Monthly News – April 2018

Before anything else, let’s thank all the people who contribute to this project. Many people do, in very different ways. Special thanks to our donors to our “silent friend” from Germany for the coffee! 🙂

Many thanks also to all the developers who interacted with us on Github lately. We’ve seen a lot of new faces and very cool contributions. A slack team was recently set up to improve communication between new developers and the development team.

We’re currently working on a few different things:

  • A lot of work is dedicated to adapting to the Debian Stretch and Ubuntu Bionic package bases, reviewing, re-applying or letting go of some of the fixes we had on the previous bases, monitoring and fixing new issues and reviewing new software and our default package selection. Other than a few issues we’ve yet to fix, everything looks really good so far. Both systems look smoother by the day as they get more and more stable. We’ve also reviewed and simplified some of our packaging, minimizing differences between LMDE and Mint and reducing the number of packages.
  • A part of the team is working on artwork. HiDPI improvements and GTK 3.22 support were implemented already. We’re improving icons, themes, support for symbolic icons and dark theme variants. As we’re switching to Mint-Y for the default theme, we’re also starting to look into providing color variations for it.
  • Cinnamon 3.8 was finalized. Its official release was slightly delayed because of a build issue in libnemoextension (which is used by xreader and some of the nemo extensions). We’re hoping to get this fixed and officially announce the release this week.
  • New features are still being implemented in the Mint tools. We’re focusing on the Update Manager, the Software Manager and the Welcome Screen in particular.
  • Although documentation efforts have slowed down since we published the Installation and Troubleshooting guides, we’re still planning to finish our Developer and Security guides before releasing Linux Mint 19.

We’re often asked when Linux Mint 19 or LMDE 3 will be released, what editions will be supported, and whether such or such changes affecting Ubuntu will also affect us. Here are a few elements of response:

  • We will release in this order: Cinnamon 3.8, Linux Mint 19, LMDE 3.
  • Linux Mint 19.x releases (19, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3) will be available in 3 editions (Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce), both in 32 and 64-bit.
  • LMDE 3 will be available in a single edition (Cinnamon), both in 32 and 64-bit.
  • Ubuntu ships with “ubuntu-report”, which collects metrics and usage data. This package won’t be present in Linux Mint, no data will be collected or sent.
  • In Ubuntu 18.04, support for home directory encryption was removed in the installer. Although it’s to soon to confirm whether or not this feature will stay, we’re working on it at the moment and we’re hoping to keep it.
  • The LMDE 3 installer will not get support for disk or home directory encryption.

In terms of timing, it’s hard to predict when things will be ready. If any issue is important enough not to release something, we won’t release it. Cinnamon 3.8 is very likely to be out this week though. We’re planning to release the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 19 at the same time as the Cinnamon and MATE editions. If everything goes smoothly, we should see the BETA releases in May, followed by the the stable releases 2 or 3 weeks later.

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
Community Sponsors:

Donations in March:

A total of $10,291 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 501 donors:

$305, High time to buy you guys some coffee! aka “A silent friend”
$218 (7th donation),
$200 (3rd donation), Scott G.
$150, Derek H.
$125, David S.
$109 (6th donation), Sten L.
$109 (2nd donation), Andreas M.
$109, Andrea S.
$109, Damien SMEJ
$100 (3rd donation), Urban R.
$100 (3rd donation), Jan S.
$100 (2nd donation), Ean P.
$100, Mark D.
$100, Bernd E.
$100, Clifton Hyatt
$100, Templar Consultancy Ltd.
$100, JR Gillard
$98, Stephan D.
$72 (2nd donation), Thomas Ö.
$71, François J.
$60, Justin D.
$54 (8th donation), Volker P.
$54 (4th donation), Derek L.
$54 (3rd donation), Iskar E.
$54 (3rd donation), Ashwin P.
$54 (2nd donation), David DeFebo aka “ SchweitzerFormula.com
$54 (2nd donation), Hilmar Klemm aka “Speedastir
$54 (2nd donation), Paolo B.
$54, Bruce J.
$54, Vladan Z.
$54, Thomas B. aka “Sprudel”
$54, www.xxl-groessen.de [Übergrößen & Überlängen]
$54, Klaus G.
$54, Johann G.
$54, Vnr J.
$54, Loeper M.
$54, Johannes O.
$52, GOLEM – Gruppo Operativo Linux Empoli aka “GOLEM
$50 (25th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (5th donation), Torben C.
$50 (3rd donation), Ian C.
$50 (2nd donation), Jovo S.
$50 (2nd donation), William C.
$50 (2nd donation), W. B. .
$50 (2nd donation), Dan R.
$50 (2nd donation), Paul C.
$50 (2nd donation), Alex G Doll Consulting Ltd
$50 (2nd donation), Jiayue Wang
$50, Omero P. C.
$50, David P.
$50, Dana S.
$50, Alan M.
$50, Tera P.
$50, Joe M. L.
$50, George F.
$50, Andrew K.
$50, Chhap Y. L.
$50, Roger B.
$50, Dustin B.
$50, Gary P.
$50, Todd W.
$50, Martin aka “MartyE(ME)
$50, P.J Douillard
$50, Mark B.
$50, Michael S.
$50, David W.
$50, Nicholas R.
$50, Robert K.
$45 (5th donation), Pavel B.
$45 (5th donation), Roberto O. L.
$44, Andrew M.
$44, Uwe W.
$40 (2nd donation), Ken D. V.
$40, Duane W.
$40, Greg S.
$33 (97th donation), Olli K.
$33 (2nd donation), Philippe A. aka “Philippe”
$33 (2nd donation), Christian Z. aka “CyboSan”
$33, Massimo R.
$33, Dominique D.
$30 (12th donation), Geoff P
$30, Rachel T.
$30, André D.
$30, aggie
$30, W G. M.
$30, Nicholas N.
$29, Alexander N.
$27 (3rd donation), Karel D. B.
$27 (3rd donation), Thorbjørn H.
$27, Marc J.
$27, J H.
$27, Klaus S.
$27, Alain P.
$27, Stephan G.
$27, Marco D.
$27, Nico R.
$27, Bruce B.
$27, John F.
$27, Holger R.
$27, Roger R.
$27, J H.
$26, Walter P.
$25 (80th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (37th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (21st donation), Larry J.
$25 (12th donation), Kwan L.
$25 (10th donation), Bill S.
$25 (4th donation), Michael G. aka “Vaughn”
$25 (3rd donation), B. H. .
$25 (3rd donation), Robert E.
$25 (2nd donation), Barbara B.
$25 (2nd donation), Chris Coyle
$25 (2nd donation), Steven S.
$25, Daniel S.
$25, Seth S.
$25, Gene P.
$25, Todd M. R.
$25, Richard H.
$25, Nakajima H.
$25, Timothy A.
$25, David B.
$25, Marlon H.
$25, George M.
$25, Brian P.
$25, Link R.
$25, D H.
$25, Douglas S.
$24, Rainer K.
$22 (14th donation), Derek R.
$22 (9th donation), Anthony M.
$22 (7th donation), Janne S.
$22 (3rd donation), Eric S.
$22 (3rd donation), Vytautas M.
$22 (2nd donation), Walter H.
$22 (2nd donation), Frank H.
$22 (2nd donation), Laurent G.
$22, Luke P.
$22, Gorazd G.
$22, Nicholas N.
$22, Matthias H.
$22, Gerardo P. S.
$22, John M.
$22, Carl-mathias W.
$22, Ivo L.
$22, Börje Å.
$22, Wim V.
$22, Thomas L.
$22, Davide Z.
$22, James F.
$22, Hayden P.
$22, Torsten B.
$22, Karl G.
$22, Juan M. O. C.
$22, Peter Huckle aka “Peter H.”
$22, Nikolaos L.
$22, Jochen G.
$22, Karol A.
$22, Mati V.
$21, Vladimirs A.
$20 (12th donation), Matsufuji H.
$20 (5th donation), Paul K.
$20 (4th donation), Pete E.
$20 (3rd donation), WL aka “blewtiga001”
$20 (2nd donation), Headphonesrepair.com
$20 (2nd donation), Harris Lowry Manton LLP
$20 (2nd donation), D. L. .
$20 (2nd donation), Keith M.
$20 (2nd donation), Jason P.
$20 (2nd donation), Allan M. aka “trini64”
$20 (2nd donation), Bob W.
$20 (2nd donation), Chap-liong O.
$20 (2nd donation), M. R. .
$20 (2nd donation), Damian C.
$20 (2nd donation), John D.
$20, Douglas Y.
$20, Harpreet S.
$20, Narom S.
$20, Shane W.
$20, Alex S.
$20, John M.
$20, Karen S.
$20, Dallas H.
$20, Jorge A.
$20, Niko O.
$20, Michael C.
$20, Bruce M.
$20, Leif F.
$20, Edmund S.
$20, Frode L.
$20, Emil H.
$20, David C.
$20, Samuel I.
$20, Greg K.
$20, Antonio M.
$19 (30th donation), Jt Spratley aka “Go Live Lively
$18.3 (13th donation), Anton W. aka “redant
$18.3 (12th donation), Anton W. aka “redant
$17, Пупкин В.
$16 (4th donation), Michael S.
$16 (3rd donation), Liviu B.
$16 (2nd donation), Thomas G.
$16, Charalampos S.
$16, Robert M.
$16, Christian B.
$16, Martin R.
$16, Jrh F.
$16, Jerome L.
$16, Christoph S.
$16, François T.
$16, Josef aka “Thesing
$16, Marcus F.
$15 (2nd donation), Benoit L.
$15, Darci M. F.
$15, Carlos S.
$15, Evgenii K.
$15, Paulo D. R.
$15, Joseph R.
$13 (24th donation), Anonymous
$13 (9th donation), Ray
$13, Piotr S.
$12 (84th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (30th donation), JobsHiringnearMe
$12 (3rd donation), Stephen R.
$12, Frank L.
$11 (14th donation), Johann J.
$11 (9th donation), Queenvictoria
$11 (6th donation), Tomas S.
$11 (4th donation), Jonathan K.
$11 (4th donation), Gilles S.
$11 (4th donation), Laurent M aka “lolomeis”
$11 (4th donation), Jean-françois E. aka “Jeff
$11 (2nd donation), Hervé E.
$11 (2nd donation), Oliver E.
$11 (2nd donation), Herbert P.
$11 (2nd donation), John L.
$11 (2nd donation), Helmut K.
$11, Vittorio F.
$11, Arto V.
$11, Fiorelli A.
$11, Derrick L.
$11, Nikolas S.
$11, FC Bayern fan club Thessaloniki Greece
$11, Luca D.
$11, Gregor E.
$11, Mark L.
$11, Paul B. L.
$11, Madars V.
$11, Gilles G.
$11, Romeu G.
$11, Dieter S.
$11, Thomas L.
$11, Norbert V.
$11, Dominic M.
$11, Rene R.
$11, Dimitrios T. aka “mpoulieris
$11, Alexander P.
$11, Samuele B.
$11, Stefan B.
$11, Charles L.
$11, Tomas H.
$11, Jerrel A.
$11, Björn M.
$11, Gabor S.
$11, Christian B.
$11, Cezary F.
$11, John Y.
$11, Marcos C.
$11, Guido S.
$11, Juan M.
$11, Kévin L.
$11, Mauro R.
$11, Peter B.
$11, Maximilian Ast
$11, aka “Bohemond”
$11, Fernando S. L.
$11, Klaus H.
$10 (28th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (19th donation), Paul O.
$10 (19th donation), Frank K.
$10 (16th donation), Jim A.
$10 (13th donation), Aliki K.
$10 (13th donation), Alessandro S.
$10 (11th donation), Rick R.
$10 (11th donation), Dmitry P.
$10 (9th donation), Andre Cardoso
$10 (8th donation), Andre Cardoso
$10 (6th donation), hotelsnearbyme.net
$10 (5th donation), Thomas D. Y.
$10 (4th donation), Lance M.
$10 (4th donation), John J. aka “Sankaty”
$10 (3rd donation), aka “Cachafaz”
$10 (3rd donation), Stephan G.
$10 (3rd donation), Roland H. aka “rol4dawgs
$10 (3rd donation), James H.
$10 (3rd donation), Luigi D.
$10 (3rd donation), S. Falcão aka “S. Falcao”
$10 (2nd donation), Roger S.
$10 (2nd donation), Aaron S.
$10 (2nd donation), William S.
$10 (2nd donation), Cedric H.
$10 (2nd donation), G. G. .
$10 (2nd donation), Shawn L. aka “Friendship is Magic!”
$10 (2nd donation), Gary E.
$10 (2nd donation), D. H. .
$10 (2nd donation), Z. K. .
$10 (2nd donation), Jonathan. H
$10 (2nd donation), Nicolas D.
$10 (2nd donation), Mariano E.
$10 (2nd donation), Mohamed A.
$10 (2nd donation), Ключников С.
$10, Joao K.
$10, Robert F.
$10, nakednorman
$10, Nigel J.
$10, Бударин А.
$10, Mário V.
$10, Andrew C.
$10, Critic Thoughts
$10, John M.
$10, Hugo P. C.
$10, Leslie P.
$10, anonimous
$10, Jack S.
$10, Gordon M.
$10, Michael D.
$10, Sávio Rodrigues
$10, Thomas A.
$10, David J.
$10, Dale C.
$10, Peter B.
$10, Patrick H.
$10, Pieter W.
$10, Ramon M. L.
$10, Thomas G.
$10, Lisa P.
$10, Rodney W.
$10, Jérôme A.
$10, Judith L.
$10, Muhtashim A.
$10, Jaime H. V.
$10, Brett G.
$10, Peter A.
$10, James H.
$10, John W.
$9.23, Maziar D.
$9, Bart K.
$8 (15th donation), Kouji Sugibayashi
$8 (3rd donation), Ian C.
$8 (2nd donation), Suraj S.
$8, Jim A.
$7.75, Tim P.
$7, Martin B.
$5 (22nd donation), Eugene T.
$5 (14th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (14th donation), Kouji Sugibayashi
$5 (8th donation), Hemant Patel
$5 (5th donation), Ronny G. aka “127.o.o.1”
$5 (4th donation), Joseph G.
$5 (4th donation), Marcelo S.
$5 (4th donation), Danial B.
$5 (3rd donation), Arkādijs S.
$5 (3rd donation), Nenad G.
$5 (3rd donation), Jason N. aka “IggyNelix”
$5 (3rd donation), Jozo M.
$5 (2nd donation), Jan F.
$5 (2nd donation), Sávio Rodrigues
$5 (2nd donation), Emilot Margus aka “Emilot
$5 (2nd donation), Marek A.
$5 (2nd donation), Jan Miszura
$5 (2nd donation), Z. F. .
$5 (2nd donation), James H.
$5, Tom’s E-Store
$5, Kannan M.
$5, Dimitri V.
$5, Robert L.
$5, Michail V.
$5, Cecilia B.
$5, Brody A.
$5, Gunnar O.
$5, Jay H.
$5, Alexandru H.
$5, Victor J. C. C.
$5, Bolshakov P.
$5, Caio C. M.
$5, Leigh E.
$5, Stuart B.
$5, Michael C.
$5, O. Rönn
$5, Gernot K.
$5, Jean P. S. Costa
$5, Dariusz B.
$5, Daniel J.
$5, Laurent D.
$5, David G.
$5, James H.
$5, Hector G. aka “Business Intelligence and Analytics
$5, Turgut Uyar
$5, Baptiste G.
$5, Max H.
$5, Tom H.
$5, Alpine A.
$5, Vanessa F.
$5, Tree Removal aka “Tree Care
$5, Kevin T.
$5, Julio C. B. Monqueiro aka “juliomonq
$5, Auctior Ltd
$5, Peter N.
$5, Le M.
$5, Carmen M.
$5, Gabriel R. G.
$5, Luke W.
$5, Sunil B.
$5, Mikko H.
$5, Mark F.
$5, David F.
$5, Dmitry aka “holeech”
$5, G S.
$5, Alessandro C.
$5, Ying Z.
$4 (7th donation), Laura NL aka “lauranl
$4, Alex L.
$4, Bastianino G. F.
$4,
$3.45 (17th donation), Paul B. aka “Dude
$3 (8th donation), demi pension cheval
$3, Holger L.
$3, Jürgen L.
$3, Szymon B.
$3, Takatosi A.
$3, Luís P. S. B. D. S.
$2.22, Chris J.
$2.11, Noah Z.
$82.95 from 69 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 2870 (1st)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 3389

142 comments

  1. It would be great if the update manager also checks for updates of applets, cinnamon themes and extensions.
    As of now we have to manually refresh the cache to check for updates.

    1. This is a great suggestion.
      Maybe a bit late for this release, but definitely worth taking note.

    2. That would be something i think would work best as a tick-box enabled option… Or if it detected what desktop you were using… That way if your using XFCE or KDE the update manager wont try to “update” cinnamon 😀

    1. I’m using Mint 18.3 with a Rzyen 7 1700X and an RX 550 and everything works out of the box.
      I even play DiRT, Tomb Raider, CS GO, DOTA2, etc.
      Everything works fine, out of the box!…
      So maybe you’re using a really old GPU?…

    2. The kernel supports all open-source drivers including amdgpu. AMD supports a proprietary driver called amdgpupro, but not for all chipsets, and they currently only package it for Ubuntu 16.04 and RHEL.

    3. No, sorry, I’m using the RX550…. but which open source driver and where did you get it from?

    4. I use the default driver. Didn’t need to install anything…
      Maybe something with your CPU/motherboard?

    5. I had a problem with the MSI RX 560 4GB OC card i had… Kept getting aritfacting in any distro i tried… Might want to return the card if your having a similar problem. I decided to spend slightly more and bought a Geforce GTX 1050 ti OC, which works perfectly.

  2. I’m looking forward to the LMDE 3 release because despite the fanfare for the Ubuntu 18.04 options, I’ve become a bit wary of Ubuntu and the whims of Mark Shuttleworth recently. I’m enjoying Mint 18.3 (Xfce – it has a nice lightness and speed) and could probably live with Mint 19, I think Im more comfortable with cutting Ubuntu out of the chain. I tried LMDE 2 and liked it, but it was just a tad too far behind. If only you could do an LMDE based on Testing, but I guess your main focus will remain with the stability of Stretch.

  3. Hi Linux Mint team,

    Thanks for the news.

    Glad to hear that there will be no ‘spies tools’ in Mint 19.

    I didn’t get any answers to my questions in my comment in the news of March. These question were :

    1. Ubuntu 18.04 introduces a minimal installation option in the Ubuntu installer (see point 3 here : https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-18-04-release-features/). Is Linux Mint 19 will also include that option in the Mint installer ?

    2. Is the upgrade from Mint 18.x to Mint 19 will be easily (without breaking the actual system) ?

    Thanks.

    1. Hi Dupo,

      1. No, this won’t supported.
      2. It should be easy and not break your system, as you put it. We’re planning to ensure your set up your Timeshift snapshots before letting you upgrade though, so if something breaks, whatever it is, you’ll have the option to recover your system by restoring your previous snapshot.

  4. Good update, I’m sure the clarity will be appreciated.
    Reducing the number of packages in LMDE3 and keeping it as close to base Debian as possibly will hopefully help with maintenance and reduce the workload when LMDE4 comes around. I see there are three KDE packages in the Cindy repo, so removing those should be an easy win. I hope the dmo repo won’t feature this time around, and that Flash won’t be part of the default install for LMDE3.

  5. Encryption of data is more important than ever. Why are we in danger of losing home directory encryption, and why no LMDE full disk encryption?

    1. It has to do with an issue with systemd and the home directory not being umounted (thus staying accessible to other users) when the user logs out. It’s not the only reason though. There also are worries about ecrypts maintenance and the fact that full disk encryption provides better performance than home directory encryption. We’re looking into it at the moment, many people can’t use full disk encryption so removing home directory encryption, whatever the cons might be, isn’t ideal.

      On the LMDE side, it’s down to resources and focus.

    2. Yet another reason to have a Devuan based version of Mint. Debian took the systemd poison pill..

  6. Besides Cinammon, MATE and Xfce, are you considering for the future a DEEPIN desktop environment too? That would be great! Thank you for your hard work.

    1. You could install it manually maybe. I use mint from a budgie desktop. Appreciate the power of Linux!!

  7. I hope the font rendering is finally fixed in Cinnamon 3.8. Comparing the crisper font rendering of MATE and XFCE it’s night and day. There is something up with the rendering mechanism there, if you screen shot Nemo and zoom in close you can see odd ball red/purple fringing even with pretty much any setting altered ( i.e it’s not the monitor it’s the desktop rendering itself ) I have shared the image and others have seen the same thing.
    XFCE, MATE, Gnome, budgie do not do this it gives the font’s a kind of fuzzy look.

    +1 @Ketan on integrating updates or at least notifiying for selective updates with applets,desklets, extensions would be great. At the moment id imagine most people don’t remember to periodically check in each specific update section. If you think about it cinnamon has 4 separate update managers of a kind .. 😐 confusing.

    +1 @Andriod4 Encryption is kind of essential for a lot of people, although im not sure why home drive encryption is required if you have full disc, apart from home encryption being slower than full disc is there any other day-to-day security improvement ?

    Looking forward to 19 , keep up the great work 🙂

    1. The advantage of Home directory encryption is that it protects the normal user’s data from other users who are on the system (by whatever means), even if access privilege control fails or is compromised. It protects data from root (or someone pretending to be root.)

    1. Yes it crashes and freezes on me a least 2-3 times a week. Requiring a push the power restart. Sometime I get frustrated and boot mint in mate or xfce for a few days. I always end up rebooting cinnamon again because I love it. I will do a clean install of LM19 and hope for the best. When 19 comes out I will be installing a new hybrid ssd and a new Bd/dvd/cd/player/burner. Question: What is the best software for ripping and burning Blurays in LM. Will LM 19 see my new burner or is there some software I need to install. It is made by pioneer.

  8. > A part of the team is working on artwork. HiDPI improvements and GTK 3.22 support were implemented already. We’re improving icons, themes, support for symbolic icons and dark theme variants. As we’re switching to Mint-Y for the default theme, we’re also starting to look into providing color variations for it.

    Finally I can install some good GTK 3.20 and up themes now!

    > Ubuntu ships with “ubuntu-report”, which collects metrics and usage data. This package won’t be present in Linux Mint, no data will be collected or sent.

    Good choice to not include data metrics imo.

    Thank you.

  9. Question to ponder:
    Is it worth to have Cinnamon 32 bit version? Or even MATE?
    I understand XFCE, because it’s meant for lower end hardware.
    But if your machine only supports 32 bit, and you want to run Cinnamon in it, you might have a hard time…

    1. Answer: A real example: This one is an HP pavilion dv4000 (EK970EA#AB8) laptop (purchased at the end of 2005), with 2GB Ram (at its max possible) and 1.73 GHz Pentium M (Single Core) Cpu.. And from the day I met Linux (for about 2 years), there’s L. Mint Cinnamon on it, so happy without any problems.. So that, later I installed the same on my neighbour’s old Asus Eee mini laptop with only 1GHz Cpu and 512MB Ram.. no problems.. they’re happy, too 🙂

  10. I have 32 bit MATE on an old (20 year?) Gateway laptop and it works just fine —- prolly better than the Trusty 32bit that it replaced

  11. I’m new to Linux. I’ve tried it a couple time in the distant past but always had problems getting everything to work. I recently saw a youtube video of someone talking about Linux Mint. On a day off work, I decided to try it. I am blown away by how good it is. I am amazed by how polished it feels. I have it installed on an Alienware Alpha i3. Everything works. I want to say “Thank You” to those working this Distro. This is the first time I’ve ever tried the OS and felt I could make it my full-time OS.

  12. I’ve been hoping for Mint-Y color variation. Does that mean, in Preferences > Themes, choosing: Aqua, Blue, Brown, Grey, Red, Orange, Pink, Purple, Sand, Teal, Yellow?

    1. Eventually that would be the plan. Don’t know about for Mint19 though. Upgrading the themes for compatibility with gtk3.22 has already proven to be a good deal of work. Not sure we should throw that on top until we know the theme is well tested and solid.

  13. Hi,
    Thanks for all the good news, Mint team don’t seem to be sleeping 🙂
    Since the topic of theming has been talked about, I have a few questions. Will you add more colour to the default theme? Green, grey and white are a good mix but it lacks energy, joy and vitality, especially when you compare it to theming in some other modern distros. Other questions: will you make icons in apps bigger and margins in some menus and apps thinner? Thick margins take quite some space on the screen that could be used for something else. But perhaps the current state of affairs is imposed on the system by Gtk though… I’ve been around Linux for a few months and do not always know whether a question is trivial or not.
    Best wishes!

    1. We are always welcome to suggestions. Just bear in mind that sometimes we won’t use them 🙂

      Do you have screenshots or something of the margins and icons you are talking about?

  14. Btw: it would be very positive for intel users if this bug https://github.com/linuxmint/mintdrivers/issues/43 could be addressed in Linux Mint 19. It is just a new file that has to be created for (some/all?) intel GPUs by the driver manager. There is no comparison between the snappiness of a system with the fix applied and one without it – at least under Cinnamon.

  15. It’s been good to see some thought given to the default themes and some quality control over the various third-party themes. I’ve long thought Mint could do much better for new users than the 1990s looking DMZ and Adwaita Mouse Pointers, that look just old (derelict old, not quaint and charming old) on the screen in a field of updated theme elements. Adding a decent package of pointers is a nuisance aspect of installing any new Mint, and I’m still looking for a good “inverted” mouse pointer, readily available for Windows.

  16. There are alot of maintenance caveats that new users don’t grasp when dealing with encryption. Such as backing up their data because it could be gone tomorrow when windows blows away their bootloader. I’m glad you are holding back on that, either via /home or full disk. It’s a nice security idea, but if it’s implemented, it should be an advanced/hidden option. I see too many newbs frag their data simply because they have no clue how delicate encryption is or how to keep from destroying their system.

    1. Not easily done with a laptop or if you’re using bitlocker, but if you have a regular desktop consider a completely separate HDD or SSD for your Windows install. In that way W10 thinks it’s the boot boss, but point your bios to boot to grub on the Linux drive so the next W10 update (and the one after that, and the one after that) can’t bork your MBR/Grub etc.

  17. Thanks for the great Work.
    I’m Wondering if there are any Improvements on the backup tool? especially in the Software section?
    Thanks

  18. Thanks for the updates, and great to hear of all the fabulous work going on at Mint. We’ve no doubts that Mint 19 will be a fantastic OS, and I can’t wait to see it. I’m currently running Ubuntu 18.04 on a work machine, and it all seems solid, though I still find the Gnome desktop slightly annoying. So to have Mint + Cinnamon built on top of this shiny new base will be superb. I think I’m going to get some of my work colleagues onto Cinnamon too.

    Meanwhile, I would love to have the option to create a LUKS-encrypted home partition in the Mint installer, if this is still the ‘best way’ to do it. I wonder why Ubuntu dropped the encryption option (I didn’t notice that when I installed)?

  19. Could you try to keep resources even lower on the new release.
    I really want Linux Mint to be even more efficient and lighter than it is.

    Thank You.

  20. Hello

    > In Ubuntu 18.04, support for home directory encryption was removed in the installer. Although it’s to soon to confirm whether or not this feature will stay, we’re working on it at the moment and we’re hoping to keep it.

    If you were to remove if, then what about if one is using home directory encryption *already*? Mint 19 is not going to *break* that, is it?

  21. 请在中国开一个银行账户或者 支付宝、微信账户,我们可以赞助RMB.

    1. Please open a bank account or Alipay and WeChat account in China, we can sponsor RMB

  22. Ce serait bien de bloquer l’affichage de la notification de batterie insuffisante, car si on est pas devant son PC, on peut passer à côté de la notification.

    1. Je veux dire que la notification ne disparaisse pas, sauf en cliquant dessus ou en branchant la batterie.

  23. Thanks again to the Mint team for making Linux Mint available.

    I’d like to request (again!) that the Update Manager report when an upgrade from XX.Y to XX.Z is available. Not many users will look at the “Edit” menu to see that. The existing process simply gives the normal text, “Your system is up to date.”. It would be handy, when a new version is available, if it added something like, “However, version XX.Z is available. Click the “Edit” menu to upgrade.”

  24. Switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon a week and a half ago. My impression – BEST OS THERE IS! Question – can you add an option during installation to choose which apps user wants to install, or at least some that are not so necessary (like Pidgin, HexChat and Transmission)? Keep up the good work.

    1. Same for Language Packs. If I choose English and an English keyboard there’s no need to download and install every other language pack which makes installs excruciatingly slow. I get some folks are multi-lingual or live in a country other than their native language, so at least make at an option in case folks need to switch back and forth for work/play. Mint and Ubuntu don’t do this anymore but previous versions fought me constantly, failing to respect my language settings (the OS, browsers, calendar, clock, keyboard, spell check dictionary etc) because my IP address wasn’t an English speaking country. Thankfully that’s fixed. Except for Opera. No easy way to change my default search engine to Google.com/ncr.

  25. Dear Linux Mint Team,

    thanks for the news and for your great work!

    I have one request for Linux Mint 19:
    When I safe a file in Mint 18 in any software (for example Thunderbird or LibreOffice), the file name is marked and I can write a new file name . When I first change the directory, the file name has to be marked again to rename it. If you click there three times, also the file type (.pdf oder .odt) will be marked. It woul be great, if the file would be marked even if you change the directory and you don’t have to write the file type again. Is it possible for Linux Mint 19?

    Thanks and best wishes from Germany,
    Jakob

    1. I am experiencing this issue too. Whenever I get to save a new file from Text Editor xed or Libre Office, the dialog box offers me to change the highlighted unnamed title filename but I instead end up typing over the file type or extension. It’s becoming an odd annoyance, however minor. But I can live with it and just choose to be more aware of it. 🙂 I do hope to see this fixed though.

      On another matter, thank you for the updates on this blog and I truly appreciate the list of donors. I am now inspired to donate as well as I already have two laptops on Mint Mate and my office desktop running an almost exclusive Mint Mate on virtual machine (office policy prevents me from replacing the host OS that periodically raises my blood pressure).

    2. This isn’t actually our doing or really up to us. The file save dialogs are provided by Gtk, the toolkit we use for the UI. It would need to be changed there.

    1. I asked that question some time ago. The response was that Segfault was dropped and development news will be announced in this blog.

  26. “This package won’t be present in Linux Mint, no data will be collected or sent.”
    Thanks for putting a clear answer to this and taking the right decision!
    Still, if I’ll ever install a new version of Linux Mint, I will most likely go with the Debian version just to be sure.

    For now, on my laptop, I had to delete Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon, which was mostly unusable for long term because Cinnamon would freeze on every few minutes (known unsolved bug for users with nvidia GPUs and nouveau driver on your Github account).
    And I installed Kubuntu 18.04 because of the many features of KDE Plasma, its performance, and most importantly, it doesn’t freeze, making you lose all the open programs.
    I find KDE Plasma 5.12 awesome and the 5.13, which will be released in the following months will be even better.
    Too bad you decided to drop it right now, I could’ve still used LM if you still had this edition.
    Maybe one day you’ll realize how good KDE has become in the last years and that it’s worth the extra effort to have it and you’ll add it back or maybe release only the Cinnamon and KDE editions instead of all.
    Until then, I’ll have to say good bye and good luck to you!

  27. Why linux mint 18.3 mate havent a zoom.
    I can use it in my classroom for teaching
    Please add this in the next realizes.

    1. Does this do what you mean?

      In Control Panel:
      Desktop Settings|Windows|Compiz
      CompizConfig Settings Manager|
      Select Enhanced Zoom Desktop then enter that.
      Zoom IN/Out:
      Zoom In Button: Button 4 [scroll wheel]
      Zoom Out Button: Button 5 [scroll wheel]
      (Others disabled)
      Mouse Behaviour: Pan Area

  28. “.. we’re also starting to look into providing color variations for it..”
    You folks warm my heart. 😉 When I win the lottery, I will be sure to send you a million. 🙂
    Thank you, thank you!

    1. Mint-X will also still be there and has been reworked to support gtk3.22. So you still have color variations that way.

  29. I’m using Ryzen 1500X with Radeon RX460 and Linux Mint 18.3 runs almost perfectly. One issue was I have to disable rtl8192cu to make my TP-Link USB dongle works.

    Can’t wait for next Linux Mint 19.

  30. Hey Linux Mint Team.
    I was wondering if you guys are gonna have the brisk menu in these releases?
    If so, may i suggest to modify it so that it is easier to change the menu icon on the panel, if using it.
    Just like with the advance mint menu. If you know what i mean.

    At times it is better to not give an exact time of release.
    It gives you more time to work out any bugs and glitches and
    you won’t feel too rushed to finish right away.

    i’ll be patient.
    Thanks guys for your hard work. 🙂

  31. Dear Linux Mint Team,
    My primary OS is Linux Mint Cinnamon since 3 years ago. And every new versions is better. I am concerned about one thing:
    In ver 17.x and 18.x the PPA of Infinality work well and font rendering is a great. I try to see what new is coming in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu-mate 18.04 and Kubuntu 18.04 and PPA of Infinality not worked at all. Can you include it in Linux Mint 19.x please? I always install it with:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:no1wantdthisname/ppa
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade
    sudo apt-get install fontconfig-infinality
    restart…
    sudo bash /etc/fonts/infinality/infctl.sh setstyle
    sudo -H xed /etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh
    Thank you very much.

    1. In Linux Mint 18.x, systemd was introduced, Linux Mint 19.x will only use systemd, so it has lost its meaning because it works under SysVinit (previously used or used upstart). Look at this and the changes as well.

      You can report a PPA bug to the developer of the application on LaunchPad, which is the primary method after registration. PPAs are made for Ubuntu, though they are usually used under Linux Mint.
      https://launchpad.net/~no1wantdthisname/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

      Or here:
      https://github.com/achaphiv/ppa-fonts/tree/master/ppa
      (Issues)

      But the setup and setting method is different than yours, you can see it.

  32. Well, good news!! Nice to see that you are still supporting and release an XFCE edition. Thank you very much!
    I have an old PC and Cinnamon is “too much” for it 🙂

  33. Looking forward to 19. Currently used 18.3 / kernel 4.17.0-041700rc3-lowlatency / nvidia 396.18. And favorite Kibojoe Linux 18.02RC5. The flight is excellent! Great respect for your project!

    1. Try the effect of the command:

      setxkbmap fr

      (for the French keyboard)

      The change is not permanent, it’s about a session.

    2. On a related note, why does Mint install ALL language packs when I specify English-US? Makes for an excruciatingly long install process for folks like myself who struggle to get 20MB downloads from our ISP. For me I have plenty of storage, but if you’re using a smaller SSD for the OS it can be an issue.

  34. Man, it’s too bad to see LMDE crippled without encryption, and with no Mate version. Cinnamon is great and all, but it really can’t compare to Mate/Compiz as I have it set up in Mint 18.3:

    https://youtu.be/fEUPGxMZL5U

    Mint is a great distro. It’s just really too bad we can’t have something like Mint with better roots, since Debian and Ubuntu have taken the systemd poison pill. And now besides all the Non-Unixy garbage of redhatness that is poisoning our OS, we have to deal with loss of vital features too. Aren’t you guys getting tired of the dirty back-room deals of your upstream? Debian and Ubuntu are both NSA crippled at this point, clearly (not just systemd, but probably several other subsystems as well), wouldn’t you be better off examining a more user-centric base that actually cares about freedom, liberty, and privacy?

    Mint is the best distro out that works “out of the box”. But I wish I could feel GOOD about installing it for my relatives, friends, and family, like I used to. I’ve been using an older version of LMDE 2 (pre systemd garbage), but it’s just not up to date enough anymore, and Devuan “out of the box” has me spending 20-30 minutes per install reconfiguring basic stuff like Fixing the panels, etc.

  35. So… will LM19 have better nVidia support? I have some pretty bad screen tearing, even when using the proprietary driver and using KDE’s force composition.

    1. I was testing the 390 driver in Ubuntu 18.04 and it gets rid of all the tearing and seems to be less fussing around with the Nvidia manager as well.

  36. Well, obviously as a KDEman I’ll be leaving, maybe back to my adored, but unstable mad mistress OpenSUSE [ it got really fugly modern the last few iterations, and I’m getting too old to endlessly change the desktop to decency every damn time I install something — just added work ].

    But, I am enormously grateful for the support for KDE up till now, and wish Mint only the best.

  37. Ubuntu 18.04 has greatly weakened the way Optimus graphics works, that is, laptops with Nvidia cards (just about any high end Lenovo, Dell, HP or gaming laptop). They have changed the method used to power off the Nvidia card. They are now using a kernel feature rather than the bbswitch module. This has terrible consequences: the kernel feature only works in the nouveau driver is used, so changing modes to intel-only now requires a rebuild of the initramfs and uninstalling nvidia, and then a reboot; this is pretty disruptive. Currently in Mint 18.3 the switch takes a second or too and a logout. Apart from being very slow, the new method which is a radical change is causing lots of problems with different types of hardware. Sometimes the nvidia card is not powered off. It’s too easy to end up with a laptop which can’t start the desktop.
    It is a very, very poor user experience. Optimus support was just starting to really go well, too.

    Why they did this I don’t know: Mint 18.3 is working fine with the latest nvidia driver and the HWE Edge kernel, both of which are at least as current as what Ubuntu 18.04 is shipping, so the current approach is not out of date, it seems.

    I hope the Mint team can somehow find a way to keep the old approach alive until there is something working well again in Ubuntu. I am now a refugee from Ubuntu because of this.

  38. Hi Clem,

    Wonderful news, as always. Will try to donate and do my bit when I can. Regarding “reviewing new software and our default package selection –

    I guess we discussed this elsewhere too. Wanted to suggest that we need a basic picture editing tool other than default GIMP which IMO is bit overwhelming for novice users. For simple tasks, say, editing a screenshot to add text, highlight a portion with a rectangle, etc, it would be good to have default tool like Pinta, KPaint (for KDE), etc without getting into layers.

    P.S. I <3 GIMP.

    1. As I recall we looked at Pinta one time in the past. At that point is was unstable. When testing it as a replacement it crashed on me quite a bit. A problem I don’t get with gimp. That was quite awhile back though.

    2. Anand,
      There are numerous threads about this such as:
      h t t p s:// forums . linuxmint . com/ viewtopic . php? t=259514
      h t t p s :// forums . linuxmint . com / viewtopic . php? t = 237230
      h t t p s :// forums . linuxmint . com/ viewtopic . php? t=225389
      h t t p s :// forums . linuxmint . com/ viewtopic . php? t=245550

      Personally, I found that KolourPaint4 was the only one user friendly application for picture editing..

    3. @ Joseph M- Thanks for clarifying. Maybe idea for new x-app 😛

      @ Gerry – Yes, remember using it too.

  39. Would it be possible to provide a “minimal install” option for the LM19 and LMDE3 editions, with just say the DE, mint tools and possibly xapps but nothing else?
    There are a few projects I have which don’t need all the applications installing, but would benefit from a stable base like LM19 or LMDE3.

  40. I just want to say thank you for your work on automated updates!

    Last month I wrote a very long comment to describe my misery. (Nobody in my family wants to click the update button and all mint systems around me are completely outdated every time I have a look at them …) When I saw in this news, that some work was done for mintupdate I immediately looked into the github project and realized that you obviously changed your mind about auto updates and you really put A LOT of work in it to implement this (in my opinion) very important feature. This was some days after my comment.
    I have no idea if it has to do with my writing but I’m so happy. I immediately transfered you 25€ by Paypal. (used other mail address for it)
    THANK YOU SO MUCH! I was so frustrated because of all the update unwilling people around me that I had already decided to switch them to an other linux distro. But now I’ll definitely wait for Mint 19 and all will be fine and safe again. 🙂

    1. Hi Roland,

      We’re driven by user feedback, it’s very important to us. We can’t always answer everybody but we do pay attention.

      Although the changes in the update manager definitely implement a new update strategy, the rationale hasn’t changed. We’re still fighting the same two issues:

      – Not upgrading anything is a security risk
      – Upgrading everything makes your computer prone to regressions

      What’s changed a lot since previous releases is that we’re now able to rely on a tool (Timeshift) which, although it doesn’t prevent regressions, is able to solve/cancel them, and not only that, but it’s easier to use than downgrading packages, or even than spending time in applying updates selectively or in isolation (this is something people are OK to do when troubleshooting but it’s tedious on a daily basis). Not only is this easier for users, it’s also easier for us to communicate about.

      You might have noticed the tool changed a lot in regards to this, going from a level-centric “be careful, go slow but do get it done anyway” approach to a “upgrade it all for security, if anything breaks your snapshots have you covered” approach. It’s a radical change.

      In the past it was very hard to implement automatic updates. Not technically, but because in the absence of safeguards against regressions, it’s just not something we could recommend to novice users… so it’s not something we wanted to make “easy”. This changed. In Mint 19, there are multiple places in the OS which will remind you to set up your system snapshots and will tell you why. With this in mind we’ll make the assumption that you’re covered against regressions, and that simplifies other things greatly.

    2. I’ve also noticed your work on Timeshift and I really appreciate it! I fully agree with you that the option to easily roll back a damaged system and applying updates regularly and without fear go hand in hand. So I understand your scepticism on auto updates. This was – for x years now – my biggest concerns when recommending Linux Mint (and every other Linux) to unexperienced people.

      My approach regarding my relatives systems was till today : “Its better I have to visit you to repair your (through update) broken system than you being hacked some time because of no updates…”

      The combination you created seems to be perfect for me and applying auto update functionality was just the last step on this long road. So Thank you so much for this work!

      I have one question: Will it be possible to install Mintupdate with auto-update functionality on Mint 18.3 in the future? I maintain some Notebooks that probably cannot take the step to “Ubuntu 18.04 based Mint” because of Problems with Nvidia-Intel dual graphics.

    3. Hi Roland,

      We can’t say, not yet anyway. What we’ve done though is prepare the ground for the possibility to backport mintupdate to previous releases, in an effort to simplify maintenance and have the same strategy across the different releases. We’ve made mintupdate ship its own translations for instance.

  41. Not sure if you guys still read the comments, but it’s still worth asking: have you considered creating a Mint-Y variation that removes all the… green? I know it’s a nitpick, but I can’t stand it all! I still use Arc, whose creator had vanished a year ago, so I’m not really sure if this will be compatible with Mint 19…

    Ideally, there would be a variation of Mint-Y that mirrored the original Arc color scheme, with the red close button and the blue everything else. I’m aware that there are other priorities that come before the Mint-Y color variations, but please do consider this for the future! It’s very important to me!!!

    1. If you read the other replies, you’ll see this is planned for the future 😉 Not a replication of Arc but other color variations.

  42. Hallo linux Mint Developers
    as I have posted before, I’m just a ‘Dumb User’ that does not like using ”W……….”. But I like Mint.
    I have one issue, however, that takes up quite a lot of update time. I use my system mainly as an extended typewriter and calculator with a little internetsurfing (Firefox) and eMail (Thunderbird) on the side. When being notified of updates, I get them all. Some I understand, some I do not. When I use the file manager to look at the system files I find that there are many that have not been used(!) ever. Would it not be possible to create a (basic) system in Mint, for people like me, which gives me the option of adding those additions (updates) that I really need? For example I do not need or use a terminal, I do not need any sort of text programme – Open office covers all my needs – etc etc. I realize that this may sound lazy, even childish, to you, and in no way do I intend to demean the work that the people at Mint do for all of us, but like I said – I only use the computer as a typewriter and calculator. Or would it be possible at the installation stage to chose which parts of Mint are to be installed – so that the installation programme can decide which packages are required and install them accordingly? It’s just a thought of mine, but as I’m still looking forward to the Mint Mini Pro Computer, I’m trying to get my priorities right before I install any software on it.

  43. Thanks for making the right decision regarding ubuntu-report. I’m shocked, SHOCKED that they would even include such a feature. This has absolutely no place in a Linux system. Likewise regarding removing encryption capability. Even though I don’t currently use encryption, I feel very strongly that the option needs to be there. What in the world are the folks at Ubuntu thinking. Keep a close eye on them, they are not to be trusted.

    1. Hi Jack,

      As far as we know, ubuntu-reports only gathers/sends metrics and usage data, not personal data. It’s something a lot of companies do and it can be used for valid reasons, just like surveys, to compliment feedback and improve the software. The opt-out can also be justified by the fact that some campaigns/ideas simply do not work if they don’t gather enough exposure.

      Now on our side, it’s pretty simple. First, it is not our role to criticize competing distributions. We don’t want you to use Linux Mint because you don’t like distro A or distro B, we want you to be here because you enjoy it. Second, we don’t need that data so it was never going to be included anyway.

    2. I tried to research ubuntu-report before posting and while it seemed “mostly harmless” I thought the level of documentation on GitHub was inadequate; specifically I would want a better description of exactly how it works, reporting frequency, etc. (e.g. does it run just once during installation or is there a daemon always running).

      I’d be much more likely to opt-in if the process were adequately explained first. I understand the difficulties in obtaining good survey data, but that and the nature of the data (personal or not) are simply no justification nor is the fact that a lot of companies do it; this is a philosophical issue. I just don’t expect any Linux system to collect and exfiltrate data of any type, for any reason, on an opt-out basis.

      Although I use a couple other distros to a lesser extent, Linux Mint is my favorite. One of the main reasons I use Linux is that its principles are different and it doesn’t (generally) engage in this type of foolishness. Again, I’m very glad the Mint team made the right decision on this, even if it may have been for other reasons. But this could well be a slippery slope and I’ll be very interested to see whether various distros engage in a trend of increasing data collection.

    1. Daniel, If you want to send me a new 64 bit capable computer every few years, please feel free to do so. Otherwise, keep your ridiculous remarks to yourself

    2. @Peter: I have to admit I’m a bit surprised/confused why anyone still supports 32-bit. Can you elaborate on your use case? I am genuinely quite curious…

    3. @Dave
      I am not Peter Jones, but I know of 2. I installed LMDE Mate on a ASUS eee, nearly 2 years ago and it was gifted, it is still in daily use. The other runs Debian on an ancient desktop at a local market, and it is used all day long for their cash register, and it prints the receipts then logs for the tax man.
      I am sure there are many others that live in an environment that you might call “marginal”.

    4. @Dave: Apart from using it for 32-bit-only hardware, it has reduced memory and disk footprint even on 64-bit capable hardware but with less than 3-4GB of RAM. And that’s only counting real hardware, which is not the only purpose.

      Virtual Machines (multiple) and containers are another example, especially if you want to run them directly from RAM (which means even disk footprint is important not just RAM usage, since now disk equals RAM).

    1. @Specs
      Thank you for your positive feedback (you maybe clicked wrong reply button?). 🙂

      Since previous post made improvements, test designs were raster based (created with GIMP 2.10), now completely remade as vectors (using Inkscape).

      @Linux Mint
      Do hope not treading on anyones toes by trying design ideas.

      Take care

  44. I want to start writing some code that reads the options I would choose in the installer from a configfile. It would be used to automate installations for systems with similar (but not exactly the same) hardware. (This code would be started with a extra option in grub).
    But I don’t want to reinvent the wheel , so just to check: Is anyone already working on this and where can I help ?

  45. I want to contribute something i think you all will like this
    i have took a copy of the Linuxmint 18 XFCE menu button logo and made several different color versions like mint-x red mint-x blue and versions to match every mint-x theme available in mint
    plus some others you can view and download them off of my safe site Linuxmint Showcase here is the address to view and download these logos feel free to use them anyway you want
    https://fredthreefeathers.wixsite.com/linuxmintshowcase/downloads
    these logos will work in any edition of mint i have tested them
    you need to resize your panel bigger than default to see the whole logo in order for these to work size 50 in XFCE and Mate
    i use XFCE and my moms computer runs Mate and we both use one of these new logos to match our themes the default green logo is nice but it does not match mint-x orange icons and possibly some other themes all these new logos should match most any theme there is for mint Take Care and Enjoy
    you people are awesome Thanks
    Sincerely Shawn

  46. > It has to do with an issue with systemd

    Didn’t you state, a few months before, that everyone loved the switch to systemd and all problems were solved? 😉

    Mint was very streamlined for different users in the past. It’s unfortunate that with the switch to systemd Mint just became “one more default systemd distribution”.

  47. Will Mint 19 be based on Ubuntu 18.04?

    If not, will it include Python 3.6 as its default Python3 install?

    1. Under Ubuntu 18.04:

      apt policy python3
      python3:
      Installed: 3.6.5-3
      Nominated: 3.6.5-3
      Table version:
      *** 3.6.5-3 500
      500 http://mirror.reismil.ch/ubuntu bionic / main amd64 Packages
      100 / var / lib / dpkg / status

      Linux Mint Plan (I just do not know but based on common sense … ;)):

      „- With the exception of Nemo extensions, all Python components were ported to Python3”

  48. Is there any chance that LM19 will be fully functional on a Surface3 (not pro)? I have acquired one that has 120gb HD with 4gb ram. The processor is the intel Atom.
    There have been a number of posts showcasing the shortcomings so far, but very little in the last 12 months. The main deficiencies seem to be no sound, inconsistent wifi, no rotation (to display files in portrait rather than landscape), no battery monitor – there are probably more. It would be great to lose W10 for good.
    I currently run a Dell Latitude D430 and love LM18.3 Mate, but have a need for tablet capability.

  49. Still for me the big issue is HIDPI support. I have a dual boot Dell XPS 13 but need a larger monitor for graphics work. I have a 1920 monitor that I can plug in for that but no amount of tweaking seems to fix the relative resolutions in Mint. I’m aware that this is a problem with X and Wayland may fix this in future but for now to my great regret I have to use W****** when I need to use a larger monitor.

  50. Hi all, I don’t know if other people are having this problem when using the 18.3 Xfce edition but when I boot up my desktop or laptop sometimes the bottom panel does not show. I have to use xfce4-panel –restart and it comes back. It happens on both a computer with proprietary graphics drivers and with open source drivers. AMD or Intel system it does not matter. Thanks!

    1. I also have this issue on two 18.3 XFCE laptops. I hit ctrl+alt+backspace and log back in until the bottom panel appears.

  51. I would like to suggest that Linux Mint move from Shotwell 22 (ancient) to Shotwell 28,3 (current). I have about 30K photos and Shotwell 22 is a problem. It consumes about 60% – 100% of one processor during Shotwell operation and its operation is embarrassingly slow. It is a zombie program too — it will not die after shutdown –continuing to use 60-100% of a cpu. KILL is only answer! I have used “apt-get purge” to get rid of the old shotwell and installed shotwell 28.3. NO problems with it! CPU usage is 5-10% most of the time and it dies when I shut it down! What a relief!

    1. I didn’t mention that I used the shotwell ppa to update shotwell to 28.3 It is easy to do, but many linux users may not know that they can add the shotwell ppa and so will have to live with the problems that I have endured and may decide that linux software is not very good…. SO, please update shotwell in the main repository.
      BTW, I have had the same experience with hugin, the panorama maker!! Please update hugin from 20015 to 2018

  52. I purchased the set of DVDs with the software repository from your link.
    The installation went ok but after updating the caches with Software Sources, I received the infamous ‘Hash sum mismatch’ error that left out some packages of the repos from the local installation.
    Investigating it, I found that the hash sums of the files ‘Packages’ and ‘Packages.gz’ didn’t match with the ones contained in the file Release. Actually also the file lengths didn’t match!
    Since I wish to buy other dvd sets i was wondering: have you fixed the problem or at least is it in schedule?
    I also tried to fix the wrong hashes and lengths in the ‘Release’ file but then the problem obviously shifted to the authentication gpg-key.
    Linux Mint conquered me totally. Keep up with this charm!!

  53. Hi. Is it possible to improve the way scanners and laser printers are installed – both locally through USB or through LAN connector and router? HP devices seem to work fine but others don’t. I have Konica – Minolta Bizhub and had a lot of troubles to install and configure it. The printer was easier but scanner much more difficult. With a smaller Brother device I had similar troubles. Can it be more user friendly – for ordinary people not for IT experts? Somebody could gather the drivers and software from manufacturers websites into one Linux website. I would recommend the rule: Make it simple, which means – for one device model and one Linux distro – only one fresh driver. Others options and older versions – direct people to a sub-page for advanced.
    When we instal this or other distribution of Linux, everything works fine – with graphic cards (there are many models and varieties), processors (Intel or AMD), sound cards. Despite this the installer can configure everything automatically with default settings based on a few only questions.

  54. During a fresh install of Linux Mint 19 ( 32 Bit) will there be an option as part of the install process to encrypt the full disk (whole HD) ?
    Thank you for a fine OS !

  55. Sirs,
    Any update when the new mint 19 beta will come out? I enjoy cinnamon 18.3 but am looking forward to 19 .

Leave a Reply to peter-China Cancel reply

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