s Law by putting a panel between the maxed window buttons and the corner of the screen. The user has to be able to interact with (aka to click) the buttons even if the mouse cursor is at the very edge of the screen.  It is the main reason why I started the project”

    http://www.roboimages.com/image/ri68006/Screenshot 1.png

    2. Window Buttons in the Applets have a wonderful option to control not only the maximized windows but also any focused window. It may seem that it’s not a very important feature but after using it for a couple of months it’s really hard to imagine the desktop without it. Because of that I think that making “Window Applets” a part of the default Mint desktop would significantly improve its productivity.

    http://www.roboimages.com/image/ri68007/Screenshot 2.png

    3. People who don’t need the window title could remove the applet and use the space for window list, thus having all the basic controls on the top panel – which, IMHO, also improves the productivity of the desktop.

    http://www.roboimages.com/image/ri68008/Screenshot 3.png

    4. Since the proposed solution is about applets, people who don’t like them could easily switch them off and configure the desktop the way they want it. I think that the more configurable the Mint desktop is the more users would choose it and use it with pleasure.

    If possible, before voting please try using the applets on top of Gnome 2 desktop for a while – just to get the feel of what I’ proposing.

    If You choose ‘demote’ I’d highly appreciate a short justification.

    ———————————————————————-

    Feedback welcomed.

    Reply

  66. Would it be possible to provide an alternate CD (ie. uses Debian text installer) for this release? I love Linux Mint, but’s it’s a pain to install with full disk encryption with the Ubiquity installer.

    Reply

  67. “Lisa” is a dengerous name – Apple sues everyone using names or graphics remotely related to them.

    I just downloaded and will install it in a few minutes. Hopte MATE will live up to my expectations now or soon.

    Reply

  68. I just installed 11 and now I see 12 is available, so I’m downloading it right now.

    As far as I can see this looks exactly what I’m after since ubuntu ran with unity, so good luck with everything and thanks for the dedicated work!

    Reply

  69. _____________________________________________________

    I’m disappointed! The default fonts could look better, why not use Ubuntu fonts? The wallpaper didn’t change at all. There is no non-greenish attractive themes! No blue cool mint…
    _____________________________________________________

    Anyways, everything still remains pretty much foggy…

    Reply

  70. I take it that LMDE is going this route too? It’s certainly taking a welcomed detour around unity/stock gnome3.

    Hard to please those that need nor want more than gnome2. It’s exciting to see this distro break the boundries and work on providing what most of us were happy with (gnome2).

    I’ll be doing the LMDE + MATE when the time arrives as long as it proves stable enough.

    Reply

  71. 🙂 Wonderful news! Thanks, guys! 😀 As always, release it when it’s nice and stable. 🙂

    @patches, Nicholas Bodley: The ASPM patches are meant for Linux Kernel 3.2, which is still in development. I can only see those patches in Linux Mint 13 the earliest.

    Reply

  72. Taking for a test drive, really different. Crashed something, top and bottom bars are unreadable. Top left icon a white box, time is dashes, dots… bottom left menu icon gone. woopsie.

    Had Firefox open desktop1, Filemanager on 2 looking at flashdrive, empty desktop 3 poped between them using top left icon thing, and then it is like this.

    Top left area still acts like the Gnome thing… but icons are scrambled in appearance. IT started out looking pretty. Will try again. Thank you.

    Reply

  73. Thank you.
    I like it.

    Small faults occur in the RC:
    1. Installing using the “usb-creator”: reboot and ….
    “vesamenu.c32: not a COM32R image”.
    2. Broadcom bcm4312 wifi does not work (no firmware).

    Reply

  75. @Clem
    This was posted in the other blog but thought I would it post here also in case you missed it.
    There is a extension that is suppose to put the top panel on the bottom and the notification on top.
    This way we could have our one panel at bottom.
    It was a older post on webupd8.
    It is called Reflection Gnome Shell Extension.
    My understanding is you have to enable the hot corners.

    Also might wont to check out Dock Panel extension, also a older post on webupd8.
    I have not tried these extensions so not sure how they work.
    Hope this helps.

    Reply

  76. It looks and work very fine. But I like it ?
    MGSE, MATE, UNITY, GNOME 3.0 or GNOME 3.2 — dont no.
    What the hell shall i do – bullshit ! I know the MintMenu and I love it.
    I dont know other one’s while I know and like the MintMenu. Where’s the
    simple operation of LinuxMint gone ?
    Bevor I install I have to think by what kind of desktop I will go confused. No, I dont understand.

    Nevertheless, even now many thanks for the great work.

    Reply

  79. I’ve just spent an afternoon with Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) in VirtualBox and yes, it looks pretty. But, will I load it onto my hard disk? No way.

    The first, and main reason; I first came to Linux Mint because it only used one System Tray. Well, why have two bars across the screen when all the information required can be conveyed in one bar? To me the second System Bar is just a waste of screen real estate. Anyway, here we are in Linux Mint 12 and there are two System Bars, in my opinion a retrograde step.

    I must admit, my first post installation start up was not smooth, I had a desktop but nothing on it! It took a second restart to get the System Bars and a Mouse Pointer up on the screen of my Sony VAIO Notebook. Once everything was working correctly I found the controls unresponsive, I would click on something and, eventually something would happen. By the way, I still don’t like the blank boot screen, even to show a simple logo here would be an improvement.

    As for doing things with my computer; ERK! Let me just say, most users just employ a small handful of applications on a regular basis. On my Linux Mint Gnome 2 desktop I have placed icons for these popular (to me) applications next to the Menu button and they can be launched very quickly, as required. Should I need to run anything different a quick search through the Menu will find it for me. Now, you can’t do this with Gnome 3, everything is through icons in the menus or panels. Every day I launch a file (using LibreOffice Calc) from an Icon on my desktop. The icon references a file in my Documents folder; simple, but not on Gnome 3!

    To be honest, the new desktops appear to be just bigger versions of my Blackberry mobile (cell) phone and is not what I require on my Laptop or Desktop Computer. I assume I have, up until now been playing about with the Gnome 3 desktop environment, I couldn’t find any reference to MATE and hope that is different.

    Clem, stop wasting time on Gnome 3, unless you are doing the Linux Mint Phone edition.

    Reply

  80. Man, this is weird… Banshee cannot be closed unless I stop anything being played. But this is also weird because I can only find the stop button in the Gnome (upper-screen) toolbar if I click Banshee’s icon. I mean… the full interface of this software doesn’t have a stop button AND I didn’t find where to enable it along with the other ones. This is absurd. Now I see why Gnome 3 got so much flack from the users. Task switching is also a pain without MGSE. Sure, there’s that “infinity” sign up there but it also implies an extra click which is not productive.

    Gnome 3 still needs refinement, obviously. It’s quite promising and I like various bits and pieces of it but the ones I don’t like are not exactly optional for me so it might just be Gnome’s luck that Mint comes with MGSE or I (and others) would completely skip it until next spring the least.

    Reply

  81. I thought it was going to be better than it is. Lots of room for improvement. I realize its a RC but MATE just doesn’t cut it.

    Confusing to have a Gnome-Panel and a Mate-Panel on the same desktop as you cannot modify either one.

    The Lightdm desktop manager isn’t the best so I switched back to GDM.

    The Gnome-Tweak tool needs to do more…..

    Going to wait to see what else it brings but for now it isn’t working for me.

    Reply

  82. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to continue standing behind this statemenent I made regarding Gnome 3 (at least not with a straight face): “I don’t see that there is a viable way to adapt that to a productive desktop environment without completely dismantling much of it.”

    Good job.

    Reply

  86. Great news, just downloaded CD version & installed on AMD machine….

    Looks good so far….but where is MintMenu???? Also the startup splash screen doesn’t let me install codecs or upgrade to DVD

    Reply

  87. Fonts, please correct the fonts, by default they are unreadable, too small and getting reddish especially in the upper bar.

    Reply

  88. Hello Clem, mint4win please. I always used mint inside windows. And I’m very proud of it. Thanks Linuxmint Team. Mabuhay linuxmint!!!

    Reply

  89. @ray woods : yeah i totally agree with you, but i will give gnome 3 a chance, only because it has a lot of potential and all is a matter of time for maturity (see when KDE 4 was released…)

    Applying updates (a lot indeed !) already have some effect on stability.

    I hate double panel as well. In order to tune it a bit, you can go in Gnome Tweak and disable bottom gnome panel extension. Result : Mint Menu and Task bar will merge with the top panel (reboot if necessary). Seems you can’t move top panel to bottom but i really prefer it on top, so ok for me.

    everything else is a matter ok time and some tweaking to your likings. But there’s a lot to do……..

    Reply

  91. Dear Clem, when you will publish on Launchpad translation data of files to localize it to all languages of the world? 🙂
    I hope we have time to do it.

    Best wishes!

    Reply

  92. Bottom panel fortunately we can turn off, but there should not be bottom panel at all, gnome 3 doing it well in own left upper corner we can see easily all windows and programs.

    Reply

  94. First of all I really like mint 12, but while playing around with it I accidentally changed the upper bar layout. I can´t really say how I did it (drag n drop of icon probably) because it was done by accident. But actually I really like it!
    Here’s a picture showing what I mean.

    http://i42.tinypic.com/ivirlx.jpg

    Going to the upper left corner I can still access the full screen gnome3 app switcher.

    Reply

  95. Verry Good Distro But Most be Fine Polish to be Perfect.
    Network Config is Run But i Use DSL PPPOE Conetction and This Options is Mising ih Seting.Why?Misiing and Script to run PPPOE-Config. Why?
    i be continue testing this RC.
    Thank To Team Maby Mint is Take Firt Plase in Distrowatch Soon 🙂

    Reply

  96. Verry Good Distro But Most be Fine Polish to be Perfect.
    Network Config is Run But i Use DSL PPPOE Conetction and This Options is Mising ih Seting.Why?Misiing and Script to run PPPOE-Config. Why?
    i be continue testing this RC.
    Thank To Team Maby Mint is Take Firt Plase in Distrowatch Soon 🙂
    Maby Put Firefox 8 In Final Buil and Lates SRWare Iron Brouser is Good alternative with Chromium Cernel.

    Reply

  97. Hmmm, installer keeps crashing when i tried to get it running on here earlier. Doesn’t give me any error/warning apart from “the installer has crashed”.

    It installed the system after copying files, and seems to crash at a random point between “adding users” and “laptop detection”. Obviously it doesn’t get round to installing the bootloader or finishing other tasks beforehand, resulting in a non bootable system.

    Also, if i log out, and select MATE from the GDM, it somewhat forces the desktop into GNOME3. I was really looking forward to trying out the MATE desktop ;-[

    Can’t wait for the final release, but for now i’m going back to slackware until then.

    Reply

  98. I’ve now found MATE!! (Well I did have Automatic Login enabled). If like me you have Automatic Login enabled, Log Out and you will then get the Login Window and you can then select MATE as your Desktop Environment.

    Now, once you can add things to the panel and the other bits start to work, all we will need is the good old Mint Menu to complete the picture.

    Evolution not Revolution please.

    Reply

  99. I’m glad LM 12 has the MATE session, otherwise, i think it would be a failure. Gnome 3 is absolutely ridiculous.

    A lot of bugs with MATE, but for a first appearance, it’s not bad at all.

    Keep up the good work.

    Reply

  101. It doesn’t sound like two weeks is enough time to fix all of the issues. MGSE is far from ready yet (eg. The theme needs work; plus nobody wants two panels) and besides Gnome Shell is still too slow. It doesn’t sound like Mate is very stable right now. You might have to use XFCE.

    This is what I would call a Beta (not a Release Candidate).

    Reply

  102. Hi,
    I also have switched from ubuntu to mint mainly because of gnome3/unity.
    After having just installed mint 12 (dvd 32), I cannot launch the mate session (come back to the login prompt).

    For me, only mate is interesting (gnome 3 + MSGE will not be enought). Personnaly I think that mint should have kept gnome 2 + compiz (or mate if you achieve the same result). At least, set mate by defaut…

    Thank you.
    Leo

    Reply

  103. Congratulations to Clem and the Mint Team for an inspired Mint 12 RC – the perfect blend of old mint and Gnome 3 style! Am finding this RC to be a real suprise, and pleasantly so. Thanks!

    Reply

  104. Mint 12 rc does not have the same functionality as as mint 11.
    I like the switch to Gnome 3.
    In its present form I would hesitate to us Mint 12.

    Reply

  105. Gran fallo el de linux Mint 12 Lisa,porque no puede instalarse en netbooks.Durante la instalación sale una pantalla para añadir una imagen de usuario,(no se a cuenta de que la verdad),el caso es que esta ventana no puede cambiarse de tamaño,ni maximizarse, así que el botón para continuar la instalación queda inaccesible detrás de la barra de tareas.¡¡MENUDA CHAPUZA!!!

    Reply

  107. I just downloaded the RC and installed it in VirtualBox and after messing with it for about an hour I have to say that I don’t like the UI. If the intent was a somewhat hybrid Gnome 3 with a sop to Gnome 2 users, it’s moderately successful. If the intent was to make Gnome 2 users feel comfortable, it doesn’t get there at all. Bear in mind that I’m a relatively new Linux user (about 18 months) with Windows and Mac experience as far as UIs go. I’ll have to play with it some more because this is after all a first impression but right now I’m not in the camp of the glowing accolades that are being heaped on it. A big plus would be if I could get Tobias Quinn’s zoom script to work with it (I’m visually impaired) and the actual Gnome 3 desktop (which I don’t particularly like) to stop popping up.

    I haven’t yet figured out how to get MATE to work on it and I’ll have to play for a bit along those lines.

    For me, this interface is an attempt to make the best of a bad situation (Gnome 3) thus far. The only reason I want to upgrade is to take advantage of kernel 3.0 and the multitude of fixes it has, especially for things like USB. If I could get a rock-solid Mint 10 with kernel 3.0 and a MintMenu that wasn’t prone to video display artifacts when certain themes were used, I’d never leave that platform…

    Sorry if this rains on your parade but for me the emperor never wears new clothes and this is my honest opinion. It’s not intended to be a bash.

    Reply

  111. OK, I just found MATE. A **LOT** of work to do here to bring it up to speed but for me at least, this UI shows promise. From where I’m sitting, if this release is going to be better than a Vista-class release, you’re looking at January to March timeframe, depending on how it goes. To your credit, you have a solid foundation to wrok with this time (unlike the Ubuntu 11.04 debacle) but in any event, two weeks ain’t gonna do it for the UIs.

    Just my 2 cents, seasonally adjusted for inflation…

    Reply

  112. it’s a failure, way too confusing. feels very unfinished… and 2 panels… no way, that’s not minty. pure gnome 3 is better than this… with the option of having icons on your desktop.

    Reply

  113. Roj : to switch to MATE, just clink icon on login screen and chose MATE.
    In MATE i miss right click on folder to open in terminal or open as root.
    Kernel 3.0 make my EVDO usb modem ready to use after login. in Mint 11 it make me wait 2 minute to use it

    Reply

  114. I know that Mint frowns on a package style upgrade path, favoring a fresh install, but in this case, will a package upgrade from RC to Final be good and safe, or should we still do a fresh install from RC to Final?

    Reply

  116. Looking good just installed on my laptop Dell inspiron 1525 working good so for any way to get the bottom panel to auto hide or top one needs to auto hide taking up to much real estate with both have to say the best looking desktop out there thanks for all the hard work you have put in to it. Will the RC be able to update to the 12 release with out reinstalling????

    Reply

  117. Hi, just letting you know from a bug perspective that I just tried out the 32bit DVD RC version of linux mint 12 on my pc currently running Linux Mint 11. It booted up fine, but unfortunately no desktop loaded, and no window decoration. Had problems trying to shutdown, but managed to get it via terminal (from home) and do a shutdown that way. Failed completely unfortunately. Hope this help.

    Reply

  119. Where is the Alternate download links??

    I need to use an encrypted filesystem, and i dont see this option in the mint installer, so i need the alternate installer.

    Reply

  121. MSGE looks nice, but I’d expect the MATE version to be a seamless continuation of what the Gnome 2 version was.

    Rolling back to Mint 11 with a Kernel 3.0.0, maybe i’ll give it a spin once more after the release.

    Reply

  125. @Roj You’ve got the right idea, release Linux Mint 10 with the latest 3 series kernel as Linux Mint 12, then keep working on MATE and its interrelationship with Mint, be it on the Ubuntu or Debian base with the idea of providing a really good, strong release next Spring.

    As it is I don’t think we will be doing any newcomers to Linux any favours if we release anything with serious problems with it, (as is the case with the ill-conceived Gnome 3 and the tender new shoots of MATE).

    Linux Mint, I think, is No.1 on Distrowatch because of the disenchantment the regular Linux Users have in the direction the developers of Gnome and Ubuntu have decided to go in the design of their UIs. It may be what they want but, it certainly isn’t what regular Linux Desktop Users want.

    My prediction will be that the No.1 Distribution on Distrowatch will be the one that keeps closest to the design philosophy of Gnome 2.

    Reply

  126. I think you need to fix that ugly wallpaper bug. It must have transferred over from the last distro version. I always need to fix it by using a wallpaper that is actually elegant.

    Reply

  127. I have this running within virtualbox on LMDE, and an old machine and I have a couple suggestions that might help.

    1) The installer need give the user the ability to install either/or/both of the desktop scenarios. I think it would be better to allow for a slimmed down install.

    2) I think just a single bar is needed. Two is a bit much. Mint-menu with the option of what is there would be ideal. I do think mint-menu needs ported. Just the lower menu bar is best I think. Making this “Minty” would do the trick.

    The GUI of course needs some work, but I’m impressed with what has been achieved here and look forward to the progression. Considering this is a first jab at it, couldn’t ask for more. Still not interested in the gnome3 unless it would replicate gnome2 with mint-menu. However, Mate has potential it appears.

    Good work

    Reply

  128. I forgot to ask:
    Has anyone here tried out Windows8?

    I don’t want to waste my limited bandwidth on downloading it, much less install it. But from the little I have seen and read about it, there might very well be a stampede of converts looking for a better alternative, in the future.

    Mint could very well be it, I think.

    Reply

  129. For those wishing to remove the top bar, have a look at this shell extension: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/11/autohide-top-bar-extension-finally.html

    Once you add the PPA Repository, you will have to follow the instructions posted under Known Issues here: http://linuxmint.com/rel_lisa.php

    Then, after changing Lisa to Oneric, follow the second and third steps from the first linked page. Once installed, reload GNOME Shell and activate the extension using Advanced Settings from the Mint Menu.

    Works great, and reclaims the upper part of your screen for your work until you mouse-over to see the panel.

    Reply

  131. No icons on desktop? BOO!

    No more right click uninstall? BOO!

    No more customisable panel? BOO!

    No more compiz? BOO!

    No more customisable mint menu? BOO!

    Reply

  132. Friends,
    I have downloaded and installed LinuxMint-12-32 bits RC DVD.
    But despite his good improvement (of course), Mint Lisa shows still very … just bad. Really, installation procedure is under Core i7 + 8 + 1 GiB RAM HD TiB (100 GiB unique to ext4 Linux) was delayed, and significantly more than Linux Mint 11 32 bits version.
    Moreover, it seems that the combination of GNOME 3 with a resemblance to Windows8-Metro still does not work well. Not so well as desired.
    Also the main menu (start menu), though well designed, does not have GParted or StartUp-Manager, which must be collected from the Internet.
    Finally, the module Additional Drivers does not deal well with the inclusion of proprietary drivers (not open source), which limits the installation and – in my case – hurt video performance.
    The language support is still not good.
    The settings allowed are still very poor.

    I hope you correct those deficiencies, for I consider Linux Mint an excellent Operating System. But it must be better improved.

    Sincerely

    Egídio Campos (egidiofc@gmail.com)

    Reply

  134. @Ray Woods:

    I believe you’re right. The disaster that is Unity should have been an object lesson but clearly that message hasn’t been received as evidenced by Gnome 3 and continued efforts to “make it work”. An interface isn’t something that pops out of the air. It’s no coincidence that the basic UIs across platforms have gernally evolved over time with incremental changes rather than an artsy-fartsy conceptual revolution. The aforementioned two new UIs have tried that approach and I believe are destined to fail – and quite miserably (one already has: Unity). While this effort by the Mint team to salvage – and that is the correct term – Gnome 3 is laudable, it is at best a half-measure that will not save a foundering vessel.

    A culture is the most difficult thing to change, be it that of a civilisation, a corporation or a UI. To make people change the way they do things, there has to be a tangible benefit: the new way makes things easier to do, the new way makes new things possible, etc.. Above all, the transition has to be as gentle (note that I did not say “painless”) as possible. It also cannot break the old way that things were done without providing At The Very Least a simpler and easily learned way to accomplish those things in the new environment.

    Nothing I’ve seen in Unity, Gnome 3 or the latest RC’s primary interface goes that route. What I do see is a lot of form with little substance in two cases and a brave (but I believe futile) attempt to build a bridge in the case of the third.

    I switched form Ubuntu to Mint because of Unity. I’m perfectly prepared to stand pat and watch how things shake out before migrating in any direction again and I believe a LOT of users will share my viewpoint.

    Reply

  135. Just finished installing. Shutdown instead of Suspend, check. Gnome-tweak-tool easily available, check. codecs and DVD upgrade buttons, check! Looks good so far.

    I’d like to remove the MATE package(s), since I’m not planning to test it. I assume that won’t be a problem, please let me know if I’m wrong.

    Reply

  136. Sorry to be a spoiler, but I DO think Gnome 3 is a great step forward. Why is it so hard (even for Linux fans) to step away from the ‘Windows’ paradigm? Was the ‘Start’ button really such a great idea? And why should you prefer 10 hardly distinguishable ‘tasks’ in the taskbar to all of them neatly organised in workspaces according to domain/subject?

    Yes, gnome 3 has not matured yet and it needs more customisation options (themes) and itś great that Mint adds extensions by default ; but hanging on on to the taskbar and menu?; I don’t see the point.

    Still a Mint fan though, as it was my fist love in Linuxland 🙂

    Reply

  137. Oh, it’s already out. :O Sounded in your last post that it would take some time. Awesome! This will be fun to try, even if I like the regular Gnome 3.

    Reply

  140. Hi! This looks like the old good Gnome-2.x interface! I’m happy to see it!

    As for me, I prefer XFCE and LXDE, but I still can recommend the Main Edition to new users, as I’m sure that they will easily cope with such a convenient interface!

    Thanks for your reasonable conservatism, guys!

    Reply

  141. @marten

    The reason it’s so hard to move away from that paradigm is because It Works for the majority and nothing has come along to usurp that concept – YET. Windows uses it, the Mac uses it and heck, even Solaris used it. I’m all for something new – as long as It Works in the way people tend to think and do things.

    That’s why ribbons in Microsoft apps work – they follow an information flow or thought process that is easy for the majority to grasp or adapt to. That’s why sidebars work and have for generations of OSs (I use Cairo Dock myself).

    Gnome 3 tries but is clumsy and cumbersome at it.

    Unity is a sadly confused mess that doesn’t do so at all.

    Reply

  142. @marten

    Oops, I forgot to add:

    I also use DocbarX which mirrors Windows 7’s taskbar functionality. That one’s a Godsend. 🙂 it lets ME see at a glance executing tasks the way I want to and even has previews. It’s the same reason I use TabScope in Firefox to get that functionality for the tabs I have open.

    Reply

  144. ____________________________

    Trying Kubuntu now…
    Not that bad… just turn off a few effects…
    ______________________________

    Reply

  145. You guys really outdid yourselves on this one. I’ve tried Unity and Gnome 3 with Gnome-shell and I don’t like them. They’re no good for my purposes (I multitask.) However, this is exactly what I’ve been waiting for, a shell extension that makes Gnome 3 usable. I replaced Kubuntu with Mint 12 RC and I’m running it now. Great work on it, it’s working great so far.

    Thumbs up to the whole team for this one. 😀

    Reply

  148. I’ve been testing Lisa since before the RC came out. The RC, while being much more stable, still does not live up to my expectations. The Software Centre is broken and does not provide Ratings and Reviews, not to mention that the list gets cut below the letter d. This is the first time from the moment I switched to Linux Mint that I looked back. I looked back to Ubuntu, and thought: this might suit me better. GNOME 3 is a terrible environment, a forced path to the future that I do not want to walk on. While MGSE makes it much less frustrating, that does not change the fact that it is a completely unworkable piece of shit software. It is provided for free, so I never usually rant on it, and the same goes for Mint itself. So this is not a rant. This is a plea. Linux is choice. GIVE ME THE CHOICE TO RUN UNITY ON LINUX MINT. I don’t know if this is really what I want; but I know I want to have the freedom to decide later – because currently, Unity is far superior to shitty GNOME Shell in every way imaginable.

    I hope that in the future, Linux Mint will try to make the GNOME 3 Fallback session workable, since gtk2 will eventually become dated – I refuse to put my hope in MATE when XFCE exists. Also, hopefully, LMDE will finally fully support my laptop like it does my desktops and I will switch to that on here as well – which admittedly, does not solve the problem of GNOME 3.

    Reply

  149. I like the name “Lisa”, but I would have named it something else. There was a product that was named “Lisa” and it failed. For those who are superstitious, this is a bad omen, for me I think of Lisa Simpson!

    Reply

  150. clem,

    in reference to post 31, i mentioned an issue with my home pc locking up somewhat upon exiting apps. i’m not sure what event is causing it, but it seems to be running a bit more normal for the time being. however, i noticed that the printer configuration tool is a bit basic. i haven’t found a way to tweak the drivers that i use for my particular printer, which is something that i have to do in version 10 and 11. so my printer is taking an awfully long time to start printing with the default setup. perhaps the lack of a screensaver config tool also is an indication of an overall simplification of the various tools in gnome. i have to say that concerns me. with mate sorely lacking in its development at this stage, i feel like i’m very limited as to what further testing i can do with Lisa. i’m sure updates are in the pipeline, and i look forward to them. hopefully you can read between the lines and recognize this as a genuine interest to see this adventure work out for the best. i’m certainly convinced that you are expending your resources the best way possible. thanks again.

    Reply

  153. How can I create a desktop shortcut for my useful documents. Without that facility this is of no use. The black in mint menu odes not look attractive either. But keep up the good work. Hope that we will have a usable product soon.

    Reply

  155. Really liking this and love what you have done with G3. You have made a silk purse out of a sows ear. Great work :-))

    Reply

  156. Works on my laptop fine, but not on my desktop running linux mint 11 – only shows file manager, and no panels. Gnome 3 doesn’t load correctly. No menu.

    PC specs..

    -Computer-
    Processor : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.50GHz
    Memory : 1024MB (336MB used)
    Operating System : Linux Mint 11 Katya
    User Name : user01 (user01)
    Date/Time : Sun 13 Nov 2011 00:56:40 GMT
    -Display-
    Resolution : 1366×768 pixels
    OpenGL Renderer : Software Rasterizer
    X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation
    -Multimedia-
    Audio Adapter : ICH4 – Intel 82801DB-ICH4
    -Input Devices-
    Power Button
    Power Button
    AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
    Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse
    spca561
    -Printers (CUPS)-
    Photosmart_C4400 : Default
    Print_to_PDF
    -SCSI Disks-
    ATA Maxtor 6E040L0
    DVDRW IDE 16X
    ATA WDC WD600BB-75CA
    HP Photosmart C4400

    Reply

  157. Tried the RC, and am now glad I switched to KDE avoid this mess. Although KDE is not optimum by any means… bug ridden and bloated as usual… but at least it allows me to get work done…

    Ugh, man, the “Linux Desktop” is in a very very sad state these days. It had made SO much progress with Gnome 2 and Compiz. That combination was literally the most rock solid STABLE and INTUITIVE desktop I have used on ANY platform. Now it’s all gone… so sad.. kind of like replacing the Mona Lisa with a picture of dogs playing poker.

    I hope things start shaping up pretty soon, and either MATE or Gnome 3 becomes usable. Otherwise no one is going to want to use this half-baked stuff.

    Reply

  158. Great distro. Running stable testing on virtualbox. Lots of options but I am using pure Gnome 3 plus the shut down extension. Yes it is different but don’t understand the passion. Bar on top vs bottom, activities button vs menu button. None of the changes will cause me to lose any sleep. Thanks to team Mint for all your dedication and hard work.

    Reply

  159. Okay, I just found one teensy weensy thing I don’t like 🙂
    Is there a way to move the time/date back to the center of the top bar? I’m used to it being there from 3 weeks of Fedora ….. sorry …..

    Reply

  162. Clem

    At present it is not possible to login to MATE. I assume this will be addressed in the Final Release of Mint 12

    Will MATE include Mint Menu and all the themes from previous releases such as Felicia etc.

    Also will MATE support Compiz as well as Gnome 2.3 does

    I am keeping my faith in Mint despite my issues with Gnome 3/MGSE in my previous posts.

    If MATE can be made to work exactly as Gnome 2.3 then keeping my faith in Mint will be justified

    Reply

  164. OK, I’ve spent some quality time with MSGE and MATE – several hours worth.

    Quoting Guy:

    If MATE can be made to work exactly as Gnome 2.3 then keeping my faith in Mint will be justified

    I wholeheartedly agree, especially after the last few hours with MSGE and MATE. I can now say with certainty that given the original comments that were made about Mint 12 (two flavours, one with Gnome 2.32 and one with Gnome 3 and the Mint extensions), I am very disappointed.

    If Guy’s suggestion doesn’t happen and we’re left with the half-measures of MSGE as a primary alternative, then it’s not viable for me and I’ll hang on to Mint 10 until another distro comes along with Kernel 3.x and more sensible UI choices.

    The quote from the article Jeff linked to about Mint 12 being completely compatible with Gnome 2 is not truthful and quite misleading:

    “(and Mint 12 will be running Gnome 3, but be completely compatible with Gnome 2 for those that don’t want to make the switch)”

    No Compiz, a paucity of panel apps, myriad bugs – this is not a solution that’s ready for prime time. MATE is also not a solution with only “rough edges” – it’s beta at best.

    Sorry but my earlier comments about release timelines are now completely solidified.

    Reply

  165. _________________________________________

    OK. I have reached the end of the bottom of the well.
    Really. I can’t stand the dilemma anymore.
    Unity, GNOME Shell, MATE, GNOME 3.2, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, OpenBox… what have you.

    I can’t stand.
    I will have to accept the fact that KDE is the traditional metaphor for the continuation of the desktop, even with its bugs and some tweaking.

    Unity is “OK”. I got the idea. But let’s leave it for the stupid.
    GNOME Shell is “OK”. I got the idea. Fancy effects, attractive, monotask centric.
    GNOME 2.32 well, who can stand all those dormant bugs now?
    MATE, difficult to raise from the dead. Not even a resurrection will make this happen.
    XFCE and LXDE, too unpolished, Windows 95 style era.
    OpenBox, ratpoison… for the freaks. Not my cup of tea.

    There’s only KDE left.
    And I am switching to it.
    Of course it’s a bit annoying… but I can live with it.

    Reply

  166. and I forgot…

    Whatever is on top of GNOME 3, is like a house built on sand foundation. It will eventually fall apart.

    Reply

  167. In the midst of some negativity regarding Gnome3 I must say I completely love it.

    Linux Mint offereing all these choices is what will have it lead the pack.

    Thanks

    Reply

  168. @ Clem : After some more time using it. Now I can definitely say. There may be lot of work needed to do in MGSE. Two panels not needed as others said. Default Gnome-3 calendar (in the middle) was better, drivers, desktop icons etc.etc. MATE without usual Mint menu, which we are habitual, is not good, but still could be the way to go. Right now if I have to chose I will choose Katya over Lisa. It is not anywhere near to Katya. If thats the future I am sorry I am off to Gnome. As others said, why 40% increase was there, not because of Gnome-3. Because of Katya. No.1 spot with Lisa?

    @Guy : You were right back then. Now you can laugh.

    Reply

  172. I don’t like it, the top bar is horrible, unnecessary… why not use ubuntu fonts and… RC? WTF? there is a lot of work.

    Really, I hate GNOME 3. Now im trying Xubuntu for an small businnes (we have 5 old PC’s with Mint 11, KDE impossible), and KDE for my personal use (Also we have a laptop with Windows), but I missed Gnome 2 🙁

    Anyway, thanks for this version (and sorry for my english)

    Reply

  173. Thanks for your effort! However, there are some rooms for improvement:

    I) One panel at the bottom is enough, just like the old version done.

    II) The panel should be customizable, just like the old version done.

    III) MATE should be shipped together with the mint panel, just like the old version done.

    Thanks again for the great effort.

    Reply

  174. @LordOfKnowledge

    Funny, your conclusion is the exact same one I reached which led me to KDE. But I must say XFCE is looking better and better the longer I use KDE… So many bugs, it makes Windows ME look like a paragon of stability.

    sigh.

    Reply

  175. First impressions: Very strange the way Mint 12 found some of my previous settings and utilized them even while booted off of the live CD. Unless DuckDuckGo is now the default search engine, which would probably be even stranger. Kind of hate that there’s 2 separate task bars. Hopefully that’s fixed before the release. Actually, kind of hate a lot about the way Gnome 3 is currently set up.

    The Good: All the best default apps are there (except one, keep reading). Booted up pretty darned fast and is nice and smooth with no crashing or hiccups, also seems to have found all the drivers out of the box. Open Office, GIMP, VLC, Firefox all work flawlessly, quickly and look good as well.

    The Bad: The top bar, the weird button on the top right that takes me to some kind of darkened nether world where my open apps appear half size that seems totally unnecessary. Everything about gnome 3, actually. I mean, it’s better than Ubuntu ever was, but it’s not Mint. I can’t right click and alter the start menu. I can’t right click and alter the task bars (or remove the top one and put all it’s stuff down in the bottom one). In fact right clicking or left clicking does the same thing pretty much everywhere, and this is egregious and stupid. Please, PLEASE fix that before Mint 12 comes out, or just switch back to Gnome 2, or whatever the fork is calling itself. Honestly unless you can make Gnome 3 look and act almost exactly like Gnome 2, this idea is dead in the water. Sorry. No right clicks ANYWHERE in the interface is a broken interface.

    The Ugly: Still have Brasero as the default burner. I mean, maybe it’s a new version. Maybe I should give it another chance. Maybe I should also pick a fight with a giant Jiu jitsu champion. Not my idea of a smart plan or a good time. Seriously, I’ve made so many coasters in Brasero, I’m not even willing to try it out right now. Maybe on a day when I’m feeling a little more masochistic.

    Reply

  176. Gnome 3 sure has a way of causing division. For me the fact that there are 3 different Gnome desktop choices in Lisa is the best way that Clem could have gone on this. I was able to set up my desktop identical to what I was using on Katya with absolutely nothing being crippled. Either I am just really lucky or what I do with Gnome is quite different than the rest. I think if users take the time to explore Lisa they will find they can set up the desktop of their choice.

    Reply

  178. Jeffrey said in No. 62:
    [quote]
    It doesn’t sound like two weeks is enough time to fix all of the issues.{snips}
    This is what I would call a Beta (not a Release Candidate).
    [/quote]

    Indeed, that was my impression, but he said what I only had in mind and did not say.

    Please take the time to get it working well.

    Regards,
    —
    [nb]

    Reply

  179. I installed the RC today on one of my home laptops, replacing Mint 11, and 12 installed and has been working flawlessly for me. Latitude 4300.

    I switched from Ubuntu to Linux Mint because I did not like Unity. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to like Mint 12. I have to say, I love it. I am very comfortable with the desktop layout and menus. I am very impressed with DE.

    I think this is going to be a great upgrade for me when the final version is released.

    Way to go guys, i am impressed.

    Reply

  180. Oh boy, oh boy Linux what have you done??? The last 2010 release seem to be the peak 🙁

    LinuxMint was my last hope, but …. ATI card 4570 not recognized (was in 2010), WLAN: now 5 steps needed to connect to a hidden WLAN, configure only possible now when connected???, how can I just disconnect from WLAN NOT turn off WLAN hardware??? (ALL WORKED in 2010), more??? How can rearrange “My favorite appz” to panel or new MINT menu??? (WORKED in 2010) more…??? After update I couldnt connect to WLAN router LOOOOOL (sorry) …ping fine, DNS NOT working any longer!!!

    Sad, all this after already struggling for 10 years with Linux…

    Reply

  181. I installed this over Ubuntu 11.10, keeping my home directory. Is there an easy way to revert all of the appearance settings (fonts, themes, etc.) to default?

    Reply

  182. If we are to have top and bottom taskbars, I think it has to be very easy to understand what each is for.

    I ran the live DVD Lisa, and I suspect that a number of comments here might be from people who ran a live CD Lisa (I think there’s one!). Perhaps the CD didn’t have room for the full Lisa UI.

    ====

    A general note to any developers: Please avoid pure-blue text on a black background. It’s horribly difficult to read, and changing the color of some text is far from easy. One of the default Lisa terminals had a multicolor prompt, but also had blue-on-black text.

    ====

    Indeed, on further thought, imho, this RC is more like beta, perhaps late beta.

    I do get the feeling that Clem made a shrewd decision to release what the team has done, so far, even if it’s early. Having something new and partly different to show is far better than well-written text telling what’s in store.

    The ex-Ubuntu migration won’t last forever. 🙂

    Here’s wishing the very best for Mint!

    —
    [nb]

    Reply

  184. @ clem : Further feeding, if I add any icon in MATE at desktop, the same is shown in MGSE also. May be a long way to add icons at desktop. If i add any icon in favourites in MGSE its size increases vertically, not horizontally. It may look very ugly, if I add 10 icons, the whole desktop may be covered with Mint menu.

    Yes we are treating it to be a beta release. Take as much time as you wish. It has to be equivalent to Katya not below. You are caught in your own standard and quality. Hope you may come out well in Final.

    Reply

  185. #82, Roj says “The reason it’s so hard to move away from that paradigm is because It Works for the majority and nothing has come along to usurp that concept – YET. Windows uses it, the Mac uses it and heck, even Solaris used it.”

    And yet, Microsoft is about to break Windows in a BIG way with the Windows 8 Metro GUI. To me, it makes using Unity simple in comparison. It would be a great tablet GUI (same with Unity) but as a desktop interface without touch you’re going to have to move that mouse all over the place and accomplishing a task that used to take a click or two will now require extra clicks and gestures. I have a feeling that this is going to be a repeat of “Windows ME”. I personally think that there’s currently too big of a rush tablet interfaces that the desktop user is being totally overlooked. The way you use a tablet will be quite different than the way you use a desktop machine.

    Roj, you are the first post I came across that mentioned using the Cairo Dock. I installed it a week or so back and it’s a godsend! I have the Unity launcher set to ‘autohide’ and only use it on rare occassions. The Cairo Dock made Ubuntu usable again. I’ve just finished downloading the Mint 12 RC and am anxious to take a look at it.

    Reply

  186. The task bar is all fuzzy using ati proprietary drivers how can i fix other than that it seems like it will be nice once past this

    Reply

  187. Looks great Clem!
    Couple of rough edges (didn’t try MATE, only interested in gnome 3) but I personally found my self working quite comfortably in gnome shell:)

    Look forward to the final release!

    Reply

  189. Tried it in VirtualBox on LMDE. First, I’m having some serious issues with VBox, with the guest screen flickering between the Gnome or MATE session and the login background screen (but it does this with a Windows guest, too, so I’m not surprised).

    Getting past that, I was mildly surprised by how usable Gnome 3 actually was with the Mint extensions. That said, I still won’t use the dumb thing. Too many things I simply can’t do with it that I loved doing in Gnome 2.

    MATE looked very promising, though. Nothing is as wonderful as a really good Gnome 2 environment. Just add back in all of the addons that Gnome 2 had (I was actually quite fond of many of the Indicator applet features that LMDE and MATE don’t have), and this will be perfect!

    But then… (cue ominous music) I was switching back and forth between Gnome 3 and MATE to compare the two, and on one of the times, Gnome 3 completely crashed hard, knocking out its panels and window decorations, only leaving Nautilus and the windows without their borders on the screen. Logging out/in brought them back, but I went back into MATE and suddenly the panel is gone there, too. It’s running (it’s showing up when I use top in the terminal), but nothing is accessible. I tried to killall mate-panel, and it won’t stop running. I tried running it anyway and it complains that there is already an instance running. Logging out/in and rebooting both don’t bring it back. It’s simply gone, making MATE completely useless.

    Since LMDE is giving me endless frustration, and Katya was unstable on my hardware, I think I’m just going back to Mint 9 or 10 and wait this out. I hope this situation improves before the support cycle runs out. I understand that this not full release quality yet, but I’m just not yet truly satisfied with Mint 12 at all.

    Reply

  191. I’ve only had it installed for an hour or so but boy have the Mint team done well with Gnome 3! Congrats on all of the hard work. Would be great to be able to add program launchers to the bottom panel though, is this possible in any way? That way its a one click option to open firefox etc. Would also like a shutdown menu item in the Mint Menu – is that possible? Surprised it wasn’t listed in the applications menu of Gnome 3.

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  192. I really think there should be a meeting with all major Gnome using distributions and Gnome itself to talk about the disaster which is Gnome3. The people at Gnome should really be told that this is not the way people want to use their computer. If they think it is necessary to change the underlying foundation of Gnome, fine, but they really have to keep the GUI as it was in 2.32. That way we can just continue using the computer the way we want to use the computer.
    When Gnome does not want to do that, then stop making a Gnome version and concentrate on KDE, XFCE and LXDE. Improve those and we are all happy again.
    It will be the end of Gnome but then, who cares?

    Reply

  193. How to create a desktop shortcut ????

    My previous question regarding the same issue has been removed…..This is worse than Unity and this forum is lead by some freak who is afraid of questions

    Edit by Admin: No it hasn’t been removed, it just wasn’t moderated yet. This is not a forum, it’s a blog. We’re not “freaks”, we moderate comments from new visitors so you can read this without seeing any spam.

    Reply

  194. I’m liking the look of Linux Mint 12 already. Plus I like that the network connection program is able to see the Huawei E160 modem series. Somehow Katya was unable to do this when installed right out of the box.

    Thanks for the fix.

    Reply

  196. Great work! I’m fine with most of gnome-shell but a list of open windows (instead of applications -one of the things I hate about OSX) was really needed. And it’s good to have the notification icons on the top bar instead of hidden.

    But there’s something I don’t understand: Some parts of MGSE replicate the functionality of already existing gnome-shell extensions, so why not have these extensions instead? For example, the no-a11y extension and the shutdownmenu extension.

    Reply

  198. Nice, Funny, Colorful… and uncomfortable.
    Merging taskbar to pannel on the top and bringing back the old and good minmtenu would help a lot.
    Two pannels – I hate it. That’s why I chose LM instead of Ubuntu few years ago

    If it won’t be changed I will stay with LM11 at least until LM13. And I will probably be forced to change desktop environment.

    Reply

  199. @Mantas:
    Choosing Mint over Ubuntu for the sole reason of the number of panels seems strange to me, since you can have as many as you like in Gnome 2 anyway.
    You can still try Mate in Mint 12, it’s not perfect (yet) but I tried it and it works pretty well.

    Reply

  200. Clem

    I take it with all this negative feedback you will reconsider an alternative Gnome 2.3 release “as promised by you” in the September stats. during this transitional period.

    I dislike sayng “I told you so” but perhaps now I will not be so ridiculed.

    Reply

  201. Gnome 3 for me is not easy. I look at the screenshots and I understand that Lisa is kind of garbage … I’m disappointed and indignant. Something changed in Gnome 3? I can see the bottom panel mintmenu, which duplicates the menu of applications Gnome 3. Why then do Gnome 3 need? Apparently this is an attempt to transplant the user smoothly to gnome 3. I cant find other explanation.

    Reply

  203. Problems:
    -My netbook with 1024×600 resolution gave problems during installations because I couldn’t click “continue” when I had to select my profile picture (it was too low). I had to change the screen orientation in order to select “continue”.
    -Selecting “Encrypt my home folder” leads to installation problems when user profile is created. The installer will crash.
    -After installing Crossover, the whole Mint-menu was gone
    -This is more of a Gnome 3 problem, but I hate the fact that I can’t choose my amount of workspaces and assign a working keyboard shortcut to them.
    -I hate that I can’t autohide the 2 bars. On a netbook, this is very important!
    -MATE only worked after installing updates, otherwise the login screen would simply load again.

    Reply

  205. I don’t like Gnome3 at all. I didn’t like Lisa despite all their effort to make Gnome3 better. May be Mate will be good enough in the future. I will stay with Julia for some time more.
    I’ve been reading all the comments, honestly I was angry with Guy for his aggressive and insisting comments. Well, now I can agree with him to some extent.
    Although I am not happy with the new release (or RC) I sincerely thank the team for all their efforts and I believe it will be good in the end.

    Reply

  206. I’ve made my mind up and I’m going to re-install Linux Mint 10 to my computers. The reason is that Julia was the last edition that just works and works the way I want it to.

    Reply

  208. Please bring Gnome2 back. And the 2 panels are useless.
    What I really need is a Mint10 stable version with new kernel and drivers for Sandy bridge

    Reply

  210. Please remove that top-side bar by default! Please continue Mint’s tradition of a single-taskbar look! This is what mades Mint so popular so far!

    Reply

  211. @ Nancy : From login session chose MATE. From there add as many desktop shortcuts as you want by right clicking on applications. Logout and login again this time MGSE Gnome. Your desktop shortcuts will be there.

    Some who asked about panels. From Mint Menu chose “Advance Settings” from there chose “Shell Extensions” and from there switch off the bottom panel extension. Now only top panel will be there, which cann’t be removed as I understand. Your Mint Menu will also go up. I know it is not habitual, but at least you now be having only one panel with Mint menu, which is to some extent is bearable.

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  212. I’m happy with Lisa.

    I think the developers have been bending backwards in order to please as many as possible!

    Good job.

    Today I put my money “where my mouth is” and donated.

    No more “free ride”. Lisa is worth every penny.

    And now I feel much more comfortable commenting on Lisa… 😉

    Reply

  213. I just finished trying out Mint 12 RC and I have to say I really liked the MGSE Gnome! Will be installing this upon the final release. The one thing I won’t miss from Ubuntu’s Unity is the Universal Menu bar. When I fired up Mint 12, it was like coming home when the menu bars appeared at the top of the window in Firefox! I tried the RC on two different machines. On my Intel machine with an AMD graphics card I had NO problem at all, everything just worked. However, on an AMD machine with an nVidia graphics card, MGSE would not load; I kept getting what appeared to be Gnome 2 (not MATE, not Gnome 3). I was never able to get MGSE to work on that machine which is sad as it’s the one I wanted to install Mint on. Hopefully this problem will be fixed by the time of Mint 12’s final release (I’m thinking something about the graphics card or the release candidate since the machine is powerful enough to run Ubuntu Unity and Gnome 3 with no problems).

    Reply

  214. Hi All,

    had an installer crash when I checked to encrypt my home folder. It’s formatted with ext4. Tried it 2 times and it always crashed. Running without the encryption now and it is working great! Nice work LinuxMint-Team!

    Reply

  215. @Clem : After switching off bottom panel. Gnome-3 with mint menu, at least to me looks good. Now the problem is I cann’t shut down computer, as the option does not come. Even if I press the alt. I have to go to login screen to shut down. May be some bug. If the setting of favourites, in mint menu if someone put more icons there be made in two columns, it may look good.

    Reply

  216. After setting the MGSE Gnome according to my needs (removing bottom panel, adding desktop shortcuts), I take my words back about beta version. Now it looks promising. Gnome-3 the way we wanted. Of course still long way to go. Well thanks Clem. At least you listened to our voices. Great Job.

    Reply

  217. LISA, c’est génial ! J’ai essayé toutes les distributions, j’avais choisi finalement MINT 11 Katya, mais 12 LISA c’est le top ! Avec le dernier Ubuntu, ce sont mes deux préférées, LISA étant la meilleure des deux pour moi. BRAVO MILLE FOIS §

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  218. Dear all,

    With MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions) you can have only ONE panel (top panel) with the Mint application menu and the window list.

    Like this:

    http://www.roboimages.com/image/ri68031/Screenshot.png

    Just swich off Botton panel extension in Advanced settings (Tweak tool for Gnome shell) and log out and you will have desktop like me 😉

    Thank you Mint!

    P.S.
    How to install system monitor extension?

    Reply

  219. I gave Lisa another try, this time a lot deeper. The way I see it about the LM12 RC release is Clem tried to please very one, unfortunately I believe this is almost impossible. If LM is going to embrace Gnome 3 as its flagship it will have to embrace Gnome3 Shell and move on with it. Delete the bottom bar since the top one is unmovable or moved to another site on the desktop, improve the way it looks with new themes and the users will have to adapt to it like it or not or just simply move to another environment. Gnome has made a decision, LM will continue with it and the ones who decides to stay will have to accept it the way it is, there are not miracles. I don’t see how the LM Menu can feet in it but that is the way it is going to be in my opinion. Thanks Clem and team for the effort.

    @Guy, I agree with you to some extent, but, I would like to ask you to moderate yourself also. Thanks.

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  220. Just wanted to say well done to Clem & the team. I’ve messed with Ubuntu & Fedora knowing the change to gnome 3.2 is inevitable and mint is by far the best to date.

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  222. why firefox keep asking me when i close multiple tab? i check dont ask again and after reopen firefox with multiple tab , i close firefox and is asking again.

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  224. @manny

    I agree perhaps I am being a little harsh with some of my comments. However it is frustrating trying to get a valid issue through to others as I did on previous posts and recieving nothing but abuse as if I did not know what I was talking about. In fact it is more than likely I began using Mint long before many others on here.

    Reply

  225. John B. Says:

    “However, on an AMD machine with an nVidia graphics card, MGSE would not load; I kept getting what appeared to be Gnome 2 (not MATE, not Gnome 3).”

    Same here. Doesn’t make a difference if you choose Gnome or Gnome Classic on login screen, it gets you to the same desktop. It has to do something with the graphics card, because it shows an error if you try to install nvidia proprietary drivers.

    Oh, and by the way, Mint is really good.

    Reply

  226. I’ve loaded it, and I like it. Shell seems pretty well integrated. One problem I’m having, is that search isn’t working in the address bar of firefox. I’ve checked about:config, and keyword.enabled is ‘true’, so I’m not quite sure what’s going on.

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  227. I’ve installed the RC 64 bit yesterday. I haven’t played with mate yet, but I must say that Gnome 3 with MGSE is a disappointment. While it is a step up from pure Gnome 3, it is a far cry from Gnome 2.32.

    I want to compliment the Mint team for their enormous efforts in making MGSE. It is appreciated. However, the bottom panel is a really bare bones implementation. As it is, it only provides a Mint-ish menu and a window switcher. Nothing of the goodness in the classic Gnome panel. It could be a symptom of the rigidness in Gnome 3 or the extensions aren’t fully developed yet.

    I’ll keep an eye on MGSE and I’ll look into MATE, but right now I’m seriously considering waiting for the release of the KDE or XFCE Edition.

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  228. @Clem

    I’m very impressed with the amazing work you and the Dev Team have done and been using Lisa since midday Friday. Had a few glitches, but since the updates, it’s been pretty stable and running just fine.

    There are a few problems though. My first installation went belly up as soon as I installed the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver. Prior to that, it was working fine. After reinstalling, it was a bit unstable until I installed all the updates and then it settled down. O

    VLC plays music and videos but no sound whatsoever. On installing the graphics driver again, all my icons in the menus and both taskbars, went into meltdown and none of them display properly. I understand that’s the proprietor’s problem though and you’re not able to do anything about that one.

    Once in a while, when I click the menu button, the whole desktop reloads. Both taskbars disappear for a few seconds and then reappear. And also every now and again (thankfully not often), the desktop freezes. I can still hear music and watch videos, but I can’t click on anything, and right-clicking doesn’t work either, and neither does the keyboard. Also the clock freezes too, (I have seconds displayed), leaving me with no alternative but to press the reset button on the front of my computer.

    Apart from those few niggles, congratulations to you and all the team for some excellent work. I was looking forward to this release from Katya came out as I was willing and ready to move forward to Gnome3, and despite the glitches, I can’t say I’m disappointed in the least. I expected it would take time to iron out everything upstream, as well as within Mint, and know that things will gradually get even better. All I can say is well done and keep up the excellent work.

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  231. ________________________________________________________

    OK.
    I see a lot of mixed feelings on RC.
    It’s not a good sign.

    I think it’s better for Mint to release ONE MORE GNOME 2.32 release as default main edition.

    This RC can be rolled out as a 6-month testing & tweaking OS for the next release.

    I think this is the wisest decision to make.

    __________________________________________________________

    Reply

  232. I have been using Lisa since yesterday. I have it installed on a Toshiba laptop. MGSE looks good. I know there have been a lot of negative comments but I think the devs are doing a great job.

    The only thing I would like to be able to do is add shortcuts to the bottom panel. Other than that I’m liking what has been done.

    For all the comments about no icons on desktop. All you have to do is open Nautilus find the program you want to add an icon for and right click then Make Link. Drag and Drop that to your desktop.

    Keep up the great work. Thanks.

    Reply

  234. I see that there are quite a lot of unrealistic and crazy requests for the team to take on the rest of the Linux comunity, to overturn work by the GNOME3 or Ubuntu teams.
    Having already found over the years that it’s ‘mission impossible’ to get the Ubuntu team to simply ‘unfix’ disastrous changes to Brasero, I know how difficult that can be and therefore whay a miracle Clem and the team have already achieved.

    Meanwhile, with the importance of firm foundations, the following link is to a reliable and versatile way of creating a dual-function, persistent Lisa USBkey that doubles as a conventional data key :
    http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=85497

    Reply

  235. This edition works beautifully and looks great. I have been a fan for a while now. I have really only found one thing wrong so far. It seems when I open a browser then downsize it to the tray, it goes to both the top and bottom tray and when I click either one to re-open they dont do anything. If I right click and choose Maximize nothing happens either?? I have to go to the windows tab to see the page and re-open. Seems this should work better.

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  236. I found “glitch”
    I remove first bottom panel thru MGSE, then in GNOME 3 menu i right click on firefox to remove from favorites and this is what happen haha. Even fonts got better, but, after playing for more, i try put back bottom menu and the upper one stay this way. I don’t know that’s bug or glitch or something else, just look accidentally as many of us want 🙂
    http://i41.tinypic.com/29ngns5.png

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  238. Just thought I’d throw in my two cents as I went to mint 12 on my main desktop after some playing around with it in a virtual box.

    Bottom line is that I like it. I do need a few things set (sloppy focus, a few custom app launchers) and I was able to get them done. I like having the workplace switcher on the bottom like I’m used to having – over time I’ll get used to the gnome 3 way of switching and I won’t need it.

    Nice work, time for another donation.

    Reply

  239. We have been using linux for 11 years – gnome 3, unity, and kde 4 sre all a disaster – we liked gnome 2 but have now switched to xfce

    We think linux mint should forget gnome – its too far gone – just concentrate on being a great xfce distro and add some quality control to the system packages – keep it simple

    Reply

  240. You know after finally find a computer to get MGSE to officially working, I loved it but like alot of people it need to be more testing, this is what Gnome 3 needs to be if your trying to convert people from the headaches of Windows and with the economy people that can’t afford to get a mac people don’t wont to feel like there going backwards I have three systems and out the three only one would officially not go in fallback mode, the duel core dell inspiron worked, I have a gaming machine with a i5 512mb of video ram, and 2gb of ram failed, and even a older computer failed which I wasn’t having a lot of hope for. People don’t want to go backwards or feel that way I’m going to wait for the official version since this a RC release before I decide on publishing a review but to me as of right now I’m sticking with Mint 11

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  241. Please understand that this is a RC version..not the final one. Clem and team has only recently started work on it and they have made tremendous progress within a short period of time. Over time and after numerous updates Linux Mint will be polished and refined….Gnome 3 is the real issue and Linux Mint has achieved which no other distro have not been able to achieve so far including the Ubuntu Unity interface.

    Great work and my sincere appreciation to Clem and his team mates….

    Reply

  243. SWEEEEEETNESS! Installing ASAP – can’t wait to have a consistent and quirk-free desktop again.
    *innocent whistle*

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  244. I don’t think I can truthfully say today that it is impossible to adapt Gnome 3 to a productive desktop environment, given evidence in this RC release that tools to do exactly that are in active development. Please continue.

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  245. Downloaded and installed…

    First impression was WOW…everything so clean and nifty. General this is huge step forward and I am ready to ditch Ubuntu for Mint. Only few things that poke my eyes.

    First, I dont see need for having two panels and Windows list app on both panels, remove it from one of them (I would move one from the top panel).

    Second, notification bar. Its kinda awkward how it overlays bottom panel when it appears with notification.

    Everything else is a pure candy… :))

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  247. This is the BEST Mint yet from Clem and the team and it is only an RC. I absolutely love what he has done with Gnome 3. Excellent, just excellent 😉

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  248. While I certainly applaud the Linux Mint development team for their efforts on the release of this RC, I see no compelling for someone to switch over to it. That is to say, if they already have Ubuntu 11.10 installed and have GNOME 3, as well as all of the necessary codecs. In my honest and humble opinion, two panels is too much. One should be enough. If there were a way to remove the Activities button from the top panel and simply integrate the new Mint Menu into it, that would make more sense. Another suggestion is to develop an extension (I would if I could, but I’m no programmer) that disables the “Hot Corner.” For new users the hot corner activation on mouse over could prove quite annoying.
    I believe that new users will find Lisa confusing to use, to say the least, if both panels are kept in the final release. Also, the theme should remain consistent throughout the entire desktop. The Mint Menu being dark black where the remainder of the desktop aspects are gray simply doesn’t look right. The icons in the top panel are rather small as well, and should be bigger (not sure if this is an icon theme issue). The bottom line: new users would not find much to like about Lisa, and would probably still be better off using something simpler like an XFCE or KDE distro. My 2 cents. I hope my opinion does not come off as trolling, as that is not my intention, I only seek to provide constructive criticism. Best of luck Linux Mint.

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  249. Has anybody been able to install it from the dvd 64/32 codecs version???

    Unable to finish the installation, tried mint 11 and no problem at all.

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  250. Hmmm, I am also pissed off with two bars, it is unacceptable. I would like to have only one and at the bottom of the screen. It should be customizable like in previous versions. SOme of my friends also doesn’t like two bars, and it seems that this is what many users dislike. I don’t understand why we need two bars??? If this remains, I will probably stay with Mint 11 or switch to another distro. I am pretty disappointed with two bars.

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  251. I will download and try, but I do not have high hopes. After reading all the comments here, my concerns are:

    Can I combine the two panels and put it on top, where I ALWAYS put it?

    Can the panel not be changed?

    No MintMenu!?!? That was the top visual feature that really set Mint apart as superior.

    Icons on desktop?

    If these problems are indeed how they sound, I can not and will not use Mint 12. Please please do NOT do the same things to LMDE, I will stick to that because it works and gives me control. Why switch to Gnome 3 if it is so broken or so different that most people do not like it? Again, I will try it for myself, but it sounds like a step backwards!

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  252. @Oyabun
    I’ve already found this out; this happens whenever you attempt to move the Task List to the top bar. The hot corner remains on the left, however the infinity (applications) button floats to the right.

    Honestly, that’s the only bug I’ve found that really causes a major inconvenience. I would love some of the upd8web extensions to be included (weather, places), but that is a simple PPA away. I would also love to have mouse-based workspace switching; I’ve grown to really like the up/down movement between workspaces, but that just further facilitates scrolling.

    There are several little things like that, but all of that stuff comes with time. Considering the timeframe and the additional stuff they’ve done (like the mintMenu in GNOME 3), I am VERY impressed with Mint 12. Definitely sticking with it (assuming my nVidia machine doesn’t crash whenever XBMC opens, like my integrated graphics machine does), at least on my HTPCs, until GNOME 3.2 hits LMDE.

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  255. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    I think we should not release Linux Mint 12 Lisa as anything other than a Release Candidate. Basic Gnome 3 is rubbish, MGSE still needs a lot of work upon it to make it useful, (then it is only a Bandaid over the wound that is Gnome 3), and MATE is still immature. I think the Mint Community should make a stand AND NOT RELEASE Linux Mint 12.

    This release and the style of the desktop User Interfaces has been forced upon us by the developers at Gnome (and Ubutu) who are both determined that Linux Users make their desktops look more like mobile phones or tablet computers. I’m sure our No.1 placing upon the Distrowatch site is more due to the fact we have, up until now retained Gnome 2 and resisted the change to these messy toy like UIs (plus in my opinion it is just better than the others).

    If we retain Gnome 2 for a bit longer I think they may even get the message and start to develop something we want.

    Please Clem, don’t release this abortion and wait a while. At least Julia is still working okay.
    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    Reply

  256. I take back my initial assessment that this is a nice interface. At first, I thought it was better than Gnome 3 because of the bottom bar with the task manager. On the surface, it looks good. Underneath, it’s a mess.

    I’ve been trying for the past half an hour or more to change my window theme. (I hate light themes) It’s a simple function, you’d think it would be simple. Wrong. Normally with Gnome 3, this can be accomplished using the Gnome Configuration Editor and changing the Metacity theme. However, I’ve searched all through that thing and I can’t find that setting. All it has is stuff for Mate. However, changing the Mate theme does nothing. And, before anyone mentions it, themes that I installed don’t show up in the appropriate box in the “Advanced Settings” window, which is why you have to use Gnome Configuration Editor.

    I know, this may seem like a little thing to some people. However, the fact that this is a little thing is the whole point. It should be an easy thing to do, not a huge pain in the rear. So, I’m getting back off the Gnome 3 merry-go-round and switching to XFCE. At least that interface can be 100% customized.

    Reply

  257. Network Printer Install Issue

    Ubuntu Bug #871985 is still present in RC12

    “FirewallD is not running. Network printer detection needs services mdns, ipp, ipp-client and samba-client enabled on firewall.”

    WORKAROUND: As an alternative to the printer configuration tool from the new Gnome Shell control center, you can still use system-config-printer. To open it, just press Alt+F2, type system-config-printer and press Enter.

    Thanks to:
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/871985

    Reply

  258. ========================

    TONS OF MIXED FEELINGS.
    NOT A GOOD SIGN.
    GNOME 2.32 FOR STABILITY & REMIX EDITION FOR THE AVENTUROUS….

    REMEMBER: Problems will be gigantic when this is deployed to production machines. It can affect Linux Mint status.

    ========================

    Reply

  259. USELESS ALL IT DOES IS CRASH I DONT KNOW IF ITS MGSE OR GNOME3 BUT EVEN WITH THE LATEST ATI DRIVERS STILL NOT USABLE; AT LEAST UBUNTU 11.10 IS USEABLE AN RELATIVELY STABLE. FORGET MGSE JUST MAKE A NICE GNOME 3 SHELL
    AND KEEP IT MOVING.

    Reply

  260. @Ray:
    In my personal experience, GNOME 3 is usable and is a fine desktop with the right extensions and the Hot Corner disabled (there is a simple way to do it if you Google how to). The sad part is that GNOME 3 does not have those extensions included by default. Perhaps in future versions (3.4?). However, for someone who has had no prior exposure to Linux, it can be daunting and other DEs are perhaps a better option for them. Again, personal opinion.

    Reply

  261. Noticed a small typo in the swedish localisation of the installer: ‘tangetnbord’ instead of ‘tangentbord’. I looked for it on Launchpad, but didn’t find it. (Found another typo instead, hehe!)

    Anyway… (Uh, I hope Clem et al read this.)

    Reply

  263. After 3 days of testing this, I have realised it is superb and the best thing by far anyone has done with Gnome 3.2, or Unity. It works brilliantly. At first hesitant to move from Linux Mint 11, I now almost want to do a full install of 12, before the stable has come out. It works better than 11. Faster, the 64bit works really well on my Lenovo x121e. Choosing Gnome 3.2 is definitely the way forward, and this is a strong engagement with it, a good ground, with new openings. Can’t wait to do a full install, do away with dual boot windows also. Good work.

    Reply

  265. I’ll try the Mint 12 RC on my VirtualBox first. After 7 years with Ubuntu, I’m done with them. I love your Gnome 3 treatment with MGSE. Once the official release is out, I’ll install it on my home PC instead of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Thanks for your work.

    Reply

  267. I truley understand the frustration. This is an horrendous predictament. The thing is, unless I abandon the Gnome 2 UI paradigm, tweaking XFCE to my satisfaction is taking as much energy and time as tweaking Gnome 3. At least,that’s what I’ve found – maybe I’m just not good at this at all. But for me, XFCE is not a panacea, and KDE is an aquired taste.

    Choosing to stick with Gnome 2 despite support will become problematic for me in the coming years as 1., application developers drop support for gtk-2, 2., drivers for new hardware are not back ported, and 3., the lack of security updates makes me uncomfortable using Lucid/Maverick based distros on an internet facing machine.

    I have now seen some these extensions in action,

    Gnome Shell Frippery
    Webupd8.org PPA extensions
    MSGE

    In my opinion, Gnome 3 as presented was a virtual slap at the Linux community. But I cannot say that while using these tools, productivity is not greatly improved, and so I was wrong. Thus I’m going to have to jump off the “gnome 2 or the highway” bus at this time.

    Reply

  268. coming in about a week time from the preview to announcing the RC … very impressive, hardly can imagine what a hell of a work this must have been for the team!!!
    after installing the 64bit RC in a virtual machine, I’m still impressed by how good this works … for me, I have to say, maybe because I didn’t expect way too much like a lot of disappointed users here did.
    but what I’ve been running on my machine for a long day still looks good … for me … I didn’t keep the 2 panels only the top panel with menu extension, so I’m able to switch between the Gnome 2 and the Gnome 3 feeling. needs a little polishing for some ore themes and I’d like to have ‘alacarte’ by default and the ‘preferences’ as a menu item … but these are really minor things, over all a good RC that will hopefully have some more time to be followed by a RC 2 or a Beta … it needs that time, I think … I’ll be waiting for this.
    as for me … and I only speak for myself, I don’t see a big problem in switching to Gnome 3, not on Linux Mint … and I really appreciate the efforts done by the team making as many users as possible feeling at home again …

    Reply

  269. Congratulations to Mint team. As we move in to a new era, the new Mint fells nice. My only request would be to the video card. the ati radeon driver crashes after install from proprietary drivers. I have to keep without any installed. With that I am not able to go further in to other testings. Any ideas?

    Reply

  270. i was totally against gnome 3 before, but now since i have used it about 3 days i can see that its pretty smooth and actually quite usable.
    alltho..still missing some key features and there is nt much configuration options yet.

    Reply

  271. AMD APU problem and solution which worked for me.

    Just a copy of what I posted at the forum. May be it helps with grafic problems for users with the new AMD APU:

    Installation worked fine, but got soon problems with the display on my machine with an AMD APU (in my case A8 3850). The Desktop was nearly unreadable but fortuntatly system was still in function.

    It seems to me, that the additional proprietary ATI grafic driver offered for Installation by mint 12 / Ubuntu is an old version.

    For me this way worked to solve that grafic problem with my AMD APU. Zero guarantee that it helps in other ATI problem cases !!! Just a hint what helped me:
    ———————–

    Open Synaptic and search with the keyword fglrx for any existing installed fglrx file. Delete with Synaptic any existing old fglrx files . (If there are not any fglrx file installed it is good -> continue with …open firefox…)

    restart the machine – in my case grafic looked now big and and in wrong resolution – but system worked.

    Open firefox and google for amd grafic support or go directly to

    support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/pages/index.asp

    and download from there the latest version of ATI Catalyst after checking through the offered question boxes on the page. My values for example were:
    Destop grafics
    A-series APU
    A8-38xx APU (i ignored in that case for security reasons the option: “Auto detect and install”)
    Linux x86-64

    Go the the downloaded file in your file manager (in my case in home/download) right click and make it under rights (German Zugriffsrechte) executable by marking the little box for it.

    I restarted my system after that but think it is not needed to restart.

    Double click on the now executable downloaded file. In my case a box with a running script opened and after a while a new window popped up, which offered “Installation”.

    Click on the Installation option, say ok to the legal BS and let it install. Stay a bit patient and watch the total progress bar developing. After this is done restart the PC and all should work in right grafic resolution without doing anything more and with the feeling, that you got the best available grafic solution from the producing company AMD itself.

    ————————————————————-

    I am a layman. But I like to suggest professionals and developers: please check out: which Catalyst version is downloaded by the function additonal driver or proprietary driver available (forget how it was called) – that one what pops up after a while after restarting a fresh installation. My guess is, that there is an old version downloaded, which does not work with the relative new AMD APU. May be change to the latest ATI Catalyst version at that point can save many AMD users with new AMD APUs some trouble.

    Sorry, for rusty English, my mothertongue is German

    Reply

  272. Definitely, for desktop. Gnome 2.3 is better. Clem team has made a good effort but Gnome3 is the difficulty. Mate is a developing project for now. Meanwhile, I beleive it will be the best decision to have two distributions, one with Gnome 2.3, and other with Mate and Gnome3 and MSGE.

    Cordially,

    Reply

  273. @ketan (post 229): Adding PPA’s is a known bug in the RC and is in release notes.
    After you have added the ppa in the normal way (add-apt-repository) you have to go into
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
    and edit the file for the ppa you just added, replacing “lisa” with “oneiric”

    Hope this solves your problem!

    Reply

  274. to get to the desktop requires
    nomodeset blacklist=radeon 3
    this puts me in the tty where I then need to apt-get install fglrx
    unfortuantely the nic issue with my realtek driver makes this a long and slow process.
    Surely by now the r8168 driver has been added to the kernel?
    I’m about ready to give up now and I so want to move away from windows but gradually I’m having more issues every release with most distros.

    Reply

  275. Lots of new XFCE and KDE converts it seems…

    How is the multiple monitor support in XFCE? Anyone know? I find that it is excellent in KDE.

    Also, how well does compiz work in xfce?

    In Gnome Shell multiple monitor support is ridiculous. Apprently when they designed it, they didn’t envision anyone having more than one monitor.

    Reply

  276. I have spent some more hours on Mint 12 RC and whilst I greatly appreciate the work the team has done, it still needs work, IMO.

    You can remove the bottom panel by going into Advanced Settings but then that kind of defeats the purpose of the Mint Menu. I would have put the Mint Menu at the top left perhaps and then the Gnome 3 menu on the far right, maybe? That way, one panel.

    Its frustrating in Gnome 3, it just feels so non-customisable, even though the Mint Team are trying hard to make it more customisable.

    And, I can’t believe the lack of a proper screen saver. How are we supposed to watch a movie without the locked screen occuring?

    We do need to have launch icons in one of the panels too, that way its a one click approach to starting a program.

    Reply

  277. I have to say, at the moment, I am sticking with Lubuntu 11.10 and will eventually move to Mint LXDE. LXDE is so much faster and more customisable than Gnome 3.

    Reply

  278. Can’t say I blame them (and there may be many more). It’s shameful that people must now choose one or the other due to hardware/usability issues.

    Reply

  279. I have a question can we keep an older version like mint 11 and keep it running past the date that is shown? If this is done what will happen? Anything? And if its an issue with security I’d understand, but if not, then why not stick with 11 if you don’t like 12 and build upon 11 yourself. That’s what I’m trying to do, just would like to keep packages all other packages up to date except for gnome which should remain at 2.32.

    Reply

  281. Well,

    I will wait for final release, but if its going to be same as this one, i will stick with 11 and than start to look arounb about something different.

    Reply

  283. Okay, short question. If I choose GNOME Classic as my session, is it Gnome 2.3? Because I think Classic is just awesome. So if it’s 3.2 with MGSE than keep up the good work 🙂

    Reply

  285. What a bunch of Whiners…….. LOL

    Must say, I’ve been using linix since the mid 90’s… since the first kernel and having to compile to get “ANYTHING” to work… I am totally happy with Gnome 3 (Gnome Shell)… Good lord……. What a bunch of whiners we have.. After all of the whining and crying about gnome 3 I thought I would HATE it….. But after using it for a few days on my MAIN WORK LAPTOP, I am sold… I’m fine with it. I always removed the 2nd task bar anyway…

    Keep up the good work Clem… Don’t let the few half-wit posers cause you to change.. Keep with where your heading. Give us the option for your new MSGE, give us the option for a plain Gnome 3/Shell, I’m happy. Love Mint and will keep contributing..

    Reply

  286. @Dominick

    How are you doing it? I ran into all kinds of dependency problems with gtk-2 stuff pinned and pointing to new repositories. What can you leave unupdated without incuring security liabilities? I don’t know how to do it.

    Reply

  287. First hour with Lisa with a full install. So far, I like the new interface overall. I don’t LOVE it yet, but this may come in time. Given that this is only a Release Candidate (my first), I’ll give a full verdict with a week of regular use.

    INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:
    MATE is off to a great start. I know this interface, although built from the original GNOME interface, is in its infancy. However, I look forward to watching it grow. So far, it reminds me a lot of the Xfce interface – very clean, very basic. I will be putting that through its paces probably tomorrow.

    I like the direction that MGSE is going in, namely the special effects that I’ve seen (I’m a sucker for eye-candy, what can I say).

    The new MintMenu is terrific. Nothing more needs to be said about that. One thing I would change, though… I want my “Administrator” and “Preferences” menus back. “Other” just doesn’t cut it.

    Unlike a lot, the top panel doesn’t bother me at all. I would like the OPTION to get rid of it should I choose, but overall, I think it’s okay.

    One problem came up: while tweaking the menu options, MGSE completely crashed out, taking both panels with no way to bring them back. After I rebooted, the buttons on the top right went from ” _ [] X ” to three round buttons which turn colors when I hover the pointer over them. The MintMenu also changed slightly. Mind you, I had just installed the updates, so this might have been the catalyst. Is there a way to bring the old buttons back? I like those better – those round things belong in Ubuntu.

    I’ll give more feedback as I work with it some more. So far, it’s good. However, it’s not the greatness that we, as the community, have come to expect from Linux Mint. It needs another solid month and a half AT LEAST before it’s ready for prime time.

    But like I said, I know it’s only a Release Candidate, and I’m proud to have been Linux Mint’s guinea pig :).

    Reply

  288. I followed the instructions here to remove the gnomescreensaver and install xscreensaver:

    http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-installing-ubuntu.html

    I also had a GUI lockup when adjusting the fonts scaling in advanced settings. Had to ctrol-alt-del then sudo shutdown -h now

    The Fonts scaling needs a window selector rather than just that slider, its to fiddly.

    My system: GA H55-USB3 motherboard, Core i3 first generation with 4GB RAM.

    Reply

  289. Is there a reason the isos are not hybrid like the Ubuntu ones are now ?
    Also the DVD isos no longer fit a 1 GB usb drive. I dont know if this is intentional.

    Reply

  291. For all those missing the classic Gnome 2x/compiz setup and thinking Mint 9 is the only option….
    Compiz works beautifully in “Gnome classic” mode!
    The bar remains at the top, but other than that, it seems to be a pretty pure 2x/compiz implementation.
    Been messing around so much in the last few days, I can’t remember if synaptic package manager is installed by default or not. If not just install it from the software centre, then use synaptic to install all the usual compiz stuff (addons, settings manager and compiz fusion icon). Then go to “applications/other/startup applications and add “Compiz Fusion Icon” as the name and “fusion-icon” as the command.
    If you want the “Workspace switcher” (bottom right bar) to recognise the desktop cube you will have to right click it and go to preferences and set “show all workspaces in 1 row” and “number of workspaces 1”.
    Then go to Compiz settings manager, select “General Options” and go for 4 on horizontal, 1 on vertical and 1 (strangely) on number of desktops. Activate “Move Window” in compiz settings too, otherwise the titlebar becomes inacessable due to the window placement under the top bar.
    Voila! Wobbly windows, spinny cube…all there and looking good. No need to go back to a previous version just yet! Sweet!!
    @ Clem…It would be nice if you could include this setup as default in “Classic”.
    Looks like I’ll be sticking with Mint 12.
    Thanks Clem and team for keeping even us old “die-hards” happy!
    Looks like being a fine release for everyone.

    Reply

  292. Wow, this looks like the absolute perfect solution for everybody! I’ve been using it in a VirtualBox for a little bit now, and it’s so obvious that it’s tailored with the users’ best interest in mind!

    I’ll definitely be downloading and installing when the stable release is out!

    Keep up the great work!

    Reply

  293. @Robin:

    Exactly.

    A Release Candidate is not an alpha. It’s not a beta. It is the very last kick at the can before final release and is there for the sole purpose of spotting any eleventh hour show-stopping weirdness.

    This is not a Release Candidate. It is an early beta, regardless of what it’s called. It is missing significant fit and finish to a large chunk of it, especially MATE.

    It is in no way, shape or form remotely ready for prime time. If Mint 10 were a 10 out of 10 this is at best a 6.

    Let’s keep things in perspective and call a spade a spade.

    For the record, this is being typed on a rock-solid-stable Mint 10.

    Reply

  295. I have been running Mint 12 for two days without a hitch, the third day the wheels fell off. Firefox ran very slowly, the icon for adjusting the screen brightness came up for no apparent reason and stayed there blocking the view. Could not get rid of it. Couldn’t move the screen down using the side bar or down arrow. Eventually the cursor froze and had to hold down the power button to get control. re-Booted and the same thing happened. Thunderbird was started first and seemed to run OK, next came Firefox with the above problems.

    I’m running a Samsung R519 LapTop with a dedicated 320GB hard drive, 3 GB ram and the usual dual core 2GB micro if that helps.

    I do miss the Date showing next to the time on the toolbar. I also miss the remaining GB on the device being used showing on the toolbar. Presently it is blank so no idea how much space remains.
    Is there a ‘tweak’ for this, wasn’t able to stumble across one.

    I’ve gone back to Mint 11 for the moment which is a shame.

    Reply

  296. @Jim D

    Keyboard commands? In the second decade of the 21st century? In a GUI? Really? Seriously?

    If a GUI needs that, it’s broken and needs to be thought out again – plain and simple. Else why have the GUI?

    Reply

  297. it seems you have a big fan here http://eyeonlinux.com/2011/11/13/sneak-peek-linux-mint-12/

    I reinstalled LMDE the day before you released 12RC, because I didn’t switch to your update packs and got Gnome 3, tried it for a few days and gave up, installed 11 and found it slow, then reinstalled LMDE with the update packs enabled now.

    So I’m looking forward to trying 12, keep up the good work (-:

    One concern is I always have the start menu/taskbar at the top, is this a problem in gnome3? I think so 🙁

    Reply

  298. Actually you can use only 1 bar. Dunno how I did it (I started enabling and desabling the shell extensions and I got this:

    http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3185/dunnov.png

    As you can see, the “Activites” button is now on the top right of the screen and you can click it to show the Activites, although if you point your mouse in the top left it will still open it as if it was there.
    I think what I did was disable the bottom bar, disable the menu, enable the menu since I have all of them turned on except for monitor status and bottom panel

    Reply

  299. Brilliant! I am so pleased to see the release at last. Thanks to all the team. I had downloaded version 11 LMDE, but will forgo that & grab this release instead.

    Thanks again 🙂

    Reply

  300. Does anyone know how to achieve what Dominick suggested while still getting necessary security updates when everyone finally rolls to Gnome 3?

    Seems like this would solve a lot of problems. This is first thing I tried desperately to do, but I couldn’t pull it off. That’s now seven posts for me, signing off.

    Reply

  301. I installed Mint12 RC without incident. Sound, and networking were good, video adjusted perfectly. Installed the 1+164 updates all in Gnome3.

    I tried out MATE and liked the old familiar interface. I thought about changing themes but saw dependency issues. Added workplace switcher and shutdown shortcuts to the single bottom taskbar. Unfortunately, some other favorites are not available.

    I missed “Giver” and the Mint Software and Mint Connfig menus in both setups and hope they reappear. Overall I like Mint12 better than Mint11. Thanks for making the best flavor Linux desktop _again_.

    Reply

  302. I just tried LM 12 and liked it better than other Gnome 3 distros.

    The question I have, is why do Linux users need a fully graphical interface when we have Windows and Apple OS available? Touch screen capability is offered with windows, is this the wave of the future and why Linux is moving to a fully graphical interface?

    P.S. I love Mint 10 and I am also enamored with Lubuntu as it offers superior audio capabilities due to a low-latency kernel upgrade.

    Reply

  303. This is slightly off the topic, but I think Linux Mint should address this subject: UEFI Secure Boot. This would allow Windows 8 computers to ONLY boot Windows 8! Canonical and Fedora as well as the Linux Foundation have already issued statements on this topic. This could be a serious threat to the future of Linux- the end user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot and install/boot the OS of their choice.

    Reply

  304. Still doing good on my laptop dell 1525 inspiron but it does crash hope this gets fix it just like both bars go away and theme still like every thing you have done with it keep up the good work so much better than ubuntu

    Reply

  306. -Selecting “Encrypt my home folder” leads to installation problems when user profile is created. The installer will crash.

    I can confirm … Host:ubuntu 10.04.3LTS Guest:VB 4.1.6r74727

    Reply

  307. @ shelley

    comment #223

    If this is an RC with so many bugs. Why release it at all.

    Previous RC releases have been usable. I remember trying out the RC of the current LMDE and it worked almost perfectly. Building Mint on top of Debian Testing is no mean feet.

    With Linux Mint being my favorite distro. for a few years now the Dev. of Mint 12 is something of a mystery. There is so much work to be done within the time frame the Mint Team have set themselves it is crystal clear it will not be ready in its present form.

    Clem

    A suggestion if you don’t mind

    Break away from the Ubuntu cycle and send out the Final release when it is properly ready even if it takes another 6 months. I fear releasing Mint 12 too soon will damage the reputation of this to date wonderful distro.

    You have all worked so hard to get Mint to #1 so why undo all that hard work now

    Reply

  309. I tried it and it is much better than regular gnome 3 interface. Mint as I like, compiz is missing, but gnome 3 interface handles also well.

    What is missing : Compiz(maybe it works in mate), mouse scrolling tab change (for nautilus or changing programs), control center is missing changing appearance -it is on gnome menu (some menus does not fit to window) , and stability issues – with nvidia and dual monitor xorg has crashed over 5 times in 2 days.

    RC is promising except stability issues and some improvements are required. Lets hope it gets released when it is ready, and then it is time to take over Ubuntus place.

    Reply

  310. In spite of the statement that changing search engines is now easier than before, the difficulty of “installing” google search engine prompted me to just make google my home page rather than bother with it. How do you think that kind of temptation might effect your revenue? Still think 12 fabulous!

    Reply

  311. More issues: Ticking the 3D box under VB416 leads to a flickering screen (same as under Ubuntu 12.10) … didnt have that on 2010 release!

    Reply

  312. Roj@256

    Yes, keyboard commands. In case you didn’t realize, keyboard commands are alive and well–although most people don’t realize that they even exist, let alone feel them useful. But the reality is, in many cases, they are a much quicker way to get things done–that is if you are willing to take the time to memorize a few useful ones. If you doubt that, I triple-dog dare you to test that reality on someone who is reasonably familiar with keyboard commands(not necessarily an expert). YOU WILL GET LAPPED AROUND THE GUI MORE TIMES THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT.

    I have had this discussion with my boss many times. He lives and dies with the mouse. All too often, I see him running back and forth from keyboard to mouse, mouse to keyboard, and so on, and it’s exhausting to watch. The absolute most efficient way to navigate your DE is via the marriage that exists between your keyboard and mouse. And when you find it, you will kick yourself for not finding it sooner. Believe it.

    So as not to totally discredit your post, I do agree with you on one front. The fact that a user is FORCED to use the keyboard for a particular function is quite likely due to a lack of development. The function itself is not broken, because it works with key strokes. It’s just that the GUI is not fully up to snuff yet.

    Reply

  314. Ray Woods is right. It is admirable that Clem have done an effort to make an OS for the desktop based on Gnome 3 (that is really for tablets), but the effort is still far from producing anything that people would like to use. Best thing to do is to create a gnome 2 based mint for the main edition, and maybe another spin with gnome 3. Mint already has too many spins for a small team to handle, but I see no other option at the moment.

    Reply

  315. Having used mint 12 RC on my production laptop for the last day and a half.
    This interface is brilliant.
    I hatted gnome 3 in fedora and could never seem to make unity works as well as I wanted.
    (I must admit that I have been using KDE 4.6 for the last 6 months)

    Clem, you and your team have just made one of the best UI’s out there.

    Looking forward to the final release.

    My only complaint is that the “encrypted home” option would trigger an installer crash.
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/889460

    Otherwise great work.

    Reply

  316. Installed MATE – seems to be missing menu choice for users&groups aka system-config-users

    Any chance to get session-save put back in – the gnome folks took it out

    Reply

  318. Wow! I won’t name names, but some of you need settle down to stop complaining. Linux Mint 12 hasn’t been released yet! At least some of the bugs will probably be fixed when Lisa is released.

    Clem, I have a wonderful idea. When the next Linux Mint RC comes out(KDE?), call it a Beta instead. Maybe more people will understand that.

    Reply

  319. After the second time of the menu bars going away, and then coming back with a downright eyesore of a windowbar (one thing that Mint has never been, nor should it ever be, is an EYESORE), I will join in the chorus in saying that Lisa is definitely not ready for prime time, and it will take a lot longer than the month and a half I optimistically gave before it will be.

    I’m not going to recommend using a different base than Ubuntu, but I AM going to recommend using a different release schedule. Instead of two releases a year, it should be only one. It will give the developers time to iron out bugs and flesh things out before the final edition gets released. Linux Mint is #1 for the simple reason that it’s easy to use, it works out of the box, and it just LOOKS so gosh darn pretty. Lisa’s pretty at a glance, but up close she’s got a LOT of warts judging from what has been reported and what I’ve personally experienced.

    After this, I’m going back to Mint 10 – that one always was my personal favorite.

    ~K

    P.S. Would it be out of line to ask for the splash screen back? I’ve always loved it.

    Reply

  320. As a proof of concept, this temporary distro works well. Clem, et al have done a good job.

    We now see the problems from experience:

    Gnome3/MGSE implementation with bottom menu is good eye candy, and it is workable but needs a lot of additions to the possible customisations. I want just the one panel, and I want to be able to locate it at any of the four sides of the screen. You should be able to put it anywhere on the screen, and to add additional panels if you so wish. I’m British. I want to set my date format to,
    e.g. Mon, 14-Nov-2011, 01:10:10

    MATE implementation isn’t finished yet so I’ll reserve judgement for a later time. It looks promising. I can set up the one bottom panel and the date format.

    Gnome Classic implementation seems to work but is very lacking customisability. I can set up the one bottom panel but I cannot get the colours satisfactory, and I cannot set up my date format.

    All three implementations allow me to set up a United Kingdom layout keyboard but I also want a Cornish layout. I have not tried this with Mint 12 yet. It works OK with Mint 11. Has the system for defining custom keyboard layouts been changed since Mint 11, in any of the three implementations? If so, how? Will it work just the same?

    I am relieved to see that the silly scroll bars of default Mint 11 have been corrected.

    I don’t like the completely blank black bootup screen. Please put something there to indicate that something is happening.

    Good work but not ready yet.

    I suggest leaving the new stuff for another six months. Mint 12 should be just a less buggy Mint 11 with new kernel and updated applications. I would also like to see more/better support for data encryption. I would also like to see support for BBC iPlayer. This worked with Mint 10 but Adobe has stopped supporting AIR on Linux.

    Reply

  321. @PB

    Your whole argument was self-invalidated by one statement that you made:

    “although most people don’t realize that they even exist, let alone feel them useful”

    If a feature isn’t used by the majority of users, there really isn’t much point in spending the coding cycles to provide it. There’s “essential”, there’s “nice to have” and then there’s “eccentric”. Who cares if it laps the GUI? It’s pointless if people don’t use it and let’s face it, in 2011 there’s absolutely no reason for an end- user to have to use the command line in a desktop OS. Admins and server-class OSs? Different story. As far as I can see, that isn’t Mint’s target audience.

    I work for a reasonably large organisation (about 14,000 users) and I’m a so-called backroom boy – a techie. The vast majority of the users spend their day in collaborative databases, email and office productivity tools like Excel, Word, Visio, etc. or a web browser. No command line needed or wanted. The end-user world has long since moved on from that and the marriage you speak of ended in divorce somewhere in the last decade.

    That’s corporate reality. Consumer reality is even more removed from the command line. Now I realise that certain elements of the Linux community are all about preserving that paradigm but the very existence of a Mint distro obviates that – and should for that flavour of distro if Linux ever wants to gain wider end-user acceptance.

    I will agree that the Gnome 3 GUI isn’t finished. In fact at this point I’d refer to it as an ill-considered mess that should not be released until it’s had a healthy time in the oven – we’re talking at least a year and that likely involves going back to the drawing board. Unity is an even bigger disaster – an inexcusable one. There are several GUIs commercially available that are excellent examples of how to do it right (Windows 7, Lion). There was a wonderful free and open example of same that arrived at that point over years of refinement (Gnome 2). That completely precludes any excuse for the current crop to get it WRONG.

    But they have.

    Let’s not sanction and validate that blatant and obvious error by attempting to put a band-aid on it, no matter how laudable the ideals behind such action.

    Time is a precious commodity and once spent cannot be reclaimed. I think it would be better to spend time providing a good user experience using proven technology until the artsy-fartsy boys get their act together and realise that the community drives them and not the other way around. Then we may see some useful progress – not band-aids.

    I realise that my viewpoint is likely to be unpopular and I hope I’ve managed to express it in a civil manner, despite the potentially disagreeable content.

    I apologise in advance if I haven’t.

    Reply

  322. AWESOME WORK BOYS!

    This RC totally rocks, you made an amazing job here!
    I first tried LM when it was at version 7 -I think it was code-named “Helena”- which already was cool for that time, then I played for some time with Arch (BTW I’m a former archer), Gentoo/Funtoo and Slack until three months ago when I got to switch to Debian-based (iuk!) systems.
    While Ubuntu 11.04 was the best-ever release of Ubuntu, 11.10 improved user experience and 12.04 promises to be the best Ubuntu of all times, Linux Mint adds a twist to it making Lisa the best Ubuntu/Debian based distros.

    It’s easy to see all the love and work put in this release, it looks and feels incredible, thank you Clem and team, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

    Waiting for the final release 😀

    Reply

  324. Hated 11 because customizing it caused me to lose window borders.

    Trialed 12.

    I lost my window borders when I attempted to add an app to my favorites. This is just ridiculous.

    Rolled back to Mint 10 – everything just works and works well!
    Even in the KDE version.

    I don’t see the point of this distro.

    Why is there an infinity button in the top left which opens the same menu as the mint menu in the lower left?

    Why is my top panel locked?

    Why does it only ever show one application in that bar? Yet the bottom panel shows all open applications.

    Why is there a bottom panel at all?

    Reply

  325. I would prefer to only have one panel (at the top). Customizable like in Gnome 2. Then I install docky on the left hand side because I have a 16:9 monitor and need more vertical screen area.

    Reply

  326. I lost my classic menu launcher from the bottom left corner after I update. now I only have infinity view from the top left corner. how can I bring it back?

    Reply

  327. Guys, I just solved a weird problem. GNOME 3 wasn’t detecting music CDs (store bought) at all, and I still can’t get any player to play them. However, on the LXDE desktop, Brasero does see and play them!
    I also had this same issue in Fedora and GNOME 3, but did not try other desktops. Now I wish I had.

    Reply

  328. Posting this from Mint 12 RC installed in Virtualbox!

    Pros: It works, and my Virtualbox install went flawlessly.

    Cons: The Gnome 3 interface is a piece of crap. The MintMenu that everyone seemed to love is gone. I can’t figure out how to get rid of the bottom panel and move the window list up to the top panel where I prefer it. Can’t figure out how to auto-hide the top panel. I *HATE* wasted screen space!!! These stupid interface issues will prevent me from doing a proper install and doing any real testing. I’d rather run KDE (which I am not comfortable with).

    Back to LMDE…and continuing to try new releases of Sabayon, Fedora, CentOS, and Scientific, and tweaking Backtrack to prepare it for use as a general purpose OS. Mint’s main edition is now off my list.

    Reply

  329. I am sorry to say, B U T this is the worst release I have come across in a long time (LM user since “8”). For example (for others see previous comments):

    Desktop not usable:
    SD-Card install … whether 64 or 32-bit ATI 4570 not recognized, GM on full load all the time, installing flgrx driver leads to black screen

    VirtualBox: 4.16 like Ubuntu leads to a flickering not workable screen when 3D is ticked, otherwise only fall-back to 2D mode, but then NO Mint menu

    Sorry, I am out of here (don’t wanna spend another xx hours downloading & for something which should work out of the box, which it did on ALL 2010 releases!!!)

    Reply

  330. Been using Mint 12 RC since I could grab a copy Thursday. I disabled the bottom panel and am very pleased with the desktop except the top panel icons are spaced too far apart and are too small, except for the update notifier which is huge, and the text in the panel is too small. Haven’t found a way to make the text larger. Other than that MGSE Rocks!

    Reply

  331. at Roj: Very well said … thats exactly my struggle I have with Linux for the past ten years. As an MD I cannot possibly be a computer wizard at the same time. Things need to work out the box or easily fixable.

    at msx: I don’t understand how s.o. can come to a completely diametrical conclusion to mine 😉

    Reply

  332. I agree with Nick (#276). I use Docky and usually have the menu panel on top. So it would be nice to be able to remove the bottom panel or change its location.

    Reply

  333. Roj@ 256, 273
    Gimme a break Roj. What is your beef with the keyboard?
    Page up, page down, arrows, and the start button are all keyboard commands that speed things along. We all use them.
    There are a few others the even slightly adventurous may employ that require two (gasp) keystrokes.
    Using them hardly implies the demise of the GUI.
    The “blue E leads me to the internet” crowd may be afraid of the keyboard but certainly not most people on this blog.
    Sorry but you pushed by (keyboard) buttons with that comment 🙂

    Reply

  334. ok, i tried it/// its is somthing refreshing. and it is good.. way better than ubuntu.

    i am currently using linux mint debian gnome 3.0.2 , and i simply love it.. it has the traditional desktop, and its quite stable too….

    for those who want the latest and traditional.. come to linux mint debian!!

    cant right click and cant make any icons on the desktop… i am sure mint team will find a way around this…

    still needs a lot of polish….. but a huge step from ubu….

    happy with debian mint now.. wont change till gnome 3 is refined…

    linux mint till the last!!…

    Reply

  335. Perdonen que no hable ingles, pero quería felicitar a los responsables de esta maravillosa distro.

    Espero con ansias la versión terminada para instalarla.

    saludos

    Reply

  336. Both gnome-power-manager and xfce power manager are gone and not in ubuntu repository – will Mint give us a way to set power mgmt settings

    Reply

  338. @Nick
    You can disable the bottom bar by turning off the appropiate extension in the “Shell extensions” category in Advanced Settings (formerly gnome-tweak-extension)

    @MintFan so I say, lol. I’m running RC 12 on an HP dv7 4287cl (look specs.) and it runs smooth out-of-the-box 🙂

    Reply

  339. I have still been regularly using the Mint 11 RC and it has been rock solid. There are numerous issues with Mint 12 RC on the same machine of mine that is running Mint 11RC.

    Screen freezes when trying to change font settings in advanced settings.

    No screen saver by default, unless you install one.

    No way to add launcher icons to panels.

    Mint Menu should be on the top panel, so we can do away with the bottom one or vice versa.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love Mint but this is further away from being ready for release than Mint 11 RC. I think that is understandable. There is a lot to work on because of the changes that Gnome 3 has brought.

    I still prefer LXDE by a long way, so fast and so stable.

    Reply

  341. I give you guys an A+ for effort for trying to please everyone (unlike Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE) but the problem is that this RC is just a big mess.

    Mint 11 was way faster, simpler and more intuitive.

    Mint Menu/Gnome 2 are essentially dead and now we must all mourn…

    Reply

  342. Instead of bundling a specific Adobe Flash plugin on the CD or DVD called “mint-flashplugin-11”, why not just have the latest “adobe-flashplugin” installed from the Canonical partners archive and let it be updated through that? I believe the Canonical partners repository has 32 and 64 bit versions of the plugin and is supported and actively updated.

    I say this because the Mint team will have to constantly update the “mint-flashplugin” in their repositories whenever a new official release happens to keep users safe. I’m just saying this a suggestion to make updating easier for the Mint team.

    Reply

  343. Coming back to Mint from using Gnome 3 on Fedora I am quite happy with the MGSE changes. Most of the issues I have with Mint 12 are actually Gnome 3 specific so I won’t mention them here; those issues exist regardless on which distribution you are using Gnome 3 on it seems. I’ve never used the MintMenu back when using Mint regularly so I did get rid of that little menu on the bottom panel. But I also got rid of that menu because it doesn’t show everything that is in the Activities menu.

    Application icons seem to duplicate in the Activities menu. Add to that the entire activities section is very slow in response at times.

    I don’t mind the two panel system. I could shut it off if I wanted to but I actually work well like this.

    For most of the issues everyone seems to have with Mint 12 so far, I blame the Gnome developers for starting all this in the first place. I’ve been using Gnome since even before Ubuntu came along, which is obviously before Mint as well. In the years of progression Gnome 2 really was home to me. With a few more polishing steps it could have been “perfect”. But watch out, here comes Gnome 3………

    Gnome 3 is still usable. I handle it just fine. However, a certain measure of happiness is no longer there. In another post several hundreds back a user suggested making XFCE the default on Mint. Not at all a bad idea.

    Reply

  344. @Tim (post 240) Thankyou very much, your advice solved the problem 🙂

    One Suggestion to the Mint team :
    Java applications run better with Open JDK Java 7 runtime compared to Open Sun Java 6 runtime in Mint 12 RC x64. The team should replace the currently installed java with JDK.

    Must say Mint 12 is addictive !!!!!!!!!!
    Keep up the good work.

    Reply

  345. I’ve been with Mint from Mint 3 to 11 so I’m a big fan of them no doubt. With that said, it looks like Mint has come to a crossroad. Myself, I jumped from Mint 11 to Ubuntu 11.10 with Unity…why? I like Unity because it’s different, new, and laid out pretty well. It feels like a move forward to me actually. As far as Mint 12 goes, I don’t want two panels so I’ll probably hold out with Ubuntu 11.10 until I see where this Mint 12 goes. Hope you guys don’t try too hard to impress everybody because that will be a challenge.

    Reply

  346. @Motech09 (post 289)
    You can disable the bottom panel using the gnome tweak tool, it’s one of the Mint Gnome Shell Extensions.

    Reply

  347. For those who think Mint 12 will be more stable with Gnome 2.32 than with MATE, I think you will find that the opposite is true. As we all know, the main Mint edition uses Ubuntu as a base. Since Ubuntu has dropped Gnome 2 in favour of Unity and Gnome 3, it’s not so easy to simply have Mint provide the Gnome 2 packages instead. The Gnome 2.32 packages are incompatible with the Gnome 3 packages that are in the Ubuntu repos. This would result in an OS where an update could potentially break the desktop.

    What would need to be done would be to rename the Gnome 2.32 packages so that they don’t get automatically updated to the Gnome 3 packages. This is what MATE does. Even then, it’s not easy to get it stable due to dependencies requiring Gnome 3. Look at Ubuntu 11.04. Despite it supporting Gnome 2.32 along with Unity, it was also possible to install Gnome 3, replacing Gnome 2.32. And even that resulted in a shaky OS.

    The bottom line is that Clem and the team are attempting to bring Gnome 2.32 in some form to Mint 12 and have it stable enough to actually be worth including in the release. MATE is the only way to go for this. I just hope people understand why MATE was chosen and not Gnome 2.32.

    Anyway, I use LMDE so I’ll be receiving MGSE further down the line. Can’t wait! I’m currently using stock Gnome 3.0 and so far it’s worked well enough for me. Would be nice if it was more configurable though. I suppose that’s what extensions (such as MGSE) are for.

    Finally, I know Mint 12 is requiring a lot more work to be done than previous releases due to the upheaval upstream. It’s understandable why this RC is less stable than usual. I also think it was released this early because it already needs a lot of feedback. It will help to make the stable release that much better. I wouldn’t be surprised if the level of polish needed would require a second RC in order to receive more feedback.

    Clem and team, keep up the good work, and take your time. Even if Mint 12 doesn’t get released until mid-December or even early next year, I can understand it because of the level of work required. It looks very promising even if it’s not ready yet. Props for giving people more choice!

    Reply

  348. Dev team, Could anyone give me answer for this: why Linux mint not showing splash screen(showing only black screen instead)? Is there any specific reason for this?

    I think users desperately need some kind of splash screen to know the system is alive and progressing. The black screen looking very awkward. If possible please tell us what should do to get splash screen back?

    Thanks in advance!

    Reply

  349. Congrats Mint team! I can see a ton of work went into this. You guys had a real hot mess to work with and you made something good out of it.

    I’ve been playing with Mint 12 booting from a USB stick. Here’s my initial impression.

    1. WOW! Big improvement in usability over Gnome 3 on Fedora. Which is to say, I can actually use it, period. The minimize button, “shut-down,” and the normal menu are all back. Great. Thank you guys so much. Those things right there are a major thing.

    2. I can see that you guys had a lot on your plates. There’s a sense of “confusion” in Lisa. It’s not confusing to use, but rather it looks like there are 2 different OS’s trying to exist on one screen. The themes are different – part shaded gray, part high-contrast black. It doesn’t look unified. Personally, I think the black looks better (though I like the re-styling of the top bar).

    There’s a re-vamped Mint Menu on the bottom bar and… GNOME 3’s app launcher on the top. I can see your rationale for leaving them both there, but again, I get a sense of an OS that isn’t quite sure what it wants.

    That fact that there IS a top and bottom bar. And again, I can see why you did this – apparently the top bar is difficult or impossible to get rid of. And you know that we missed being able to dock stuff, which we can’t do with the top bar. So I totally see why you have both. But it clutters my netbook’s screen. And they’re two different themes – the top is gray, the bottom is black. I’d turn off the MGSE re-styling of the top bar, but frankly, your design looks so much better… if only it weren’t gray! Perhaps the clutter could be reduced if the bottom bar “hid” until you rolled the mouse of it, or if the top bar integrated into a maximized window, like it does in Unity (I never thought I’d have anything good to say about Unity!)?

    This tug-o-war between GNOME 3 and Mint is visible all over the place. What you guys have done with GNOME 3 is amazing. It was terrible, and you’ve made it usable. But I can see how thin it spread you trying to do something with it.

    3. There is still a usability deficit. It’s vastly better, and it’s been reduced from “I CAN’T DO ANYTHING WITH THIS!!” down to “that’s mildly annoying…” but it’s still there.

    I can’t add quick launch icons to the bottom bar, or the top bar. Or at least if I can I don’t see how.

    I still feel like I have less control over the UI and how things work – even though it’s a million times better than Fedora’s GNOME 3, it’s still lagging GNOME 2.

    There’s still more stuff I miss, basically. Stuff I should be able to do.

    —

    Even though a lot of this has been “negative,” I am truly impressed by what you guys have managed to do with Mint 12. I really didn’t believe anything could be done with either Unity or GNOME 3, but you guys have done it. There’s a ways to go yet, but I am sure now that you guys can make it better than ever.

    I’m also glad you went with GNOME 3 over Unity. Most of what made GNOME 3 so infuriating was that there were parts of it that were so good… but they got lost in a sea of crap. Unity, on the other hand, really doesn’t have anything good that can be said about it. At least not if you’re using it on a device you plan to actually do stuff with.

    I will actually install Mint 12. I was suspecting I wouldn’t install a new OS until Mint 13 while you guys build the bridge across the cavern of GNOME 3’s deficits, but you’ve managed to cover all the big stuff in one release. That’s incredible.

    I’ve been using Mint for over 2 years now, and this is exactly why. You guys are simply the best out there.

    Thanks for all your hard work, and I hope my comments are useful.

    Reply

  350. Fedora was the first distro i used with gnome 3 and was not happy at all, i was surprised to see Mint 12 RC. I have installed it and have testing it everything works fine i have noticed some issues but they are known by other users/developers so that will fixed later when the final comes. Again and again Mint is mine distro many ubuntu users will also make the step to Mint so i am very happy with these Mint 12 and now LMDE also all the goodness then we are complete.

    Reply

  351. Oh man, so so close. Cat (above) has it right. You’ve gotten very close to making Gnome 3 usable, but it’s still a hair short, in my opinion. Even so, for a first release of these tweaks this is excellent. Just… not excellent enough to use just yet. :-/

    One thing I would like to point out, though, is the new mint menu thing you guys have made changes its width when you hover over certain submenus. Shouldn’t the menu width be fixed instead of dynamic..? It seems like a fixed size would make it a little nicer to use.

    I hope you guys can polish this even more for 13. Maybe I’ll finally be willing to use gnome 3 once you guys finish making it good.

    Reply

  353. @Peter/259, UEFI Secure Boot: If this goes into effect, IBM won’t like it, and they have some clout, it seems to me. There might well be a good market for off-lease and used machines (for a while), which should give enterprising manufacturers some time to develop non-UEFI product lines. Anybody for a restraint-of-trade lawsuit? (Security theater, and/or a very-severe cyber attack might tend to deter that.)

    =====

    Key commands: When you analyze in detail what it takes to use a mouse versus what it takes to strike a key, keys are faster, especially if you move your hand from keyboard to mouse and back. You might well have to look to see where the mouse is before you grip it. You grip it, your body’s position servo goes into coarse/large-move mode, (probably progressively) changes over to fine mode, then the pointer is on the target. Click, check that mouse is not at edge of working area, move back to keyboard, reposition hand to home (which isn’t, really, if you use QWERTY; top row is used more…).

    One advantage of mousing: Any time you click, your action will have an effect, almost regardless of where focus is. Key commands might require changing focus before they work.

    One tech. writer (iirc) was asked how she managed to turn out so much more work than the rest of her co-workers: She said she use[d] vi. Never had to move her hands away from the alpha keys. (I think vim is nicer, altho. I haven’t learned it.) Emacs has its place, as well; I’m not taking sides.

    Reply

  354. @ Cat:
    “I can’t add quick launch icons to the bottom bar, or the top bar. Or at least if I can I don’t see how.”

    Maybe I misunderstand you, but if you launch an application (try Libre Office CALC) and click top left corner (activities) You’ll see it in the quick-launch bar. Right-klick the icon. You’ll be asked if you want to keep it there. Choose that, if you want. Same way you can right-click any of the other icons and chose to keep or remove them. I removed Banshee and Terminal, since I never use them.

    Hope this helps you – if that was what you were missing. 😀

    Reply

  356. I have used Ubuntu since 8.10, each release has been better than the last. 10.04 was great, 10.10 – not used and 11.04 was ok with Unity. tried Gnome-Shell – did not like it and did not get what it was supposed to be. 11.10 was ok too but buggy, SO I made the jump to Mint 11. Its was lovely, it all worked, is was familiar and stable.

    I looked forward to what the dev’s could do with 11.10 and Gnome3. The posted images looked exciting.

    Well I installed Mint 12 into a Virtualbox and got it sorted to a point every second login would present a complete desktop.

    Well – after to using it for a day and trying to come to grips with what Gnome-Shell is trying to do – I have to say its very in-complete and very frustrating. I have to strongly disagree with the comments from some that Unity is a disaster. Its little wonder Ubuntu started on Unity. Its got a long way to go – but it has a clean vision of what it is trying to be.

    I am afraid that Gnome Shell is going to take another 12-24 months to get where it needs to get. It is so limiting it is practically useless as a OS to use on a Day-to-day basis.

    Don’t get me wrong – the Mint team has done a good job – but the truth is you cannot ‘make a silk purse from a sows ear’ – and that is what we have.

    This is a major mistake – some one said its like Linux’s Windows Vista or ME. I am afraid I have to agree.

    I am going to redo 11.10 as a clean install – must be better with a clean install.

    Goodness we are in a real pickle with this one.

    Reply

  358. If you want your Buttons on the left (Mac OS Style) you need to do this:

    sudo apt-get install gconf-editor

    gconf-editor

    go to “desktop > gnome > shell > windows” and change “button_layout” to:
    “close,minimize,maximize:” (without “”)

    with special thanks to leonidas

    Reply

  359. What’s with the 2 menus. This distro would looks amazing with just the bottom left menu. Why include the tablet style fat buttons shown within the top left menu too?

    Reply

  360. I’ve installed Lisa RC last Saturday. In many ways it is a Mint release. Installing it is smooth sailing. The codecs are all there. In a few minute you have a complete installation. On the desktop front, however, it feels out of place.

    The Mate Desktop shows promise. It needs to be Mint-ified a bit more, but it is our beloved Gnome 2. It has some rough edges, but no real show stoppers. Or I’m just really happy that at least a reasonable, sane Gnome DE is still developed and available.

    Gnome 3 with MGSE is another ball of wax. I appreciate the enormous efforts that were made to bring traditional elements to the Gnome Shell. It halfway acts like a normal desktop. That said, it also has glaring shortcomings.

    I fully understand that MGSE is brand new, young and probably underdeveloped. It doesn’t change the fact that the MGSE bottom panel currently is a very rigid and minimal panel. It shows the window list, but it doesn’t let you shuffle the buttons for instance. It has no additional applets, at least not that I could discover. The configuration options are also very, very minimal. In terms of familiar desktop amenities, it is sparse. On a functional perspective, it feels very (early) 90’s.

    I assume that, with time, the extensions can be made more featureful. They are very young after all. When that comes to pass, maybe Gnome 3 stops being a trainwreck. For now, it might be a good idea to designate the MGSE Gnome Shell a technology preview. Keep Mate as the default. It is better, warts and all.

    Reply

  361. Clem, could you considerate forget GNOME and use as “Main versión” XFCE desktop with Mint Menu manteining the look of Katya (But bottom bar please!)?

    The people choose Mint for the traditional desktop, I think continue using GNOME takes too much work and not is a good desktop to be nothing like a simple desktop, Why not support XFCE proyect to improve it?

    Again, sorry for my English (If you want I speak Spanish =P), and thanks for this version

    Reply

  362. I’ve been playing with Mint 12 last night and I realized when I log out, and then log in in MATE then I have normal only one bar at the bottom with Mint menu. I don’t know if it is planned like this, but for me is ok.

    Reply

  363. Installed, played for few hours with it, and now I will sudo apt-get purge Mint 12 from my HDD.

    I find everything eye candy and nice but at the same time I find having two panels with almost the same things on them counterproductive. It uses lot of space on desktop. I always liked Mint for being different from Ubuntu, with nice themes and one panel desktop and now when Ubuntu got rid of that bottom panel, Mint started to include two panels…WTF, I run from ubuntu because of that now I have to go back.

    Reply

  364. I installed Mint 12 in VirtualBox yesterday and have been scanning the comments. Overall, the installation went smoothly and I found the various desktop options usable tho somewhat buggy as expected. I prefer to focus on the big picture so here’s my two cents (ok, actually three cents+):

    1st cent) This reflects an amazing amount of effort and a genuine attempt at delivering a highly useful suite of desktop choices. I think you’re way ahead of the pack in this regard and I’m confident you’ll end up with the most innovative Linux distribution yet. Can’t wait for this to stabilize and be available for LMDE.

    2nd cent) There is so much work to do (and yet to be done), that it is unrealistic to think the Mint team can have a polished release ready in such a short time frame. I recommend that you take your time to get it right even if the final release is delayed a few weeks. We all have excellent Mint distributions installed right now, so no one can complain about a modest delay. Yes, this is really a beta and not a release candidate, but the folks who are saying that you should not release at all are ‘full of it’. That’s preposterous! Perhaps they’re envious Ubuntu developers 🙂

    3rd cent) I would probably ignore at least 90% of the negative feedback posted in the blog. Most of it comes across as petulant when it should be constructive. Obviously, I’d make note of common usability issues (e.g., panel customizeability and actual bugs). Otherwise, shrug it off and stay focussed on productive work. A good rule of thumb is the more frequently someone posts, the less credibility they should have (especially if they’ve threatened for the umpteenth time to abandon Mint for another distro)

    4th cent) Relax! This is with no extra charge….My main fear is that the Mint team is spreading themselves too thin trying to support too many distributions and I strongly suspect the real solution lies in jumping off the Ubuntu rubber ducky altogether…..I think Mint’s future lies in building directly on Debian and bypassing Ubuntu altogether…..

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  365. Roj@321

    My argument was not invalidated by what I said. What I said, was that keyboard commands are alive and well–which they are. Just because the majority of users don’t realize their existence or their usefulness does not make them dead. Perhaps I can clarify a little further. Do we need to compare how many people use a Windows desktop as opposed to a Linux desktop, or even OSX? Granted, you and I both know how well Linux works, and we continue to use it, and do whatever we can to help it grow. But the reality still is that Windows is in the homes and businesses of the great majority of people worldwide. And if we Linux users are completely honest with ourselves, then we know that’s not going to change a whole lot ten years from now–even at the rate of growth that Linux may be experiencing at any given time. Does this make Linux dead or invalid? I’ll let you answer that.

    I recognize full well that Linux Mint 12/Gnome 3 or whatever combination of platforms there may be needs tremendous work. I never argued that. Like you, I would rather see the Mint team get this “right” if at all possible, and this might mean delaying some things. But it’s better if we have a more complete picture of what’s actually “broken” as opposed to what just needs some tweaks to the GUI. If you want to call it “broken” who am I to stop you. But just so you know, from a technical standpoint, that’s not necessarily true.

    Personally my biggest complaints so far have to do with configuration options. The printer configuration tool is scanty at best. The Users and Groups settings are a joke. Not that screensavers are critical to productivity, but the lack of configuration options here too is just part of the pattern that’s emerging. And the more and more I try to configure critical components of my system, the more I realize I just can’t do things. But is it broke? That depends on what options the developers intended the user to have. In other words, things may be working just the way they were designed–like it or not. Hopefully, we will begin to see the things we’re missing as Gnome 3 matures. Or perhaps the Mate project will advance.

    I agree wholeheartedly with you on one key element. And in my own words, I’ll say that the next few steps that Mint takes with this and future releases will have the most profound affect–good or bad. Even so, I appreciate everything Mint is attempting to do in the effort to provide a usable desktop.

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  366. Roj@321

    And another thing, the keyboard functions come first. It would be counter productive to try to eliminate native functionality just because most people don’t use them. The keyboard is a core part of the system. The mouse is actually the “ugly duckling.”

    And “Who cares about how fast one can navigate the UI?” Did you really ask that question? Please accept my apology for not reading your post a little more thoroughly the first time, but that’s like saying “no I don’t want to save money on my car insurance.”

    Yes, the mouse has come a long way in functionality, and it continues to grow. And yes, it’s not as critical that we access the command line. But that’s where it all happens.

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  367. MGSE works superb! Congrats! Pls ignore MATE – its as good as not being there. Work hard to improve this in the coming releases. You reach the top!! Thanks.

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  368. Sweet!! Downloading it now to test it out! I had some slight performance issues on my netbook with Mint 11 so I’m hoping with the improvements here they’ll be gone. I recommend Mint to anyone looking to get off of Windows & looking forward to another amazing release!!

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  369. @PB 358 – It is my belief that to release Linux Mint 12 in its current state will do irretrievable damage to the project and will put at risk the loyalty of many of its users, both new and (like me) old. Gnome 3 is rubbish and not fit for purpose for regular desktop computers and their users. MGSE makes a far better attempt at repairing the damage done to the community by the Gnome Developers but, should only still be considered as “work in progress” and hampered by the restrictions imposed upon it by Gnome 3. MATE appears to be our main saviour but once again, like MGSE, it is still very early on in its development and certainly not ready for deployment in a popular mainstream distribution like Mint.

    Like Linus Torvalds, I think we should turn away from Gnome 3, perhaps then the developers of Gnome 3 will finally get (and understand) the message that the Community have no wish to follow them into Keyboardless Hell and their GUI for Tablets and telephones.

    Hopefully, the Gnome Developers will get this message and start coding for real computer users again. At worst MATE will quickly gain maturity or, another desktop UI will come to the fore. Then we can release a new edition of Linux Mint. Until then I feel we should do nothing. Both Mint 9 and 10 are being currently supported and are very stable, suitable for all users, except those who desire only the bleeding cutting edge; and they have Mint 11 and 12RC to play with.

    My advice Clem: do nothing, don’t release Linux Mint 12 RC as the next main edition; wait until the dust settles on the Gnome Desktop. By all means continue to develop MGSE and MATE and filter the improvements through to Linux Mint 12RC. Just please don’t release this disaster as a fully fledged Mint main edition.

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  371. for mint user who want more workspace in monitor and prefer bottompanel, i recomended install gnome-shell-extensions-autohidetopbar from ppa:webupd8team/gnome3 . For mint team, it sure to be hard to make everyone happy. take a time and release Mint 12 after very stable.

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  372. Clem,

    In post 358, I mentioned some things of concern that I found in Gnome 3. The printer configuration, and users and groups configuration appear to be lacking quite a lot of options that I’m used to seeing. This is also true of screen settings, but I’ve heard rumors that Gnome 3 meet be doing away with screensavers in the future.

    Do you have any input on how permanent these puzzling changes are in Gnome 3? Or perhaps I’m not familiar enough with Gnome 3 yet to have accessed further settings.

    Reply

  373. I’m waiting for the release with Linux Mint 12, but I’m already using the MGSE Stuff and I have to say: it’s good.
    It may be new and still a bit buggy. But it already works great. With it Gnome 3 becomes useable and I see myself using Gnome 3 more than KDE again.
    Sure, there are many features missing we knew from previous LM releases. But give it some time. I’m anticipating the LM13 release, hoping for some great improvements (and probably seeing LM regain it’s awesome usability it had in previous releases)

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  374. Although I shan’t be installing ‘for real’ until the formal release takes place, so far as I am concerned it’s already very impressive, working as a persistent (and rather unique) USBkey, routinely using the multi-virtual desktop MGSE desktop mode whilst quickly flipping into MATE mode for more obscure or rarely used commands.
    I have therefore been no need for a single, combined panel, but will defer to the team’s wisdom on that, whilst finding that a lot of the features reported as missing in this thread are in fact already there if you actually look for them !
    Now suffering from poorer vision, I agree that the top panel needs to be darker but have nevertheless found that the transported USBkey adapts very well to N455 Netbook use, with wired connection Additional Drivers finding and installing (aka Activating) its Broadcom driver, but then lacks Ubuntu Oneiric’s apparent ability to connect to my ‘Hidden’ Wifi network, which I will try to report in Launchpad.
    I then guess that due to it’s more efficient creation than Ubuntu, it’s more responsive and far easier to use than Oneiric, whose WiFi connection actually fails to complete due to another problem, so I’ll try again with Lisa, after un-hiding my WiFi network !
    So far as I am concerned, Clem and the team’s track record is unblemished, although I have yet to succeed in creating a persistent LMDE USBkey !

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  375. As a correction to my last ‘I therefore have no need for a single, combined panel’ and would also say that, as a persistent USB key from which I am posting, it’s already become my everyday distro of choice on all my PCs – it’s absolutely brilliant !

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  376. Ray Woods@362,

    Agreed. However, I will say that personally, I don’t really mind the Gnome Panel so much. It’s just another way to navigate your system. And it would work for a tablet just fine. I think they could do away with the Windows tab and just have the applications displayed along with the category selector. They could also leave the favorites bar. It’s nothing more than a quick launcher anyway. Bottom line: Aside from a few tweaks, the panel/dashboard thingy is really not that far from being useful to everyone.

    Where Gnome 3 loses me is in reference to the question I posted to Clem in 364. The configuration tools are way too simplified. That to me is absolutely critical. Not so critical, but quite annoying is the lack of a simple way to create desktop shortcuts. The Gnome 3 and Unity theory is to keep the desktop clean, but it’s my desktop. If I want to fill it up with crap, then let me do it. If the file manager is going to handle the desktop, then for crying out loud, let it handle the desktop!!!!

    I also noticed that the right click menu no longer contains the open as administrator selection. That is incredibly handy for those not so good with command line–like me.

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  379. The more i play with 12RC the less i like 🙁
    How to open folders as administrator?
    After adding programs to “favorite” menu, gnome “hung” i got no shell! I have to alt-ctrl-backspace and then i want just restart or shut down coz i dont know the pass “live session” and nothing happen, have to restart manually whole computer!
    Looking deeper in this distribution make feel really bad about Lisa.

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  381. Old mint user (since mint 8) playing with mint 12 for about 3 days…
    Well i must say i’m impressed by efforts mint team is giving in making Gnome 3 the way it should be. I think (like many others) Gnome 3 is the way to go IF we can reach back Gnome 2 usability : application launchers, gnome 2 menu, task bar, custom tray icons / indicators……

    Personnal query : i’m definitely not a big fan of MintMenu, i find good old gnome 2 menu way better and usable. I would love to see an extension which provide such a menu (Applications – Administration)

    I’m sure there’s a possibility to make Gnome 3 look and feel exactly the same as Gnome 2. Then the choice would be given the user to switch to Shell or “Gnome 2” look and feel whenever they want to.

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  382. edit : i really don’t understand why the hell Gnome developpers didn’t apply all functonnalities they have developped for Gnome 2 into Gnome 3, whatever Gnome 3 looks like !!!

    Where are opening folders as admin ? where are apps launchers ? where are……. ?

    All this time spent developping and improving Gnome 2 to just… forget it !

    I don’t understand…

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  384. After playing around with 12 rc for four days I’ve just fully installed the 64bit version on my lenovo x121e. It runs perfectly. The install went perfectly. Got rid of my dual boot linux mint 11 and windows 7. Brilliant. Really happy, and got used to gnome 3 with msge. Change is good, we can’t fight it all the time. It’s exciting and new and a different way of computing. I find it just as efficient. The RC runs better than 11 did on my laptop. Super fast internet. The mint menu, although changed, still does the trick and everything is easy to use, with a bit of change. Actually less keyboard commands than previously, with the same functionality- i.e. see all windows and programs used to be 2 commands, now it is only one This has what I liked about kde kubuntu, except with mint. Very happy with this. It’s simpler, with the same functionality if you alter your behaviour slightly. I wouldnt have gone for a full install with the rc otherwise. After an uncertain start while testing, this has completely ensured all my trust in linux mint, with the gnome 3.2. Great work. Mine is all updated after a really quick install and running brilliantly.

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  386. Daniel@372

    It’s nice to see your doing so well with the RC. I assume you have installed a wireless printer or something like that–maybe not. If so, I’m sure that went smoothly as well.

    Unfortunately, though, if one is supposed to use a .ppd file that they have downloaded, how does one point the printer configuration to that file? For example, the Xerox Phaser 6280 has a .ppd file that can be downloaded for use with that printer. How do I tell the system to use that driver?

    In other words, unless printer installation proceeds without incident, how does one tweak the process so the printer performs best? I have an HP Laserjet CP2025dn that takes forever to start printing with the driver that is automatically given to it. I have to pick a slightly different model from the database in order to optimize this. This also addresses a .pdf printing issue, where certain characters appears as blocks.

    Again, I’m glad for your silky smooth encounter with the RC. I’m sure you already do, but please realize that not everyone is having the same experience.

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  387. Installed in Virtual Box 4.1.6 Cant Get Gnome working with either the built in drivers (additions) or the oracle ones after removing built in ones.
    Mate and Clasic Gnome work ok but Gnome session with all the eye candy does not, screen breaks up, panels dont load, bla….
    Just for the record, mint 11 works ok, fedora 16 with gnome also

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  388. @ Cat and all those that mentioned that they don’t like having 2 panels…neither do i….all you have to do is turn off the bottom panel extension in the “tweaks” and re-boot or simply log out and back in…

    The mint menu goes to the top and so does the windows list (minimizing programs to top panel)…the only thing that doesn’t remain is the “windows switcher” but you can still use that by hitting the “infinity” icon on the top panel (which you will now see on the far right)…

    Simple as that! Problem Solved!

    Though ideally, i hope Clem will be able to somehow put everything into just one panel on the bottom for the default in the final release…if there’s a good working extension out there to allow him to do that…

    And people…please stop whining…it is very childish…gnome 2 is DOA end of story…it’s silly for him to continue releasing gnome 2 distros…they are going to get messed up if he does and then you will be crying about THAT…so “CHILL” already and just offer constructive suggestions on improving MGSE Gnome 3 because THAT IS THE FUTURE FOR MINT….accept that already and stop crying about the way things use to be…

    Also, remember that not all things are possible (at least yet) with gnome 3 shell using extensions….you should appreciate that at least gnome 3 and extension developers can make it in to a very customizable system…unlike with ubuntu’s attitude with the Unity where they tend not to listen to the community suggestions…

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  389. Linux Mint 12 RC Lisa
    I had no problem installing and starting it. All updates went through well without problems, and then I decided to install proprietary ATI drivers for my ATI Radeon HD3470. Immediately after installation my desktop turned into unreadable crap. I use Acer Aspire 5920 laptop. I never have had any problems with Linux Mint from version 7 on this machine until now. I did checked new Ubuntu and I had no problems with graphics there. I did also tried to re-compile drivers from AMD site for HD34xx series, but I’ve got same results. I have no clue what could be a problem, I hope that final version will have this bug fixed so I can enjoy new Mint!!!
    Apart of Video Problem it is the best Linux product available!

    Cheers

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  390. Had the same video driver issues – ATI Radeon 3400 – just got rubbish on the screen, then after changing drivers I’ve lost MATE and have Ubuntu 10.10 style menu.

    However am I missing something or can’t I add app links to my desktop ?
    If this is the case then what a (literal) waste of space but I hope I’m wrong.

    I’ll be back in Windows if these incessant “improvements” to Linux-based systems continue.

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  392. There’s an old saying that many of you are probably too young to remember: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”. The Gnome developers have decided that Linux belongs on tablet computers and smartphones. But have faith. Where there is code, there is always a way to modify it. The Mint team is doing a great job with that, and no matter how dark the shell seems at present, it will get better.

    Of the many recurring statements above, the one I most agree with is that the final release, even if it takes longer than usual, should be held in abeyance until Clem is absolutely certain it is a release he can be proud of.

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  393. @ Craig #374: Fully agree with you.

    Having used GNOME shell since 3.0 (Fedora & later on OpenSUSE) I must say, its ease of use has been increased manifold with MGSE. While adding shortcuts to panels would be nice, must say the Mint devs have truly come up with a novel solution. Glad to see that even with the extensions, i do not find any crippling instability.

    Read the last para of the post http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3.html (“Help me, Linux Mint, you’re my only hope.”)
    🙂

    [i might be in the minority. i’m DE agnostic & even like KDE (wish Mint released that more often). This sounds cuckoo, but I’m actually fine with the vanilla GNOME shell (& even Unity!). As long as I can use GNOME-Do + Cairo-Dock, i’m a happy camper :)]

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  395. Addendum:

    @tdockery97: yes, while using Ubuntu as a base is fine, Mint does not need to follow a rigid 6-month release cycle. Why not an 8-month cycle like OpenSUSE, or even longer if required? I truly respect the release-when-ready mantra.

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  396. Craig@374

    Perhaps you classify post 373(mine) and some other concerns that I have as whining or crying. I’m really not sure exactly which posts you are referencing. I know there is a flood of users shouting for a Gnome 2 version.

    But to be perfectly clear, I’m not clamoring for Gnome 2 myself. I just want to see very usable functions that were in Gnome 2 to be included in Gnome 3, or at least an improved version–not a lesser version. You mentioned extension developers and such. Well, that post would be my “constructive suggestions” to them and the Mint team.

    To be certain, there is no guarantee that Mint is GOING TO STAY WITH GNOME in any form. They may scuttle the whole Gnome thing entirely. It’s impossible to tell at this point. If Mint does decide to stick with Gnome, then yes, Gnome 3 is going to have to be embraced on some level.

    Mate could still be the future for Mint, and many other distros. You might be reminded of what happened with the Openoffice/Libreoffice saga. The point is that we can’t say for sure where Mint is going to end up.

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  397. It rocks! I especially liked the Gnome 3 which I was surprised to like. Mate needs some work like adding extras. But overall impression Yahoo!
    Of course it needs some work it’s an RC, but you folks are DEFINITELY on the right track. Thank you for listening to the desktop users of the world!

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  398. I really, really like how this is turning out. Keep up the great work Mint Team. You have great insight on the making a truly easy to use, yet powerful user interface for Linux. Take it where YOU think is best! I trust you. That is why it is becoming one of the most popular distros around. I’m telling all my colleagues and friends too!

    Looking for more great things to come from Linux Mint!

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  399. Installed Lisa on my laptop and was writing a story here in Firefox when suddenly the computer froze. Only the mouse was still moving but I couldn’t click on anything, had to use the off-button to switch off the computer.
    I wanted to write some things I had found which need attention:
    1) My Intel Ironlake Mobile GPU is always in Fallbackmode making it impossible to use Compiz
    2) Opening .deb files with Gdebi tells me the file is corrupt or I don’t have permission. Files have been used in Katya so they are not corrupt and I am the owner so I do have permission.
    3) How to make ctrl-L in Nautilus permanent? Conf-editor is maybe 1% of what it was and I can’t find the setting there.
    4) Paste in terminal doesn’t work
    5) Having 2 panels is unnecessary and uses way too much space on wide-screen monitors. One at the bottom is more than enough.

    It looks like Gnome is going the same wrong way with Gnome 3 as Microsoft has gone with Windows: they tell you how to use your computer. I always thought in Linux it was all about choices. The choices are gone, there is so little to customize in Gnome 3, it just takes all the fun out of computing.
    In post 192 I wrote about a meeting with Gnome and I still strongly believe this meeting should be planned a.s.a.p. Gnome 3 is killing Linux and this has to stop right now.

    What Clem and the team have done to make Mint 12 work is terrific, but it should not have been necessary: Gnome 3 just should never have been born.
    Isn’t it possible for someone to take over Gnome2 and keep it alive? I mean it works great, so many people have used it and still use it until they have to let go because the distributions chance to Gnome3, it really should be kept alive. If Gnome doesn’t want to do it, let somebody else do it.
    Or we all change to XFCE, LXDE or KDE. I hear great things about the first two, haven’t really used them myself to be honest.

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  400. @DeMus: XFCE and LXDE are very lightweight and kind of bare bones…you have to do a lot of changing to get them anywhere close to the old gnome 2….
    For all you customization lovers, you may want to consider kde as it it has so many customizations available on everything it will make your head spin!

    I’ve tried it several times and as pretty as it is, i never really feel comfortable with it…it has kind of a “weirdness” about it that is hard to put into words (which i find gnome does not)…and it still has it’s bugs even though KDE4 has been around some time already…

    Gnome 2 just can’t be maintained…MATE is trying to provide a way to keep it going but who knows if it will work out in the long run or if even it will survive…like it or not…gnome 3 is the way it is and will be…
    Clem and other extension developers will try to make it as usable as possible.

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  401. I left ubuntu cause of UNITY…bad bad really bad what canonical did with ubuntu. I appreciate the simplicity of Mint and how it works. Gnome has lost the clue of what usability is and created a monster that is very difficult to tame. I tried Xubuntu and I’m really enthusiast about XFCE. Works good, very light and fast, customizable… Maybe a good choice should be Mint with XFCE…back to old fashioned trusted way of computing.

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  402. Craig@379

    How can you presume unequivocally that Gnome 3 is the only way? Are you the official spokesman for Clem and the Mint team? Even if you were, that doesn’t mean that what you say goes. If you know something I don’t, please, enlighten me.

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  403. What happend to the nice start menu in Mint 11? this looks dull and black. and its hard to install on computers with small screens becouse the windows dosnt fit the screen :/

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  404. MATE Panel keeps disappearing. I have now reinstalled 5 (yes 5) times. If we can’t have Gnome 2 I will have to do with MATE and lump it . I have no interest in using Gnome3/MGSE

    Does MATE support Compiz

    If MATE is to be a replacement for Gnome 2 then I expect it to be as stable.

    Or even better is an optional Gnome 2 release going to become available during this massive transition.

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  405. It’s simply amazing and wonderful!! It sometimes crashes, it’s not so stable still. It freezes and the only way is turning off the machine. Hope it will be fixed in a short time!

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  406. After a couple days I’m finding I like the “Minty” Gnome-shell.

    It’s just the little things that Clem and the team have added that make it use-able…

    -Bottom panel…very nice! Just wish the 2 panels could be one, but not the end of the world if it doesn’t work.

    -Alt-Tab – this is big for me! The reason I use alt-tab is so I DON’T have to use the mouse. What were the Gnome Devs thinking? Thanks for fixing it Mint team!

    -Shutdown menu – Why oh why would someone want to remove this???

    I find MATE has too many bugs, and I personally like the Minty Gnome-shell. I’d just like a few more tweaks to be efficient.

    – Add context menu in MintMenu again – I liked being able to uninstall an app right from the main menu, or make a shortcut, etc.

    – Alacarte should be incorporated right into the OS

    – Add launchers to the desktop again

    All that being said, the MAIN reason I use Mint is not because of the layout of the desktop – it’s easy to change that. It’s because all my hardware works with ZERO issues “out of the box”. Mint is so much more than a just skin over Ubuntu…it’s Ubuntu that WORKS.

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  408. No two tool bars please! I hate that. Having a bottom tool bar is the reason I choose mint over Ubuntu. I think I will stay with mint 11!

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  409. Impressive. Sure, rough edges in RC. But it doesn’t take a MintHead to see how hard you folks have worked on this & how much goodness you’ve added to make the UI experience richer, easier, better. It’s also impressive to me how generally responsive the team is to questions & suggestions, & how they ceasily work to try out & improve the whole package. Nothing else quite like it out there. Thanks Team Mint! 🙂

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  410. Congratulations to Clem and the team. Lisa is a nice slick usable desktop that works out of the box. It would be even better though with the option to run in an alternate mode that restored right click functionality and user config options. Maybe “base mode” and “advanced mode” can be added to the design concept down track ???

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  411. Clem- please change the default search engine from DuckDuckGo to DuckDuckGo (SSL). This is a great search engine. Why not go all the way and have maximum security of SSL as default?

    I find that when using Firefox everything appears too crowded at the top due to one too many toolbars. Could two of the top toolbars be combined into one, or could you activate the ability to delete the lowest of the top toolbars (Most Visited, Forums,ect.) to give more room?

    Can’t wait for the final release!

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  412. I’m using Linux Mint 11. WILL it update on it’s own like Ubuntu usually does when the upgrade is final? OR will I have to reformat the Entire Drive it’s on in my dual Boot to replace it? Can’t I just use the .iso on disc to Install it Over Linux Mint 11?

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  413. Great work! Just as MasterPJ mentioned a few posts above, i removed the bottom panel, logged out and in again. Everything moved to the top panel, which is semi-transparent and mixed well with a new, darker wallpaper i used. It looks great and i can now work with it. Good job!

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  414. Congratulations Mint Team!!

    I’m testing Mint 12 RC right now, and it’s working perfectly!
    No bugs, no problems.
    And I’m using by a live DVD and it’s so fast!

    I’m waiting for the Final Version.

    Continue improving this great distribution!!

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  415. @sailor8
    Thanks for your tip. I had exactly the same problem, and had simply installed the recommended driver and catalyst control. Worked and looked ok, but I suspect, it may have been the root cause of a few minor little niggles that intermittently cropped up. Followed your tip and installed the latest Catalyst from AMD support site. Installed, rebooted, and working a treat. Hopefully, the minor niggles will also sort themselves out. Thanks again 🙂

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  416. I now have the 32-bit RC installed on one desktop (eMachine), and the 64-bit RC on a Toshiba dual-core Turion laptop. My first thoughts:

    Proprietary video driver issues bit hard in both attempts (the eMachine uses nVidia and the laptop uses Radeon). Had to do fully two installs from DVD on both to clear things up. The Radeon driver did some really funky things, like dropping characters in the middle of words, skewing splash screens like trapezoids, and blanking out both the upper and lower bars. Even the open-source Radeon driver has issues, though not as bad. Sometimes the screen “blinks” and the bars disappear momentarily, when I click the “Menu” button in the lower left.

    The 64-bit RC does not seem to be quite as stable as the 32-bit, and sometimes feels like it is struggling.

    I run Wine on all of my Linux machines for a few programs, these two machines included. Thanks for using the 1.3.28 build in your archive, as the current build (1.3.32) has a bad bug. Both versions of 12 run Wine nicely.

    I’m really getting used to the workspace switching of 12, when running multiple apps. It’s almost like having multiple monitors!

    Another laptop and a desktop are running 11, so for now I have a side-by-side comparison of the two. It’s so much easier to get used to the differences between 11 and 12 than it was between U11.04 and U11.10, which feels like an adulterated kludge, or even an afterthought.

    Looking forward to the ‘full version’ of 12 when it gets released, so I can do a more simple (data-saving) upgrade of the 11’s.

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  417. I just installed the RC fully. Awesome ! Almost all work on my lenovo notebook.
    Besides the MINT GNOME have better look and even functionality than classic gnome.

    Awesome, LM will be No1 🙂

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  418. I don’t know if gnome 3 will be the future, but for sure this is not the present (with or without extensions)
    What happened to the right click full of options (panel and desktop)? Even win can do it.

    I feel just like someone from hell entered my pc telling me “you should not work like you do, I will tell you how you must work”

    I’m not a mouse clicker, I’m just a computer user

    Mint team you gained your reputation the hard way, hope you are not going to lose it the easy way (ie 40%) The decision is yours

    Some people say gnome 2 is dead. Maybe right but the funeral is going to last a long time. Just like when xp died

    I’m using lmde and arch with gnome2, I moved away from ubuntu (bugs and resources)

    Suggest Lisa to win users? No way, I like this people

    I vote for no release with gnome 3 (or mate or extensions)

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  419. Very nice direction. Its working impressively smooth for an RC. I’m definitely all for it. Fantastic work Mint Team!

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  420. Hello Mint Team,

    I have tried the 32-bit RC via Live-DVD yesterday. Sad to report that it crashed continously. Upper and lower (task-)bar disappeared. Only the wallpaper and the desktop icons were left. It happened every time after I had clicked on “Menu” and wanted to choose an application. Also no option to close opened windows (like Nautilus) because of missing “-” and “x” in the upper corners. Basically the frame of opened applications/windows had disappeared. Could this be a problem with MATE and what you are refering to in “Known Problems”?

    Gnome 3 is definitely different, still, once these problems will be dealt with it could be promising. But I strongly recommend not to release the final version of Mint 12 before this issues are solved!

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  421. Well, I’ve had some fun with this over the last few days, but I think it’s way too early to release it. My thoughts are: 1) Rename this ‘Alternative Desktop beta’, 2) Release a revamped Julia and earn lots of happy new users.

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  424. I’m just loosing hope on linux.

    After a long struggle settled down to mint 10. Unfortunately my laptop had stolen.

    Now bought Acer Aspire 5750. Julia not supporting all drivers. And the current situation…not a single distro available for headache free ‘WORK’.

    If M$ can extend XP support to 2014, why not mint team release revamped perfect 10 Julia?

    Waiting for the decision of Clem & co. as well ‘ll give a try Pinguy 11.04. If those last hope gone blank…pardon *nix, I don’t need freedom anymore. I need a system that works.

    Reply

  425. I’m losing hope as well. Can there please be an ‘Alternate Install’ for Mint? One that will look for a SATA ‘RAID’? I can’t even get a Live CD to boot up. Fails at modprobing the drives.

    Terminated — dev/dm-1 – No such file or directory.

    Ubuntu has an Alternate Install that doesn’t require a live x environment to go through an installation which recognizes a sata raid configuration (though figuring out where grub loader needs to be placed can be enormous pain).

    Can Mint 12 have something similar? More and more machines are coming with fake raid configurations from the factory, may as well make it easy for folks! I’d love to try it…

    Reply

  426. Another comment:
    RC 12 64bit works superb. Fastest computer I have ever used. Loading web pages and documents is in a flash. Less than a second (Lenovo x121e). However, power consumption is not very good with this RC and needs sorting out. There is also a small problem when transfering application icons to the quick launch bar, with windows manager sometimes crashing. These are negligible. But the power issue does need sorting out. I was though happy to do a full install of the RC version over my dual boot linux mint and windows 7, so that’s saying a lot about the stability and ease of use. Great work.

    Reply

  427. I agree with a lot of the comments above. While I believe this is a better path than what is currently out there with gnome 3, I still dislike it approaching hate. I use linux for its customization/versatility to improve productivity. While this is a better path than what else is currently out there, it would still hinder my productivity.
    This should be labeled a beta and probably skipped until the next release. There just was not enough time to implement the concepts.
    I agree with the others, perhaps go back to Julia and upgrade the kernel for a release while still working on Lisa for a future release.
    With that said I would like to still emphasize how good of a job the mint dev team did. There was just not enough time. I understand gnome 3 is the future, but it still needs a ton++ of work! I think a wiser choice with this release would to have stuck with gnome2 to pull some more users from Ubuntu and give a bit more time for the devs to get MGSE and gnome3 working better together.
    I look forward to future work and will continue using mint, just probably not 12.

    Reply

  428. I had troubles installing the RC12 64bit on my computer because I had one UFS-partition with FreeBSD. The installer quit because it couldn’t mount this partition (missing driver module). After deleting this partition with GPartEd the install went ok. I installed to a former Mint11 partition and was surprised that – even though it was supposed to format the install partition – the old home directory was still there. Hence the format option in the install doesn’t work.
    After the mandatory updates and switching off the bottom bar AND installing the ppa for the top bar autohide the system runs fairly stable and quick.
    What still needs to be fixed is the Fglrx driver plus a whole bunch of administration tools (options what to boot, resorting the menus etc.)

    Good work so far!

    Reply

  429. @379 Craig Says
    “Gnome 2 just can’t be maintained”

    Do you give up so easily? We should all fight this, fight this against Gnome. They are responsible for this mess, they should clean it up. It’s not that people like Clem & Co should find tricks to make it work somehow, Gnome should bring back Gnome 2 so we can go on the way we have always done. If not, then forget about Gnome completely. Don’t use it anymore. Improve the other DE’s and work with them. They will be happy to help.

    Reply

  430. Great! I have been playing with it in VirtualBox by doing crazy things such as installing all mainstream desktop environments (and resulted in the 3rd reinstall since I often wrecked the whole system). It worked nice and beautifully.

    Reply

  431. Sad to report that none of the four ISOs would install with ‘encrypt home directory’ enabled. But based on what I’ve seen running it from a live media – great work yet again and thanks to all the developers! Looking forward to installing the final or the RC if someone would have a workaround for the crashing installer.

    Reply

  432. I assume Enterprise Distributions are not jumping ship yet, Enterprise systems just don’t work that way. Cutting edge software is not for them, they demand stability. The same should apply to Linux Mint. If Enterprise Distributions can retain established, respected and stable desktops, why can’t we?

    Reply

  434. I would settle with Gnome 3 Shell Classic (Fallback mode).
    It is very stable, up to date and customizable to look like Gnome 2.3 (only one bottom panel). You can even have compiz and all effects.
    Just check the forums and see how to do it.

    Reply

  435. mint devs – is it possible to include the realtek r8168 driver?
    I and a few others who are using most current distros are having issues with installing this driver just to get the install going at a useable speed.

    Reply

  436. I just want Gnome 2 back 🙁 Also in the future. I wat to be PRODUCTIVE with my computer. I don’t care about bling bling!

    Reply

  437. I don’t know where to put specific feedback on Mint “Lisa” RC.
    But this seems to be a good place…
    Im running Mint live USB with UNetbootin and tried to start libreoffice but it gave me a fatal error:
    {
    The application cannot be started.
    Failed to updatefile:///home/mint/.libreoffice/3/user/extensions/bundled/lastsynchronized
    }
    Could someone reproduce this, to confirm a possible bug?

    Reply

  439. I agree with only having one panel. One on the bottom. I’ve auto-hidden the top panel using an extension I found on WebUp8. I would still like to have the system tray and clock visible on the bottom panel though.

    Reply

  440. Actually, just turning off the bottom panel is acceptable. I didn’t realize that the task manager would move up top if I did this.

    Reply

  444. Well I am sorry for the “idiotic” term. I was just angry.

    I want the window manager to be helpful there in the corner, and not forcing itself upon me… it is a time to move on to another distro.

    Reply

  445. Very beautiful! I’m happy finally trying Gnome3. I disabled all feature of MGSE to have a full gnome3-experience.

    In this release note there’s no indication about italian Mirror GARR, usally presente in the mirror list of linuxmint.com
    Hope it’ll present in the realease notes of stable edition.

    Regards!

    Reply

  446. I like MATE environment ( PERBEROS must chose more interesting name for his desktop environment and don’t have simbol yet. OK it,s new).
    I am just person who did’t like to much eye candy.
    Hope in the future mint team added : cltr+shift+T open terminal, network information, search apllication from menu,screen saver, right click folder to open as root or open in terminal .
    I encounter bug from katya , aplet panel cannot be loaded ( just one time ).
    Vote a single bottom panel like old mint.

    Reply

  447. I’ve mentioned it several times on this blog, but for me, top panel, bottom panel, side panel–it doesn’t matter. I can work with whatever. Things don’t need to look the same for me to figure out how to launch apps/close apps, etc. I’d like to think I’m not a robot in that regard.

    However, my biggest concern is hardware and peripheral configuration. It is sorely lacking. I actually spun up a live session of Opensuse with Gnome 3. Somehow, they managed to include the printer config tool that I’m used to–you know, the one with all the very useful options. The User account setup is still an abomination as is the screensaver config. I really don’t understand why taking these configuration options away is going to help those with devices that need some tweaking for best results.

    I will also encourage anyone here to take a look at the top 30 distros on Distrowatch and notice how several of them have dropped their development of the Gnome DE. Some of them never even started with Gnome. At any rate, PCLinuxOS has halted development at this time, but is stating that they MAY resume development in the future. Mandriva does not have it at all anymore, and makes no mention of future development. Of course Ubuntu went their own way with Unity. Even though Unity is far worse than Gnome 3 on many levels, I have to ask: Was/Is Ubuntu actually on to something? True, their first attempt at a self maintained DE appears to be a flop. But did they see this mess coming with Gnome, and for that reason they figured: Well it’s going to be a mess anyway. Why not make it our mess? At least Ubuntu would have complete control over it. And if they wade through the storm of change, then Unity just might come out smelling like roses.

    These other distros that have dropped Gnome have put their resources into KDE. While KDE is a resource hog, I don’t see why it couldn’t be trimmed way down–providing the level of configuration that Gnome once had, but not loading it up with too many options. Out of the box, I have found many distros enable KDE with so many different desktop effects, that it almost lulls you to sleep with the lazy way that windows fade in and out, etc. It’s like the drama queen of DEs. But I feel certain that a reasonable level of customization from the distro developers can make this a very usable and pleasant desktop experience out of the box. We know that Clem and team are capable of adding extensions and such to Gnome 3. But how far can they reasonably go with that? Wouldn’t it be easier to take something that is completely overblown by nature(KDE), and trim the fat to a nice, resource friendly, functional desktop?

    Reply

  448. I have only just read that there is MATE. That’s very cool.

    I am sorry again for my premature opinion… Mint is thankfully configurable.

    Reply

  449. have been using Mint 12 RC for a while now, i was wondering whether it is possible to uninstall MATE as i prefer GNOME 3. I have never logged into the MATE session and never will. This will free some disk space.
    Mint 12 is the best thing happened in the linux world. 🙂

    Reply

  450. Thanks devs ..

    After 2 days working , something is a litle strange and new to me ..

    But its seems to be amazing … Soon i will love much more ..

    LinuxMint the best distro ..

    Reply

  451. PB, do realise what is the typical way of reaching the window menu of a maximised window?

    Move the pointer to the left up corner and click. it is very easy, because the pointer stops there –> no need for precise hunting.

    Oh well, does not work because someone decided to put the “move window” function there. Even that almost anyone, I guess, does the latter rather by moving the pointer to the top, and not to the corner.

    The “side bar” on the left? You have a choice – either it takes the screen space or you need to wait for a moment until it “unhides”. Just a about a second, but these seconds adds up to minutes over time of nothing but idle waiting for a widget to show.

    And there is much more of such details, which you seem to disregard with the sentence “I’m not a robot”.

    It is not so much about “figuring it out” – it is about a comfortable, ergonomic desktop, that takes into account the many layers of human interaction with the screen or the mouse.

    And did I say, that Gnome’s dialogs stopped to fit on 600px screens,
    thanks to a lot of “pretty space” in them? But Gnome Shell, along with Unity, target mobile devices, eh?

    Reply

  452. I tested Mint 12 as a live DVD (64 bit) on a Samsung RV 515 Notebook with AMD E350, 15.6” / 16:9 display.

    This was my 1st experience with Gnome 3, after many years with Windows XP on different computers, about 1 year with Puppylinux on my EEEpc 901, and some delightful months with Mint 11 on the Samsung. So I don’t know for shure where the Gnome core ends and where MGSE starts.

    I think Clem and the Mint team did a great job. They took the right decision at this stage to open so many possibilities to the user to handle Gnome 3 and to preserve basic elements of Mint. My first impression was fine. However, after a while I started being confused by this somehow inharmonious co-existence of two environments and being annoyed by the lack of vertical space on my screen. There were also some stability issues, i. e. inactive mouse/touchpad keys, which can hopefully will be fixed in the final release.

    IMO the Mint users have to face the fact of Gnome 3 and to accept it as an established and quite widespread environment. That said, there is still much room for improvement in terms of usability, but that should to be done in accordance with the Gnome 3 approach, avoiding duplications such as Mint Menu (as it is to date) or windows buttons in the bottom panel. It seems useless to stick to Gnome 2. Users who prefer the “classic” desktop should turn to XFCE, LXDE, or MATE, and maybe the Mint team should strengthen their efforts on these editions to make them more usable. Time will tell which one will be Mint flagship.

    BTW, improvements:

    I think this goes to the Gnome developers (if they ever read it): The previews on the Windows screen seem to be ordered in a chaotic way, they should be grouped by applications. The preview titles (tasks, not applications, please) are hardly readable, the red “close” buttons look like being cut off. Snapping windows to the left/right margin of the display is great, something that I envied Windows 7! In the Applications screen it’s a pain for mouse and especially touchpad users to start from the upper left “hot” corner and to move across the screen to the category list and back to the application. Please add context menus and customization!

    I haven’t tested it yet but Docky seems to be a good (= configurable, hideable, movable, nice-looking) alternative to the recent MGSE bottom panel which allows for one-click-opening of favourite applications.

    The important advanced settings menu for MGSE should get a nicer looking and more user friendly, self-explaning GUI.

    Reply

  453. art@446

    To clarify post 443, everyone has their own specific reasons why they like or dislike a particular component. You and I are certainly included in that group. But the “robot” comment merely emphasizes the fact that so many people suffer from a syndrome regarding change. If one little thing is just a wee bit off, people tend melt down. It’s the people that become broken, not the product.

    True, there is plenty to dislike about Gnome 3, but frankly, I feel my concerns are more critical than yours. Any annoyances that I find with where the menus button is, or top panel/bottom panel placement can wait for me personally. You’d be lying to yourself and everybody here if you said you felt differently about YOUR concerns.

    Reply

  454. I used linux mint since version 7 “Gloria” and always thought linux mint the most pleasant and convenient distribution linux.

    I use Linux Mint as a primary operating system, not only at home but at work – I’m convinced the leadership of our organization, that Linux Mint – the best choice.

    However, if the final release of Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” will not change, will have to stop using Linux Mint.

    Gnome 3 awkward, ridiculous and non-functional working environment. Unfortunately MGSE can not fix it. With regard to Mate – it is not yet stable.

    Since the release of Linux Mint KDE desktop not – will have to choose another distribution.

    Goodbye Linux Mint! We’ll have to choose OpenSuse and KDE.

    Reply

  455. @PB

    The top half of the display in front of you is likely closer to your eyes, and more parallel to your retina, so to say, in comparison to the bottom half of the display.

    It makes it generally *slightly* better for performing tasks, and this even without the LCD screen’s feature of dimming things seen at an angle.

    So, is the top/bottom bar issue merely an irrelevant detail, and people “suffer from a syndrome regarding change”, if you put the bar to the top?

    The people might just, even subliminally, want the bar to be placed at the most distant and “inconvenient” part of the screen, and the apps they look at most of the time to be placed slightly higher. We might go further – perhaps the bar is “less intruding” if it is the, physically, most distant widget on the screen, and it in turn might make it easier to focus on the actual application?

    In an ergonomic, well-thought UI design, the apparently irrelevant details might appear to matter a lot.

    Reply

  456. ketan@445

    Just use synaptic quick find to search for and remove all Mate applications and libraries. On my system only sgml-data came up that did not appear to be be directly related to Mate, so I left that. Everything still working fine.

    Getting used to Mint 12 and have customised it to my liking. I’ve been using Linux since 2004, Ubuntu until 2010, then Mint 9, 10 and 11. I don’t like Unity.

    Gnome Shell is now working quite well. Appearance and behaviour can be customised with Gnome Tweak Tool and extensions, which are steadily growing in number.

    It takes a while to get accustomed to new ways of working but after a few days I’m really enjoying Mint 12. I’ve turned off the bottom panel, changed themes and fonts and added a couple of extra extensions from Webupd8.

    I prefer to move forward with Gnome Shell rather than cling on to Gnome 2. At least with Mint 12 we have the option to do either.

    Reply

  457. Yes, a lot of work will be required to get a desktop as good as Gnome2.
    To save all this work, why not just reintroduce it again.
    Gnome3, KDE4 and Unity all give me the same feeling as what Windows did before I changed to Linux i.e. I am not in control.
    I have installed Mint 12 and it is disappointing that it is not really user friendly. It will be replaced by Mint 9 Xfce which I have been trying out recently. Xfce is incredibly customisable and just works smoothly in the background.

    Reply

  458. Now or later feature request: encrypted partitions. I work for a hospital and all laptops must be encrypted. The InfoSec group will not accept just encrypted home directories, it’s got to be the whole thing. Fedora and Ubuntu have it, and I can do it with a LOT of arm waving with Linux Mint, but I want something easy and supported.

    Reply

  459. art@448

    I didn’t say that YOUR issue wasn’t significant or irrelevant. Rather, the implication was that MY issue is of GREATER significance or relevance to ME. I used the word “more” in front of the word “critical” for good reason. I didn’t want you to think that YOUR issue was of ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNIFICANCE OR RELEVANCE. It was of SOME significance or relevance, but does not possess the same degree of significance or relevance to ME.

    Gosh, I hope I made my point perfectly clear. Nonetheless, I’m sure someone will take it out of context.

    That being said, I ask the following question: Isn’t the purpose–in part–of these blogs to voice matters that are of more importance to us as individuals? If we all express our deepest concerns clearly enough, the Mint team might just be able to pull the whole thing together, and have the BEST opportunity to make all happy. Yes I used the word BEST, because we all know the possibility of making EVERYONE COMPLETELY HAPPY is nonexistent. But an attempt can be made.

    Reply

  460. I think it should be a way to ‘hide’ either (or both) bars (top and bottom), having them both it take a lot of good space on the desktop and they are somehow useless anyway since you cant add/delete/customize them, they are just dumb panels so I see it.. is there any way to hide them for good? I miss that option.. I have not found the way to do that on the RC… if there is a way, can you please inform me about it? thanks!

    Reply

  461. Bah. I apreciate the work the Mint team has done in making Mint the best Gnome 3 desktop, but there is just no saving Gnome 3. Gnome 2 has always been a very usable desktop, while KDE has been the more technologically advanced(for example they always had better support for multiple monitors, and everything could be configured). Gnome 2 was finally catching up to KDE in this area in a nice way, and then they decide to start over? I think it will be years before I can use Gnome 3 properly, allthough I hope I’m wrong.

    I am now switching to KDE (which I see is actually becoming quite nice as a desktop again after they started over some years ago). I think the MATE project is going nowhere if there is already problems with it.

    I recomend people stick with Mint 11 for now, or try Kubuntu. Thank the maker we have more desktops to choose from.

    Reply

  462. I’ve been recommending mint for a really long time to new and general users, but I would definetively not do it with this release.

    I think it’s great that you’re trying to make shell work kinda like gnome 2, but I have to agree with other comments regarding the amount of time needed to put everything in place.

    I’m not Ubuntu nor Gnome fanboy (in fact I’m personally using KDE in my archlinux box), but I think you may have forgotten your roots. Please take for instance the main edition of Linux Mint 9, try it out and you’ll get what I’m saying.

    Mint 9 just works, no resource waste (in MAIN edition, other do waste resources IMO), everything in place so even a windows refugee can do everything in an easy way.

    Now, back to Mint 12, would (or could) you say the same about it? System’s not easy to configure in any way (administration, look and feel, etc), it’s very resource demanding, it’s not very stable, it’s lacking lots of functions like panel applets, menu is not configurable, etc, etc, etc.

    I’m just looking at it as and end user, I don’t think this at par with Mint’s standards and objectives.

    Reply

  463. @PB

    You say, that the placement of bars does not matter to you, because you are not a robot (443). Then, you explained, that by the latter you emphasize that “so many people suffer from a syndrome regarding change” (447).

    Then, I tried to convey, that at least a single of the issues – top/bottom placement of the bar, might be not “a syndrome regarding change”, but a real issue with roots in ergonomy.

    Never did I criticize your post, never did I imply that it is not so that “the purpose–in part–of these blogs to voice matters that are of more importance to us as individuals”, never did I say that my issue is of no significance to you. In fact, I had no idea of the latter.

    In a word, I did not mean to criticize you.

    And, to not be completely off-topic:

    @here and others, that want to get rid of the top bar: see the link:

    http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10828&start=6580#p494072

    Reply

  464. Fantastic! This is really fabulous. Perfectly logical, intuitive and ingenious. And what a stable release candidate
    Great work by the Mint Team!
    Linux at its best!

    Reply

  465. Much better than Ubuntu 11.10 or openSUSE 12.1.Thanks to the team for such good work,if this is a release candidate then how much better will the final version be.

    Reply

  466. I’m LMDE fan and still wait the kde.
    I test this iso en Vbox, there are not mintmenu. I don’t like it. You can not personalize the panels.
    Ubuntu is dead, long life to LMDE

    Reply

  467. @452

    bang…bang…bang…bang

    oh, that was my head on the wall btw.

    Clem and team,

    As if you have nothing else in the world to do, could you post a comment on what the deal is with hardware config tools, especially printers? Perhaps I’m totally missing it, and I actually would love to hear that, and that I’m being incredibly stupid and the tools I’m looking for are right in front of my idiotic mug.

    To be clear, I know where to add a printer, but the other options that are so useful I just can’t find. Please inform. Thanks so much for your hard work.

    Reply

  469. @art

    I have to agree. I do find the bar less noticeable at the bottom of the screen. Also window controls tend to be up there also. I like to have to two in separate areas. I have accidentally clicked on the wrong thing before. Not saying all the time, but it does happen.

    I do find it ridiculous how you can’t move the panels wherever you want, or move applets where you want. How hard would that be to implement? These are common functions in most linux desktop environments I have used. I’m not sure how this is better than gnome 2.

    Reply

  470. I’m using LM 12 RC 64-bit from the DVD iso, installed via USB, and it is quite usable. Clem & Team have done a wonderful job.

    I can see why Gnome 3 is getting bashed: Stuff like System Settings | Screen with such limited options is literally a 20 year old design. Otherwise what’s the big deal with Gnome 3? It has a hotspot/icon to show all the “Windows” running, and “Applications” is a just a menu of icons taking up the whole screen. So what? It’s a user interface, not the best one around clearly, but so what?

    I tried disabling “all components within MGSE to get a pure Gnome 3 experience,” as an option Clem noted in the LM 12 Preview blog entry. I wouldn’t want that. I much prefer the MGSE options on. Didn’t try MATE yet.

    After I installed the recommended proprietary video driver (NVIDIA), I saw the lower-panel Mint menu. But apart from some small stuff, posted on the forum:
    http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=205&t=85729#p495802
    there are, so far, no big issues for me. Recently I installed LMDE on a couple old machines and created a whole checklist of tweaks for any new system of mine. LM 12 RC went through the list with no major problems. If I wasn’t content using LM 9 on my main system (then will switch to LMDE in a year or so), I’d be very tempted to use LM 12 as my main system–very slick. With MGSE, it’s great. Bravo mille fois.

    Oh, re “We moderate comments…so you can read this without seeing any spam.” Many, *many* thanks for this. Things that we might not always notice are actually very big deals indeed.

    Reply

  471. Hi Everyone!

    Congrats for the new release.
    I installed the LMDE 11 and it is indeed faster.
    I wonder if would not be better for Mint to totally switch to Debian.

    On the other hand I really feel the new Gnome 3.0 is not designed for the professionals. I used Ubuntu Unity and to me it was not comfortable using it. Such design of os UI is for users with not much experience.
    If I may suggest that LM stays with his nice UI design as we know it.

    The other windows manager I am thinking of is Enlightenment.
    Simple to use, very nice design, etc.

    All the best,

    Reply

  473. I absolutely love the additions to the Gnome 3 interface. It makes my computer feel much less like a toy, and more like an actual computer; whilst still giving me the things I do like about Gnome 3.

    However, one of the beauty’s of Linux has always been the ability to chop and add bits one likes/does not like. I like the extensions to Gnome 3 because it works for me, especially when I slip up and go back to my old ways of working. It isn’t the holy grail of pure interfaces, but I definitely see it as a decent transition. The perfect answer would probably be to give people a clear and simple choice of Gnome 3 default, Gnome 3 with the extensions or MATE. I would say it’d be great if you could get rid of the to bar for those that want it, but my assumption is the Gnome team are pretty protective of this feature and are reluctant to make it easy for people to remove it; as they see it as a part of their “trademark”, in the same way Windows has it’s start menu. Hence the difficulty in removing this feature in any distribution (however I am not a programmer so have no idea if the code is easy to change or not).

    My only issues are that the update manager doesn’t seem to recognise the install disc as a repository, meaning I needed to switch to Mac OS to download the correct Broadcom Wireless drivers from the Oneiric repository. After that everything worked flawlessly.

    Reply

  474. @Morten

    I have to agree with you, KDE is really nice and I am starting to REALLY like it a lot. I never much cared for it the times I’ve tried it, but once you configure it right, and actually use it for a while, it is a joy.

    Strangely, it even seems snappier than Gnome2 + compiz. I think they must have done some major work on kwin.

    Reply

  475. Robert@456

    I don’t know if this answers your question, but if want to use startpage.com as your search engine, all you have to do is set it up as your home page in Firefox, or most any web browser. Just go to startpage.com. Then edit your preferences to set that as your home page. Perhaps you have something else in mind, but startpage.com does not take the place of your web browser, whatever that might be. I hope this helps.

    Reply

  476. Really appreciate all the work that has gone into this latest release.

    Would be nice to have the ability to have one menu bar at base of screen. (Friends and relatives running Mint really don’t like ‘change’ … they just want it to work the way they are used too).

    Also I’m a big fan of the old style ‘Mint menu’, so would be brilliant if the ‘favourites’ functionality could be carried across into Gnome 3.

    Reply

  478. Urg .. No sorry, I think will be sticking with Mint 10 until it become obsolete and switching to something other than Gnome if thats the way of the future, call me a traditionalist but I can not stand having separate bars top and bottom of the screen, is there any way to have the classic one bar at the bottom that does all on Mint 12?.

    Reply

  480. ok managed to get just the one task bar and get it looking more like Mint 10, but come on guys .. I have 100’s of older folk that I have converted to Linux Mint because of it’s ease of use lack of viruses, lots of little old ladies that only email and play Farmville on Facebook I should not have to spend time rebuilding menu’s to get it usable to ex windows users again.

    Having to rebuild the bottom taskbar is in my opinion unacceptable, surly the default should be the tried and true one bar at the bottom that 99% of the world is familiar with, let the tinkerers build their own desktop.

    personally I can see less Mint converts with this release .. what converted me to mint originally was it’s ease of use and similar looks and feel to windoze,

    grumble grumble mumble

    Reply

  483. “I find that when using Firefox everything appears too crowded at the top due to one too many toolbars. Could two of the top toolbars be combined into one, or could you activate the ability to delete the lowest of the top toolbars (Most Visited, Forums,ect.) to give more room?”
    I agree with that comment.
    Please, fix it. I don’t know if it’s up to you or the Mozilla Team,
    but I think it’s a reasonable request.

    Reply

  484. @sdim. Tool bars in any browser is a user option, you can select which one you want. In Firefox do the following: Click View, then Toolbars and then select the ones you like to keep.

    Cheers!

    Reply

  486. hi together,

    I am currently testing Ubunt uwith Gnome3 and Gnome-Shell. I like it.
    My Ubuntu looks like LinuxMint already on the desktop-look. But as I read today, the RC of LinuxMint still has some bugs. So I will wait until the final release of LinuxMint 12. I am really waiting for it. Does anybody know, when the final release will be??? I read something about end of november 2011?? Can anyone give me more detail??

    And if you want to get rid of the lower panel in Gnomeöshell, just disable this gnome-Shell-extension in gnome-tweak-tool. Or is it named differently in LinuxMint 12?? If so, it would have been better to keep that name to make it easier for User to finde it and to finde it quicker.

    Greetings
    Andrea

    Reply

  487. Hello!

    Really good Mint 12 version.

    I really love MATE.

    One thing I noticed that screenshots do not work because mate-screenshot is not available

    Greetings,
    Lars

    Reply

  488. @GerMulvey
    realtek r8168 driver doesnt work?
    i have r8169 eth adapter and its working fine.

    Im getting used to gnome shell day by day..allready love it. used to hate it, but those extensions make the life a lot easier.. still missing some configuration options tho but its really smooth and stable with nvidia card and prop drivers at least.

    Keep up the Good Work!

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  489. I just installed it on a spare hard drive and got nothing but a blank desktop…no panel at top or bottom and no menu start. Found the config section by right clicking on the desktop, but it had nothing about mate or the other gizmo.

    Am I failing to see an obvious step?

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  490. Clem

    You seem to be making no response to any of these 460+ posts. What is happening at your end. Mint 12 is very controversial with the Mint user base divided like it has never been before and a little assurance on the current situation would be appreciated.

    Furthermore it is crystal clear that MGSE is getting the most attention at your end. But what of those who do not wish to work with MGSE. I feel as it is abundantly clear that MATE simply does not work you should seriously consider an (optional Gnome 2.3 Release) of Mint 12 until Mint 13 LTS when the chances are MATE will actually work.

    Such division in the Mint Community can only be negative. So the question is MATE which is unusable or Gnome 2.3 which is stable and never fails ? The answer as far I as see it is quite obvious.

    But please above all could we have some input from you on the Mint 12 RC feedback and how things are likely to progress.

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  493. In other news, Pinguy OS has been released, only Pinguy says he does not feel comfortable calling Gnome 3.2 “stable” so that distro is now in beta indefinitely.

    http://www.webupd8.org/2011/11/pinguy-os-1110-released.html

    Might be a good idea for Mint to take a similar approach, as it seems the Mint user base is finding Gnome 3.2 a mixed bag indeed.

    It really IS hard to call Gnome 3.2 a “stable” productive environment at this point.

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  494. I have tinkered with the Ubuntu 11.10 Unity desktop and I find it smooth but lacking in the modification ease of Mint. I just downloaded Mint 12 RC to run from a live cd. I noticed that I can no longer put a link to a URL on the desktop. I also was not able to add application icon shortcuts to the bar at the top of the screen nor was I able to find the control panel. My likes included the G-3 desktop theme, (very easy on the eyes). The search box is also a nice idea. Looking forward to the next release.

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  497. Mint 12 RC is already quite excellent…and to answer those who mentioned Clem isn’t replying…well he is busy making improvements for the final release which i think is more important then sitting here answering your questions! (lol)…

    I’m looking forward to installing the final dvd of Mint 12 64 bit and i love MGSE…Once i took off the bottom panel i thought it looked great…

    Although as i said, it would be great if Clem can find a good workable extension that would move everything to a bottom panel instead (like traditional mint)…

    I also read that Clem is trying to code the traditional mint menu over to gnome 3 as well…

    More flexibility is bound to come in the near future, but even as of now, this is far more flexible then ubuntu is (or likely will be)…
    Great work, Clem!

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  498. As soon as Mint 12 final is released K/Ubuntu will be trashed in my family laptops. I tried to like Unity but I simply cannot. KDE is not for me. Mint’s approach has caught me! I’m trying the RC in live CD mode and I really like it! Mint rocks!

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  499. No, sorry to say, it’s still terrible. Don’t bother releasing until you can make Gnome 3 work just like Gnome 2 did.

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  500. we can put icons over desktop

    go to the executable eg. /usr/bin/ and drag it over the desktop. after search a nice icon if you want.

    I really enjoy LM12, is very usable and can do my job easily, need some time to understand it and use it but is ok, do nit consume too much resources and is ok.
    Of course there are some bugs but is an excellent work, a huge step from Gnome2

    congratz the team

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  501. WENT TO ULTIMATE EDITION 2.9 LINUX AND NEVER LOOKED BACK AT MINT…(MUST HAVE BEAST OF PC TO RUN ULTIMATE WELL )

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  502. I’ve managed to make Gnome 3 more workable but I still prefer Mint 11.

    * Have added the xscreensaver and removed the gnome one.

    * Via Advanced Settings, have removed the bottom panel and Mint Menu for more browser space. You can keep the Mint Menu on the top panel if you wish.

    * Have changed my user name to ‘Lee-power off/on’ so its easy for my wife to find the power off option on the far right, top panel. We really need a way to add a shutdown button to the top panel or at least a button to the menus.

    Well done Mint Team for your work thus far, please consider my ideas above. 🙂

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  503. Also, if Font size is changed in Advanced Settings, the GUI still crashes. The slider is very temperamental and its very hard to move it fractionally.

    I’d also like to change some of the default menu icons but still can’t work out how to do this. Want to change the file manager one, Gimp and also Firefox.

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  504. hi. if i use Linux Mint 12 Lisa RC, when the stable version released can i upgrade to stable version or i must install it again?

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  505. sometimes the system just hangs 🙁 i have to ctrl+alt+backspace to logout and then relogin. is this a bug in RC or am i the only one facing this problem ???

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  506. Great Job, I feel really better with this Human Machine Interface.
    It’s not that much but it’s essential. Just using MGSE menu now, don’t even care about gnome 3 thing…

    Thank you 🙂

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  507. Installed the RC in a virtual machine.
    There seems to be a problem when you install crossover office (office 2000): all of the items in mintmenu disappear, exept for the crossover-icons.
    After the crossover installer has finished, mintmenu disappears completely from the bottom panel.

    I tested it twice; with the same result.

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  508. Very cool to see this RC! And so, welcome to planet earth, Lisa.

    Clem and team – thank you, thank you, thank you. Mint rocks and all your hard work and strict attention to detail is paying off.

    Sad to see “upstream issues” in the list. Behind those 2 words lurks a minefield of poor decisions that you guys have had to live with, mitigate or circumvent.

    Hope this release secures LM as the top distro!!! (well deserved)

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  509. An das Mint Team !

    sehr gute Arbeit.
    Ich bin bis jetzt sehr zufrieden.Nur den Treiber für ATI das klappt noch nicht.Ich hoffe das ihr das auch noch in den griff bekommt.
    Ich wünsche dem gesamtem Team noch weiterhin viel Freude bei der Arbeit.:)

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  511. @Blizz
    >Also, if Font size is changed in Advanced Settings, the GUI still crashes. The slider is very temperamental and its very hard to move it fractionally

    easy – select the slider with the mouse and do the movement with the arrow keys on the keyboard. This way you can move it in .1 increments.

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  512. @PB I might be wrong, but it looks to me, that you simply was trying to troll.

    @Stormwatch there is the “mate” manager, if you do not like Gnome3.

    Seeing all these “how to change the ui” posts, I think, that a simple wizard, that would allow to choose “minimal ui – no bars”, “moderate ui – one bar”, “full ui – two bars, status apps on the background or whatever”, each one reasonably configured, would made more people pleased with the UI, without the need to search the internet for hints like how to hide or enable or move some widget.

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  514. I have been a windows repairman for a while now . been trying out alot of the linux windows . If your looking to get more people to convert from from windows to say mint . The file sharing needs to be set up in mint to allow windows computers to share files with out having to do any more then enable file sharing just like in windows . All my customers would be lost trying to do this the way it has to be done now . Alot of code writing etc. Just a hint if your looking to take people away from microsoft.

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  515. @ art

    PB does not troll. In fact he/she always adds constructive content to this and other Mint blogs. If you care to check the history you will see this to be correct.

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  516. Been using classic mode with compiz and am happy with the result, but now if I log in to MGSE the top and bottom bars and the hot corner have disappeared. All that remains are the desktop shortcut icons. I can fire up a terminal and get back to the classic desktop so it’s not a disaster by any means, but I would like to keep an eye on MGSE too. Anyone know how to fix this without borking the compiz setup?

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  519. I really excited about this and wanna try it ASAP, so I downloaded 32-bit and burn it but I cant enter the desktop, just a blue screen with no text. I thought this was like 11 where theres no splash screen but I cant press “ESC” button to see what is kernel doing, but when I press CTRL+ALT+DEL I see text like “closing V low level … ” or something like that.

    I tried both live CD and live USB (install with pendrive linux) but no luck. Any suggestion?

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  520. @Guy

    I am not sure if you are not PB, but still… see the post 459 – a lot of strawman arguments against me, in response on my attemp at a n ad meritum discussion about UI. Did you really read his answers to my discussion and have thought about it? Really, I wanted to discuss UI here, and not to be attacked by strawman arguments made by some people I do not known anything about, do not have anything against etc. He/she might also add on-topic posts here, I do not deny that.

    But really, I hope for an ad meritum discussion. So let me see the other posts.

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  521. @paul

    If you do not want to switch the environments frequently, you might create a simple script that would back-up/restore the configuration dirs
    in your home directory.

    But you’d possibly need to run the script from a text console (ctrl+alt+f1) as logging out of a graphical session might mess the just swapped scripts from the other “environment”.

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  522. art@516

    You are completely free to discuss whatever is most important to you on this blog. But please realize, that this applies to everyone else. That includes me. I’m not sure what trolling really is yet, or what purpose it serves, but I assume it’s a negative thing. As I don’t know what trolling implies, I can’t be 100% sure that I’m not guilty of it. But my intentions are simply to present the issues that I am faced with and are most important to me at this stage. The same applies to “strawman.” I’m not sure what that is either, but again, I have to conclude that it is not a good thing.

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  523. @PB

    A strawman argument is, if you imply, that someone thinks something, what he/she does not.

    For example, when you said “please realise, that it applies to everyone else”, then you implied, that I do not realise, that it applies to everyone else. Now, I have nowhere said that, nor I think so. In fact, it is the opposite – I *like* it, that everyone here is free to discuss whatever he or she wants, including you, of course.

    You may have not been trolling or purposedly used strawman argumentation, it is possible, especially that a lot of your posts look constructive to me. Instead, you may have really misinterpreted me and in effect, have thought that I have something against you. That happens, to me as well, of course.

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  524. @ art & PB

    This is going nowhere fast. So please give it a break the two of you.

    Our main concern is that Mint 12 will be a stable and usable release which at present looks far from certain.

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  525. art@519

    I don’t know how else to explain my position here. My posts have never been against you or your concern. I have never told anyone that their concern is of ABSOLUTELY NO IMPORTANCE. My statements have all been RELATIVE as opposed to ABSOLUTE. At the risk of being deemed a strawman or a troller, I assume that you know the difference.

    However, at some stage, I felt like your posts were a rather concerted attempt to get me on board your wagon. In the spirit of this blog, which has been discussed at length, I can not fault you for that. Please carry on. But I have to inform you that your efforts are wasted on me because the bottom line is: I’m not interested in what you view as important at this stage. It is nothing personal–I promise.

    But, alas, all hope is not lost. As is clearly evident, there are many others who share your passion for the issues involving the GUI. Your efforts are much better spent forging your cause with them.

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  527. Here is a simple question to ask yourself:

    If you wanted to get your friend, classmate, mother, or grandmother to switch from Windows to Linux, which boot USB would you hand them to try out–Linux Mint 11 or Linux Mint 12? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

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  529. @Guy

    Post 467 was my best attempt to end it, although the “@452” was included in error. It had no validity to the discussion.

    However, the interchange that occurred between you and art about my intentions is a bit unsettling. It only serves to add fuel to an otherwise dwindling fire. But I’m a big boy now, I can handle it.

    On the other hand, I do appreciate you clarifying my intentions with him, and I don’t attribute any ill will to you in reference to that interchange. That being said, thank you for validating my intentions.

    I also see that he may have thought it possible that I have more than 1 alias. LOL. I’m so new!!

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  532. @Guy I agree… I am trying now to further analyse the top/bottom bar issue, because I see that many folks see a concern here.

    I have only concluded, that surely some folks when using Mint, either almost lie in their comfortable armchairs, or use tablets that lie on their lap, so in their case, the reasoning I wrote in #455 might be right for the opposite screen halves…

    One reason more for the wizard with nice default settings for the ui that is minimal/moderate/full/full with background widgets.

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