The Release Candidate For Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" Is Out 295
First time accepted submitter Type44Q writes "Well, the latest edition of Mint is finally here (the release candidate, anyway); according to The Linux Mint Blog, 'For the first time since Linux Mint 11, the development team was able to capitalize on upstream technology which works and fits its goals. After 6 months of incremental development, Linux Mint 14 features an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience. We're very proud of MATE, Cinnamon, MDM and all the components used in this release, and we're very excited to show you how they all fit together in Linux Mint 14.'"
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Full-disk encryption? (Score:5, Informative)
FDE is good for privacy and security; as EFF's article notes, having it be as simple as possible to set up can only be a good thing. If this new version of Linux Mint features this FDE option, I will strongly consider switching to it, and will certainly try it out at the very least.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
Cinnamon is just a fork of Gnome Shell from Gnome3, but proper in appearance and operation and with actual working applets like Gnome2 and in general discarding all the garbage in the "real" Gnome Shell.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I have used Mate but I have not used Cinnamon.
AIUI Mate and cinnamon are two different approaches to the same problem.
The problem being that the gnome developers decided to throw out the boring but functional gnome2 and replace it with the radical gnome3 and further the distro vendors decided to allow gnome3 to take the package names previously used by gnome2 thereby screwing those users who wanted to stick with the desktop they knew while upgrading the rest of their OS (and things are sufficiantly tightly coupled in the linux world that sticking with an old OS version is not really a reasonable option).
The mate approach has been to fork gnome2 and rename the components to remove the config. This produced immediate results but long term leaves them with a load of forked stuff that perhaps doesn't really need to be forked and no easy way of getting any good stuff that comes out of gnome3. The cinnamon approach is to try and build a traditional GUI within the gnome3 framework, this avoids relying on outdated and barely maintained foundations but it also means a lot more work upfront and probablly more user visible change and runs the risk that gnome will decide to screw everyone again.
Re:It looks dated, is there a Unity option? (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure if troll. The whole point of Linux Mint, and being based on Ubuntu, is that it *doesnt* use Unity. If you want Unity, use Ubuntu.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
Would it hurt to include a few words explaining what the hell Mint even is or why we should care there's a new version?
Linux Mint [wikipedia.org] is a computer operating system based on the Linux distribution Ubuntu. Linux Mint adds many features that baseline Ubuntu does not have, one of which is providing a more complete out of the box experience.
MATE [wikipedia.org] is a desktop environment forked from the now-unmaintained code base of GNOME 2.
Cinnamon [wikipedia.org] is a fork of GNOME Shell, initially developed by (and for) Linux Mint. It attempts to provide a more traditional user environment based on the desktop metaphor, like GNOME 2.
Why is there MATE and Cinnamon? Well, you can start by reading: Controversy over GNOME 3. [wikipedia.org]
What is Linux Mint? (Score:5, Informative)
Linux Mint is a distribution of Linux that is based off of Ubuntu. Like Ubuntu, it uses Debian packages.
When Ubuntu made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("Unity") and the GNOME project made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("GNOME Shell"), Linux Mint in turn made the decision to support those of us who loved GNOME 2. We have two options: MATE and Cinnamon. Both are well-supported by Linux Mint (and in fact primary development on both is by Linux Mint guys).
MATE is simply a fork of GNOME 2. For reasons that are not clear to me, GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 cannot co-exist on the same system... something about library conflicts. (Doesn't Linux have library versioning that should make it possible to avoid these conflicts? Eh, moving on.) The MATE project did a mass rename on everything in GNOME ("libgnome" -> "libmate", etc.) so MATE can co-exist on the same system with GNOME 3. So, those of us who loved the smooth polish that came from man-decades of development in GNOME can still use it.
But MATE isn't the future. From what I have heard, the library underpinnings of GNOME 3 really have improved over GNOME 2, and the new technology is a step up. Who wants to be locked into a frozen clone of GNOME 2 forever? Thus, Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a project to build on top of GNOME 3 and provide a user experience similar to GNOME 2. New plugins, new themes, etc. all go together to make a very usable desktop; but GNOME 3 apps will work seamlessly with it.
Many disgruntled Ubuntu users have abandoned Ubuntu for Linux Mint. Mint is now the top Linux distribution [distrowatch.com] on distrowatch.com; I'm not sure it was even in the top ten before the whole Unity/GNOME Shell fiasco, but now it's number one.
A comment I have seen multiple times on Slashdot from different people: the Linux Mint guys are focused on making their users happy, rather than making something new. Where the GNOME Shell guys promise a "consistent and recognisable visual identity" [gnome.org], and Mark Shuttleworth (the head Ubuntu guy) said "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not voting on design decisions." [launchpad.net], the Linux Mint guys promise that you will "Love your Linux, Feel at Home, Get things Done!" [linuxmint.com]
Linux Mint has always focused on making a beautiful system that is out-of-the-box usable. Now they are one of the top choices for people who have rejected Unity and GNOME Shell.
For me, the most important part of the announcement is that they have the password keeper working right now. I'm using Linux Mint on a laptop at work, and I can't connect to Windows shares; I'm hoping the new updates will sort that out for me.
Since this is based on Debian packages, I can probably just update in place without needing to do a full re-install.
P.S. One of my biggest complaints about GNOME 3 is that I can no longer take sit a Windows user down and just say "it works pretty much like what you are used to". You may like GNOME Shell and you may think it is better, but you cannot argue that it is very different, and it would take a bit of training before a guest could use it. Linux Mint, on the other hand, works a lot like pre-Windows 8 versions of Windows; with a little customization and theming I'll bet you could fool people into thinking it was actually Windows XP.
Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Mint is on the lead since the beginning of 2012:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/246826/as_2012_dawns_mint_leads_the_list_of_top_linux_distros.html [pcworld.com]
And was in first place at least until August 2012:
http://www.zdnet.com/the-5-most-popular-linux-distributions-7000003183/ [zdnet.com]
Re:names are so cool, not! (Score:3, Informative)
it's no wonder corporations don't take them seriously.
"The Chicago Mercantile Exchange employs an all-Linux computing infrastructure and has used it to process over a quadrillion dollars worth of financial transactions[82][83]
The Chi-X pan-European equity exchange runs its MarketPrizm trading platform software on Linux.[83]
The London Stock Exchange uses the Linux based MillenniumIT Millennium Exchange software for its trading platform and predicts that moving to Linux from Windows will give it an annual cost savings of at least £10 million ($14.7 million) from 2011-12[84][85]
The New York Stock Exchange uses Linux to run its trading applications.[83"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters#Business [wikipedia.org]
Re:names are so cool, not! (Score:4, Informative)
well, before jumping to conclusions you should have looked up previous names:
1.0 - Ada
2.0 - Barbara
2.1 - Bea
2.2 - Bianca
3.0 - Cassandra
3.1 - Celena
4.0 - Daryna
5 LTS - Elyssa
6 - Felicia
7 - Gloria
8 - Helena
9 LTS - Isadora
10 - Julia
11 - Katya
12 - Lisa
13 LTS - Maya
14 - Nadia
This way it makes much more sense, doesn't it?
Alternative (Score:4, Informative)
Who the fuck modded this insightful!? Yes, Sherlock, it's the 14th letter of the alphabet. Thanks for your "clue".
Why the vile? Here, have some knowledge:
Names of full releases, see the pattern? Female names alphabetically.
Ada
Barbara
Cassandra
Daryna
Elyssa
Felicia
Gloria
Helena
Isadora
Katya
Lisa
Maya
Nadia
Nothing weird (Score:4, Informative)
I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is.....It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".
You should read through the comments. People on the whole love Debian, and love Ubuntu's spin on Debian. Most mint users also *love* Ubuntu. What they don't love is "Unity" They love "Cinnomon". In fact thats what they talk about in the summary.
Unity
====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface) [wikipedia.org]
Cinnamon
=======
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ [linuxmint.com]
Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.
People are not zealots, they are exercising choice on a platform that allows it. In fact Mint is basically Ubuntu with Unity replace with Cinnamon. In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.
Re:What is Linux Mint? (Score:2, Informative)
Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?
As a long-time Mac fan, I must say it is pretty much unusable for us too.
Unity has all the silly tricks of OSX's interface including the unified menu bar, and then some. Is it the extra functionality that confuses you?