Starting with Celena Linux Mint will maintain its own Firefox package. Based on the Ubuntu package it will include Linux Mint’s own modifications and prevent Ubuntu rebranding when Firefox gets a security upgrade.

For the user this means:

– The default Firefox homepage won’t be impacted when Firefox gets upgraded any more.

– There might be a slight delay between the moment when Ubuntu releases an upgrade for Firefox and the moment when Linux Mint does the same.

For this to work the Mint package will use a different versionning scheme, removing dots between minor numbers. For instance Firefox 2.0.0.6-ubuntuX in Ubuntu will correspond to Firefox 2006-mintX in Linux Mint.

A bug was introduced between BETA013 and STABLE within the Cassandra KDE Community Edition.

The installer crashes when the user chooses to manually partition his drive.

Fortunately, the bug is in the KDE frontend and not in the installer itself, so it is possible to use the Gnome frontend instead by typing these commands in a konsole:

• sudo apt-get install ubiquity-frontend-gtk

• sudo apt-get remove ubiquity-frontend-kde

• sudo ubiquity

As a result of this incident a series of measures will be taken for this kind of problems not to happen again:

• A freeze will take place before the release of the last beta. Maintainers will not be able to upgrade packages before a stable release.
• Feature tests will be formalized and releases will have to comply and satisfy every test before going public.
• The Ubuntu Backports repository will be commented out in future versions of Linux Mint and disabled by default. In Cassandra it broke the wine package, in Bianca it brought hardware support problems.

A lot of people regularly take packages upgrades and in most cases they have no idea why. They think their system will be more up to date and more secure… they’re right, but they what they don’t realize is that every single package upgrade can potentially introduce a bug!

With an Ubuntu release every six months and one, two or three Mint releases in the meantime, do you really need security updates? Isn’t your system recent enough?

Releases are well tested, security updates and newer packages are not. Bear in mind that any kernel upgrade can potentially break your sound system, your wifi connectivity or support for any device on your computer, an Xorg update can bring you to a black screen and put your proprietary drivers on their knees…

So don’t upgrade unless you know why, and if you want to upgrade a package, then only upgrade the package, not the entire system.

In Celena we’re bringing two new things:

– mintAssistant will help you disable kernel upgrades.

– APT will be tweaked so you don’t get notified when Gutsy comes out.

You probably remember that “Upgrade to Feisty” message which popped up in Bianca… 🙂

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/08/linux_mint_dont_press_the_upgr.html

Rick Jelliffe is right, don’t press the upgrade button!