Linux Mint 13 “Maya” Xfce RC released!

by ·157 Comments

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 13 Xfce RC.


Linux Mint 13 Xfce

New features at a glance:

For a complete overview and to see screenshots of the new features, visit: “What’s new in Linux Mint 13 Xfce“.

Important info:

  • mintMenu in Xfce
  • Xfwm margins
  • Xfce trash in live mode
  • Boot hangs on systems with b43 wireless cards
  • Moonlight

Make sure to read the “Release Notes” to be aware of important info or known issues related to this release.

System requirements:

  • x86 processor (for both 32 & 64-bit versions)
  • x86_64 compatible processor (for the 64-bit version)
  • 384 MB of system memory (RAM)
  • 5 GB of disk space for installation
  • Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
  • CD-ROM drive or USB port

Download:

Md5 sum:

  • 32-bit: e837b79e7f6c2550fd4d74c7d241b2d0
  • 64-bit: 2789901ecc92e03cf2bfc974a68ce978

Torrents:

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit DVD ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit DVD ISO:

Enjoy!

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

157 comments

  3. @GeneC: Yes, we’ll focus on development and an LMDE update after KDE and Xfce editions are out. All improvements, including the mintMenu support for Xfce will make their way into LMDE.

    Reply

  5. Has this been tested on the MintBox? Does everything work including HDMI with sound? Is this lighter on resources than MATE for running on MintBox attached to TV?

    Edit by Clem: Yes. HDMI sound output on the mintbox requires the ATI drivers to be installed. I didn’t run any benchmark to compare MATE 1.2 and Xfce 4.10, their software selection is very similar and Xfce has traditionally been lighter than Gnome/MATE in the past.

    Reply

  6. Can we look forward to Maya KDE?

    Edit by Clem: Yes, we were hoping to release Xfce and KDE at the same time. We identified a series of bugs we wanted to fix in KDE so the KDE release is delayed a bit. Hopefully by about a week.

    Reply

  7. 1. The Release Notes in the link above say, in part:

    mintMenu in Xfce

    mintMenu is fully functional in Xfce but it isn’t installed by default in this RC release.

    Is it possible the link needs to be updated, as it refers to the RC release? Is the Mint Menu installed by default in the final release?

    2.
    Xfwm margins

    … This problem will be fixed in the stable release. In the meantime, you can correct it by removing the margins in Menu->Settings->Workspaces->Margins

    Did it get fixed in the stable release?

    3. Unlike a few years ago, Xubuntu has gotten relatively lightweight-I have a computer that boots with a panel system monitor indicating it uses about 100 MB of RAM. Is Mint 13 XFCE relatively lightweight, or was it done like the older versions of Xubuntu from 2008/9, essentially like the main Gnome edition was in those days?

    Edit by Clem: This is the RC, not the stable release. I’m not sure about Xubuntu… this edition is derived from Mint 13 itself not from Xubuntu, but as was done for LMDE Xfce, it follows in the tradition of a mainstream Xfce flavor.. i.e. the desktop itself is lightweight, but the software selection isn’t (it comes with LibreOffice, Banshee, Firefox..etc..).

    Reply

  8. mintMenu in XFCE… excellent, fantastic! 😀 I’ve really grown attached to the traditional (Gnome/MATE) mintMenu so I miss it in every distro I put my hands on. Thanks for the effort, guys! mintMenu is great.

    Reply

  9. Absolutely amazing! Great work fellas. I love the fact that the Mate applets are working under Xfce and you can use the MintMenu on it 😀

    Can’t wait for the Stable version.

    Reply

  10. So far, so good.

    I tried resizing the install window at the point of selecting a partition: Resize icons appear, but resizing does not happen (instead the window gets moved).

    The Xfwm margins issue is not necessarily a bad thing: For those wanting continual access to the desktop (eg, to right-click to get to the menu), this is quite convenient.

    mintMenu is clearly one of the best–and perhaps *the best*–OS main menus around. I will try the instructions to install it.

    Reply

  11. The screenshot shows the “ugly icon” for unmounted drives bug.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Tom, please explain.

    Reply

  13. Ok ,this is a noob question but I can’t find the correct info. This Xfce version will had the 5-year support like the Mint 13 MATE / Cinnamon main releases???

    Sorry if I’m so redundant. Thanks in advance.

    Edit by Clem: Yes.

    Reply

  15. @Carlos Felipe Clem said that the kde has a series of bugs in the kde version and hope to release it by a week guessing the RC version he is talking about and good job Clem. I do have a problem with Firefox and Google chrome is that it does not maximize and minimize like it does but it doesn’t work all the way has problems trying to maximize. Guessing its a bug kind of hard to tell cause I don’t have my Linux mint 13 xfce netbook turned on.

    Reply

  16. unlike other flavours of xfce, this one renders fonts and webpages pretty well, much better than xubuntu 12.04 for example…bugs?…cannot install mencoder/devede and firefox constantly asking if i want to save my tabs or quit on every session (which still happens in maya mate and cinnamon) ..apart from that it’s excellent!

    Edit by Clem: Firefox asking if you want to save your tabs is something we set on purpose. It’s always been configured this way in Linux Mint. You can change it about:config. For the fonts, this edition is derived from the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 13 so it should render them the same way. I’ll have a look at mencoder and devede, thanks for pointing this out.

    Reply

  17. Is it advisable to reinstall when a stable release comes out. I mean when an RC release is installed, will any updates make an RC release as good as a stable release if there are any problems?

    Edit by Clem: It depends on the changes and fixes between the RC and the stable release. Most of the time you can simply apply level 1 and 2 updates to the RC. This will be described in the announcements when the stable release is out.

    Reply

  18. Please, just curious–will there be Linux Mint 13 Lxde, too, eventually?

    I love both Lxde (Ubuntu-based) and Xfce (Ubuntu-based)! My two favourite desktop environments, although I am also intrigued by Enlightenment (E17) and Razor-qt.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    Edit by Clem: Unfortunately no. We had to discontinue the LXDE and Fluxbox editions. We were only partially supporting them (in 32-bit), XFCE support was lacking and we wanted more time within the release cycle to focus on development. I really enjoyed these editions as well but we just don’t have the resources to support them at the moment.

    Reply

  21. That’s really great news. When reading “What’s new in…” my eyes got larger and larger because of having Xfce 4.10 in there and even support for Mate applets.
    Just one question: Does this also mean that Applications-Places-System applet from Mate would work? As far as I remember this did not work for the Gnome 2 variant in XfApplet, did it?
    Unfortunately my Internet connection is too slow for just loading the ISO and trying the RC.

    But I’m sure it is great. Thanks for all your work!
    I will definitely install Mint 13 Xfce (final version) as my primary (and only) operating system!

    Edit by Clem: It should run all MATE applets. If it doesn’t, it’s probably because of a missing MATE library or the fact that caja isn’t installed (mintmenu for instance required mate-menus, libmatemenu and libmatedesktop) and the applet is using it.

    Reply

  23. Having found that LM-13 MATE and LMDE simply refused to install on my laptop or netbook, which I ascribe to MATE, and had reinforced a move to ZorinOS6, I am delighted to report that this latest 32bit XFCE RC is working very well from a Lexar ‘8GB’ USBkey, with RipperX-produced MP3s playing music on one virtual desktop, whilst the new PinguyOS downloads on another and I submit this on a third. (To hopefully prevent adverse comment, I’ll explain that ever since the sad demise of LM-10 Julia, I have been searching for a reliable way past ‘the Gnome3 / Unity barrier’.)
    Please keep up the good work guys !

    Reply

  24. Looks very nice and it is great to have back mint menu

    However: I miss the LXDE edition. I always considered LXDE equivalent to XFCE concerning features, but much more lightweight

    Reply

  25. Terrific!!! I installed this RC in a VM and I like it. However the mintmenu must be installed after the install procedure (xfapplet and mintmenu) Perhaps you can include mintmenu in the stable version as an install option.

    I can’t believe it! With mintmenu the RAM compsumption is below 150MB. It’s amazing.

    Well done!!!

    Edit by Clem: Yes, I can confirm these will be installed by default in the stable release.

    Reply

  27. Just installed Linux Mint 13 XFCE RC 64 bit on my laptop. It’s a Dell Vostro 1014 Core 2 Duo with 8gb RAM and an OCZ Vertex 32gb SSD. It boots in 14 seconds. That’s 2 seconds faster than Fedora 17 LXDE 64 bit on the exact same laptop. So far, Mint 13 XFCE works great. I don’t get annoying error messages like Fedora’s missing plugins either.

    Reply

  30. Hello Clem, this is what I mean by ugly icon bug:
    http://i.imgur.com/5ttnb.png

    The icon for the unmounted drive is of small resolution, and doesn’t match the rest of the icon theme. It’s obviously an xfce issue. I haven’t gone into much detail as to how to fix it.
    A possible fix is to increase the desktop icon size, but I’m not sure if it works in all cases.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks, that looks easy enough to fix. We’ll have a look at it.

    Reply

  31. This seems to be great. But I can’t find this fantastic mintMenu… not in the RC or is there an easy way to install?

    Reply

  33. Is there a way to have the Xfce menu and panel at the top of the screen like in Xubuntu? If possible, I would like to get the Xfce login screen back too…I REALLY like them, both from functional and aesthetic points of view

    Thanks

    DrT

    Reply

  34. I would like to know how to move the menu and panel to the top as well. I’m sure it’s easy for those that know. I would also like to know if there is any way to get the default Mint-X theme with all square window borders? I really like the default Mint theme but would like the option to not have the two top rounded corners. Most would probably consider it an old fashioned look but I would like to capture a window from time to time and not have the rounded top corners. I know there are other themes that are all square but I don’t like them as well as Mint-X.

    Reply

  36. By the way, can it be installed on a netbook (I have a EEEpc 1201PN) ? Or is it too ressources-greedy and it is better for me to stay with the reactive LMDE edition ? Wich seems to be sadly sleeping. Some of my programs are seriously outdated.

    Reply

  38. update
    @DrTeeth & Lee
    Right click panel, select ‘Panel’ then ‘Panel Pref” de-select ‘Lock Panel’ then drag panel to top

    Reply

  40. The screenshot shows the Nautilus icon. Does this use Nautilus rather than Thunar? If so, I’d be interested to know the reason.

    Reply

  41. By the way, at least one of the Firefox bookmarks is out-of-date: kernel.net should be kernel.org. The former is an unrelated German page.

    Reply

  42. Having grown used to its alternative single window mode in ZorinOS6, I reckon that GIMP 2.8 would have been a better choice than GIMP 2.6, but you can’t have everything !

    Reply

  43. Thank you Rick! I also discovered that going to Settings -> Settings Manager -> Windows Manager lets me change to windows that are closer to being square on all sides. I miss the days when everything came with an actual manual.

    Reply

  44. The 64bit version installed smoothly on my Lenovo M57e, except that the usual Ubuntu installer bug – if you have two hard disks, the default is to install Grub to the larger one, rather than to the one on which you have chosen to create the “/” partition – is present. Don’t try to reuse the “/home” partition from a previous Xubuntu installation – you wind up with a plain vanilla XFCE desktop – a clean install solved that problem.

    I ran across a minor cosmetic issue in the wireless network authentication dialogue – no box appears for the password until you click on “show password”.

    Otherwise, I had no problem in fixing the margins problem and getting the Mint menu working, and would like to add my thanks to the team for producing what is already a very functional system.

    It would be extra nice if the released version had substantially fewer zero-day updates than the RC (all but a few were Level 3, of course, but 255MB is a pretty hefty additional download if, like me, you have only a very limited monthly gigabyte quota).

    Reply

  47. Dear clem, nice release but there are a few issues that i hope will be patched(fixed) in the stable release.

    1. The artwork for the wireless networks is very ugly similar to the defualt gnome icons. Mint has provided me with beautiful icons in the past…

    2. The fonts are ugly and not smooth and does not look very nice at all. Previous Mint releases did not have this issue..

    Other than that, This is a pretty nice release for an RC
    Below are screen shots to help you visualize the issues i mentioned:

    Issue # 1:http://tinypic.com/r/21enhx/6 ===> Shows you the ugly wireless network icons located on bottom right
    Issue# 2 http://tinypic.com/r/mtnfxz/6 ====> Shows you rendered fonts

    Note: All these issues were present on a clean install after updates(updated using MintUpdate)

    Thank You Clem! Please take note of these issues! They are small, but it still does not keep me from using mint though it might keep others who are unwilling to fix them.

    Reply

  48. @bennachie If you partition the drives yourself it will ask where you want to install grub. Have a look at gparted to see how your drive is currently partitioned.
    I have a small SSD and always set 200MB /boot, 4096 swap and rest to /. I also have several HDD’s and my /home is on one of those.

    Reply

  51. @Rick. Yes, if you start by partitioning free space. But if you intend to re-use space in which you have previously installed the “/” and “/home” partitions for other distros, that doesn’t happen.

    I’m well past the stage of having to be told gently how to partition a disk, and I tend to be testing three or four varieties of Linux, as well as maintaining a basic Windows system, at any one time on my two-hard-disk set-up.

    I’ll grant that this bug is more likely to bother reasonably knowledgeable users rather than absolute beginners, but a bug it most assuredly is. You’ll find the problem well documented on the Ubuntu forums (it’s not specific to Mint).

    Reply

  52. This RC looks good.

    Just a few comments…

    The System requirements look a little off:
    – Needs DVD drive or USB port instead of CD. Using Plop to boot from the USB or remaster the Linux Mint ISOs are solutions but probably not what a linux newbie is going to do.
    – Didn’t install with 256MB. Freezes after loading the desktop, zram is full. It’s necessary to have a pre-installed swap and use the console to deactivate the zram before the system loads the desktop. This just to load the XFCE desktop…
    – To install with 288MB of RAM it’s necessary a pre-installed swap and “sudo swapoff /dev/zram0” (to free RAM for programs), “sudo apt-get purge ubiquity-slideshow-mint”.Swap usage during installation is 250-300MB, it’s very slow and may not work in computers with VGA cards with shared RAM.
    – Installs OK with 320-384MB of RAM (about the same as Cinnamon and MATE edtion). The minimum RAM requirements should be 384MB, not 256MB.

    Mint 13 XFCE LTS it’s Mint 13 lightest edition and works well if the computer has 384MB of RAM or more.

    As replacement for the previous Mint (Ubuntu based) lightweight editions, Mint 9/10/11/12 LXDE and Mint 9 Fluxbox LTS on older and slower hardware this new version it’s not that great:
    – Mint 13 XFCE LTS doesn’t install on computers with 256MB of RAM. Mint 12 LXDE installed fine with 256MB of RAM, Mint 9 Fluxbox and Mint 10 LXDE installed with 128-160MB of RAM and a pre-installed swap. I don’t think the 12.04 Ubiquity installer works with 256MB of RAM even if the desktop was LXDE instead of XFCE.
    – Mint 13 XFCE LTS needs DVD/USB boot. Solutions exist, plop it’s very easy but remastering the Linux Mint ISOs it’s not…
    – Mint 13 XFCE LTS uses almost twice the RAM of Mint 9 Fluxbox/LXDE after boot and Mint 10/11/12 LXDE with some tuning do the same (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=96465).
    – XFCE uses more CPU than LXDE or Fluxbox. Especially noticeable on slower CPU’s.
    Fixing all this takes time and effort that the Mint team doesn’t have at the moment and probably would not work well with Ubuntu/Ubiquity 12.04. Could work with LMDE (stable/testing).

    Overall Mint 13 XFCE LTS works well, looks nice and it’s fast and light when compared with the current MATE and Cinnamon editions and previous Gnome2 editions. It’s a good replacement for Mint 9 XFCE LTS, Mint 9/10/11 with Gnome 2 and even Mint LXDE if the computer is not to old/slow and the user likes XFCE but a few Mint LXDE users are going to have to find some other distro or make their own Mint 13 with LXDE.

    Reply

  53. Cheers Clem! Given the fine nature of the release candidate, the final release of LM13 Xfce looks very promising!
    I’ve just discovered an issue while testing the live 32-bit iso – none of the Xfce packages appear in Synaptic. Can you think of why this might be?
    Thanks again Clem! 🙂

    Reply

  55. Excellent news! I’m happy that Mint Menu has been included–it’s something I was really missing in the Debian Xfce edition. Can’t wait to test it out.

    Reply

  56. Way to go! I knew sponsoring you guys was the right thing to do! 😀

    Now, just to iron out those few creases and I’m rearing to switch from Mate edition!

    Not to mention that LMDE getting all the love it still needs may be the bee’s knees of Linux distros. 🙂

    Reply

  57. @bennachie. Cheers for the info. Never came across the problem myself. I have a hotswap drive bay on the top of my PC to test distro’s in individual HDD’s. I just always manually partition the drive during install.

    Reply

  61. A few notes re mintMenu:

    In Release Notes, under “mintMenu in Xfce”:
    “To install it, install mintinstall…”
    should be
    “To install it, install mintmenu…”

    With the mint menu installed, only two options on its right-click menu appear to do anything: Preferences and About (the top About).

    When adding the XfApplet, I was able to move that plugin within the panel before setting its property to mintMenu but not after. I was able to add more than one XfApplet plugin to the panel at one time, but not more than one mintMenu (which is not necessarily a bad restriction).

    Because I didn’t move the first XfApplet before setting its property to mintMenu, my mintMenu is stuck on the far right-hand side of my panel; I can’t move or delete it.

    ===

    Thanks, Clem, for pointing out the “save tabs” option can be changed via about:config. It was driving me tab-batty.

    To explicate (ooh, good SAT word 🙂 ) on how to get rid of the “save tabs” dialog:
    – Open a new Firefox tab, and type “about:config” then Enter into the location bar;
    – If you dare, click on the “promise to be careful” button;
    – Type “quit” into the search edit box;
    – Set “browser.warnOnQuit” to “false” by double-clicking it; (setting browser.showQuitWarning to “false” will work for the current session, but will get reset the next time Ffx is started);
    – At this point, you will be able to quit Ffx with multiple tabs open without any confirmation dialog.

    ===

    Find an Xfce 4.10 feature tour here:
    http://xfce.org/about/tour

    Edit by Clem: If the applet doesn’t let you move it, go to the panel properties where you can see the list of applets used.. and reorder from there.

    Reply

  63. Works great. Once again a version without the Gnome and/or Unity interface. We can’t have enough of those.
    No serious, this is a great version. I installed it in a virtual machine and it runs smooth and fast, as a Linux distro should do.
    Thanks everyone.

    Reply

  68. I think what tom (post 11) means is the icon of the “6.4 gb filesystem” which looks ugly until you hover it with your mouse. Is this an XFCE bug?

    Reply

  70. We’re on vacation so I don’t have my computer, but I tried it on my wifes laptop, and it is great! As soon as I get home I’m going to start migrating my computer from Mint 9 xfce.

    Reply

  71. I was running LMDE on my laptop and the last update pack failed to install and left the machine booting into the command line with no X. Since I partitioned the disk with a separate home partition I can simply overwrite the system with a new one, so Mint13-Xfce RC has been released at a good time for me! I hope the wifi support for my Thinkpad R60 is “in there”. Normally I’d wait for the final release, but at this point I have nothing to lose. I wonder if my R60 has enough horsepower (1.8ghz dual core with 1gb ram) to support Cairo-dock underneath Xfce? I’ve Cario-dock running on a desktop at work with Mint-12 KDE (Still waiting for Mint-13 KDE for my home desktop) and it’s great! I’d like to have my laptop with a phony Macbook look! (Can I move the task bar on Xfce to the top?)

    Reply

  72. Clem and the Mint Team,

    Many thanks for the great job you’ve done with this LM 13 Xfce RC release! It looks and performs great with Virtual Box and I will definitely install the stable release on my laptop HD when it’s available. Mint has been my favorite Linux distro since I first installed LM 9. (BTW, I’m running LM 13 Maya Cinnamon alongside Mac OSX on my iMac, but I rarely boot OSX anymore.)

    Thanks again,
    f

    Reply

  73. Hi, if i install rc version am make all updates i don’t need make a new installation when the final version is out?
    Thanks

    Reply

  76. for clem!

    when i type the name of a program i want to find with the software manager for 15-20 sec are to see only the first 3 letters. in this time the mouse pointer goes behind the window and the only thing to do is to wait. second problem is something strange because the symbols in the task bar are trambling when i start a new program that will have the symbol between the other ones.

    Reply

  77. Hi Clem 🙂

    Just out of curiosity,

    1. Why did you pick up cinnamon edition as base to build, instead of MATE as both XFCE and MATE are based on GTK+ 2

    2. will Mint Menu consume extra 25 Mb as in LMDE edition

    3. Mint MATE Menu has a small bug or say lack in feature, as against cinnamon menu.

    The first option is not highlighted / auto activated by default.

    e.g. if I type Opera and hit enter, I get a message ‘No files found’

    I am an end user so I will wait for torrent of Stable release.

    Thanks and Kind Regards

    curious sunewbie

    Edit by Clem:

    1. GTK has nothing to do with it. Xfce relies on Gnome in the backend, just like the Cinnamon edition so it was easier to derive it like that.
    2. mintMenu would consume extra MB, yes.
    3. mintMenu (which is a MATE applet) is much more advanced than the Cinnamon menu (which is inspired from it and which will eventually gain the missing features)

    Reply

  78. Well, you can forget LMDE, MATE and Cinnamon, LM13-XFCE is the one for me – it’s positively brilliant !
    Surprisingly fast and effective on a fingernail size ‘8GB’ USBkey’s 6GiB partition, it still leaves room for a Linux or Windows accessible 1.5GiB FAT32 data partition. Not only have I been able to easily add back Gparted, add RipperX+Lame, Exaile, AcidRip, DeVeDe and Openshot, I have been able to add HandBrake ‘Precise version’ as obtained from PinguyOS 12.04 by using APTonCD.
    It’s already good enough to use in anger as a highly transportable PC tool, but also as a simple, default desktop distro.
    Meanwhile, Gnome2 style, I am exploring its Panell Applets, already exploiting its Workspace Switcher – very well done Clem !

    Reply

  79. Just one minor niggle at present – can’t drag’n’drop to create LibreOffice desktop icons, but the others all work OK.

    Reply

  81. I am a seasoned user of Linux Mint and having been running Mint 6 for over 3 years very successfully – it has been very stable. But the time came to upgrade and I decided to go for the latest LM 13. This was installed on the same machine I used for LM6 – a 64-bit Dell Inspiron 530 with Core 2 Duo processor, 4 Gig of RAM and a Seagate Barracuda disk drive (new) which has passed all of its Seagate tests. The machine was originally supplied by Dell in 2008 with Ubuntu installed – so its about as Linux-friendly as a PC can get! I would expect good performance on a machine of this calibre.

    With 64-bit Linux 13 and Mate I was straight-away into difficulties with performance – Firefox (versions 11,12 and 13) were taking up to 30 seconds to launch even with all add-ons removed. Thunderbird 13 was the same. There were times when the whole screen would go blank (all ikons disappearing) for up to a minute before the screen was re-drawn. It seems that this release cannot cope with more than one activity at the same time. So a browser launch with, say copyng files to a network drive at the same time is a disaster! In fact all launches were slow to respond. An attempt to use the simple scan utility caused my Epson Photo 3490 scanner top “jam” half way through a scan and I have only been able to sort this out by re-installing the scanner on a Windows 7 machine!

    With 64-bit Mint debian and Mate I had exactly the same experience.

    With Mint Debian and XFCE – Firefox would not launch at all! If I tried to launch it in a terminal session nothing happened and there was no error output!

    I would expect the very basics of Mint to work – browser, email, scanner etc. In my view LM 13 is nowhere near as good as earlier versions. I am very disappointed and have now had to install Debian from another source as I have wasted so much time on LM13.

    I believe that Mate/Cinnamon are not a good idea as they are another layer that will slow things down. Why not abandon Ubuntu and go back to a pure Debian source like the one I am now using instead? But they are not the only problem as the XFCE release also failed to work properly. So it seems LM 13 itself has severe issues.

    Reply

  83. For those (like me) who wondered how to relocate the panel bar, it’s real easy. Right click on the panel to bring up the options, select unlock panel, then simply drag and drop the panel to what ever side of the screen you want and then click on lock panel again to keep it from moving by accident.

    Hey Clem, the two icons for Firefox and Thunderbird don’t work, they seem to point to a missing file or something, I have to use the menu to launch these programs. The file icons DO work though.

    Reply

  84. @Bruce

    I’m not as familiar with XFCE as I am with Gnome, but can you right click on the menu icon and scroll to “Add to Desktop?” Drag and drop from MintMenu on Gnome or Mate doesn’t work either. You’re left with a locked icon. I’m sure you could get it to work, but it’s much easier to just click Add to Desktop. You have to right click and then select Add to Desktop. Just a thought.

    Reply

  86. Great work, for me XFCE is the best. But, it would be very nice if color of desktop icons font could be changed.

    Best regards.

    Reply

  87. This is gonna be distro of the year 2012,for sure! Here and there some glitches, nothing really bad, w8ing patiently for final release.very well done

    Reply

  88. Truly an excellent OS. Fast stable reliable! Mint Team this we will recommend to clients

    Reply

  89. Fantastic job! I shall be using this little beauty on my netbook as soon as my download limit permits 😀

    …XFCE has always been a great desktop – and let’s face it, other distros with XFCE just don’t have the heart and effort I’ve seen put into this one.

    We can all be grateful that we now have more variety in desktops with Mint – and grateful that the time is taken to make them as stable and user-friendly as they can possibly get.

    What more can I say? Thank you Linux Mint team – you’ve done us proud! 😀

    Other OS = >:p
    Linux Mint = <3

    Reply

  90. …by the way, will there be a darker theme for MATE and XFCE sometime? the default theme on Cinnamon is rather beautiful and it blends nicely with just about any wallpaper and the default set of icons.

    Maybe they’re in the repos – I’ve only been testing live so far so I’m not sure. Thanks 😀

    Reply

  93. Really like this. Nice one. Works really well. Very fast and seems very stable. Much better for older machines.

    Have had some problems with multiple monitors working though. Maya xcfe does not seem to pick another monitor up and that is something I need for everyday working.

    Reply

  94. ….oh and about the mintBox-I really like the look of it- forward thinking and innovative. What’s funny is how in the comments people evaluate the strategic positioning of the boox qua the raspberry pi. To do so is completely ridiculous. The mintBox, for starters is a working computer you can do things easily with!!! I have 2 raspberry pi’s and to most users they are quite useless!

    Would love to see linux mint xcfe on the raspberry pi…. or I guess it would have to be a whole new mint raspberry pi os- that would be the best!

    I would love to get a minBox when I can. Very small, very quiet, very simple. Those comparing it to the pi are completely clueless as currently it is very competitive- opening up new spaces, especially in relation to the apple box. Well done and clever thinking Clem.

    Reply

  97. Daniel@93

    Are you using Nvidia or ATI? If you have installed Nvidia drivers, and you still are not getting both monitors, you may have to go into settings and enable the second display. Remember that it will take several restarts of x to see changes. I will make them one at a time, otherwise, you could quickly wind up with a black screen. It may taking some tweaking of the xorg config file to get two recognized, or so they both show in native resolutions. While both of my monitors worked out of the box with Mate, they were both in low resolution, and one of them was constantly blinking at me until I loaded the Nvidia drivers. Then one monitor was in low res, and the other in high res. What I did was go into the xorg.config and edited a couple of lines from the low res monitor to match the lines of the high res. Once I logged out and back in, they were looking really nice–both in native resolution. This is assuming that both of your monitors are exactly the same. I’m not at my work machine right now. Otherwise, I could be a little more specific with you. On the other hand, you may have tried all these things, and still no luck. I will say that I do not like how KDE behaves with 2 monitors. I can get two working, but not like they should.

    Reply

  98. Hey guys, I have found an issue which I dont think has been stated yet.
    Whenever my panel is locked at the top of my desktop, all maximized applications will remain locked, and you cannot move the application from the “lock” the panel has placed it in, and also you cannot resize the app by any means.

    This has been tested over various settings, and it will always do this.

    Please look into this.

    Also how do we fix the application maximize issue where it does not reach the border of the desktop/sceen?

    Reply

  99. clem

    installed nvidia driver and now i have no sound. the only sound is when the system open.

    is somebody here that could help?

    Reply

  100. How come the LXDE version is no longer being made? I personally liked that desktop environment. There will be no more? Just XFCE, Gnome, and KDE? Just curious more than anything I guess. I am running 13 with Mate and like it very much. Thanks.

    Reply

  102. =====================================================
    THIS IS FOR CLEM
    =====================================================

    IS THERE ANY CHANCE LINUX MINT SHIFTS TO ARCH LINUX UPSTREAM?
    GIVE ME A GOOD REASON TO STICK WITH UBUNTU’S UPSTREAM.

    Reply

  103. regarding message #32. Same thing happens to me. Terminal just show up black. I type something but nothing show. I think I get it to work by go to Edit > Profile Preference > color. Uncheck use colors from system themes.

    Reply

  104. @PB – Thank you for the suggestion about right-clicking to add to desktop, but my USBkey installation of 32bit LM13 XFCE RC simply doesn’t work that way, introducing a whole new way of fast working, so that some of the Comments being made appear to be about completely different distributions, and not about LM13 XFCE RC.
    Left or Right-clicking on menu entries offers no sub-menu capability but very promptly launches that item. Drag’n’drop of a menu entry on to the desktop creates a ‘short cut’ icon for all but the LibreOffice suite. Left double-click or Right click, sub-menu Execute again quite promptly launches, especially if the whole installation has been Updated, which makes operations noticeably faster.
    In that respect please note that virtually all of the current Ubuntu12.04 distributions appear to need an Update that includes a new kernel, the need being quite desperate for PinguyOS12.04 and quite important for ZorinOS6.
    Incidentally, if you are a HandBrake fan, only the new Pinguy appears to have a working version, which can however be ‘extracted’ as a DEB file using APTonCD, for use with other version 12.04 distributions that lack it via their copy of Synaptic.

    Reply

  105. Sorry, but I didn’t make it clear that Left double-click or Right click, Execute refers to the use of the created desktop icons.

    Reply

  107. @Bruce,

    Okay, thanks for the feedback. As I mentioned, I am unfamiliar with XFCE in that regard, but I thought it was worth a shot, especially if your were using MintMenu–not that you are. I didn’t mean to sound off topic, and I fully realized you were using XFCE. I guess?

    Reply

  108. @The_Lord_Of_Knowledge

    I noticed that you clearly emphasized your desire to hear from CLEM on the topic of Arch Linux.

    But I’m going to ask anyway: Really? While I have nothing against Arch Linux, it is in no way compatible with the Ubuntu base. Mint Main Edition is already compatible with Ubuntu base, so that would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason to stick with Ubuntu.

    It’s glaringly simple in my mind, but I’m not an expert. I’m sure you recognize the amount of work that switching to another package base means for Clem and his team. But who am I. Clem may very well have something in the works.

    Reply

  109. With LM13 XFCE will the menu be customizable as much as the old gnome 2.32 menu in LM11 with Gnome?? I realize that these are two different UI’s and as such not everything is identical, but it would be nice if in XFCE I can have the same applets or extremely similar applets for music, messaging, date&time+weather, and logout session applet/status applets. Just wondering if these are going to be present in XFCE, because in MATE they’re lacking as I’ve already tested LM13 and had to regress my system back to LM11 Katya with gnome2.32 until something comes along more polished with the ability to still do compiz as this is still the most attractive feature of the OS somedays when I’m bored.

    Reply

  111. Boy do I hate double clicking! Why do developers always insist on using it when it is entirely unnecessary? For those of us who have hand problems any reduction of double clicking is a gift. It’s the reason I’ve always shied away from XFCE. I had read that XFCE 4.10 was finally moving away from that approach and was so disappointed when I found double clicking still required to open app icons on the desktop. Any chance of really putting single clicking to work in XFCE? Otherwise, the Mint edition is fine.

    Reply

  112. Regarding post 102 – Lord of Knowledge…your question appears to be about probability. Is it possible there will be a switch away from Ubuntu, yes. Is it likely, no.

    Are there any distros that are derived from Arch? Don’t know. I have only played around with Arch once, not for me.

    A while back, I looked at the top 30-40 distros on distrowatch.com, and the vast majority were based off Debian, Ubuntu or both. There must be a good reason for this.

    Reply

  113. Clement,

    I tried out the new XFCE based distro, it’s wonderful stuff. Light weight desktops are always an attraction for us with relatively old and slow PC hardware.

    Thanks again.

    Reply

  116. In regard to message 111, you can set the desktop to a single click operation. Wonderful! It’s under “Desktop Settings” (right click on desktop) and then under “Icons.” I think since the pending demise of Gnome that this will be my OS. Thanks, Mint.

    Reply

  117. @Bill – if you actually install it on on a USBkey and use sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf to add and Save a final line reading vm.swappiness=5 you will be pleasantly surprised by how responsive it all becomes.

    Reply

  118. Any idea when the “b43 boot hang” problem is going to be fixed? I would love to try Mint Debian Xfce if I could ever get past the b43 problem.

    Reply

  119. Bruce@117

    I haven’t downloaded this yet, will wait for final release. But I suppose that value has do with how much system memory is being used. Those with lower memory would need to be careful with that setting. It sounds like it’s reducing the amount that the system accesses swap. Some people need swap because of low system memory. It’s a great suggestion, but I would reserve it for those who have plentiful system memory. Memory has never been a problem for myself for quite some time, and I love tweaks like that. I’ll give it a whirl.

    Reply

  120. Dale@112

    The_Lord_Of_Knowledge has made many comments about the package management system of Arch. I have heard similar comments from other users, and it does sound solid. But as good as it may be, it boils down to practicality. Think of how long it took for LMDE to really become a viable option. An Arch base might be better than LMDE in the end, but “the end” would be a long way off. I’m sure there are many good reasons for building an Arch base, and there would be many good reasons for having an RPM base. That’s what Linux is all about. So many different flavors, and they all have their pros and cons. And the reality is, not one of them is perfect for “everybody.” Besides, it doesn’t seem like making such a dramatic change would lend itself to the Mint vision–at least not right now.

    To put it in a less boring and wordy manner: I agree with you 100%, it’s simply not “probable.”

    Reply

  121. PB Says:

    “That’s what Linux is all about. So many different flavors, and they all have their pros and cons. And the reality is, not one of them is perfect for “everybody.” ”

    Wel said mate, if I may say that

    Reply

  124. Hi

    Installed successfully in the office computers. They’re around 10 years old and use AMD Athlon XP 2100 and the old Nvidia GeForce MX 440 video cards.

    I had to uninstall the Ubiquity slideshow, but everything else worked smoothly. Didn’t give me as much of a hard time as the Mate edition.

    Installed all the updates and it looks okay so far. My officemates are comfortable using it. They came from using Windows XP.

    Cheers!

    Reply

  125. Hi Clem,

    Could you use a nicer looking mouse cursor for your OS? For example something like the oxygen cursors? I know I can install them after installation however I use a liveUSB a lot and it would be better looking.

    Reply

  126. pmu Says:
    July 4th, 2012 at 11:23 pm

    regarding message #32. Same thing happens to me. Terminal just show up black. I type something but nothing show. I think I get it to work by go to Edit > Profile Preference > color. Uncheck use colors from system themes.

    ok, but edit from where? thank you!

    Reply

  128. Hey Clem is there anyway that the login sound of the main edition can find its way into the xfce edition? Other than that, this is a great release! Just works!

    Reply

  132. I _like_ this xfce edition, installed mintmenu and 259 updates.

    Two questions:
    1. I can see more desktops with Ctrl-Alt Left and right arrows. Is there a desktop monitor for the panel?

    2. Is there a way to change font colors on desktop?

    Reply

  135. how i add more users? i dont see adduser in menu, and i try in console – sudo adduser, but don´t work?

    Reply

  136. another question after final version is out, i need make a new install or the rc version stay operational

    Reply

  137. God hadn’t I so many problems with Mint 13 and Wifi on my laptop I’d immediately go for it, XFCE is my main and only desktop, but this is precisely the reason I stick with an unupdated LMDE, not so many updates but at least it’s stable and works as should.

    Reply

  138. I guess I’ll change my KDE distro for this flavor of Mint 🙂 looks really really nice. can’t wait for the final release. and I guess by Mint 15 Cinnamon will be perfect and unbeatable.

    Reply

  139. LM 13 Xfce RC is a real winner for me. I ran it every day since it was issued on a desktop a few years old, but pretty good power, and it was very near perfect. Besides resetting the screen margins, I don’t remember having to screw around with anything at all. Sound, video, it all worked from start-up. I installed the RC to a new computer – bigger, faster, different brand drivers, etc. – a few days ago, with the same terrific experience. I keep wondering what can possibly be done to improve this RC for the final release. When that happens, I’m going to try it out on my older, limping laptop. Great work. Thank you.

    Reply

  140. XFCE 13 in the USB stick installation breaks it off at the end by pointing Grub will not install.

    Thanks in advance
    falcon

    Reply

  141. I got Cairo-Doc installed and it seems to have a small issue over the way it works on Mint-12 KDE. I have the “hide dock when overlaps window” set as well as “call dock back” with mouse cursor at bottom of screen. This works fine on mint12-kde, but on mint13-xfce the dock comes up BEHIND the window, not on top.

    Reply

  142. xf-applet using mate applet <– that is pure win 🙂
    but it only has invest and sensors applet 🙁
    I want CPU frequency and system monitor applets in it
    At least I have 1/3 of the applets I want from mate that is more than I had before
    I hope the other 2 are available in the final release

    Every time I change the places icon to text it changes back to icon on reboot but I think that is a upstream bug

    Reply

  143. Did i get the wrong version of Mint 13? I downloaded Mint 13, installed it and connected to the WWW fine. However I noticed that the Flash version in Mint 13 was from last Nov 2011, and Flash has had several updates since. I thought that since Mint 13 was released in May/June of 2012, it would have included Flash from at lease Feb or Mar 2012. So did I get the wrong version of Mint 13 OR ?

    Reply

  146. @111 – you can set single clicking in options. I use it on XFCE without problems. This is so basic setting, that I find very disturbing the fact that you are not able to do it by yourself and that you require it to be default just so you can use it.

    Reply

  148. PB @ 119
    Sorry I almost missed your response, but I wasn’t advocating a vm.sloppiness ‘tweak’ for desktop users, only for self-contained ‘Mint on a Stick’ users. Indeed it seems there’s a distribution-specific limit to the tweak’s value for any self-contained distro on a stick.
    Installation on a USB hard drive, like a WD MyPassportEssntials USB2/3 device can yield far better return, without resorting to ‘tweaks’.

    Reply

  149. 哈哈，原来我也可以在英文网站留下足迹~

    from 中国的朋友，飘过~

    顶linuxmint，希望越来越好~

    另外我需要中文语言包，在哪可以下载啊？

    understand？

    Reply

  150. i need the language package of simple Chinese……

    who can help me???????

    oh ,my god,this is an English website…….i 2 le …houhou~

    Reply

  153. Hi there,

    I currently use Isadora/Gnome with great satisfaction. I have a brand new notebook. I’ve installed Maya/Xfce on it. It’s pretty. I’d like to keep it but so far, I miss 2 major features in Xfce:

    – I did not find a “universal proxy” configuring tool; can I install the gnome-network-properties (or Gnome3’s gnome-control-center) under Xfce and use it as I used to do so with Gnome ?

    – I use 2 monitor display; with Gnome I set the dual-screen mode. Xfce does not seem to allow this mode (I can switch from one to another or display a copy on both but I did not manage to spread the display on both). Is this a Xfce limitation or only a RC limitation ?

    Thanks.

    Reply

  154. Runs fast as lightning! Faster than 12 XFCE, faster than LXDE.

    Very pleased with what’s new, nearly everything caught my eye at once.

    Had to remove the RC because I depend very much on lots of the additional panel applets which I could not add so far.

    Thank you very much for your efforts! Any idea when the final release might get ready?

    Btw VERY beautiful new Wallpapers this time in 13 (storm, beach, road etc). Kudos to that, too.

    Reply

  155. Just installed gnome-control-center. Setting proxy using “gnome-control-cente network” seems to work fine (at least for firefox and apt; wgetrc is not set but this this not a Xfce issue: the gnome proxy setting tool never worked for wget).

    Reply

  156. Tried XCFE-64. Panels are awkward, CUPS doesn’t work for Canon ip4200 – stalls at 15% processed (also true for Mint 13/64 MATE. Back to Mint 11/64, I think.

    Reply

  157. This is my favorite Mint 13 release. Indeed, fast as lightning!

    I found MATE to be sluggish and often unreponsive unfortunately. PLUS, the new ability to “snap” windows to parts of the screen makes XFCE the winnner in my book.

    Definitely install and get the Mint Menu on your panel because it’s AWESOME!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *