Linux Mint Newsletter Issue 8

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Contents

Professional Support

For $5, Linux Mint users can now purchase a "1 Incident Support" item from the Linux Mint Store. This offers users an affordable way to get professional support and solve their problem without having to subscribe to the Linux Mint Support Center.

For more information about this product: http://www.linuxmint.com/store/index.php?do=catalog&c=support&i=1_incident_support

Current Releases and Release Schedule

Bianca Light-Edition was released as a Beta on the 29th of March 2007. So far it got about 800 downloads and no bugs were found. The stable release is planned for the 29th of March and it looks like the BETA-001 itself could go gold (which would mean the same ISO would be used for the stable release).

Bianca KDE-Edition is still being actively developed. A Release Schedule was announced. Here are the release dates for this edition:

  • Beta Release: 5th of April 2007.
  • Stable Release: 20th of April 2007.

The plan to release an XFCE-Edition was dropped and postponed to Cassandra.

No dates were given for Cassandra.

mintArt

Votes usually last 7 days and the votes for a Linux Mint logo are nearly over. If you haven't voted already, please visit the following links:

Community

Romeo

  • mintBrightness 2.3 was added to Romeo. It provides a Gnome applet for Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, Asus, HP Omnibook and IBM laptops which allows the user to change the screen brightness level.
  • mintMenu 1.11 was added to Romeo. This version fixes the gap between the menu and the panel, works with Brasero, improves the way desktop entry files are read and most importantly lets the user choose between click and mouse_over for browsing the categories. mintMenu 1.11 needs one more positive feedback to make its way into Stable.
  • mintDisk 1.8 was added to Romeo. This version works with os-prober if remastersys is installed (previous versions didn't work when os-prober was installed).

Remastersys 1.5 and Envy 0.9.1, mintBrightness 2.3 and mintDisk 1.8 need 3 more positive feedback to make their way into Stable.

Cassandra

Cassandra will either be based on Bianca and upgrade its base through the Feisty Fawn repositories, or it will be rebased on Feisty Fawn itself. Either way, the ground is trembling beneath us as the Ubuntu base on which Linux Mint is sitting is getting ready to bring significant changes. A Beta for Feisty was released and we could get an overview of what big impacts this would have in Cassandra:

  • The Ubiquity Installer was significantly improved. It now comes with a migration assistant (which lets you import configuration and data from a Microsoft Windows installation) and a more intuitive and hopefully less buggy partitioning mechanism. Ubuntu has done a great job at improving their installer and since Cassandra will be using Ubiquity, these improvements will be included in Linux Mint as well.
  • Bianca already included Network Manager. This has been included in Ubuntu as well. Although Linux Mint users shouldn't notice any obvious changes, the new Network Manager should support more Wireless chipsets out of the box (in our tests we noticed some of our chipsets were recognized automatically and didn't need mintWifi anymore.
  • Beagle was improved and there's a new tool called Tracker in Ubuntu. The impact on Linux Mint users should be better files indexing and less consumption of resources.
  • Xorg comes with better support for composite managers. Feisty includes Compiz by default. Beryl and Compiz are talking about a merger. Envy is making it easier and easier for 3D acceleration to be setup. It is still unclear how 3D effects will be implemented in Cassandra, but things look better and better and this should be a noticeable new feature in the next version of Linux Mint.
  • CNR (Click'n Run) is not present in Feisty Beta. The Linux Mint development team is looking at the possibility of coding a new sub-project called mintInstall. The purpose of this sub-project would be to implement a "one-click" installation tool for Linux Mint. Users would browse a Web portal with Firefox, and by a single click they would be able to install an application. The Web portal would not contain the applications themselves, but simply lightweight "mint files". Inside a "mint file", instructions would be there for mintInstall to pilot repositories and APT and have the system install the applications. Telling a user how to install something would then be as simple as having him clicking the link.
  • Gnome 2.18 now has a control center and a Slab menu. Whether these will replace mintconfig and mintmenu is not decided yet. Either way the user will have both installed in Cassandra and benefit from more choices than he had before.
  • Ubuntu added a Codecs Wizard which makes it easy for users to add multimedia codecs. This is great news for users of Linux Mint Light Edition. Users of the full edition won't see much difference but it may help them if some formats that are not present in Linux Mint are taken care of by the wizard.
  • Ntfs-config might replace mintDisk. Although ntfs-config doesn't offer as many features, it is simpler to use and it supports external devices. Also, ntfs-config works with fstab instead of complementing it. Cassandra will come with improved NTFS support for external devices. It is not decided yet whether this support will be added to mintDisk, whether ntfs-config will replace mintDisk or whether both tools will be installed by default.
  • Ubuntu included Avahi. This should bring significant improvements to network services and file/printers sharing.
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