Linux Mint 16 “Petra”

Linux Mint 16 will be named “Petra” and should be available at the end of November 2013.

Petra, “πέτρα” in Greek, means stone or rock. It is a common name in Germany, Croatia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Linux Mint 16 “Petra” will feature the following editions:

  • Cinnamon
  • MATE
  • KDE
  • Xfce

102 comments

  1. Excellent news about the new release being already planned!

    Seeing a Greek root as the name of the release is also a wonderful thing, which I and, I’m sure other Greek users of Mint, definitely appreciate.

    Just a minor detail I want to note though, just in case this ends up in release notes. The root word is “Petra” (“Πέτρα” in Greek). The name “Petros” (“Peter” in English) derives from “Petra” because of the Bible reference that Jesus said to St. Peter: “Simon, you will henceforth be known as ‘Peter’, the rock upon which I will buold my church”.

    So Petra is the root 😉

  2. Actually “Petra” does mean “Rock” , where “Petros” is a name for men ! ……In rare occasions “Petra” is also given to a girl…..not very popular though !!
    ….

  3. FYI, the word “petra” (πέτρα) literally means “rock” in Greek. It is a noun of feminine genus. It is from this word that the masculine first name “Petros” is the derived, not the other way round.

  4. Are there any statistics how much which Desktop-“Spin” has been downloaded?

    for example 70% cinnamon, 25% mate, 3% kde, etc…

    Are there any plans to change the base from ubuntu to debian directly? there will be much problems in the future (mir, unity), not?

    Great work, go on!

  5. I hope the Xfce edition receives more attention, as well as the Debian (LMDE) edition. I haven’t tested them long enough (not even the same Mint release) to be able to tell, but many reviews complain about the aspect of incompleteness of implementation of features in those editions.

    As many others, I’m not a big fan of simply reinstalling the whole system (not even if it were only on Long Term Support releases), so the LMDE would be great if it included everything that the main Mint edition has to offer. Or does it? The download page description says it isn’t as desktop-ready an edition, but it doesn’t mention the exact differences. Why not even have a LMDE with codecs.

    I hope someone who has experience with several desktops will do a short write-up to help new-comers like me better understand the differences and make a choice. Or perhaps my experience would be the most relevant in this case and I’ll do it after I get the chance to test several out. I think information and presentation is one of the most vital components of the website, so if you’d be willing to take it into consideration, let me know.

  6. I’ll be “keeping the dream alive”, Clem; sticking with Linux Mint 11 (Katya) on my desktop and netbook.

  7. Excellent News …. Once again, one becomes aware the great work these people for this great distribution ….. Great Work …. Let my most sincere congratulations for Clem and all Linux Mint Team !!!! I love the name Petra – Rock Solid !!!! I hope they arrive on time with the conversion of Cinnamon without Gnome, I look forward to see this….. Many Thanks and Best Regards.-

  8. I really really do hope that by that time support for nVidia Optimus will be fully integrated in Linux Mint. Than I can return to Linux. Till that time I am convicted to use MS.. Bumblebee does not work well enough for dauly use.

  9. Espero que no le quiten importancia al escritorio XFCE, que a opinion personal es uno de los mejores escritorios actuales. Además de volver a tener una edición con LXDE que a muchos igualmente nos sigue gustando como escritorio secundario.

    También me habría gustado el nombre PATRICIA, es más bello que PETRA

  10. Thanks for your feedback on the etymology. I had a feeling Petra meant stone alright, somehow I got convinced otherwise by Wikipedia (which somebody should edit as well).

  11. Clem,

    Petra is a brilliant name.

    The name Patricia is a terrible name for a software distro, and I am glad you didn’t name it that, and being that would be someone’s real name, I don’t think it would be appropriate. Pandora is already being used to much as it is.

    Just my .02 worth.

  12. More than 14000 Swedish women have the name Petra so it works here too.

    I was a bit worried that you would choose the name Pippa – Google Translate won’t even translate that word from Swedish to English…

  13. Sounds a nice name, more curious about features though!

    As the Bard said “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet.”

    Hoping it will be rock salad release! Will be based out of Saucy Saucy Salamander?

  14. I like linux Mint. Is really fresh. Like Ubuntu, but better. I am from Bulgaria. Here we have saying “The rock is heavy on its place.”. Mint is best.

  15. Personally, I could not care less what the name is–call it Bob, I wouldn’t mind. It’s not the name that is important. You critics are the armchair quarterbacks that get off on feeling superior just because you think you can. Try doing the actual work of building a distro that even comes close to the quality that Mint consistently comes through with. Clem, you and your team, (in my ever so humble opinion) have hands down built the most workable distro I have ever had the pleasure of using. My compliments to you, sir. Just a peek at the hit status at distrowatch backs up my statement.

    Bravo!!!

  16. It is great to see more and continue work flowing on this great job you guys have been doing, I personally think, Mint is a great OS and makes me very happy to see you guys continue the support, improvement and further development on an already great piece of software. I think that if Linux Mint continues as strong as it is and adding more great toys to it, a lot of MS-Windows lovers would make a switch very soon. I am one who was Windows for everything, until I made up my mind and jumped into the Linux world, about two weeks ago and am very glad I made this choice, because, known how good and great Linux is, I AM NOT GOING BACK TO MS-Windows EVER. However, I would love to see a clone of AutoCad for Linux, if any of you know something similar to AutoCad that would work good under Linux, please post it. Thank you all the developers and programmers who are setting us FREE from MS.

  17. @FullMetalJack – Gnome3, you must be kidding right? Cinnamon was created because Gnome 3 is an awful mess which no serious Desktop Distro would touch.

    Edit by Clem: Some people do like it. You are right, Cinnamon was created because Gnome Shell didn’t have what we expected in a DE. That’s not to say it doesn’t satisfy its own audience though. Please be respectful in your comments.

  18. For the name, I think Phoebe would have been nice. I agree with Alan. Gnome 3 is the WORST desktop I have ever seen! I am so glad Mint comes in a KDE Plasma version now.

  19. Petra is a strong name with an image stone! Great symbolism ! Symbolic imagery is the foundation of success.What a keystone!

  20. Please note that “Macedonia” was listed in the list of countries without any political thoughts (where I live, here in Ireland, this is simply how this country is called, although I can see the country where I’m from, France, recognizes it as FYROM).

    Due to its political nature, the naming dispute between Macedonia and Greece is completely off-topic and has nothing to do here. This post is about the codename for Linux Mint 16, not about some political dispute between two countries. As a result, all mentions related to this topic were deleted in both the comments and the original post.

  21. Perhaps, if we ask nicely, Clem would open the choosing of LM 17’s name to vote. Anyway, the list of girls names starting with Q and ending with a is way shorter than it was with P.

    Clem, is Cinnamon 2 planned to be ready for Petra?

  22. wow Clem and Company! Mint 16 already ! Hopefully the issue I am having with an older Acer 5002 64 bit laptop with sis graphics and (nasty) broadcom wireless card will be resolved ?? the old beast will run 14.1 in 64 bit mode just fine but chokes on 15. anyway I didn’t mean to get off track . I look forward excitedly to Mint 16, as I do with every edition!

  23. i hope it will have less bugs, recognize hardware better and gets faster…. and is this another 8month release? if so, why not skip it and work on left over bugs from previous releases?

  24. Sergio Arana (#35):
    Draftsight (http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/free-cad-software/) from Dassault Systemes, but only for 2D drawings. For 3D we have Freecad (http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/) which is great, but still in development.

    I’m trying to use LTS versions in my notebook, so I’m still using Mint 13. In my desktop, I like to use the most up-to-date version, so I’m considering to switch to Kubuntu, because the development of the KDE versions of Mint, I think, is not a priority for the Mint team.

  25. why don’t ye use ‘eve’ as the name ? it will be mean the mother of all mother. let’s just pretend that mother equals to Linux OS. 😀 or just Linux mint OS.

  26. I hope the issue with the native Radeon drivers and Cinnamon in Olivia will be resolved. While the open-source Radeon drivers work well, they cause my laptop to heat up quite a bit. The native drivers cause Cinnamon to crash on startup.

    My solution has been to use the integrated graphics on my laptop, bypassing the high-performance Radeon card. That’s not ideal, but at least my laptop runs cool.

  27. @Sergio (35) You should try DraftSight by Dassault. It’s the closest thing to ACad I’ve ever seen.

  28. When I realized LM16 was headed for a name starting with a ‘p’, it didnt take long to come up with Pippa, to honor Pippa Middleton and her fantastic _______. But really, Petra is just fine.

  29. Sorry Quirine, #58: If you look closely, all LM editions have a female name with the initial in alphabetical order and all ending in A! There is Questa, Quirina, Quiana, Quet(t)a, Quintana, Querida, Qadira, Qamra, Quanda, Quanika, Quella, Quinella, Quintessa, and of course, Olivia Wilde’s character in Tron: Legacy… Quorra!

  30. Watching all of your Comments, I will Comment: Petra is very much better name for a Linux distribution that Patricia, I think this there is absolutely no doubt. It’s also great news that does not depend Cinnamon more that Gnome (Gnome 3 should be the worst garbage I’ve seen in terms of desktops in Linux distributions)….

    Me too I would love that Linux Mint KDE was the Main Version of Linux Mint, I had commented previously (though Mate is really a very reliable and robust desktop and Cinnamon continues to grow, and I think it will be even better). But today, The King is still KDE desktop !!!!

    I also like to see more editions of Linux Mint in the Future, maybe for the next LTS (Linux Mint 17). How already expressed in the community, I would look back the Linux Mint LXDE edition official (and if for asking), I also like to see an edition with e17 desktop (in fact, might be the same edition with both desktops). Best Regards.

  31. As a fan of LTSs I’m looking forward to Mint 17 (Quora?). As a fan of LXDE who has virtually no programming skills I can only mention my like for it. Quora LXDE? Beauty!

  32. I will personally be sorry to see LM15 cinnamon go. It is so rock solid, everything works, there are plenty of perks. I wish I could use this version for years to come, but in this day and age security updates are so important. In any event I couldn’t care less what you name it either, it is your creation you have the right to name it anything you want. It works and that is all that matters to me. Great work by Clem and the entire team!

  33. I don’t really care what the word Petra means! What difference does it make? Mint is still the best Linux distro out there, hands down. Keep up the great work. I really love Mint 15 and I’m sure 16 will be even better.

  34. Also of note is that Petra was the name of a strong female character in the book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

  35. Clem: I hope you read this as I sent an email to you and there was never a reply. I just want you to know that as I approach 60 yrs, I am very grateful to you for including MATE as a choice for our DE. I am using MINT 13 Maya LTS and am very happy with the ability to use FULL Compiz effects and themes and wobbly windows and such. I know I am a Dinosaur, but I have what I need until 2017 thanks to you and your team. Probably the MNT that comes out in that year as a LTS will be my last one here on earth. By the way, I knew a girl named Petra and she was indeed a rock of stability. She stood up to a corrupt organization when no one else would. If this MINT is as stable as she was, it will out-live many of us.

    Thanks again my Friend,

    Bill in NC USA

  36. Ah, yes, Ender’s Game. I really liked that book. I totally forgot that Petra was a character 😐 Haha.

  37. About Gnome 3: the developers are mostly employees of Red Hat, which ironically (or cleverly) is owned by Microsoft. And they know quite well what a disaster their desktop is by now.
    So please allow me to presume they made it deliberately so bad. Destroy the Linux world from the inside.

    About Petra: not my favourite girls name but makes absolute sense for a rock solid Linux distro.

    My wishes for the future:
    one of the most heard criticisms of Mint is that Clem and team are sticking with *buntu for better or worse. I hope they will finally get rid of that and concentrate solely on the great-grandmother, Debian. I’m more than happy with the LMDE edition, all it needs is maybe some polishing and fine-tuning and you’ll really have the bestest Linux of them all.

    Edit by Clem: I can tell you with 100% certitude that this is not true. The GNOME devs are passionate about what they do, they’re going in a direction that doesn’t please everybody, indeed, but they do have a following and they are very proud of their own achievements. Let it be said also that GNOME and Ubuntu are or were major components in Linux Mint and that we’re very grateful for what they’re bringing us and the Linux community in general. I don’t see or understand the need to belittle the work of other developers, especially when they give their time for free… I’m not excited about GNOME or Unity personally, but that’s just me. I know some people are, and I’d like them to be respected and for their tastes and choices not to be questioned or ridiculed.

  38. yeah, I don’t get why they stick with the ubuntu base too.
    debian should be a valid “source”, but clem may have some solid motivation.

  39. I am interested to see what changes will happen in Petra.

    I totally agree with Clem’s comments about Gnome 3, after initially hating it, I can now see where it’s going (it’s certainly fast to use), so please people, cut the project some slack; no one is forcing anyone to use it. The one thing we do have is the choice here,just enjoy things in all their flavors; including names 🙂

    I also agree with all the positive comments on LMDE. it’s what I personally use and it’s solid as a rock and virtually identical to use as any regular Mint. The only downside is hardware problems are sometimes not so easy to resolve as with the Mint Ubuntu based releases. I’m sure that will change with time.

    Only strange thing with that LMDE and Mint15 releases has been after installing Gnome 3 from the Mint repositories alongside Mate and Cinnamon (just for fun) to see what has changed. It seems to differ slightly from a Debian 7 Gnome 3 desktop and be lacking some features. Maybe it’s just me?

  40. Having used linux since 96 and moved to OSX for a while (only computer available) now dual booting 13″ MBPR with OSX/Linux and having tried several distros I have found Linux Mint 15 (Cinnamon) the best WM/Distro I have ever used. Cinnamon is just brilliant, thank you very much.
    One suggestion I have (especially with the move away from gnome), is
    to remove all the gnome keybindings and putting these into the Cinnamon keyboard settings so they can be easily changed. I did this in dconf-editor after seeing them locked in Cinnamon. This could be confusing for many new users.
    Thanks again.
    Greg

  41. I can never understand why a lot of people get so very emotional about the name of a new distribution. I don’t particularly like the name Petra but I could not really care less. It is the OS behind the name that is really important and we have no reason to complain there. Petra may be a rock but Olivia is just as rock solid. Hardly any problems at all. I just have one at present.

    I installed xsensors in order to keep track of fan speeds but I can’t get the module responsible (w83627ehf) to load at boot and only get to see temperatures. I did the whole sensors-detect thing and the module is listed in /etc/modules. It just refuses to load. Does anyone know how to fix this?

  42. Petra is a perfect name for a great, rock solid distro like Linux Mint, and conveys the idea of Solid, Elegant, Freedom.

    I agree with those that don’t like reinstalling the whole O.S. each time it’s updated. It would be nice if you’d give the option of either updating like Ubuntu, or a new install, like you do now.

  43. I recently switched to Mint from Ubuntu and I’m loving it a great deal. I dual boot it with Windows on my desktop and I also carry it on a stick to use it in the computer labs at my college.

  44. I’m going to make a guess at the same time I’m making the statement that the word ‘petra’ is pronounced as if it were the root word of petrified. I did not know that, and at first glance I naturally pronounced it similar to the pronunciation of ‘petrol’.

  45. love linux mint i used several distros and this one is my fav.i am using cinnamon de but also running xfce and kde i like them all butcinnamon to me seems to be the most intuitive to users who come bailing on M$.

  46. I PREFER THE NAME “Pandora” instead of “Petra”!!!! The name Pandora IS VERY VERY GOOOOOOD!

  47. Why the name must “Petra”, it’s so weird…
    Try using the name “Tania” because “Tania” look more beautiful than “Petra”

  48. OK… keeping with “Names Beginning With The Letter Q”, for $200

    QUIM

    It’s definitely female!

  49. Will this be an LTS version? Im trying to decide if I want to upgrade from LM13 to LM15. But not if Ill have to do it again in 4 months.

    I dont care what you call it as long as you call it stable. Pandora is already taken dont use that.

  50. Petra – Rock, Stone.

    Christ said “On this rock I will build my Church” (not to get religion here guys)

    In the 21st Century, we say ” On this rock, we will build the future”

    Understand the concept guys … Future technology is not made on grass .. its made on a “solid concept” .. hence a stone.

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