donderdag 30 mei 2013

Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” released!


The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 15 “Olivia”.
Linux Mint 15 Olivia
Linux Mint 15 is the most ambitious release since the start of the project. MATE 1.6 is greatly improved and Cinnamon 1.8 offers a ton of new features, including a screensaver and a unified control center. The login screen can now be themed in HTML5 and two new tools, “Software Sources” and “Driver Manager”, make their first appearance in Linux Mint.
New features at a glance:
For a complete overview and to see screenshots of the new features, visit: “What’s new in Linux Mint 15“.
Important info:
  • PAE required for 32-bit ISOs
  • EFI support
  • HDMI Sound Output
  • Mint4win
  • GnomePPP and local repository
Make sure to read the “Release Notes” to be aware of important info or known issues related to this release.
System requirements:
  • x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint 32-bit works on both 32-bit and 64-bit processors).
  • 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 5 GB of disk space
  • Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
  • CD/DVD drive or USB port
Upgrade instructions:
  • To upgrade from a previous version of Linux Mint follow these instructions.
  • To upgrade from the RC release, simply apply any level 1 and 2 updates (if any) available in the Update Manager.
Download:
Md5 sum:
  • Cinnamon 32-bit: 4b60240ea2f5b59735c332e818434d2a
  • Cinnamon 64-bit: 2396a39e802a0463bf1727acd72d0700
  • MATE 32-bit: 4b5ff169b019889aedf1d054b2d97447
  • MATE 64-bit: 63114a66d8da27f50fe8d6ba6d118462
Torrents:
HTTP Mirrors for the Cinnamon 32-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the Cinnamon 64-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the MATE 32-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the MATE 64-bit DVD ISO:
Alternative downloads:
No-codecs images:
Distributors and magazines in Japan, USA and countries where distributing media codecs is problematic can use the “No Codecs” ISO images. These images are available for both the MATE and Cinnamon editions, in 32-bit and 64-bit at the following address:
http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=20
OEM images:
Manufacturers can pre-install Linux Mint on their computers using the OEM installation images. These images will be made available next week, for both the MATE and Cinnamon edition in 64-bit at the following address:
http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=20
Enjoy!

zondag 19 mei 2013

Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” RC released!


The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” RC.
Linux Mint 15 Olivia
Linux Mint 15 is the most ambitious release since the start of the project. MATE 1.6 is greatly improved and Cinnamon 1.8 offers a ton of new features, including a screensaver and a unified control center. The login screen can now be themed in HTML5 and two new tools, “Software Sources” and “Driver Manager”, make their first appearance in Linux Mint.
New features at a glance:
For a complete overview and to see screenshots of the new features, visit: “What’s new in Linux Mint 15“.
Important info:
  • MDM issues
  • PAE required for 32-bit ISOs
  • Mint4win
  • GnomePPP and local repository
Make sure to read the “Release Notes” to be aware of important info or known issues related to this release.
System requirements:
  • x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint 32-bit works on both 32-bit and 64-bit processors).
  • 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 5 GB of disk space
  • Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
  • CD/DVD drive or USB port
Bug reports:
Please report any bug you may find by leaving a comment on this blog.
Download:
Md5 sum:
  • Cinnamon 32-bit: 2a7c37ca1dd3d2b26924402d7018b5c1
  • Cinnamon 64-bit: 48ecdc03eaa6c497fa8bab3f937c4364
  • MATE 32-bit: 793d1a3e6e82938ff56fdc9fad225916
  • MATE 64-bit: 634f6476a6a62bdbc2d997bb196ea78a
Torrents:
HTTP Mirrors for the Cinnamon 32-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the Cinnamon 64-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the MATE 32-bit DVD ISO:
HTTP Mirrors for the MATE 64-bit DVD ISO:
Enjoy!
We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun testing the release candidate!

maandag 6 mei 2013

Cinnamon 1.8 released

On behalf of the team and all the developers who contributed to this build, I am proud to announce the release of Cinnamon 1.8!
Cinnamon 1.8 represents 7 months of development and 1,075 commits. It features a lot of bug fixes but also brand new features and many improvements.
Here’s a quick overview of some of the new things in Cinnamon 1.8.
Have a lot of fun with this new release and don’t hesitate to give us some feedback! Enjoy ;)

File Manager

Nemo received a lot of attention. Its user interface was heavily modified and its behavior was adapted to integrate better with Cinnamon.

You can now easily hide the sidebar and switch back and forth between places and treeview. Under each place, if applicable, a small bar indicates how much space is used.

Screensaver

Cinnamon now features its own screensaver. One of its particularities is that you can define an away message before locking up your screen.

People who are looking for you can see that message while you’re away.

Control Center

All configuration modules are now present in Cinnamon Settings. You no longer need to use Gnome Control Center.

Desklets

KDE calls them Plasmoids, Android calls them Widgets, in Cinnamon they’re called “Desklets”. The same way you can add applets to your panel, you can add desklets to your desktop.

Cinnamon 1.8 ships with 3 desklets installed by default (a launcher, a clock and a photoframe) and many more will come from the community (yes, before people ask, there is an xkcd desklet out there).

Spices Management

In Cinnamon 1.8 you can install “spices” (i.e. applets, desklets, themes, extensions) straight from your desktop. You don’t need to browse http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com anymore.

You can apply updates as well and if the Spice supports it you can use multiple instances of it.

New features for developers

Settings API for Applets/Desklets
If you’re an Applet/Desklet developer, don’t use gsettings anymore. Cinnamon 1.8 features a settings API which will do all the work for you.
  • It will set up your settings and default values for you, automatically.
  • It will allow you to access your settings just as easily as you access values in an array.
  • It will generate a configuration screen for you, automatically.
In other words, you just define your settings and use them in your applet/desklet, and Cinnamon does everything else for you. A configuration screen is automatically generated for you and the user can configure the settings you defined from the System Settings :)
For more details check the Sample Settings Example applet at: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/tree/master/files/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/settings-example%40cinnamon.org
Nemo actions
By placing an action file in /usr/share/nemo/actions you can add items to Nemo’s right-click context menu.
For more details check the sample action provided with Nemo at https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/blob/master/files/usr/share/nemo/actions/sample.nemo_action
Standalone Looking Glass
If you’re using Looking Glass a lot, you’d probably want a standalone version of it… well, there is one now :)
To launch it, run the following command: “cinnamon-looking-glass”.

System improvements

Renderer detection
Muffin now checks which renderer is being used. If the session is using a Software Renderer (that’s the case when there is a problem with the drivers or if the card doesn’t feature any acceleration) a notification pops up to let the user know about the problem.
Fallback mode
Cinnamon no longer uses gnome-session for fallback. In some cases gnome-session didn’t allow Cinnamon to run even though the hardware was capable of running Cinnamon. Another limitation of gnome-session was its inability to restart Cinnamon after a crash. In Cinnamon 1.8, the Cinnamon session always launches Cinnamon, so your computer will try to run Cinnamon no matter what.
Cinnamon also uses a wrapper to restart itself and recover from potential crashes. If Cinnamon crashes it now falls back on Metacity and asks the user if he/she wants to restart Cinnamon.

And that’s not all…

Cinnamon 1.8 is huge. Its commit changelog is twice the size of the 1.6 release!
Other notable features:
  • Better hot-corner configuration
  • Coverflow Alt-Tab
  • Timeline Alt-Tab
  • Horizontal/Vertical maximizing of windows
For an exhaustive list of changes, please visit the following page: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/commits/master
If you have questions about changes which are not covered in this announcement please contact the development team on IRC at irc.spotchat.org #linuxmint-dev.

Notes to themes artists

Details will be posted shortly on how to update your theme for Cinnamon 1.8.
Note: With the exception of desklets, Cinnamon 1.8 should look fine in most 1.6 themes already.
Feel free to come and chat with us on #linuxmint-dev (irc.spotchat.org) if you face any problem.

About The Author

Clement Lefebvre (aka "Clem") is the lead developer and founder of Cinnamon and Linux Mint. He's also involved in the MATE project as release manager.