Monthly News – May 2016

News

Thank you all for your donations and for your support. We’ve received a lot of help in preparation for the next release.

The ISO images are getting close to passing QA (quality testing) so we could see a BETA release early this month.

Linux Mint 18 is just around the corner. I hope you’ll enjoy it 🙂

 

See you all after the BETA release. We’ll be looking forward to receiving your feedback to fix as many bugs as possible before the stable release.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors:
Private Internet Access
Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:
Sucuri
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
BGASoft Inc
David Salvo
Milton Security Group
Sysnova Information Systems
Community Sponsors:

Donations in April:

A total of $10142 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 438 donors:

$1337, Shawn C aka “citypw
$277, Kyshtymov Y.
$200, Kathryn H.
$111, Gert W.
$100 (5th donation), Nono W.
$100 (2nd donation), Edward F. aka “Ted”
$100 (2nd donation), Mimi
$100, Peter N.
$100, Tex1954
$100, Martin B.
$100, Joe MacHoll
$100, James W.
$100, Luis K.
$100, Michael P.
$89, Reiner H.
$89, Arnaud L.
$75 (5th donation), Gabriel D.
$60, Phi P.
$55 (7th donation), Drazen P.
$55 (5th donation), Carlos M. S.
$55 (3rd donation), Quim aka “slackjp”
$55 (2nd donation), Jan Sepp
$55, M M. A.
$55, Wolfgang S.
$55, Christine B.
$55, Guenter W.
$55, Uwe B.
$55, Jörg R.
$51, Jean-françois G.
$50 (9th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (3rd donation), William T.
$50 (2nd donation), James P.
$50 (2nd donation), Personal Computer Services
$50 (2nd donation), Jeffrey M. T. aka “JayBird707”
$50, Ellen R.
$50, Bruce M.
$50, Ronald L.
$50, Ronald R.
$50, Andy H.
$50, Richard G.
$50, Sundaune tekst & sånt
$50, Michael C.
$50, Donnie B.
$50, Gautam S.
$50, David K.
$50, Louwis H.
$50, Bryon D.
$50, John C.
$49, Michael S.
$44, Christophe D.
$40 (3rd donation), Thomas Nielsen
$40 (2nd donation), Charles O. .
$40, Lawrence D.
$39, Alex K.
$37, Jaime M. P.
$37, Rob S.
$33 (74th donation), Olli K.
$33 (9th donation), LDW
$33 (4th donation), Rob.Knol aka “RoppIT
$33 (4th donation), Rene V. D. H.
$33 (3rd donation), John H.
$33, Eckhardt D. H.
$33, Jose M. V. L.
$33, David H.
$33, Moritz D.
$33, Vic M.
$33, Przemysław K.
$33, François D.
$33, Enrico F.
$33, Luigi P.
$30 (3rd donation), Bill R.
$30 (2nd donation), jowind
$30 (2nd donation), Caleb P.
$30, Iván G.
$30, Richard C.
$28 (7th donation), Henk van C.
$28 (5th donation), Ron D.
$28 (5th donation), Kari Y.
$28 (3rd donation), Antun K.
$28 (3rd donation), Roger D. P. aka “Linux Users Group Monitor Niel
$28 (2nd donation), Tamás P.
$28 (2nd donation), Bernd M.
$28 (2nd donation), Mathias W.
$28, Andrea M.
$28, Anne H.
$28, Hans-dieter A.
$28, Daniel D.
$25 (57th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (14th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (13th donation), Peter D.
$25 (10th donation), Scott L.
$25 (7th donation), Jaan S.
$25 (5th donation), Real F.
$25 (5th donation), Robert S.
$25 (2nd donation), Michael W.
$25 (2nd donation), Michael M.
$25 (2nd donation), Robert L.
$25, Adam D.
$25, Harry B.
$25, John F. S.
$25, Domb S.
$25, Peter G.
$25, Agility Internet Solutions
$25, Leigh A. P.
$25, G W.
$25, Thomas D.
$25, Steve M.
$25, Gregory S.
$25, Joshua M.
$25, Douglas T.
$25, Tom R. M.
$25, Simon W.
$25, Allen L. P.
$25, Marc Z.
$24, PZL Games
$23, Justin S.
$22 (8th donation), Dr. R. M.
$22 (7th donation), Andreas S.
$22 (2nd donation), Jose M. R.
$22 (2nd donation), Carlos C. C.
$22, Michael M.
$22, Volker W.
$22, Antonio V. R.
$22, Ralf S.
$22, Frederik B.
$22, Mark T.
$22, Jens D.
$22, Matthias F.
$22, Mathieu D.
$22, Christoph L.
$22, Mr C. T.
$22, Jon O. G.
$22, Laurent G.
$22, Otho M.
$22, Alex W.
$22, Matej V.
$22, Ondrej K.
$22, Michael E.
$22, Marko P.
$22, Jose L. G. O.
$22, Dieter L.
$22, HZ_EDV Computerservice
$22, Nicolas G.
$22, Henri L.
$22, David M. D.
$22, aka “FirstCoder”
$20 (8th donation), Julie H. aka “Kjokkenutstyr
$20 (7th donation), Dave I.
$20 (7th donation), Matsufuji H.
$20 (6th donation), Daniel A.
$20 (5th donation), Rockford C.
$20 (5th donation), Scott Anderson aka “lwarranty”
$20 (4th donation), Douglas T.
$20 (3rd donation), Lennart J.
$20 (2nd donation), David F.
$20 (2nd donation), Kok E. B.
$20 (2nd donation), Mike G.
$20 (2nd donation), Kevin M.
$20 (2nd donation), Christopher C. N.
$20 (2nd donation), Howard S.
$20, Kwadwo O.
$20, Glenn C.
$20, Peter L.
$20, Athol P.
$20, Augusto P.
$20, George L.
$20, Gary H.
$20, Bart H.
$20, Pavel P.
$20, Mark F.
$20, Sara P.
$20, Tarik M. Hoshan aka “Tarik
$20, Leo H.
$20, Jaroslav S. aka “yaroska”
$20, Claude P.
$20, Edgar C.
$20, Malcolm P.
$20, John L. aka “Caravanj”
$19 (4th donation), Martin C.
$18, Marcus N.
$17.3 (6th donation), Anton W. aka “redant
$17.3 (5th donation), Anton W. aka “redant
$17 (6th donation), Ib O. J.
$17 (2nd donation), Gerrit J. B.
$17 (2nd donation), Cales F.
$17, Mostyn D.
$17, Ventsislav R.
$17, Clepcea A.
$17, Ion L.
$17, Kurt M.
$17, Andre J.
$17, Romina C. B.
$17, Brendan G.
$15 (7th donation), Jobs Near Me aka “Jobs Hiring
$15 (6th donation), Richard G. aka “Ric”
$15 (2nd donation), Edward S.
$15 (2nd donation), Michael M.
$15, Dmitry S.
$15, Michael N.
$15, Laszlo G.
$15, Michael G.
$15, Marian P.
$13, Mikkel P.
$12.34 (13th donation), Paul B. aka “Dude
$12 (61th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (2nd donation), DDSRank
$12, Matt H.
$11 (7th donation), Francisco L. D. A.
$11 (5th donation), Jose G. aka “Jose”
$11 (4th donation), Rachael N.
$11 (3rd donation), Data Power Development Limited
$11 (3rd donation), Klaas T.
$11 (3rd donation), Eugene T.
$11 (3rd donation), Ian B.
$11 (3rd donation), Frederik M.
$11 (2nd donation), Valerie D. V.
$11 (2nd donation), Andre P.
$11 (2nd donation), Bogdan B.
$11 (2nd donation), Manuel C. aka “Manel
$11 (2nd donation), Rupert G.
$11 (2nd donation), Laot L.
$11, J M.
$11, Paul B.
$11, Bernd L.
$11, Toralf D.
$11, Cesar G. R.
$11, Karsten B.
$11, Roy V. H.
$11, Nemanja J.
$11, Michael Z.
$11, Martin O.
$11, Hartmut W.
$11, Anthony C.
$11, Pedro J. M. D.
$11, Jacob V. D.
$11, Mario Lampe
$11, Tim D.
$11, Herve J.
$11, David B.
$11, Malte J.
$11, Stephen M.
$11, Hervé E.
$11, Daniel G.
$11, Robin Q.
$11, Stephan K.
$11, Davor T.
$11, H&R Project
$11, Arkadiusz L.
$11, Steffen S.
$11, Troels R.
$11, Punee J.
$11, Helge O.
$11, Irving Ramírez García aka “Pinche Diablito
$11, Reinhard M.
$10 (51th donation), Tsuguo S.
$10 (5th donation), Andjelko Stojsin aka “Andjelko S.
$10 (5th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (4th donation), Jan P.
$10 (4th donation), Joshua R.
$10 (3rd donation), Tony W.
$10 (2nd donation), Agustín K. aka “Kana
$10 (2nd donation), Peter K.
$10 (2nd donation), Muhsin T.
$10 (2nd donation), William T.
$10 (2nd donation), Onder Nuray aka “ondernuray
$10 (2nd donation), Linda P.
$10 (2nd donation), Mert I.
$10 (2nd donation), Joel N.
$10, Camilo S. P.
$10, Gregson H.
$10, Max H.
$10, Adam L.
$10, Jean M. T.
$10, Wesley M.
$10, Industrial Services LLC aka “Industrial Services LLC”
$10, Peter R.
$10, Andrey
$10, Cecil R.
$10, Eric R. aka “Eric R.”
$10, Jose G. S. B.
$10, Larry F.
$10, Thomas Z.
$10, Jin N.
$10, ebayseller
$10, Gert G.
$10, Barry M.
$10, Leonardo Maggiotti
$10, Carl J.
$10, Miguel G.
$10, S K.
$10, Steve O.
$10, Eric P.
$10, Michalis L.
$10, Jill V.
$10, Ceda Yazılım
$10, Hyunsu M. aka “LuHa
$10, Jeri H.
$10, Helgi J.
$10, Darjeeling aka “Enatam Electronics
$10, Michael C.
$10, Marcos A. I.
$10, 袁 利
$10, Tim B.
$10, Benny G.
$10, Teresa O.
$10, David H.
$10, Peter P.
$10, Daniel A.
$10, Joseph F.
$10, G HARDWARE
$10, Gökhan K.
$9.99, Pete G.
$9, Thomas O.
$8, Edson B.
$8, Jorin G.
$8, Hubert K.
$7, Hugh R.
$7, Stefanos G.
$6 (8th donation), Arvis Lacis aka “arvislacis
$6 (2nd donation), Ronny G.
$6 (2nd donation), Sven W.
$6, Zile
$6, Darryl Amatsetam
$6, Derek M.
$6, Frick-it C.
$6, Tomas Z. aka “Zatharalex”
$6, Neagu E. D.
$6, Goce D.
$6, Brutus aka “Brutus”
$6, António S.
$6, Filipe Lamas aka “fplamas”
$6, Giampaolo B.
$6, Jakub K.
$6, Roman J.
$6, Tomasz F.
$6, Martin M.
$6, Johan R.
$6, Michael A.
$5 (15th donation), Libertad Tecnologica
$5 (12th donation), Jt Spratley aka “Go Live Lively
$5 (8th donation), Hakim
$5 (7th donation), Jack H.
$5 (6th donation), Merchant Hubs
$5 (4th donation), Artur T.
$5 (4th donation), Ian E.
$5 (3rd donation), Steven L.
$5 (3rd donation), Debora G.
$5 (3rd donation), Korneliusz M.
$5 (3rd donation), Johanna R.
$5 (3rd donation), Nicholas S.
$5 (3rd donation), Kesatria Sughani aka “Kesatria”
$5 (2nd donation), Jeffrey B.
$5 (2nd donation), Fahd A.
$5 (2nd donation), Nicholas S.
$5 (2nd donation), Felippe H D de Castro
$5 (2nd donation), Daniel H.
$5 (2nd donation), Alain M.
$5 (2nd donation), Richard W.
$5 (2nd donation), Jose T.
$5 (2nd donation), Matthew B.
$5 (2nd donation), Eugene M.
$5, Alex Luton aka “Starcross
$5, Julio H. T.
$5, David R.
$5, Thebestturntable
$5, Krzysztof L.
$5, Zinovyev A.
$5, Invex Consulting
$5, Steve K.
$5, William S.
$5, Ariel Wee Ph.D.c.
$5, Dean A.
$5, Jeff M.
$5, SysTools Data Recovery
$5, William B. Z.
$5, kxuan
$5, Ronyclay B. D. S. B.
$5, Peter V.
$5, Attila K. aka “Cookiehunter”
$5, David G.
$5, Fernando M.
$5, Timothy B.
$5, Raymond V.
$5, Byron R.
$5, Pablo N.
$5, Luis A. C.
$5, Ognjen P.
$5, Picprojects
$5, Terrence F.
$4 (15th donation), Toronto Maple Leafs
$3 (5th donation), patrick p.
$3 (3rd donation), elogbookloan
$3 (2nd donation), David Y.
$3, Zoran H.
$3, Iguler I.
$3, Ермоленко В.
$3, Michael C.
$3, Triesty
$3, Susanna T.
$52.27 from 39 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3043 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 9511

147 comments

  1. Very curious about Linux Mint 18 because of some hardware issues with 17.3 and the new theme.
    Can’t wait to replace Windows on my laptop with Mint 18 😉
    Great project and hope it will be always.

  2. Does anyone know? Will 18 final release be by ISO only or will it be possible to install via Update Manager (as in the last two releases)?

    Edit by Clem: Hi, first there will be an ISO release, and then after that we’ll work on an upgrade path for 17.3 -> 18.

  3. Please open up a channel to alfa builds so that it makes testing easy and new things visible early on for easier translations.

    Edit by Clem: That’s what the BETA is for. There would be no need to get your feedback on what we know is already missing or broken (i.e. during the ALPHA phase).

  4. Is it possible for Mint 17.3 to get Linux Mint 18 from update manager or it needs clean install?

  5. About Input Method.

    1) Can we have IM pre-installed by language regions?
    for example)
    For Korean Hangul , “uim-byeoru” is recommended IM as default

    2)Might it be available to install/remove the Input Method by double click the Install button in mint-locale or other behaviour?

    Edit by Clem: We can redesign mintlocale to do this, but we need more feedback from Asian users to properly correlate locales with packages. You can get in touch with us on IRC (#linuxmint-dev).

  6. Clem and team, take the time with this. 17.3 is still the best and most stable distro around and I really want 18 to be the same.

    Edit by clem: We did, and by the time we get to the BETA we’ll have tested everything we planned to test, fixed everything we planned to fix and there’ll be nothing left in the roadmap as outstanding known bugs or work items. That said, we’re using a new base.. I’m sure we’ll find new regressions and challenges to overcome, but to work on that we’ll need your feedback, and that will start with the BETA phase.

  7. #7 and #4 :

    Upgrading from 17.x will be supported, but surely it will take a bit more time for the upgrade to show up in the update manager, while the distro maintainers are doing lots of tests.
    Compared to upgrading from 17.2 to 17.3 a lot more things can go possibly wrong ; the release notes will give information on some of the major issues to pay attention to I’m sure.

    Edit by Clem: Yes. Note however that there’s no guarantee it will be done via the update manager. It might be a standalone program or a command in the terminal. We’re committed to an upgrade path but it’s too soon to detail its implementation.

  8. Thank you for all you hard work, it has been a pleasure to use Mint. I had no idea the stress and control my old operating system had on me, till out of desperation and against all the ignorant negative feedback from other OS users that I gave Linux a try. I no longer dual boot, Mint is my main OS, games and all. That other OS was removed from my SSD and will infect my computer no longer. Drive on, we have your back!

  9. Clem and Team Mint: Looking forward to Mint 18. Mint 17.3 was PERFECT with the updated kernel that brought “out-of-the-box” functionality for nVidia “Maxwell” cards. I hope you’ll reconsider the decision to ship ISO’s without codecs. I don’t mind having them downloaded during install because I have decent internet but some people don’t and arguably Mint is as popular as it is because the codecs were included. I get your reasoning (reduces # of ISO’s to maintain) but after reading some of the comments in the April 2016 monthly news post, well it seems your reasoning wasn’t well received.

    Speaking of that post…I like flat icons! I’m curious about the new theme but I hope Mint-X remains as an option. My wife is rocking Mint-X Pink on her laptop. All the best for a successful Mint 18 launch.

    Edit by Clem: The rationale isn’t related to space, it’s related to licensing and the risk of software patents in certain countries. Regarding the popularity, I disagree. I agree on the fact that the OS isn’t as good out of the box without the codecs (obviously), but I don’t think this is a key difference between Mint and alternatives. First, our job isn’t to differentiate ourselves. Second, people using these other alternatives are used to installing them. Third, our focus and the value we add on a daily basis has nothing to do with something that small, otherwise we wouldn’t be working every day on Linux Mint, our job would have been finished years ago. It’s natural for the retrieval of the codecs to be non-popular, it’s a grey area and hard to explain in detail “why” we have to do it. Most people don’t understand it (and rightly so if I want to be honest). It’s not illegal, it certainly isn’t immoral, and yet there is a potential risk for distributors. It’s unlikely a patent owner would attack say a magazine, it’s unlikely a court would rule in its favor, but there is a risk nonetheless here and so we always had to take it in consideration. That lead us to providing extra ISOs in the past, and what we’re doing now is addressing risk and cost a little more and so yes you’re right, we’re losing a little bit on the ootb.

  10. A little pet peeve of mine: I think the Mint Menu should be fully opaque, not translucent. Because when you open it in front of a page with a lot of text, it gets somewhat visually confusing.

    Edit by Clem: Its opacity is defined by the theme. I think it’s 95% opaque in the default theme. Have a look at alternative themes though, many of them make it fully opaque.

  11. So I’ve been a LONG time Mint user, but I’ve been getting a little impatient since Ubuntu 16.04 has been out for a bit already (apparently, this happens every 6 months with me)… So I go through a frenzy trying out all of them: Ubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu, and now even Xubuntu… And every time, I get disappointed about how things don’t work as I expect them to, like how it is whenever I boot up into Mint… Kubuntu freezes while trying to detect my Nvidia card, but Mint KDE always seems to work fine. Unity and GNOME always seem exciting at first but then they start to seem impractical when I’m actually trying to get work done. And now I’ve been playing around with Xfce lately and it’s also no surprise that Mint Xfce is just more polished… So I wanted to thank the Mint Team for always putting together such an awesome distro! Really looking forward to Mint 18!

  12. Clem, what do you think about Flatpack or Snappy? Do you think if it could be a good idea to implant one of these package manager in the future?
    Regards!

    Edit by Clem: Hi Alejandro. I think they’re promising. Like Linus, I thought the solution to static vs dynamic distribution of software would come from Steam, as they were early in the game (no pun intended) and seemed to be looking at application software lately. The ability to provide new applications using new libraries is very interesting prospect for us, because it’s one of the key things that is missing both for 3rd party editors to ship to our platform, and for our users to easily use new software on top of an LTS base. We’re keeping a close eye on these and we’re exciting to see if they’ll gain momentum and useful they’ll prove to be. It is in our roadmap already to consider their addition in Linux Mint 18.1.

  13. Hi Clem,
    Any news about the Linux Mint 18 XFCE release?

    Edit by Clem: No, not yet. We usually work on Xfce and KDE after the Cinnamon and MATE releases. I’d expect it to go very smooth though (unlike KDE where Plasma is like a completely new DE). First, Xfce hasn’t changed much since 17.3. Second we’ll be relying on XApps there as well, so we’ll leverage the work done on these for Cinnamon/MATE (I’m very excited about the idea that working on XApps will improve 3 DEs at once).

  14. wow so many has donated here! will soon donate in you. you really help me alot in my projects specially to this one thebitesizeconcepts.com

    thank you!

  15. Will we be able to upgrade the BETA to the stable release once it becomes available or will we need to do a fresh/clean install?

    Edit by Clem: It’s not guaranteed, in theory it depends on the bugs you might find. But if we look at the past, yes, it’s always been possible.

  16. Oh,my God! Am I getting addicted? I am coming here every day to check for the BETA download…. 🙂

    Edit by Clem: OK don’t 🙂 You can follow QA at https://community.linuxmint.com/iso and the Roadmap at https://github.com/linuxmint/roadmap. Once all ISOs pass QA (which hasn’t happened yet, although the Cinnamon 64-bit ISO is likely to do so very soon now), assuming everything else is ready for the release, there’s also two days of sync. Also, if anything happens, we can postpone. We’re not in a hurry.

  17. Hi Clem, just a quick question if you would be so kind: Will we be able to install the infamous ia32lib file or files like the codecs?
    This little series of 32bit files allows me to install some very nice software on my 64 bit system, like Avast and Pandora, and others.
    Thank you so much.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Bill, yes of course. ia32libs is installed by default. As for the codecs, you can install them from the installer, or from the menu, or from the welcome screen, or from the software manager.

  18. Hi Clam,
    How many days do I have to wait for the kde version? Every day seems like year. And does mint team working on any AI system like mycroft?

    Edit by Clem: I heard of mycroft on our IRC channel actually. It looks pretty cool. There’s a shell extension for it, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before somebody ports it into a Cinnamon applet.

  19. Where we can get into the BETA? Is it already available?

    Edit by Clem: It’s not a private BETA. It will be announced as a BETA release, publicly available to absolutely everybody (you don’t need to register or anything like that), on this very blog. In terms of timing, we don’t give ETA, it will be released “when ready”. We ARE getting close though.

  20. How much more disk space does a clean 17.3 install > 18.0 upgrade occupy compared to a clean 18.0 install? The last time I checked the upgrade option occupied much more disk space. I therefore currently prefer clean installs.

    Edit by Clem: That’s normal, it will always be the case. Updates need to be downloaded before they can be installed, and they’re not compressed like they are within an ISO image. You can regain space “after” an upgrade by cleaning up your APT cache (apt clean) and by removing non-necessary packages (apt autoremove … be careful with this one though, do review the list of packages before validating the command).

  21. @ DrTeeth: When you upgrade, new packages are downloaded in .deb format and placed in the folder /var/cache/apt/archives. This is one of the reasons why it takes more space.

    When package installation is finished you can clean that folder using: sudo aptitude clean

  22. I have some issue with my little notebook. It has a 32-bit UEFI (asus eeebook)

    I can’t boot properly Mint, neither Ubuntu (I read that Debian now supports 32-bit UEFI, but I did not tried yet).

    Please implements the support for 32-bit UEFI in mint 18

    Edit by Clem: I’m sorry to say this isn’t supported in Mint 18. We can look into it I suppose. Although, I have to say I’m a bit annoyed to see manufacturers release 32-bit hardware (you’d think by now, they wouldn’t) and especially if it requires UEFI and doesn’t support legacy BIOS. If it’s just a matter of adding boot files and modifying the installer slightly, we can look into it. Give Debian a try and let us know if it works first.

  23. Clem, is there any news and/or prints of the new theme of linux mint 18? And, please, do talk and show us more about the window decorations effects on LM18.

    If possible, add an option to roll back LM18 to its default configurations (layout, theme, navbars, etc).

    Thanks..

    Edit by Clem: There are but we’re close to release, so there’s no point posting a preview. Regarding decorations… I’m not sure what you mean. We modified the UI in certain tools to make them integrate better (gnome-screenshot for instance), we re-added features that had gone missing in others (for instance in gnome-terminal, you can still open new windows and new tabs from the context menu), we replaced eog/gedit/evince/totem/gthumb with Xapps. CSD are very well supported in our environments but we try not to use them too much. We left disks, system monitor and log viewer untouched. Regarding overlay scrollbars they’re enabled by default but we added a configuration option for people who want to turn them off.

  24. I am an old man 🙂 and i’ve seen many operating systems. I worked more than 20 years with VAX/VMS and i started to use UNIX (Ultrix/SunOS, Solaris and AIX)since the early 90’s. VMS will be my ever lasting love 🙂 BUT MINT HAS THE 2nd PLACE IN MY HEART ! It rocks !!!

  25. Can you expound more about the Xapps mentioned previously? For example you talked about a media player based on Totem. I don’t use it; but is Totem not mainlined and/or not documented well etc. Just interested. BTW Kudos Mint team and Clem for answering our questions.

    Edit by Clem: Totem is actively maintained and developed but it’s radically different than before. In Linux Mint 18 you’ll be able to see how Xplayer is that very same player you’ve been using until now, and how Totem (which you can install) now feels like a completely different application.

  26. ”That said, we’re using a new base.. I’m sure we’ll find new regressions and challenges to overcome, but to work on that we’ll need your feedback, and that will start with the BETA phase.”

    Clem, are you aware of these : http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kubuntu-xerus.html ? Seems ther’s more regression in the new base as ever before…Maybe you could go for a 17.4 first ? Step up Sarah Mint when Buntu has cleaned up their ‘base’ ?

    Cheers

  27. Looking forward to 18!!! I was rescued from the Windows Virus over ten years ago and never looked back. Wine, Steam, Mint, Libra Office, no better platform than Tux! If I had to give up Mint, I’d just chuck the whole thing at /dev/null and go fishing.

  28. I have been trying 17.3 Cinnamon 64 bit on a Dell XPS13 (9350) laptop (an increasingly popular computer, I think?). Wifi, bluetooth, audio and lid close suspend were not working. To fix those I tried three newer kernels (4.4.0-21, 4.4.7, and 4.5) but they all resulted in scratchy black diagonal lines flickering on the screen whenever I moved the cursor over an icon.
    However, with help from JeremyB at Linux Mint forums, I have everything working with the original 3.19 kernel.
    Hope this is helpful information?

  29. Thank you so much Clem, it’s quite nice to know that ” ia32libs is installed by default.” Absolutely outstanding. More reasons to love Mint as the best Linux Operating System! And yet another donation for the Mint project will arrive soon.

  30. Hi Clem, I am not sure if I have understood well therefore my question: Will LM 18 only be shipped without codecs or will there be there be a chance to have a choice between codec and non-codec versions? Thanks for your great work!

    Edit by Clem: Hi Thomas, the images will come without codecs. These codecs can be installed from several places within the OS: in the installer, from the application menu, from the welcome screen and from the software manager’s suggested list of apps.

  31. Thank you so much Clem for all the hard work.

    Will we be able to use Compiz Reloaded on the Mate / xfce release?

    Edit by Clem: Compiz works ootb in MATE (and probably will in Xfce too). I have to admit I didn’t test it myself just yet.. I’m hoping to get to that today actually, but I heard that from one of our QA testers. That said, we’re talking about “Compiz” here… i.e. version 0.9. I’m keeping an eye on the 0.8 project “Compiz Reloaded” and I’m interested in switching to it (I have faith in its development team)… but, I would really want them to rename their project to something else. It’s a bit complicated because historically, they feel like they “are” compiz. The name is already taken though, and I’m not keen on introducing conflicts between the two WMs.

  32. Looking forward to this as my laptop needs the 4.4 kernel. Running Ubuntu 16.04 with Cinammon at the moment, but it’s not quite perfect.

    Though I’m wondering if you guys will be able to work around the issue of printers not working, due to the lsb package, or something. I didn’t understand it all.

    Finally, I’m firmly in the anti-flat theme camp. I had to suffer Windows 3.0 all those years ago. I do not look at images of it with a fond sense of nostalgia. Mint-X all the way for me please.

    Edit by Clem: I added https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lsb/+bug/1536353 to our roadmap. Hopefully this will be fixed upstream by Ubuntu. If it isn’t we’ll tackle the issue during the BETA phase.

  33. Should we expect a Mint 13 -> Mint 18 upgrade path too at some point, or is it definitely too complicated to do?

    Thank you for the great work though!

  34. On the issue of upgrading Mint 17.3 -> 18. I know when updating from 17 -> 17.1 -> 17.2 -> 17.3 there were loads of warnings. At what point is it better to just do a clean install? Mint 17.3 cleared up the annoying “paper cuts” I had been experiencing. I held off on upgrading for probably about a month, and was kicking myself since 17.3 was now “perfect.”

    I’m sure some of the new features in 18 will be things I really want to try out, but when I finally decide to take the plunge, I want to do it the “right way” and at least know the pros and cons of upgrade vs clean install.

  35. I see where someone commented;

    “I hope you’ll reconsider the decision to ship ISO’s without codecs. I don’t mind having them downloaded during install because I have decent internet but some people don’t and arguably Mint is as popular as it is because the codecs were included.”

    I am shocked, stunned more like it with the reply;

    “Regarding the popularity, I disagree. I agree on the fact that the OS isn’t as good out of the box without the codecs (obviously), but I don’t think this is a key difference between Mint and alternatives.”

    I say this very respectfully. What planet are you from? Are you kidding? Mint is the number one #1 linux OS. I love it!
    The single thing, that makes it the most popular out of them all, is that it comes with the multi media out of the box. Period. It’s not even close.
    I’m shocked that anyone could argue with that?

    It’s all over the Internet. Mint is recommended by so many websites. The single most reason, why Mint is mentioned, is because it comes with multi-media out of the box.

    Thank you very much for all the work on it. It’s a very nice OS (what makes it nice is because it comes with “everything”).

    How could you of missed that?

    Chris.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Chris. We’re from Earth, we’ve been working on Linux Mint for almost 10 years now and I can guarantee you what makes Linux Mint “Linux Mint” is “everything” we do “everyday”, to make it better. The codecs are a tiny tinsy little part of that, they probably represent a couple of days of work within these 10 years. It’s a bit insulting to see your work reduced to something that simple. I say this respectfully too.

  36. tbh I always do a clean install. It’s not hard at all. I have `/home` on a separate partition, but I always start with a new home directory too. From the live installer I rename my home folder from `/home/simon` to `/home/simon.bk`, do a clean install, and copy back what I need as and when I need it. After a few weeks, it’s usually apparent that some of what remains needs to be kept, and some needs to be blown away. Amongst other things, this approach means I have a really good handle on the way my installation is set up, and why.

  37. clone the /home partition, re-label and change UUID (Gparted)
    create fresh / (root) partition
    install recycling the /home copy
    nothing to loose, if you use it for a week or two, and like it… then you can delete the old partitions.
    I have been doing it this way for several years with many distros (even arch), no problems at all.
    theses days I stick with LMDE Mate as a daily driver

  38. hey Clem,

    this is Mintkatze.

    you said, that LinuxMint 18 BETA is around the corner. So: where do I find the BETA-release to test ist?? Because I a also curious about LinuxMint 18 LMDE! I am really waiting and my hands want to be on it.

    Thanks for any BETA-Link!!

    Edit by Clem: Hi Mintkatze, it’s an expression. It means it’s coming “soon” 🙂

  39. Has installation of wine been tested on LM18 yet? When I tried to install wine on Ubuntu 16.04 (soon after it was released) it would not install because of unavailable dependencies.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Terry. It works here. I see recommended packages though, so I would recommend (no pun intended) to install them as well: “apt install wine –install-recommends”.

  40. Hi. I have separate root, opt & home partitions for my Mint 17.3 KDE, & my home partition [& Swap] is encrypted [done by ticking the box wayback during the original 17.0 installation]. From what i read, doing a clean install of 18 into my root partition would have been quite straightforward if my home partition was unencrypted. Have i outsmarted myself by encrypting my /home? Will i still be able to simply clean install 18 to root, AND still afterwards be able to access all my data in /home… OR… once root is overwritten, won’t that obliterate the info needed for on-the-fly unencrypting my /home?

    Edit by Clem: That’s a good question and I’m afraid the installer still doesn’t support that out of the box. There are tutorials for this for Linux Mint and Ubuntu alike on the Web. Nothing is changed in that respect in Linux Mint 18.

  41. Hi Clem, Hi Linux Mint team,

    is a Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon 32 bit version will be released ?

    Thanks for your work.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Dupo, yes.

  42. Clem,
    Thanks as always to you and the team.

    I know I will be able to download the ISO to a DVD or a USB stick/key,
    but will there be any chance you will be able to download it to an sd card that fits inside a card reader?

    Just thought I’d ask…

    Edit by Clem: It depends on the size of the card. Our ISOs are smaller than 2GB.

  43. Any chance to have OpenSSL replaced with LibreSSL ? For safety, of course 🙂

    Cheers

    Edit by Clem: Hi Dirk, we use the same ssl stack as upstream.

  44. Hi Clem,

    Would Linux Mint 18’s default init be systemd? I don’t mind if it is but there should be an alternative to it for people who don’t like systemd.

    Edit by Clem: Hi, yes, Mint 18 uses systemd.

  45. Congratulations on your work in Linux Mint, it’s my favorite distro, i just have one issue:
    in Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bits in the desktop when enabling “maintain aligned” the icons are only aligned in columns not in rows, they can even be put one over the other while perfectly aligned vertically. Can you look into that? so that it isn’t present in Linux Mint 18.
    Also, there will be a version for 32-bit computers?

    Thanks

    Cheers from Guatemala

    Edit by Clem: Hi Daniel. It’s a known issue on nemo (the Cinnamon file manager) and there’s a feature request out there on github for a desktop canvas grid already. Will it happen in 3.2? I don’t know yet. In any case it’s not there in 3.0 (Mint 18) yet.

  46. Clem,

    Will there be improvements to accessibility in LM18? I am visually impaired and a teacher of the visually impaired. To date I have still had problems using Orca (navigation, intermittent sound9. I trust this will be addressed in the new version or shortly thereafter.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Bob. Yes, and I hope you’ll enjoy them. We’ll certainly appreciate your feedback. The entire accessibility module was rewritten in Cinnamon 3.0.

  47. Hi Clem,

    Ive been using Mint for a while now… but I`m sill learning a lot.
    I do have a problem though. If i boot LM17.3 on my home PC with live ISO it wants to erase my whole PC. it doesn’t give me the option to install alongside Windows 10. Now i probably know why. –Raid 0 with 2 128gb SSD. Will this be fixed in LM18?? I need Windows only for my Steam…
    Thanx for the hard work!!

  48. Sorry Clem if I was not clear.

    When a user changes a lot of aspects of its o.s. desktop interface, sometimes the user just mess around things he has no way to rollback.. Maybe for lack of knowledge and maybe for lack of options indeed, so, it would be great if there was an option on cinnamon configurations where the user just click there and the hole desktop roll bacl to its default configuration (theme changes, desktop effects, desktop settings, panels, etc).

    If possible, add this option to cinnamon.

  49. Work It Harder Make It Better
    Do It Faster, Makes Us stronger
    More Than Ever Hour After
    Our Work Is Never Over

  50. I am a big fan of linuxmint and eagerly waiting for linuxmint 18 to be releases. could you please tell me when are we going to get the linuxmint18. I prefer to work with lightweight Mate/XFCE

  51. Hi Clem. Please add a full disk encryption (LUKS) option to the next release of LMDE (version 3). Thanks.

  52. Good news!
    I’m very happy with Mints performance on all of my devices, keep up the great work. Mint is the only distro that can be used from day to day without needing the terminal.
    Absolutely outstanding work you did there!

    Looking forward to KDE 5 and the new theme, I’m really really excited for that.

    Remember to include support for booting it on 32 Bit UEFI Systems. Please make the 32 Bit version also UEFI bootable. All you need is to put one single file in the GRUB folder, it’s really not that hard to do and kinda sad that it didn’t happen already.

    Nearly all 11″ laptops nowadays ship with these UEFIs, they make a large portion of the available laptops in stores nowadays, they are by far no niche devices anymore. Sure, it’s possible to do that by hand, but I just don’t see why we still have to do that.
    Making the install process foolproof is what we want, no?

    Whether UEFI is good or bad is another debate, we could also debate if supporting BIOSs is viable when there are other things like OpenFirmware or libreboot. But in the end these discussions don’t matter, because when it works and the lack of support is of political nature, something is wrong.
    I hope I get my point accross.

    Happy hacking!

  53. Really looking forward to this!

    Is there any chance the driver manager could be operated from the command line in addition to the GUI? This would make scripted installs for machines with NVIDIA cards etc so much easier and quicker.

  54. Hi there.. Have been a huge fan of Linux Mint since its inception and am looking forward to upgrading my 17.3 to 18, but I have one question, my gaming machines use AMD graphics cards and as Ubuntu 16.04 no longer supports the fglrx proprietary drivers, will Linux Mint still have the fglrx divers in their repository and the corresponding version of Xorg? It will be disastrous for me, if I have to use a different linux OS or keep 17.3. THanks

  55. Steven@68

    I feel certain that can be done although I’m not necessarily a fan of CLI. I will use it when I have too. While we’re on the subject, can you explain to me why CLI would be so much faster and easier here? That is one concept that has truly escaped me. You aren’t the only one that makes such claims, and I’m sure there are many cases where this is true. But forgive me, I’m simply having a hard time reconciling this idea, when all you have to do is launch driver manager, and click one button when your card is detected. Of course you have to enter admin credentials, but you also have to do this in CLI. For the sake of argument, I am willing to concede defeat and say that CLI is faster, but it can’t possibly be any better than a photo finish.

  56. @PB (#69): Steven talks about scripted installs, i.e. creating an routine (script) to automatically install Linux on many (dozens, hundreds) machines. That is not possible with a GUI; you can’t automate “clicks”. But you can make a script that runs a series of (command-line) commands.

    @Steven (#68): Can’t you just identify which package(s) are installed for the Nvidia drivers, and use apt-get? I don’t think you actually need the driver manager for that.

  57. Thank you for taking the extra time to make Mint 18 just right. Ubuntu 16.04 is noticeably more buggy than previous LTS releases, based on what I’ve read, and tested myself.
    So, I imagine there’s more work to do than usual to get Mint working smoothly.

    This upstream bug (having conflicting theories as to the cause) is particularly annoying
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1573454
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/1568604

    If upstream parties don’t fix it in time, maybe you could incorporate one of the workarounds into Mint 18? Just a thought.

    Cheers!

  58. Congrats on the Approved BETA ISO Clem! Can’t wait!

    Edit by Clem: Thanks, we should have torrents, release notes, description of new features, website/documentation changes, and announcements within 48 hours.

  59. @Yro
    Boot from a Gparted live CD. Copy your / and /home partitions onto a spare or external hard drive. Boot up Mint then make whatever changes you feel you want to try. If you mess things up then boot from Gparted live CD and restore the / and /home partitions from the copy of their previous state. If you have personal data on a separate mounted partition then your /home partition can be very small. I use this method to make regular snapshots of my system, especially if I’m installing new software or ‘playing around’ with things.
    You can also use this method to make a copy-clone of your entire system as an ’emergency backup disk’. You may need to run the Boot Repair live CD on this to fix any Grub config confusion due to it being on a different hard drive. It’s easy and it works.

  60. Hi Clem
    If I install the beta will I be able to update it to the final release
    or have to reinstall?
    I am incredibly impressed with the new look and especially the feel and
    reliability of the Mate 64 beta. Works like a dream, no complaints at
    all.

  61. Do agree with #13. I feel so confortable with 17.3 right now ! I recommend each newcomer I meet to run XFCE/64 17.3: xfce + cairo-dock + compiz give a very cool and rock solid user experience. eye candy, smooth and stable, best of all worlds. Just hope Linux Mint 18 XFCE will be as good as this one. Congrats Clem and Co.

  62. Oh I have noticed that two instances of Image Magick appear in the Graphics Menu but I noticed this after I ran Update Manager.

  63. Though 17.3 would be very hard to beat (best linux ever) but so far 18 is even better. Not all the repos are updated yet, but what’s there is working beautifully. THANK You for restoring the package progress bars in the updater… continuing to test as more becomes available. So happy to be able to install Java 8 (finally) from the repos (9 is there too).

  64. P.S Love the carbon-look eDesigner wallpaper (diagonal version, default… not so much) but I would like one that actually says “Linux Mint” on it. I present to large audiences and “my” OS always gets some inquiries, but I don’t think anyone not already familiar with it would recognize the LM logo on its own. Of course I could use the “retro” package, but I really like this new look.

  65. @PB (#73):
    barge is correct, I am indeed talking about scripted installs. Where I work, we have about 250 machines all running Linux Mint in a corporate style environment and the entire setup is fully automatic, including the computer giving itself the correct hostname, adding itself to Active Directory, configuring email servers, installing extra software we want, auto software updates etc etc.

    From memory, Linux Mint 13 had such a command line tool that did this well. It went away in LM 17. What I have now does detect an NVIDIA card (using lspci) and installs the latest NVIDIA package with apt-get but that’s fine if there is an NVIDIA card in the machine.

    Sometimes there’s an exception and LM gets installed on a machine with onboard video. I have spent a LOT of time trying to figure out why my script runs perfectly with an NVIDIA card but the install fails when onboard video is involved. Run the setup script after a manual install and it’s fine. But that’s a poor work around.

    I’m not a stranger to writing in BASH, but there’s something odd about lspci where it’s behaviour changes. There’s no error messages or ANY useful feedback at all. I’m not sure what other tool to use to accurately determine the type of video card in the machine.

    Since driver manager is written in Python I thought about ripping the core out of it for our own purposes. It would be better though if driver manager could be run at the command line and everyone who wanted could benefit. 🙂

  66. I have the same question as 79. If we install 18 beta will we be able to upgrade to release without a full re-install?

  67. Trying Cinnamon 64-bit Beta right now.

    Two things that I’ve noticed:

    1. During installation, you are asked if you want to download flash, MP3 etc (which is fine), but also video drivers?! Don’t know is it a good idea to put them together in bundle. Personally, I don’t like to use AMD’s proprietary blob, and on some non-AMD systems it is better if you don’t install them.
    2. When I press “Menu”, it opens up, but there is still flickering which I reported in 17.3 also. If it’s not clear, if you press Menu button and hover your cursor around “Menu” letters, whole menu starts to blink, it’s like I’ve clicked the button 10 times in a row.

  68. Same thing is happening when you click on clock. Calendar appears and if you move the mouse around, dialog box starts to flicker and move up and down. The real problem with clock is this: If you click on it again (you want it to disappear), dialog box stays there, only the table, letters and number go away. 🙂

  69. On LM18 MATE 64 – If a launcher is created or removed from the desktop I always get this message on reboot/shutdown “at-spi-registryd.desktop not responding” then reboot/shutdown takes a lengthy time to complete and usually there is a short “Press Ctrl-D to skip file checking” message during bootup/reboot.

    Also when creating a launcher on the desktop a .desktop file is also placed on the desktop but it disappears on reboot or logout/log back in.

    Same behaviors exist in U 16.04 MATE 64.

  70. On LM 18 Cinnamon 64 – When I change the desktop font size the desktop icons disappear. I have done this twice and it happened both times. Logging out and back in restored the icons. This was on a Lenovo L530 with Intel graphics.

  71. To #83 and #84:
    The flickering appears ONLY and AFTER when you’ve changed the Menu panel in some way – after you’ve added applet, moved the panel or have changed its size. Restart Cinnamon(Ctrl+Alt+Backspace), don’t make any changes to the panel and you won’t have any problems at all.

  72. #89 & #90

    I rebooted system several times (was trying something) and it’s not happening anymore… Odd…

  73. Hi there i have been testing LM 18 Cinnamon Beta and i have found 3 issues

    1:Slow and Choppy video playback in vlc media player in full-screen mode (Windowed mode is OK)

    2: Slow and Choppy video playback in Firefox using Flash in full-screen mode all so html5 video such as Youtube all so has the same issue (Windowed mode is OK)

    3:installation of some packages in the Synaptic Package Manager results in a error message W: Can’t drop privileges for downloading as file ‘/var/cache/apt/archives/partial/ (packages Name.deb) couldn’t be accessed by user ‘_apt’. – pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)

    anyway i am going to check LM18 Mate Beta next

  74. Oh my… I tried LM18 cinnamon 64 on 3 computers, and it does not work even on one of them… First could could not even boot to live installation (black screen after boot) and second and third one are useless after installation – black screen with mouse pointer + heavy disk load (5mins+) + occasional start of Cinnamon without any bars.

    Logs are full of errors, crashing, etc. It is broken all over the place.

    I know this is Beta, but one would expect it to boot at least. “Good work” guys…

  75. I have had an a constant issue with Linux. I have a realtec connection to the internet. I have to install an r8168 driver. The motherboard is gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 with an 8x AMD FX-8320E eight core processor. I am not computer savy and require help to accomplish this task. This is a bit of a pain for me. I do appreciate all that you, and often unrecognized do for everyone. THANK YOU!

  76. You guys telling us it doesn’t work…. I have been QA-testing Linux Mint 32 and 64 bit MATE for some days. Both with Intel chipset and AMD-processor with Nvidia graphics. Both of them worked just fine when we where ending the test-period….

    The Beta release is not officially released yet, so you don’t know what you’ve got?? Stop blaming until you are sure you got the right stuff.

  77. I am using Linux mint 17.1 and have tried 17,2 and 17.3 on the live cds and have the same issue. I am not blaming anyone; I am simply communicating my experience with Linux. we do have another computer with different hardware and it works fine. There is reason I provided the motherboard and processor information. I do not know what is in 18 but it is hard to fix what you don’t know about. The new version is coming out that would be a good time to address it I would think.

  78. Doesn’t work on my AMD A8-6500 PC. Has to be the kernel because other 16.04 distros also don’t boot. Only way I could install LM18 was using compat mode, but, after install, I could only go to LM18 using recovery mode which sucks. Tried various kernels – 4.0 worked.

    Now installing 17.3 which works out of the box.

    Weird thing is that Ubuntu Mate is working with 4.4 kernel…

    Anyway, It booted fine on an intel notebook and on an AMD laptop. – So the issue is something with my hardware—

  79. #95
    I had the same issue. It seems to occur after a panel is modified and is solved by a cinnamon restart.

  80. Making an OS that runs on ALL computers is not easy. The computer manufacturers, on the other side, build their computers aimed FOR Windows and add all needed programs and patches to get them running.

    When I bought my little Acer Aspire many years ago I already knew that it should work with Linux because a friend of me had one, already running Linux.

    When I bought my Work-station, 2 years ago, I bought one with Ubuntu pre-installed to be sure I should work with Linux-Mint. AMD A8-6600K-APU and Nvidia Radeon graphics. It’s built by a company in Gothenburg in Sweden.

  81. Steven@73,

    Very cool. I wish I could have convinced my IT department to implementing something like that. But no one had the desire to learn how, or the time really. Don’t begrudge them that. I personally I’m not advanced enough to start down that path.

    But you have answered my question in all fairness. Guess I didn’t expect that the user bringing up the issue had such a different platform to consider. Learn something new everyday.

  82. Hi Clem, again..

    Is that any plan to made Linux Mint 18 KDE edition based on KDE Neon project? Its based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, with latest KDE plasma and workstation… Im running it right now on virtualbox and damn, its beautiful and its working like KDE never did before. Its gorgeroous and I guess its the perfect desktop for anyone seeking for multiple options for personalization and a beutiful de. Please, atleast, consider it as KDE users would like to have the linuxmint aproach but with latest kde on it..

  83. Linux Mint Cinnamon is getting better all the time. I am considering moving to it from KDE. I have only one major complaint with Cinnamon, and that has to do with the font size in the menu. Please put in an option to change font size of the menu. I can do it manually but would be really great if it could be done through settings. No everyone has 30/20 vision. Other than the Cinnamon looks and works great on my Laptop. Great work!

  84. Linux Mint Cinnamon is getting better all the time. I am considering moving to it from KDE. I have only one major complaint with Cinnamon, and that has to do with the font size in the menu. Please put in an option to change font size of the menu. I can do it manually but would be really great if it could be done through settings. Not everyone has 30/20 vision. Other than that Cinnamon looks and works great on my Laptop. Great work!

  85. When the Linux Mint 18 Betas are formally released and available for download from Linuxmint.com, will there be a specific place to formally report bugs?

  86. Running LM18 Beta Cinnamon x64 on virtualbox and almost everything seems to be smooth.. Maybe one exception, the messages notifications are popin on the upper side of the screem and it would be great if it was showing next to the cinnamon panel (next to the notification area, the clock, etc.).

    Its sad that Ill no longer be able to have amd driver installed as my card is on legacy branch (apu a4-7300 radeon hd 8470D) 🙁

    iF only it was possible to have LinuxMint 18 with kernel and xorg from ubuntu 14.04.3… atleast… 🙁

  87. Thanks for ruining best Linux distro.
    I have been using Mint for almost a year, never ever had any crashes or freezes.
    Since you placed Borg implant in Rosa, without telling us, I have sporadic freezes without any apparent reason.
    It brings you back those Windows sensations when you feel like smashing the device while cursing at the makers of the dreaded crap.
    Of course you know I am talking about systemd implant.

  88. @tux-sven

    Of course. Something on the new 16.04 distros is having issues with this computer. No idea why.

    I installed LM17.3 and tried the 4.4 lastest Kernel available in the Update Manager, and here I am, working flawlessly. LM18 worked with the 4.0 kernel.

    Anyway, I guess I am happy. Wish I could get Mint-Y on LM17.3 though.

  89. @Falconet

    Okay, doesn’t work very well sadly. Notably when you change the “Controls” part to Mint-Y…

  90. Congrats on all your success Clem! Mint has been my goto OS now for a few years (since version 10!).

    Unfortunately I’m getting more and more systemd garbage in my LMDE installs, so I’ll be moving over to Devuan full stop soon. It’s just too nice as a sysadmin to have all my tools the way I like them (plain text logs, all the normal commands, etc..).

    Also I’ve noticed on a couple LMDE installs recently that if I have them hooked up to a 4k monitor (even still at 1920*1080 resolution) there is massive mouse lag. Not sure what that’s all about.

    Anyway, thanks for the great ride. See you again in the future if you ever upgrade to Devuan upstream. Thanks for the MATE project in particular. Great desktop!

  91. Congratulations Clem and the dev team!

    I can deal with the ‘non included codecs’ issue, presumably by installing mint-meta-codecs; being bandwidth challenged I also sympathize with the off-net Mint users.

    Please consider creating an separate hybrid iso that only contains the ‘dangerous’ codec packages and possibly an install script. It shouldn’t be more than about 25 MB or so. TIA!

  92. @tux-sven

    I know it is no joke to run whole OS on everybody’s shit(ty hardware) without problems, but some basic things just should work. There is no excuse for not-bootable OS if you are common user (and not technician), you will just leave that OS and tell everybody that it is mess if it cannot even boot.

    I made one of my 3 computers to work with Mint 18 cinnamon – I rebooted that machine 5 or 6 times (from command line, as GUI was not working) and PUFF!, since then, it works OK. But this is also no-go for common user.

    So, 2 computers have problem with booting to Cinnamon, 1 crashes after grub (But Xubuntu 16.04 works).

    I will gladly help to bug-report and make detailed feedback after official announcment is made. (Of course, if there will be a way to make bugreporting and feedback from users). I like your work (I would not try to install mint18 if it I would not like it) and I would like to help. Yet I am disappointed in current state, where system cannot even boot.

    If there will be a way to report bugs, I will report all I find.

  93. Initial thoughts on LM18 Cinnamon (64 bit) after I installed on my test machine with full-desk encryption:
    . Having a decryption password entry box on startup is a nice enhancement.
    . Default LM desktop background is nicer than before.
    . Backgrounds are a selection of very good pics.
    . Mint-Y theme is quite attractive overall, though stick to Mint-X if you want app icons to look familiar
    . The new flat-look dialogs I find ugly and skeletal, the ‘buttons” are just flat boxes though they are more tolerable in Mint-Y-Dark theme. This appears to be a core design feature that can’t be undone via any of the themes. Maybe I’ll get used to it …..
    . Following the redesign of the Accessibility module I can now have audible prompts when Caps Lock is pressed, with user-selectable sounds for lock-on and lock-off. The caps-lock beep feature had been broken in gnome/ubuntu for years and it’s good to have it back. Thank you team!!

  94. @rhY

    Hi, about that mouselag, were you using Compton (compositor used in XFCE and in MATE, I think)? I had simmilar issue when computer was connected to 2 displays or to display with large resolution.

  95. Okay Team Mint I’m posting this from Mint 18 MATE 64 bit Live USB so I can’t comment on ease of codec installation but I’ll find a spare disk for testing this feature. 1st thoughts: an excellent progression from 17.3. No hardware issues so far. (Core i3-4330, Asus H87I-Plus mobo, EVGA GTX 750 SC GPU, 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP RAM, 240GB Crucial M500 SSD).

    Two quibbles though:
    1: Theme- I like the Mint-Y theme overall (controls, window borders, icons) but I HATE the dark MATE Panel. I used Appearance Preferences to customize Mint-X with Mint-Y Window Borders and Icons but the Controls tab gives me the dark Panel. A shame because I really like Mint-Y’s controls. I would revert Mint-Y’s Panel to the normal Mint-X gray color and reserve the dark for the Mint-Y Dark and Darker themes.

    2: Desktop shortcuts: I like a clean desktop (Computer, Home, Trash, mounted Volumes) but I always add Firefox as well. When I do so I don’t get the Firefox icon but rather some square icon with a rainbow of dots. Minor, I know and it’s a BETA so no worries. just thought I’d bring it up. Anyway, nice job on Mint 18 to this point. Will for sure install the final release.

  96. No real issues for me so far on Cinnamon 64-bit. But jJust an advance warning to other users that the Ubuntu Xenial base used for LM18 will stop Google Earth installing since GE requires lsb-core. It isn’t a simple matter to install the latter as there are dependency conflicts. I’m going to try to work out the best workaround when I get a few hours spare.

  97. All the good bug reporters above — are you actually reporting bugs in launchpad? You know that writing a bug here is hardly helpful to the developers…

  98. Having loaded the RC yesterday, I suggest that anyone trying it before the official announcement and release notes takes care to install on a clean formatted partition. I ran into issues installing over the top of 17.3 without formatting. So I recommend the classic way – backup, install, copy files back. It’s (Cinnamon, 64 bit) working just fine for me now.

  99. First 48h with Mint 18 Beta. Wow. I love it just the way it is. I used to have some minor bugs with Mint 17.3 but now they’re gone. Good. Very good.

  100. When Clem releases the REAL Beta/RC-versions here, they usually prefer bug reports in this forum. BUT not at the moment, because they have NOT released the RC yet….. 😉

  101. at first let me say thank you for the great work you are doing it is really good news to hear, & I have question is there any new with the xfce version?

  102. LM18 MATE 64 – Auto login worked correctly for a few times and then decided to present a login window, forcing me to click on my user name before login would proceed. User option is to not be asked for password at login and same (and only) user is set up for auto login in MDM. That’s always worked in previous releases but the login screen still presents in LM18, requiring me to click on user name to proceed. That’s not automatic. Setting a timed login isn’t either.

  103. @ tux-sven

    Perhaps you’re right about the Beta release but every mirror that’s up to date has a beta release from 07-07-2016. How is that explained? Clem would do well by reading this blog and I suspect he probably is. It’s pointing out numerous problems that obviously went undetected during testing. Some are so glaring that it’s hard to conceive they were missed.

  104. Long time Mint user. Been testing Mint 18 64-bit beta. Very accomplished for a beta. Printing utility seems very smooth and polished compared to that shipped with previous versions of Mint. Samba network discovery seems better too. Pix is a great app also. Had the “Can’t drop privileges for downloading as file ‘/var/cache/apt/archives/partial/ (packages Name.deb) couldn’t be accessed by user ‘_apt’. – pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)” message with synaptic. Synaptic also complained about a non existent cd rom repository after a reload. Love that zfs is now fully integrated. I see that screenlets have been dumped – pity I really like the infopanel. Tried various conky equivalents but none of them worked with Mint 18 although they do with Mint 17.3 – bummer. I can’t say I’m a great fan of the overly large buttons for things like deleting files in nemo et. Apart from my minor personal disappointment over infopanel – which has nothing to do with the Mint team – Mint 18 is shaping up to be a great release

  105. Dear Clem / Mint Team

    I’ve got some feedback on the beta (of the Cinnamon version) – where should I leave it, please?

    Thanks.

  106. For Clem and other testers regarding LM18 Cinnamon version:

    I discovered that after choosing Windows borders other than default Mint-X options (on Themes/Windows borders) the following 2 applications (Calculator and Disks from Accessories) do not change their windows borders according to the new chosen option (they remain unchanged into Mint-X).
    I checked this bug on 2 cases, one in a LM18 virtual machine and the other as live.

    This doesn’t happen in Mint 17.3 Rosa.

    All other features seems to be OK.

  107. For Clem and other testers regarding LM18 Cinnamon version:

    The bug reported on comment 136 is present also for Simple Scan

    It seems that this bug is present no matter what compatible theme is installed.

  108. Please inset an option to disable hibernate and suspend !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!
    Please !!

  109. clem:

    Two things to say1

    1. please make ultra easy to install the external codecs (like a button on the wellcome screen or so) or even a big button on the update manager)

    2. thanks thanks thanks a lot for all this efford you are my bill gates mixed with tesla and novel pace price

  110. I want to thank all those who have worked so hard to produce Linux Mint, a truly fabulous operating system. I remember installing one of the very first Linux distros, years ago. It was a nightmare to install, especially the drivers. I haven’t touched Linux since. But a few days ago I thought I would give it another try. What a surprise!!!

    I deleted my non Linux operating system and now use Mint. It is an absolute joy, a pleasure to use, and was so easy to install!
    It’s a credit to you all. Why is it not more popular?

  111. I have installed MINT 17.3 on my pc. After starting PC, it is directly showing SHELL prompt, NO GUI. Please help me to get GUI back.

  112. Cinnamon Mint 18 Sarah Beta worked for me (on Asus X71Q) almost perfectly after releasing, but after few days and after a lot of updates wi-fi is not working any more. I cannot get connection to the network. I hope it’ll be fixed.

Leave a Reply

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