The Linux Mint Blog

The Linux Mint repositories contain all the software developed by us, imported by us or in a more general way, all the software we decided to maintain. If a particular package is in a Linux Mint repository it gets a higher priority than if it is in an Ubuntu repository, as a consequence, packages which are maintained by Linux Mint don’t directly get updates from Ubuntu, even if a newer version is put in the Ubuntu repositories. This is called APT pinning and it consists in always preferring Mint repositories over Ubuntu ones for particular packages, no matter what their respective versions are.

Linux Mint repositories are organized into different sections, which you can enable or disable based on your needs:

– main: This section contains all the software developed by Linux Mint. For example: mintUpdate, mintInstall etc…

– upstream: This section contains packages coming from upstream (in most cases from Ubuntu) which are patched, modified or repackaged by Linux Mint. For example: Firefox, Tomboy..etc

– import: This section contains software which comes from 3rd party developers and for which there are no (or outdated) upstream packages. Linux Mint packages these software applications and “imports” them into this section. Examples: Opera, Picasa, Songbird, Sunbird, Frostwire.. etc. In some cases the imported software is already packaged (some packages come from getdeb.net for instance).

– community: This section is disabled by default. We haven’t used it much so far but we’re planning to do so more and more. Sometimes, members of the community package things up and ask us to include additional software in our repositories. We’re planning to include these packages into this section.

– backport: This section is disabled by default. We haven’t used it much either, but we will use it more and more, especially with Elyssa, which is an LTS semi-rolling release. When a new version of a package becomes stable it is usually included in the repositories of the latest release. We’re also planning on porting these new versions back to Elyssa so Elyssa users can enjoy up to date desktop components until the next LTS release. The backport section is where we’ll include these new versions.

– romeo: Packages don’t stay in Romeo, they get there so we can test them and when they’re stable enough they go to another section. Linux Mint’s Romeo is like Debian’s Unstable, Mandriva Cooker or Fedora Rawhide… The only reason for you to use Romeo is to help us test new packages. For instance Romeo currently contains Flash 10 Beta 2, mintInstall 4.0 and will soon get mintUpdate 2.8. Romeo is quite unstable.. and as our stable releases carry female names we decided to give our unstable branch the name of a famous heart-breaker.

Finally, there is a website for the repository where you can see which packages and versions are in which section, where you can download debs and even source code: http://packages.linuxmint.com

A new version of mintUpdate is coming very soon. Among the improvements, the graphical user interface has been completely revamped and a new screen lets you visualize the history of applied package updates.

Most Mint tools come with a big Mint logo and are called mintSomething. As most of them are innovative and provide features that are not present in other distros/OSes this stresses the fact that they were developed by us and contributes to make our distribution more popular. It also has negative effects as it lessens the chances for these tools to be adopted outside of Linux Mint. Finally, it probably makes more sense for the user, and so for the quality of our desktop, to call our tools depending on what they provide more than with a mintName.

I have to say… I really don’t know what to think of this right now, I’m hesitating. I can’t promise I’ll go with the majority vote on it, in the end I’ll do what I think is best anyway, but it would definitely help if I could get people’s opinion on this.

[poll=5]

I’ll release mintUpdate 2.8 in Romeo under the name “Update Manager” and without branding. The interface looks less minty but more professional. I’d like to know what people think before I do that, and after they got a chance to see the new interface.

Also, and although this is marked as a Mint 6 Felicia improvement, since Elyssa is an LTS with rolling aspects, I hope you’ll soon be able to enjoy the ability to see the history of applied updates. It’s a very nice improvement and I hope you’ll like it.

A few improvements were made to mintInstall:

– When installing an application, it now automatically detects the best strategy and the best repositories to use. As a consequence it’s much faster than it was in Daryna (this was already the case in Elyssa) but it’s as user-friendly too. It doesn’t ask you to make that confusing choice between default and local repositories anymore. If the mint file defines repositories, it uses them in conjunction with the mintsystem ones. If it doesn’t it looks for the packages in your own repositories. If it finds them it uses your repositories (no apt updates required), it it doesn’t it uses mintsystem’s.

– After installing an application a little dialog used to pop up.. saying “success”. This was redundant and not particularly useful. It was removed and the main window’s state is now updated to reflect on the result.

– In the frontend, if an APT search returns no result, the result dialog says “No result” instead of appearing blank.

– In the frontend, if you type anything in the textfiel, the value of the textfield is replicated in the other tabs.. a bit like the search plugins in Firefox, you don’t have to retype the same thing every time you change tabs anymore.

– Translations: Bulgarian was updated, Czech and Catalan were added.

Note: If you want to get mintInstall 4.0 without using Romeo you can get the deb package here: http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/romeo/m/mintinstall/mintinstall_4.0_all.deb

Enjoy 🙂