Monthly News – January 2022

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We received donations from 730 people in December and 695 in January. I have to tell you it’s a real pleasure to see these numbers, especially after a release. Aside from helping us financially this is a huge motivational boost for everyone involved. I like to imagine 700 people in a room with smiles on their face who came just because they enjoyed what we worked on. We all contributed something in the team, whether it’s a performance improvement in Cinnamon, a new desktop utility tool, a system fix, an idea… we had fun and we made a lot of people happy, and that is a fantastic feeling. Many thanks to you all for your donations and for your support.

As you know Linux Mint 20.3 is out and it was the last 20.x release. The next development cycle comes with a fair share of ideas and exciting new features, but also some really ambitious items when it comes to the foundations and the technology we’re using under the hood. For instance, we’re currently working on rebasing Cinnamon’s window manager and Javascript interpreter on more modern versions of mutter and GJS.

The LMDE project continues. LMDE stands for Linux Mint Debian Edition and consists in making a distribution which is almost identical to Linux Mint but based on Debian instead of Ubuntu. It’s an interesting exercise because it forces us to test the compatibility of our own software stack with Debian and it shows us exactly why and how we rely on Ubuntu and where we find ourselves without it. Ubuntu, as a package base, but also as a set of improvements, additional packages and bug fixes on top of Debian, is a major component of Linux Mint. Although LMDE shows us why Ubuntu is the best alternative for us it also shows us how easy it is to port our work to a different base and how close to Linux Mint that gets us. We work on LMDE primarily for us, to get that information. It is not a priority, certainly not compared to Linux Mint itself, but it is an important project nonetheless.

Work on LMDE 5 started early in January. LMDE 4 was already on par with the Mint, Xapp and Cinnamon stacks featured in 20.2. The patches we apply to Ubuntu were ported over and the stacks were upgraded to what was published in 20.3. The result is a little bit underwhelming because it just looks and feels like Linux Mint 20.3. Under the surface though it features a Debian 11 base which software is more recent than Ubuntu 20.04 and which gives us a preview of some of the challenges we’ll face in Linux Mint 21. It helps us prepare for that next version.

In terms of release we’re close to BETA. All the backports and packages are ready. The LMDE 5 ISO image boots and installs fine. There are no critical issues on the horizon.

We identified a small list of bugs we want to get fixed before it reaches QA. We might postpone a little bit potentially to add more features to the installer, to look at the upgrade mechanism and the GNOME screenshot utility (which regressed significantly upstream between 3.36 and 3.38). Other than that things look pretty good, we’ll definitely have a BETA this month.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Simple Mobile Tools
Silver Sponsors:
Sucuri
ThinkPenguin: For Everything Freedom		 Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
hSo
BGASoft Inc
Feathercoin
HamoniKR
Laser Pointer Forums, LLC
Look To The Right SEO
Uwe Schneider GmbH

Donations in December:

A total of $21,677 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 730 donors:

$500, Gabriel C.
$300 (6th donation), Mikhail Chabanov
$238 (2nd donation), Dr. Andreas G.
$216 (5th donation), Marcus H.
$216, Johannes J.
$200 (28th donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy“
$200 (2nd donation), William S.
$162, George K.
$129, Mathias H.
$108 (4th donation), Roland L.
$108 (3rd donation), Enric Pastor
$108 (2nd donation), Matthias H.
$108, Edith H.
$108, Matthijs S.
$108, Andreas V.
$108, Heinz S.
$108, Julien C.
$100 (33rd donation), Fast Junkie
$100 (9th donation), Timothy P.
$100 (8th donation), James P. aka “Retired IT”
$100 (6th donation), Jean P. R.
$100 (5th donation), Walter K.
$100 (3rd donation), Konrad W.
$100 (3rd donation), Dan R.
$100 (2nd donation), Harold B.
$100 (2nd donation), Mike H.
$100, HPN
$100, P F H.
$100, David S.
$100, Bill E.
$84, Antonio B.
$54 (14th donation), Heiko P. aka “CyCroN“
$54 (8th donation), Frank M. aka “Bullet64“
$54 (8th donation), Bernard H.
$54 (7th donation), Ian H White.
$54 (7th donation), Ian M.
$54 (5th donation), Volker P.
$54 (4th donation), Bruce J.
$54 (4th donation), Marcin G.
$54 (4th donation), Dan
$54 (2nd donation), Oswald W.
$54 (2nd donation), Kees K.
$54 (2nd donation), Michael K.
$54 (2nd donation), Albert-jozef P.
$54 (2nd donation), Chistoph B.
$54 (2nd donation), Carsten M.
$54 (2nd donation), Joannes G.
$54 (2nd donation), Felix C.
$54 (2nd donation), Benedikt H.
$54 (2nd donation), Sebastien K.
$54 (2nd donation), Isabell C.
$54 (2nd donation), Daniel M.
$54, Pilato R.
$54, Alessandro B.
$54, Luís Tiago F.
$54, Reiner Z.
$54, Herbert H.
$54, Joerg B.
$54, Marco B.
$54, Mark B.
$54, Heide R.
$54, Reinhold S.
$54, Ulrich M.
$54, Walter M.
$54, Andreas W. aka “Andreas811”
$54, Neil B.
$54, Mathieu O.
$54, Peter G.
$50 (56th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (18th donation), Geoff P
$50 (14th donation), Alfred H. aka “Varmint Al“
$50 (12th donation), Douglas J.
$50 (8th donation), Christophe Caillé aka “KKY”
$50 (7th donation), Michael T.
$50 (6th donation), Ariel Juodziukynas
$50 (5th donation), Enzo P aka “Nonno Enzo”
$50 (5th donation), Nathaniel B.
$50 (4th donation), Kyle S.
$50 (4th donation), Harry M.
$50 (4th donation), Michael C.
$50 (4th donation), Karl B.
$50 (4th donation), Winston M.
$50 (3rd donation), Frank F.
$50 (3rd donation), Sherwood O.
$50 (3rd donation), Andras Papai aka “Bitfarago”
$50 (3rd donation), Scott M.
$50 (3rd donation), Harry Fine Paralegal Services
$50 (3rd donation), Michael S.
$50 (3rd donation), Hanzo21
$50 (3rd donation), Robert D. aka “MacDhai“
$50 (3rd donation), Herman B.
$50 (3rd donation), Adam W.
$50 (3rd donation), William M.
$50 (2nd donation), Linden R.
$50 (2nd donation), Warren A.
$50 (2nd donation), Rajesh K.
$50 (2nd donation), P D.
$50 (2nd donation), John B.
$50 (2nd donation), Christian H.
$50 (2nd donation), Harvey U.
$50, Ian F.
$50, David D.
$50, William B.
$50, Charles C.
$50, Steven P.
$50, Charles W.
$50, Timothy C.
$50, JUSKO HOLDINGS
$50, Robert T.
$50, Wesley L.
$50, Douglas B.
$50, Nick K.
$50, Mark K.
$50, TWEB Inc
$50, Robert S.
$50, Darren S.
$50, William M.
$50, Kerry C.
$50, Wade L.
$50, Martin B.
$50, Tony A.
$50, Leon J E.
$49 (7th donation), Alexey T.
$43 (141th donation), Olli K.
$43 (3rd donation), Olaf K.
$43 (3rd donation), Ulrich W.
$43, shiv
$43, Huiquan Z.
$42, Lawson G.
$40 (15th donation), Vladimir Litvinenko
$40 (8th donation), Robert T.
$40 (4th donation), Andrew W.
$36 (19th donation), Ted S.
$36 (17th donation), Tsatsorin E. aka “Eugene713“
$36 (3rd donation), Vasiliy B.
$35 (13th donation), Real F.
$35 (5th donation), Silvio H.
$34, Lapointe A.
$32 (9th donation), Lars-gunnar S.
$32 (6th donation), Andrew L.
$32 (5th donation), Harry F.
$32 (5th donation), Francesc M. C.
$32 (3rd donation), Gerardo A. M.
$32 (3rd donation), erwn16 aka “erwn”
$32 (3rd donation), Bernard R. aka “Beer4661”
$32 (3rd donation), Jürgen H.
$32 (2nd donation), Günther H.
$32, Mihai G.
$32, Nello G.
$32, Andreas M.
$30 (19th donation), Kevin S.
$30 (4th donation), Andrew C.
$30 (4th donation), Larry B.
$30 (4th donation), Ken S. aka “knucklehead”
$30 (3rd donation), Al B.
$30 (2nd donation), Moses R.
$30 (2nd donation), Leslie R.
$30 (2nd donation), Jay H.
$30 (2nd donation), Erik
$30, Glenn M.
$30, Harry S.
$27 (19th donation), Joachim M.
$27 (17th donation), John K.
$27 (4th donation), John B.
$27 (4th donation), Olaf Bousche aka “Bushman”
$27 (3rd donation), Ralf S.
$27, Simon L.
$27, Luis R.
$27, Trevor C.
$27, Richard T.
$25 (15th donation), Antoine T.
$25 (11th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (7th donation), Richard N.
$25 (6th donation), John T.
$25 (5th donation), Derek B.
$25 (4th donation), Peter T.
$25 (3rd donation), Steven V.
$25 (2nd donation), Kevin D.
$25 (2nd donation), Benoit F.
$25 (2nd donation), Donald L.
$25 (2nd donation), Matthew T.
$25, Pradeep Sreedharan
$25, Claudio Kuenzler
$25, Paul S.
$25, Tim S.
$25, Anon
$24 (5th donation), Richard L. F.
$23 (65th donation), Johann J.
$22 (20th donation), Peter E.
$22 (17th donation), Per J.
$22 (13th donation), Teobaldo D.
$22 (12th donation), Janne S.
$22 (10th donation), Brandon W.
$22 (10th donation), Bjarne K.
$22 (9th donation), Florent G.
$22 (8th donation), Gabriele Bandini aka “GiBi Gab“
$22 (8th donation), Dirk M.
$22 (7th donation), Florin aka “~FLOW~”
$22 (6th donation), Jose A. V.
$22 (6th donation), David M. D.
$22 (6th donation), Ciaran M.
$22 (6th donation), Jürgen F.
$22 (6th donation), Laurent G.
$22 (5th donation), Marco P.
$22 (5th donation), Vytautas M.
$22 (5th donation), Stefan Becker aka “Appeltaler”
$22 (5th donation), Tom S.
$22 (5th donation), Holger B.
$22 (4th donation), Bruce I.
$22 (4th donation), Valentin F.
$22 (4th donation), Divoto
$22 (4th donation), Stefan P.
$22 (4th donation), Jürgen B.
$22 (3rd donation), K. S. .
$22 (3rd donation), David M.
$22 (3rd donation), Giovanni D. S. aka “ChibiOS“
$22 (3rd donation), Michal Bořek aka “mibo”
$22 (3rd donation), Klaus B.
$22 (3rd donation), Jonathan P.
$22 (3rd donation), Wouter W.
$22 (3rd donation), Peter L. aka “Pedro“
$22 (3rd donation), Daniel H.
$22 (2nd donation), Mischa L.
$22 (2nd donation), Mike A. aka “peppermint86”
$22 (2nd donation), Nuno G.
$22 (2nd donation), Mario K.
$22 (2nd donation), David P.
$22 (2nd donation), John R.
$22 (2nd donation), Norbert M.
$22 (2nd donation), Antonio D.
$22 (2nd donation), Edelbert L.
$22 (2nd donation), Mark A.
$22 (2nd donation), Florian B.
$22 (2nd donation), Ugo J.
$22 (2nd donation), John L.
$22 (2nd donation), John Baines
$22, Roman P.
$22, Heike K.
$22, Daniel L.
$22, Uwe P.
$22, Pascal L.
$22, Jarosz
$22, Hervé R.
$22, Carsten D.
$22, Horst Pentke
$22, Carlos A.
$22, Luka G.
$22, Andreas M. aka “AnMe2k22”
$22, Vasil B.
$22, Nard J.
$22, Max Eitel R.
$22, Joerg S.
$22, Matic M.
$22, Scott D.
$22, Laurence N.
$22, Birger S.
$22, Malcolm C.
$22, Carsten T.
$22, Alfred M.
$22, Trajche M.
$22, Grzegorz W.
$22, Antje W.
$22, Steven H.
$22, Timon K.
$22, Stefan M.
$22, Adalbert K.
$22, Claudio B.
$22, Ralf S.
$22, Andrew B.
$22, Steffen J.
$22, Daniel K.
$22, Ezequiel O.
$22, Axel B.
$22, Norbert U.
$22, Ettore G. aka “Hanamigi”
$22, Antonio P.
$22, zzzzzzzzz .
$22, Jean-paul D.
$22, E B
$22, Matthew J.
$22, Noel L.
$22, Ivan D.
$22, Frank B.
$22,
$22, Alexander P.
$22, Brian D.
$22, Simon O.
$22, Stanislav B.
$20 (59th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan “
$20 (41th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (37th donation), Stefan M. H.
$20 (18th donation), Ke C.
$20 (16th donation), Nigel B.
$20 (16th donation), François P.
$20 (14th donation), George R. aka “Az4x4”
$20 (13th donation), Dylan B.
$20 (11th donation), Jon G.
$20 (9th donation), Joao Kodama
$20 (7th donation), Richard L.
$20 (7th donation), Bruce N.
$20 (6th donation), Don S.
$20 (6th donation), Henrik Hemrin
$20 (6th donation), Pablo L. aka “LAFO”
$20 (5th donation), Marek M.
$20 (5th donation), Robert J.
$20 (5th donation), Lupe A.
$20 (5th donation), Edward F.
$20 (5th donation), Lennart J.
$20 (4th donation), J M. H. C.
$20 (4th donation), Michael A C.
$20 (4th donation), Richard H.
$20 (4th donation), Stacey B.
$20 (4th donation), Lynn H.
$20 (3rd donation), Kurt K.
$20 (3rd donation), William B.
$20 (3rd donation), Bruce C.
$20 (3rd donation), Quietguy B.
$20 (3rd donation), Stelian S.
$20 (3rd donation), Brian H.
$20 (3rd donation), Wladyslaw T.
$20 (3rd donation), Eric M.
$20 (3rd donation), Oscar B.
$20 (3rd donation), Alfredo O.
$20 (3rd donation), J. S. .
$20 (2nd donation), Chris P.
$20 (2nd donation), Dismas S. aka “Dismas”
$20 (2nd donation), Greg M.
$20 (2nd donation), Daniel C.
$20 (2nd donation), Sylvain M.
$20 (2nd donation), Nicholas M.
$20 (2nd donation), Peter D.
$20 (2nd donation), Royle J.
$20 (2nd donation), Jeremy S.
$20 (2nd donation), Daniel C. aka “comcroa”
$20 (2nd donation), Terrence F.
$20 (2nd donation), Mark R.
$20 (2nd donation), Donald O.
$20 (2nd donation), Rodney Mc B.
$20 (2nd donation), Byron D.
$20 (2nd donation), Steven M.
$20 (2nd donation), Thank you Linux Mint
$20 (2nd donation), Roger H.
$20 (2nd donation), Peter B.
$20, Wyman B.
$20, Zac C.
$20, Ruari O.
$20, Lance B
$20, David N.
$20, Darryl S.
$20, Geoff A.
$20, David B.
$20, Dr W Andrew C S.
$20, PAA aka “PaulAndrewAnderson.org“
$20, Ihor P.
$20, Sharlene T.
$20, Halcan Inc
$20, Keith A.
$20, Jose Luis I.
$20, Micheal M.
$20, Peter S.
$20, Lawrence K.
$20, John N.
$20, Jorj S.
$20, Mike R.
$20, Aleksander P.
$20, Victor E.
$20, Neil Reymond G.
$16 (59th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (4th donation), Christian F.
$16 (4th donation), Sebastian M.
$16 (3rd donation), Reidar S.
$16 (3rd donation), Yann D.
$16 (2nd donation), Samuel B.
$15 (14th donation), Constantin M.
$15 (11th donation), A. Ruzhnikov aka “aruzhnikov”
$15 (4th donation), Luc C.
$15, Michael C.
$15, Ted A.
$15, Bernard S E.
$15, Alain V.
$14 (7th donation), Mirko A.
$14 (2nd donation), zzzzzzzzzz .
$14, Leopold S.
$14, Arthur H.
$13 (5th donation), Brian H.
$13 (5th donation), Thorsten K.
$12 (2nd donation), Oliver E.
$12 (2nd donation), John W.
$11 (17th donation), Raymond M. (retired)
$11 (13th donation), Abdulkadir H. aka “Askari”
$11 (13th donation), Marc V. K.
$11 (12th donation), Janne M.
$11 (12th donation), José G. aka “picaso”
$11 (10th donation), Davide A.
$11 (10th donation), JCSenar – linuxirun.com
$11 (10th donation), Marko U.
$11 (9th donation), Gabriele I.
$11 (9th donation), Frank J.
$11 (8th donation), Z. K. .
$11 (7th donation), Karl H.
$11 (7th donation), Jean C. A.
$11 (6th donation), Steuerberatung
$11 (6th donation), Vacances Scolaires
$11 (6th donation), Michael H. S.
$11 (6th donation), Rupert B.
$11 (6th donation), Florian P.
$11 (5th donation), Klaus K.
$11 (5th donation), Wieger W.
$11 (5th donation), Jan S.
$11 (5th donation), Islape
$11 (4th donation), Kent J.
$11 (4th donation), Manuel R.
$11 (4th donation), Ivaylo M.
$11 (4th donation), Alfons B.
$11 (4th donation), Dieter R.
$11 (4th donation), Björn H.
$11 (4th donation), www.malina314.com
$11 (3rd donation), Eduardo K.
$11 (3rd donation), Alexander M.
$11 (3rd donation), Lukas W.
$11 (3rd donation), Juan Carlos aka “Ehuntabi”
$11 (3rd donation), Marco Z.
$11 (3rd donation), Bruce M.
$11 (3rd donation), Gian Marco F. aka “Gmf_77”
$11 (3rd donation), wieczniezielony
$11 (3rd donation), António S.
$11 (3rd donation), Michal
$11 (3rd donation), Tristan V.
$11 (2nd donation), Time Will Tell
$11 (2nd donation), Markus B.
$11 (2nd donation), Giorgio C.
$11 (2nd donation), Harry W.
$11 (2nd donation), Maurizio Giacobbe aka “maurizioweb“
$11 (2nd donation), Adam P.
$11 (2nd donation), Vicente G.
$11 (2nd donation), Beniamin P.
$11 (2nd donation), Bjørn A. F.
$11 (2nd donation), Jaroslav J.
$11 (2nd donation), Antonio R.
$11 (2nd donation), Denis S.
$11, Yianis K.
$11, Hexagonal Basalt
$11, Luca P.
$11, Aziz Utku O.
$11, Heikki T.
$11, Calin M.
$11, Erich B.
$11, Anastasia P.
$11, Francesco G.
$11, Bruno G.
$11, Christophe D.
$11, Oliver E.
$11, Alexandru G.
$11, Eduardo H.
$11, Giovanni T.
$11, Gerd S.
$11, Lars O.
$11, Martin H.
$11, Gabriel B.
$11, Tim C.
$11, AndorrÀ S.
$11, Lorenz L.
$11, Sebastian S.
$11, Dietmar B.
$11, Andreas D.
$11, Mateusz S.
$11, Karin Brigitte A.
$11, Leslie B.
$11, Jose Vicente M.
$11, Guybertus J.
$11, Johan V.
$11, Giuliano B.
$11, Phil B.
$11, Ulrich G.
$11, Jean-B. N.
$11, Raymond N.
$11, TRANSLAVOX Tumaczenia Mariusz Listewnik
$11, Jose F.
$11, Giulio A.
$11, Edijs
$11, Patrick S.
$11, Georg G.
$11, Kamil A.
$11, Stefan K.
$11, Christian E.
$11, Aaron L.
$11, Bernat B.
$11, Kirill G.
$11, licherlothi
$11, Jürgen B.
$11, Fabian B.
$11, Maria Lina P.
$11, Dejan D.
$10 (92th donation), Tree Service Kansas City
$10 (86th donation), Tree Removal Raleigh NC
$10 (70th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (64th donation), Frank K.
$10 (64th donation), Fence Baton Rouge
$10 (47th donation), Rick R.
$10 (31st donation), Francois-R L.
$10 (25th donation), Sami Mannila
$10 (22nd donation), Hemant Patel
$10 (19th donation), Carpet Cleaning Winnipeg
$10 (17th donation), Fence Company Raleigh
$10 (17th donation), Philip Woodward
$10 (14th donation), Concrete Contractors Raleigh
$10 (14th donation), Cenacpa.rs
$10 (11th donation), Kenton B.
$10 (10th donation), Owen D.
$10 (10th donation), Dana S.
$10 (9th donation), Peter H.
$10 (8th donation), Minneapolis Commercial Cleaners
$10 (8th donation), Minneapolis Towing and Roadside Assistance
$10 (8th donation), Jorge R.
$10 (8th donation), Harold R.
$10 (7th donation), Minnigaliev R.
$10 (5th donation), Rickardo C.
$10 (5th donation), Minneapolis Commercial Painting
$10 (4th donation), Andres P.
$10 (4th donation), Nathan G.
$10 (3rd donation), Mihai-Vlad N.
$10 (3rd donation), Nathan G. aka “Tree Service near me Bowling Green KY“
$10 (3rd donation), Brett W.
$10 (2nd donation), …
$10 (2nd donation), BuyLightFixtures.com
$10 (2nd donation), casca de copiat
$10 (2nd donation), Andrew S.
$10 (2nd donation), William M.
$10 (2nd donation), Dale D.
$10 (2nd donation), Jan G. aka “mantu”
$10 (2nd donation), Alan C.
$10 (2nd donation), Robert M.
$10, George R.
$10, Saeed R.
$10, Gavin
$10, Andreas R.
$10, Sergiu D.
$10, Jay P.
$10, Solt B.
$10, Jaymes R.
$10, At Your Service Virtual Assistance
$10, Great Gifts For Bakers
$10, Ian R.
$10, Kaspar S.
$10, Emin H.
$10, Gabri97
$10, Melvin H.
$10, Samir D.
$10, James B.
$10, Michael S.
$10, Richard S.
$10, Santiago Recalde
$10, Juan Jose P.
$10, Akhilesh M.
$10, Carlos Alberto R.
$10, Yordan A.
$10, Tapio K.
$10, Roger
$10, Jose Augusto P.
$10, Nolan C.
$10, Mariusz B.
$10, Christos V.
$10, Margaret A H.
$10, Peter H.
$10, James C.
$10, Robert P.
$10, Debashis B.
$10, Andrei S.
$10, Marcelo A. Maito
$10, Jesse D.
$10, José Juan M.
$10, Sean M.
$10, Gary A.
$10, Denis L.
$10, Brett K.
$8 (22nd donation), Simone G.
$8 (2nd donation), Mauricio D.
$6 (7th donation), Josef H. R. H.
$6 (5th donation), Dmitry N. aka “Dimex”
$6 (3rd donation), Auguste H.
$5 (56th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (31st donation), Hristo Gatsinski
$5 (25th donation), Thomas R.
$5 (22nd donation), Blazej P. aka “bleyzer”
$5 (18th donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
$5 (8th donation), Jarmo J.
$5 (6th donation), Christian W.
$5 (5th donation), Christopher S aka “Joyfulsquirrel”
$5 (5th donation), Carlos G. L. G.
$5 (5th donation), Rafal K.
$5 (4th donation), Giovanni C.
$5 (3rd donation), Andrew C.
$5 (3rd donation), Andrii P.
$5 (3rd donation), JJvdLinde
$5 (3rd donation), Colin H.
$5 (2nd donation), Lucas DH
$5 (2nd donation), Arndt
$5 (2nd donation), Denis M. aka “Vest1am”
$5, Dirk K.
$5, Dirk B. aka “sur4k”
$5, Hermógenes Reyes F.
$5, CercLL d’Entraide et Réseau Coopératif Autour des Logiciels Libres (LUG of Marseille, FR)
$5, iRaph Studios
$5, Charlotte M.
$5, Matteo B.
$5, Love and Peace aka “4 All!”
$5, Mattia D.
$5, Matthias S.
$5, Yehan Pemarathne
$5, Valentin aka “Tin”
$5, Fabian K.
$5, Jason J.
$5, Francisco A.
$5, Theo Lucassen aka “Goldfigners”
$5, Zurs
$5, Steve Hodgson Marketing Services
$5, Giuseppe B.
$4 (15th donation), Szilard S.
$4, Javier C.
$4, Darcey K.
$4, Reni G.
$3 (7th donation), Chrisentiae Saint-Piaf
$3 (4th donation), Andrei E.
$3 (4th donation), Fergus T.
$3 (3rd donation), Dimitrios B.
$3 (3rd donation), Lucas Miller aka “lukmly013”
$3 (2nd donation), Giacomo V.
$18 from 13 smaller donations

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93 comments

  1. Good day.
    Mint 21 planned in 2022?
    Will there continue to be a design change in Mint 21?
    Will there be an original Firefox Icon?
    Thanks.

    Reply

    1. I actually really like the app icons of Linux Mint. It gives the system a more unified and integrated look.

    2. I asked Clem this question a few months ago and he said “no”, which is unfortunate. I like the designs of most of the square icons but there are many third party apps that have no themed icons and thus look very out of place. Every major OS respects the original third party icon, why can’t Linux Mint do the same?

    3. Some third party app icons may look okay, but there are many apps with icons that would look completely out of place. I think it could be a good idea to provide an optional icon theme without third party icons, but I think that should not be the default.

      The main reason why for example the Papirus icon theme is so popular, is because it is so complete and has icons for basically every app.

  3. I tried LMDE a few years back and found that my Wifi wouldn’t work out of the box, which is the same issue with Debian. What does make it work is using the nonfree versions of Debian. Is it possible for Mint to use Debian nonfree as the base so people have an easier time with drivers?

    Reply

  4. The Debian edition is the major reason I have faith in the stability of Linux Mint. I wouldn’t doubt if others, thinking things through, feel the same. The basic idea that if Ubuntu doesn’t come through well, at some point; there is a short step to regain Mints footing that is prepared. The software on the scale of Mint is no small thing and if the bottom falls out readjustment could be overwhelming. In an ever changing environment, even one that is very reasonably stable in the next few years, that Mint is well covered, to a reasonable extent is enormous to me.
    Thanks!

    Reply

  7. I do feel that us patreon funders get a bit ‘lost in the noise’. Along with your corporate sponsors we are a reliable, dependable source of income. Unrealistic to name every individual, maybe place us after the corporate sponsors, maybe pick a patreon at random each month – Joe Bloggs who has been contributing since 2015?

    BTW – worth every penny and would contribute more if I could afford it.

    Reply

  8. I’m sure that all the efforts to make Mint better distro are very welcome and as a user I’m very thankful. On the other hand, Mint needs an urgent Look & Feel revamp. All windows should have the same look whether it is a gnome app or not. Manjaro does it very well with all official DE. Workspaces are not very easy to use. (Pop Cosmic is great in that matter. I know it’s gnome). Texts and icons are two big in some apps, how many people use a touch screen? Windows borders are too thick now (mint-Y) and the only way to make them dark is changing windows controls to dark too. This is not a rant, they are only examples. Thanks!

    Reply

  9. One last thing, I’ve been using Mint for a very long time and I refuse to change it because everything works out the box and the update manager is the best piece of software ever.!!

    Reply

  10. What are the plans regarding Linux Mint and Wayland?
    Is Wayland finally “ready” for normal usage? I’ve read that some distributions now use Wayland by default.
    Will Linux Mint 21 / LMDE5 use Wayland by default?

    Reply

  11. First of all, as a long fine mint user I want to thank you and all the team member of Linux mint. I would like to tell some areas where I think mint can be a even more better system to use on any computer in mint 21. A seamless upgrade method to upgrade to new version maybe integrate mintUpgrade to mintUpdate or a separate tool because mintUpgrade in cli is nit a hotcake for many people. Power profiles bettery performonce or automatic profiles which will benifit power user as well as heavy user. Night light feature other than redshift it really annoying when redshift can’t even be enabled without internet connection. Touchpad gesture will be benificial for all laptop user. upgrade system apps specially mintInstall app. DifferentIcon packs in themes add/remove section. Customize menu size(its wip in github i guess). I think these are some aspects which can set mint a one of the best Linux distro in a very long run.

    Reply

  12. What kernel will be in LM 21? Will that kernel be installed with an update from 20, or will a fresh install be required to get it?

    Reply

    1. I am not on the Mint team, but I know the answer to one of your questions. So: whatever kernel version LM 21 ships with, one will _not_ need a fresh install of Mint to get it. All that one will need is the relevant bit of Mint’s inbuilt Update Manager (together, perhaps, with a bit of editing of so-called ‘Grub files’).

  13. Please implement Mint-Y theme for GTK4 and libadwaita. These apps look out of place due to non-native theme.

    Reply

  14. When we’ll get a beta for LMDE 5?
    Currently using Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy) under my test sever, want to switch into LMDE 5 once it’s available. If I install LMDE 5 beta, will I automatically upgrade into Stable release when it’s available?

    Reply

  15. Thanks for your great work! I have a genuine curiosity: what arr the peculiarities that make Ubuntu LTS your first choice in place of Debian Stable? I had a look at the whole list of packages from Debian and Ubuntu repos (using sdiff) and to my inexperienced eyes they seem to be quite similar… just curious to know what is the Ubuntu “added value” on top of Debian’s repos… thanks!

    Reply

    1. the packages are different versions. Ubuntu downloads packages, modifies them, and feeds their version to you. They retain the name of the package…so it seems to be the same .

    2. Hi,

      They’re extremely similar. I don’t have a list for this. Our work whenever we focus on LMDE is actually to find what’s missing and if we don’t fix it, to at least get an appreciation for it. What comes immediately to mind is the clear commitment on LTS support, the fact that stable Debian releases come out with missing packages (you typically find them in sid but not in stable when they didn’t make the cut during the release window, we just re-add them in LMDE when that happens) and proprietary drivers (ubuntu-drivers-common and everything tseliot works on). The more you dig though the more you find patches and small differences. useradd supports home directory encryption in Ubuntu but not in Debian, that was added by a patch. It’s not a big thing, but there are many little things like that. When it comes to Desktop Linux Ubuntu has a larger audience, they seem to identify and tackle bugs more quickly than Debian. Sometimes the changes they make go upstream, sometimes they don’t. I find Ubuntu maintainers also to be pragmatic and I think that’s important.

      Debian itself also has many pros. There are many aspects of Ubuntu we don’t need/use in Mint which aren’t in Debian. There’s a slight performance boost compared to Ubuntu, cleaner locales (I’m really not a fan of the language packs in Ubuntu). If I were to exaggerate I’d say Debian is purer/cleaner but also rougher around the edges and sometimes a little more buggy/incomplete. Ubuntu is a finished desktop product, Debian’s main focus isn’t the product but the project and the philosophy behind it.

      ^^ All of this is greatly exaggerated of course. I wanted to give you an idea of how it feels to me. You’ll find examples which can show the complete opposite.

    3. @Clem don’t know how to reply directly to your comment, I will do it here. Thanks for taking the time to answer to my question with such interesting details, wish you and all LM team the best, you deserve it all!

    1. Muffin is already based on Mutter, we’re rebasing on a newer version. Other than Wayland we’re also interested in getting a codebase which is closer to upstream mutter and in some performance boosts, smoother animations and GTK rendering for all windows.

      Marco is a standalone WM. Cinnamon isn’t designed to talk to a WM, it’s designed to implement the libmuffin interface. It’s a bit complicated to explain, but in layman terms Cinnamon is both a DE and a WM at runtime, and cannot work with the likes of Marco.

    3. It installs LMDE then at the very end, ‘grub not installed, will have to be configured manually’, then I have to go the chroot way, to install grub. Will try the ‘add 10 mb free at the start’ next time… I see in the forums the method to use ‘chroot’, but I don’t see mention of the LMDE Installer not installing grub – makes me think I am missing something, commented here due to LMDE news –

    4. ok nevermind user error, I finally did it over and entered everything correctly and it worked fine

  18. I tried Ubuntu 21.04 and I simply fell in love with the centralized pause/play button which automatically interfaces with all running media players.

    Please implement this in upcoming Linux Mint releases!

    Reply

    1. It’s been there for years already. You’re talking about MPRIS controls? It’s already there by default in Cinnamon, whenever you play something your sound applet turns into a media player remote.

    2. @Clem I use MATE which does not have that functionality. Maybe I need to request this from the MATE team?

    2. it would be great to have all these effects in cinnamon including magic lamp and wobbly windows ps. all animations in extension cinnamon are abandoned projects like wobbly and cube. gnome and kde are returning to these awesome desktop effects

  22. Cinnamon Mint 20.3 is great! Love the calendar enhancements! Here’s a suggestion: When an item is on the calendar for today, use a different color than usual for the date /time in the panel. Or something else to distinguish it, like the dot on the update icon. Same for a next day appointment, but perhaps a different color or mark. Thanks again to the Mint Team. You are doing great things!

    Reply

  24. whether the installation of LMDE 5 will be like Linux Mint Cinnamon, I mean installing the system on the system disk without losing data on the second disk, and if not, whether such changes are planned

    Reply

    1. In the past it has always been possible to upgrade from one version of LMDE to another. It’s not necessary to overwrite LMDE4 with LMDE5.
      I would strongly recommend that you try any major upgrade in a VM first, especially if you have done a lot of customisations.

      However, it is essential to still take backups.

  25. Is there any discussion of working on documentation right now? As a constructive criticism, the install and user guides linked on the Welcome screen have quite a bit of missing or outdated info. If they aren’t going to get significant work any time soon, pragmatically, I see it as counterproductive to leave them in prominent positions.

    I’d offer to help if I had anywhere near the knowledge or competence to do so, but, alas.

    Reply

  26. Hi
    There is a bug in LMDE 4, that I hope would be fixed whether following the upgrade path to LMDE 5, or doing a fresh install of LMDE 5.

    The bug is when booting up, perhaps half of the times, the system doesn’t boot, so I end up pushing the power button for 4 seconds to power off the system. Then pushing the power button again to again turn on the system. It then boots up fine.

    I think you released a fix for this quite some time ago, but it never worked for me, or I didn’t apply the fix correcfly.

    I use UEFI on my system disk, but without secure boot. I think this is not relevant though.

    Anyway I hope this problem would be fixed from the moment I have completed the upgrade to LMDE 5.

    Reply

  27. Is the installer for LMDE5, going to more friendly for whole system encryption. As you know the past installer where not whole system encryption friendly and you had top go thru some guide to make it work?

    Reply

  28. Is there any plan of creating a graphical driver manager for LMDE like the Ubuntu-based version of Mint? I’ve noticed Mint doesn’t use the Ubuntu’s software but it’s own, so, how hard is to ship this with Debian? One of the downsides of Debian is being so manual.

    Reply

    1. The Mint tool itself could be ported easily but it’s only a frontend. It sits on top of of ubuntu-drivers-common and information put in the nvidia packages themselves. This is not present in Debian and that’s not as easily portable.

  29. next version insert window animations like magic lamp, wobbly windows, close burn windows etc .. on gnome these ensions are available and the problem is gnome too heavy

    Reply

  30. Regarding the donations part, if you guys can come up with local payment channels, you will get more donations from developing countries. For example, here in India, banks push domestic debit cards instead of Visa cards. As a result, despite being interested in helping you, many people like me can’t do so. At least you can come up with an Android app or something to get payment via Google Playstore’s payment system.

    Anyway, thanks for all the things you guys are doing.

    Reply

  31. Good stuff as always–really looking forward to the many improvements. I was really impressed by the “edge” ISO offering but also LMDE is also a very interesting part of the project. Well done–looking for more updates!

    Reply

  32. Can you please ship the latest LibreOffice software pack instead of an older one? The newest versions are more compatible and featured. Sometimes, a document or Office file does not work properly on an older LibreOffice software which is made with a recent version of it. It is very tedious to work with older software especially when it comes to LibreOffice.

    Reply

  33. Hello and thank you all for the great work. I’ve been using and installing Mint for several years. And I rejoiced when Ubuntu and Mint version numbers co-incided with 20.
    It’s always a headache to find which version of Mint matches which version of Ubuntu, especially when you manage different versions and need to remember the EOL years (5 years after the Ubuntu version number).
    I’m asking for a new numbering policy for the versions of Mint, that would be logical since they are based of another distro. Debian 11 -> LMDE 11 and Ubuntu 21 -> Mint 21 !
    Pleeeease 🙂

    Reply

    1. Hi Alex,

      We’re planning to support i386. That said, we already can’t support it as well as amd64. Chromium for instance doesn’t work in 32bit anymore, we’re shipping an old version for this architecture. Some proprietary software also simply isn’t built for i386 anymore. It’s being slowly abandoned here and there.

  36. As Kurt Dally, I find LMDE as a strong reason to have confidence on Mint.

    Problem is the significant set on mirrors using http instead https.
    This keeps an open door to interception (middle man attack),
    more dangerous than (or opening the way) to various problems
    noticed whenever I contact my google account.

    Under malicious intents, Linux (as any OS) is only RELATIVELY safe.
    Such open doors are not a just theoretical menace.

    One of the warning signs (just that, not what described earlier)
    *may* be not getting actualization logs. Whatever the reason,
    a provider CAN replace an actualization by one delivered by
    a malicious attacker… That, should not be ignored.

    Two years ago, an attack against Mint showed an intention existed.
    It also proved the importance of Mint on information access.
    … And our own sanity.

    Reply

  37. Clem,
    Congrats to you and the team for delivering such a polished 20.3 version.

    I’m looking forward to LMDE5 but I have a concern. I’m using a laptop with an old intel GPU so it uses i915 driver from Mesa. But in very recent versions of Mesa, Crocus has replaced the old buggy i915 driver. Which driver will we have in LMDE 5, crocus or i915?
    Thanks again to you and the team for all the work you put in, and for taking the time out to listen to your users!

    Reply

  38. Hi Clem
    Likin lmde4 real good, I wonder though if you would look into some with the new lmde5 OS.
    back in November 2021 I purchased the JBL 5.1 sound bar with the 10″ woofer however with LMDE4 upgrading the NVIDIA drivers is not a pleasant time it’d be nice if it could be streamlined that would help my GTX 980 TI work up to it full capabilities and also would allow the HDMI to work with my sound bar on a more consistent basis.
    Updating to the latest software is a bother but not an issue but updating driver for hardware or even the later kernel is an issue when it comes to BT5 seems LMDE4 doesn’t support it.
    LMDE4 is reliable and stable for it’s time. I still a young-in Linux years but mature in computer dating back to the early 80″s I say this only to because I’m still learning.

    I hope you seen the questions and observations and inquiries I would have emailed you

    Reply

  39. Thanks everyone for such a wonderful distribution. With Linux Mint, the desktop is pretty much exactly how I want it straight out of the gates. I have tried many other distributions and I end up usually spending a fair amount of time getting the desktop to look and behave how I want it to.

    Reply

  40. All in all I am very pleased with 20.3. However, there is one thing that really bothers me: The included version of Evolution is using deprecated calls to Google Contacts. This has been going on for a while and resulted in error messages from time to time. As of late, synchronizing is not possible any more. Apparently, this has been fixed in newer Evolution versions. I tried using the Flatpak version 3.42 but I’m not able to make it work correctly. It’s probably a matter of access rights but anyway, we really need an up-to-date e-mail solution by default. Could you make this possible somehow? Pretty please with sugar on top?

    Reply

  41. Since I updated to Mate 20, I can no longer get any sound. My previous Mate 18 had a Sound option for “line out” which is what I need, but the Mate 20 only has an option for internal speaker system. I expect developers are only concerned with the latest compact laptop architecture, but I’m using a desktop with two external speakers. When I try to explore finding a different driver, the OS tells me “You don’t need any new drivers.” Not even the option to remove or replace one of the existing drivers. When I look for available sound software, none of it remotely has anything to do with getting a sound signal out to my speakers — its all much more advanced editing and conversion software. So, short of going back to version 18 when I want sound, how can I adjust this?

    Reply

    1. My suggestion is that you go back to LM 19.3 which is still being supported until 2023 or try MX Linux 19.4 or 21. It seems that Linux in general continues to be “dumbed down” as time goes on with fewer choices for the user.

    2. That’s what I hate most about that Driver Manager as it should offer up the AMD’s OpenCL component that’s not provided via any Open Source driver stack but Linux is all around no so out of the box as far as GPGPU Compute APIs are concerned whereas OpenGL/Vulkan do get the needed Out of the box(ISO) inclusion there.

      There are loads of Open Source Applications that make use of GPGPU compute(OpenCL, other compute APIs) but that’s not been properly included on the Distro ISOs. Older Versions of Blender still need OpenCL while newer versions of Blender 3.0/Later may see limited support for Polaris GPU hardware and really it’s rather ironic that Windows has all that OpenCL for AMD’s Radeon supported and plumbed in for the same Open Source software running on Windows.

  43. I had what may be an issue with LMDE4. If next version has corrected it, just skip what follows and I’ll be waiting.
    That “issue” is related to non-interactive bash scripts. It seems LMDE4 does not take ~/.profile in account (in my case, it was an export command I added to expand the PATH environment variable with a dir entry). As the export command perfectly works if included within the a script, there are no problems with file or dir names.
    I asked some advice on the forum before ending here, but nothing conclusive has been found :
    https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=213&t=368158

    Reply

  44. Please help me I’ve accidentally permanently blacklisted any further Linux Kernel 5.13 updates being offered me from the update manager! How do I undo that? It’s too easy to accidentally click the block further updates from a package but now I’m no longer being offered any Kernel 5.13 updates via the Update manager and have to manually check if there are newer 5.13 kernels available.

    Reply

  45. “Please help me I’ve accidentally permanently blacklisted any further Linux Kernel 5.13 updates being offered me from the update manager! How do I undo that? It’s too easy to accidentally click the block further updates from a package but now I’m no longer being offered any Kernel 5.13 updates via the Update manager and have to manually check if there are newer 5.13 kernels available.
    Reply”

    There is nothing in the Blacklist to undo as I accidentally Blocked all Future updates for the package not simply temporarily blocked for a single Kernel update. And the Mint Update manager has not offered the last 2 5.13 updates to me at all.

    Reply

    1. There’s only one blacklist for both actions. It’s not temporary vs permanent, it’s either a specific version or any versions. Either way it’s in the blacklist.

    3. Hi Jeremy,

      No, they’re not. The mintupdate blacklist is stored in gsettings and only affects mintupdate itself and its automation processes.

  46. There is a great problem when searching With Google on how to undo some action on Linux Mint as most of the how-to’s and Forum Posts only show how to do something but neglect to show how to undo some action. And Linux Mint’s Update Manager has the Option to Temporary Block an Single update and also more permanently Block all future updates for that package.

    There is no How-TOs for Undoing any Mint Update Manager’s blocking all future update offerings for a Update if that’s accidentally chosen!

    Reply

  48. I have 2 systems that are running Linux Mint that ever since I have had to revert that Kernel Update with the serious regressions have not had new Kernel Updates offered through Linux Mint’s Update Manager and both where running the HWE Kernels, So as far as the Update Manager is there any way to reset that to a default behavior by either editing a settings file or deleting a settings file(If Update manager will create a new settings file if one does not exist)? Does Update manager have any method or setting to restore default settings/behavior in case something becomes corrupted or badly configured.

    Reply

  49. “There’s only one blacklist for both actions. It’s not temporary vs permanent, it’s either a specific version or any versions. Either way it’s in the blacklist.”

    Is there a Settings file where Linux Mint’s Update Manager keeps it’s lists of blacklisted updates/packages and can that be looked at and edited? Just in case that gets corrupted and/or not displayed in the Mint Update Manager’s GUI based Blacklist listing.

    Reply

  52. I love Mint but I absolutely hate how Steam freezes in Mint and causes the whole OS to hang, thus forcing a hard reboot *Every. Single. Time.* This problem does not occur in other distros like MX Linux. However, I prefer using Mint, so please fix this!

    Reply

  53. Are there plans to support the Mint-X theme going forward in Mint 21? Or will it be retired?

    Reply

  54. Why An I getting offered “firefox-esr=91.7.0esr+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1” as that’s not supposed to be available until March 8 2022 according to Wikipedia? I’ve currently got it blacklisted because there’s not many hits online for that version of FF-ESR. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    Question 2: If I was on a Version of Mint 20.1(Edge Kernel 5.8) and I use the offered system reports offer to update to Linux Mint 20.3 will I be on the non Edge Version on Mint 20.3 after I update via that system reports Mint Version update path? Looking at gsettings shows -generic for my Kernel and I’m curious as to why my 2 AMD Ryzen APU based systems that were on Mint 20.1 Edge are no longer getting offered any Edge Kernel Updates via Update Manager. I should note that before I updated to Mint 20.3 from 20.1 that both systems where using the Linux Kernel 5.13 kernel and not 5.8(The Edge Kernel that came with the Edge 20.1 Edge ISO). And before I Updated to 20.3 I was, via update manager, getting offered the latest 5.13 Kernels(When I was still on Mint 20.1 Edge).

    Reply

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