Monthly News – April 2017

Many thanks to all the people who donated to us and who help to fund our project. Donations are down to about 60% of what they were last year, but they’re still quite high. In the first trimesters of 2015, 2016 and 2017 we respectively received $23k, $40k and $25k. Our development team has gotten bigger and our budget is being extended to include some administrators and designers. Other figures and metrics indicate we’re growing so this probably just reflects an exceptional year for donations in 2016.

Mint 13 EOL

Linux Mint 13 ‘Maya’ reached EOL (End Of Life). If you are using this release please follow the instructions posted on the forums by our administration team:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=241166

Our project is 10 years old. It had many highs and lows but if I had to point at the most significant issue we had to overcome I would point at the loss of GNOME 2 in Linux Mint 12. I remember this development cycle as one of the most intense we ever went through and the implementation of Cinnamon in Linux Mint 13 alongside a stable MATE edition was a huge relief for us. Linux Mint 13 brought a solution to that problem which unlike MGSE in Mint 12 was solid, viable and didn’t break with the past. This release is the one I remember the most fondly, it has a special meaning for me also because of its codename.

Sonya

Linux Mint 18.2 will also have a very meaningful codename and a special place in the heart of one of our developers.

I would like to address my support and my deepest sympathy to Michael Webster, one of our friends within the development team, for the loss of his wife Sonya.

I can’t think of anything more painful than losing a loved one. We feel a lot of fraternity and sadness after what happened.

It is an honor for us to be able to commemorate her name.

Farewell Sonya and to you Michael, it is a real pleasure and privilege to be developing with you. I hope you do well.

MATE 1.18 coming to LMDE

Version 1.18 of the MATE desktop environment is coming to LMDE this week. This is an important update because the entire desktop is now built against GTK3.

To prepare for this update, the team ported mintMenu to GTK3 and is now adapting themes and ironing out issues.

Big changes in Cinnamon 3.4

The Cinnamon Settings Daemon is responsible for power management, X settings, input devices, screen resolution and rotation and many other aspects of the desktop environment. In previous versions it was run as a single process called cinnamon-settings-daemon. When something went wrong it was hard to troubleshoot which part of it was responsible for the issue and if it crashed everything went down.

In the upcoming Cinnamon 3.4 the settings daemon will be split into multiple processes. Each plugin (i.e. area of responsibility) will run its own process, making it easy to identify excessive CPU or memory usage and isolating crashes to only affect a particular plugin without impacting the rest of the desktop.

Similarly, Nemo (the file manager) will be split into two separate processes. One for the desktop icons, which will run in isolation, and one for the file manager windows.

To provide improvements in terms of performance and memory usage, CJS (the Cinnamon Javascript Interpreter) was rebased on a newer version of GJS (its GNOME ancestor). It’s still compatible with mozjs24 but it also gained compatibility with mozjs38. For now it will continue to use mozjs24 in LMDE but it will run on a backported mozjs38 in Linux Mint 18.2.

Last but not least, Nemo might get a desktop grid in Cinnamon 3.4.

Cinnamon Spices website

The Spices website is now fully ready:

https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com

It supports oauth authentication via Google, Facebook and Github and lets you post comments and like your favorite Cinnamon spices.

The maintenance of the spices themselves continues on Github. We’re getting ever closer to a situation where every single applet, desklet, extension and theme “just works”. Localization support and translations are also being added on a daily basis so 3rd party elements in your desktop environment appear in your own language.

This is a huge improvement for Cinnamon because the quality of its spices has a impact on how it is perceived.

The security aspects are significant as well. On the maintenance side, we moved from a workflow where anonymous people could upload code to a website and have it run by users on their own desktop, to one where each change is tracked, reviewed and version controlled publicly on Github. On the server side, we moved from in-house accounts where we had to store emails and passwords (information we do not need ourselves) to delegating authentication to 3rd party services such as Google/Facebook/Github via oauth.

We’re delighted with all these changes. I hope you’ll enjoy the website and the spices going forward.

Many thanks to all the developers involved in all these changes, I won’t name them.. there’s quite a few 🙂

Display Manager

I’m happy to confirm that Linux Mint 18.2 will switch to the LightDM display manager.

Though, because of its close ties with Unity, GNOME, Ubuntu and indicators, unity-greeter will not be used.

It was forked to develop a similar yet independent greeter called Slick-Greeter.

Slick-Greeter looks like Unity-Greeter but provides the following benefits:

  • It is cross-distribution and should work pretty much anywhere.
  • All panel applets are embedded. No external indicators are launched or loaded.
  • No settings daemon are launched or loaded.
  • It supports HiDPI.
  • Sessions are validated. If a default/chosen session isn’t present on the system, the greeter scans for known sessions in /usr/share/xsessions and replaces the invalid session choice with a valid session.
  • Screenshots can be taken by pressing PrintScrn.
  • It is graphically configurable (via another project called lightdm-settings)

Other news

We’ve got both good and bad news this month… I’ll start with the bad news.

Last month we hinted at the possibility of a partnership and the manufacturing of Linux Mint laptops.  This won’t happen just yet. We were seduced by the quality of the laptops but we didn’t think the design was unique enough. In particular it looked too similar to a MacBook (which is a very good thing for a laptop really, but it didn’t work for us). I’m confident we’ll do a “MintBook” one day, but we’ll take our time, it might be aluminum, it might be another material, it will certainly be a great unit the day it happens but it will also need to feel very special.

And now the good news. If you’re a fan of the series “Mr Robot” and eagerly awaiting Season 3, keep your eyes peeled the next time you see Elliot on a computer 😉

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors:
Private Internet Access
Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Silver Sponsors:

Acunetix
Sucuri
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
7L Networks Toronto Colocation *
Goscomb
BGASoft Inc
David Salvo
Over The Top SEO
Community Sponsors:

Donations in March:

A total of $7,877 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 419 donors:

$200 (2nd donation), Scott G.
$150 (21st donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy
$108 (3rd donation), Anton D.
$108, P. M. D. .
$108, H. W. .
$100 (7th donation), James P. aka “Retired IT”
$100 (3rd donation), Pasi K.
$100 (3rd donation), anonymous
$100 (2nd donation), Ronald B.
$100 (2nd donation), Randall H.
$100 (2nd donation), Jonathan McDowell
$100, H. M. .
$100, aka “bland2”
$100, J. F. .
$100, Kristoffer H.
$100, L. D. .
$81, Benny A.
$75, Gene L.
$54 (2nd donation), Allart P.
$54, Holger D.
$54, Ji F. F.
$54, M. A. .
$54, B. S. .
$50 (17th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (3rd donation), Wade T.
$50 (2nd donation), Paul T. aka “Tabo”
$50 (2nd donation), Eric D. aka “thaieric”
$50, R. G. .
$50, W. B. .
$50, V.R.P. aka “VR of N.E. IN.”
$50, Randall L.
$50, Over The Top SEO
$50, D. G. .
$50, Frank F.
$50, Perrie F.
$50, G. W. .
$50, L. H. .
$50, D. K. .
$50, Gary H.
$43, Jacques M.
$40 (2nd donation), Dominic B.
$40, Daniel P.
$40, P. P. .
$40, TechMaxWare
$40, Mark W.
$40, E. S. .
$40, M. B. .
$38 (29th donation), Mark W.
$35.1, M. B. .
$32 (85th donation), Olli K.
$32, Susanne E. W.
$32, Ian S.
$32, Heinz B.
$32, J. T. .
$32, A. P. .
$32, Guillaume L.
$30 (4th donation), Jason H
$30 (2nd donation), Leopold H.
$30, Denis A. W.
$30, Christian M.
$30, F. L. M. .
$30, T. S. .
$30, Brian D.
$30, D. L. .
$30, Simon B.
$27 (11th donation), Ky LMDE
$27 (4th donation), Antun K.
$27 (3rd donation), Jerry L.
$27, Timo M.
$27, S. C. .
$25 (68th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (24th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (8th donation), Jeffery J.
$25 (7th donation), Jeffery J.
$25 (6th donation), Mathieu D.
$25 (6th donation), George H.
$25 (4th donation), Jack C.
$25 (3rd donation), John A.
$25 (3rd donation), Robert A.
$25 (3rd donation), Jeff D. B.
$25 (2nd donation), Patrick H.
$25 (2nd donation), Over The Top SEO
$25 (2nd donation), Mayer S. aka “yogi
$25 (2nd donation), George Z.
$25 (2nd donation), Vincent M.
$25 (2nd donation), David L.
$25, Kelly Jones aka “skjones”
$25, K. D. .
$25, M. R. .
$25, P. G. .
$25, Michael S.
$25, D. R. J. .
$25, C. W. .
$25, Winthrop W.
$25, J. B. .
$25, Aaron W.
$25, Jonathan C.
$25, Claudio A. M. M.
$25, David D.
$25, T. M. .
$22 (2nd donation), Elisabeth K.
$22 (2nd donation), Xavier Viader Ricós
$22 (2nd donation), Ralf O.
$22 (2nd donation), Naoise G.
$22 (2nd donation), Osvaldo D. D.
$22, Kirill K.
$22, Axel M.
$22, Christian Z.
$22, A. K. .
$22, M. R. .
$22, Christian H.
$22, Farkas K.
$22, Aurelie L. B.
$22, Verzwyvel aka “Omer”
$22, Herbert P.
$22, Tarkware LLC
$22, D. R. .
$22, P. R. .
$22, H. K. .
$20 (24th donation), Utah B.
$20 (6th donation), Steve T.
$20 (4th donation), Stephen G.
$20 (3rd donation), Lamont C.
$20 (2nd donation), J. M. G.
$20 (2nd donation), Ian S.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael S.
$20 (2nd donation), Sonoda H.
$20 (2nd donation), TJ Nelson
$20, N. G. .
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$20, Craig C.
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$20, None
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$20, Greg D.
$20, Michael G.
$20, Christan H.
$20, G. G. .
$20, M. R. .
$19.72 (2nd donation), Skip G. aka “SkipDaShu”
$17.98 (2nd donation), aka “mumeiyamibito
$16 (9th donation), Ib O. J.
$16 (7th donation), Peter J.
$16 (2nd donation), Christian S.
$16 (2nd donation), Ventsislav R.
$16, R. L. .
$16, G. M. .
$16, Ali S.
$16, R. M. G. .
$15 (26th donation), Go Live Lively
$15 (5th donation), SEO For Dentists
$15 (4th donation), Kok E. B.
$15 (3rd donation), Daniel V. M.
$15 (3rd donation), Alex K.
$15 (2nd donation), Rich B. aka “pacificpilot”
$15, tafftees
$15, J. V. .
$15, Peter M.
$15, Paweł G.
$13 (11th donation), Anonymous
$13 (7th donation), Jaime aka “Stop TTIP
$13, J. G. B. .
$13, J. B. .
$12 (72th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (18th donation), Jobs near Me aka “jobshiringnearme.net
$12 (10th donation), Stefan M. H.
$12 (2nd donation), Johann J.
$12, R. M. .
$12, Ladislav K.
$11 (5th donation), Julian M.
$11 (5th donation), Marcin Bojko
$11 (3rd donation), Jacques S.
$11 (2nd donation), Giovanni B.
$11 (2nd donation), Pierre V.
$11 (2nd donation), Hans J. W.
$11 (2nd donation), imeehow
$11 (2nd donation), Wolfgang R.
$11 (2nd donation), Germán S. G.
$11 (2nd donation), youme
$11 (2nd donation), Denis D.
$11 (2nd donation), Dionisios K.
$11 (2nd donation), Piotr L aka “xpil
$11 (2nd donation), Ulrich K.
$11, Elio Blanca
$11, Steve M.
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$10 (16th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (12th donation), Larry J.
$10 (11th donation), Todd A aka “thobin”
$10 (7th donation), Paul O.
$10 (6th donation), Rental Cars Near Me
$10 (6th donation), Richard L. S.
$10 (5th donation), Jeri H.
$10 (5th donation), Dean Armstrong Photography
$10 (4th donation), Andre Cardoso
$10 (4th donation), Lance M.
$10 (4th donation), Gaston B.
$10 (3rd donation), Smart Italics
$10 (3rd donation), Neil E.
$10 (3rd donation), Randy D.
$10 (3rd donation), Zbigniew D.
$10 (2nd donation), Frederick M.
$10 (2nd donation), Catalin A.
$10 (2nd donation), David W.
$10 (2nd donation), Gary P.
$10 (2nd donation), Philip H.
$10 (2nd donation), Ian H.
$10 (2nd donation), Dana Humfleet
$10 (2nd donation), Che H.
$10 (2nd donation), Ellis
$10, P. D. .
$10, Arthur K.
$10, Assaf H
$10, C. A. .
$10, Rick R.
$10, I Fletcher-Cook
$10, Jerry Nelson
$10, H. D.
$10, Bryan O.
$10, W. N. .
$10, D. J. .
$10, Mauricio Araldi
$10, J. E. .
$10, DaveEden@detroitarmor.us
$10, Sudith M.
$10, Jeffrey W.
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$10, DaveEden@detroitarmor.us
$10, Osman A.
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$10, Paul Telles aka “PabloT
$10, Edward D.
$10, Cynthia C.
$10, Ricardo N. C.
$10, Bartosz Wierucki
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$10, Romain Lebbadi-Breteau aka “romain
$10, Keyi N.
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$10, Ladbrokes aka “Ladbrokes Australia
$10, Michael Č.
$10, Pc S. S.
$9, Chien-hsun C.
$8 (2nd donation), Andrei Sotnikov
$8 (2nd donation), Suleyman K.
$7 (9th donation), CV Smith
$7, Andrei Sotnikov
$6, Dražen D.
$6, I. B. .
$5.72, Gianfranco C. . aka “RoHS”
$5 (12th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (6th donation), David B.
$5 (6th donation), Steven L.
$5 (6th donation), Jim A.
$5 (5th donation), David Y.
$5 (5th donation), George H.
$5 (4th donation), Arlington Dentist
$5 (3rd donation), Grzegorz I.
$5 (2nd donation), Yuriy B.
$5 (2nd donation), KLM Merchant Hubs
$5 (2nd donation), Roufai A. L.
$5 (2nd donation), gutscheinchamp.de (Gutscheine 2017)
$5 (2nd donation), Graeme H.
$5 (2nd donation), Morgan aka “Analytics & SEO
$5 (2nd donation), Jeroen V. D. B.
$5 (2nd donation), Neil M.
$5 (2nd donation), Зайцев П.
$5, C. H. .
$5, Michael M.
$5, Miguel Á. A. R.
$5, H. T. .
$5, Mihail S.
$5, Paul W.
$5, T. B. .
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$5, Jonathan. H
$5, Фирсов А.
$5, Jason C.
$5, H. B. .
$5, Stefano R.
$5, Francesco B.
$5, Sjors L.
$5, Erfahrungen & Testberichte – www.erfahrungen24.eu
$5, P. H. .
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$5, Eric H.
$5, K. A. .
$5, Esteban C.
$5, Henrik F.
$5, Mizushima K.
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$5, Anthony B.
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$5, Thomas S.
$5, C. W. .
$5, rafel ioli aka “rafi
$5, H. A. .
$5, Yannaing A.
$4 (19th donation), Toronto Maple Leafs
$4 (7th donation), Yevgeniy A.
$3.74 (8th donation), Matthew B.
$3.73 (10th donation), Matthew B.
$3.7 (9th donation), Matthew B.
$3.7, S. A. M. .
$3 (3rd donation), Зайцев П.
$3, P. R. .
$3, Alessandro S.
$3, Sabatino D. C.
$3, M. D. M. F. L. .
$3, M. W. .
$3, P. N. .
$2.5 (6th donation), MechType
$2.22, Tomasz M.
$2 (4th donation), AlephAlpha
$2 (3rd donation), Maciej G. aka “Jodator”
$2, N. L. .
$2, Hemang A. Joshi aka “hj labs
$2, F. T. .
$2, Donttellthejoneses
$2, MoRo
$2, Jonathan. B.
$2, П. Д. .
$2, Mrutyunjaya
$2, A. M. .
$2, e-pneumatic
$2, Matthew W.
$2, D. B. .
$30.04 from 29 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

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143 comments

  1. To Clem and the team – Thank you so much for always being here for us.
    To Michael – I know or I strongly believe that you will be with Sonya again some day.
    Also, some day soon, Mint will have a MintBook and it will be the envy of the entire computer community.
    All the best wishes from,
    Neb

  2. Also my condolences to Michael.

    I’m happy with the switch to LightDM. I’m looking forward to using Slick-Greeter!

    Finally: Clem, could you perhaps put the new Update Manager in Romeo? I’d like to test it (and see how my new Dutch translations look).

    Edit by Clem: Hi Pjotr, you can git clone mintupdate from github and compile it into .deb with dpkg-buildpackage. You’ll need to import your translations manually though, mint-translations isn’t up to date on github yet.

  3. Deepest sympathies to Michael, may you find some kind of peace in the memories of you and Sonya. Thank you to Clem for sharing this terribly sad news, that we can all come together at times like this is one of the reasons I am so proud to use linux.

  4. Michael,

    I am so very sorry for your loss. I know that these words are completely inadequate but they’re all I have. My thoughts are with you.

    Roj

  5. @Clem – any comment as to whether Ubuntu’s move to Gnome desktop will impact Mint development for the better/worse?

    Edit by Clem: No. A priori, I don’t think it’s going to have any impact on us.

  6. Please forward our condolences to Michael.

    “In the upcoming Cinnamon 3.4 the settings daemon will be split into multiple processes … When something went wrong it was hard to troubleshoot which part of it was responsible for the issue and if it crashed everything went down.”

    Please enable uploading to your development team the issue (eg a Crash Report) when Cinnamon crashes. This information will help troubleshoot the Cinnamon issue and enable future versions of Cinnamon to be more stable and reliable.

    Thank you

  7. Our condolences for Michael.

    Please see:
    http://imgur.com/a/m2CGf

    The image shows a dimmed parent window with title “Update Manager”. The child window has red drawn to show where a title should show.

    Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon exhibits consistent behaviour where all child windows to not display their title when their parent window is dimmed.

    Does Linux Mint Cinnamon intentionally do this or is this a bug?

    Hopefully this is a classified as a bug and can be easily fixed in Linux Mint 18.1 so that windows show their title when their parent window is dimmed.

    Thank you

    Edit by Clem: It’s configurable in System Settings -> Windows -> Behaviour -> Attach dialogs to parent windows. Afaik it’s a GTK behaviour so you can enable or disable it but you can have it attached with visible titles.

  8. Michael, I’m so sorry to hear of your sad loss, having been though bereavement you have my deepest sympathy and empathy.

    Hope knowing you have so many thinking about you at this time helps strengthen you, and brings comfort.

    Know you are in my thoughts & prayers.

    David

  9. #9 I don’t see how Ubuntus decision really affects Mint. We don’t use either desktop. Currently the only change I see is for the gnome apps. If you like to use them, you will be able to use them as gnome intended and not the versions that were patched to work with Unity and didn’t work well in the Mint desktops.

    #10 I’m not on Cinnamon in the moment but in System Settings->Windows there should be a setting called something like “Attach dialogs to the parent window”. Make sure that is off.

  10. @Windows (#10),

    I’m 99.9% sure this is intentional. The child dialog box is directly connected to the parent window, so there’s really no need to put a title on it. Personally, that’s the way I prefer it. It’s cleaner and more professional looking, in my opinion.

  11. @Michael: Please accept my condolences. I’m sorry for your loss.

    @Clem & dev. team: Generally AWESOME, especially the Nemo grid.

    About the Cinnamon Spices website, please consider having screenshots sized for the design, not bigger, and in the correct format. It kills my limited traffic mobile connection, which is not cheap. For a 449×245 size it’s unacceptable to have images around 1 MB in size. PNG is not the right image format for screenshots with many colours; the images must be JPG.

    Even the LightDM screenshot in this post is an 825K PNG, which could very well be a 154KB JPG:
    https://s26.postimg.org/6ykl27q95/slick.jpg

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Kneekoo. I think Nick (from the design team) is moving towards smaller thumbnails already. I’ll look into it.

  12. My deepest condolence to Michael Webster. Will use LM 18.2 respectfully in memory of Sonya.

    While I am all excited by the earlier announcement of a “Mint Book”, I understand and appreciate that you are not rushing into it. It’s better to take your sweet time to come out with an awesome system that is inspired by the Mint philosophy, that everybody can enjoy. I only hope that when you do finally come up with it, that you will consider different screen sizes to cater for different user needs. I myself prefer a 15.6″ screen. I do not have a desktop as I travel a lot. So my notebook is where I do all my work. And I really need a big screen.

    Thank you for the on going good awesome work that you guys are doing behind the scene to bring us this awesome OS. And I do think it is time for another round of donation.

  13. Oh! yes, thanks kneekoo for reminding me about the spice website. I totally agree with you. It takes a lot of time and data quota (which as you said is not cheap) just to download the home page of the website. Clem, you mentioned “This is a huge improvement for Cinnamon because the quality of its spices has a impact on how it is perceived.” I guess you can say the same for the quality of the spice website, in terms of its “downloadability.” While I have previously (before the website redesign) often downloaded and try different new themes, since the redesign, I have refused to access the website because of this issue. So yes, would appreciate it if you can look into this issue. Thanks once again.

  14. My sincere condolences to Michael and all Mrs Sonya’s family… And thanks a Michael for your great job in Linux Mint..

  15. Deepest condolence to Michael on the loss of your wife. Like many others in this community we share your loss and wish you much peace and love in your grieving. Chris

  16. Hi Clem (& the rest of the team), thanks for your wonderful work all those years.

    Both Fedora & Arch are currently phasing out older & obsolete webkit* & gstreamer0.10 libraries…it would be nice if the next Mint releases could eventually get rid of those dependencies as well…

  17. Thank you for the info, Clem.
    I look forward to the new Display Manager. I had a lot of black screens after boot for a long time with Mint 17 and 18. I could restart MDM, but my kids could not, and they had to reboot the computer until it somehow worked.

  18. First, my condolences to Michael and his family!

    @Bamm #20: Mate 18.2 is already used in Mint 18.1 if I’m not wrong.

    @Clem: do you plan tu publish reupdated LMDE2 isos with MATE 1.8?

    Thanks, merci!
    François

    Edit by Clem: Hi Francois, no.

  19. Michael,

    I will think of Sonya and say a prayer for her every time I use 18.2.
    Thank you for all you do; and thank you, Clem, for sharing this with us about Sonya and Michael.

    *****************************

    Clem–
    This is a not-so-tongue-in-cheek response to the MintBook subject (well, perhaps some tongue-in-cheek, anyway):
    not that long ago, Lenovo asked the general community how it would accept–respond–to a “new” laptop design which was a brand new “old”
    Lenovo T4XX. If I remember correctly, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
    There’s something to keep in mind.

    Respectfully, and VERY seriously–submitted from the keyboard of my Mint Linux Lenovo T420…

    Edit by Clem: Don’t get me wrong, I love the Macbook, and I absolutely loved what was being made in the scope of that partnership… which is quite similar, cheaper and very neat. It did look like the Macbook though and it’s something people could or will be able to get elsewhere. So it begged the question as to why we would be doing it. I’ve no doubt this would sell, it’s just that this isn’t our business/market/activity.. sales are important for our partners, but when it comes to us, we want something else. It makes sense to engage in something unique, but not as much if it’s simply commercial. Anyhow, we’ve talked about materials and designs and I’m sure we’ll do it one day.

  20. Wow, you guys have come a long way! I have in some way been involved with Mint since around 2009 or so. In many ways, while it was always fun to use, Mint, along with most linux desktop distros, was never 100% reliable or worked completely. But I have to say in the last 8 years desktop linux and especially Mint has come a long way. Everything works! Even my surround sound setup on an old clunky HP box. It’s nice not to be locked into Windows or OSX in order to get something that works and I hope you have many more years of development and awesomeness!

  21. hi Clem

    After the last update, that I just let run through, I got this in my LinuxMint 18.1:

    W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_01.bin for module i915

    This shows that an Inte-driver is needed from here:

    https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/intel-graphics-update-tool-linux-os-v2.0.2

    I downloaded and installed this tool directly from this page and tried to run it. But when I started this tool, I got the message, that my distribution (in this case LinuxMint) ist not supported.

    So what to do??

    Thanks for instruction Clem. Everything else works just fine. And I would appreciate it, if this tool could also support LinuxMint.

    Edit by Clem: I’m not sure you need these drivers but here you go: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/315049/cannot-install-intel-graphics-driver-on-linux-mint-18

  22. And also my condolences to Micheal for this loss:

    “I would like to address my support and my deepest sympathy to Michael Webster, one of our friends within the development team, for the loss of his wife Sonya.”

    “I can’t think of anything more painful than losing a loved one. We feel a lot of fraternity and sadness after what happened.”

    “It is an honor for us to be able to commemorate her name.”

    My aopologices to Micheal. Are we allowed to know what happend??? Give Michale a thick hug from me and tell him thanks for his work on graphics. Perhaps he could give me instruction on this topic of my previous comment?? This would be helpful.

    Thank you.

    Greetings
    Mintkatze

  23. Best wishes to Michael. Is there anything the mint community can do?

    As for the mint book… It seems many of us are using the previous generation’s state of the art heavy workstation laptops. Like this one I’m typing from has a 17″ screen, i7, multiple disks/ssds, 32GBs, etc.. A mint laptop would need to be pretty fancy to make us happy. And unfortunately new things are often double or triple the price of our non-cutting edge technology. It might be better not to endorse an official “mint book”?

  24. @Mintkatze,

    first make sure that you really need this driver. It is only for the kabylake processor.

  25. Why isn’t num lock enabled by default in the Linux Mint 18.1 KDE login window. Installing numlockx and enabling it in the keyboard configuration does not help.

  26. Clem et al: LMDE 2
    I just got the Mate 1.18.0 update … “Notification Area” crashes at login or reboot.
    now, this is annoying!
    everything else seems to be OK, any ideas?
    thanks, Peter

  27. Same here as peter e #34. Notification area crashes after 1.18 Mate update. I stopped Psensor from loading and this stops the crash. But if I launch Psensor after a reboot and the Notification area is loaded, it will crash launching Psensor. Also, Pidgin window opens and no longer launches minimized.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks. We’re able to reproduce the crash with psensor. It happens in both LMDE and Mint 18.2 (to be), probably related to statusnotifier support in mate-panel 1.18. We’re looking into it.

  28. I am a huge fan of the Linux Mint project, and am grateful to the work you guys put into this awesome OS. I have tried multiple Linux derivatives and Linux Mint is the only one that meets all my driver/codec needs right out of the box. The only trouble I have is with a bug in the Mint Backup tool, but other than that, thanks to the Linux Mint team for such a swell operating system. Excited about the new features to come!

  29. thanks clem! mint cinnamon rocks! can’t wait to see elliot using mint 🙂

    sounds like some good updates on the way, and like the new cinnamonspices website.

    keep up the great work!

  30. Michael, we join you in your sadness and as been said, you’re not alone.
    Now, let me get my flak jacket on, what’s new with LMDE3??

  31. @ peter e: I was just stating what I did to stop the crash. You may want to check and see what loads in the Notification area besides the defaults (Update Manager, sound, network, etc). Thanks for the feedback and good luck!

  32. I’m deeply sorry for your loss Michael.
    Please accept my condolences.
    ****
    Great update to come with 18.2. have experimented a few nemo crashes which also crash the desktop.
    A question :
    Is there a chance to be able to connect remotly to cinnamon desktop though rdp ? It might not be a top priority but using vnc or other solutions is really a painfull solution…

  33. @ kmo
    understood
    @ clem
    as I don’t have psensor installed maybe that is a bit of a red herring …
    I am running the update on another machine with LMDE Mate now… will report back.

  34. @clem
    @peter e

    Just updated my 2nd laptop (Dell Vostro 1700) with same results – Notification Area crashes. I stopped Psensor from loading at startup and see no crashes. One thing I noticed on both laptops during update – after it appears all updates are installed, I see a message that says “Could not install security updates”.

    Edit by Clem: Here’s the bug report for this issue, the MATE team is looking into it: https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/571

  35. With Mate 1.18, on my LMDE system mintMenu is totally broken now; doesn’t even show up in the panel; can’t add it. Also I can’t get more than two workspaces, using the settings in the workspace switched applet. Text for icons on the desktop is weirdly black now, instead of white, making it much harder to read. All icons in the notification area render improperly (don’t follow appearance setting) and some for running programs (e.g. SpiderOak) don’t render at all. Other icons in the panel render improperly (show desktop)

    Caja has also been changed so that it just shows a list of items against a white background, instead how a different shade for each line to make it more legible. Text Editor does an annoying scrolling animation, when it opens a text file to the last place you left off (before just opened directly to wherever you left off with no animation).

    Honstly this is a mess. Aside from the multiple breakages, the changes to Caja and Text Editor (which I’d already seen on a different system where I have Manjaro running with Mate) to me are the kind of inteface changes that I came to Mate to avoid, because I hated what became of Gnome, with Gnome 3 (as wells as what KDE is like). Pointless animations, things that look superficially simpler or more slick, but lose functionality and are harder/more annoying to use. I like Gnome 2/Mate because it resisted all these sorts of pointless interface “upgrades.” Really a bummer to see Mate going this way now, seems antithetical to it’s whole raison for existence.

    Edit by Clem: The text editor (Xed) didn’t change. Are you using Pluma by any chance? If so, please try Xed instead. Many of the issues you’re describing are related to lack of themeing.. i.e. themes which do not support GTK3. MATE 1.18 moved to GTK3, support for this was added to Mint-X and mintMenu. Make sure you’re applying all updates, in particular mintmenu 5.7.7, mint-themes-gtk3 3.14+13, mint-themes 1.4.9.

  36. I have a couple of minor issues with the new version of MATE in LMDE. The most significant is that my desktop icon label text is now black with a dark background. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Thanks.

    Edit by Clem: This should be fixed in Mint-X… make sure you’re upgrading mint-themes and mint-themes-gtk3. Their current versions are 1.4.9 and 3.14+13.

  37. I posted a comment listing off many things that are broken by the upgrade to Mate 1.18 in LMDE (there are really a lot of things broken). I also commented on changes to the interface in Caja and Text Editor, which I do not find to be improvements. And it appears my comment was deleted? Really? We’re not allowed to mention things that break and changes that we find to not be useful?

    I have used LMDE from day one and Mate from pretty much the beginning. I am used to problems and breakage with upgrade. But these problems and changes with Mate 1.18 are the first time I have really been disappointed in both. Having my post deleted, apparently because it wasn’t positive, is pretty disappointing on top of that.

    Edit by Clem: I’m sorry you had to wait 5 hours for your two comments to be approved. Many are approved automatically but Akismet sometimes requires manual approval. If it wasn’t for its moderation system, I couldn’t even read your comment.. it would be drowned in an ocean of spam.

  38. Splitting the daemon into multiple processes is a great idea. We’ve had some trouble debugging since they were all a single process.

    Also, the Cinnamon Spices website looks great, nice work!

  39. Thanks for the hard work Linux Mint Team 😀

    Just one question, the xfce team relesed xfwm4 4.13.0 wich fixes the long standing problems with vsync -> “Add support for VSYNC using either Present or OpenGL” (mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce/2017-March/035504.html).

    Do you think it’s possible backport this on the next Mint XFCE release? or we gonna have to wait for the launch of XFCE 4.14?

    I love xfce, but i’m using Ubuntu until the compositions problems are fixed.
    Thanks.

  40. With respect, having been an enthusiastic supporter of Mint (Maya Xfce was simply great), I was somewhat disappointed by Sarah and Serena, too many small issues of any kind that make Mint no more novice-friendly as it could be, perhaps a less frequent and more prudent development would be recommended for the next releases. I refer in particular to the following issue, not uncommon and to which I did not see due attention:

    https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=239085&p=1299753&hilit=xfce+black+screen#p1299753

    I really hope this will be fixed.
    Anyway good job.

  41. Will kde version still use sddm?

    “Why isn’t num lock enabled by default in the Linux Mint 18.1 KDE login window. Installing numlockx and enabling it in the keyboard configuration does not help.”

    Add Numlock=on in file /etc/sddm.conf under [General]

  42. Any chance we can get an ezy option control panel to change screen frequency from 60hz to 50 hz when viewing movies from different zones?

  43. My condolences to Michael for the passing of his wife. We’ll think fondly of her whenever we see the codename Sonya.

  44. @clem Sorry about my complaint in post number 50. My previous post appeared when I first wrote it, then a minute later did not show up at all, not as awaiting moderation or anything for some reason, then reappeared after I posted my second post as awaiting moderation, at which point I felt stupid. So it really did appear that my comment had been deleted. I would not have complained had I realized my comment was simply awaiting moderation. Sorry.

    Thanks for the suggestions in my post 48. I’ll try those, although I thought I did already. I am using Pluma as the text editor, since that has always been the official Mate text editor I assumed it should work. I’ll try Xed.

  45. @Clem — Applied all updates as of 18:45 UTC and Psensor now loads without crashing the Notification Area. Hats off to Wimpy and his team as well as you and your team. Thanks.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks, it’s not fixed upstream yet https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/571. We patched mate-panel in LMDE to remove support for SNI (which is causing the issue).

  46. Dear @Cleam and LM Team. May I ask you to fix in future this annoying bug – Diagonal screen tearing? Please take a look for instance here ( https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/diagonal-screen-tearing-still-hasnt-been-fixed/c0763e8f-8ef3-48de-9ac8-8540dccc7052 ). I use LM 18 at MB Asus B150M-Plus with Integrated HD 530 VGA with standard instalation drivers. I see the bug mostly when using Firefox for reading. Many LM users also reported this at ( https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=224942 ) . Thank you very much.

  47. @clem My apologies for my unfounded complaint in post 50. My previous comment had appeared after I made it as, “awaiting moderation,” but then a few minutes later it no longer appeared, giving me the impression that my posted had been moderated by being deleted. Only after I made my follow up post did my original one reappear as still awaiting moderation. Anyway, sorry to be testy for no good reason. I should have assumed it was just some odd website issue.

    Thank you for the suggetions about mate themes. I had the new themes installed but apparently wasn’t using them, as I thought I was. That fixed the issue with icons not rendering properly in the notification area. It took a couple of restarts (for some reason more than one), but I now get four workspaces again also.

    Xed did not really fix my issues with Pluma. It actually does not return properly to the the last position of the cursor. The cursor is there in the last position, but files open at the top. If I then hit space (or type something) it returns to the last position of the cursor, but it does the same scrolling animation as in Pluma, that I do not care for and find to not really be what I thought Mate is supposed to be about.

  48. #62 cb For xed try installing dconf-editor and going to org.x.editor.preferences.editor and disable restore-cursor-position

  49. @JosephM Thanks for the suggestion. I want Xed or Pluma to restore the cursor position. So I don’t want to disable that. What I don’t like is the new scrolling animation that they do when returning to the previous cursor position.

    When you opened I file before it just opened to wherever you left off. Now when you open a file it opens at the top and then rapidly scrolls down to wherever you left off, making you watch a scrolling animation that servers no purpose.

    I already took a look at dconf-editor and as far as I could tell there was no option to disable this scrolling effect.

  50. You are doing a great job !!! My favorite distro by a mile !!! Condolences to Michael – it is never easy losing a loved one and my thoughts extend to you and your family.

    Really looking forward to 18.2 🙂 Will donate again soon to support all the good work you are doing in the Linux community.

  51. Our thoughts are with Michael.

    Please enable changing the “System locale” to apply immediately, without needing to Restart Linux Mint
    Mint Menu → Languages → Change language → Apply System-Wide

    Thank you

  52. The “Language Settings” windows redraws itself with a lot of black space at the bottom of the window. Are you able to reproduce this? Thank you

  53. The “Language Settings” window redraws itself with a lot of blank space at the bottom of the window. Are you able to reproduce this? Thank you

  54. This Linux operating system works better than the now-obscene Windows Vista on my desktop computer! No more slow programs which have virus, spyware and mal-ware! This is truly elegant and awesome! I love it!

  55. I read that ubuntu 17.04 will be switching to wayland instead of x.Will linux mint 18.2 move to wayland any time soon?

  56. I LOVE MINT

    I am puzzled,
    When I use the sound app to open VLC or Clementine
    Cinnamon Always Crashes
    and I have to restart Cinnamon. Have you heard this before?
    Any suggestions

    Thanks

  57. Great news concerning lightdm. Hopefully the autologin failure monster will float away into the sea and sink. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  58. @cb I don’t anything can be done about the scrolling thing. It was a change in Gtk3. It’s not the fault of the Mint or Mate devs. As far as I can tell there is nothing we can do about it on our side. I’ve looked a bit and don’t see a way.

  59. Please don’t abandon Linux mint debian edition its so cool !
    I like it very much !
    Also please try to install a newer version on Linux mint D.E cause the kernel is way too old just enable the kernel from backports by default ! Please put some efforts on lmde cause it is worth it , this distro its ideal for older and experienced users who bored everything that has to do with canonical.

  60. It’s nice to see the cinnamon spices rating system working again and site finished…

    Cant wait for 18.2

  61. @ Michael: Please accept my heartfelt condolences. It is a moment of great sadness. Let mother nature bestow upon you the strength and courage to face this loss and continue on your life’s journey.

  62. Firstly to echo the deepest sympathies and condolences and send warm best wishes.

    Secondly to sound an alarm about Upgrading :

    !!! WARNING WARNING WARNING !!!

    .bashrc and .bash_history

    Was on the same Mint-18-KDE I’d full-fresh-installed in September
    as per http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3092 and had
    upped Plasma in December as per http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3175

    Mint 18 has been the full-time daily OS all these months.

    Last weekend, April, finally decided to join the current-club.

    Selected the menu-option in Software-Update to upgrade to 18.1.

    “Edit->Upgrade to Linux Mint 18.1 Serena”
    as per http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3185
    after checking https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_serena_kde.php
    and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes

    Since the upgrade/restart, most stuff seemed fine, until, aargh!

    Doing ”sudo su -” discovered root’s previously-customised CLI-prompt (Konsole) was back to the default.

    This led to finding that .bashrc had been overwritten and .bash_history had been truncated.

    Lost thousands of bash history entries!!!

    The $PS prompt is fixable. The lost bash history is not.

    It is totally unacceptable for an installer to presumptuously modify local bashrc HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE settings.

    Among the Upgrade-Installer dialog-boxes it explicitly reassured us that our data would be safe.

    Sorry to have to report this today, but as you can appreciate, we’re very angry, so that others need to be alerted to this serious bug a.s.a.p.

    Thank you for listening

  63. I was slightly puzzled by the MintBook idea. What I’d like is for Mint to run without any hassle on my chosen laptop, whatever that is — last 3 have been Lenovos. I also don’t want to be forced to pay for Windows 10.

    Isn’t the best way forward growing market share by supporting the most popular brands/models? I’m guessing that the MintBook was something from a minor vendor — and that a fair few Dell XPS developer edition machines get converted from Ubuntu to Mint upon delivery.

    Why does it matter? A lot of people, and I’m one, just want stuff to work and have no time or patience for supposedly better things that actually aren’t quite ready / robust / reliable. Mint on a Thinkpad is hard to beat. Preinstalled would make a difference to a new purchase of a mainstream product — Dell, Lenovo or HP say. I couldn’t see going out on a limb with tier 2 hardware. If that’s what was decided against spending time on, it was probably a good decision.

  64. @60 – I too would love to see a fix for the screen tearing. Shame that I had a tear-free experience until sometime around when 17.3 was introduced. It’s still there in 18.1.

  65. Screen tearing?
    What DE? XFCE?
    If so, switching to Compton as the compositor is advised.
    It’s probably not installed by default, so “sudo apt-get install compton” or use Synaptics or software manager.
    The way I use compton is to add it in the startup programs.
    I use the following command-line: “compton -cCGb” (without the quotes)
    And in the Desktop settings, disable compositing.
    Then reboot.
    The compton compositor will be started after reboot.
    Hope this helps.

  66. Clem:

    I will be loading 18.1 MATE into a new AMD Ryzen based PC build within a couple of days once all the BIOS parameters are refined. I have read that kernel 4.6 functions well enough for preliminary stability testing activities. Drivers for the Ryzen processors are embedded in kernel 4.10 (per an article at Pharonix). Will this kernel be usable in Mint 18.2, or is it perhaps usable now in 18.1?

    (My two operating PCs are running 17.3. Until I get a functioning Ryzen PC I won’t be able to see what 18.1’s Update Manager offers or suggests.)

    Thanks

  67. @JosephM Thanks for looking into the scrolling thing. I wondered if it might be a gtk3 issue.

    One thing that’s funny is that it only happens with certain programs. It happens in Pluma and Xed, but not in LibreOffice or Atril. Perhaps there is a way around the issue after all? If not, I appreciate nonetheless you’re taking a look at it.

  68. I’m sorry for Sonya, best wishes Michael W.

    Will the music be able to play even in the LightDM?

  69. Nice news! Please add support for google account in 18.2 sonya like GNOME did. This allow us to browse our files in google drive.

  70. @Francois-
    Thanks for the advice but I’m on Cinnamon. The problem seems widespread and any ‘fixes’ I’ve seen seem to be workarounds at best that minimise but do not stop screen tearing due to a vsynch issue.

  71. Do you have an idea when mozjs38 will land in LMDE/Cinnamon? After GTK 3.14 that is the second major library where Cinnamon will now be lagging behind on LMDE in comparison to 18. Do we have to wait for Debian 9?

    Edit by Clem: Hi, it won’t land in LMDE. We’ll run Cinnamon 3.4 with cjs 3.2 there.

  72. Dear @Clem and LM Team. I want to report for another annoying bug. I describe it like “Dancing text” For instance please take a look here ( http://imgur.com/a/k6TSK ). The bug appear in Firefox from ver 50 and later. From the beginning I think that is connected with AC/DC 220V, but it appear even when Air conditioner is not turn on, or even LAN cable is unplug. When I star reading web page in Firefox, at some moment “Dancing text” come. When I select this text, dancing is gone. I also try with fresh installation on LM 18.1 Cinnamon 64bit, with Firefox without any addons and bug appear (after upgrade from 50 to ver 53). My BIOS and OS system are fully updated. Thank you very much.

  73. Michael – I am so sorry for your loss. This is really sad news and I can’t imagine the sorrow that must be going through. More power to you to stay strong and sincerely pray that you overcome this painful period.

  74. @Richard: I’m not part of the Mint development team, but here’s what I think about LMDE3.

    1. LMDE2 was recently refreshed, so new ISOs wouldn’t make sense anytime soon because we get updates anyway.

    2. Considering #1, and the fact that Debian 9 will soon be released, it makes perfect sense to wait for it to be released, then allow the dust to settle, just to be sure everything’s fine, and only then start working on LMDE3.

    3. Debian 9 won’t come with Secure Boot support from day 1, but it might come later. Some people care about it, some don’t. I can only assume that if Mint will have enough demand for this and Debian shows progress, it would be a good idea to wait until it’s ready, to avoid creating new ISOs soon after LMDE3.

    But why are you so excited about LMDE3 anyway? 😀

  75. TVM as always for Linux Mint, plus, the idea of an LM laptop is a good one, but please, definitely not like a Mac, over-designed, over-expensive, over-fragile, almost unrepairable, as in disposable, due to fostering their shameless forced obsolescence.

    See http://nofrillstech.net/purchasinglaptop.pdf

    Please keep your LM laptop practical, sensible, and durable, with panels at the back, good cooling, proper cables, HDD/SSD,RAM, DVD, modem, et al, still interchangeable, do not sully your fine reputation, and that of Linux, with the shamelessly over-designed, disposable, consumer rubbish, etc, that is increasingly a modern laptop manufacturing trend. As for Apple, they may once have been insanely great, but are now just insane….?

    Regards, Paul Clifford

  76. Cinnamon 3.4.0 has been released:
    https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/commit/ab1adf07c8746b017da4307c1ab89db9e47a1712

    What does that mean for:
    Linux Mint 18.2 [Planned]
    Cinnamon features/issues:
    multiple clocks https://github.com/simonwiles/cinnamon_applets
    https://github.com/linuxmint/Roadmap/blob/master/README.md

    Thank you

    Edit by Clem: Hi Ovari, the roadmap indicates what we’d like to get done and it keeps track of what was achieved, but it’s not an exact representation of what actually happens. A lot of things don’t make it in, and a lot of other things which aren’t in the roadmap actually end up in a release.

  77. I’ve installed Linux Mint 18.1 on few laptops; as usual, the installation was no more then a holding a cup of coffee and looking at the screen.

    I must say that I’ve also tried to install the latest version of Lubuntu on these laptops, before Linux Mint – and on each laptop there was a different critical problem: could not supply the correct screen resolution; could not install grub; could not connect the Wi-Fi; problems with EFI and BIOS. (those are just regular/simple laptops, nothing special).

    Once again Linux Mint simply works on different models and configurations, without any effort. This is the most valuable aspect of Linux Mint OS, it works.

    Thank you for the professional work.

    p.s. sometimes the Wi-Fi icon still appears as a Wired connection, but it always work properly. (Maybe because of using an EDIMAX USB antenna? on Xfce)

  78. @Clem @30,

    That comment is referring to Mint 18, but for a long time that I’ve been having this kind of errors on the LMDE2 side with an Intel 2nd Generation graphics.

    How serious / performance impactive / cosmetic are these errors?

    Any comments / procedures / instructions / recommendations for us on LMDE2?

    Thanks and kudos for the Mint Team for keeping up with this amazing work for 10 years now.

  79. Guys, I’m quite happy with this news; But before moving on to exploring some new stuff. Let’s please look back at some applications from Linux Mint that still need to be fixed. The Software Manager, for example. You can’t write a review on it using the Software Manager application. Sure, it does work on the browser version, but ONLY FOR applications that belong to the official repository. For example, I had to install Aptik from a third-party repository, but when I looked up using Software manager, it was listed there, so I want other users to have an idea on whether I’d recommend -or not- an application from outside the official repository. Let’s make the Software Manager great again, it won’t let me review anything (from the repository or out of it) without complaining about my username, even though my credential is correct (I use the exact same username and password to log in to linuxmint.com). This is all for now. Thanks.

  80. @Clem #98

    Thank you for your Edit.

    “Multiple clocks” did not make it in 18.1; please implement “multiple clocks” to make it in 18.2.

    Perhaps another solution for code reuse is porting (or whatever the correct word is) the GNOME “multiple clocks” feature into Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon?

    Thank you

  81. Clem,
    Look at it with affection, linux / Mint Cinnamon and Lindo, even more so with the old windows XP, opening several windows of the same icon, do the same as windows7, Ubuntu Unity, which opens the windows on the icon itself.

  82. Had to rollback to 17.1 xfce from 18.x (and 17.3). They kept freezing with a celeron j1900 system . Perfectly stable now.

  83. @87
    I can report that Mint 18.1 MATE can operate with stable kernels up to 4.10.0-20 on my latest (bleeding edge) rig. Unfortunately, the live DVD/USB that I’ve been seeding for months used for the install cannot properly deal with my Asus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti; Driver Manager denies all knowledge; and the newer kernels do not change this behavior.

    I’m hoping that 18.2 will contain whatever is needed to get up to date on nVidia GPUs. (And please note that AMD Vega GPUs are coming soon.)

  84. Question was asked on why I’m looking for LMDE3, maybe the answer is
    that I’m looking for 4.10/4.11.As KirbySmith noted in #105, I’m looking
    to do a major hardware refresh to a T7-1800 and a GTX1080 or later,
    just don’t think all that is going to be happy with 3.16.4.

  85. Thank you Clem
    For the long awaited Desktop grid
    I can now use mint cinnamon as well.
    When the Mate version will get that.

    Dippy

  86. I’m testing mate 1.18 on 18.1 (editing repos) and is really fantastic, the mintmenu now look very modern, can’t wait for 18.2 final version

  87. I should mention that this PM an apt-get update led to finding a more recent nvidia driver using synaptic. The display is now normal resolution, and I can demo Unigine Valley and Heaven at a much higher frame rate than this PC can manage that I’m typing on. The nVidia control panel can be installed from synaptic. There is still no sign of the Driver Manager recognizing that a proprietary driver has been insinuated into the system.

    A licensing issue between kernel number and driver number may have some effect at the 4.11 level, I have read.

    The issue for 3.16.4 et al, is how does one find out that a particular technology’s supporting code has been flowed back to the earlier kernels? I haven’t been able to penetrate kernel.org sufficiently to discover how.

  88. Debian Stretch has and will have kernel 4.9. Same goes for the backports repo of Debian Jessie. Therefore, no 4.10 or 4.11 kernel in LMDE 3 (or LMDE 2, if you enable the backports repo).

  89. Well, someday after Debian Stretch release, there will be the backports repo for it, and newer kernels might get there. But it’s not known when it will happen.

  90. Thanks to kubuntu people – they’ve made possible to upgrade to Plasma 5.8.6 on Linux Mint KDE 18.1 with ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports-landing
    It looks running ok.

  91. Today the updates had already a version of Firefox 53.0.2 tagged Sonya. Isn’t she entering the catwalk a little bit too early? Linux Mint is amazing!

  92. @Clem
    any now progress on the LMDE Mate 1.18.0 update repairs?
    toolbars are still broken… 1. no drag and drop of files, 2. making launchers it still freezes and requires a forced reboot.
    thanks

    Edit by Clem: We’ve got a bunch of 1.18.x updates on the way.

  93. @110 A helpful comment on the Mint Forum suggesting the addition of the Video Test Repository PPA (ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa) provided additional options; this led to a modern enough driver appearing on Synaptic that Driver Manager started recognizing that a proprietary driver was in use and offered up more. I’m presently successfully running 381.09; it recognizes the recent (March 2 anouncement I think) GeForce 1080 Ti.

  94. @Clem and the Team – Please, please, please… in Sonya set mumlock-on at login by default. It’s beyond me why it has to override the BIOS setting, and who would want double arrow keys on a keyboard anyway?
    Or at least, please include numlockx in the distro. Thanks!.

    @Mensky, try to type mdm in the search menu, select Login Window, put your password, and then select option. There, if you have installed numlockx and if this is set as [numlockx on] there will be a tick to put beside “Enable NumLock”

  95. Thanks @Monsta, didn’t realise that.
    Doesn’t the SDDM have any settings of some sort, though?

    So, what I was saying at the beginning of my comment stands even more true: why not enabling it by default, or leaving it up to the BIOS or UEFI? Whoever is bothered by it can then take it off.

    In other words, I wouldn’t care if my computer had Bluetooth switched on and drivers installed by default if I didn’t have any BT device, but if I had BT devices and had to struggle to make BT work would be quite a bummer…
    I see this as the same situation.

  96. Hey Clem,

    Quand tu dis que Mint va apparaître sur un pc d’Elliot dans la saison 3 de Mr.Robot, c’est uniquement 1 fois ds le 1er épisode ou il utilisera Mint d’une façon générale sur toute la saison 3 sur son pc pour hacker ?

  97. 1)
    @ Luca–
    “…I wouldn’t care if my computer had Bluetooth switched on and drivers installed by default if I didn’t have any BT device…”.
    You need to re-think your position. I maintain that, if you’re like most users, you will care very much once you discover how much power is consumed by the Bluetooth transmitter. Unless, of course, you don’t mind a shorter battery life.
    2)
    Something’s wrong–
    Until Mint 18, I can’t–and don’t–remember a list of “paper cuts” as long and as serious as Mint 18 has, and is generating. This fact is not lost on independent, objective reviewers, either.
    Some of these papercuts seem to require stitches.
    Looks like Mint 17.3 will be the right choice for a long time…

  98. @jimmike

    I use a desktop, no batteries to be worried about 🙂
    But it was just an example…
    Let’s say that I see now as the installation is forcing Caps Lock enabled no matter what, and that you had to download a hypothetical “CapsLockx” to disable it; moreover, there would be an hidden passage to activate it, because [CapsLockx off] alone wouldn’t be implemented otherwise.
    I think this is a better example, maybe. 🙂

  99. Hi, Using 18.1 with the current 4.10 kernel and the current Nvidia driver with my GT730, AMD Athlon quad core 3Ghz CPU with 16gb RAM on a Crucial MX300 1tb. The 4.10 kernel has been very stable for me and the colors/video quality when streaming or gaming quite stunning – not as good as the 4.4 series kernel, but overall performance with the 4.4 series was much faster on this same hardware, and I’m still having random Nemo/Cinnamon crashes and thumbnail errors when copying or moving files around my three internal drives or various external drives.
    Some of the degradation in performance might be the Nvidia driver defaulting to power mizer. I can change it to max performance but that setting is lost when rebooting, haven’t been able to make it persistent. Yet.

  100. When will the beta release of Sonya be published? Now ? At the end of May ? Early June ?

    And LMDE 3 ? Debian 9 Stretch is already stable and usable : You can take it out before summer !

  101. Great news team!

    Hope the greeter resolution will not live its own life (will stay as saved in system settings).

    And I wouldn’t mind for a out-of-the-box fix when changing the cursor theme to stay applied system-wide. For now I have to manually edit the “/usr/share/icons/default/index.theme” and put there “Inherits=Name of the cursor theme” each time I change it. Otherwise, in some apps and windows it changes to the default one.

  102. I have been using LM for the last 3 years. My hdd recently gave in and I replaced it with another second hand drive. Did a clean install of LM 18.1 Cinnamon but it just wont connect to the internet via wired connection. It shows it has a network driver for Intel but nothing works. Apt cache corrupted. Driver Manager just keeps running.
    Please help?!

  103. …and as this morning I had the necessity to use it in my freshly reinstalled system that obviously didn’t have it working by default :/ : REISUB.
    I still don’t understand why sysrq-ralt isn’t available as standard, I wonder what was thinking the person who had the idea to take it off, but hey…
    it would be nice having it back, please 🙂

  104. @ Clem #119
    we have gotten about 30 updates since the 12th… none have helped my problems with LMDE Mate 1.18.0
    toolbars are still broken… 1. no drag and drop of files, 2. making launchers still freezes the toolbar and requires a forced reboot.
    thanks

  105. A big fan and User rather than Geek since MintDaryna I can see that the latest Comments are relatively free of MicroSoft disciple sabotage.
    I also reckon that any new Mintbox could well lose all advantage due to terrorist new bomb threat legislation that prevents air transport unlike BrucesWay thumbnail size devices that are too small, yet are now capable of also including large amounts of highly transportable data. That data effectiveness is further amplified by much more efficient Linux code.
    Meanwhile although quite content with MintSerenalMATE64 I am looking forward to MintSonya.

  106. When USB memory sticks are inserted into:
    1. Windows 8.1 (then safety removed), then
    2. Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon (then ejected), and then
    3. Windows 8.1, the following message shows:
    “There’s a problem with this drive. Scan the drive now and fix it.”

    What is Linux Mint doing to USB memory sticks to cause this message to occur on Windows 8.1?

    Thank you

  107. @Óvári : It is also possible that Win8.1 is modifying the memory stick at “safelty” removing the stick or Linux Mint has installed .trash (hidden file). Showing the hidden files may reveal the issue.

  108. I’ve always noticed the “scan the drive now and fix it” when using my USB key in my wife’s pc, before W8.1, and now W10. I honestly have never paid much attention to it, but I’ll try to make the .Trash-1000 file visible, and see what happens. Thanks BernardDecock

  109. Back at Linux again!

    Just wiped out W10 from my Notebook yesterday and installed Linux Mint 18.1. This Notebook runs really fast right now. Was a good decision. 🙂

  110. Note: these comments will be auto-closed soon as three weeks have passed.
    Please use the forums guys. 🙂

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