Monthly News – July 2018

First of all, I’d like to thank our sponsors and all the people who sent us donations. Your help is appreciated. We’ve had to overcome tough issues since the start of this project in 2006, this last month in particular hasn’t been easy, but we’ve never had to worry about income. We often say it, but it is very true, you empower us, we’re able to focus solely on the distribution itself and it feels like a real privilege.

Sleepless nights

A mistimed MESA update in Xenial temporarily broke Ubuntu and Linux Mint upgrades. We were able to block it on the 7th of July, and ask people to revert the upgrade with Timeshift. On the 9th, everything was resolved, and the upgrade path was fixed and re-opened.

More recently, a grub update triggered an issue in one of our own packages. That issue could only be triggered by a new grub update and so it had gone undetected during QA and the BETA test. Although it was fixed in a matter of hours in the repositories, it still affects our installation ISO images and it breaks EFI installations when the live session is connected to the Internet. The release notes were updated to ask people to install offline. New 64-bit ISO images for Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce were produced with the fixed package and they passed QA yesterday. These new ISOs will replace the current images in the days to come.

Be careful with Kernel 4.15.0-24. A critical issue causes some computers to boot really slowly, or not to boot at all. Ubuntu is aware of it and working on a fix. We’ve also received negative feedback from the 4.15 kernel series in Mint 18.x (based on Ubuntu Xenial). Although Ubuntu decided to switch the HWE series towards it, the 4.15 series doesn’t appear to support some proprietary drivers yet (nvidia-3.04 and nvidia-340 among them).

We’re also aware of regressions in the Bionic base affecting VPN, Samba, Wine (recently fixed). Ubuntu 18.04 is a brand new base and we’re sure it will settle, receive bug fixes and get more mature with time.

Of course our attention is mostly focused on the problems and we quickly forget about all the improvements. We had a great Linux Mint 19 release, we also received a huge amount of positive feedback and we’ve seen many great changes when moving from 16.04 to 18.04.

LMDE 3

LMDE 3 will feature 2 different installers. In addition to our own “live-installer”, you’ll also find Calamares in the application menu.

Although live-installer works well and is very easy for us to maintain, troubleshoot and improve, Calamares is ahead when it comes to partitioning schemes and it provides the ability to use LUKS full-disk encryption.

Both installers support BIOS and EFI installations. We’ll be interested to hear your feedback.

LMDE 3 is currently in QA and its BETA release is planned for the end of the month.

Cinnamon 4.0

In continuation with the “snappiness” improvements which came in Cinnamon 3.8, the team is currently looking at VSync, and in particular at CLUTTER_VBLANK which sets Sync to VBlank in Cinnamon.

Although Vsync prevents screen tearing from happening, it also has a performance cost. That cost is visible in Cinnamon when dragging a window with the mouse. As you move the mouse cursor left and right, you can notice that the window which is dragged under it doesn’t move exactly “with it”, but with a slight delay, as if there was some sort of elastic band between the cursor and the window it’s holding.

Removing Vsync removes that delay. Windows drags are then immediate and fully responsive. FPS measures also seem to confirm this observation and higher FPS figures lead us to believe this could have other positive impacts on Cinnamon’s performance.

The problem then is screen tearing.

On modern NVIDIA GPUs we’re able to get rid of screen tearing by using “Force Composition Pipeline” in NVIDIA-Settings. With Vsync disabled in Cinnamon we then enjoy a faster desktop environments with no screen tearing.

The team is currently looking into this and testing on a variety of different setups and graphics cards. There’s no guarantee we’ll find a “one size fits all” solution and be able to ship a Cinnamon 4.0 environment which will be fast and without screen tearing for everybody out of the box. If we can’t we’ll probably make it easier for people to tune their environment, with more information on screen-tearing, performance and the ability to set Vsync in the System Settings.

If you want to test this on your current Cinnamon setup, you can restart cinnamon with:

CLUTTER_SHOW_FPS=1 cinnamon --replace

And to restart it without Vsync:

CLUTTER_VBLANK=none CLUTTER_SHOW_FPS=1 cinnamon --replace

See if you see a difference in terms of FPS and when you move windows across the screen. Screen tearing, when it happens, is mostly visible in movies or when scrolling lists up and down. Test with non-fullscreen windows (full-screen windows can skip composition in Cinnamon, so that’s a different thing altogether).

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
OpusVL
Community Sponsors:

 

Donations in June:

A total of $10,126 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 492 donors:

$250, Tim W.
$200, Abdu A.
$109 (8th donation), Frederic L. aka “nofrog”
$109 (4th donation), Renate J.
$109 (4th donation), Heinrich S.
$109 (3rd donation), Timothy W.
$109 (3rd donation), Udo J.
$109, Theo R.
$109, S. B.
$109, Eric P. K.
$109,
$100 (5th donation), Timothy P.
$100 (3rd donation), Mark S.
$100, Philip J.
$100, Victor
$100, Bruno Weber
$100, Modi Baru
$100, Ben C.
$90, StarGaze1
$75, James L.
$65 (2nd donation), G. S. .
$65, Alexander S.
$54 (6th donation), Helmut S.
$54 (4th donation), Paul S. E. aka “Paul”
$54 (3rd donation), Volker Meyer
$54 (3rd donation), PeterH
$54 (2nd donation), Wladimir F.
$54 (2nd donation), Real Estate Market Data for Germany
$54, Andrew K.
$54, Ioannis F.
$54, Harald K.
$54, Götz H.
$54, Barton H.
$54, Peter R.
$54, Renaud C.
$54, Carl W.
$54, Manuel F.
$54, Gourmelon H.
$54, Sascha S.
$50 (26th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (9th donation), Thomas T. aka “FullTimer1489”
$50 (7th donation), Hans J.
$50 (6th donation), Michael G. aka “Vaughn”
$50 (5th donation), Cody W. H.
$50 (4th donation), David P.
$50 (4th donation), John M.
$50 (4th donation), Michael K.
$50 (3rd donation), Geoff S.
$50 (3rd donation), Robert E.
$50 (3rd donation), tucsonlinux.com
$50 (2nd donation), Mark B.
$50 (2nd donation), Sunjay Varma
$50 (2nd donation), Gerald H.
$50 (2nd donation), Harry H. I.
$50, Gabriel M.
$50, Jeffery C. L.
$50, Ion L.
$50, Douglas C.
$50, Richard S.
$50, C S. W.
$50, Murray M.
$50, Karl G
$50, Ray W.
$50, David H.
$50, Patricia S.
$50, Robert R.
$50, Keith H.
$50, Gerald T.
$50, Dennis M.
$50, Patrick J.
$44 (6th donation), Roland Smit
$42 (2nd donation), David R.
$40 (2nd donation), Matthew F.
$40, Antony H.
$40, Rashed D.
$40, Быков А.
$38, Gregory V.
$35 (9th donation), Andrew M.
$33 (100th donation), Olli K.
$33 (3rd donation), Piotr C.
$33 (2nd donation), Lorenz K.
$33, Jean-claude M.
$33, Nico B.
$33, Martin M.
$33, Nevile W.
$33, Rune S.
$33, Michael L.
$33, Robert M.
$30 (11th donation), Kevin S.
$30 (4th donation), Paul C.
$30, Volodymyr N.
$30, Omnipotence Software
$30, Mario R.
$30, Vyacheslav C.
$30, Denis G.
$30, Eveline A.
$30, Craig M.
$30, Thomas W.
$27 (2nd donation), Ralf R.
$27 (2nd donation), GJC Bak.
$27, Van H. C.
$27, Johannes B.
$27, Patrick M.
$27, J. J.
$25 (83th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (41th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$25 (3rd donation), Gary E.
$25 (3rd donation), William C.
$25 (3rd donation), Andrew C.
$25 (2nd donation), Graham Sivill aka “Siv
$25 (2nd donation), Nicholas M.
$25, Laszlo G.
$25, Dominick D.
$25, Bruce I.
$25, Ian D.
$25, Robert L.
$25, Marvin M.
$25, Silvestre D. S.
$25, Jeff H.
$25, Roger L. E.
$25, Responsible Citizens of WV
$25, Rodney B.
$25, Robert G. S. J.
$25, Chase L.
$25, Colette H.
$24, Eugeniusz M.
$22 (17th donation), Derek R.
$22 (6th donation), Henrik H.
$22 (5th donation), Andrew V.
$22 (4th donation), Maurice G.
$22 (4th donation), A. R.
$22 (3rd donation), Lotte
$22 (2nd donation), Christoph B.
$22 (2nd donation), K. T. .
$22 (2nd donation), Christer L.
$22 (2nd donation), P. M. .
$22 (2nd donation), Jan H.
$22 (2nd donation), Andrew P.
$22, Antonino R.
$22, Willem D. K.
$22, Jonatan C. V.
$22, Ennio D. A.
$22, Sebastian P.
$22, Vincent D.
$22, Bonzai 2024
$22, Dirk H.
$22, Konstantin H.
$22, Dan W.
$22, Atanas I.
$22, Uwe P.
$22, Marcus W.
$22, Peter M.
$22, Bruno V.
$22, Daniel H.
$22, Roland B.
$22, Federico N. D. C.
$20 (40th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$20 (10th donation), Michel S.
$20 (6th donation), Widar H.
$20 (6th donation), Lance M.
$20 (5th donation), Reel D.
$20 (3rd donation), James M.
$20 (3rd donation), Ali S.
$20 (2nd donation), Fidel Cashflow
$20 (2nd donation), Richard D.
$20 (2nd donation), Gregg L.
$20 (2nd donation), William P.
$20 (2nd donation), Andrew C.
$20 (2nd donation), Ken P.
$20 (2nd donation), Ngalu R.
$20 (2nd donation), Bryan P.
$20 (2nd donation), James M.
$20 (2nd donation), Jesse D.
$20, John C. aka “Juanzelli”
$20, Trevor W.
$20, Brooks J.
$20, Stoyan G.
$20, Al Mello aka “melloa”
$20, Eric P.
$20, Fukui K.
$20, Paul Austin aka “Paulie”
$20, Michael S.
$20, M R. B.
$20, David D.
$20, James W.
$20, Shawn H.
$20, James M.
$20, Douglas C.
$20, Ludwig H.
$20, Bernard C.
$16 (17th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (12th donation), Ray
$16 (10th donation), J J. V. K.
$16 (2nd donation), Ulrich K.
$16 (2nd donation), Thomas B.
$16 (2nd donation), Francois A. aka “fanetk
$16, Murru A.
$16, Kiran A.
$16, Ib O. J.
$16, Petri K.
$16, Wybo W.
$16, Christina K.
$16, Stefan D.
$16, Trevor T.
$16, José G.
$16, Yves B.
$16, Torsten S.
$16, Alfredo Z. C.
$15 (3rd donation), Ventsislav R.
$15 (2nd donation), Kevin K.
$15, Vitaliy P.
$15, P L. V.
$15, Cornelius B.
$15, Michael W.
$13 (2nd donation), Dennis K.
$13, Armin S.
$13, Piotr S.
$12 (87th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$12 (32nd donation), JobsHiringnearMe
$12, Steve B.
$11.01, Kevin H.
$11 (17th donation), Johann J.
$11 (8th donation), Eskild T.
$11 (7th donation), Antonio aka “pengu73”
$11 (6th donation), Juan T.
$11 (5th donation), Michiel B.
$11 (5th donation), Stephen R.
$11 (3rd donation), Bernhard M.
$11 (3rd donation), H. H. .
$11 (2nd donation), Martin H.
$11 (2nd donation), Maximilian Ast
$11 (2nd donation), Marco C.
$11 (2nd donation), Michael T.
$11 (2nd donation), Daniel-Gabriel N.
$11, Fred V. H.
$11, Alexandre A.
$11, Herbert G. T.
$11, Bertrand L.
$11, Franc Marx
$11, Lacho T.
$11, Giancarlo Z.
$11, Andreas G.
$11, John G.
$11, Antonio G.
$11, Jose M. A. D. V.
$11, Martin K.
$11, David J. S. S.
$11, Michael R. -. W.
$11, Vojtech S.
$11, Kimmo K.
$11, Neil F.
$11, Jean-marie S.
$11, Benjamín Sánchez aka “jobenja5”
$11, Cedric B.
$11, Andreas K.
$11, bartolomeo
$11, John G.
$11, Alberto C.
$11, Ainars T.
$11, Ede
$11, Balazs S.
$11, Rohrsetzer G.
$11, Dimitris Z.
$11, Cornelis S.
$11, Rupert P.
$10 (31st donation), Thomas C.
$10 (22nd donation), Frank K.
$10 (21st donation), Paul O.
$10 (18th donation), Jim A.
$10 (15th donation), Dinu P.
$10 (12th donation), Dmitry P.
$10 (12th donation), Terrance G.
$10 (9th donation), Elsukov V.
$10 (9th donation), Hemant Patel
$10 (8th donation), hotelsnearbyme.net
$10 (7th donation), Klaus Heckenbach
$10 (5th donation), Randy D.
$10 (5th donation), Martín P. D. L. G.
$10 (4th donation), A. C. aka “openlark
$10 (4th donation), Michael P. K.
$10 (3rd donation), Peter H.
$10 (3rd donation), Z. K. .
$10 (3rd donation), Christopher N.
$10 (3rd donation), Nicholas S.
$10 (2nd donation), Gerhard H.
$10 (2nd donation), Tsuchiya Akira
$10 (2nd donation), Tom H.
$10 (2nd donation), Travis T.
$10 (2nd donation), Jarrett B.
$10 (2nd donation), Bernhard J.
$10 (2nd donation), Mike C. aka “Portreve”
$10 (2nd donation), DaveW
$10 (2nd donation), James W.
$10 (2nd donation), Steven S.
$10 (2nd donation), Lee B.
$10 (2nd donation), Franco C. M.
$10 (2nd donation), Fernando C. C. B.
$10 (2nd donation), Arthur K.
$10, Paul K.
$10, Brian N.
$10, David S.
$10, Joao P. C. O.
$10, Aleksej J.
$10, Wong C. C.
$10, Joseph P.
$10, Lewis W.
$10, Ramachandran A.
$10, Alexandre D. C.
$10, Tsuguo S
$10, Felipe A. N. R.
$10, Dimitrios S.
$10, Ivo N.
$10, Pedro H. S.
$10, Juan C. P. C.
$10, Krzysztof aka “Urlich”
$10, Norbert Fuczin
$10, Jaime V.
$10, Doddy T. A.
$10, Robin W.
$10, Dr M. P.
$10, Michael D. aka “/\/\!}{@”
$10, Eric D.
$10, Leandro Garcia aka “leojg”
$10, Richard C.
$10, Elite S. S. A.
$10, Sławomir K.
$10, Jeffrey O. aka “Loloy D
$10, Alfred S.
$10, Lazar D.
$10, Claudio D. B.
$10, Kenneth D.
$10, John T.
$10, Artur C. L.
$10, James P.
$10, Glenn K.
$10, Лаврухин Д.
$10, Ireneo C.
$10, MarkTheMorose
$8 (3rd donation), L LAVIGNE
$8, Yuji O. aka “ogaty
$8, Bartosz W.
$8, Henri B.
$7 (19th donation), CV Smith
$7 (14th donation), Aliki K.
$7 (5th donation), Jeffrey R.
$7 (2nd donation), Edmar A. P.
$7, Jevgenij aka “Sizeer.lt
$6.55, Alan H.
$6 (6th donation), Michel B.
$5 (25th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (18th donation), Todd A aka “thobin”
$5 (17th donation), Kouji Sugibayashi
$5 (17th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (10th donation), Olaf B.
$5 (10th donation), Arvis Lacis aka “arvislacis
$5 (7th donation), Lance M.
$5 (7th donation), Jonathan Gaddi Giomini aka “Jonny87”
$5 (6th donation), Jeffrey R.
$5 (5th donation), Leon
$5 (4th donation), Kai U. J.
$5 (4th donation), Goto M.
$5 (4th donation), Geekoutdoors
$5 (4th donation), Larry H.
$5 (4th donation), Халилова А.
$5 (3rd donation), Hrvoje B.
$5 (3rd donation), Lukas K.
$5 (2nd donation), Toni G.
$5 (2nd donation), Кремлёв С.
$5 (2nd donation), Thomas Grochalski
$5 (2nd donation), James C.
$5 (2nd donation), Коновалов Е.
$5 (2nd donation), James H.
$5 (2nd donation), Sándor C. aka “sanatorka
$5 (2nd donation), Marion D.
$5 (2nd donation), Jeroen St
$5, Nathan J.
$5, Kaleb S. aka “TheDerpyLlamas”
$5, Wim T.
$5, Pavel M.
$5, Stephen M.
$5, Markus W.
$5, Kai K.
$5, Jalister
$5, Jeramy R.
$5, Manjunath M.
$5, Liran E.
$5, Jose S. B. aka “josalbon”
$5, Christian W.
$5, Manuel S.
$5, Josef P.
$5, Симаков Е.
$5, Dominic H.
$5, Brian W.
$5, Martín Vacas Vignolo aka “martinvv”
$5, Jacek O.
$5, Edwin B.
$5, Alexander I.
$5, Luigi G.
$5, Rafal K.
$5, Scott M.
$5, Stefan N.
$5, Matheus Godoy aka “matheusxy”
$5, Marciel A. J.
$5, Baiju R.
$5, Richard K.
$5, Bartosz S.
$5, Andrii K.
$5, Dimitris K.
$5, Pokies Portal
$5, Darren M.
$5, Harry M. C.
$5, Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Andreas Gerlich
$5, Sergio G. P.
$5, Traian A. G.
$5, Tiago S.
$5, Cyril U.
$5, Matthew L.
$5, Robert T.
$5, Patrick M.
$4 (7th donation), David B.
$3.19, Cássio H. V. F.
$3 (5th donation), Stefan B.
$3 (4th donation), Takatosi A.
$3 (3rd donation), Tscheliesnigg
$3 (3rd donation), Antonio C. L. S.
$3 (3rd donation), Anonymous
$3 (3rd donation), Mirsad S.
$3 (3rd donation), NordVPN Coupons
$3, Bernhard M.
$3, Tarcísio F. T.
$3, Ngoc L.B.
$3, Daniel D. B.
$3, Alden C. G.
$2.61, Click Here
$79.3 from 58 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking):  2694 (2nd)
  • Alexa (website ranking): 3393

190 comments

  1. The sad thing about Mint 19.0 is that Krusader is NOT able to activate Root Mode. Is it true that Mint 19.0 has dropped the use of KDE based programs ? If so, what is the replacement for Root Mode Krusader ?

    1. Hi kurt, i also use legacy nvidia card (nvs295), i did clean install LM 19, then set up software sources then open the driver manager to install nvidia304.106 and it works as charm. i haven’t done apt update & apt upgrade yet.
      hope that will work for you too.
      (Dell optiplex320 wasted an re-used, c2d E4700)

    1. Good link, thanx…….but not everybody is able to read and understand Russian language. Please do it in English, it looks like very useful “how-to”. Thanx in advance. Spasibo.

  2. The vsync idea is a good one. Having the option to toggle in settings would be nice. Im not sure how this will marry up with freesync monitors but id guess it would be a real plus to let the adaptive sync work without an additional tripple buffer overhead ?

    On the topic of speed, I can’t understand why Nemo is comparatively so slow ? If you put caja/thunar/nautilus next to nemo on the same desktop environment and hit f5 for refresh you can actually see Nemo refreshing slower. Clicking ‘pictures’ others are lightening quick almost instantaneous, dozens of thumbnails loading at once. On Nemo you can sense an overall sluggishness to file navigation to the point where i sometimes trip it up on dual pane mode, it’s not that painfully slow but it’s noticeable. Loading nemo also takes a second or so more than the other file managers. Maybe that is Sync related ?

    Tested on: Manjaro, LM19.

  3. I reinstalled LM 19 Cinnamon edition and wish I had read these notes before doing that LOL, in any case I guessed the Internet connection might have something to do with the first failed attempt, so it went smoothly the second time.

    I’m still struggling with Timeshift, though. Is it normal that it takes tens of GBs on my HD? I actually finished all the space in /home, had to delete a snapshot to recover some.

    Speaking of deletion, I made a mistake: I deleted a failed snapshot as root (i.e. having root privileges in Nemo), after which I couldn’t recover the available space simply emptying the normal user Trash bin. Any ideas? Missing scores of GBs 🙁

    R

    1. To empty root’s Trash, open nemo as root and delete (not “move to trash”) all the files and folders in /root/.local/share/Trash/files/ and /root/.local/share/Trash/info/

      Timeshift makes a copy of your whole installation (excluding user files (pics, vids etc.)) by default. So yes, it uses as much space as your whole OS. Subsequent incremental backups use less because it only saves changes. Mint’s pretty stable so you could probably turn off regular backups and just do an “on demand” backup before doing major updates/messing around with your system (installing/uninstalling lots of stuff) just in case something goes wrong.

    2. Dear Jimbob, thank you for your reply. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have neither of the directories you mention >.<

  4. I know it’s a problem with Ubuntu 18.04, but the issues with Samba and VPNs are simply absurd.
    It’s a damn shame that so many issues seeped through to a LTS release. I was hoping that they wouldn’t be present in Mint since you guys are usually very thorough in catching Ubuntu’s problems.

    Quite frankly, with flatpaks I think you should just migrate to Debian and do flatpaks of all non-essential packages present in the distro and continue from there. You guys are always working around Ubuntu’s problems, Gnome problems… It must get frustrating.

    1. I’m sorry Pedro,

      Debian is far from perfect and Ubuntu adds a lot more fixes on top of it than regressions. You can’t point the finger at Ubuntu without knowing whether these regressions were caused by them or not or at least whether they’re specific to them or not. Ubuntu devs are also very reactive and usually maintain their stack very well.

      Examples such as the notorious conflict between hunspell and thunderbird, or more recently the fact that we can’t even get Debian to patch two typos in NM (https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/pull/7486) show that we can’t take it as seriously as Ubuntu. There is a sense of urgency, a consistency and a hierarchy in Ubuntu.

      Debian is an amazing project and without it there would be no Ubuntu nor Linux Mint, but it’s not some pristine, flawless desktop distribution ruined by buggy Ubuntu patches. It’s quite unfair and ridiculous to depict things like that.

      Regarding VPN and Samba, let’s do some RCA before blindly pointing the finger.

    2. @ Pedro and Clem

      I have tried moving to Debian a few times for more stability but I didn’t really find I had fewer issues.
      Clem is LMDE still based on testing? I am interested in a stable version of LMDE, but I understand that may not be the best use of resources. I am waiting for a point release before upgrading to LM19 but I am really looking forward to playing with Timeshift.

    3. Fair enough. I just don’t understand the decision process of introducing in the way Samba works in a LTS version.
      And this impacts Mint as well.

    4. Dear Clem,

      Thanks very much for explaining how the levels of cooperation and timely attention to issues *differ so radically* when you and your team are dealing with Debian devs vs. Ubuntu devs!

      The “behind the scenes” details you are kind enough to share go a long way in helping Linux Mint users understand why certain decisions are made.

      *More transparency* allays more doubts and concerns, inspires more confidence, and engenders more support!

      Kudos! Much Love & Many Thanks to You & Your Team! 🙂

  5. Faced the fact that the load of Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint 19 is more than a minute,
    the reason was in a low kernel loading speed, about 40 seconds.
    Check by command:
    $ systemd-analyze time
    Time showed:
    Startup finished in 40.375s (kernel) + 25.787s (userspace) = 1m616ms

    To increase the download speed, open the resume file for editing:
    $ sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
    And instead of the line
    RESUME = UUID = 1d55ee77-cf0b-70f6-77e9-05582ff0df77
    enter the line:
    RESUME = none
    Then run the command:
    $ sudo update-initramfs -u
    the update-initramfs command runs for a long time, you need to wait …

    Reboot the system:
    $ sudo reboot

    After rebooting, make sure that the linux kernel is loaded quickly:
    $ systemd-analyze time
    Startup finished in 9.121s (kernel) + 25.787s (userspace) = 34.909s
    graphical.target reached after 22.528s in userspace

    1. @Vasily: A comment and question from a NEW LINUX USER…
      There was no significant change in *kernel loading speed* at boot for me after running the commands and doing the edit you suggested — BEFORE: 19.298s AFTER: 19.141s

      As it is, much better than the 40.375s you had initially. But nowhere near the 9.121s you had after the edit.

      Could the lack of any improvement in kernel load speed for me have anything to do with the *use of swap* in Linux Mint 19?

      NOTE: Before editing /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume to RESUME=none, resume showed:
      RESUME=UUID=cbdfe968-0327-4fa8-a645-705c33af31e5

      And: These are the 2 bottom lines of the terminal output for cat /etc/fstab, showing the same UUID for *swap*:
      UUID=cbdfe968-0327-4fa8-a645-705c33af31e5 none swap sw 0 0
      /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

      (Also, not sure why it shows /media/floppy0 — since I don’t have a floppy drive. My computer is old, but not ancient! :))

    2. @Tom K.
      Yes, swap affects downloading. Try creating a swapfile:
      When checking the use of swap in Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint 19,
      that swap does not work, so I created a swapfile.
      1. Create a swap file and fill it with zeros:
      $ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=2048
      2. Preparing the swapfile for use:
      $ sudo mkswap /swapfile
      $ sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
      3. We add to the file fstab:
      $ sudo nano /etc/fstab
      string:
      /swapfile none swap sw 0 0
      And Comment out the line with the name of the old swap
      save the changes: Ctrl + O, Enter
      Exit the editor: Ctrl + X
      4. Activate swapfile:
      $ sudo swapon /swapfile
      5. Reboot:
      $ sudo reboot
      6. After the reboot, we check:
      $ sudo swapon –show
      $ free -h

    3. what are the characteristics of your computer? what you wrote is suitable for an old or ancient computer.

    4. Hi Vasily!

      I finally got around to trying your suggestion to create a swapfile to improve *kernel loading speed*.

      Sorry to say… There was no improvement. 🙁

      Oh, well… It was worth a try! 🙂

    5. Tom K,
      The result of the command?
      $ systemd-analyze
      and
      $ sudo swapon –show
      and
      comment out a line with an old swap?

    6. Hi Vasily,

      I didn’t have the terminal output from 2018.08.01, so I tried your swapfile creation solution to improve kernel loading speed again…

      Here is the information you requested:

      ⏺ 2018.08.03 *BEFORE* creation of swapfile:

      *OLD SWAP*:
      RESUME=UUID=cbdfe968-0327-4fa8-a645-705c33af31e5

      $ systemd-analyze
      Startup finished in 19.254s (kernel) + 35.449s (userspace) = 54.704s
      graphical.target reached after 23.417s in userspace

      $ sudo swapon –show
      NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
      /dev/sda5 partition 4G 0B -2

      ⏺ 2018.08.03 *AFTER* creation of swapfile:

      *OLD SWAP* comment out:
      #RESUME=UUID=cbdfe968-0327-4fa8-a645-705c33af31e5

      $ systemd-analyze
      Startup finished in 19.280s (kernel) + 30.278s (userspace) = 49.558s
      graphical.target reached after 23.384s in userspace

      $ sudo swapon –show
      NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
      /swapfile file 2G 0B -2

    7. Hi Tom K.
      The reason is the slow loading of the kernel.
      Kernel loading should be no more than 10 seconds.
      Check the kernel version:
      $ uname -r
      4.15.0-29
      Or try again, recompile the kernel:
      $ sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
      With the next line:
      RESUME = none
      $ sudo update-initramfs -u
      $ sudo reboot
      I have 4 computers and at all the kernel load has accelerated.

    8. @Tom K.
      Open the file:
      /var/log/kern.log
      See the time since the computer turned on today’s date.
      By load time, you can determine where the kernel load hangs.

    9. Thanks, Vasily! 🙂 I’ll try your latest suggestions as soon as I have the time, and get back to you with the results.

    10. Hi Vasily,

      I tried recompiling the kernel *again* as you suggested. Still no improvement in kernel loading speed. (My active kernel is 4.15.0-29)

      I looked at /var/log/kern.log, but didn’t see anything obvious to me as a *new user* that looked like a problem.

      The terminal output for sudo gnome-logs was “command not found.”

      So, I’ve restored my most recent Timeshift snapshot. And, for now, I’m fine with a somewhat slower than optimal kernel loading speed!

      Thanks very much for your suggestions, though, Vasily! 🙂 They just didn’t work for me, and that’s okay!!

    11. Tom K.
      So we do not know the reason for the slow loading of the kernel.
      I hope that in the future, with the next update, the loading speed of the kernel will increase.
      Good luck.

  6. no, this is a plasma issue. KDE team removed all root access to kate,dolphin,krusader and all KDE native apps. there may workarounds but if you need root access the KDE forums is where your question will be answered.

  7. Hello

    Only 2 questions:
    What does “v2” linuxmint-19-cinnamon-64bit-v2.iso mean?

    Is there a way, unfortunately I did not make a backup to exchange the kernel 4.15.x under Mint Cinnamon 18.3 against the previous version? Mint Cinnamon 18.3 bootet properly, only Cinnamon crashes constantly 🙁

    Best regards

    Stoebi

    1. When installing a new kernel, the old one stays on the HDD so you don’t really need to restore a snapshot, you can press Shift when booting the computer to force the boot menu to show, choose “Advanced settings” and select your earlier kernel from there. Then once booted, uninstall the latest kernel from Update Manager -> View -> Linux Kernels.

      v2 simply indicates it’s the second respin, not the original ISO. We could have replaced the ISOs with the same filename, but it might have created confusion, two signatures/torrents in the wild for one same filename.. this way it’s clear, mirrors either have it or they don’t. Eventually we’ll also remove the original ISOs.

    1. I remember reading a lot of complaints about 16.04 when it was new. Once something is out in the wild things show up that you just never knew. I’d imagine it will get much better with time.

    2. For me, Mint 19 seems to have gotten *much more stable* since I upgraded on July 9! There have been a lot of updates since then. That must have helped.

      Most of the issues I had for the first week and a half after the upgrade have gone away. Cinnamon crashes still happen occasionally, but not as often as before.

    3. Alex, 16.04 *became* stable… after a lot of time! 🙂
      I remember it was a nightmare, at the beginning.
      My advice is: if you need stability, wait some time before upgrading to the latest Ubuntu, even if it’s an LTS (and, consequently, before updating to the latest Mint).

  8. Good work in tough times, cudos to the Miint Team. The work done in the last month is what I most appreciate about Mint. Given that problims are going to crop up when stepping forward it’s nice to have confidence that it will get worked out. I just have sit back and give it some time. Too many times, I’ve had to spend the time jumping ship, which sets every thing back. With it works while thing are getting worked. Thank!

  9. Had a bit of a problem with Timeshift.
    Is it just me, or does it need a dedicated partition?
    If so, why can’t it just use a directory in a non-backed up filesystem?
    This would allow the storage of non-vital data in the filesystem.

    1. you can use the same partition you ve installed your system to! but yes, you can’t select a directory. i’d love to do that, or even be able to define a SSH location!

    2. I upgraded several different computers toward Linux Mint MATE 19. I had one time the problem with kernel 4.15.0-24. Keeping the old kernel at boot or using Timeshift are good solutions but I still use a low level for upgrading, with no kernel update (a kernel works well, then it’s unnecessary to use another) : http://www.numopen.fr/Mettre-a-jour-Linux-Mint-MATE (sorry, it’s in French). Perhaps you should use this configuration by default because new users will abandon LM if it crash after a update.

  10. I clean installed LM19 days after it was released. I did use it for a week and then I decided to go back to LM18.3
    I just had several small problems with 19 and I thought that it would be better to wait for the fog to clear. Esthetically, LM19 is phenomenal though. I am sure that things will settle down and LM19 will be, like all the previous versions – most excellent distro out there. Cheers!

    1. Me, too! Clean installed LM19 but then had some problems and have gone back to LM18.3. It isn’t as beautiful to look at as LM19 but it is rock solid. When things have settled a bit more I look forward to clean installing LM19 again because it looks and feels so good! Many thanks!

  11. @Clem, do you think that labeling the release as beta until the base Ubuntu gets really stable
    would hurt Mint?

    I think that by doing that, the early adopters could help find and solve problems and the migration path from a stable release to another would be flawless.

    1. No, I don’t think there’s a need to be dramatic about it. I don’t think 18.04 is “unstable”. 16.04 is more than 2 years old so it’s natural it received more bug fixes. We’re in the same situation with every new LTS, and we’re lucky to have LTS, some distributions roll continuously and go through new issues on a daily basis.

      The 4.15 kernel issue isn’t specific to 18.04 and issues like this can hit any base.

      It’s also worth noting the huge amount of improvements and bug fixes which are in 18.04 and not in 16.04, there’s two years of work from upstream projects here, this is quite significant. To give you an example, we were never able to address the performance issues when copying files over USB in 16.04. Whether that was caused by GVFS or not at the time, it just no longer happens on the new base. There are many examples of issues like this one which became obsolete when moving to the new base.

    2. I agree with you, Alex. I consider that issues such as Wine and VPN’s not working correctly (neither affect me, but they do so others) were a good enough reason to keep Mint 19 in beta until they were resolved. Mint has taken a bit of flak due to the issues relating to Mint 19, and I personally would rather that it had not been released until it was ready. I’m sure we users of Mint would have patiently held on, and public beta testers (there appear to be an increasing number of us!) continued beta testing, until the major issues had been resolved. Instead, folk have been installing a Mint 19 released, imo, a wee bit too early and some of those, particular newbies, who have had problems have undoubtedly been put off using Mint. Being a big fan of Mint, along with its ethos and development team, I find that a shame.

    3. As a *newbie* myself… I can vouch for having some puzzling and annoying issues (after finally getting a successful upgrade, on the 4th try, after the MESA issue was resolved on July 9). 🙂

      Here are just a couple:

      For the first 10 days after the upgrade: A “Sorry, Linux Mint 19 has experienced an internal error” window was popping up 2-3 times a day. But, each time I chose the option to submit an error report, it said it was unable to do so because the error involved a “foreign package”.

      Which seemed odd to me, since before the upgrade there were *no foreign packages* at all showing in Software Sources. When, out of curiosity, I finally decided to check for foreign packages again in Software Sources, it showed *182* of them!

      I don’t understand why mintupgrade didn’t automatically clean up any obsolete, no longer needed, old versions of packages during the upgrade process!

      Also, until recently, I was frequently getting an “Unable to get exclusive lock” error window when I tried to refresh Update Manager. A few days ago, when this error happened again, I immediately checked System Monitor. It showed this Active Process: “unattended-upgrade”, at 50% CPU!

      What is that? (I had not set up automatic updates in Update Manager, btw.) Is “unattended-upgrade” an automatic process triggered periodically by systemd?

  12. Sorry for my bad English, but I would like to thank the whole team for the great work they do. I’m a big fan! Unfortunately, I can not contribute to the project at this time but as soon as I can, I will be happy to do so. You are the best!

  13. Superb job 🙂 Especially concerning the graphic charter and consistency of the latter with Mate and Xfce. Personally about a dozen new installations, clean machines and machines of customers, I did not know any big worries. Now all installations have been performed on HP Elitebook G2, G3 and G4. Certainly, stability issue I think the 18.03 and its base 16.04 was better than the 19 and its new base 18.04! But let time at the time we say 🙂

  14. I’m one of the people having a problem because of a Nvidia graphics card. I love Linux Mint so I hope we can find a solution to this problem soon. I’m not sure which Kernel I am using but I just installed Mint last month, using the latest version of Mint, Mate version. Graphics are ok most of the time, but occasionally something will freeze up. Thanks for all of your hard work. MUCH appreciated.

    1. Hi Scruffy! 🙂 A quick way of finding out the *active kernel* you’re using is to run this command in the Terminal uname -r A slower way is to open Update Manager, click on View in the menu, select Linux kernels, and click on the Continue button at the bottom of the Warning window.

  15. I haven’t downloaded Cinnamon yet as I am a newcomer to Linux(a refugee from W10) but looking forward to downloading as soon as it has settled down a bit as I am just a old PC user aged 74 yo and a little afraid of change as I rely do not know what I am doing with Linux. But am looking forward to the day when I have plucked up the courage to do so.

    1. As another “old PC user” (80) I have installed Linux Mint 19 xfce on a USB stick and run it on my W10 box. I find I use the Mint 99% of the time now. So, now I didn’t disturb anything on the W10 install and found I can move the USB stick to a W10 notebook and use Mint there when traveling.

    2. No fear Alex, one of the nicest things about Linux Mint is the helpful forums and people always willing to help – just ask!

    3. @bill skiles: Maybe the *forums* are the way to go, Bill. I’ve noticed that many of the posts in the blogs get no response at all! And many who do get a response are not actually given a valid explanation or solution for whatever issues they’re experiencing! 🙁

    4. If you’ve fought with W10 and succeeded keeping your head above water, you really want to give Linux a try.

    1. I have the same problem with Yakuake, it doesn’t work. It got me to return to Mint 18.3, mark hold Yakuake package (in CLI like “sudo aptitude hold yakuake) and upgrade do Mint 19. Yakuake works. But I would appreciate it works out of the box in Mint 19.

      Also, Gwenview with kipi-plugins stopped working in Mint 18, and still doesn’t work.

      I have some other issues like cannot start “GTK Youtube Viewer” (great for watching YouTube without too much of CPU usage like with Web Browsers, and also possible to use in CLI to listen music/watch videos via some player you can choose in settings), but this may be due to GTK2 that was removed in Mint19. I miss this program, it is so much better in terms of CPU when you watch a video, that you can use it on older hardware without CPU skyrocket.

      One last major problem that started somewhere during Mint 18 editions (probably between Mint 18.2 and 18.3). Screen freezing every few seconds!!!
      It happens on my laptop and also a PC with NVidia GTX 1060, which seems kinda impossible.
      However, I found a workaround that last for about 15-20 minutes, it’s simply to restart a Cinnamon by Ctrl+Alt+Esc. Then it helps for a while, but after some time you have to restart it again. It’s really annoying when you try to watch a movie!!! I hoped that it will be fixed in Mint 19, but after upgrade it’s still there.
      On a System Monitor I can see high CPU usage by Cinnamon, it switches between cores/threads, and after Cinnamon restart it calms down a lot.

      Hope at least the last point could be easily fixed, cause it drives me nuts!

  16. turning off VBlank and turning on force full composition pipeline greatly improved my framerate and screen tearing. is there a way to keep VBlank permanently turned off?

    1. I too would like to know the best way to do this. I’ve managed to do it with this awful hack, which performs the cinnamon reload upon startup. Obviously it would be better to make Cinnamon start with the correct config the first time.

      Anyway, put this in a script and save it somewhere:
      CLUTTER_VBLANK=none cinnamon –replace &

      Make the script executable, then go to System Settings, Startup Applications and add it using the + button.

      Incidently, I’ve had trouble getting the ForceCompositionPipeline setting to stay set on both of my screens. For some reason it kept randomly disabling it for one screen or the other. I had to add a line in my above script which explicitly set it again using “nvidia-settings –assign “CurrentMetaMode= (…)”.

      All in all, Ubuntu 18.04 has been really buggy with NVidia graphics, I’m also having troubles when I turn my screens off and back on, or when they do it automatically due to inactivity. I had the same issue in Kubuntu 18.04. Didn’t have it with Linux Mint 17.x.

    2. When I say “Ubuntu 18.04 has been really buggy” I mean the 18.04 base, I’ve had the issue in Kubuntu 18.04 and now with Linux Mint 19.

  17. I understand why you are using the 4.15 series kernel, my beef is with Canonical. I hope you’ll one day soon be able to ditch Canonical and use Debian as your base and also understand why that’s not the case yet. I think you’ve done an excellent job and made the best of what you have to work with.

    All that said, it would be cool to allow us to switch the kernel series via the updater and receive updates to that kernel series just as we do the 4.15 series now. I know ukuu can do it, but, it doesn’t allow you to limit updates to a single series. I have a few Chromebooks that require the 4.4 kernel to get sound working and other computers that function best with 4.9 and 4.14. 4.15 causes problems on 5 computers I’ve tried it on so far.

  18. “Sleepless nights” – Sounds like a desaster to me aka number 13 was … remember? Right from the beginning I had a funny feeling about this release. Now some of the problems come to light. Still – unfinished: ie System monitors graphic field “System load” is unusual high compared to ALL other LinuxMint 1x …. The keyboard layyout selector doesnt work – upon reboot it goes back to English, even when it show a different language ie French ….. Some font size dont get adjusted well, ie Clementine, SpiderOak ….. The dreadful sound problem under VirtualBox on Windows 10 host continues ….

    Good decision to provide one LMDE installer w LUKS routine — I ll be curious how well it works. Unfortunately you dropped the MATE edition 🙁

    PS: Any plans to add another payment option for Europeans? PP really SUCKS!

  19. i still have issue on cryptswap, booting seemed to work but it stuck on shutdown, i need to swapoff first before shutting down. but it took 3 to 5 mins to swapoff…it didnt happen in LM 18.3…

  20. That’s excellent news regarding vSync. To be honest, it’s been a deal breaker for me since day 1. The slow window dragging issue just irritates me, hence I’ve used xfce. So am I correct in thinking that on a current Mint 19, with Cinnamon 3.8, if I run:
    CLUTTER_VBLANK=none CLUTTER_SHOW_FPS=1 cinnamon –replace
    in a terminal & reboot, vSync will then be off & the issue should be solved?

  21. Great work!

    I am really happy to read about Cinnamon 4.0.
    I wish you focused, in addition to Speed, on Memory Consumption and set a goal to reduce it by 10-20%.

    I think many wish Linux Mint to become leaner and faster.

    You are a great team!
    Thank you for your efforts.

  22. Congratulations guys, great job! Today Cinnamon is the number One gtk DE, people are getting rid of Gnome dictatorship and for those of us not comfortable with KDE, Cinnamon is the natural replacement of Gnome. Even Gnome devs suggested to use Nemo as a workaround for keeping icons on desktop! No offense but most of Gnome devs have been keeping removing features, no matter what users say. Fedora is one of my favourite distros, and now that Gnome has become unusable, I just installed Cinnamon over Gnome and what a breath of fresh air. My hope is that the Linux Mint team will focus more on Cinnamon, leaving Linux Minux as a “flagship” distro the way Neon is for KDE. We need a Cinnamon website where users of Fedora, Manjaro, Debian, Mageia… can have official documentation for Cinnamon and a common place (forum) to discuss.

    1. Glad you’re enjoying Cinnamon. No need to bash devs from other projects though. We get a lot of benefits from work that a lot of upstream projects do.

    2. Hey JosephM do you really think that “No offense but most of Gnome devs have been keeping removing features” is “bashing” any one? Sorry if that hurt you, I’m only trying to say that CINNAMON deserves same treatment as the 2 big historical linux DE: GNOME and KDE.

    3. I agree that Cinnamon should have its own separate site with docs and a forum. I think it is special enough to warrant that.

      GNOME isn’t without its merits, like it was the desktop environment that added support for Wayland the fastest and most seamlessly. Cinnamon still hasn’t seen much development towards supporting Wayland, even though request for Wayland support has been requested, e.g. here’s a GitHub issue to that effect from April 2016 — https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5201. But I suppose, it isn’t like they have unlimited resources available for working on it, along with the other improvements they’re trying to implement.

    4. Having run Wayland with gnome-shell I’m not sure seamless is exactly the word I would use. In my experience it was buggier than running under X. In my personal opinion, I don’t see a reason to sink a ton of time and effort into Wayland at this point. Sure it has been requested since 2016. But you still can’t even use it with the Nvidia drivers. That means all that effort into something totally worthless to a huge portion of your user base.

    5. How long ago was your attempt to run GNOME on Wayland? It’s seamless enough that it’s been the default session of Fedora since the release of 25 in November 2016. Even before then I found it pretty stable. It was also stable enough to be the default of Ubuntu 17.10. My PC has a NVIDIA graphics card and I manage to run GNOME 3.20 and later on Wayland and Plasma 5.12 and later on Wayland on it without a problem. Frankly I had to check with `echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE` in order to be able to tell whether the session I was on was the X.Org or Wayland session.

    1. @ricardo: Hi, Ricardo! 🙂 If you could provide some details about the slowness you’re experiencing with Mint 19, including what system you’re using, etc., perhaps someone (maybe Vasily) could offer some helpful suggestions.

      If you’re using a different kernel with Mint 19 than you did with Mint 18.3, maybe it’s a kernel regression issue? (Others here would know much better than me, though. I’m a new user.)

  23. Please keep vblanking synch as an option. Going free-running on the screen updates seems like an overkill solution for the perception of sluggishness produced by the offset between the mouse pointer and the window. Surely the proper fix is to draw the mouse pointer on the same update cycle, with the same mouse position used to draw the Windows? Of course I’m sure it’s more complicated than that with the architecture you’re working with.

  24. AMD Ryzen APU are not working well on latest Linux Mint. DisplayLink drivers also fails. VMware player not working well due to graphics issues. Please fix AMD Ryzen APU issues.

  25. Are there any plans to assess the CPU usage of Mint? Mint 19 seems to use quite a bit more CPU at idle than 18 resulting in the fans constantly spinning up in my laptop. Manjaro Cinnamon doesn’t have this issue so I assume it’s the Ubuntu base, but I’m left wondering what it’s actually ‘thinking about’ all the time that needs so much CPU?

  26. I will be looking forward for new LDME Thanks Team for Your hardwork and also big thanks to all donors.

  27. Hey Clem, just a note I am new to linux last 2 or 3 years and not real good with the terminal yet, but after checking my LM 18.3 I show the kernel you speak of but also show kernel 4.15.0-29 as active but I still cannot use my wireless on my laptop. I have not yet upgraded to LM 19 but would like to. Are there any issues you might be aware of in this area? Thanks much.

  28. We are so happy from Linux Mint as you have mentioned VPN is really turn us off from Ubuntu. Linux Mint you can solve it. Ubuntu team must know has a bug on VPN and they must clean it if we want to put Ubuntu on VBOX. Yahabbibi Linux.

  29. Finally got WINE working (version 3.13) with most of my programs, but some games still won’t install including Bookworm, which worked just fine on 18.3 with Nvidia 396. The error message suggests an NVIDIA problem, and since 19’s default is 390 I tried to install 396 from the PPA. Fails with a boatload of unmet dependencies: nvidia-driver-396: Depends: libnvidia-gl-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: nvidia-dkms-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: nvidia-kernel-source-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-compute-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: nvidia-compute-utils-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-decode-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-encode-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: nvidia-utils-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-cfg1-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-ifr1-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libnvidia-fbc1-396 (= 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1) but 396.24.10-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 is to be installed

    I’m not sure how to fix this.

    1. Is there any particular reason why you want to install Bookworm in wine? It’s available in the mint repos, and as a flatpak. Just wondering.

    2. Unfortunately, the game Bookworm isn’t available as a flatpak. There’s a version for Windows, and a version for Mac. And I’m addicted.

    3. Oh sorry, my mistake. You’re talking about a game called “Bookworm?” I thought you meant the eBook Reader app by the same name.

  30. Why has so many packages been removed from the Linux Mint 19 repository??? I had to compile gDesklets to get it to work on 19, even though I found it easily on Mint Mate 18.3! P.S. This was my first compile and it works great 🙂

  31. I have been in a Linux for about 15 years since the days of Mepis. During that period, I have been trying out every distribution that I can get my hands on. Linux Mint was the first distro that did everything right. They have continued to remain my ultimate choice among all of the others. No matter what I spin, I have always ended up installing Linux Mint XFCE to use as my OS of choice.

    Linux Mint 19 is the first release that has ever failed on me. However, I know the stability of Linux Mint and it’s track record with me is solid. I have installed MX-17.1 in the meantime until Linux Mint 19 gets sorted out.

    I won’t lie. I was afraid at first that things had gone terribly wrong with Linux Mint 19 at first. However, after reading this blog post, I am at ease and look forward to the updated images.

    Thank you Clem and everyone else that makes Linux Mint the best distribution in existence!

    1. @Lord Mozart @JoeZ – I’ve been checking every day now since MInt 19 “v2” ISOs were uploaded to Heanet. It looks like the mirrors are finally synched now. At least the one’s I’ve checked (about a dozen random mirrors checked).

  32. Regarding LMDE,
    Is there any difference between the boot from the ISOs of Mint19 and LMDE2?

    I’ve bought a new laptop and I can’t get the LMDE2 ISO to boot, even in Legacy Mode and Fast Boot disabled. But Mint 19’s ISO boots up perfectly even with EUFI enabled and I was able to install it nicely.

    I wanted to restore my LMDE2 backup into this new laptop but I can’t because I’ll need to boot from the ISO to chroot into the new install to take care of grub.

    I hope LMDE3’s ISO boots OK in this machine. I’m really eager to do it on my vacations.

    Thanks for all, @Clem and Mint Team.

    1. Have you tried booting with the “nomodeset” or the other options as mentioned here in the release notes?
      https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_tara_cinnamon.php

      I have a HP Omen laptop that’s less than a year old, and it is a bit of a stubborn brute to get the live disk/usb to fire up …and also to install. Mint 19 is easier than 18.3 was. In fact, the only way I could get 18.3 installed was to first install 18.2, and then do an in-place upgrade through the Update Manager. Even then, it would freeze if I clicked anything that interrogated the system, such as System Info, or Power Management, until I got the graphics driver installed. Only then would it become stable and run perfectly well, but that’s a bit off topic.

      Anyway, that particular laptop will only boot the live media with the “nomodeset” option. I also have a HP Envy Touchsmart that’s just over 4 years old, and that boots and installs perfectly with no hassles at all. If you haven’t already tried “nomodeset” or any of the other options in the release notes, I recommend you give them a try. 🙂

    2. @Lord Mozart Thanks for your reply.
      The USB ISO doesn’t boot at all, I never get to the menu to select nomodeset.
      I managed to install Mint19 and then restore my LMDE2. And meanwhile LMDE3 isn’t out, I will need Mint19 for managing Grub – and as a backup OS if needed.
      Since this laptop is newer than LMDE2, I had to go to the Mint19 (working flawlessly out of the box!) to get the wifi firmware. Copied them and it just ran!
      Meanwhile, I now have my working LMDE2 installation running here and that’s all I need for the moment. Lets see how the upgrade to LMDE3 will go…

  33. For those expressing frustration with the current state, it’s not uncommon for there to be problems, sometimes significant ones, that come to light in a major release of any software. If you find the current situation frustrating, it may be a good best practice for you to wait at least a month after a major release, if not for a full point release, to give things time to stabilize.

    1. Indeed. And that is great advice for folk already running a previous version of Mint.

      However, what about the folk who are new to Mint, coming from another operating system or distro, and who go onto the Mint website to download the operating system they have heard so much about? They are directed to the latest version, 19. They install it and then they come across problems with e.g. Wine (albeit now solved), VPNs etc. I’m sure their reaction would normally be one of “This doesn’t do what I want it to do. I’ll move on.” That’s a shame, and it’s a loss of potential users of Mint. The aim for every new version should be to get the fundamentals right, and that includes correctly working main third-party packages that people use.

      Whether that means following Ubuntu at more of a time distance I don’t know. You don’t want to be too far behind Ubuntu LTS but, on the other hand, you don’t want to follow it to closely. Many people only upgrade to a new major version of Ubuntu when it gets to the first point release. I’m not saying Mint should wait that long, but in my opinion it should at least wait until there are no significant widespread problems. There should be no pressure to release the next major version until it’s baked, even if something else is ready to go in the oven (e.g. LMDE)

      I know, I’m sounding a bit dramatic, Mint 19 is largely fantastic, and I apologise for being a drama queen. However I think it’s a debate that is worth the Mint developers having, due to the effect on incoming new users.

    2. Pete, It’s certainly a valid point that the Devs need to consider how far behind Ubuntu they want to release, particularly for major versions, and that there are trade-offs. However you’re always going to have issues, sometimes significant ones, with major new releases. At work, I often add to my own project planning a minimum of at least 6 months of stabilization after a major upgrade or new installation, and sometime much more for certain products.

      As for new installs of Mint, I’d give the same advice to those looking to install it for the first time. I made the switch from Windows to Linux a year ago, and one of the things I looked at in Mint was that it had at least 1 point release on the 18 series. If it hadn’t, I’d likely have gone with the LTS series instead.

    3. Perhaps Clem (are you reading this, Clem? 🙂 ) would be willing to insert an *advisory* or *recommendation* statement prominently at the top of each of the Mint website download pages.

      It could recommend, perhaps, that those who are “new to Mint, coming from another operating system or distro” (per Pete’s post), consider waiting for the first point release — if the version shown on the download page is a major new release.

      **However, if someone chooses “Buy CDs” under “Download” on the Mint site, it takes them to a third-party site — OSDisc.com. So, they would not see the advisory! (That’s actually how I, as a newbie, installed Mint 18, btw.)

    4. P.S. For further clarity… When, as a new user, I installed Linux Mint 18 in 2016, I don’t recall having any problems. But, even though I didn’t wait for the first point release, I did install Mint 18 *3 months* after the initial release date. So, there was lots of time for updates to be available that could resolve any potential issues. And, I wasn’t doing anything complicated for a newbie, like dual-booting.

    1. Hi dd,

      They’re already there on the mirrors, we’re updating the links today on the website and the blog.

  34. i need some help for my cinnamon 18.3 , i dont know where this come , but my laptop run slow. like all app run together.. is this caused kernel ? or what ?

    i’m sorry for my language, hope you understand

  35. creating a new installer on top of calamares is a good thing,
    the fragmentation is bad, when every distribution has its own installer

  36. a pretty silly query which is better linuxmint based on debian or ubuntu or does not change much or is the same I do not understand very well but a lot of people say that better to migrate to the debian-based version I do not really understand it very well maybe change something inside the system or it stays the same 🤔

    1. That isn’t a silly query, freddy, and it isn’t really a question of “better”. Both Mint (based on Ubuntu) and LMDE (based on Debian) take a different approach.

      There are advantages and disadvantages of using LMDE (see the LMDE page here: https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php). However do note that Mint advise that LMDE is not recommended for novice users. I would suggest that sticking with Mint is the best default option.

    1. Hello A.J:
      The the v2 ISO was created to fix the install issues only. Any VPN fixes upstream would be in an update.

  37. I noticed that, passing from mint 18 … to mint 19, firefox no longer displays the pages of text only with the right layout and with the characters that had always used. And xplayer no longer shows videos respecting their format, despite the correct settings. How can I solve these problems? Thanks for the reply.

  38. Ubuntu base is the wrong way to go !

    Xenial has been launched in April 2016, based on a pre-release of Debian 9, which has been launched in June 2017. Xenial was launched too early (too buggy)

    Bionic has been launched in April 2018, based on a pre-release of Debian 10, which should be launched around June 2019. This time it’s even worst, as Ubuntu decided to waste time by maintaining (by themselves) the kernel 4.15 instead of 4.14 LTS.

    Debian testing frozen can not be seriously used as a base for production 1 year before release !
    What’s the point of wasting time following Ubuntu ? PPA should be replaced by Flatpaks sooner or later.

    I think Mint team should concentrate on LMDE, and scrap Ubuntu base.
    LMDE3 (based on Debian 9) is the way to go shortly.

    Then Mint should jump directly to LMDE 10 in summer 2019, based on freshly launched Debian 10 Buster.
    By scrapping ubuntu base, Mint Devs would have more time to concentrate on LMDE only, and one can dream, keep Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce Desktops.

    Fred

  39. Thank you very much for the answer and thanks to you I already understood that using the debian-based version usually uses the newer packages, but the installations or uses of these packages are not always very good, basically the most current system in all respects but more risky also thanks pete 😏👽👍

    1. Well, try both and see what’s best for you. I tried the “normal” Mint several times, but i always go back to LMDE, it just feels more stable.

    2. I agree with Ross, try both.
      *** remember LMDE3 will be only Beta for a while, give it a few weeks after the Beta period ends.
      we still don’t know how much of the experimental Mint will be included, but I have heard it will be based on Debian Stretch (stable)… Stretch does Not receive “newer packages”, just security patches (hence Stable)

  40. Wow, it looks like everything hit you guys at once. The fun of distributing software 🙂

    Thanks for confirming that there was something funny about kernel 4.15. Not just me …

  41. For me, it’s another great release from LM Team….

    I did clean installation on the day after of the public release and 0 issues/reboots so far:

    ~$ uptime
    02:23:27 up 24 days, 1:29, 1 user, load average: 0,22, 0,26, 0,50

    Thank you Clem and LM Team!!!

    PS – Can you share your knowledge and experience with Windows Dev Team ?!? If Windows were so stable as LM my day job would be much easier… 🙂

  42. I *only* use XX.3 versions. They are – naturally – the most mature, stable and bug-free compared to XX, XX.1 and XX.2 releases. And what I need is a reliable PC for work, not for experiments. So, I will happily use my 18.3 MATE until the birth of 19.3.

    Thanx to Clem & team for their constant effort to make a superior OS!

  43. I am very pleased with Mint 19 Mate. Please bring back screenlets in Mate desktop or it’s equivalents for other desktops as default installations which can be readily added to their respective desktops. I am sure many users miss those.

  44. [videolan-announce] End-Of-Life for VLC 2.2.x “Weatherwax”

    Dear users of VLC and packagers,

    This is a short announce to tell you that VLC 2.2.x is now completely end-of-life.

    The number of security issues that have been fixed in 3.0.x, notably on the MKV, MP4 and ASF modules, make it impossible to support the 2.2.x branch, because they are very hard to backport (or almost impossible).

    We’re notably speaking of CVE-2018-11529 and CVE-2017-17670 security issues, but they are only the tip of the iceberg.
    Indeed, even if we could fix those 2 issues, many more have been fixed in the 3.0.x version.

    Therefore, you should really update to VLC 3.0.3.

    VLC 3.0.x are LTS versions anyway, so you should focus on those, because they will be maintained longer, notably for security issues.

    With my very best regards,


    Jean-Baptiste Kempf – President
    +33 672 704 734
    _______________________________________________
    videolan-announce mailing list
    videolan-announce@videolan.org
    https://mailman.videolan.org/listinfo/videolan-announce

  45. +1 to the vsync suggestions. I’ve had problems with Mutter-based compositors in the past whereby, in multi-monitor setups, they tend to sync to the refresh rate of the monitor with the lowest refresh rate, which results in an unpleasant experience on the monitor with the higher refresh rate. The simplest fix to this, in my experience, has been disabling vsync where possible and using the FPC/FFPC options in nvidia-settings.

  46. Well it seems screen tearing is not the only issue. My second monitor just doesn’t “turn on” when my computer boots. No matter how many times I have played with the settings under display or X Server for Nvidia, nothing works. Google shows no info about this problem that is recent. In fact the few problems that I did find, all say it was some mistake they made from 2 or more years ago. Nothing recent. But Mint 19 broke this. Mint 18.3 worked out of the box. But it had too many stability issues that I had to go back to windows. Looks like 19 is worse. People claim Linux is the best thing since sliced cheese, I’m not seeing it. Especially since DirectX 11 games do not work with it, without a lot of hassle, if at all. From a Windows user point of view, Linux is just not ready for the public yet.

  47. “Be careful with Kernel 4.15.0-24. A critical issue causes some computers to boot really slowly, or not to boot at all.” So if it’s more recent than this Kernel, we avoid the problem? Taking a look at my Linux Mint right now i have 4.15.0-29, so the problem is fixed with newer versions?

    1. @Pierre Aribaut: Good question, Pierre. My active kernel is 4.15.0-29, too. Haven’t had boot problems with it so far. I suppose it depends a lot on the specific hardware someone has.

  48. I tried to help you with your problem, but the moderator removes all my posts.
    Excuse everyone I can no longer help.
    On the site of censorship.

    1. Hi Vasily,

      We use akismet for antispam and we’re very happy with it. If it weren’t for the automatic antispam there would be no comment section because it would simply be flooded. There sometimes are some false-positives and we’re happy to look into the spam box when requested.

      There also are quite a few messages which are left there by akismet, waiting for manual moderation. This is usually the case when a new person post their very first comment.

      I can see under this comment here for instance, that you have “0 approved” under your name. That means you’re new to the antispam system. Your email looks correct though, but your URL and name are different. That probably explains why this particular message was held. I’m sorry we weren’t able to moderate in the last few days, we’re all doing the best we can.

      Please don’t presume like this, especially malice, it’s really not nice.

  49. Just to note that there was something fishy with 4.15.0-23, especially when I’ve tryed the lowlatency version even under 18.3/Xenial base, so the reported issues were probably expected.

  50. This is in the 4.15.0-29 changelog, which implies the boot problems have been fixed:

    linux (4.15.0-26.28) bionic; urgency=medium

    * linux: 4.15.0-26.28 -proposed tracker (LP: #1780112)

    * failure to boot with linux-image-4.15.0-24-generic (LP: #1779827) Cloud-
    init causes potentially huge boot delays with 4.15 kernels (LP: #1780062)
    – random: Make getrandom() ready earlier

    1. @simon brown: Thanks for your post, Simon!

      @Pierre Aribaut: So, it appears the 4.15.0-24 kernel boot problem is fixed with 4.15.0-29! 🙂

  51. hello and come with another suggestion always well ecucha gives for that thanks I would like to know if at some point maybe future in the program manager will put mint in a corner with exclusive programs of linux mint would be a great benefit for both mint and its users since these programs would adapt a 100 * 100 to linux mint and would attract more users looking for an alternative to windows and other systems, of course if they take my idea positively they can be adding to this part of the exclusive manager of linux mint basic programs as a tool is not necessary in large amount maybe one per month or week and over time a great source of unique programs is plowed with this I say goodbye always happy to use linux mint 😆bye

  52. hello, I come with another suggestion always well heard, that’s why I would like to know if at some point in the future the program administrator will put the mint in a corner with exclusive programs of linux mint would be a great benefit for both mint and its users since these programs would adapt 100 * 100 to linux mint and would attract more users looking for an alternative to Windows and other systems, of course if they take my idea positively they can add to this part of the exclusive administrator of basic programs of linux mint as a tool is not necessary in large quantity, maybe one per month or per week and over time a great source of unique programs with this I say goodbye I am always happy to use linux mint 😆bye apologies translation error

  53. I know i commented already but I just wanted to give feedback. I tried the clutter command to remove vblank. Running Nvidia latest driver with composite pipeline on. I have never seen ‘Expo’ work so smooth and fast before. Normally it is a lag-fest and there is a delay before even animating. In fact it seems the whole desktop is better using this command so long as i use the CPL from Nvidia to avoid tearing.
    So from a sync perspective this is the mode i will be running from now on.

    ——–
    If we could just get so performance improvements on panel clicks for instantaneous applet response ( opening menu, calender , volume etc.. ) then cinnamon would be pretty much perfect.. That and making nemo refresh faster as i can actually see a moment on nemo before the home folder icons are drawn each time.. feels la bit like a website loading.

  54. Dear moderator!
    You constantly delete my posts.
    This behavior is unacceptable.
    Therefore:
    1. I ask you to delete all my posts from your site with the name “Vasily”
    2. Please remove it today.

    1. Vasily, I saw many of your posts on this forum. What is your problem ? Are you running IE6 in wine (just joking) ?

    2. Hi Vasily! 🙂 I counted *7 posts* from you (as of July 26, 2018 at 7:44 am) in this blog alone! And, I’m sure they’ve been very helpful to many, including me. Thanks!

      Were there other posts by you in this blog that you believe have been deleted by a moderator?

  55. I posted a comment on July 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm and it’s still awaiting moderation, not sure if it’s been missed?

  56. Hi all
    Clem and the team great job with this new version
    Had an issue with Kernel 4.15.0-24 on one of my rigs, the network chip was not working anymore. Solved in 4.15.0-29

  57. Oh Man! Clem and Team, you have worked so hard and the sleepless nights (I know about those with other work I’ve done, going many nights without rest). I so incredibly appreciate this work and I hope deeply that LM will be around for a long time, I’ve settled comfortably with this distro and love it. Every time I run the Redmond Monster I’m reminded just how lucky I am to have this instead. Linux !=YouKnowWhat. I’ve donated another meager sum, which I was both well off (so I could donate hundreds) and a good coder (so I could help develop). Perhaps in time, if my prospects improve, I might be able to address both of those. In the mean time, What about a more fun T-Shirt Series, at least one where the logo is larger on the chest, the ones you have look too much like preppy workman shirts. I’m gonna as for something among the T-Shirts at Christmas, but I’d love to have a choice for something more fun looking. One idea: “LM/Linux Mint, Fresh, Tasty, and Free unlike…” Or one with an LM logo that looks like a toothy jaw biting a certain other OS Avatar, Or one that looks tie-dye with a large LM logo (not 2 inches, but more like 6 inches in size). I’m not skilled enough to design these-yet, but they are some ideas. I want to make the message to strangers that LM is fun…And Minty Fresh.
    Thank you guys!

  58. Hello:

    I can confirm I have the odd “rubber band” effect when moving minimized windows around. FPS is exactly 60 when I do this, when I stop it drops down to 2-3 FPS. No screen tearing.

    With Vsync off, there’s no rubber band effect and FPS skyrockets to about 250! No screen tearing here though either.

    I’m using an old, modest Nvidia card: a GT 640, with nvidia 390 drivers.

    1. The problem fixed in V2 was related to UEFI. Since the 32 bit release only works with BIOS, no fix is needed.

  59. Hola,
    He actualizado mi equipo , en cual tenia instalada la version ROSA y he instalado la nueva version de TARA, me funciona bien, pero he notado una ausencia mate-services-admin, me gustaria saber si este paquete lo han descartado definitivamente o, volvera a estar en los repositorios.
    Gracias

  60. Many thanks for all your hard work on Linux Mint. I have tried the new version 19 and found that Evince document reader does not load properly – the timer circle runs for a few seconds then stops and nothing else happens. Can this please be corrected.

  61. Mint, mint, mint. 😐
    Sorry to hear of the rough time you’ve had. I am a long-time linux user (’98), with RedHat 5.1 being my first full time linux OS. I haven’t looked back, and have tried a few distros over the years. Things have evolved so far since then, it’s really hard to explain unless you have done it. Mint XFCE has been my choice since Lisa/Maya timeframe. I started having problems when the switch was made to systemd. I thought it was hardware issues, as my system was aging, but even on all new hardware oddities persist. I was honestly ignorant of systemd because I had gotten used to linux just working. Since I’ve been using linux so long, you can imagine that I am pretty used to learning new things and am comfortable with tinkering. But the more I learned about systemd, and how it has invaded distros without there being an alternative, I got less and less comfortable. Regardless of whether you like it, hate it, or don’t care about it, the fact remains that you don’t have a choice to use it or not with your distro. Over time, I have come to prefer XFCE, even though I’ve tried many other DEs. I don’t like the idea of systemd. It just doesn’t sit well with me, and I am not about to argue or try to convince anyone else about it. (there are plenty of people willing to do that).

    I usually don’t upgrade right away to new Mint versions, just because I like to make sure things shake out first. But I think this time around… I am not going to. I think it’s time that Mint goes into my list of “past distros” even though I have used it far longer than any other. Reading about the install/upgrade issues this time around was unsettling. Knowing systemd is there, creeping along, assimilating things doesn’t work for me. I will be evaluating my options, perhaps Devuan or even FreeBSD. I really wish there was a way to keep using Mint, but it’s just not meeting my needs anymore. I am but one user, and I am sure Mint will continue on without me. 🙂

  62. I came from Mint 18.2 (32 bit); the upgrade to 18.3 worked fine, the upgrade to 19 not. So I decided to install Mint 19 (64 bit) completely new. After that, everything was fine — exept PlayOnLinux with my loved Age Of Empires II – The Conquerors. Obviously, the PlayOnLinux native wine libraries are broken (libz.so, after removing that libray problems with libasound_module_conf_pulse.so). Even after re-installing Mint 19 (32 bit), I had the same problems. Workaround: Use the wine “System” and everything is fine.

  63. Your delay is due to poor async design. You wait for the draw to move windows, and with VSYNC redraws are done with lower frequency. Changing the WM logic to change window state on drag, and making the redraw only grab the already changed window state and draw it will eliminate any VSYNC-related problems.

    Seriously, program logic shouldn’t be dependent on redraws. At all. They should only grab the already processed, ready state and draw it. This way no visible delay is even possible to be caused.

    1. That’s interesting. Would it cause skipped frames though? Is that idea compatible with the metacity/mutter design? If you’re experienced enough with coding and the mutter design, I’d love to see this idea implemented as a PR against muffin.

  64. @mweishaar The fear of systemd is heavily misguided. It’s literally a set of tools and APIs that help with organising daemons, timed jobs and the like. There is no alternative for the reason it’s not needed. Systemd is abstract enough to be able to be implemented in any way or system you might want. It can even run as a child of another init mechanism.

    It doesn’t “creep” inside distributions. Distributions explicitly choose it because it’s better than alternatives for everyone involved. You might as well be unhappy that the bourne shell standard exists, or that all graphic distributions use Xorg’s X server. Well, duh.

    1. We didn’t choose systemd, that choice was made by Debian, and I’m not sure they had much of a choice themselves considering how much momentum it has, how actively developed it is and promising it is for all of us in various distributions. That said, we’re really happy with it. Sure, there are plenty of little things in Ubuntu which were designed to only work with upstart and which either got dropped or caused issues for a while.

      What I see though aren’t sound technical arguments. I see politics and controversy. I don’t agree with it personally and I pay little attention to it. We’ve exposed issues and we’re aware of limitations, the runtime dir issue, session processes continuing past logout etc.. these need to improve, but we’re not alone in this, they affect Linux as a whole, and that’s a good thing.

      Systemd isn’t the first “new thing” people hate and it won’t be the last. We’re all ears on constructive arguments when people pinpoint issues and suggest improvements. Mint isn’t the distribution for people who hate systemd, pulseaudio, mono, proprietary software or well, anything really. There are distributions who deliberately don’t ship, don’t support or even boycott upstream projects based on philosophical or political standpoints. We don’t do that. We’re here to make the best possible desktop on top of the best possible package base and upstream components, nowadays that means embracing systemd fully as a component which is common to and pushed by a huge majority of distributions, and we’re happy to do that.

    2. @Deuxis, Not exactly. There was no choice if a distro is a downstream (like Mint). And there was quite a debate about it on the Debian team when the decision was made to go with systemd. To pass it off like it was a simple decision based on superior technology is quite disingenuous. I didn’t post to debate for or against systemd, that would be pointless and has been done to death. I just wanted to point out that I don’t have a choice anymore to NOT use systemd on Mint, and that is pushing me look into alternatives. I think the Mint team should know that.

      Here’s a quote from a PCWorld article in 2015 that was attributed to Clem on the topic:
      “… the concensus upstream is to kill sysvinit, consolekit, upower even (and the list will grow) to replace them with systemd components. It’s not something a distribution can decide against unless somebody actively develops a complete alternative. So although [desktop environments] have been more and more different across distros lately, you can expect all of them to have the same underlying core sooner or later.”

    3. Hi,

      This quote is still true today. I would add that the transition with upower has been difficult. Your statement is also correct, as a Mint user, or a user of any Debian derivative, your choice in that regard is limited.

    4. This has implications upstream also.. for instance we’re moving to systemd-coredump in mintreports (away from apport which is Ubuntu specific) and we recently implemented support for systemd-datetime in cinnamon (note that as upstream devs we keep support for consolekit, upower, ntp, ntpdate.. and all the components we’re moving away from as a distribution).

  65. Because mentioned:
    Available to be seen, the problems on major distros are old, even promoted by external factors.
    – Started with the physical structure of Unix, born to monolithic servers. Still in use, though the DOS users found more rational ways for the ‘personal’ environment.
    – With the libraries problem coming from that mismatch, also by hiding specs and forcing reverse engineering, many closed source drivers where pushed into the Linux environment.
    – Added to this, an excess of applications, methods and drivers. Standards where forged not to be standards but paths of control (the latest example being EFI, with all the troubles and opportunities to control either users as theirs systems… bellow Level 0) Hypothetical? Maybe so… recent CPU attacks where mentioned by 2006, now being a surprise presented as a novelty (always here since then).

    The real divider being not so much main distros, but the multi-dimensionality of any final distro.
    This one not to avoid, but to pinpoint and have present, not to hide under the carpet but to clean up.
    Then… to that organizational cleaning… You have chosen drivers where various are to choose.
    … You have closed source drivers (and immediate benefit to later problems)
    … You have open source drivers (maybe not so fast, but correctable and respecting stability)

    Personally, these last two are more important. The safe being easy to trash by need or easiness.
    Where what is needed there, is a full separation of waters: True Gnu-Linux, and ‘comercial’-linux.
    Not the same (quite opposite) And amazing how the first can be fast.
    … Where is the fast in closed source offers? The hidden, fills Linux with many flaws M$ has.
    (Java aggravating the problem of injected insecurity)

    And that’s why I use a FSF approved distros at par with Mint… This, while Debian Mint is not yet one of those cleaned environments due public demand and needs.
    That being THE frontier that must be well defined, to be efficiently managed.
    And also the reason for the Debian Mint Distro to exist.
    … Some click away.

    1. *True freedom* is very personal.

      If a choice is made to accept a definition of “freedom”, or what is considered to be “free”, that comes from a source outside oneself — i.e., another person, or organization, or institution — it would be wise to do so with caution.

      Only personal choices that truly resonate within oneself — in the moment — allowing for the “freedom” to make a different choice in any future moment — have any authenticity or validity.

      There is no authority greater than the self — than making choices and taking *full responsibility* for those choices — i.e., no blaming others (or even oneself), no pretending to be a victim.

  66. I want to report a possible bug on LM19 Cinnamon.
    In the mint menu, right-click, uninstall, a normal user without administrative privileges can uninstall an application using their own password instead of the administrator’s password.
    This is not allowed in LM18.x

    1. Not “published” so maybe Clem is working on the calamares installer he was talking about, that would be nice.

  67. I have used older version of Mint. But most difficulty I have faced with it is for networking.
    For Linux computers, Ubuntu serves best net surfing experience but fedora was hard to even connect to wifi.
    For mint, I loved it. It is quite fancy, powerful, easy to use. Once I face trouble with it. This is because I used 2 OS on one PC. One was windows and another was Mint. I messed up in partition and all my drives were locked.

  68. I have 19-cinnamon installed. Memory consumption is around 2-3GB when your tabs are on, media player running. It’s not being told that Mint has been a lightweight package however i believe 2-3GB is still a bit much.

  69. Two installers does not help much in terms of FDE if neither is able to find LWM volumes at /dev/mapper/. Ubuntu seams to be the only distro that is able to find ALL available volumes. Considering the number of different distro’s/installers in existence, I find this surprising. And now LMDE has two installers, both of which lack this ability???

  70. I tried to install for VLC on a fresh Linux Mint live USB and I get this
    Could not download all repository indexes

    The repository may no longer be available or could not be contacted because of network problems. If available an older version of the failed index will be used. Otherwise the repository will be ignored. Check your network connection and ensure the repository address in the preferences is correct.

    The repository ‘cdrom://Linux Mint 19 _Tara_ – Release amd64 20180717 bionic Release’ does not have a Release file.

  71. TVM for including Seamonkey, and thus Composer, being so useful for amateur Webmasters, in the LM 19 Software Manager repository.
    LM just gets better and better, LM 19, 32 and 64-bit, both great with RAM, and, very stable as well. Microsoft, and that Other One…can eat their hearts out…
    Regards

  72. Dear Mint Team,

    I have recently clean installed LM19 V2 and all the problems of slow boot, flatpaks not installing etc have all been fixed. Thank you all for your hard work.
    I have a rock solid system now, no distro hopping for me till LM20 now. 😄🤗

  73. Why Linux Mint Vpn and JBL Bluetooth connection is not working good. I will try come back in a month hopefully all bug out and we have really cute systems.

  74. Seems that mint is very good and manageable.
    But every time I download and check chkrootkit, you’ll find viruses and that annoys me.
    Clamav in root provides several hundred files that appear to be associated with libreoffice.
    If you delete these, they will be there afterwards.
    lack information about the various viruses and possibly removal.
    A pure mint 19 had been hoped for.

  75. They are 2 kernel, 4.15.0-29 and -30, updates I have to skip because they don’t work with my nvidia GeForce 6150SE with the suggested driver nvidia-304.135 (16.04), I am still on Mint 18.3.

    When I install those kernels rebooting start Mint to low resolution. Installing the open source driver seems to work but the screen looks at low brightness so I am constrained to install the nvidia-304 driver.

    I tried to reinstall nv-304 under those kernel but this doesn’t work. So for the moment I have reverted to 4.13.–45.

    The PC is an old Athlon-64 X2 with Win10 Pro 64 in dual boot with Mint 18.3.

    Any suggestion?

    Thanks,
    Angelo.

  76. Waiting for LMDE to come out of beta…. or for the KDE version of LMDE 19 whichever hits first. Had install problems with 18 though… until beginning of this year Mint has been the go to system on both my laptops. It just works and enables me to get my jobs done

  77. Why does the upgrade from 18.3 to 19 force the user to create a timeshift snapshot? I dont’t like this (both on Windows, macOS and Linux). I consider this a waste of time. I have already bucked up my system and if something is wrong I think the best is reinstalling from scratch. Why you want limit my freedom? They are more than 12 year I use GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint) on my machine and more I use it and more it seems to chase the Windows and/or macOS…

    How can I upgrade without TIMESHIFT?

    Thanks.

  78. Too late, Clem. I have spent an hour to do that and after the successful upgrade I have removed it and its folder: in a few hours it had eaten about 20 (of 90) GiB of HD. (Image if I would install this Mint with timeshift on my 2 in 1 with only 64 GiB of space..)

    In any case after the upgrade, Mint does not use nvidia-304 but only free driver. Driver Manager shows only “No proprietary driver in use” and does not offer any choice.

    The free driver seems to work the only defect is that the screen seems to have many strips of cellophane and all seems darker.

    The question is: how to make everything brighter?

    Thanks

Leave a Reply

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