The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 RC1. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support.

Introduction to Linux Mint 6 and new features:

Based on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Linux 2.6.27, Gnome 2.24 and Xorg 7.4, Linux Mint 6 “Felicia” comes with a brand new “Software Manager”, FTP support in mintUpload, proxy support and history of updates in mintUpdate, tabbed browsing in Nautilus and a lot of other improvements. For a complete list of new features read: What’s new in Felicia?

System requirements and known issues:

A minimum of 512MB of RAM is recommended. Once installed the system works fine with as low as 256MB RAM. The installation process deals with 2.5GB of data compressed on a 700MB CD and it can hang or fail on systems with less than 512MB RAM. If you have between 256MB and 512MB RAM you may have to try to install several times.

As an RC (Release Candidate) this release is targeted at developers and beta-testers who want to help Linux Mint find and correct bugs before the stable release. Please do not use this release as your main desktop. For a complete list of known issues read the Release Notes.

Translations, feedback and bug reports:

The testing will last for 2 weeks. Please report any bug you may find via the Linux Mint 6 RC1 Bug Thread and give us your feedback on this release by posting a comment right here on the blog.

Mint tools are being actively localized. Make sure to check that your language is supported by all the Mint tools. If it isn’t, please participate in the translating effort taking place on our forums.

Release schedule:

After these 2 weeks, we will prepare for a stable release (or a second RC if important changes were to be introduced), including the Linux Mint 6 User Guide, the finalized Software Portal, a desktop tour of Felicia and an Universal Edition ISO (which will replace the previously called “Light Edition” and feature support for all major languages on a live DVD).

The x64 edition will follow shortly after. In fact it was our initial purpose to release Main, Universal and x64 editions all at the same time. I had to deviate from that plan due to personal reasons and so this RC release only features the Main edition, but there is still a chance that all three editions could go final and be released as stable at the same time.

We’re also planning to release an upgrade tool which will automate the process of upgrading from Linux Mint 5 Elyssa to Linux Mint 6 Felicia.

Download Linux Mint 6 RC1:

You can download Linux Mint 6 RC1 via torrent or via HTTP:

Size: 662MB LiveCD
MD5Sum: ad4b630889b53aeba99aaa82d7b4bb41

Torrent download: http://www.linuxmint.de/downloads.html
HTTP download: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=31

Europe:

• http://cesium.di.uminho.pt/pub/linuxmint/testing/ (Portugal)
• http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/testing/ (Ireland)

Northern America:

• http://mirror.amarillolinux.com/linuxmint/testing/ (USA)
• http://linuxmint.norhex.com/linuxmint.com/testing/ (USA)
• http://linuxmint.secsup.org/testing/ (USA)
• ftp://mirrors.secution.com/linuxmint.com/testing/ (USA)
• http://linuxmint.sourcemirrors.org/testing/ (USA)

Rest of the World:

• http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/linuxmint/testing/ (Australia)
• ftp://202.78.230.5/LinuxMint/testing/ (Vietnam)

Enjoy!

Have a lot of fun testing this release candidate and let’s all hope it will help us make a great stable release.