Linux Mint Newsletter Issue 3
From The Linux Mint Wiki
Contents |
Bianca Release Day (tomorrow)
About 280,000 people downloaded the beta version of Bianca and according to a recent poll on the forums we have more users running Bianca BETA 014 than the stable Bea. So here we are, one day before the big release and we hope you're as excited as we are! :)
- We managed to include the latest Amarok 1.4.5 in this release.
- A lot of mint tools have been improved (new options and frontend for mintDisk, search and filter in mintMenu.. you can browse the changelogs on the forums to see the list of changes).
- Support was added for some languages: http://linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php/Language_Support_in_Bianca
- A lot of bugs found in the BETA version were fixed: http://linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php/Bugs_in_Bianca_BETA_014
- A lot of community artwork was included
We believe Bianca is one of the most desktop-friendly operating systems available at the moment and we're really excited about releasing it. You are welcome to join the IRC channel on irc.spotchat.org (#linuxmint.com) tomorrow. Our servers will probably be very slow because of people downloading the ISO so you can come and chat with us while waiting for the download to complete. We'll talk about Bianca and have virtual cakes and drinks served around the table. The developers will answer your questions and you'll be able to meet the community :)
Upgrade to Bianca (today)
Can you upgrade to Bianca?
If you're running Bea Stable or Bianca BETA 014: Yes you can. Otherwise you need to wait for tomorrow and download the ISO for a fresh install.
This guide describes how to upgrade: How to upgrade to Bianca
Introducing Cassandra and Romeo
We've been talking a lot about Linux Mint 3.0. There's been rumors and speculations about its codename and we know how serious our users are about our releases names. So today we're announcing it officially: Linux Mint 3.0 will be called "Cassandra". Some of you probably already love it or hate it but since it won't be released before April-May 2007 this leaves some time for people to get used to it :)
Also making its entrance on the Linux Mint scene is Romeo, the heart-breaker. Technically Romeo will be our unstable branch. New packages and upgrades will first make their way into Romeo before being ported to the current branch (Bianca). This will ensure the current branch is more stable.
For instance mintMenu 1.10 (not released yet) would first be released in Romeo. Users who point at the Romeo repository would get the upgrade and post feedback on the forums. Once enough feedback has been received and the development team is confident enough about the quality of the package, mintMenu 1.10 would hit the Bianca repository and all users would then be able to upgrade.
The concept is a bit similar to Debian's testing and unstable branches. N-1 releases of Linux Mint (Bea) do not get mint upgrades (as in Debian stable), N releases (Bianca) get updates (as in Debian testing) only after they have been tested in Romeo (as in Debian unstable). The main difference between Debian is that our stable release is actually not the last one but the one before that. Also, we're not only upgrading in a Linux Mint perspective but also on top of an Ubuntu base which can change and release upgrades as well (adding some complexity to the whole thing).
Good and bad news
Let's start with the bad news first. We recently mentioned that it would be possible to buy computers with Linux Mint pre-installed in them. As it turns out, the Danish company which planned to sell these computers could not be created and the project was abandoned.
The good news come from "Fragadelic", who you probably know if you're reading the forums. He's developing a script which makes it possible to make a liveCD/liveDVD out of an installed version of Linux Mint. The script should work with other Debian-based distributions and it features backup and distribution options. If things work well we'll be looking at the possibility of using this script to release the upcoming KDE and XFCE editions of Linux Mint Bianca.
The voice of the community
Here are some interesting things from the community.
- marcus0263 was so addicted to fortune, he decided to use it as an email signature generator: http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1014
- 900i recently unveiled his large collection of free linux e-books: http://www.900i.me.uk/
- Linux Mint doesn't come with a 64bits version and multimedia codecs are not great in Etch 64, but that didn't stop michael7. Here's a very interesting read: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=12061
