Monthly News – February 2015

Spring is coming and so is “Betsy”. QA testing for the new version of LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is starting today. If you want to follow our progress on this please visit http://community.linuxmint.com/iso and https://github.com/linuxmint/Roadmap.

Thanks to our partner eUKhost we’re doubling the capacity and performance of one of our main servers. Many Linux Mint services are involved but we’ll migrate them one by one and we don’t expect any downtime. Note that the package repositories are not affected by this upgrade.

A preview of some of the new features developed for Cinnamon was published on Segfault. Among other things, Cinnamon 2.6 will introduce search providers and support for multiple panels.

Multiple panels in Cinnamon 2.6

Multiple panels give users more flexibility and they will be useful for users with more than one monitor.

Search providers will be a core part of Cinnamon. Applets, desklets and the Cinnamon desktop itself will be able to query them to retrieve search results. This will allow us but also applet developers to make it easy for you to search for a variety of things (a movie on IMDB, one of your emails, a Firefox bookmark, a page you recently visited, or one of your files on the hard drive…etc).

Example of an applet using search providers in Cinnamon 2.6

Last month we received donations from 380 people. Together they raised a total of $9,036. Many thanks to all of you who contribute to our project, to the people who donated and to our sponsors and partners. Many thanks also to the many people who help other users in the forums and chat rooms, and special thanks this month to two of our developers: dalcde and glebihan, whose exciting work on Cinnamon 2.6 was featured above.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:
ThinkPenguin.com
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
BayLibre
BGASoft Inc
compute.ch gmbh
David Salvo
Michael Sartain
Milton Security Group
Sysnova Information Systems
Community Sponsors:

To become a sponsor or to see the full list of Linux Mint sponsors, please visit: http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php

Donations:

A total of $9,036 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 380 donors:

$200 (16th donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy
$200, Beth A.
$120 (2nd donation), Jan-erik Ö.
$119.19 (2nd donation), Ian L.
$119.19, Stephan S.
$119.19, Stefan A.
$119.19, Thomas Z.
$119.19, Martin Z.
$100 (8th donation), Ronald S.
$100 (5th donation), Peter D.
$100 (3rd donation), Kory W.
$100 (2nd donation), Glen A.
$100, Jerry C.
$100, Roger W.
$100, Terri O.
$100, Amanda B.
$100, Wesley H.
$100, Daniel B.
$100, Sai Vinoba
$100, Carl G.
$100, Ruben F.
$89.39, Martin G.
$71.51 (2nd donation), Fiorello F.
$60 (2nd donation), Brandon L.
$59.6, Ralf V.
$59.59 (13th donation), Philippe W.
$59.59 (3rd donation), Carlos M. S.
$59.59 (2nd donation), Markus M.
$59.59 (2nd donation), Javi Dieltron aka “ososoft
$59.59, Jgb S.
$59.59, Tuomo aka “Happy Hacking Day
$59.59, Yves M. A.
$59.59, Marc W.
$59.59, Volker P.
$50 (4th donation), jmro3006
$50 (2nd donation), Larwence P.
$50 (2nd donation), Mike H. aka “sloan”
$50, Andrew G.
$50, Jean-Christophe B.
$50, Forrest B.
$50, James P.
$50, Fred W.
$50, Douglas K.
$50, Stewart B.
$50, Marcin L.
$50, Paul D.
$50, Willy J.
$50, wilson.c
$47.67, Neil S.
$40, Pablo L. aka “LAFO”
$40, Jeffrey K.
$40, William S.
$40, TRC Technologies
$36 (59th donation), Olli K.
$35.75 (4th donation), Anne-christine U.
$35.75 (3rd donation), Pentti T.
$35.75 (2nd donation), José R. L. B.
$35.75, Maurizio C.
$35.75, Davud Evren
$35.75, Thomas B.
$35.75, Andreas W.
$35.75, Beat D.
$35.75, Lars-gunnar S.
$33, Raymond M.
$30 (4th donation), Gordon T.
$30 (2nd donation), Bill L.
$30, James P.
$30, Lonnie J.
$30, Mark F.
$30, David M.
$30, Itamar D. Z.
$30, Mark F.
$30, Max P.
$30, 500it aka “bOsO400”
$29.97, Bobby R.
$29.8 (3rd donation), Mark E.
$29.8, Shamana S.
$29.8, Enric P. R.
$29.79 (5th donation), Lars H.
$29.79 (3rd donation), Tony H. aka “TonyH1212”
$29.79, Berthold W. V. D. H.
$29.79, Eric L.
$29.79, Jan V. D. W.
$29.79, Jan B. L.
$29.79, Christof R.
$29.79, Ken J.
$29.79, Frits M.
$27.95, Armand V. D.
$26.9 (2nd donation), Marcin Ziółkowski aka Mario Nesta
$25 (40th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (12th donation), Robert H.
$25 (5th donation), Samson S. aka “Samtastic”
$25 (2nd donation), Ewa K.
$25 (2nd donation), Joseph M.
$25 (2nd donation), Robert A.
$25 (2nd donation), Thomas Nielsen
$25 (2nd donation), Viktor V.
$25 (2nd donation), Raphael C.
$25, Michael M.
$25, Carmelo G.
$25, Max M.
$25, Gavin S.
$25, John L.
$25, David L.
$25, Grant M.
$25, Data H. I.
$25, Timothy L.
$25, Randy S. H.
$25, Tim M.
$25, Phillip G.
$25, Gerhard E.
$25, Thomas F.
$25, Brent G.
$25, Cindy P.
$25, Ty F.
$25, Jose T. G. T.
$25, Carmelo G.
$25, Carmelo G.
$25, Walter S.
$25, M. S.
$24 (2nd donation), Gabriele B.
$24, Stefan W.
$24, Daniel K.
$24, Toomas M.
$23.84 (2nd donation), Iain S.
$23.84, Adriano A.
$23.84, Bernhard S.
$23.84, Giovanni R.
$23.83 (14th donation), Orlando M. M.
$23.83 (7th donation), Kevin D.
$23.83 (6th donation), Alessandro P.
$23.83 (4th donation), Ross M.
$23.83 (3rd donation), Daniel P.
$23.83 (3rd donation), Paul G.
$23.83 (2nd donation), Gabriel S.
$23.83 (2nd donation), aka “Roullio_n3”
$23.83 (2nd donation), Oliver G.
$23.83 (2nd donation), Jose Ayala V.
$23.83, Maximilian K.
$23.83, Marcus S.
$23.83, Alexander R.
$23.83, Roger B.
$23.83, Michael K.
$23.83, Rachel A.
$23.83, Joost S.
$23.83, Simone M.
$23.83, A W.
$23.83, Reijo H.
$22, Geraldo C.
$20.26 (12th donation), Ion B.
$20 (42th donation), Tsuguo S.
$20 (3rd donation), Leonardo Frazao aka “Liozek
$20 (2nd donation), Matsufuji H.
$20 (2nd donation), Jon R.
$20 (2nd donation), Ivan R.
$20 (2nd donation), William N.
$20, Warren F.
$20, Peter S.
$20, Ernst L.
$20, Che H.
$20, Simon R.
$20, Larry K.
$20, Robert J.
$20, Marie B.
$20, Juan A. S. aka “okelet
$20, Pierre T.
$20, Daniel A.
$20, Tony N.
$20, Doug E.
$20, Steve G.
$20, Michael M.
$20, Nicholas P.
$20, Reed W.
$20, Shaun T.
$20, Danny W.
$20, Charles H.
$20, Dane R.
$20, Geoff Ingram aka “jellybean”
$20, Skip H.
$20, Anders D.
$18, Florian U.
$17.88, Goran H.
$17.88, Renzo P.
$17.87 (3rd donation), Kevin O.
$17.87 (3rd donation), Anonymous
$17.87 (2nd donation), Gabriele B.
$17.87, Christoph Z.
$17.87, Emilio R. E.
$17.87, Luca Abbati
$16, Colin O.
$15 (3rd donation), Christopher D.
$15, Italo I.
$15, Harry E.
$15, Douglas M.
$15, Jesús H. M.
$15, Stan C.
$15, Ladislav M.
$15, Allan C.
$12 (3rd donation), Juan C. S. A.
$12 (2nd donation), Darek P.
$12 (2nd donation), Kevin C.
$12, Manfred B.
$12, Sinisa M.
$12, Stephen H.
$12, Marcelo G.
$12, Wsewolod W.
$12, Louis-Philippe L.
$12, A S.
$11.92 (6th donation), Dr. R. M.
$11.92 (2nd donation), Queenvictoria
$11.92, Kay K.
$11.92, Günther K.
$11.92, Jochim L.
$11.92, Philippe Dias aka “Philou
$11.92, Sonoda H.
$11.92, Oliver H.
$11.91 (17th donation), Raymond E.
$11.91 (17th donation), Mark W.
$11.91 (6th donation), Nicolae Crefelean aka “kneekoo
$11.91 (4th donation), Matúš L.
$11.91 (4th donation), Gabriel T.
$11.91 (3rd donation), Richard S.
$11.91 (2nd donation), Gerryt M.
$11.91 (2nd donation), Brian H.
$11.91 (2nd donation), Waldemar K.
$11.91 (2nd donation), Daniel W.
$11.91 (2nd donation), Lionel aka “Kinobi
$11.91, Georg K.
$11.91, Frederic C.
$11.91, Moritz G.
$11.91, Milan K.
$11.91, Juan D. C. C.
$11.91, Franz D.
$11.91, Kilian U.
$11.91, P V. D. L.
$11.91, Filip Magnusson aka “FilleMang
$11.91, Jan-albert D. L.
$11.91, Paul G.
$11.91, Ilmo P.
$11.91, F.D.P. Geurink
$11.91, Ivan S.
$11.91, Ilia D.
$11.91, Jakob B.
$11.91, Bo Simonsen
$11.91, Liviu B.
$11.91, Roberto R.
$11.91, Marcel M.
$11, Yalın A.
$10 (46th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$10 (11th donation), Mark C.
$10 (10th donation), Mark C.
$10 (3rd donation), Alistair G.
$10 (3rd donation), Jeffrey T.
$10 (2nd donation), Jan O. A.
$10 (2nd donation), Neil B.
$10 (2nd donation), Arno S.
$10 (2nd donation), John C.
$10 (2nd donation), Ireneusz W.
$10, Alexander J.
$10, Люблев Н.
$10, Troy E.
$10, Randy D.
$10, Kenneth B.
$10, Sylvia R.
$10, Dave V.
$10, Aaron M.
$10, Alexander C. M.
$10, Brock C.
$10, Neil E.
$10, David G.
$10, Ramon O.
$10, Viktor Z.
$10, Gavin M.
$10, Ian H.
$10, Allen D.
$10, Uğur D. S.
$10, Anderson L. S. M.
$10, STEX Motorsports LLC
$10, 康 华.
$10, Reginaldo M. D. S.
$10, Barry L.
$10, William R.
$10, Limon Monte
$10, Thomas K.
$10, Gyurics L.
$8.34, Alexander B.
$8.34, alvfrias
$8, Wong H. Y.
$8, Felipe V. M.
$8, Ludek F.
$7.15 (5th donation), Hector Richart P.
$7.15, Nik K.
$7, Micha E.
$7, Jesús D. G.
$6.1 (3rd donation), Carpet Cleaning London aka “ParadiseCleaning
$6 (7th donation), Nicholas S.
$6 (4th donation), Hector Richart P.
$6, Kai G.
$6, hostingreport.info
$6, Yvo T.
$5.95 (8th donation), Albert J. P.
$5.95 (4th donation), Stijn D.
$5.95, Christopher Reay aka “DAZY
$5.95, Adam P.
$5.95, Christoph B.
$5.95, Tuomas K.
$5.95, Christoph K.
$5.95, Krisztián P.
$5.95, Yulian M.
$5.95, Adrián G. P.
$5.95, Carsten K.
$5.95, Miguel R.
$5.95, Marian V.
$5.95, Alberto Medici
$5.95, Marcel Schoenherr
$5.95, Rem
$5.95, Alfredo C.
$5 (15th donation), Carlos W.
$5 (11th donation), Randy R. aka “MonkeyMint”
$5 (10th donation), Randy R. aka “MonkeyMint”
$5 (4th donation), frisky
$5 (4th donation), William Menezes
$5 (3rd donation), Thedrish
$5 (3rd donation), Matthew L.
$5 (2nd donation), John M.
$5 (2nd donation), Murat Kutluer
$5, Robert M.
$5, Arif A.
$5, Devin K.
$5, Larry H.
$5, Toronto Maple Leafs Rumours
$5, Jiří J.
$5, Bernard B.
$5, Robert C. E.
$5, Luiz E. A. L.
$5, Юрий Л.
$5, Mojmír S.
$5, Leonard F.
$5, Radek H.
$5, Abraham P.
$5, Les R.
$5, Marcin Ziółkowski aka Mario Nesta
$4.76, Matteo T.
$4.66, Dimitri N.
$4.2, Edward F.
$4 (3rd donation), Donald H.
$4, Ali B.
$3.57 (2nd donation), Alberto B. C.
$3.57, SiriS Emanuel
$3.57, Luca F.
$3.5, Sinisa P.
$3 (2nd donation), Kouji Kobayashi
$3, Správa IT
$3, Frederic J.
$3, Scott L.
$3, Charles-david H.
$2.38 (5th donation), Guillaume G. aka “Tidusrose”
$2.38, George Navro
$28.23 from 22 smaller donations

If you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 2530 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 6632nd

39 comments

  1. Hi Clem, I have been running LMDE 2 Betsy ( BETA ) for a couple weeks now, and I have to tell you, I can’t find any bugs. The only thing at all I see so far, is the Software Center loads real slow after you enter your password. I tip my hat to you, and the team on a beautiful job well done. Keep up the good work. 🙂

  2. I updated to Betsy in November and I’m excited for other people to finally get their hands on it. Still hoping compiz gets added to the betsy repo and included with the mate edition to make it more like rebecca.

  3. Small design suggestions: (1) improve the Display dialog for dual monitors so that it allows us to set the main monitor as default AND then tell Mint to place new shortcuts, drive icons, etc. on that monitor; currently it puts them on the secondary monitor. (2) a simple dialog to set the color of desktop icon text – it would solve a small inconvenience that is currently a major PIB to fix – when icon text disappears because it’s overwhelmed by a similar desktop background.

    Other than that, many, many thanks for Mint – sensible, smooth, a joy.

  4. The new MintBox PC is a great idea. How about a MintTop laptop to go with it? Something like a Chromebook but with a 64gb SSD.

  5. Crewp, would you be so kind to share a direct link to the downloadable image? 🙂

    Edit by Clem: Hi Stanis, sorry for the delay. These are being tested at the moment, they’re not downloadable. Only after they pass testing will we see a public release. Right now we’re identifying remaining bugs and fixing them. Expect new ISOs to replace these ones until the quality is acceptable for a public release. The Cinnamon edition has been tested for a while (although not through QA) so it shouldn’t show too many bugs. The MATE edition will show more issues but they should be easy to fix (critical fixes happened already and many would be common to both editions).

  6. But I have a question. Could we participate in this testing session? My friend even writes articles about the forthcoming release of the Cinnamon edition of Betsy (http://alv.me/?tag=lmde), and I’m sure he will be very interested in joining the QA team. Is it possible?

    Edit by Clem: Hi Stanis, thanks for helping. We’re ok at the moment but I appreciate the help. Please be patient with this, in a matter of days we’ll see a lot of bugs squashed. 3 or 4 ISOs from now quality will increase dramatically. Making the ISO public, or leaking it even, wouldn’t help yet at this stage. We’ll need a lot of feedback on the first public release, not via QA though, but via your own experience.

  7. Hi, Clem!
    I and Stanis just interested in a test version, because it has long been working in Betsy derived from the latest release of LMDE by connecting new repositories. The results are posted on the site http://alv.me/, unfortunately only in Russian, sorry.
    We are very interested in LMDE, and thank you for your work
    Sincerely,
    Alex Fedorchuk aka alv

  8. Funny how the users came over the the Mint camp because of the search features in Unity and here they come again in Cinnamon. I know that sounds mean I don’t mean it in that way. Hats off to the devs at Linux Mint.

    Edit by Clem: Neither Mint nor Ubuntu came up with these concepts. You might remember GNOME DO doing that many years ago as well as Fedora, SUSE and KDE in particular investing resources into search indexing. Unity is very recent and their search scopes even more. Within Linux Mint, search was introduced in mintmenu 5 years ago, with the release of Linux Mint 10 Julia (http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_julia_whatsnew.php#mintmenu), there were no unity or scopes or anything like that back then. At the time you could search for packages. This is coming in Cinnamon 2.6 (in fact many mintmenu innovations have been ported to Cinnamon or are still being ported) but in a more generic form, and it’s true, with more insight and learning from the experience of what was done around us since. Of course, there’s absolutely no way we’d default to a search feature that would slow your menu down (that’s unacceptable to us) or that would jeopardize your privacy by sending your queries to a company like Amazon. Search is asynchronous (in the menu applet it doesn’t delay the menu from opening) and you’ll be able to enable or disable each search provider in your System Settings.

  9. Great work. keep it up, mint team.

    there is one thing that has been bothering me – laptop battery usage and fan noise. After moving from 17.0 to 17.1 the cinnamon was running heavily and taking memory, kindly look into it. I am using 17.1, the laptop battery is not a big issue for me but the heat generated and the fan noise. I used tlp, powertop to some extent, but didn’t help (may be i didn’t use it properly).

    my request is, kindly give us a guide mentioning how to improve laptop battery performance, how to reduce laptop over-heating, how to reduce fan noise (overall how to optimize LMDE 2 for laptop usage). of course, there are many guides available from the internet, but one way or the other way, they do not work. if it comes from mint team it will be appreciated.

    waiting for the LMDE 2 release. If possible kindly optimize it for laptop usage at the image level.

    many thanks for the mint team.

  10. It’s good that Cinnamon 2.6 is on it’s way.
    Can you please add a feature that would allow us to PAUSE file copy/transfer while its in progress?

    Windows has it. KDE has it. Don’t know if other DE’s has it but its a nice feature.

    Thanks. 🙂

    Edit by Clem: I can’t promise it will be in Nemo 2.6, but it’s something we’d like to do indeed. Also, we’re interested in making file operations sequential (at least when they affect the same devices).

  11. First of all:
    Thank you to all those involved in this hard work!

    Is there any chance to include in the installer the option to easily create a fully encrypted drive and use it for the the whole system? (like what exists for the main flavors of Mint).

    Thank you again,
    S.

    Edit by Clem: Not in this release. We looked at home directory encryption (although it’s not “as” safe as full disk encryption it’s a higher priority to us as it would be useful to most users in the audience), got close to getting it working but not close enough and decided to postpone it for the next cycle.

  12. The only reason i stopped using Ubuntu several years ago was because of the bloatware an advertising, finally topping everything of with the menu search function, incorporating search engines ect.

    A quick searce of the internet shows this was the the final straw for a lot of Ex-Ubuntu users.

    If cinnamon or linix Mint goes that way i shall not be using it again as it contradictory to the linix mint policy of Freedom.

    As Cinnamon wants to add a search function it should soley be a addon or widget, completely disabled unless the user chooses to enable it.

    Anything else would allow a backdoor into the Cinnamon desktop for companys like Google and its affiliated spying programs like prism.

    Ubuntu lost its base for forcing changes onto its users. Hope to God that Linux Mint and the Cinnamon desktop dos not thread that line.

    Gudday Clem and the Linux Mint team exceptional work keep it up.

    Edit by Clem: Search providers will be configurable (at the very least you’ll be able to disable/enable each one of them). Our philosophy is simple, this is YOUR computer and the job of the OS is to make it work the best it can to achieve its primary function.. that is: to not get in the way and help you do what you want. Talking about Google, they’re commercial and they’re not in partnership with us so they won’t be part of this. You might see non-commercial and/or partner engines in the default selection and if there’s any of them you don’t like you can just go to System Settings and disable them. Last but not least, since you mentioned Ubuntu, I assume you’re talking about the Amazon fiasco… privacy concerns aside, there is absolutely no way we would make you wait or delay a local search to bring you online results. Providers are asynchronous here. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the primary use case here wasn’t to bring you DuckDuckGo, Yahoo or even Wikipedia, but the ability to search for local files, the ability to install apps straight from the menu (this has been in mintmenu for years in GNOME 2 and MATE), the ability to quickly access local files, recent files, browser bookmarks or visited pages etc..

  13. Would be nice: Functionality within the DE that allows the user to choose which partition will be the next boot or the default boot… and maybe a few other boot options. Seems to me this was available in the gnome world at one time … maybe still is. I don’t think Cinnamon has had this capability since diverging from gnome.

  14. Good news everyone, the multiple panels option is coming! It will be so handy with a dual monitors setup 🙂

    Thank you very much for your work, Mint is an amazing distro.

    On a side note: guys, stop whining about a feature you don’t like, just disable it. And remember that if you don’t like it, maybe thousands of other people will. And if you still don’t agree with the developers’ choices, get involved in the project 🙂

  15. NoZ@20

    “On a side note: guys, stop whining about a feature you don’t like, just disable it. And remember that if you don’t like it, maybe thousands of other people will. And if you still don’t agree with the developers’ choices, get involved in the project”

    Amen to that! Some seem to forget the fundamental reality that each of us are different and want different things. The Mint team does a pretty good job of accommodating that. But they can’t read our minds, so on/off switches are made available when possible. It really is that simple folks. Perhaps some think this is an over simplification, but when we forget the basics, it’s time to be reminded of them.

  16. Please let me echo Makkah’s concerns: I think any search features should be by default be disabled, and only available by explicitly enabling such features.

    I am a huge fan of Mint; it seems to me to be the distro most focused on the user, and I would not like to see it fall into the same path of folly blazed by Canonical.

    Edit by Clem: You can’t possibly have an opinion on what features to disable/enable by default until you know what these features are. For instance in mintmenu, enabling APT search by default made a lot of sense and it was appreciated by the vast majority of users. Choosing providers is like choosing applets or applications, we try to think of what will bring the most value to people without annoying anyone. It’s a case by case thing. Some providers will be built for Mint specifically, others for Cinnamon or for 3rd parties might be disabled or might not even be installed by default. If you know Mint you know we’re not into packing as much content as we possibly can and blindly enabling everything just because it’s new.

  17. My Windows 8.1 and 10 Technical Preview (yes, Microsoft launched the Windows 10 Preview) worked good until Windows 10 stopped working. Replacing it with trusty Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca”. Mint is definitely the best Linux distribution.

  18. Question: where is the best location/site for feature requests?

    FYI: for BUGS this is the official place to report them: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint

    I for one am glad for what we get, not a whiner 🙂
    … thanks Clem et al

    another very happy LMDE Mate user over here

    Edit by Clem: For projects developed by Linux Mint it’s best to create issues on the appropriate github.com/linuxmint project.

  19. Will there be an upgrade path for current LMDE users, or will LMDE2 require a fresh install?

    Edit by Clem: It’s too soon to say whether there will be an “easy” upgrade path. For sure, it will be possible to upgrade. It might be tricky and involve typing commands but it will be possible.

  20. Dear Clem, Mint developers, and Mint community:

    I would like to echo other users’ sentiments, regarding my appreciation for all the work everyone puts into Linux Mint. It is humbling to know that while you do not HAVE to develop Linux Mint, you develop Linux Mint because you WANT to. And, you GIVE it away to the rest of us, enabling us to play and enjoy this wonderful open-source project. My older (and newer) computers appreciate the ability to live on and perform, at the top of their game, thanks to Linux Mint. I enjoy promoting the open-source community, especially Linux Mint, to my friends and family and encourage those who use Linux Mint, to pass along the love, in the form of donations to the project. Many thanks and much appreciation to Clem and everyone involved with Linux Mint; your work is greatly respected and I thank you, personally, for what you give to the open-source community.

  21. Hello. I generally run Linux Mint (and others) from a USB flash drive. Could a version of Mint be optimized for use on a flash drive? And, since the current versions of Linux require a FAT32 flash drive, there is a 4GB limit to the size of the flash drive (at least to install Linux). Could a tweaked version of Mint be installed on a flash drive larger than 4GB and be able to use all of it? Just wondering….

    d

  22. With all the spying going on by 5 Eyes nations & notification of backdoors to operating systems like Window$, and all the social web sites seem to have been developed exclusively for data mining, presumably Linux distros are free of that stuff, because they are open source, right?! I am distrustful of all these links to search engines being built into the system & I’m looking for the day when we can have a transparent, high grade encryption built into email & web access? I know this isn’t your job, but pass it on. The best feature a distro can have these days is security & privacy. It’s essential for the democratic process.

  23. @ 26. Dylan James and Mint developers

    Well said Dylan and keep up the good work Mint team, very much appreciated

    MikeC

  24. Hello,

    will LMDE2 Betsy have build-in videocard driver installation (nvidia/ATI) in System Settings as it is in Ubuntu-based Linux Mint? (I so wish it had).

  25. Hi guys,

    Is there any chance that the bug with Cinnamon that makes it crash every time you try to remote desktop into it?

    Please can someone fix that?

    C.

  26. linux mint debian is my first choice operating system it is just excellent i use it on daily basis over windows 8.1 now thank you for giving us linux mint debian. please improve it continusly as it is much better than ubntu based as it is directly based on debian os. please continue work on it

  27. @ScoorgeMcDuck: if you mean mintDrivers, unfortunately, it uses an Ubuntu-specific backend… it’s not clear whether it would be possible to port it to Debian-based release.

  28. Clem & Co
    Every time I get antsy and start “distro hopping” I always come back to Mint which clearly is setting the bar, at least for me, for Linux in general. LMDE is my fave and I plan to have it on all my machines but I’m waiting for Betsy before I do the deed. My questions, do you have a target date for release? And will it require a fresh install or will it just upgrade from the repos?

    Edit by Clem: This first release (likely to be labeled RC) will require a fresh install. We won’t work on an upgrade path from LMDE 1 UP8 until Betsy gets stable. In terms of ETA, we don’t work with dates but with quality. We’ve a roadmap available at https://github.com/linuxmint/Roadmap where we list remaining bugs. Betsy will be released when ready (i.e. either when we fix these bugs or decide that we can release with them). I’ve posted on Segfault to tell people about our progress, the article is available at http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2015/03/betsy-and-i/. Since that article was posted we fixed 3 of the 4 critical bugs.

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