Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” released!

by ·730 Comments

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

Linux Mint 12 “Lisa”

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“.

Important info and release notes:

The Release Notes are an important source of information. Here are some of the topics they cover:

  • Tips and Tricks
    • Information about DuckDuckGo
    • Switch to a single top panel
    • Switch to a black panel, menu and window list
    • Quickly preview files without opening them
    • Restart Gnome Shell when needed
    • Debug Gnome Shell (for developers or to troubleshoot)
    • Run Gnome Shell in Virtualbox (for testers and reviewers)
    • Install MATE from the CD edition
    • Workaround for a disappearing MATE panel
    • Workaround for 100% CPU usage in MATE
  • MATE
  • mint4win
  • Moonlight
  • Upstream issues

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

Upgrade instructions:

  • To upgrade from a previous version of Linux Mint follow these instructions.
  • To upgrade from Linux Mint 12 RC, simply apply any level 1 and 2 updates (if any), as well as level 3 “mate” and “caja” updates available in the Update Manager.

Download:

Md5 sums:

  • DVD 32-bit: ee3d6e2ca498bc7685b7f17cdb5f2eea
  • DVD 64-bit: 548f0ac303fea840ef138e5669880a74
  • CD no codecs 32-bit: 40562d26447207cb5111f94b93957a58
  • CD no codecs 64-bit: 641e0ab8f746b82c36fc3f0bbca70dc7

Torrents:

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit DVD ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit DVD ISO:

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

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

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun with this new release!

730 comments

  2. Thanks and well done to all for the hard work put into this. Is there an easy update for beta testers or is a fresh install recommended?

    Reply

  5. Great news! But I wonder what was the reason the final edition was removed from the servers by thursday. Any news or comments on that? I downloaded and installed Mint12 by then and since my internet connection is pretty slow I wonder if I need to download the “new” version now.

    Reply

    1. @daviso: Significant fixes were brought to MATE and minor fixes were added to MGSE. We decided to integrate these fixes prior to the release, so the ISOs were re-spun. Ideally you should not download an ISO until it’s officially announced. You can get these fixes by taking all level 1, 2 and “caja” and “mate” level 3 updates.

  11. Wow! What a nice surprise for the weekend! Downloading and installing! The RC with updates already was very good … let’ see what the real one is like!
    Congratulations to Clem and the team! It’s good to be part of this community!

    Reply

  12. This is very good news! Just what I’ve been eagerly waiting for. I hope the new GNOME 3 and MGSE work as expected. Many thanks

    Reply

  13. I also wonder if there are any differences compared to the version available earlier in the week. I in that case, should I do a fresh install?

    Reply

  14. @ Clem: Thanks for the answer. Normally I myself tell people to wait until a final announcement…but I just couldn’t wait any longer 😉 My fault i guess

    Reply

  19. Wow cool! i just wanted to install mint, and did not know, that there is just a new release! great!
    finally with a gnome3 implemention!

    Reply

  26. @ Clem: Super. Solid. Practical. Attractive. New.

    Been running the RC since it’s been available. Completely stable on my lenovo x121e.

    To others, as Clem says- no need to reinstall 12 stable if you have 12rc, there is no difference between the rc and the stable if all updates are installed. This has been confirmed by others.

    Well worth the donation!

    Reply

  27. Thanks a lot mint team, you’ve done a fabulous job for mint users and Linux community. Sure you will make other distros jealous 😉 YOU show the linux community (especially Gnome devs) the right way !

    Gnome 3 will be a great adventure and full of new and interesting features. And Gnome shell will become more and more interesting as it matures…

    I will keep an eye on these improvements but i think i will stick with LMDE for the moment as my Laptop is getting a bit old and Ubuntu based Mint seems to become too heavy for it (LMDE seems faster on that hardware). I will switch to Gnome Shell when it comes with LMDE.

    Reply

  28. hi. i’m using geforce 7300GO videocard, which has known problem with drivers which makes your screen freeze if using compiz. so is it the same thing with this distro and this release?

    Reply

  30. Great news, thanks to the Mint team for all your hard work 🙂

    I have tried Gnome 3 in the past and wasn’t impressed so I’m intrigued as to your spin on it, we shall see!!

    Reply

  32. I am sooooooooo thrilled!!! Honestly right now having just discovered that it is finally released is like Christmas Day!!! Just like the anticipation of Christmas I’ve been eagerly awaiting this. I just bought a quad-core computer for this release. As soon as it arrives (a few more days 🙁 ) I’m gonna blow off winblows and put Mint 12 (64bit) on it. I’m gonna wear sunglasses when I first run it as I think it’ll just be dazzlingly brilliant!

    Great work guys and thanks a billion pinguins!

    Reply

  35. Oh! It looks great, but I’ve been having problems with the RC. My Menu doesn’t look at all like the one in the screenshot, but rather the default Gnome Menu. It is stable and beautiful, but it’s not worth it (at least not for me) if I have to keep using that ugly and so unpruductive Gnome 3 Menu. I hope that this gets fixed when I apply the updates, but we’ll see. I think it’s a great step from all the other Gnome 3 implementations out there, but if it still has that horrible Gnome 3 Menu on top, it just doesn’t do it for me.

    Reply

  36. It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle! Thanks to Clem and the entire Mint team. I’ve been using the Mint 12 RC for a while and it is clearly superior to the _other_options available. Great design and implementation with a well thought out framework for the future.

    Reply

  37. Idea for all those who downloaded an “unofficial final release”… check the MD5sum to see if it is the same as the official final release or not, and then you’ll know whether you need to download a new copy or if you scored an early copy of the good one.

    Cheers

    Reply

  45. Now this is a Gnome 3 version I can definitely live with and it took Mint to pull it off. Heck, even MATE is becoming usable and quite a bit sooner that I thought it would. Fantastic job folks!

    Reply

  46. Just – WOW!
    I’ve tried the RC but in a VM (VMware player) and of course there was no display accel.
    I saw a review telling Mint 12 is released but not yet annouced. I picked up the iso from mirrors and installed on my computer.

    – Oh – my – goodness! This is a peace of art! What a great achievement by Mrs. Lefebvre and his ‘cool-laborators’ ( Sorry * collaborators/collaborateurs :=)

    Long live Mint.

    Reply

  47. Clem and team members:

    This is by far the best Gnome 3 version anywhere
    for this we are grateful. However, Mate totally screws
    up my computer and I everything freezes unless I am able
    to log out first. So it is totally unusable and I have a quad core
    3 gigs of Ram machine.

    Also, will we ever again be able to adjust colors and themes and placement of icons on the bar and add ons to the bar? Will we ever
    be able to run compiz effects again or are we at the mercy of your design ideas for the bar(s)?

    While I like them right now, I still want some freedom because that is why I choose Linux.

    Thanks again.

    B

    Reply

  53. Congratulations! The Mint Team,

    Waiting is over now! just play with list 12 and enjoyed. the best linux distro.

    Reply

  57. Great work. You deserve lots of credit for mediating the “crazy unusuable DE” trend and keeping the goodness that is Gnome-style panels alive.

    Reply

  58. I will be happy to give this one a test. I was disappointed with the RC so this should be a delightful change.

    Thanks for the hard work and devel efforts.

    Reply

  59. This is exciting news. I’ve been wanting to switch over from Ubuntu after 11.04 really disappointed me, so I’ve been checking almost every day since Ubuntu 11.10 came out! Congrats on the release.

    Reply

  61. @wolverint tech
    I believe Serge Lussier was using the abbreviation of Messieurs (from the French Monsieur) As in: ” What a great achievement by [Misters] Lefebvre and his ‘cool-laborators’ “

    Reply

  64. @Thom W:

    Thanks for clarifying that. I was guessing that might be the case from the use of the word “collaborateurs” (plus, with Clem being French too).

    I myself am no expert in English. It is not my native language.

    My comment was meant only in jest, just idle banter. I hope it was not misconstrued as an attack/insult & sincerely apologize if I hurt anyone unintentionally.

    Peace.

    Reply

  66. I thought you said this one was going to take longer between RC and final release. 😉

    Seriously, congratulations. I took a 2nd look at the RC the other day and it’s a really great build. (I even worked out the issues I was having with it :)) I love MGSE. That’s the best thing to happen to Gnome 3, IMO. As far as I’m concerned, Mint 12 is a huge success. I hope people who were disappointed by Gnome 3 and the default Gnome Shell give it a shot, it’s really awesome.

    Reply

  67. Will there be a way to get rid of the bar at the top?

    One of my insane requirements for a desktop is that I be able to slam my mouse up to the top right of the screen (without looking) and click to close an app. BAM!

    Please make an extension to take that top bar away!

    C.

    Reply

  69. The forums were pretty slow today and now it looks like they’ve finally broken down after this announcement… Did the people rush there after the release? 🙂

    Reply

  72. Que bien que ya salio el nuevo lisa 12 … lo estabamos esperando aqui en El Salvador…soy estudiante de la Universidad de El Salvador y miembro de una comunidad en la cual nos encargamos de promoveer el software libre, nuestra mejor opcion se ha vuelto Linux Mint desde la version X

    Reply

  74. Desktop Environment has more of a toy feel to it.

    I will be sticking with Mint 11 and LMDE pointing towards the Squeeze repository to avoid Gnome3/MGSE being dumped on my Desktop.

    Long Live Gnome 2 even though would suggest it is dead ! It is very much alive on my machines.

    Reply

  76. If you want stable Mate environment, you must install all update. After restart, i find it stable for me. I am try it with LISA RC, ISO from 19 November and the last ISO.
    By the way, I can not open forum , community and linux mint website for hours.

    Reply

  77. Awesome! Better than Black Friday. I loaded the “post-RC” / “pre-final” version yesterday and was impressed again by the amount of work to stabilize 12. Thank you once again.

    Reply

  78. From the Announcement Page (blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1889) I can’t load any links, such as ‘New Features’ or ‘Release Notes’. Is this a problems due to the ‘feeding frenzy’ regarding the new release, or are the links just broken?

    Thanks

    Hawkeye52

    Reply

  81. Anyone got jmurphy’s shell theme selector extension working? I’ve completed the steps but it seems not to work.

    Extensions I have got working:
    Pidgin message extension
    weather extension
    system monitor
    focus/blur effects
    update/upgrade (dangerous and not using it)
    message notifier
    theme selector (not working)

    Anyone got any other good shell extensions, effects, themes working?

    Great learning experience. Well worth the donation.

    Reply

  83. Congratulations for the effort and work carried out to create a Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” to all Cleam and All Team!
    Again, i do not see Wubi is an officially supported Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” installer for Windows users. It can install and uninstall Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” in the same way as any other Windows application. It’s simple and safe.I will provide that opportunity and in any other version please!?

    Reply

  84. NOT MINT TOO!!!! FFFFFF Gnome 3 is terrible… even worse than Unity. The reason Mint has overtake Ubuntu is because everyone hates Unity. Now you guys went and killed everything with Gnome 3?

    Gnome 3 completely breaks multitasking. I for one enjoy having several open windows in the same screen at the same time. I want to be able to have my web browser open with a video playing on VLC on the side while I have any other random program running right beneath it.

    This decision is bad and the Mint Development team should feel bad.

    Reply

  85. Yay! I’ve been using Pinguy (and not liking it too much) for the last couple weeks and wanting to go back to the Mint. But I made myself wait for the new version. So glad it came out today.

    Thanks to the Linux Mint team for making such a great distro.

    Reply

  86. I went from Ubuntu 11.04 to Fedora 15 and didn’t like Unity or Gnome3. I’ve never tried Linux Mint before, but I’ll be installing this release right away. thanks for listening to the people!

    Reply

  87. I’ve got the nobluetooth.icon extension working, and my own customized activities button menu working, no problems.

    Reply

  88. Ich love Linux Mint 12.
    Before I used Ubuntu, but since Unity…
    Everything is perfect.
    The only advencement: If I go in the corner down left and click, the “Menu” do not open. I have to go a pixel up or right to click.
    Perhaps you can fix it.

    Reply

  89. @Daniel,
    I’ve got the nobluetooth.icon extension working, and my own customized activities button menu working, no problems.

    Reply

  90. Congratulations on another great release! Although I prefer your Debian version of Mint I will defenetly give this new one a try. Keep up the good work guys!

    Reply

  92. Although, apt-get upgrade is doing something funny (while update manager shows all is up to date):

    The following packages have been kept back:
    linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
    The following packages will be upgraded:
    linux-libc-dev xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-intel
    3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
    Need to get 2,745 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 4,096 B of additional disk space will be used.

    Reply

  94. @ Aero: I noticed that as well through using the update/upgrade extension. I guess these are upgrades which have not yet passed mint testing or config into mint. It’s a new kernel I think… (?)

    Customized activity button?

    Reply

  95. Nice Work Mint Team.
    Been using since RC and im quite happy with it.

    one small problem remains for me tho. since im using 19″ monitor.

    the “Visible system tray icons” or “notification area” has too big spaces between icons. so when i more apps opened, then the clock and shutdown menu will dissapear.

    like that: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28788188/Screenshot%20at%202011-11-26%2021%3A52%3A23.png

    is there a possibility to conf it?
    couldnt find anything usefull from gnome-tweak-tool nor from dconf-editor.

    Reply

  111. Here is a post installation script for the Lisa release witch add some extra stuffs to this great GNU/Linux distribution.

    In French (original post):
    http://blog.nicolargo.com/2011/11/script-de-post-installation-de-mint-12-aka-lisa.html

    Google tranlated:
    http://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.nicolargo.com%2F2011%2F11%2Fscript-de-post-installation-de-mint-12-aka-lisa.html&act=url

    Reply

  112. Just installed it .
    Great work guys.Again made the best choices.
    I have dual boot with Mint11 and Mint12.

    Keep up the good work !

    Reply

  115. Finally, I waited couple the days because I was suspicious about last ver. (Except RC versions). Excellent Clem and other members of the Mint team

    Reply

  117. When RC came out I dropped my Kubuntu and install Mint 12 RC. It is (was) the most stable Linux build I’ve ever try.

    Lisa final is burning now …

    Hail to all the Linux Mint Team !!!

    Reply

  119. Congratulations to Clem and the Mint Team for the hard work on Mint 12.
    I’m very happy with Linux Mint and I like this release very much.
    Indeed Keep up the Very Good Work Mint Team ! 😀

    Reply

  121. I gave up on 12. It is a mess. Half of the time there is something which doesn’t work, panels just go missing so I have to shutdown using the main power switch, flickering monitor when using mouse-clicks, favorite’s list in menu is not changeable, menu items are so mixed up, it is hard to find them, main menu editor is not installed, extra top panel which I never use and which takes away space on my wide-screen monitor, etc, etc, etc.
    This is not a stable release, it’s not an RC, not a beta, it’s a premature alpha release. And why? Because Clem and his team really wanted to clean up the mess Gnome inflicted upon us, instead of just letting Gnome go and concentrate on other versions. Something which would have been so much wiser to do.
    Well, I erase my hard-disk again to remove every trace from Lisa and I will install something that does work AND which looks good.

    Reply

  122. The ISOs were done being tested and approved for stable release about a week ago. So why did it take so long to post this release?

    I got fed-up and just downloaded it from Softpedia a few days ago.

    Edit by Clem: I removed the unnecessary cursing from your comment. We don’t release until it’s ready. The Softpedia ISOs were the ones that passed QA but we implemented significant fixes for MATE and we decided to integrate them. So new ISOs were produced and the release was delayed.

    Reply

  124. I will stick with LMDE as long as I can. I downloaded the DVD of Mint 12 and spent a couple of hours with it. I just cannot tailor it so that I have something functional for me. Running live it locked up on me the first and second attempts to look it over. In spite of the efforts to give it the flexibility of earlier versions of Gnome, it is still sitting on top of Gnome 3 which IMO is a real mess. Perhaps some of us will eventually be forced to try a different desktop environment. That´s the beauty of Linux and especially MINT… so much choice! Thanks to Clem et al for the great work providing us with options. LMDE is the fastest, slickest OS I have ever run.
    One happy camper:)

    Dennis

    Reply

  125. Sorry, but I’M very sad, because it’s doesn’t work for me. In live session, from a pendrive the desktop doesn’t start. Some basic graphics problem, and big problem for me. My laptop is: amd 64bit, 1GB RAM, nvidia geforce go 6150. It’s maybe not bad for this system.
    http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/dscf2410u.jpg/
    http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/dscf2411b.jpg/
    On the 2. picture I wont to start the installation, but I couldn’t it.
    What can I do ? Any idea?

    Reply

  126. I’m with Demus above…

    He wrote:

    “I gave up on 12. It is a mess. Half of the time there is something which doesn’t work, panels just go missing so I have to shutdown using the main power switch, flickering monitor when using mouse-clicks, favorite’s list in menu is not changeable, menu items are so mixed up, it is hard to find them, main menu editor is not installed, extra top panel which I never use and which takes away space on my wide-screen monitor, etc, etc, etc.”

    I too have been working diligently with LM12 and found it to be less than what I would require for serious consideration. I found it to be far too buggy and problematic to justify it’s use.

    On a better note, Linux Mint Debian Edition XFCE is doing it’s magical wonders on all of my boxes and has now replaced every ounce of Ubuntu shit bits. A fast, fun, usable, and stable OS.

    So it’s not all bad, but I wouldn’t count on LM12 being ready anytime soon from my experience thus far.

    Reply

  128. @ DeMus: It works perfectly on my x121e and many other systems. Remember, mint has to serve so many systems and generally it does very well. Have you got all the updates? They matter… The favourites in menu are changeable by right clicking and selecting them as favourites, and you can move them around. Shell extensions are also very easy to install.
    Some graphics cards and systems I guess have problems but the updates may sort it.
    You never have to do a hard switch off using the main power switch. If ctrl + alt + del doesn’t work, then holding down alt + PrtSc + then typing REISUB will restart your computer safely, no matter if it has completely frozen.
    It’s completely stable on my x121e and I understand completely why it is a stable. It’s there for me. Also, to think that everything that is released kind of negates the role that this isn’t so much a hierarchal system and our experiences and bug reports matter a lot in future releases and coming changes. I’m very happy and excited to using something that is perhaps not quite there (though its very close for me already) because its exciting and new and I’m engaged in something that is drawing new space in operating systems…

    Lots of extensions installed now…it’s getting back to the level of modifcation of gnome 2..just need more ability to customize theme easily and some more fancy compiz effects. It’s so new and shell extensions are still new but I’m super happy with this and can’t stop playing around with it…

    Reply

  130. Hmmm….Banshee just locked up the desktop!
    Anyway….so far, I’m pretty happy with Mint12. Snappier than Ubuntu with shell loaded as 2nd desktop.

    Reply

  133. Said knowing full well that the move to GNOME 3 is a work in progress…

    Compliment:

    Love the new Network area! This will make it much easier for less-knowledgeable users to access their home networks.

    Problem:

    Welcome screen shows up white, then disappears.

    Irritation:

    Application screen disappears after selecting an item forcing one to go back in, select the wanted screen, and start over to select another program.

    Annoyance:

    No link to Computer in the Menu, forced to have a desktop icon for it.

    EXTREME annoyance:

    Unnecessary, space-hogging top menu bar that cannot be easily hidden by lay-users. (yes, I know how to get rid of it, but will one’s old Uncle Bill know how to do it?)

    As somebody with deep experience using computers, I can deal with these changes and wait through a few releases for these things to be changed and added. However, for all of those people on Windows that I have been encouraging to move to Linux Mint or those that have already switched, I now think moving to GNOME 3 so early was a big mistake. This is not an intuitive desktop for those that have been using Windows since day one in their computing lives. For such people, I am going to have them stick with Linux Mint 11 Katya and hope that this all gets straightened out before it is no longer supported.

    All of that being said, don’t get me wrong. I understand why this move has been made and I strongly feel that Clem and the whole crew have done one double-hell of a job in trying to get GNOME 3 to be usable. Still, if I had another lifetime in which to learn programming and had the decision been up to me, I would have stuck with GNOME 2 for at least one more release while doing more development on everything that tries to get GNOME 3 to not suck so hard at this early stage of its life.

    Reply

  134. I Finally got rid of windows completely thanks to Mint 12. Just did i complete wipe and installed Mint 12 and i am so glad to be out of the clutches of microsoft!

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  136. Gnome 3 + MGSE is a beauty, but I don’t know what is the advantage of Gnome 3 (like Unity)? It is not productive because it doesn’t work nice and the selfshift of applications in the workspaces is ever confusing and nasty especially over a days work. I loved wm of Gnome (now something like it in MATE) so all is right.
    I had (and could ‘about solve’) soundrecording-problems. I had (and solved) a printerinstall-problem in Gnome3. The rest is o.k. Mate is (like Lefebre wrote) not 100% ready yet, but is fine for me. Applications suffer under what the Gnome-racers did. And I think this is the reason for all this.. So… A fantastic job!!

    Reply

  137. PLEASE SHRINK THE SIZE OF THE INSTALL WINDOW!

    I tried to install Mint 12 on a 1st Generation Aspire One with a 9″ screen.

    The install window is so large that a third of it is hidden from view. I cannot click “continue” if I can’t access it!

    Come on, guys! Please fix this.

    Reply

  140. Linux Mint 12 is the best way to use Ubuntu 11.10. For those who like Gnome3 as well as for all users who are unable to work with Gnome3 and Unity (Divity?). Unfortunately Ubuntu 11.10 is not really good. For that reason I have low expectations for Mint 12. But we will see. You have to work on a system for months to really get an idea how good (or lousy) it is. I moved from openSuse on Mint 9 and 10 and I am very happy with both.

    Reply

  143. Thank you very much for this very beautiful release!

    Is there a way to choose the software I want to install? e.g. without libreoffice?

    Reply

  144. Gretting Programs!
    I have some trouble, but after installation of video drivers the artifacts and hangs just disappear.
    Thanks Mr. Clement Lefebvre and Mint team. I’ll see forward for more nice updates.

    E

    Reply

  145. Clem, As someone said earlier, life is more beautiful with your great contribution and your team for providing the world with best linux distribution. We can only be so lucky that you and your team provide us with this free and open source operating system. When is the world (especially the US) going to wake up and take advantage of this masterpiece of software? All I can think of is lambs being led to slaughter with everyone drinking the kool aid of the limitless marketing branded paid operating system.

    Clem, you and your team will win this war and I am one of your troupes.

    Reply

  146. I just installed mint 12 it looks cool. I did all the updates. I then installed video drivers for my AMD 6950 card now the screen icons are not wright. Can some one help me. Thanks

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  147. I get crashes pretty often when I make changes to the favorites in gnome shell. the shell completely crashes and I have to restart the computer.

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  149. I was very excited to see that min 12 was up for download. Naturally i took the chance to get myself a copy wanting to be free of M$ and the the troubles there. That being said i can truly say that this is a hit and miss kind of thing. Running of the live cd as i write this and there are things are truly either a hit or miss here. I can look past not being able to customize the tool bar, which is nothing that big for me, and i love the graphics and what can be tweaked just right, but there is one big thing for me (well probably not a huge issue for anyone else) and that is the clock.
    Whatever happened to the ability of setting it with one time, and setting up a second time zone? I have a daughter in London while i am in a Central USA time zone…it was nice to click once to find out…now it is gone? Going back to mint 11 for this reason.
    On the upside, i give my compliments to the Team for making mint run slick on a Dell Vostro 1015. So far everything and anything works right out of the box.

    Reply

  150. After reading the comments I think I’m going to stick with Mint 9. (I had serious bug issues with 10 and I found 11 to be completely unusable) That unnecessary menu bar at the top is the last straw and the only reason why I stopped using Ubuntu. Ah well, I will see what the next release is like.

    Reply

  151. Ok, here’s the veredict:
    New fonts are nice, and also, it seems snappier.
    Other than that, Gnome3 really takes away the quality away from this or any other distro.

    It’s utterly unusable!!!
    -The bar on top has only one function: occupy space. (i mean, come on, i only can access the app i already have on the screen? how dumb are u gnome guys???)
    -The notifications on the midle bottom are anoying/weird and just don’t go away!!!
    -MSGE is a good effort but it really doesn’t bring near the functionality the old Menu had.

    Basically, one can’t do anything with Gnome3!!! I had read all the angry comments, but only now i use i understand: it’s just a pretty thing to look at. No functionality whatsoever!

    The only question is how long it’ll take for me to go back to good ol’Mint 10…

    Reply

  154. Have those of you who’ve been complaining so much about Gnome 3 even tried MATE? MATE is pretty awesome. I think the mint team did a great job by giving the option for both.

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  155. Well said @KoHoSo, even I’m tempted to revert to W7…the lesser of evils is the latest versions of linux. And…Mint may be the best of the lesser of evils. 🙂 Seriously, there are some crazy problems with it all. But for the folks that just want a computer to USE and WORK out of the box, not sure W7 or some “I” version isn’t the best choice. But for me, for now, Mint seems to fill my desires.

    Reply

  156. To those who are discontented with Mint 12:
    Mint 12 is like an adventure, there are some teething troubles which will hopefully be ironed out within the scope of next few releases.
    The direction is right, so everything will fall into place sooner or later.

    Reply

  158. I will admit that I was upset, frustrated, etc over GNOME 3 in the beginning. You can search online for GNOME 3 reviews, and you will come up with a TON of negative feedback.

    I have been testing the Linux Mint 12 Release Candidate over the past week or two (since it was released), and I have come to a personal conclusion. I ma not trying to start a flame war, but I just wanted to add in my two cents. Please do not take offense to the following.

    GNOME 3 is not going away. In a previous Linux Mint blog post, it was stated (and I paraphrase) that the team was not sure if the GNOME developers were right or if they were wrong. I am not looking at what GNOME 3 is today, but rather what it may be tomorrow. If everyone was to drop GNOME 3 because of current frustrations, what would it be worth? The thing that I love about Linux is that things progress forward due in large part to user feedback. Believe me, I was angry at first when I found out that I could no longer use the Compiz magnifier in GNOME 3. The fact of the matter is, though, that I am not going to give up on it.

    I am grateful for what is available in the Linux community. I literally could not afford to use Windows, and so I am going to do all that I can to test and give input to developers. Things may be shaky today, but just imagine what it could be in the future. As the saying goes: “Rome wasn’t built overnight.”

    Kind regards to eeveryone.

    Clem and the Mint Team, keep up the great work. It cannot be expressed in words how grateful I am for all that you all do.

    Reply

  159. My first impression is that, like all distros I have used lately, this is a step backwards. I have one computer that is having problems with the new mint and is unusable. On the one computer I can get it working on it’s not user friendly at all.

    Reply

  160. Great news,very good OS.Clem and team are very inteligent and true.Oneday,linuxmint will be universal OS.Thanks clem and team,you guys are superb…!god bless you guys in your good path for this entire universe!

    Reply

  161. Canonical released alpha software as stable.
    Gnome released alpha software as stable.
    Mint …

    Canonical released ubuntu 11 which is a step backwards compared to ubuntu 10.
    Gnome released gnome 3 which is a step backwards compared to gnome 2.
    Mint …

    Why?

    Reply

  163. Congratulations Linux Mint & Community. Thanks Clem & Team.

    As always, I read Mint comments which come from all over the world. That is so cool! Are there any Mint users in Antarctica? 6 out of 7 continents agree: Try Linux Mint. 🙂

    Reply

  166. Having some problems getting it to run well in virtualbox. I will probably just go to xubuntu for now. But, I definitely keep on eye on mint.

    Reply

  167. Looking very nice – just downloaded and installed, hoping to finally be able to use both LCDs on my Dell Precision 490 workstation . . . . but still fails (have tried over 20 64bit linux’s out there, cannot get to work on installed version – Fedora 16 worked in LiveCD mode only). Don’t understand why most distros keep seeing one of the two LCDs as both (click identify, and DVI0 and DVI1 appear on 1 LCD).

    Reply

  168. I like it but… with gnome 3 there is a problem with mutter which causes a problem if you enable separate x screens. I have to also have another DE eg lxde if I want to watch movies on the TV connected to the 2nd Nvidia port.

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  169. Thank you Mint team for all your efforts. This is the first Gnome 3/Unity desktop I have found to be usable.

    Although it’s nowhere as good as Gnome 2, I’m sure it will keep improving over time.

    At least you guys listen to the community! Thanks again!

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  170. Thank You for your hard work, I very much appreciate it. This is the first distribution to implement GNOME 3 correctly and it is one that actually listens to it’s user base. I will switch from Ubuntu as I’m really sick of Unity.

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  172. This is the first Gnome 3 that doesn’t frustrate me so much that I feel like going on postal on the general public, but after a few hours I still felt like hitting myself over the head with a baseball bat.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love the mint project but so much is still borked with gnome 3, graphics being number one for me. Mate looks very promising but after a full Lisa install, eventually I had to move to Gnome classic for it to be a usable OS. Congratulations on Clem taking a lemon and attempting to make Lemon Meringue Pie with it. Right now it’s more like Lemonheads, maybe in 6 months it will be closer to pie. For now, it’s back to Mint 11 for me unfortunately.

    On a side note, I still don’t understand why Gnome 3 is being forced on a community that quite clearly doesn’t want it, but that is a subject for another place.

    Thanks for all the hard work Clem, seriously!

    Reply

  173. @Daniel 129:
    Did you even read what you wrote? I’ll show you what I mean:
    “It works perfectly on my x121e ” ,
    “Shell extensions are also very easy to install.”,
    “I’m very happy and excited to using something that is perhaps not quite there (though its very close for me already)”
    “Lots of extensions installed now”.

    It is already perfect although it is not yet there. Is it perfect or not yet?
    What concerns me more is the fact that you need a lot of extensions to make things work.
    Gnome ruined Gnome to the ground, completely, the Mint team (as other distro teams) tried to build it up again and others come in and bring all sorts of extensions to make things work again? What kind of OS is that? It looks like a house which has been brought down, build up again using the same stones and other material and people come in and bring glue to make it hold.
    Sorry, but that is not my OS.
    I read a lot of remarks here from people who are so happy with Mint 12. I can not imagine why? It looks to me they saw the announcement, scrolled down the page to write something and then started to install it:
    “Congratulations lads! You did it once again I am soooooooooo happy Installing tomorrow! ”

    When you are used to Mint 9, 10 or 11 and you do a fresh install of 12 you just have to be disappointed. Not because of the Mint team, they worked very hard for a long time and did the best they could, but because of the disaster which is Gnome 3. Don’t you see it is a major step backwards? Things just don’t work, the amount of settings (so important in a Linux distro) has been reduced to maybe 1%, the right mouse-button can almost disappear from your mouse.
    Yes I called Lisa a premature alpha release and I stick to those words. I am sorry for the whole team, who has worked hard but who took the wrong decision in the early days of Gnome 3: they should have dropped it. Don’t waste months of hard work (and tons of money) on it to try to repair the damage, because that is what has been done. Gnome went from A to B, the distros try to go back from B to A. And both they work and waste time, effort and money.
    After spending a hole evening on Lisa the hard-disk is empty again and will be used for something else, something that does work, something that can be adjusted to how I want it.

    Gnome 3 is the nail on the Linux coffin and I can hear Gates and Ballmer laughing out loud. Is that what we, Linux lovers, want?
    Gnome 3 is just the same as Windows: the developers dictate the way you have to use their computer. It’s no longer your computer, it has become theirs. Think about that.

    Reply

  176. “Because Clem and his team really wanted to clean up the mess Gnome inflicted upon us, instead of just letting Gnome go and concentrate on other versions. Something which would have been so much wiser to do.”

    “I would have stuck with GNOME 2 for at least one more release while doing more development on everything that tries to get GNOME 3 to not suck so hard at this early stage of its life.”

    “When you are used to Mint 9, 10 or 11 and you do a fresh install of 12 you just have to be disappointed. Not because of the Mint team, they worked very hard for a long time and did the best they could, but because of the disaster which is Gnome 3. Don’t you see it is a major step backwards? ”

    I tend to agree with the above remarks – tons of work to make Gnome 3 not suck quite so much 🙁 Not sure that MATE has much of a future given the bad shape the Gnome 2 codebase is in.

    “GNOME 3 is not going away”

    That’s right – but we have a choice. Have Clem and the team thought about making KDE the default Window Manager for Mint?

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  177. I have high hopes for MATE. Did anyone notice that Mint is now #1 at DistroWatch? At this rate, Shuttleworth will soon be a Mint tester, Clem.

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  178. Awesome!

    Downloading right now. I’ve been using the RC since it’s released and adored it already. Shall apply the upgrade right-away & and install the final version on other machines.

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  179. @DeMus

    Does it really upset you that bad that someone may have a different experience than you? You are not the protoype for all computer users, dude.

    Something people need to understand is that open source projects don’t have paid testers or quality control agents, so they do, in fact, release unfinished software often and rely on users to help them find bugs. Ungrateful gimmie gimmies like yourself contribute nothing but nonproductive gripes. How many bug reports have you filed on the things that have reduced you to tears in these comments?

    You shouldn’t have to file bug reports, it should just work, right? Then don’t use a distro when it is freshly released. There is a reason Gnome 2 was rock solid: because they had years to squash the bugs. For the same reason, Julia is stable and a joy to use. Use it, it addresses all of your complaints. By the time it’s support runs out, Gnome 3 will be a different animal. As of now, I agree that Gnome 3 is virtually unusable. Whining will not fix it. Try constructive suggestions and bug reports.

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  180. Lisa looks really good. However,i prefer a standard KDE edition and i suppose we are not going to get that. I still use Mint 10 KDE and the future looks dim.

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  184. I’d really like to upgrade from Linux Mint 11 to 12, but the link to “To upgrade from a previous version of Linux Mint follow these instructions” takes me to a “Sorry, but we’re pulling maintenance” screen. WTF? They’re just friggin’ instructions! Clem: how about making them available to users?

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  185. Glad for everybody who fancies Linux Mint the non-Debian way! :o)
    I do not use this release, because I do not like Gnome. But I follow the developments and the releases.
    For the mint Team : You rock!

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  188. @JBHoren I’m having the same bewildering questions about the “tips and tricks” for Mint 12. I have a borked installation that I’m hoping “tips and tricks” might address but I get the maintenance screen as well. It’s just text. Put it in a sticky in the forums or something, anything…please!

    I’m trying my best not to give up on 12 too early. In the immortal words of Dr. Evil “give me a frickin’ bone here!” 😉

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  190. Thanks for new release. Downloading and sharing. Hopefully it will work as we all expected. Can’t wait to install it and try all improvements.
    Cheers,

    Reply

  194. It’s usefully improved over the RC !
    Installed as a persistent USBkey prepared with Mint7’s unique Gparted and then created with Mint9’s Startup Disk Creator, it’s more stable, with subtle improvements so that after adding my favourite apps with still-retained Synaptic and Docky-like changing add adding to the Favourites tool bar it is able to run five virtual desktops !
    The first is using added Exaile to play background music, the second is using subtly better Evince to review and print out DuckDuckGo Privacy info, the third is using added Kaffeine+libxin1-ffmpeg to watch Freeview, the fourth to view a captured Screenshot and the fifth desktop supporting this post via FireFox8, whilst a quick top-left click into a GNOME3-like desktop allows all five to be previewed for progress monitoring.
    This all leaves only 2.6GB free of the allocated 5GB, so video editing etc will need ‘real’ installation but that’s limited until some kind soul ‘unfixes’ changes made to AcidRip, so Mint12 will be limited to USBkeys for use on my rigs. Otherwise, it’s very useful !

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  196. Hi guys.
    I appreciate work of Mint Meam to make gnome 3 usable,
    But all that mess with interfaces ( unity, gnome3, abandoning gnome2 by developers ) made me crazy, that was enough.

    I installed KDE based linux some weaks ago, now I’am satisfied. Kurrent KDE is really great. I don’t know why I was avoiding it.

    It has look&feel similar to that in Gnome2+Compiz, but much nicer,smoother,faster,clearer. It has some extra things which Gnome2 doesn’t have, like you can turn on different desktop folder , different wallpapers and widgets for each desktop.
    With few click you can set it to behave almost exactly like gnome2.

    KDE should be more popular, it gave me all the things which gnome is lacking for years.

    I am waiting for LinuxMint 12 KDE Edition ! 🙂

    regards

    Reply

  197. @ Demus

    Awesome post.

    Gnome 3 is being forced on to out Desktops. This is not in any way pointed at Clem and the team as they have attempted to make good with MGSE, but you can’t improve it by adding any amount of extensions.

    For me Mint 12 is good for running from LiveDVD just as I do with Fedora.

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  198. Please read message 164 again everybody.
    This Mint 12 is ok, I have downloaded it and tried it out.
    However it is not for me,I cannot really do much with it apart from just use it. This is what Microsoft is about, not Linux.
    The comment about the retrograde step is perfectly valid.
    Would anybody exchange their motor car with a ‘Gnome 2’ engine for one with the equivalent of a ‘Gnome 3’ engine?
    The good ship Gnome 2 was about as good as you could get and it is being sunk.
    I am really sorry for Clem and team. They have produced a number one distro with 11 and now they are landed with Gnome 3.
    It is a real pity that the half dozen or so top distro developers did not get together and stand firm against this very retrograde step.
    I have been using Xfce in tandem with Mint 11 and it is a great environment. However I shall continue with Mint 11 as long as I can because it is simply the best. It just works!

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  201. What happened? I thought I had found my perfect distro. I was excited to try out 12, what a huge disappointment. I’m going back to 11, maybe keep on trying different distros. This just doesn’t even seem to be ready for release. Clem, I hope you guys get things straightened out. I’ve loved and really appreciated Mint. I would like to stick with it but not like this. This is just a mess. Good luck and thank you for all the hard work in the past.

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  202. had trouble installing the RC but have just downloaded the stable version. Can’t wait! I never fail to be impressed from one version to another (since mint 8) and as this one has UNITY as an option I think I will almost certainly migrate from UBUNTU to MINT now.

    Thanks,

    Rob

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  203. There is a bug in the x64 version. When you add something to favorites then click on bottom pannel menu, gnome restarts. On the x32 version, this doesnt happen. I got 4gb ram so i can live with the x32, but some people cant. Hope you find a way to solve this soon enaugh. Thanks for the fine releases Mint team.

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  205. Thanks for your work, but frankly I find Mint 12 disappointing. Trying to put remedy to the clumsy Gnome 3 with another cumbersome interface. The result is that now there are two of them, confusing, and both less functional than Gnome 2.32. Waiting for Debian Edition, but the impression is that the main distros of the penguin are feeling compelled to innovate even when this means a remarkable regress in functionality in favour of aesthetics. I’m going back to Mint 11 and begin to familiarize with XFCE on LMDE. And keep in touch.

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  206. Next distro after OpenSuse 12.1 (KDE & Gnome) which renders the UI unusable after changing screen resolution. The Mint Debian editions seem to be more stable in this respect.

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  207. I have just installed it and it doesn’t work properly… (IBM T42) Sometimes window menus are gone and I restart, then menus disappear I restart again etc.

    I switched from LM 11 (wonderful distro) and I am going back to it. In Gnome 2 we simply had everything needed, and everything worked.

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  208. Elegance isn’t all.
    I wish to have my freedom back.
    This is M$, not LINUX.
    LINUX is for choice.
    Going back to Mint 11.

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  209. I always used the Mint KDE version on my desktop and Gnome on the notebook, but unfortunately this time I feel almost obliged to have to change habits … I fully understand the disappointment of those who, accustomed to the best linux distro realize they have between their hands an absolutely imperfect, certainly through no fault of Clem and all the staff who have really tried to do miracles in trying to repair the damage created by the developers of Gnome, and I see a growing demand for a desktop like KDE which, alas, is missing for two releases.
    On my desktop I’m using kubuntu 11.10 that, to my great surprise, is working well as never before. Personally I think it’s time to fill the void, devoting more time delivering excellent KDE version of Lisa, without abandoning Gnome, at least for those who are so excited …… I hope they really realize what they are saying …

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  210. amd athlon 7750,4gbddr2,ati radeon 5450.linux mint 10 works perfect.linux mint debian works perfect but linux mint 12 did not work thanks for developer for hard work but its not any better than linux mint 11.and linux mint 11 not better than linux mint 10 julia.

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  211. Cheers MATE! Thanks for this release.

    I skipped release 11, because the compiz problems were never solved, but with the current release everything seems to work fine.

    You tried to make Gnome 3 a more usable environment, and you manage to do it, but still, Gnome 3 is very trashy, i don’t really know what they were thinking. Why this regression, when there was a perfect environment, Gnome 2.32? We’ll never know.

    Good work LM team.

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  212. @Barry Smith #199 said “It is a real pity that the half dozen or so top distro developers did not get together and stand firm against this very retrograde step.”

    +1 !

    Mint 12 seems the right way to go for Gnome-Shell future. It is a bit too young for my use so i will stick with LMDE and wait for the dust to settle. Gnome 3 and GTK3 are good things but really their use in making Gnome-shell is a shame ! Thanks to Mint team, Gnome will keep some of their users. Users they would have lost forever otherwise.

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  214. I saw in the previous post someone was also posting from the same name so I just added -m9 since when I am with Linux Mint.

    @Pursicth : I agree with you.

    Mess gnome-3 made and cleaning left for the Clem. If anyone can make gnome-3 usable i.e. Clem. But how we are gon’na make it better? Either by using it (VB may also work for this purpose) and reporting back and also by giving back some fresh ideas. That’s what we are doing. Now the “OR”, if whole community agrees, by boycotting it. But has the community agreed on this point? Ubuntu is busy in Unity and iphone. Fedora and Opensuse, not bothered about users. What options we are left with? There are many things which others have already said I don’nt want to repeat them.

    Anyway just see by the time LM-13 release, how much mature it will be. And the last thing, just by adding Mint Menu how much different the Gnome-3 is looking.

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  215. Oh and i would love to see an extension that provides a good old genuine Gnome 2 menu with “Applications – Places – System” which is by far more productive. Mint menu (and all that kind of menus) are a mess and a pain to find applications (IMHO).

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  216. @180 Pursicth:

    No, I am not The User. I know that. But doesn’t it strike you that after I wrote my complaints here, and I hope you really read them, that many more people complain about Mint12 not being ready, not being the successor of Mint11?

    Many more people see what I saw: an alpha release full of glue to stick together all the extensions needed to try to change Gnome 3 into a sort of Gnome 2. Well, I am not a programmer, but I can tell you this: Mint should not have used Gnome 3 at all.
    Gnome 3 will never be useful, will never be usable.

    Hoffman (203), Semih (202), hamburn (201), Caner (200), Guy (198), josh (197), …. should I continue. They all feel the same as I do and they also have the nerves to tell it here. And because we tell it here we are negative. Yes, and you know why: because Gnome 3 stinks. It should never have been born.

    As I wrote before and I will write it again to make sure you read it this time: Clem and the rest of the team have worked very hard to clean up the mess but it is not good enough. Why not? Because the mess is too big.

    When the RC was released I also wrote that it would have been better for the major distros to get together with Gnome and talk about it. If Gnome was not willing to continue Gnome 2 then the major distros should have said: okay, but then without us.
    Unfortunately they have not done that and now Linux distros are all contaminated with the disease which is Gnome 3.

    I did write many items which did not work for me here in the various blogs, starting with the RC. But none have made it into the “final” version.
    I have spend a whole long evening yesterday installing and changing and fixing and restarting on Lisa but I gave up. If Gnome 3 is the future of Linux then Mr Gates, make sure you press some more DVD’s because you will need them.

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  217. @Clem: Sorry, but after clearing all caches, although I can now navigate to the “Community Website” page, selecting “Tutorials” still brings me to the “Maintenance” page.

    Don’t worry! I’ll be patient, and wait till later in the week.

    NB: The “Tips and Tricks” posting under Forum->Tutorials seems way, way too long (in other words, it makes me feel like a lot is “broken”) — this might not be true, but appearances have worth.

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  222. I really don’t understand why LinuxMint 12 was realised. I feel the same when UNBUNTU 10.04 was realised with UNITY and make me look for another Linux.
    Shoulf I go back to WINDOWS ?
    LinuxMint 12, is certainly not ready, worse, it’s going a wrong way.
    I’m looking at ElementaryOS : http://elementaryos.org/

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  224. Linux Mint 12 IS the successor of Mint 11.
    It IS going in the right direction.
    HOWEVER, Gnome3 is such a big bunch of crap, it’ll take some time to clean it up…

    To those who created the magic idea that is possible to ‘upgrade’ operating systems (there’s always, at least one of you guys): IT IS NOT.
    There is no OS in the world that allows you to do that easily and efficiently.
    However, linux, as the superior OS it is, offers you the chance to create a separate partition for your /home folder, and when you upgrade, all you have to do is mount that partion to your /home again, and you keep all settings and data.
    But no one can do that for you. You have to do that yourself.

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  225. Usuall issues here
    radeon 6790
    rtl8111e/8168b

    nomodeset to tty, apt-get install fglrx, startx or start lightdm to reach desktop.
    nic beyond slow – luckily i have an old netgear nic which is somewhat faster
    On reaching the desktop it looks terrible, not sure I will install yet incase i have further trouble

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  226. @Barry Smith #199 said “It is a real pity that the half dozen or so top distro developers did not get together and stand firm against this very retrograde step.”

    Congratulations, Barry! It’s also my point of view.

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  227. Installed it now getting wierd BIOS problem. I uinstalled it and now back to my windows 7. Linux mint sucks. Windows is better!!!!!

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  228. @211 nomadewolf
    –Linux Mint 12 IS the successor of Mint 11.
    It IS going in the right direction.—-

    No it’s not in both cases.
    It’s not a successor of Mint 11, because it fails in a lot of functionality. So MINT 11, MINT 10 and even Mint 9 will stay on a lot of machines.
    And it’s not going in the right direction. the right direction would have been to tell the Gnome people: clean up your mess, give the user back the right of choice and then we will see….
    There are other desktops out that are much better than that Gnome crap of the moment.

    I know it was a lot of work for Clem and team. But it was work on the false object, sorry.

    Reply

  229. I saw in the previous posts someone was also posting from the same name so I just added -m9 (bobby-m9) since when I am with Linux Mint.

    But the comments I posted from above name are still under moderation.

    Just checking whether it is posted by my old name.

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  231. I would like to thank the Linux Mint team for an excellent effort woth Linux Mint 12 (Lisa).

    I think this version is excellent and very well done, you deserve the success you are currently enjoying within the Linux Distro wars.

    Many thanks

    Adrian (2E0SDR)

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  232. I must agree with MGSE critics. MGSE is one or two steps back. It is conglomerate without future, because its base Gnome Shell is a disaster.
    This time I prefer MATE due to its good-old mint look and maybe future usability.
    MGSE with 2 panels is blind road in the age of wide desktops.

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  233. @ Pursicth and @ DeMus : you both are right at your place.

    But when the Gnome people are not bothered about community what to do. Community should have taken decision to boycott Gnome-3. But, Ubuntu is busy in Unity and iphone. Fedora and OpenSuse are not bothered. Left only linux mint. Since many things are said on the same topic, I don’nt want to repeat them.

    Its gon’na take time for the Clem to make Gnome-3 usable and very much like Katya (as I said earlier also). Perhaps in lM-13 Clem may be able to close the gap. For that he needs our support, feedback, ideas etc. etc. That’s what we are doing.

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  235. As of this moment, I’m sticking to LMDE Xfce edition, I would like to congratulate Clem and the team for listening to the users. I was a gnome user from ubuntu. However, Mark S. changes on UI doesn’t appeal me, I’ve since then looked for another distro and LM fits my need.

    As a developer, I know it’s very hard to maintain a complete fork of Gnome 2.x, and what Clem’s team tried, to the best of their ability, to strike a balance between making a usable shell and maintainable release.

    As of now, I’ll be sticking to XFCE, though I’m eagerly watching LM to see stability and improvements.

    I wish LM more success to their endeavor!

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  236. Clem and team, I really appreciate your efforts to try to make Gnome 3 usable and in recognition I have made another donation.

    However, from my point of view there is still a long way to go make MGSE or MATE sufficiently usable. I will continue to explore Mint 12 but for the time being I am sticking with Mint 10 as my working distro.

    Again, thanks for the fantastic work you are doing.

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  238. I’m not sure why it is absolutely necessary to keep going with Gnome as the main desktop for mint. XFCE4 is a heck of a lot better than Gnome3 at this point. Why not work on improving that platform? I actually think I might like it more than Gnome2 in some ways.

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  239. barry Smith @199

    I agree with you ALMOST completely, in that I too have not found anything about Mint 12 worth changing over. I am running Mint 9 and loving it.

    However, I will surmise that the move to Gnome 3 isn’t retro. True, we may be experiencing performance issues right now, but I believe that it is a sign of things to come. In other words, we aren’t really backing up. Rather, it’s more that we’ve launched ahead into an era that isn’t well suited together yet, namely running a desktop with a tablet OS. Will it ever be right together? Time will tell.

    As is commented on so frequently, Mint has really taken the best approach to this controversy. Hopefully it pays off.

    But it seems like you and I are perfectly happy where we are, and that’s a great thing. I personally am getting tired of hearing people say that a particular DE is being FORCED upon us. That word, FORCED, doesn’t belong in any of these blogs because it’s so far from the truth. You and I are textbook cases of the choice that is available to us.

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  240. Hi, Great Mint but after updates I lost Interface.
    In updates I said system to don’t change old config files of Mint
    but at the end I lose Interface and Menu of Mint MGSE.

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  241. Mint 12 appears a lot faster than 10 or 11. Unfortunately, “Print to PDF”, which worked fine in 10 and 11, does not work at all in Mint 12. This function is great for saving web pages when not connected to a printer. Please fix this in next release.

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  243. well i was excited to see mint 12, i waited for it to come out of the RC stage. Downloaded the dvd version, and was rather excited to see it in action via live disk. I guess it was my fault to be bent on wanting to see the GUI, and being happy with it, did a install. After the install and to my dismay (even after the updates)i found i had not tested the live DVD out enough. I have a dell vostro 1015 and found the wifi driver no longer worked, neither was support for the cpu (i guess). I ran into problems where trying to run the laptop (online or offline) was slower then it ever has been, even running a cooling mat under the laptop i had extreme overheat issues as well as the hard drive was having very bad read/write problems (by the physical sound of it). Support for simple things like my usb mouse was gone or my mp3.
    Now on just the gui side of things, it has good points sure, but there is a more of the bad that out weights anything else for me. I had been using mint since the first version of mint 5 came out, upgrading and slowly watching it turn to what i think it is the height of disaster such as the new mint 12 distro.
    If this is what Linux has turned into then i will be the first to say that this is a case being attracted to windows

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  244. @DeMus “When the RC was released I also wrote that it would have been better for the major distros to get together with Gnome and talk about it. If Gnome was not willing to continue Gnome 2 then the major distros should have said: okay, but then without us.”

    Agreed, DeMus.
    We then have the problem of finding volunteer open-source developers willing to take over the Gnome 2 code and keep up up-to-date and in sync with new applications, updates on older software and with new hardware. I don’t know about you, but I can’t do it: I’m a desktop user not a developer. I sometimes submit bug reports or help in the forums but that’s the best I can do at this time.

    According to the Mate website, the Mate team seem to taken the Gnome 2 code and made it proprietary, meaning it can only be developed by their team and not by the wider community (a retrograde step which slows development) and being proprietary, the code is hidden and so tracking code or spyware could be in there, although I am sure that the current Nate team would not go down that path. We need an open-source fork of Gnome 2 or a totally different desktop environment.

    In a previous post, Guy said that he did not want to go down the Xfce path. I have been a devout Gnome fan since I started using Linux nine years ago and I can see that point, but for me I am trying Xfce on LMDE on my second computer at the moment. It may be a poor alternative but I don’t want to use Gnome 3 on LMDE in the future, so I am looking now for options for the future. If it’s good enough for Linus then it will be good enough for me for a while.

    Many Linux users are still waiting for a true fork of Gnome 2. Come on developers, take up the opportunity and help the Linuix world.

    Thanks to Clem and the team for all the hard work in trying to give the user a fast, user-friendly and functional system, and for listening. You have been great.

    Best wishes to all

    Reply

  247. BUG # Permission Folder/Files Access

    I cant give create/write rights to files on my second nonsystem partition, the option of folders work ok but option for files is switching automatically to —
    Same for Owner/Groups/Others

    Reply

  248. @ DeMus: I do have a tendency to exaggerate and get excited. It doesn’t work perfectly. It’s stable on my x121e- that’s what I meant; functionally it is stable on my personal computer, I was adding specifc case example.

    But it doesn’t anyway, obviously. It also involves a change of behaviour. And problems exist- I was installing lots of extensions last night, and themes. Themes not made by mint are dangerous. One in particular completely stopped gnome working and I had to save all my precious documents and do a complete reinstall. I’ve added lots of extensions this morning (you can add them in seconds once you know how), and the themes by Satya. I don’t trust the themes not made by mint, so won’t be running them. One of the major things missing is a theme design extension for mint as themes are an attractive thing to add and will probably freeze a lot of systems like they did mine.

    In reference to things being ‘perfect’ or ‘there’, obviously this is a very new desktop and it runs very stable if I dont start messing about with things that aren’t official mint configured. So, as a functional system it works well on my laptop…it isn’t there because lots of functionality needs to be added in. But I have managed to add 10+ extensions this morning in a few minutes. If I can do it (with only a few months linux experience) I don’t imagine it will be long that mint has added whatever other extensions and themes are needed. I understand its not ever going to be perfect for some people, or at least as they can imagine it now.

    Reply

  249. On the one hand, it’s laudable that Clem and team tried to put a band-aid on the ill-considered disaster that is Gnome 3. On the other and much more realistic hand, trying to band-aid a bad solution is NEVER a good idea, never mind the lofty sentiments and rhetoric.

    Gnome 3 and MSGE is a Bad Idea.

    There’s no way to window-dress it, no way to “put a smiling face” on it. Essentially a multitasking operating system has been hobbled – that’s it, that’s all. Yes, I’m one of those who runs browsers, VLC, mkvmerge, OpenOffice and file management functions simultaneously – I do it on Windows 7 x64 and Mint 10 x64 every day. I didn’t get a quad core 3.4Ghz with 8Gb RAM and twin Barracuda 7200.12s to use it like a 286. You can heap accolades but that simple fact is undeniable and inescapable: Gnome 3 in any form emasculates Linux.

    So what to do?

    The Intelligent solution would be to work with the MATE team to improve that solution, including ways to make the code less proprietary as discussed elsewhere in this thread. That’s not going to be easy but will have a tangible payoff that eclipses anything hoped to be gained by the current path (Mint 12).

    You don’t take a Ferrari and put lawnmower tires on it (Mint 12 with MSGE). You don’t take a Ferrari and drop in an engine that has only four firing cylinders (Mint 12 with the current incarnation of MATE). You go back to the drawing board, take your time and come up with a REAL solution that doesn’t cost your users functionality or power yet still has some form.

    I’m staying with Mint 10 (which does have a few foibles but is eminently usable in a multitasking context) until a more realistic solution comes along, be it from this distro or elsewhere.

    Sorry folks: Mint 12 is not that solution.

    The emperor is NOT wearing new clothes.

    Reply

  250. ____________________________________________

    not installing.
    should be based on arch, at least…
    mint needs a breakthrough from ubuntu.

    ____________________________________________

    Reply

  252. I actually don’t mind gnome3 except for the fact that it’s doing some odd things like changing settings randomly and not letting me add workspaces. Hopefully it’ll be better in 6 months or so, but for now it feels unready, kinda like MS’s vista disaster.

    For now I’m sticking with Mint 11, mint lxde and lubuntu.

    Reply

  254. Since Mint 11 is supported until Oct. 2012 I will stick with it and hold off on 12. Gnome 3 is too much of a radical departure for me and many other users like me who are satisfied with a “traditional” desktop interface and really would prefer not to have to learn something new. Not that I’m stodgy. I migrated from Windows to Linux and am not averse to trying something new but that transition was much easier because both Gnome and Windows used basically the same desktop operating principles.

    From what I’ve read, Gnome 3 takes what I’m used to and tosses it out the door. And God bless Clem and the Mint Team but you guys shouldn’t have to write more bloatware to build on top of another piece of bloatware just to make it work. I am grateful for all your hard work and I will watch the development of MATE with interest but for the time being I’m sticking with LM11.

    Reply

  257. Absolutely fantastic – your best release yet in my opinion. Great job to Clem and everyone else involved. There’s a reason why Mint is number 1 on Distrowatch now and this is it.

    Reply

  258. @manny : I like KDE. You know by now which KDE I am using as I know you are using Kubuntu. As the above posts suggest, every person have a different test. Many like Xfc. Even in KDE some chose different distros as per their liking and suitability. Community is dividing right now and rightly so in preparation of the future. I want to ask you to check something, in Kubuntu, Moun Software Center, settings, configure software sources, in the “updates”, when I see it “unsupported updates” is ticked (switched on), I could not able to switch it off (why would anyone like to keep it on). Any idea. Or whether its only with me.

    Reply

  259. To all the people that or not happy with Linux Mint 12 we in the Gnome word of Linux or at a big mile stone the Gnome team is trying to keep up with the Jones it just so happens nobody likes the Jones thats why we used Gnome to start with. I think that the Linux Mint team is trying there best to make every body happy. I really did what to see a good working gnome 3 in a deb base not that I am saying I like it but I can maybe get use to it and Mate has come a long way with the help of the Linux Mint team. With all that said I’ll stay with Linux Mint 12 and let them know about the bugs and maybe they can work them out and keep going with MATE and GNOME 3. Bug MATE Linux Mint menu in Mate buggy when you try to scroll .

    Reply

  264. This is a pretty good release. MATE is included, which most distros aren’t bothering with.
    MGSE is amazing. It takes the horrible turd that is GNOME 3 and makes it somewhat decent. MSGE still needs some work, but is a huge improvement.

    Reply

  265. @DeMus : Thanks for checking. And one suggestion (of course its up to you, and it is not forrrcced as Gnome-3, ha ha ha ha [laughing], just joking), I had same experience as you about LM-12, I shifted it in VB. From there I am using it and giving feedbacks. I know you might be knowing this already (RCs should be checked in VB only, but this time perhaps it applies to main also)

    Reply

  266. Thank you for making the icons smaller and for returning the task bar: now Gnome3 is really useful, multitask and pretty 😀

    Reply

  267. 🙁 Mint Linux on my old mac in vmware fusion was a bit bad, looks like Ubuntu of 3 years ago. I guess I’ll be trying XFCE.

    By the way, wallpapers with versions maybe the wrong way to go, theres a wallpaper with version 11, doesn’t look good.

    I don’t understand If I got this old version, why could the old mint menu be put in??

    Reply

  268. Sorry team, but Gnome3 is piece of crap for me and even hundreds of “desktop layers” will not make this environment usable. Linux Mint 11 is the last version I’ll use till the support ends.

    Reply

  269. Hello Mint, I´m really sorry to say this and I know you put in a lot of work but Mint 12 is a big disappointment I know it´s not your fault you did your best but and yes MATE looks promising but right now it looks bit buggy my bars disappeared. I know you did your best but it is the fault of the gnome3 shit. Yesterday I installed Mint 11 and found it really unbelievable good. I´m sorry to say but you went from Mint 11 (9/10) Mint 12 = (3/10). Can´t see my self doing productive things on it. I really hope that MATE will one day replace that irritation GNOME3 but for now I have only few options back to Mint 11 or back to xubuntu 11.10 or ubuntu 11.10. My Linux experience has become a very sad quest to find a good replacement for that shitty UNITY. Fuck linux is really dying.

    Reply

  270. Mint is the one… why the menu bar in top….? why..? is obuntu..?

    i will see the mint 13. if bakc to real mint, i hope so.

    Reply

  271. Any body trying to us a usb to safe a dvd just a heads up after startup disk creator is done you will have to edit a file on the usb to get it to work. Here is what you need to do. Go to the usb drive then to /syslinux/syslinux.cfg and change the top line to read this ( default live ) with out the () and safe it thats all no it will boot

    Reply

  274. Well, I’ve been lovin’ Linux Mint for some time and I appreciate the combined effort to produce such a quality product. As I already this new version is gonna be even sweeter than previous one. Good job.

    Reply

  275. I am new to linux Os presently i am using ubuntu. I don’t know how linux mint was i am going to try. i hope it will be nice because, i have checked the you tube video for review it was really nice, I am amazed after checking the review..

    Reply

  276. Thank you Linux Mint! MGSE is amazing. It really makes GNOME 3 not only workable, but enjoyable.

    I tried Fedora 15 and Ubuntu with Unity but they are nothing compared to this Mint release. It is very clear that GNOME 3 will not disappear and as previously stated that is really no longer such a terrible thing but really an enjoyable one with a lot more potential.

    Really, thank you for all your hard work. I don’t understand how anyone could complain about this release.

    Reply

  277. Downloaded the newest ISO’s and did a fresh install. MGSE is working great. MATE is looking good but is still unstable for me. You cannot change the theme without it removing the bottom bar. I didn’t download Mint to use MATE anyway. I’m just testing to provide some feedback. I’m liking MSGE so I will stick with it. Hope the bugs get worked out of MATE.

    Dave

    Reply

  278. Hi, in message 222 I wrote about some problem with shell interface and Menu but now is all ok.
    When I see LM12, I run to install and pick first button as type of installation to see differences. Here i see that Install process just run with formatting without request confirmation!
    Next I install in true position but get a Grub problem.
    After reinstall Grub all go ok.

    Reply

  279. Awesome! I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while.
    I don’t know what MATE is but I’ll figure it out later.
    Gnome 3 and a new kernel is what I am most excited for.

    Reply

  281. Sorry, I don’t like the new Linux Mint 12 GUI. No Control Panel? What’s up with that? It installed ok and no hardware problems. Linux Mint 12 runs just fine. I just don’t like the way it looks and how everything is switched around. I didn’t really care for the Linux Mint 11 GUI either.

    The GUI in Linux Mint 9 is SO much better! I’ve tried dozens of Linux Distros, and Linux Mint 9 is the best of the best in my opinion. Good thing it’s still supported until 2013. I’ll try out Linux Mint 12 for a while, but I’ll probably switch to LMDE XFCE instead.

    Reply

  282. @Clem and Mint Team

    On mate-session, double-clicking a desktop shortcut opens the place in Caja (old Nautilus), but clicking a place from mintmenu opens it in Nautilus (3.2 version). This should be fixed in order to improve desktop experience.

    Also, e.g. under Multimedia section in mintmenu, you can find mate-sound-recorder (which does not work, complains about mateconfelements module from gst-plugins-good) and also gnome-sound-recorder (Gnome 3 version).

    I’ve been following mate thread in arch’s forums, and I just learned that mate is EULA licensed..! I’m from Argentina (as is Perberos, mate author and leader of it’s developers-team-of-one-person), and I suspect he’ll want to close the source after mate has gained popularity and works properly. I won’t support this piece of software anymore because it’s not libre.

    Thanks anyway! Hope my bug reports are useful for you!

    Reply

  283. Let me just say that I am impressed. Great job!

    Been using linuxmint since version 8. But this is for me a great step forward.

    Congratulations!

    Reply

  284. @bobby

    Hi bobby, I checked that setting and I can switch it off on my OS indeed. However I’m not using the Muont Software Center, I downloaded Ubuntu Software Center instead and this is what I’m using now, I recommend you to do the same and give it a tray.

    I agree with you, Gnome3 has divided the community and annoyed lots of users. (No blaming Clem for it, but Gnome) If Clem doesn’t bring KDE soon enough I suspect members might start jumping ship soon. XFCE is available while LM-KDE is not up to date at this moment. In my opinion, users who are not satisfied with Gnome3 would have more choices and hopefully they will remain in the LM’s family. I will wait patiently for a LM-KDE but if it is not possible to release a strong LM-KDE I will have not a problem staying with Kubuntu.

    Let me know how you like Ubuntu Software Center, I believe is very efficient and awesome tool.

    Reply

  285. Very good work.

    Possible bug> when I drag and drop icons to the launcher I lose the windows borders, which is very sad.

    Reply

  286. Thanks for your work

    I test all latest Linux Distributions
    Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, openSUSE 12.1 etc…

    LinuxMint 12 is the only Desktop Linux Distributions,
    I can work (programming) at this time

    Thanks again, my support…

    CodeTyphon Architect/Programmer

    Reply

  287. I like this…. using almost pure Gnome 3. It is fresh and modern and I have no problem getting my work done at all. The future desktop users will cut their teeth on Iphones, Ipads, and Android. This will be natural for them. I can understand why the Gnome developers felt they had to make this move to stay relevant. Old dogs like myself CAN learn a new trick. BTW I do sympathize with those reluctant to change.

    Reply

  288. Arrrggwwwhh – I downloaded Katya on the 26th in the morning. I needed it for my sons Desktop. His old Helena became a bit “bitchy” in the last weeks. But after installing Katya the first thing i saw when i opened the Fox: Lisa is stable now !
    WTF@#*$%§….
    Worst possible timing ever !!! 🙂

    Reply

  289. Picked up my hardware flawlessly on two machines. I’ve never installed a distro without having to scour the internet for at least one driver, so that was nice.

    I was offered the choice to ‘upgrade’ to a proprietary Broadcom wireless driver, but the libre one is working fine for me, so I’ll stick with it, thanks 🙂

    Window list extension wasn’t working, but the updates fixed it. That is the most important extension IMO.

    The red ‘x’ button in the windows overview is clipped sometimes – it is just a minor display annoyance on an otherwise beautiful desktop.

    Advanced settings was the first thing I wanted to tweak, so it was nice to see it in the favorites list by default. I enabled all the extensions except the Bottom Panel Extension and Menu Extension.

    I have a laptop with a second monitor, arranged one above the other. The only way I could get the top panel where I wanted it was to disable the laptop monitor, forcing the panel to the other one, the re-enable the laptop monitor.

    It will take me a while to get used to gnome3, but I’m enjoying the experience, especially with MSGE.

    Reply

  290. I love it ..but unfortunately my favourite game (Urban Terror) is unplayable ..very low fps ..:( thinking about switching to a KDE distro..good job and congratulations.

    Reply

  291. @mintTeam…
    first of all thanks for hard working and delivering a good mint12 but…

    I don’t see the reason(s) why go over to M12. No improved usability, no improved lay-out, maybe still a bit buggy.

    I think I will give a try to Mint 13.

    Thanks

    Reply

  294. This is my first Linux. Never tried before and I must say it works quite well, desktop looks nice, overall performance is good but I had some problems with suggested graphical driver and was forced to reinstall this OS. I had also so problems like how to turn on my screen after it goes black or how to install programs, but after few hours I started to undestand how things work. 🙂
    Overall good job with OS so keep it up. 8)

    Reply

  295. Just installed very nice layout for gnome 3 , all updates done , much improvement over unity , still a little buggy though. Record my desktop crashes the gnome panel , not sure why but I see a few launchpad issues posted so I will assume it will be addressed in the not to distant future. Is there an alternative gui for ffmpeg available for Mint 12 out there, welcome any suggestions.

    Reply

  296. to gee7

    Hi man, you write:

    ‘According to the Mate website, the Mate team seem to taken the Gnome 2 code and made it proprietary, meaning it can only be developed by their team and not by the wider community (a retrograde step which slows development) and being proprietary, the code is hidden and so tracking code or spyware could be in there, although I am sure that the current Nate team would not go down that path. We need an open-source fork of Gnome 2 or a totally different desktop environment.’

    Can you give us any proof of what you say?

    Edit by Clem: Here’s the proof it’s FUD, and a link to the source code: https://github.com/Perberos/Mate-Desktop-Environment

    Reply

  297. Hi you guys are ding a great job!

    I have not been able to get my favourite applets on my panels. Are applets available in gnome3? For example in mint 11 I had a frequency scaling monitor and a net speed applet running on my panel but can’t seem to find these feature in mint 12.

    Can you help??

    Reply

  298. Congratulations! So glad that Mint Firefox defaults to Mint when started; that way, I’m more likely to keep up to date. Stared at teh headline for the most-recent link, and mentally shook myself — It’s real! Yay!

    At last, I’m doing some serious BitTorrent seeding (using Vuze, aka Azureus). For the moment, that’s how I’m modestly giving back. My router’s data LEDs are blinking quite fast…

    Just wondering whether my amateur/Google translations of some Spanish posts are helpful. I have some basic knowledge of Spanish, and Google:Translate can be very helpful.

    Con mis recuerdos/With my regards,
    [nb]

    Reply

  299. @Thom W. (#62) said
    “I believe Serge Lussier was using the abbreviation of Messieurs (from the French Monsieur) As in: ” What a great achievement by [Misters] Lefebvre and his ‘cool-laborators’ “

    Most helpful! Also interesting; I’m a dilettante linguist.

    Regards,
    [nb]

    Reply

  300. @aeromeme (No. 73) said

    (Raw Google translation)
    “It is good that came out as the new flat 12 … we’re waiting here in El Salvador … I am a student at the University of El Salvador and a member of a community in which we are responsible for promoting free software, our best option has become Linux Mint from version X”

    I think the first phrase might be “How nice that the new linux 12 has come out.” “Flat” doesn’t seem to make sense.

    “from version X” is probably better translated as “since version 10”.
    Nothing wrong with using Roman numerals, in my humble opinion (“imho”).

    Con mis recuerdos,
    [nb]

    Reply

  301. Raul (No. 111) said, originally in Portuguese:
    “I was really looking forward to the release of 12 mint. Congratulations to all staff developer[s].”

    Reply

  302. I am disappointed, after the fiasco of Unity and Gnome 3, I (and a large section of the Linux community) were hoping that Mint 12 would bring some sanity. I was wrong.

    Whilst I commend the devs for their hard work and effort what we have got is, quite frankly, a mess. It is neither one or the other, it is clear that Gnome 3 is more insidious and trying to ‘tame’ it just creates even more chaos. Lately it has been said that Unity is an unholy mess, well Mint with its ‘hybrid’ DE is even worse.

    It is time for what was the best Linux out there, Mint, to man up, ditch Gnome 3 and use only XFCE or some other ‘proper’ desktop and stop this madness once and for all. Faffing about with the broken will only lead to the death of Linux.

    I have used Mint for several years, donated and encouraged others to use this fine distro, I am now sad at what it has become so I am looking for an alternative until some common sense returns.

    I wish you all the best of luck and pray that I am wrong.

    Reply

  303. I’ve been reading bitter comments about the top bar taking up screen space. It just occurred to me: Are those who complain running at low resolution, perhaps unnecessarily? Good heavens, I hope nobody is stuck with, say 640 x 400. Even 800 x 600 seems rather outdated. If one is using a small monitor, good_used_unwanted CRT monitors are often put out as trash (in the USA; our depression still doesn’t seem to make us value everything that works, or is usable).

    A few years ago, some friends (not of the Facebook type) found a 21-inch CRT monitor (Mitsubishi, with the Digital logo and model number) put out by the roadside, and saved it for me. That’s unusual luck, though. It works up to 1600 x 1200, but Linux desktop text is too small to be practical. However, thanks to Clem and crew (or Ubuntu?) it’s easy to switch resolutions in Mint (really appreciated!). I routinely run at 1280 x 1024.

    Reply

  305. @Nicabod,

    I think the comments are more geared towards a high number of Mint users that use laptops or notebooks, when you have a 10 inch notebook screen running 1024×768 max to play with every mm of desktop space become critical and having two separate and unnecessary taskbars at the top and bottom chew into that space

    Reply

  306. Hi Clem and team!
    First I want to say that “Lisa” is very good, looks very very smart. But I have problem during installation. I have notebook Acer One D255 and during installation when system loading files I need choose my picture for log in option but I cant move because button forward is bellow my screen and installation process is unsuccessful. I try move top panel not works, I removed bottom panel not works, I tried resize window not works! How can I skip this process or do anything to continue and finish installation process successful???? Please help!

    Reply

  307. Just installed “kde-full” from synaptic. Seems ok so far, although I haven’t tested it fully yet. Gives us another option though, whilst still being able to keep up with where this Gnome 3/Gnome shell thing is going.
    Must say, I’m loving kde at the mo’. Hoping the official Mint kde will make an appearance before Christmas. Good luck Clem and team!

    Reply

  308. Thanks for taking down my post, don’t like constructive criticism it seems.

    Yet another reason to dump Mint.

    🙁

    Edit by Clem: If you’re new on this blog your comments get moderated for spam. It takes a little time for us to go through the comments and approve them. As you can see nothing was “taken down” (we only remove comments when there’s spam, fud, religion, politics or when the author disrespects others or acts aggressively). As for constructive criticism, you must be new to Linux Mint, we keep asking for feedback.

    Reply

  309. @Mark:

    Indeed, that must be the case. I think it would be great if those who suffer from the top bar to tell us what screen size (in pixels) they are using. I surely understand! Thanks for your comment.

    This reminds me of a fellow running Ms Write, some years ago, who enabled every optional toolbar (and the like); he was probably running 800 x 600 on a 15-inch monitor. His working area for text looked like about 3 by 5 inches (about 8 by 13 cm) iirc.

    [Semi-stray thoughts:]
    I think it might be wise for developers to keep, say, a 15-inch monitor around, and try their releases at 800 x 600 on it. True, it makes sense to go only so far back (no more monochrome monitors, even if they did (or could) have great resolution). Perhaps along with the monitor, keep a representative older machine, as well. The recent Parted Magic has three versions, one capable of running on Pentium II’s. P.M.’s developer got Firefox’s permission to compile it for 486’s! That’s included in the .iso for old machines.

    Reply

  310. “I’m not sure why it is absolutely necessary to keep going with Gnome as the main desktop for mint. XFCE4 is a heck of a lot better than Gnome3 at this point. Why not work on improving that platform? I actually think I might like it more than Gnome2 in some ways.”

    XFCE4 is a heck of a lot better than Shell is it?? I use Shell as mu main desktop for months and it’s a heck of a lot better than any other desktop out there.. Who whos right? I guess you just don’t understand Shell or what you can add to it or get out of it, I have everything I had in Gnome 2 on my Shell panels via extensions.

    I really don’t see what all the moaning is about, Shell kicks serious ass and I came from Mint 9,10 & 11, I even ditched 11 to jump on Shell with Ubuntu because I was so pleased with it but now I can return to Mint with Shell so I’m even more pleased.

    Reply

  311. Adam (255) (and another recent post) refer to nasty problems that clip the right and lower edges of install screens. I ran into that some time ago, perhaps with a Debian installation that made it wickedly difficult to set anything bigger than 800 x 600.

    On the other hand (“otoh”), several recent distros. detect my monitor and use its max. default of 1600 x 1200 automatically. Tiny text, but you can see more of what scrolls up (if that happens).

    Regards,
    [nb]

    Reply

  313. Clem, you and the team did great work but the ATI driver still screws it up for me. I think I’ll stick with LinuxMint 11 for now and look forward to the next version. Keep up the good work.

    Reply

  314. I suggest for Mint 13, three important changes:
    – find a way to use (well) only one panel
    – make the theme much more smooth in grey, without anything dark part
    – deleta that menu and make a porting of the mintmenu from katya.

    For the rest grate job! The best gnome 3 distro at the moment!

    Reply

  315. Definetively GNOME 3 is (maybe) more eye-candy for some users, but it’s a complete regression; less options to configure it (an example: there is no a way to configure the default resolution for the X server), slower and buggier than GNOME 2. MSGE isn’t as good as the old Mint Menu.

    Also, KDE 4.7 isn’t many stable yet (tested at openSUSE 12.1).
    In the same way, Xfce isn’t a real alternative for GNOME 2 yet.

    I think Linux Mint devs. must make the effort on MATE project to improve it, it’s very buggy at this momment.

    I downgrade Linux Mint 12 to Linux Mint 11. I hope Linux Mint 13 will be better & better that Linux Mint 12.
    Anyway, great work; but GNOME 3 is not the best way.

    Reply

  316. Functioning Shell Extensions:

    Menu Extension
    Window Navigator
    Smart View
    Monitor Status
    Bottom Panel
    Panel Favourites
    Removable Drive Menu
    Global Menu
    Weather Indicator
    Extended Places Status Indicator
    Shutdown Menu
    Pidgin IM Integration
    noally
    Alt Tab
    Windows List
    Notifications
    Auto Move Windows
    GPaste
    System Monitor
    Auto Hide Top Panel
    Gajim IM Integration
    Notes Search Provide for Gnote Tomboy
    Native Window Placement
    Applications Menu Extension
    Gimmie Extension
    Presentation Mode Extension
    User Themes Extension
    Places Status Indicator
    Workspace Indicator
    Media Player Extension
    Update Indicator
    Alternative Status Menu

    Fun. The Gimmie one is really useful.

    Other than that- after a fresh install of mint 12 amd64 late last night after a unofficial frame completely refused to allow shell theme to work and altered my screen parameters- my new mint 12 install is using even more power and reaching higher temp than the 12rc did! I thought there was no difference after full upgrades! This is either some configuration issue (maybe some of the extras I installed to reduce energy consumption), or maybe a new kernel between the 12rc and the 12 stable. From my very little experience, I thought that the 12rc kernel I had was 3.0.12 whereas this new ‘respun’ 12stable I think has a 3.0.13 kernel.

    Shell extensions are great…but the heat issue goes on…and maybe gets worse…or something is happening after this reinstall I can’t comprehend…

    Anyone else had any luck with themes?

    Reply

  321. paul@256

    I’m with you on the KDE thing. There was a time when I liked KDE better than Gnome because of configuration options. But there was really too many options. And when KDE 4 came out, the crap hit the fan because it was terribly unstable. So I settled into Gnome, and it’s been great. For me Gnome 2 has always had just the right amount of options.

    But ever since Gnome 3, I’ve been testing several different KDE releases–Kubuntu 11.10 being the most fully tested for me. I must say that I like it a lot, and have experienced virtually nothing in the way of crashes. Of course, this is my opinion and it should be taken as nothing more than that, but I find KDE much more like Gnome 2 in a lot of ways. It’s also better in many ways, but the downside is again related to so many options. It can be quite overwhelming.

    It boils down to this for me: Gnome 3 is missing some critical elements for me personally. KDE has those elements, and looks really slick. And I don’t feel like I’ve wasted a lot of time growing accustomed to it. When it’s time for me to finally give up my Linux Mint 9 PC, then I will most likely move to KDE if Gnome hasn’t addressed my issues.

    Reply

  322. An interesting experiment. However, for working purposes I’ll need to put xfce or lxde on top of Lisa, which defeats the purpose of having a nice distro out of box.
    Gnome 3 + MGSE is just usable, but I don’t see why I should use a behemoth consuming 1.7+ GiB of memory which is no more convenient than pure command line.
    MATE is nice, but:
    1. it has memory leaks, which I can’t trace down (don’t show up in top)
    2. I can’t switch users from MATE.
    Some ideas for Clem:
    A. The people behind Gnome have either lost their senses or some evil powers are at work. Why follow them, other than to prove Ubuntu a dead end?
    B. Simpler, well defined & documented bricks could be used in an effort to achieve a suitable desktop environment.

    Reply

  323. gnome3 fall back mode is better than unity 2d. less crashy, responsive, great release. will be sticking with mint 12.0!

    Reply

  324. @PB: True, KDE has many options so the best thing to do in my opinion is to leave them alone, the defaults works OK for me. Just needed to tweak the fonts options, The options I need are very straight forward to set, keyboard language for example. Kwin in my opinion is easier than Compiz to setup and setting the desktop is not that difficult either. KDE has a very rich UI, very stable, since I installed it I have not had a single glitch. The beauty of it is you can dig into the options if you like but is not really necessary for most of the time. If you do a mistake just press “defaults” and you are back to the original settings. You can’t do wrong with that.

    I suggested Bobby to install Ubuntu Software Center, have you tried it? if not just try and see how you feel about it. Another suggestion is setting the PPA to get KDA updates as soon as they are released.

    I’m hopping to see an LM-KDE sooner or later.

    PB, your comments are ones of the best in the blog. I really enjoy reading them.

    Reply

  325. I replaced Linux Mint 11 with Fedora 16 for the last week = meh! (Just wanted to try 16 while I wait for 12 to see if it would stick… well Thank you thank you thank you!! Back to Mint!

    Reply

  330. This new Mint12 is gorgeous! This will be my daily driver, but I am glad to have Debian and LXDE to use as low-power fallbacks on reduced capability laptops.

    I would agree with some the Ubiquity/Unity UI is a heavy-handed and perhaps not much more than eye-candy, but it sure beats staring at Windows all day. Overall, I think this is most “polished” Mint since Mint7.

    Thanks again Clem and Team!

    Reply

  331. am not able to load this or rc on on my gateway e4100 machines had exact same issue with mint debian
    it stops loading live cd at line:

    [ 0.315153] [] ? kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10

    i have tried on 3 sepperate systems same effect

    any ideas thanks in advance

    Reply

  333. Congratulation to the Linux mint team !

    Great future is wating for you !

    Thankyou very much for your hardworking…

    Reply

  334. besides problems with not loading on most of my pc’s i can say o well i really dont like gnome 3 anyway looks like katya skipped kde so maybe we can get it on lisa or just find a better alternative i suggest forget them and build from scratch everything because with the common sense clem and the mint team have had over the years they would most likely take most of the market but that would be a major lot of resources. anyway i have faith they could do it and i know they would make the best looking and most configurable GUI for Linux.
    LOL are you up too it Clem

    Reply

  335. I’ll be playing around with Mint 12 while waiting for the KDE version. Now THAT would be a great Christmas present! 🙂 Still with Min 10 KDE because it never showed up on Mint 11.

    Reply

  336. at DeMus: I wholeheartedly agree with you….On my laptop I tried Ubuntu 12 and LM12rc … neither one worked properly out of the box, whether it was 32 oder 64 bit, whether I installed them on a SD-Card, on my SSD or in VB/VMWare Player. It starts right with “my” ATI-Card 4570 or in VB with their graphics card.
    .
    LOOOL – sorry – the funny thing is until LM 10/Ubuntu 10 I didn’t/don’t have those problems….just in VB Ubuntu 11 doesn’t work either.
    .
    Why are others happy? I have NO clue …. either they all have “super-duper” machines at hand or I am simply too stupid install Ubuntu 12/LM Lisa after 20 yrs of Computer experience 😉

    Reply

  337. at Pursicth: Look what may or may not in 2 or 3 years doesn’t matter. If one releases an OS it should work out of the box or be easily fixable. IT IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE FOR A NEW OS NOT TO WORK, while old versions work.period!
    .
    And yes I have a choice, but whats the point here? Developers want people to use their newest product or not? Do they wanna gain market share or continue producing frickle products?
    .

    Reply

  338. Well at first i was confused at the new features, im starting to like them now . Its still better than windows i have been able to start a home based business of repairing and recycling computers with using linux mint i am actually able to bring older slower computers back to life and make them fast ! I have been using mint since version 9 i tried Ubuntu before and did not like it at all keep up the great work !!! Also i have been converting a lot of windows users over to linux mint here in flint michigan they like it quite a bit .

    Reply

  339. My Headphones work!! My Headphones Work! My Headphones WORK!! woo hoo! They didn’t for Ubuntu 11.04 or Mint 11 but do now. Thanks for making Linux Mint 12 with a selector FOR headphones too. Only problem I’ve had is some scrambled desktop where it goes away for a second of two, then returns after clicking a window off. The start up time on my laptop is longer than Win7 and Mint 11 but is tolerable. I miss being able to right click and add close arrows and things to the task bar and the top black bar is over kill but you can always go full screen to get rid of it. I’m happy you all did such a good job. Even better? I use Linux Mint 12 full time and only have to use Windows in the Virtual Machine to use my brothers SlingBox tv broadcast AND MAGIC JACK to make phone calls. Good job to all Involved with Linux Mint 12. :0)

    Reply

  340. @mintfan Why are others happy? I have NO clue

    If the mint team released a turd and called it Mint 12, you’d still have the “Way to go Clem, this is awesome!” comments.

    I don’t know why it is, but I have observed there is a sub section of users who are oblivious problems and LOVE everything.

    (I am not saying mint 12 is a turd… I Know they are doing the best with the current situation)

    Reply

  341. Update from the battlefront: Just “installed” the 64bit no codecs iso onto my multiboot SD-Card with 1024MB persistent casper-rw.

    First thing I noticed:
    How can I simply disconnect from an AP (NO more “Disconnect” option), 2nd:
    I now have to go Network blabla to delete an AP through the Mint menu??
    3rd:
    My ATI Card 4570 show as Gallus something, is this correct?

    BUT now the B E S T part: After making the 240+ update I ended up with a black/blank screen …….. LOOOOOOL sorry!

    Reply

  342. im a big mint fan, but i just won’t accept gnome 3. this isn’t for desktops! it’s for tablets! i don’t care what anyone says. i understand this is a hard call for the mint team.

    wouldn’t it be better to move on to xfce or lxde?

    i would like to use the Debian version but im not much for tinkering that much. just want a desktop like mint 11 that works! and works great! 🙂 for me probably back to 11 until next year.

    i have faith that the mint team will find a solution and hopefully that’s not gnome 3 or mate.

    Reply

  343. The way I’ve set up Mint 12 is somewhat similar to the way I have OS X Snow Leopard running on my MacBook. I’ve turned off the bottom panel extension and replaced it with an auto-hiding application launching dock which contains the apps I use a lot. The dark gray top panel, also auto-hideable (duckduckgo/google that non-Mint extension if you’re adventurous), shows any running apps in the windows list formerly displayed in the bottom panel. Running the mouse to the far upper left hand corner of the screen or simply hitting the Super (Windows) key displays every open app in its respective window all in the same screen (very similar to Expose’ on the Mac).

    Mint 12 is somewhat different than previous Mint Gnome versions but the Mint shell extensions make it easy and intuitive to work with. I’m quite confident that Clem has many new innovative features and improvements in store for us. I look forward to Mint’s continued evolution. This is fun!

    Reply

  344. @bob i wonder myself how people can be happy with this? even more so coming from 11 which i thought was fantastic! mint does it’s best to fix the gnome 3 mess but can only do so much.

    Reply

  345. I have this installed on a AMD 2100+ system that is old.. and now a AMD x2 3800 system..

    There is some times where I am not sure what is going on.. there is hesitation but everything works after a moment. But Otherwise this is a effective OS.. I like it..

    Reply

  346. Yes, well done Mint Team for all of the hard work you have put in. Sadly, I am going to wait for Mint LXDE as I just don’t like Gnome 3 yet and MATE in your words isn’t stable yet. I need a production machine so will stick with Mint 11 for now.

    I was hoping we would have a shutdown or log out button in the Mint Menu as having to go to the far, top right of a large screen isn’t very intuitive but maybe that will come at another time. This option was included in Unity.

    Once again, thanks for all of the work you are putting in but Gnome 3 just doesn’t feel mature enough to use yet. Lubuntu and Mint LXDE are more attractive, IMO.

    Reply

  349. I posted several bug reports on here, in the forums, and also on launchpad. Apparently they were not addressed. Gnome 3 is not ready for anything. It’s junk. Why not just focus on getting something that works? What a mess! Where am I going to send my 50+ user base now?!?! Guess I’m going to have to go and roll my own or something. What a pain in the ass!

    Reply

  350. I think Linux Mint 12 is the right way, but atm not usable (IMHO). It’s instable as opposed to a Gnome2 from older Mint or Ubuntu Desktops.
    But I think this needs only some time, so that in the future the new Mint-Distris will be better than the older one.
    Give the new technologie some time to grow-up;).

    Reply

  351. I love Mint10 with Gnome2 it’s so user friendly. Gnome3 is junk. with Gnome2 everywhere you just right click and do something right away. now on Mint12 with Gnome3 no more right click at all. Gnome3 will force me re-think of continue using Linux and put me back to use windows 7.

    Reply

  354. Wow! Truly an amazing accomplishment, I congratulate everyone who made this possible. I cannot wait to try it out, I am sure it will work wonderfully.

    Reply

  355. For you that think Mint 10 was a really good one, and considering to let Mint 12 wait for a while:
    In Sweden, Mr A. Exton at http://linux.exton.net/ is just finishing his remix of Mint 10, with the new Mint 12 Kernel and Firefox 8. It is coming very soon! 🙂

    The name of this remix is: DebEX-Mint 10 Special with kernel 3.0.0-12-generic. That means the same as in new Mint 12.

    Reply

  356. @ Bill: Web upd8 is good. Just google each title I wrote with ‘shell extension’ after and sites should come up. You can mostly install them with sudo apt get xxxx, etc. Sometimes you have to extract and copy the file into your .local folder (which is a hidden file in your home folder). I’ll put up some full instructions and sites later today.

    Reply

  357. I will now for the first time in my life use Linux, and I am eager to try out your Mint 12 version. I want to thank you guys for your hard work, keep up the good work.

    Best of luck in the future

    Reply

  358. I installed Mint 12 on my Toshiba Satellite U400 yesterday.
    Everything works without problems whatsoever. Great release!

    Reply

  362. Give us a KDE edition and most of this Gnome 3 with or without MSGE, MATE, usability etc. issues will be pointless. Isn’t KDE the kind of desktop that people are looking for when they complain about GNOME 3? What is the point of all this debate and extra hard work from the Mint developers, when KDE is right there?! i do not understand this..

    Reply

  364. __________________________________________________________

    ARE YOU GUYS GETTING THE WINDOW MENU GROUP DELAY,
    WHEN CREATING OR OPENING A WINDOW FOR THE 1ST TIME
    INSIDE GNOME SHELL ?

    THIS IS A SERIOUS UPSTREAM ISSUE.
    __________________________________________________________

    Reply

  366. Hello.

    I installed mint 12 twice in my computer and still something weird is happening. when i first use it, everything is alright. Then I turn off the computer and when I set it on again the main bars from gnome are disconfigured – they appear in a mix of colours and I can’t read the content of the menus.

    Does anyone know what that’s about?

    Best reg

    Reply

  368. manny@325

    Thanks for your comment. I’m just trying to keep a realistic view. Truth be told, I really don’t think I would have given KDE a second look if it wasn’t for you. Also I appreciate the construction suggestions to help get it tweaked a little faster. So please accept my thanks in return. That being said, I’ll have to take a closer look at the Software Center. I wasn’t overly thrilled with it when I last tried Unity, but there was nothing difficult about it. I suppose I’m just more familiar with SPM.

    In reference to Mint and open source, Clem has always been very clear about the software not having a warranty, but he doesn’t treat that like a crutch. He still works incredibly hard to give us something that works. But there are so many things he can’t control. Is it just me, or does it seem like many people don’t truly understand what open source is all about? We are going to have regressions from time to time, and we just have to figure out what works for us when things get a little dicey. Sometimes just sitting on our hands and waiting is so much less stressful for us and Clem. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. By all means, we should give constructive criticism to Clem, but he can only incorporate so much with the cards he’s been dealt.

    Reply

  370. Guy@368

    You are a funny Guy–pardon the pun. I don’t know which comment is funnier though–yours or Jack’s. I know you don’t like Gnome 3, and I’m no fan either.

    When I saw Jack’s post, I knew your comment was on the way. Don’t get me wrong. Your comment was classic and I loved it.

    But I have to ask: What else do you think is in store for LMDE? It’s already half way there and it’s been that way since the last re-spin, I believe–maybe earlier.

    Just a friendly GRIM reality check. LOL

    Reply

  372. Downloaded the DVD ISO, created a USB stick using UNetbootin and tried to fire it up on my old Thinkpad (R51 motherboard with Intel 855GM graphics). It displayed the desktop background but no panels. So, I tried running the ISO as a LiveCD in VirtualBox. The desktop displays with top and bottom panels in ugly dark brown. I couldn’t find any ability to investigate alternative themes.

    I use LMDE because it looks elegant and only needs one panel, so this isn’t promising as LM12 appears to be and do neither.

    I think that, just like the Ubuntu 11.10 on which it is based, Linux Mint 12 requires more hardware clout than previous versions. I’m too much of a tight-wad to replace my hardware just because the OS creator has issued a new flashy version – that’s one of the reasons I switched from MS Windows to Linux rather than ‘upgrade’ to Vista. But now, it appears that the major Linux distributions are following a similar user-unfriendly path.

    Are these ‘old hardware support’ problems going to be addressed in the next LMDE update package? If not, I shall have, reluctantly, to abandon Linux Mint for something else.

    Reply

  373. WOW!
    I just received new SSD, I ordered to put new Linux Mint on, took a look on this site, and here it is Linux Mint Lisa. Congratulations! I already tested RC in VirtualBox and it looks like a great system. Thank you all.

    Reply

  374. it was a good effort… But this release should of been held back… Very Buggy and problematic… I can’t understand why Clem has released it when he has quoted in the past that He releases Mint “when it’s ready, and not before” This release is not Ready and will put a great big hole in Mint’s reputation after so many great previous releases… Mint 13 should be much better… but here is my review of Mint 12

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaRPUmPUSmw&lc=blTcMHKQd3SNeXEsB8dzUpv5pdfNWtdXBTYMWM-Upps&feature=inbox

    Better luck next version

    kaddy

    Reply

  375. @hamburn
    Ok. Let’s put it this way: has Clem ever let you down? Eventually you’ll see he’s right. It’s always have been this way, and it will continue.

    My first impression when using Mint 12 was also a huge shock mainly due to the loss of functionality that Gnome3 brings.
    But i stand with Clem in the matter of Gnome3: it will stay around wether people like it or not.
    Also, it has good improvements, mainly speed and aspect.
    With Clem’s work, i believe it will be able to add the functionality to the Mint Menu by Mint 13, and that’s halfway there.

    Mint 12 is a low point in Mint history, but a much needed one. I’ll probaly go back to Mint 10, but i think i’ll move on to Mint 13 when it’s avaliable.

    Reply

  376. I can’t boot no USB, nor CD or DVD made by Unetbootin, dd, xfburn, no 32 nor 64 bit. What’s up with Mint??

    How can i try it??

    Reply

  378. Hey, i’m having some problems installing the .ISO to a bootable USB, for the programs used for that (like Universal USB Installer)don’t yet support Lisa. What can i do appart from putting the .ISO on a DVD?

    Reply

  379. from the gnome3 website: “The GNOME 3 system settings include everything that you need and nothing that you don’t.”

    this is whats wrong about gnome3. you dont know what i need!

    Reply

  381. Look lets get this straight MATE DOES NOT WORK and until it does LMDE should stay exactly as it is with Gnome 2.3

    The standard edition has already been wrecked with Mint 12. Lets not make it a double disaster.

    Ok Clem couldn’t avoid migrating to Gnome 3 on Mint 12 due to the constraints of Ubuntu. But he sure as hell cannot use the same excuse for LMDE.

    Break the trend and stop following all the other Gnome based distros. that are on a downward slope following the introduction of Gnome 3 which includes Mint 12

    Yes I am passionate on this subject but it is only because I care about what is happening to this wonderful distro.

    Reply

  383. Switching to mate or gnome classic, im not sure which one, cause that under gnome3 shell in applications, has appear lots of old software like eye of gnome , xeye etc. Icons are very ugly and that looks very bad.

    Reply

  384. For those that do not like Gnome 3/Unity/MGSE and want Gnome 2:

    I agree with the sentiment expressed in various ways that those DE’s are not usable in a production environment. My computer is a tool and not a toy. It needs to work and work the way that I want. Given that, Gnome Classic/Fallback in Mint 12 can be made to look and act like Gnome 2 with just a little work including applets on the panels (alt+right-click). Try it out and see what you think. I currently have no plans to give up my Mint 11 install but I could work in Mint 12 Classic. Let’s also consider getting behind the MATE project and helping to make it work.

    Reply

  385. @ Bill: What themes did you install? Were they Satya’s? I would be interested in knowing…I installed some the other night and they completely crashed gnome shell and forced me to do a full reinstall!!!!! Themes seem dangerous to me unless we know they work with msge shell extensions, etc.,
    All of the extensions I mention can be easily found and installed through google search.

    Reply

  386. Ok, now that the Mint team has come through again with a heroic effort, it is time for everyone that uses Mint to help financially to whatever extent they are able……if you think having Mint is worth 10 cents/day, that is just $36.50/year! If your donation is modest (a few dollars), I suggest you continue accumulating your funds until you can make a bigger donation so it doesn’t get eaten up in Paypal fees…..Remember, more $$$ for Mint means better software delivered sooner for us!!

    Reply

  390. Gnome 3 is excellent and intuitive but while installing skype, shell restart and, lots of old software is visible in gnome shell application menu/all

    Reply

  391. @Discussion about 2 panels:
    I have a laptop with 1600×900 pixels and a desktop with a 23″ monitor with 1920×1080 pixels. Still I hate 2 panels. They are useless. Everything you need fits on one. So why waste valuable space with 2 panels? That was always what I liked in Mint: one panel only.

    @308 Paul:
    Why install KDE on top of Mint12? Why not just take Kubuntu 11.10? That way you have a complete KDE system instead of a Gnome system with KDE on top of it.

    @363 S.R.:
    I agree completely. Gnome should be abandoned completely and we should look ahead to other DE’s, either KDE, LXDE or XFCE. They probably need work as well, but I know from experiences now that KDE just runs fine. I downgraded from Mint 11 to Mint 12. It cost me a whole long evening (8+ hours) until far after midnight after which I downloaded and upgraded to Kubuntu 11.10. Loving it. One positive thing I do have to mention: downloading and burning the Kubuntu iso onto DVD went very well.

    @325 manny:
    Yes, KDE has lots and lots of settings but just as you say, stick to the default values. Once you feel you want, or have, to change something look it up and change it. The default values are great already so no need to change so much.

    @343 Brett:
    Yes, Gnome tried to change desktops into smartphones and/or tablets. If they want to go that way fine, then make an edition for those devices but don’t ruin the desktop software with this crap.

    @369 PB:
    You wrote: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
    Why didn’t Gnome follow that golden rule? Gnome2 is not broken, so why did they have to “fix” it?

    @371 Kaddy
    Great movie to show Mint 12 is absolutely not ready. I believe the reason why Clem did release it, although far from ready, is that he thought he had to do it. Plus now he gets a lot of input so he can continue to try to solve the problems Gnome inflicted on us.

    Reply

  392. @twoface post 297 Can you give us any proof of what you say?
    @clem re Mate having proprietary code
    “Edit by Clem: Here’s the proof it’s FUD, and a link to the source code: https://github.com/Perberos/Mate-Desktop-Environment”

    Clem, I wish that you had explained that before. In post 63, Misc news of Friday 18 November I asked the following:

    “As one of the many users who really appreciate Linux mint and the team for their hard work, I have a queston about the Mate licence, Clem. According to the Mate website, the licence is proprietary.

    http://gtk-apps.org/content/show.php?content=143856”

    OK, my mistake and that URL above wasn’t the Mate website, but some private blog. I guess I had an eye-to-brain malfunction when I saw the words “Mate” and “Proprietary licence.” You never explained that the information on that website belonging to openDesktop.org was incorrect. I know you are very busy but it was a valid question about a Mint desktop containing proprietary code and I had no intention of spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Good to know that Mate is open source and it has my best wishes. I shall give it a try now I know that licence query has been cleared.

    Reply

  393. I have to agree with Jeff (#378).

    To me, the new DE’s signify a paradigm shift pushing most users towards a consumer oriented OS, difficult for producer oriented users to do ANY REAL WORK.

    It’s fine for Ubuntu Unity and G3 to go for the touchy feeley interface but I for one do not want to come back to my system and see peanut butter & jelly marks all over my shiny screen. No siree.

    But underneath the covers, we have to realize that for an OS to be universally accepted, we have to consider all demographics.

    Reply

  394. thanks to LM team. more power.
    lm11 still… but lm12 the best distro over other that uses gnome3… good work of making gnome3 better…

    Reply

  395. Hi! I tried Mint 12 and of course mint team did good job again( thanx for all yours hard work and time), but My question is why gnome team made a G3 when they had a fantastic lovely G2???? G3 is absolutely useless good for tablets maybe, not for people who likes working on the computers! anyway I have a notebook 10inch screen and two panels taking to much space, also all this extras slowing down my notebook, making to much problems ( not everybody has 4g ram or quad core processors)! I stay with mint 11 so far and I will waiting for mint 13! I tried kubuntu and is fantastic looks good and I can use full screen! If nothing change in mint 13, sadly but I will use next time kubuntu! I have a full respect for Mint but I thing Clem and team should start looking for something different as gnome!

    Reply

  397. For me this is disappointment. I just can’t accept two panes (top and bottom), I need everything like I have in Mint 11. I believe I will stay on Mint 11. I am very disappointed.

    Reply

  398. DeMus@385

    Ah, the million dollar question: Why Gnome, WWWWHHHHYYYYYYY? Of course, you understand that the phrase “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was applied in this context to our individual computers. For example, my desktop is working just fine on LM9, so I don’t really have a need to venture past right now. I enjoy testing various offerings, but I will only change to them if they offer a greater user experience for me, and I don’t see that with Gnome 3 just yet. I don’t know that I ever will. We’ll see. On the other hand, I’m liking KDE so far.

    Guy@375 I know you are passionate about your cause, and I really wasn’t criticizing your post. I fully understand where you’re coming from, and, for the most part, I agree with you. I just don’t have any real evidence that Clem will treat LMDE totally different than the main edition. But that’s just my perspective.

    I am not saying that Clem’s approach will be exactly the same as it was with the main edition. After all, they are two different platforms. He made very clear that he wanted to preserve compatibility with the Ubuntu layer on the main edition, and that just makes sense. But you have to ask yourself: Even though LMDE is based on Debian, how long will it be before Debian bites the big one? Like I mentioned in my other post, LMDE already has the framework in place for Gnome 3, as heart breaking as it might be. Besides, LMDE on it’s own has much work ahead, excluding any ill affects from Gross Smell. I just haven’t had a painless enough experience with it yet to embrace it. However, I am more confident than anything else right now that LMDE will one day be main edition material. And it will be available in whatever form Gnome comes in.

    I feel your pain, but today, tomorrow, or six months from now, the time will arise to call a duck a duck. Food for thought.

    Reply

  399. So funny to hear so many folks extolling the usability of KDE when just a few years ago, people were howling about the stupid chaos that KDE had needlessly unleashed when they abandoned the 3.x version for the ‘enhanced’ 4.x version……now you hear equivalent criticisms about gnome 2.X versus 3.X…..oh well, within a reasonably short period of time, I venture to guess this angst will go away as well. Just glad the Mint team is able to keep their eye on the ball in the midst of all this complaining…..

    Reply

  400. @ GR

    There is a subtle difference. KDE 3 was never anywhere near as solid and stable as Gnome 2.

    Thats the subtle difference.

    KDE has always been full of gadgets and gimmicks with much to go wrong and at times bloated too. All of the crap that can be found in KDE is now in Gnome 3

    All the user needs is a stable functional Desktop Environment and Gnome 2 offers both of these.

    These are FACTS that those with the MGSE blinkers on should take in to account

    Reply

  401. Guy@392

    Actually, Gnome 3 is MISSING several key elements for myself that can be easily found in KDE. Unfortunately, they are again, KEY elements. Bloat or no bloat, I can do whatever I please with the panels in KDE. I can fill the screen with panels if I want. Or I can have none. I can switch between classic menu, and KDE menu with the click of a button. I can configure my none plug and play printer with ease, assuming that all hardware support is not lost. If I want to dump a huge pile of ridiculous screensavers on the PC, I can do that, and configure how they run. Although the user configuration is not without it’s small bugs, I have way more options. I can trim the fat if I want, or load up on eye candy.

    Yes, these options come at a price of some speed and perhaps stability. But Kubuntu 11.10 is running quickly, and without incident in my case. I’m sure that’s not the same for everyone. But it boils down to what works for us individually in the end.

    Reply

  402. Coach@
    ” For me this is disappointment. I just can’t accept two panes (top and bottom), I need everything like I have in Mint 11. I believe I will stay on Mint 11. I am very disappointed. ”

    Me too…

    Reply

  403. Way too buggy. Never experienced so many crashes with any flavor of LM I have used in the past. Three alone today prompting me to finally leave feedback. Wish I had avoided this altogether, now I am stuck blowing away my entire laptop since installing it with dual boot of W7 is going to be a nightmare that is not worth the effort. Sorry but being brutally honest.

    Reply

  404. Well, I’m not sure if I should judge a new OS on how well it runs in a VM on older hardware, but I can’t make any of the changes Clem outlined in the Community document. Shell extensions are not displayed in the Advanced System Settings so I can’t do what I want with the bottom panel in MATE. There isn’t even a screensaver timeout setting. Loss of functionality is not what I look for in a new release. It’s understood they are doing what they can with what Canonical gives them, but I’m sticking with Mint 9 until I see some changes in the (hopefully near) future. If I look to upgrade it will be to Mint 11 for now.

    Reply

  405. @GR

    That’s always the way its been with desktop Linux. 1 step forward, two steps back. This very same thing happened during the transition from Gnome 1.x to 2.x… Always losing functionality between major versions, and then it takes YEARS for the functionality to re-emerge.

    Reply

  407. Thanks for all of the hard works. I am sticking with LM 9 until the support is no more. This should buy me sometime. Gnome 3 should have never been born. Gnome 3 made me feel like windows all over again. My win 3.11 for workgroup have more setting then Gnome 3.

    Clem and devs team, I sure do thank you for trying tho.

    Reply

  408. lINUX MINT 12 is awesome and it should be the no 1 operating system on the planet.Although I do not like Gnome 3, with Mint 12 I can pretend it is not there and work as normal, even creating shortcuts on the desktop, which is a must in any operating system. When you think a small dedicated team can create such a brilliant OS and whilst windows is also top notch it has massive fire power behind it and still it is not perfect.

    Spread the word folks to the millions who have not heard about Linux MInt Lisa is here and she sure is hell is going to melt the hearts of millions.

    Reply

  409. I’m sorry to say but Gnome 3 and MAte in my opinion is a huge step back in functionality and customization, even fresh install and restoring files using mintbackup did go wrong I’m seeing error when computer starts so i’m really disappointed. But this isnt linuxmint team fault it’s all began after the gnome team decided to end gnome 2 support, pity.

    Reply

  410. Installed it and everything worked pretty much great.
    Everything worked, no need to install flash or codecs or anything (unlike Kubuntu…). I also had none of the problems people mention above. Then I installed updates and I no longer have internet connection and system is completely unresponsive. Crap

    Reply

  411. Using Linux Mint 12, I find that the odt document conversion to doc does not work. It messes up the formatting of the page. Document conversion from odt to doc worked perfectly on Mint 11.

    Reply

  412. Mint 12 is much, much better than Ubuntu 11.10 which is virtually unusable. Still a little bit unstable on my system but looking forward to using it in a few weeks.

    Reply

  413. Dear all

    The instructions on how to upgrade line above i.e.

    “To upgrade from a previous version of Linux Mint follow these instructions” (Its embedded Hyper link = http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2)

    Actually worked as presently it returns:- “Temporarily unavailable

    The release of Linux Mint 12 is generating a lot of traffic. To ensure the server remains responsive, some of the modules of the community site are down during the release.

    In the long term, we’ll react to the growth in our user base with the purchase of additional servers and code optimizations for our websites.

    Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

    Can someone kindly remedy this please?

    Reply

  414. According me Gnome Shell and Unity should be more useful with bottom panel like KDE.
    It is known that bottom panel is ergonomic because natural head position in front of monitor is slightly tilt.
    Due to kde, mint-gnome 11 and MATE is better for our eyes and necks.

    Reply

  415. When you type something except urls in the url bar in firefox it doesnt search on google or duckduckgo or something. Was kinda used with that future.

    Reply

  416. @Guy said “There is a subtle difference. KDE 3 was never anywhere near as solid and stable as Gnome 2”

    This could be correct but KDE 4.7.3 its a wonderful environment that I prefer now a 100 times to any version of Gnome, pesent, past and for sure, future.

    Reply

  417. I remember when Dragon NaturallySpeaking 1.0 first came out in 1997. Everybody was predicting that voice recognition would quickly replace the keyboard and mouse. Well, 14 years later and we are still using the keyboard and mouse. It seems to me that the developers at Unity, Gnome, and Windows 8 are also of the opinion that the keyboard and mouse will be replaced by a touchscreen. Maybe they are right. However, not everyone using a computer is spending 8 hours a day sending vacation pictures to friends on Facebook. Some of us actually do useful WORK on our computers! Try working all day on a touchscreen. I think Gnome will have to offer a Gnome3/Gnome Classic toggle at boot-up.

    Reply

  418. After booting I had to make do with mouse pointer and blue screen – BSOD?? on linux?? Gnome3 didn’t even start.
    At least ubuntu 11.10 booted into unity 2d….

    Reply

  419. Good job on turning an unappealing Ubuntu release into a Swiss Army knife – the MSGE looks great, and MATE works like a charm – apart from missing the GNOME2 applets – on my next-to-toast Toshiba ‘top.

    My main problem with LM12 is that the WM keeps crashing, leaving me without a menu for 3-4 seconds at a time.

    Reply

  420. I’m starting to think that Gnome 3 and MATE are a huge step backwards! I really can’t find anything I like about them. With Mint 12, how can I change controls, window borders and icons? Can we still install our own themes and icon sets? And what’s with that ugly task bar stuck on the top of the screen? Mint 12 seems completely unusable to me, and I hate to say that. I do appreciate the hard work the Mint team has put into this, and I’ve been using Mint for a long time, but I’m afraid that Mint 12 is a long trip down the wrong path. Just when Mint was about to overtake Ubuntu as the most popular Linux distribution, this is like throwing out a ten-ton anchor. I only hope that future version of Linux are better than Mint 12. I’m sorry.

    Reply

  421. @Dave,
    I agree with your opinion. Just a pity that Mint12 didn’t succeed to make the two steps forward needed to make Gnome3 and the desktop a good usable interface.

    Reply

  423. Hate gnome 3 concept. So I tried Mate. It looks/acts like mint 11 with a bunch of issues (chrome/gdebi..etc)

    So I asked myself why upgrade if all you want is Mint 11?

    Formatting this Mess out of my system and heading back to 11. Will try again at lucky 13.

    Reply

  424. @wolverine tech:
    Mrs. Mr. Ho-ho!! I made a mistake!!! This is because I am not english and I was confused with Mr. and Mrs. ( Mrs == Miss,Madame ? hahahaha)

    My sincères apologies to Clement Lefebvre!
    oh my!!!!

    Reply

  425. LM12 is ok
    but I dislike the new mint-menu, isn’t it possible to create one that look more like in LM11 and below and made it more customizable

    Is there a way to remove a (the gnome-shell) panel? on a notebook there is not that much place for two panels

    all in all Linux Mint 12 is just a compromise; I hope it will became better when 13

    Reply

  426. I have Mint 12 installed on the exact same machine as Mint 11 with the same brand and size hard drive and Mint 11 is much faster to boot and shut down than Mint 12. Mint 11 is also faster through the menus and easier to navigate as I can have program launchers on my bottom panel, opening programs with one click.

    Gnome 3 is a backward step at present. Hopefully the developers will see that.

    Reply

  427. Nice work, f…s.

    Well, it may also be due to my own foolishness, but nevertheless. Now I’m looking at my latest backups and wondering… I tried installing Mint 12 on my Samsung NF310, and… Well, I’m a gentleman. Let me put it this way: no more Ubuntu, neither LinuxMint for me. It has been downhill all the way, and I really don’t have time not interest for this.

    Reply

  428. I really like Mint 12…I’ve said that lots already. But it completely canes my battery and gets warm in msge mode. 41-45c idle running heat on mate; 55 on msge. Now mate isn’t working, neither are the two dropback gnome shells since reinstall, so I cant drop back to a less graphics intensive (?) DE.
    Non-Mint themes are unstable and can stop gnome shell msge working. This forced me to do the complete reinstall over the weekend. I have all the functionality I want from mint 12 msge (my specific needs are few, I can do everything with alt tab when working, plus a few extensions, and super key). But power issues are serious for me. These are apparently going to get fixed with kernel 3.3 which I think is in testing already and should only be a few months; please let this be the case.
    It’s a shame MATE is unstable on my laptop at the moment. Before reinstall it was working really well, stable, fast. I might do another reinstall to see if anything difference is made.
    I do really like the extensions possible in gnome shell though…and the possibility of distributed java debugging knowledge to the masses of would be designers!

    Reply

  429. Good job!

    Disabled bottom panel, as well as window ext, and menu ext. Gnome shell looks and behaves awesome! I use Mint as HTPC. XBMC Eden works, Handbrake works, Smplayer works, mediainfo works!! All my needs have been met.

    Reply

  430. Silly me. Regarding msg. #410: the installation simply crashes. Might be the grub, but as the user interface gets fancier, the proessionals have less information 🙁

    Reply

  431. I have been looking for faster yet easy-to-use distro. I left Ubuntu since they introduced Unity, and then used Mint11. Liked it.

    But I think Mint12 is slower than Mint11. So, I am now switching to Xubuntu.

    Many users like me don’t need all the bell and whistles, but for them the most important thing is the speed and performance.

    Reply

  432. I don’t know if this is possible but I’m going to suggest it anyway.

    Can Linux Mint 11 “Katya” be given the long-term support designation? Our users are obviously significantly split on the implementation of GNOME 3. It would be nice to give those of us that have problems with GNOME 3 a little longer to wait out the transition while still giving those that want to forge ahead what they want as well.

    Again, absolutely nothing but kudos to Clem and everybody else for the attempt…or, the first step if one wants to look at it in a more positive light. I’m just very disappointed that we seem to have been cornered into developing something that has far fewer features and tons more distractions.

    Reply

  433. tux-sven@356

    Thank you for your post. You have answered my prayers!! For those of you who may have missed it:

    “tux-sven Says:
    November 28th, 2011 at 3:59 am

    For you that think Mint 10 was a really good one, and considering to let Mint 12 wait for a while:
    In Sweden, Mr A. Exton at http://linux.exton.net/ is just finishing his remix of Mint 10, with the new Mint 12 Kernel and Firefox 8. It is coming very soon! 🙂

    The name of this remix is: DebEX-Mint 10 Special with kernel 3.0.0-12-generic. That means the same as in new Mint 12.”

    Please, tux-sven, correct me if I am wrong….

    I have taken a look at Mr Exton’s website, and from what I can gather,
    he appears to be maintaining his own repo’ for his spin on Mint 10, with up-to-date apps, and has been doing so for over a year!

    I see the installer is, at the moment, is in Swedish language, but most of his spins are quickly converted to English. I hope this will come soon, because I can then upgrade from “Julia” to “Julia-Plus”!!

    Thank you tux-sven for your valuable information… I’m not sure how the Mint Team will view this, but from me, you have my utmost respect for having the balls to post it here.

    Hopefully Clem and Team can turn this into a positive for the next release.

    For me though, Julia still reigns.

    Reply

  435. @KoHoSo
    i don’t think this can be possible as mint is based on Ubuntu and is tracking their repositories. Mint comes out of support when Ubuntu is.

    Reply

  436. I don’t know what’s wrong, but after I install Linux Mint 12 and updated it with update manager, the interface sometimes freezes however the weird thing is, if I install Linux Mint 12 RC1, then everything seems to work fine.

    I have a RealTek ALC260. The sound doesn’t work however I got it working by adding

    options snd-hda-intel model=auto enable=yes
    options snd-hda-intel model=auto position_fix=1 enable=yes

    to

    /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

    The only problem is I have is when I insert my headphones, the sound doesn’t just come just from the headphones. It also comes from the speaker as well.

    Aside from this fact, Linux Mint 12 seems to be better than even Ubuntu in many ways. Maybe an update for sound compatibility would be of a help?

    Is Linux Mint thinking about partnering with a social network in the near future? If yes, then let me know.

    Reply

  438. I am a big fan of 1) things just working out of the box, and 2) things being simple and obvious. Started way back with LM4, and then stuck mostly to LTS releases. I felt that LM9 was really working with / for me.
    Just spent the _weekend_ installing LM12. With the combination of GNOME3 and brand new (poorly supported) hardware, I feel like the machine is really working against me.
    I completely understand and agree with all the reasons for you guys going with GNOME3; not so sure about the reasons behind MATE. I can definitely appreciate the tremendous amount of work everyone put into this release, but I think there is a long way to go to get to the Minty experience that I have come to appreciate (expect?) after Isadora.

    Reply

  439. I am finding Mint 12 superb so far. I like the Gnome 3 desktop, it is easy to find apps and windows. And the MGSE adds an easy way of configuring your panel so you get your machine working just the way you like. I was using Ubuntu until recently, but was finding Unity unnecessarily complicated and completely unintuitive. Mint is elegant and well designed, a pleasure to use.

    Reply

  440. have downloaded the 32bit DVD version 3 times now and can’t get the MD5 to match what you have posted for it. All three of my downloads have matched. First was on my main machine with Mint 9 second the dual boot Win XP same machine, last time on my test machine with Mint 11. Any known problem with the MD5. I haven’t tried to use 12 yet.

    Reply

  441. @Daniel

    Yes thaks to you I found Stya’s deviant art. I installed Dark Shiny, it matches my cairo dock and conky theme, so everything is nice. Now if I could just find a program like emerald to install some window themes better than the default, it would all match. Thanks again, I also installed the clasic gnome extension. Really cool.

    Reply

  443. Okay, I have Mint 12 w Gnome 3 MGSE working as good as it can right now.
    I have a couple extra extensions, some personal themes, cairo dock, conky audacity, and Wine (with Goldwave and Getright working,) Nero ROM for Linux, Office, Adobe, and plenty of Games. I am using one panel.

    It seems like it will be a nice working OS some time in the future, but it’s not there yet. Right now the panel sometimes disappears and reappears, and it hangs completely after several hours of intense work. MATE is a complete failure on my modern desktop computer, it freezes and forces a hard reboot.This with quad core.

    So keep on working it will put Unity and standard Gnome 3 to shame when these things are worked out. Until then I have my Xfce backed up quite nicely.

    Reply

  444. Hi, just installed Lisa and now configuring… coming from Ubuntu, maybe dumb question: where to enable compiz to autostart at “Gnome Classic” session?
    I know the “compiz –replace” trick, its the way I am using it currently. But this seems to be not the way to configure the default WM. 😉

    Reply

  445. Hi All,

    First of all my thanks for the hard work to Mint team.
    Few opinions I have:
    – I think when you want to please (accommodating) everyone you are ending pleasing no one.
    – I think Mint team should look around either for straight using Gnome 3 or other windows manager.
    – Better offer several distinct Windows managers choices than “adapted versions of Gnome” In that respect please consider:
    a. LXDE
    b. Enlightenment
    c. KDE
    I think the first two suggested choices are better suited with Mint’s philosophy of simplicity of use.
    – Maybe getting totally forked of Ubuntu will be desirable.
    – Debian distribution could be imho desirable for many reasons.
    – It may look a hard work, but if Mint team wants to keep its simplicity of use without resorting to other Windows managers and depend on other’s design decisions should think for its own windows manager. I think the Mint community has lots of good ideas in that respect.
    – If the creation of a totally different windows manager would be a choice, I would suggest, the following:
    a. Let’s have an UI based on information flow and user’s pattern of use of its own computer.

    I hope this helps.

    All the best,

    Reply

  446. @Boris #381

    Easy way to add launchers to the desktop:
    1- Log into Mate
    2- From the Mint Menu in Mate, find you program > Right click > Add to Desktop.
    3- Log out of Mate, log into Gnome-MGSE.
    4- Launcher is on your desktop. Double click to run.

    Reply

  447. it’s a pity that the team had to put so much time and energy into tweaking Gnome3, and that the result is still way worse than Gnome2.

    It just doesn’t make any sense, it’s like working backwards.

    All that time and energy could have been invested much more productive, like releasing the LXDE version simultaneous with the main edition, or making a new real Mint Fluxbox.

    Reply

  448. Not at all happy with LM12. I have tried and tried to put up with it on my netbook and still I am unable to find a happy medium. Yes I tried MATE but it to has its own issues. Not sure where I will go from here. As much as I hate to say it, I may return to MS… And for those who watched LM go to the top of DistroWatch ratings, you will now watch it fall just as Ubuntu did… Gnome3 / Unity will be their downfall.

    Reply

  451. gnome 3 is a disapointment with lag debian is the only cure for gnome 3 and i want a lxde 64 bit for my pc that has windows too. i can only use this debian on my laptop pc because my other one has windows too

    Reply

  453. @bruno
    What about the rest of the people who like LM12? We only hear mostly the negative, there are a lot people who like it and haven’t posted.
    Just because some people don’t like it doesn’t mean they don’t produce it. lxde has only been out since about August, now they can concentrate on other projects.
    Gnome2 is dead and there is nothing we can do about it. LM either drop gnome or embrace it and try to make it better.
    LM11 is still supported and will be for a while yet.

    Reply

  455. Thank you so much for Mint-12, – it’s the greatest at all! But I have two problems: a little one, and a not so little one.

    The little problem is, there are annoying triangular shaped “handles” at the right bottom corners in the panel-bars. Those handles are without funktion, but it’s existence is disruptive.

    The ugly problem is evident while using the Gnome-Commander. If I klick on SMB for open my local network, I’ve get an error-message like: “somewhat might be wrong with the SMB-module!” And will I open a FTP-server with these Gnome-Commander, so it shall crash emmediately and terminate it self.

    This failure is an exclusive problem with Mint-11 and -12. On Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu, and so on, the Gnome-Commander works fine.

    Reply

  456. I’ve just been playing with Mint 11 LXDE where you can customise panels and program launchers, add panels etc. Its faster to boot up and faster to shutdown than Mint 12. Its wonderful.

    I don’t think its being negative when people are saying they are not happy with Gnome 3, its being honest. Its just not very good.

    The Mint Team are great and I have no doubt they will be working hard on the next version of Mint (LTS) next year but at the moment, why would someone use Mint 12 when it is slower, buggier and less customisable than Mint 11 or Mint LXDE?

    Reply

  458. Oh dear god, please get help me go back to a single bottom bar. On an Acer Aspire one the two bars are unusable, I lose too much real estate, and the top bar is completely counter-intuitive to what I have been working with for years.

    This is one of those “Microsoft” moves that make me scratch my head and ask “Why?”. What purpose does switching things around really make?

    Reply

  459. @Clem & Team

    Great work guys. I’m loving Mint 12. It looks great with a nice modern look and feel. which I personally like.

    I’d just like to draw your attention to a couple more bugs I’ve found though:
    1. Screenshot works fine the first time you use it. After that, it just gives you exactly the same shot that you took the first time. In other words, despite the camera click sound (nice touch), it doesn’t take a new screenshot.

    2. I installed Shutter to see if I could have a more versatile screenshot facility, and that was worse as it now looks behind whatever window/windows that are open, and presents you the option of selecting the entire, or part of the empty desktop. Therefore, I can’t take screeshots at all using Shutter, unless I want repeated shots of my empty desktop or a selected area of it. Shutter has always worked fine up to now, with no problems whatsoever.

    On the whole, I do like and welcome Mint 12’s new look and feel. As you said in your preview blog, you’re working with three new technologies, so I expected to come across some bugs somewhere. It’s nice to see so many being fixed at such a rapid rate. I’ll continue to use Mint 12 for the next 6 months, but eagerly look forward to Mint 13 when hopefully, most if not all of the teething problems will have been ironed out.

    Thanks for all your hard work and efforts, and keep up the excellent work.

    Reply

  461. @Clem & Team

    Just a quick update to my previous post. Screenshot and Shutter work fine when i log into gnome classic, so I guess the problem is with MGSE. I hope that bit of info proves useful.

    Reply

  462. Still, even after the official release, I’m finding Mint 12 extremely unstable on my computer. The Gnome 3 GUI crashes randomly every few minutes, sometimes restarting, sometimes not (this is both in a VirtualBox installation and on a bootable Flash drive). MATE is getting better, but it’s not all there yet. Everything looks beautiful, and I hope it becomes stable really soon. But for now, I’m still on Mint 10 until it loses support or until Mint 12, 13, etc. improves. Even at that, I’m going to really have a hard time feeling comfortable leaving the wonderful configurability and features of Gnome 2 for the uber-restrictive Gnome 3. I sure hope MATE gets up to snuff really quick!

    I hate what the Gnome devs have done to us. But I love that the Mint team are working their tails off to make the best of a bad situation. Thanks, guys! You’re awesome!

    Reply

  463. I am quite disappointed. Actually, RC in my virtualbox was far better then this release.
    At first I wasn’t having much trouble with official release, just some unresponsiveness – but when I installed updates, I no longer had internet connection, the system was completely unresponsive…
    I also don’t want such a bulky system with all of the included desktop environments.
    I wish Linux Mint will make “Lisa only gnome 2.x edition”.
    I’m thinking of sticking with LM 11 or LMDE and I’m seriously considering switching to Fedora or even CentOS.
    I was eagerly expecting Lisa and it’s just another huge disappointment, similar reasons that made me leave Ubuntu wagon will now probably put me of Linux Mint. I really think they should release “Linux Mint 12 – Gnome 2.x edition”, tho.

    Reply

  465. @ Mike Freeman

    I am also a lover of Mint 10, I think it was the last full-featured Mint release until now. But I currently run a remixed one, made by
    the Swede, A Exton.

    His release has the NEW KERNEL 3.0., FF 8 and Thunderbird 8 and of course – GNOME 2.32!

    It runs lovely and seems very fast. Exton has not fixed the English instruction page yet, but if one want to try it, the ISO (DebEx-Mint10-specialkernel) is at: http://ftp.svenskalinuxforeningen.se/distributions/exton/debex-mint-10-specialkernel-902mb-111128.iso

    This Live ISO is now set to Swedish but you can install it to what you want, as usual. If you are a little bit familiar with Mint there should be no problems. 🙂

    Reply

  466. @ Bill: The Zeitgeist/Gimmie Extension is useful. It adds ‘Journal’ next to ‘Windows’ and ‘Applications’ in the shell. So do you find that Satya’s themes are stable? I’m still scared of running anything not mint z or x…

    Reply

  468. It’s funny (OK, it’s really not), but I remember the furor (and the fury I felt) when KDE moved (unilaterally and arbitrarily) from v3.5 to v4.0 — I tried to like it, but v4.0 simply wasn’t ready (at least, not for me). I tried to learn to love it, but even through v4.3 I couldn’t “turn the corner”.

    That’s when I moved over to the Gnome incarnation of Linux Mint and, at almost the same time, discovered Mac4Lin. I’ve enjoyed LM with the Gnome 2 DE, and I’m currently running LM 11.

    In view of what’s been written here, I believe that I’ll wait on upgrading my Linux Mint installation; either until Gnome 3 and/or MATE have matured more, or perhaps until LM 12 KDE has been released. OTOH, LM 11 Gnome runs so well on my desktop (PIII/1.4GHz x 2) and netbook (Asus 1005PEB), with nary a glitch or a gotcha, that I might stay with it… forever! (or, lots longer, anyway).

    Clem: I feel your pain, and sympathize with your “between a rock and a hard-place” status, vis-a-vis Gnome’s “morphing”. When I worked in Silicon Valley back in the ’80s, people used to mention the Paul Masson Principle of software development: “We will release no software before its time.” I realize that, up to now, you have kept LM in-sync with Ubuntu; however, perhaps the time has come to make the “default” version of Linux Mint be based on LMDE+Gnome2, and bid adieu to Ubuntu?

    Reply

  470. Yeahh, it would be great as someone said, if it is possible to add LTS (long time supported) to Linux Mint 11. I am sure that most of us will stay with Linux Mint 11, since it is much better than new release of Linux Mint 12. If it is possible, most of us would be highly appreciate.

    Reply

  472. It’s quite depressing actually: all that hard work… and for what?
    Linux Mint should really stick to Gnome 2 for the moment.
    Somebody will probably post a tutorial, how to make Lisa into usable Gnome 2 environment and get rid of everything that’s just not mature yet or it simply doesn’t work. Or Linux Mint should do that kind of release, “Linux Mint 12 – Performance Edition” or something.
    Better luck next time.

    Reply

  473. HORRIBLE. I’m disappointed. I’m using Mint since version 8, and always loved.
    When the tendency is to gain screen space, you decrease it with a ridiculous top bar.
    Mate isn’t working properly yet.
    I’m going back to Ubuntu.

    Reply

  474. As someone on some other forum put it: “Gnome3/Unity: The best thing to ever happen to XFCE”, unfortunately we can add MATE/MGSE to the previous statement. Time for Linux Mint 12 XFCE?

    Reply

  475. @ Coach

    LTS for Ubuntu 11.04 is unlikely to happen as Canonical are so arrogant and do not care what the user wants.

    Canonical are personally responsible for turning Linux Mint from an outstanding distro. in to a very average distro. forcing the implementation of Gnome 3

    The ball is very much in Clem’s court now. If he chooses to listen to users of LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) then the damage will be limited to Mint 12.

    If he does not however. Mint as a whole will be wrecked beyond recovery and he will only have himself to blame.

    He will not be forced to implement Gnome 3 to LMDE but instead it would be arrogance to ignore on par with Canonical were with Unity
    if LMDE were to recieve Gnome 3

    I make no apology for this posting.

    Clem listen up.

    Reply

  477. Where is the Mint Menu?

    I’ve just given it a try from a USB boot, and I’ve got pure Gnome 3 desktop. You just can’t change or customize panels.

    I think I’ll keep my ‘Katya’ a little longer.

    Reply

  478. I personnaly switched from my beloved Julia 32 to LMDE 64, and it is a pain to get the PPAs contents running on it…

    From the comments, i’ll pass on Mint 12 and incoming LMDE service pack !
    Waiting to see if Gnome3+extensions can make it or Mate can provide me something useful for the next 5 years.
    There is still Xfce, so no such a big deal for me.

    @Guy : your ranting is understandable but i wish you had chosen better ways to express it without blaming in advance the Mint team.
    In my view they are doing the 10 extra miles that nobody else care to do…or even think about.

    Reply

  479. Keeping it simple. I’ve been using Mint since version-08. This is the most buggy, and gnarly config’d new Mint release I’ve seen to date. I understand the hurtles involved in this “all-new” edition, but would’ve rather waited a month or even two for the stability refinements. Personally, I’m rolling back to Mint Xfce 11. Thanks for your awesome work on that edition. Looking forward to 12.1 Skol..! from Morte House…

    Reply

  481. I think Clem and the team have come under a great deal of flak that they don’t really deserve. They’ve clearly worked extremely hard to try to achieve the best of all worlds for us and hey, you know what? Didn’t quite work. That happens sometimes. That’s how we learn.

    LM12 doesn’t do it for me (I’ve already posted, stating the problem with the ATI/AMD drivers – although I’m not entirely taken with G3) but that’s okay, LM11 works perfectly fine and is likely to keep doing so for some time to come. I’m sure I can wait until LM13. Ubuntu have also had a number of duds which only get cleaned up in later versions. It’s frustrating but the later versions also come around quite quickly, so it’s not the end of the world.

    For my part, I say to Clem and Co.- keep smiling. Most of us know you’re doing good work and we look forward to more of it in the future. As a suggestion, why not offer a mintified XFCE as an alternative until MATE is comfortabley stable? (Not just installing it afterwards but an option right from the start)

    All the best

    Bruce

    Reply

  482. Any word on when the Xfce version of Mint 12 will be released? Personally, I wish Canonical would have just switched Ubuntu to Xfce instead and discontinued Xubuntu, since that would be a pointless duplication had they done so.

    Reply

  483. Bruce@443

    In my opinion, your position is a reasonable one. I don’t understand why people have to issue these ultimatums to Clem. It’s just not fair. Lisa isn’t my cup of tea either, but it’s not because of some diabolical plan that Clem has to totally destroy what he’s worked so hard to maintain. Nor is it because of arrogance so that now he wants to force the masses into submission. People, “Despicable Clem” does not exist, even if he chooses to port Gnome 3 into LMDE completely. For crying out loud!! What do you expect to happen? If you don’t like it, either do it all yourself, or find something else.

    I don’t like Gnome 3, so I have done the latter for now. I am staying put on LM9, and it all works fine. I don’t have the efficiency issues related to the latest kernels either.

    Bruce, I have to ask this: Is there some reason why you want the latest Linux Kernel? Do you have a piece of hardware that doesn’t work yet? If not, then why even worry about XFCE? Just something to think about.

    Thanks for your post. I think Clem appreciates a realistic view from time to time. I know I do.

    Reply

  484. I don’t know if Clem and Mint’s developers can read this, but I expect Mint will give easier way of installing (or detecting network printers, such as Canon LBP2900 in my case). openSUSE does it well. Also Mint12 can’t show Time new roman font (even I installed, and in software package manager showing it is already installed). Mint12 (and previous ones) can’t increase my monitor (LG, Flatron) to higher resolution than just 1024, 768. Will Mint developers ignore some (small number of) users like me? Please consider these issues when you have time. Thanks

    Reply

  485. So, I’ve had the live dvd running for a while now. I can see that it’s coming along, we’re not quite there yet but I can see where the Mint team is trying to go.

    I think they have done very well to accommodate gnome 3’s shortcomings, which unfortunately are many. But I have hope for the future.

    LM12 is nice and speedy, I hate the fact that the top bar can’t be changed in any way, right clicking does nothing. I think also I might be one of the sufferers of the kernel power bug as my laptop fan hasn’t stopped at all!

    More of a work in progress release I feel. I’m looking forward to see things in LM13 but for now I’ll be sticking with Julia.

    Excellent job Clem, it’s unfortunate that you are stuck between a rock and a hard place with gnome, but I have faith in your vision and look forward to the future.

    🙂

    Reply

  486. I have to agree on everything that has been said regarding the conversion from MATE to XFCE instead. From my point of view (and I’m sure it’s shared), the closest DE to Gnome is XFCE. Not only that, it’s light, it’s fast, it’s minimalistic and keeps the “old-school” feeling some users even from old Windows XP retain.

    Gnome 2 had it’s periods and I’m sure it wouldn’t be necessary to evolve to Gnome 3, but since they decided to do so, I’d say thanks for all the work everybody has done with Gnome 2 and move on to Gnome 3 peacefully and if someone disagrees, there is XFCE, the superb alternative to Gnome 2.

    Reply

  487. Yes and I’m sure I’m not the only one (sorry for the double post :D) who loves Lisa 🙂 And I know for sure I’m not moving to any other distro anytime soon! 🙂

    Reply

  488. Mint was THE distro till now, but we need a SANE DESKTOP! Everything Gnome3 is a joke! Corporate fascist practices penetrating the world of open-source. If Mint doesn’t rise above them it will share Ubuntu’s recent decline. I miss Mint (on my 3 machines), but can’t do Gnome3. If I wanted a smartphone I’d get a smartphone, not dumb my PC down to this level. Please give us some hope that you will consider something else for your main release in the future.

    Reply

  489. @ tux-sven

    Downloading the rework of Mint 10 now,

    However I am already running Mint 11 on Kernel 3.2

    It will be interesting to see how the reworked release of Mint 10 performs compared to the standard release.

    Reply

  490. So, now if we speak against Gnome3 we get moderated…

    Edit by Admin: No…. I guess we’ll need to explain how moderation and anti-spam works on this blog. I don’t blame you, we’ve explained it many times, but it’s nowhere for newcomers to read. We’ll put a section and improve that. In the meantime, I’ll just say we only moderate religion/politics/fud/insults/disrespect/off_topic and of course spam. SPAM in particular is the reason newcomers’ comments are not approved automatically and need to be manually approved.

    Reply

  491. A word of warning about the screen grab utility, after you take a screen grab
    you will see the date and time in the file name it creates like this
    “Screenshot at 2011-11-29 15:28:19.png” unfortunately when you click save it will only
    call it “screengrab.png” and not put the date into the file name.(presumably a glitch)
    If you then create another screengrab you will get a file save error with
    the options to replace or skip you will not be able to go back and change
    the file name so if you don’t want to loose the previous grab you will have
    to hit skip and do the grab again.
    There needs to be a back button so you get another chance of renaming the file.

    Thanks,
    Wayne.

    Reply

  492. First off, Clem – Fantastic Job on 12! I have now installed this on two seperate computers and have found 12 to be “zippier” than 11.

    A couple of observations: First…and this pertains to Linux in general…I have never understood the “obsession” with having a top and bottom panel. Having two takes up more space and is totally unnecessary. A very good solution was the panel in Mint 11, it was a single clean panel – on the bottom (I find panels at the top annoying, one of the reasons I dislike Mac OS so much). I’m certainly not asking that this be changed in general, but, if there is a way to manually change it – I’m comfortable with the CLI – then that would be awesome!

    One possible bug that I have encountered, is that I can’t seem to create any shortcuts. In 11 I could drag a shortcut from the menu and it would create a shortcut on the desktop…it doesn’t work in 12. Also, in 11 I could right-click the desktop and choose Create – New Launcher and create my own shortcuts…this function isn’t available.

    Those two “personal” issues aside, 12 is looking great and I am looking forward to putting it through its paces.
    Thanks so much for all of your hard work!

    Best,
    Thaskalas

    Reply

  494. im starting to like the idea a lot people here are having with using Xfce as the main edition. time to start working on DE not a TE! the mint team could make Xfce a excellent main edition 🙂

    until them im gonna stick with mint 11 as long as i can.

    “I’ll give you my mint 11 when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
    actual quote from linux mint fan Charlton Heston LOL 😉

    Reply

  495. @ Inoki et al: It makes no sense to use xfce as a base when MATE is designed to replace gnome 2.3. xfce is something else- just like gnome it can change, which would leave mint in another tricky situation. MATE on the other hand could be trusted to move ever closer to gnome 2.3 rather than moving away from it as xfce undoubtedly will. If you want xcfe rather than MATE just go to the repository and download it. Whats the point in suggesting killing off an interesting and much desired system when you can choose? Moreover, the simple design of xcfe, though good for some, is very unlikely to win much admiration for its aesthetics and much less likely to attract non linux users over (if that is important…).

    Also, if you don’t like gnome 3.2 just don’t use it. Why the incessant complaining? Gnome 4 (the stable version, as odd numbers are always unstable) will likely have all the functionality that is currently missing. Also, if people would actually try to use their computers a little bit differently they might see that a lot of the functionality is already there.

    The major problems are not the missing functionality as people can get round this and it will be introduced again. It is the power consumption regression that is mostly ignored by comments probably because they are oblivious to the increase due to working on desktops rather than laptops. But, if the redesign of gnome 3.2 is aimed toward more mobile and less powerful systems then the power regression issue is really problematic as it will make many laptops much less mobile due to excessive power consumption.

    Roll on kernel 3.3 with no power regression issues, and gnome shell 4 with all the historical functions we like (to be honest, I can only think of ring switcher which I miss, but I can easily get round it with alt tab).

    Also, I’ve now added all the optional extensions I can find and want more!

    Reply

  496. for Scott posting comment number 172, it is on Preferences-Desktop Settings.
    On Desktop Settings, choose Windows then on Appearance there is a drop down list for the Mac style(left).
    You can also run the Desktop Settings on the terminal using the following command:

    /usr/bin/mintdesktop

    Scott Says:
    November 27th, 2011 at 12:01 am

    Does anyone know how to move the window buttons over to the left?

    Reply

  497. @Daniel “So do you find that Satya’s themes are stable?”

    Yep, running Dark Shiney for 24 hrs and no problems.

    I’d sure love to know how to theme myself though, maybe some day.

    Bill

    Reply

  498. @Clem : In MATE :
    In the font menu, if I select “subpixel smooothing (LCD)” some problems start in displaying it is not smooth.

    Fonts in Firefox is good, otherwise it is not good.

    In the “Panel Properties”, Background, if I choose solid clolor and then style to transparent, computer usage increase tremendously, it reaches around 80-86%. Switching back, it becomes normal.

    Even if I close some application, it is still shown on the panel. And sometime opposite happens. Application is opened, but not shown on the panel.

    MGSE – is working good. While in MGSE I don’nt like to go to MATE. Sometime panel goes on and off (may be due to extensions) or may be as others reported. Speed is good.

    Reply

  499. @ Bill: Yep, I’ve taken the dip as well and am using Satya’s themes. I instaled a non mint compatible theme from live.gnome.org called ultra over the weekend (I don’t know why because it looks completely horrid anyway) and it completely froze gnome shell. Satya’s are apparently reconfigured for mint and I’ve no problems with them using them this afternoon either. Try the zeitgeist/gimmie extension, it’s great and adds a lot of functionality actually lacking in gnome 2.3. The weather extension is pretty fancy too and useful if you can’t be bothered turning your head to look out the window…..

    Reply

  500. @Clem : I can’nt say about others, but I have started liking new mint menu in MGSE. Since installation I never used default Gnome-3 menu, if anytime it happened, it happened by mistake. Otherwise (as I don’nt like Gnome-3 menu) it doesn’t exists for me. Only thing lacking is right click to add desktop shortcuts (I know a route through MATE for adding shortcuts). If that’s done, at least I am not interest in MATE anymore, as MGSE is getting better and better with updates.

    Reply

  502. Mint 12 and Ubuntu 11.10 reveal an unfortunate side effect of free and opensource software. The mantra “release early, release often” sometimes leaves users with half-baked stuff.

    This happens too with commercial software of course, but to a far lesser extent IMHO. Large software companies put a HUGE amount of effort towards testing and quality assurance, where as opensource projects have to use their users as guinea pigs. Even as bad as say Vista was, it was still far more usable than Gnome 3.

    Reply

  503. @ Daniel – The Zeitgeist/Gimmie Extension is great you’re right. 🙂
    I have weather on my cairo dock and in firefox. Since I live in the mountains, looking out the window doesn’t work for knowing if snow is on the way as it is now.

    Thanks again.

    Reply

  504. Firefox 8, on Mint 12, and moonlight are still not compatible thus preventing access to sites running Silverlight. Am enjoying Mint 12, other than the problem with Firefox. Mint 12 looks like a winner.

    Reply

  505. I use LMDE both at home and at work, and love it more each day. But I was very curious to see if Lisa was so catastrophic as some people are saying.
    So I installed it on a virtualbox machine.
    I didn’t like MGSE because of the top bar, but is workable. OK, it’s not beautiful, but I could live with it.
    Then I tested MATE and it was a surprise. What’s wrong with it? I configured a desktop identical to what I always use. And didn’t crash, or something like that.
    I perfectly understand clem’s point. It was not possible to keep gnome 2 any much further. So he gave us two options, MGSE and MATE (besides pure gnome 3). I think it’s a wonderful job he made. As far as I know, Ubuntu didn’t do it.
    I’m looking forward to see how that will work on LMDE, but I trust clem and the team are doing a fine job.
    So, for the first time, I decided to contribute to Mint. And despite the Portuguese financial crisis, I intend to do it again.
    Congratulations clem! I’m proud to be a part of this community, #1 linux distribution!

    Reply

  506. >>>Also, if you don’t like gnome 3.2 just don’t use it. Why the incessant complaining? Gnome 4 (the stable version, as odd numbers are always unstable) will likely have all the functionality that is currently missing.<<<

    This argument has come up a few times but I don't believe it – the Gnome Developers have a vision and it's not one most of us share. They want things done a certain way and I really doubt what they produce will be any good for desktops.

    Another vote for moving to KDE from me.

    Reply

  507. I really want to try this new version, but I can’t boot the liveCD, this is happening since the RC. It keeps giving me this message:

    udev[135]: timeout: killing ‘/sbin/modprobe -bv pci:v000010DEd00001245sv00003842sd00001351bc03sc00i00’ [182]

    It gets stuck and repeating this message until I press ctrl+alt+del to reboot.

    Reply

  508. Biggest problem for me is that there’s no “disconnect” option anymore under the network options. If turn wireless “off” to disconnect (so I can connect to mobile which I need to do constantly) then I can only turn it back on by rebooting (this is for a Sony Vaio although this isn’t a problem on an older Toshiba laptop that I have installed Mint 12 on).

    Reply

  509. Sounds like Linux Mint 12 RC1 would be made the release instead of Linux Mint 12. It seems to work better for me. Barely any freezes compare to the new release. I’m currently using RC1. I switched both my PC to run Linux Mint 12 RC1 the other day. I still need fix on the audio though. An update on the audio is needed.

    Though I downgraded back to RC1. Personally to me, it’s not much difference. I still love Linux Mint 12.

    Reply

  512. ….In reference to desktop icons I read somewhere it was possible but can’t find out where at the moment. Something involving allowing file manager handle desktop and perhaps some privilege to the desktop. The gnome tweak tool (not the mint one) is supposed to come with an file manager desktop icon shell extension allowing desk top icons to be switched off. This basic thing people use (I myself prefer a icon free desktop) will be soon back I’m sure. Though it’s early the ideal I think with shell extensions is that they’re quite easy for people to write and hence there should be lots coming soon (that’s the ideal of course). Throw a few more fancy spinny desktops, compiz effects, and automatically have right click privileges on things and people would be happier. In my immaturity, the uneccessary compiz effects are really all I miss. But then I have the zeitgeist/gimmie extension which is super! 12rc makes my lenovo x121e run like a beast (but does cane power).

    …..Any know-how on extensions and theme mods? (mods don’t seem possible through the current gconf-editor)……..

    More stuff!

    Reply

  513. Alan Milnes@472

    Agreed. I think Daniel has a good attitude about things, but the functionality I’m missing is simply gone. It’s not as if it’s there, but buggy. No, it’s just gone. Efficiency issues are tied to the Linux Kernel, and hopefully we will see that addressed, but Gnome has made a pretty clear statement. It will probably stabilize some, and we may see some performance gains. They may even add some things, but Gnome as we knew it is gone. To be perfectly clear, stability and usability–while having a little in common–are two very different things. For example, the Linux Kernel is very stable, but have you ever opened a spreadsheet without a DE in Linux?

    The MGSE project is viewed by some as a band-aide until things get straight with Gnome. And Clem has gone way above the call with MGSE. Sadly though, the MGSE project will have to be maintained for the duration, unless Clem just decides to scuttle it. We will never see pure Gnome return to anything close to Gnome 2 without intervention from Mint or any other developer.

    But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: I still love my Mint9 PC, and KDE is a worthy alternative–for me anyway.

    Reply

  514. For what it is worth (after all the negative comments about Lisa) I like this version. It is simple and scaled down – adding AWN and a clean desktop = I am done.

    Well, I do not like the slow mint menu (on ASRock ION – faster on the old Lenovo T60 for some reason – read Nividia) and the horrible Gnome3 menu but I do not have to use it. Installed all my favorite apps and the ones to connect to work – it all works! I am happy.

    So, I embrace the Gnome 3.x coming to LinuxMint (hale to LM10 – best so far IMO for the different PC I have it on) realizing it is the future and it can only get better and I like to be a part of it – now!

    @Clem – Thx! Cool and bold running! Really “Upward and onward” is the motto for LinuxMint.

    Reply

  515. I agree with all those who say Gnome 3 is a lost cause. What’s the point of busting your balls on Gnome 3 in an attempt to make it usable? That’s Gnome’s job. If they can’t do their job, then screw them. I vote that Xfce become the main edition.

    The Mint team is doing a fantastic job BTW! Thank you!

    Reply

  516. @ PB: I still think we can look at things too short sightedly perhaps. I have problems with gnome 3, don’t get me wrong. I also enjoy a bit of a challenge and risk. Some people don’t like that in a computer- but I too am always working on documents that my livelyhood depends on. So everybody of course have different demands and interests…this is hard for ubuntu, gnome, etc., to cover. Mint, being downstream naturally has more time to modify things. But of the little positive comments I have read outside of this blog about gnome 3 not made by those connected to the project and promoting it also note the market that gnome is facing. On the one side it has a history of loyal users who enjoy the stability and dependency of a system they can easily manipulate. On the other side is a massive market of young consumers interested in new technology and the fanciness of linux. Google is attracting attention to it, it is moving into ‘mainstream’ popularity. I have only been using Linux a few months really. So there is a real dilemma I think. Someone else said elsewhere that users that are in this potential market are used to a gnome shell type design through mobile technology. There is a problem there as what designs and users to accomodate. Linux is also going more capitalistic which is another interesting issue people don’t really reflect on that much….the next apple….? redistributed to a society to whom free technology and distributed free services are second nature? On another note, once I added the zeitgeist/gimmie shell extension I also saw the potential of the shell. Applications/Windows/Journal/?/? the list goes on….contacts I can immediately think of would be another useful extension to have directly there. Maybe even a list of common commands. Also, as someone else said elsewhere, the programming involved with the shell is more modular than with previous, and also easier. With a growing market of more technologically minded users programming extensions and having more control over systems is an ideal related closely to what I think were founding ideas of the Linux ‘thing’.

    Reply

  521. after spending some time im actually very happy with gnome-shell, with a lot of extensions and tweaks.got it looking and behaving very much like gnome2. actually a good desktop and i enver thought id say that. only problem is that it crashes every so often, usually every 20-30 mins and requires alt-f1 + sudo reboot now

    must be one of the extensions causing this? but which? if it wasnt for this id be almost happy with gnome-shell, and im THE biggest critic of anything not gnome2

    Reply

  522. @ Pelle45: If you’ve changed any theme or anything it might be that. Mine didn’t like that. What extensions are you using? I think all mine are working fine.

    Is anyone else bothered about power consumption or is it just me? I keep bringing it up…isn’t anyone bothered about it on their netbook/laptop?

    Reply

  523. @Daniel
    yes i changed theme but suspected that might be the problem and changed back and the same thing happened

    as for my extenstions they are the following

    installed and enabled:
    bottom panel (mint extension)
    panel favourites
    applications menu extension
    noa11y
    user theme ext
    window list
    —
    installed disabled:
    menu extension
    classic systray
    smart overview
    monitor status
    removable drive menu
    weather indicator ext
    extended places
    shutdown menu ext
    pidgin im integration ext
    alt tab ext
    notifications ext
    static workspaces ext
    gpaste ext
    system-monitor ext
    alternate tab ext
    shut down menu ext (uh im stating to see im having several instances of the same extension – why cant the mint ones be labelled smt with ‘mint’ to make them easier to distinguish from similarly named extensions?
    app menu extension
    systemmonitor ext
    places status indicator ext
    workspace indicator ext
    move clock ext
    bottom panel (not the mint one)
    media player ext
    media player indicator ext
    msg notifier ext

    maybe its extensions that i installed that do the same as the mint extensions? – once again the mint ones should be labelled in the tweak tool so i know which is which

    Reply

  524. I think there is a conflict between the system monitor and another monitor running, but that shouldn’t be at issue. The bottom extra non-mint panel might be it. Of course, I haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, I just wanted to see if you have any cool extensions I don’t….

    Reply

  526. @Daniel:

    Danield said “Inoki et al: It makes no sense to use xfce as a base when MATE is designed to replace gnome 2.3.”

    Personaly I’m concerned about MATE project, MATE is not open source and is registered as a EULA. http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=49902 I really don’t understand why LM is contemplating a proprietary solution for such important component? I really don’t understand. Can some one with more information give us an explanation?

    Reply

  527. @ Manny: I forgot that about MATE. You’re right. Maybe it’s another money thing. Mint trying to get connections with people. I have no issues with xcfe personally. I have run it before and downloaded it from the repositories last night to see if it made any difference on power consumption. It didn’t. MATE did, but has stopped working since last night (Gnome classic & no effects don’t work at all after a reinstall). I do quite like MATE just because it’s new and has a fancy cat with a multicoloured jersey on, and also because ‘it’s going to get much better effect’, etc., ‘this is an interesting fork’ intrigue, etc., It’s problematic how Linux business models make money and retain a highly competitive operating system (it seems).

    Reply

  528. What does the EULA mean exactly? It’s a license based business model where distributions like LM take a license as a MATE operating sytem developer? Or am I way off….I guess I could go and find out.

    What would you suggest is the ideal way for Linux (Mint) to ‘survive’ in an (money oriented but not limited to material value) exchange society?

    Reply

  531. Daniel@478

    I appreciate your comments. But to be sure, I wouldn’t call my comments being shortsighted. I know people can certainly have that outlook, but my comments are mere conjecture. Truthfully, none of us can say where this is all going to lead in the next several years, so our vision is a mute point. My dislike of Gnome Shell is simply based on what I view as relevant to a good DE. True, there are plenty of things to add to improve the experience. But I have always gone back to Mint because it needed the fewest additions than all other distros, but it wasn’t overloaded with a bunch of superfluous crap. If I want a few games, than I can go get them. But to get right to work, I needed very little. With the advent of Gnome 3–despite Clem’s valiant effort–the user feels like they need to add all these neat little things to improve the experience. That’s just not what I’ve grown accustomed to with Mint.

    To All,

    If I had to summarize my view of Gnome 3 in just a few short words, it would be as follows:

    Gnome 3 is NOT broken. Buggy? Absolutely. The bugs will be addressed in time, and it will run smoother. But make no mistake people, what you see is what you get. You either like it or you hate it.

    Of Gnome 3, I am a hater. Of Clem and the team I am a true admirer for what they are trying to accomplish. Hats off Clem!

    Reply

  532. Good work clem !

    However, I’m pretty surprised, I ended up disabling all Mint extensions and switching to the default look & feel… ?! Really strange as I thought Gnome Shell was not a good idea at first.

    Well, now I don’t know what Ubuntu-derived distro I should used. I’m a bit annoyed to see all the duplicate efforts ! (kde4, GS, Unity, Mate, GS + Mint extensions etc etc 🙂

    Reply

  534. @ Pelle45: Probably the double bottom panel. But who knows.

    @ PB: Yeah, you’re right; we can only decide on our experience of it. To that end, I like it like I like most fancy new things that promise me new things in the future to temper its current constraints and limitations. Bring on the spinny desktops. Everybody should be happy in the end; as the Swedish Edex or whatever mint flavour I downloaded and quickly tested today goes to show, Linux will keep expanding, new smaller distros emerging while the perennial winds of the bigger distros experiment and move.

    Reply

  536. @Thom W, thanks for pointing us to post #297. If MATE is FUD it can’t be designed to replace gnome 2.3. in my opinion.

    Reply

  537. @Manny
    Wow, can you misread a posting.
    Nothing at all said that MATE was FUD, only the RUMOR that the source code was closed was labeled FUD.
    MATE will be a great replacement for G2.3, once there has been sufficient development time. Too many people are too quick to give up on it already. It will take time (and a lot of effort) to get it up to the full functionality of G2.3, but I am (and many others are) willing to wait. Until then, I still have my Mint 9 to use until April 2013 (which should be plenty of time).

    Reply

  540. Thanks to Clem and everybody else on the project. Lisa’s working just fine on my laptop and I’m really digging it.

    Reply

  541. @pelle45 (482)

    Would you please post where you got the extensions and how you made the changes for all those that might want to follow suit? Anything that can make Gnome 3 more usable is welcome. If you have already detailed this before please direct us to the relevant postings. Thanks.

    Reply

  542. AIOs with touchscreens are replacing traditional desktops steadily(not counting tablets, netbooks, smart-tvs, laptops, etc) and by the time mate is fixed, there will be very few dinosaurs left who will want to use it!

    Reply

  544. Re the Swedish distro.:

    @tux-sven (441) gave a link to Exton Swedish Linux. I browsed the FTP site for a few minutes, and this fellow (apparently Marcus Rejas) surely does not look like an amateur; he’s been working with/on Linux for years. He has made a number of distributions, but many are several years old. One has an .iso size of about 1.5 GB (!).

    I wouldn’t mint trying Exton (if that’s its name) in Swedish, using Google Translate for help. (Linguistics is a hobby of mine, though.)

    [Firefox’s Google Translate add-on/extension (I don’t know which) works really quite well; it translated a years-old ReadMe on his site very well. (Google’s language-auto-detect works well enough so that it does not need user help. It correctly detected just two words of Malaysian (Indonesian), which did have distinct spelling.)]

    ===

    Speaking in general, I admire the courage of Linux developers who work with x86 machines, including x86_64. The hardware situation, I’d say, is controlled largely by success or failure in the marketplace, and I think it’s amazing that x86 machines work as well as most of them do. While informal, de facto standards* seem to govern to some degree, x86 machine “standards” seem to be semi-organized chaos. It seems that only huge companies such as Microsoft can afford to buy hardware and (I assume) support many employees to do compatibility testing, so their software has a good chance of working.
    *In part, set by major manufacturers such as HP Dell, and Lenovo

    Apple, however, keeps tight control over hardware and software, so they apparently have far fewer failures stemming from incompatibility. However, there’s a down-side; Apple developers apparently have to do things Apple’s way if they want to succeed.
    Also, it seems that Apple can be quite slow to recognize bugs.

    Regards,
    [nb]

    Reply

  545. {Currently reading at message 452…)

    [Top bar, again…]
    Many times in this blog (forum?), I’ve seen complaints about the top bar. As well, information about how to combine it with the bottom bar(?) and then delete it has been posted here probably at least three times. Clem has done his part, imho.

    Seems to me it’s really is a problem with this message format. Clem, bless him, probably reads every post, but he can’t also be an editor and topic indexer! (Is there any decent automatic indexing software?)
    Currently, this blog is active, and it takes time to keep up with it.

    As well, some of us are not native speakers*, and it may not be easy for them to read every post. At least, URLs appear in a different color, and they are not hard to find quickly as one scrolls through all messages. I doesn’t take long to find out what most URLs are about.

    *My heart goes out to such people who use English; I’m grateful! More than a few of them write as well as native speakers, and sometimes better, avoiding common mistakes (such as “then” for “than”) that are really morphing into a popular dialect-by-consensus.

    Regards,
    [nb]

    Reply

  546. If you’re unhappy with the top bar, it would help to know what resolution your screen is. 640 x 400 would be a disaster, and 800 x 600, I’d guess, would be a significant problem.

    Long term, perhaps detect the user’s screen resolution. If small, by default, configure bottom-bar only; perhaps provide a user option to restore it.

    Reply

  547. PB@459 said
    “I don’t understand why people have to issue these ultimatums to Clem.”

    All you need to do is find out about much of the USA’s politics — we have an epidemic of retarded emotional development (and exaltation of stupidity) along with it. Stupidity probably isn’t much of a factor in these anti-Clem remarks, though.

    I’m quite old enough (75) to have been passionate, and wrong, at times…

    @Clem: OK with me if you delete this post.

    Regards,
    [nb]
    midnight hacker in 1960

    Reply

  548. A few thoughts about power consumption:

    I would hope there’s a developer tool that shows percentage of time used by process threads, to help optimize. I’m assuming that consuming lots of power happens primarily because the CPU is kept very busy, but frequent HD accesses would probably eat power, as well.

    In the meantime. an improvement over [top] called [htop] works well; it lists each task separately, a finer-grained analysis should be really useful. (For instance, the OLPC XO-1, extremely concerned about battery life, found that its wireless hardware was using a lot of power, iirc.)

    A browser maker (can’t say who, NDA) had a talented employee who was fluent in x86 assembler. When nobody else, who knew only high-level languages, could fix a bug, he analyzed it, and apparently helped a lot.

    Reply

  549. Bob@470 said,
    “Even as bad as say Vista was, it was still far more usable than Gnome 3.”

    Good grief!

    [nb]
    who has not used either of them, yet.

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  550. I noticed the absence of any Clem remarks in all these comments 🙂
    I have to say, unequivocally, I hate Gnome 3. So much so that I will stick with Mint 9 until either a KDE or a newer LXDE comes out (the DE which I haven’t yet tried) This may be the ‘future’ of Gnome, but p*ssing off all the users isn’t going to leave much of a future for Gnome. I’m sure newbies and tablet users will go all starry eyed over the ‘pretty pretty’ but it’s just not usable, nor can it really be customized. Sure, not having my wobbly windows seems like a small irritation but it’s one of many things I can no longer do. And if I can no longer do it, then what kind of Linux experience would that be? Seems that would be a step in the Windoze direction IMHO. I greatly admire Clem and the gang for all the hard work that went into making Gnome 3 suck less for us Minties, and you know that’s why they did it! However, all that leads to a much fatter system than I would like. This makes me sad.

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  551. Mint Team, many many thanks for awesome, fun, and exciting software. It is with a bit of regret and a sigh of relief that I regrettably had to move back to Mint 11.

    There was so much in 12 that just didn’t work and was so frustrating to try and fix that the fun factor was gone in a wicked short period of time. No fun, not worth it.

    The two panels, no compiz, that damn hot button, and “things that just didn’t work like they used to” was the death knell.

    I’ll keep my eye out for the next release. Thanks again for the hard work!!!

    Reply

  552. out of the box huh omg !!!

    i give up 0n lisa she aint my kinda girl
    she is just a baby we were promised a woman LOL

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  553. Looks like LM team wanted to do too much with Lisa. Perhaps they should just make a decision in which way to go: Mate or MGSE, pick one of them and make it work. It’s not too late for that either, I would be extremely pleased to see Lisa-MGSE-only edition in a month or two: slim, fast, chic and bug-less. In a meantime, I already switched back to Katya, which is great and I am very thankful to LM team for it.
    They should probably forget about Mate for the moment.
    (And for LM 13 it would be great to have both LM13-MGSE-only and LM13-MATE-only editions.)
    imho, of course.
    All the best

    Reply

  554. @jeff
    i got the extensions by adding sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3 and then browsing that repo in synaptic and picking those i thought sounded interesting

    in addition i installled these http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html

    and played around with them until i got a desktop that i like.
    WARNING: like i described above i experienced a lot of crashes if i had 2 extensions that do the same thing enabled, thus you probably dont want to install the bottom panel extension that you will find in the links above as it conflicts with the mint extension that already does the same, same goes for a few other extensions

    in addition theres a lot here but i havent tried them https://linuxo.com/category/tags/gnome-shell-extensions

    Reply

  555. It took a long time for me to download Linux Mint 12 using the Transmission BitTorrent client. I downloaded both the 32 and 64 bit versions. Now I’m uploading them with Transmission to help speed up downloads for everybody else. After a few days, about 60% of the uploads were the 32 bit client and about 40% for the 64 bit client. Just wanted to pass that on, in case the Mint team keeps track of statistics like that. I like the 64 bit version myself, because it’s more difficult for malware to infect my computer.

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  556. @Clem: @all commenters:

    clem,linux mint’s future is DE only.try to make LMDE more advance,compatible and easy to use all users specially new commers.work hard on LMDE,it is still not mature.give off ubuntu based linux mint because every 6 months you need to hard work on each version and you will not get good feedback. so give off linux mint ubuntu based version,work hard on linux mint debian edition and make it just MINT not linux mint.make rolling updatable MINT OS. I am tired to reinstall OS every 6 months and manage it. ha..!I have nature that I can not remain without installing new release and new realease makes a lot headache.

    @clem, improve LMDE and give off mintubuntu.

    @all, give support to clem to improve LMDE and give off mintubuntu.

    Reply

  558. Once again Clem has been silent throughout this feedback which is mostly negative.

    If this does not indicate Gnome3/MGSE and MATE are not wanted by now then we will take it as a personal decision to implement the above on LMDE and not in the interest of the Mint user.

    Clem you should not rest on your laurels of the #1 spot on Distrowatch. It will be Mint’s undoing.

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  559. I have had bad luck and like many other went back to the perfect 10. On my last attempt I got M 12 working. The Gnome 3 grows on me the more I use it.

    What I do not like is it has been stripped of the Mint Menu. The Mint menu has always branded mint for me. All the menu is is the ubuntu menu with Gnome 3 Favorites. Sorry this does not cut it. I want to install, remove, edit all from the menu. I can’t even change an icon.

    I want my Mint menu back.

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  561. Hi guys,

    Well I was very excited about this release, as always I am with a Mint release (already since 9; 10 and 11). But for the first time, after 2 days with Mint 12 installed on my computer, I choose to go back to Mint 11. There were good things, that I think Clem and the team should maintain (simple things actually, like taking a picture when installation begins, the new features of desktop appearance and customization), but there is a lot of work to do.
    I appreciate the move of trying to introduce Gnome 3 and still keeping a touch of the old gnome, but the Mint Menu (one of the biggest