Mint 9 RC released

[Bateluer]

http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=1386

New features at a glance:

* New Software Manager
o 30,000 packages
o Review applications straight from the Software Manager
o APT daemon
o Visual improvements
* New Backup Tool
o Incremental backups, compression, integrity checks
o Backup/Restoration of the software selection
* Menu improvements
o Editable items
o Transparent menu
o Always start with favorites
o “Add to” shortcuts
* Desktop settings
o Changes apply immediately
o Additional options
* Better look & feel
o Backgrounds
o Welcome screen
o Update Manager
* System improvements
o Windows installer
o Husse quotes
o USB Creator
o Default software selection
o Local repository and Gnome-PPP
o Apt hold/unhold/held commands
* Project changes
o Community Website
o CD & DVD
o Community Editions
o OEM installation disks
o USA/Japan distributors disks
o 32 & 64-bit
* Upstream improvements
o Faster boot
o Long Term Support

 

[OBLAMA2009]

neat. im using mint 8 now. i probably wont switch until they debug a little more

 

[Skitzer]

I've been using Mint for years, I'm on 8 now. Only reason I'll migrate to 9 is because it is LTS. All Mint releases have been great!

 

[Nothinman]

And how many of those bullet points were just plain copy/pasted from Ubuntu's release notes?

 

[cKGunslinger]

And how many of those bullet points were just plain copy/pasted from Ubuntu's release notes?

Considering Mint has always been based on Ubuntu, I'd say most.

That said, I often install the latest Ubuntu on my machine, only to be greeted with either a blank screen or a horrible resolution that takes many hours to fix. Then I discovered I could install the latest Mint on the exact same hardware, and have both monitors working out of the box with 3D acceleration. Not to mention no issues with Flash or Audio. Maybe they'll be the first distro to allow you to boot straight into *3* working monitors one day.

Maybe it's better engineering, maybe it's luck, or maybe it's just magic, but my PC runs Mint because Mint just works. I've even donated to them, as they've saved me tons of hassles and time, and time is money. :thumbsup:

That said, I still hate the Mint Menu..

 

[VinDSL]

Maybe it's better engineering, maybe it's luck, or maybe it's just magic, but my PC runs Mint because Mint just works.[...]

True! That's the reason I became enamored with Mint - it just worked out-of-the-box on my portables.

I run Mint on my Toshy laptop and EeePC netbook. I (pretty much) run it OOTB on my 15.6" lappy, but had to do a lot of tweaking on my 10.1" netbook.

Mint (while it worked OOTB) needed to be scaled down to the smaller display on my EeePC -- and many things had to be disabled (for performance reasons) due to its weak resources. Plus, while the default *free* WiFi drivers worked OOTB, the display would go bonkers during any network activity. Installing the Mad-WiFi HAL module did the trick.

Having said that, I prefer Ubu on the desktop. Go figure!

In my case, it's purely an aesthetics thing...

To my way of thinking, Mint *looks* beautiful on portables -- a V nice Windows clone -- but it's butt fugly on desktops.

This is NOT a condemnation of Mint! I prefer it on portables -- and Ubu on desktops --that's all.

I'll check it out...

 

[Nothinman]

Considering Mint has always been based on Ubuntu, I'd say most.

That said, I often install the latest Ubuntu on my machine, only to be greeted with either a blank screen or a horrible resolution that takes many hours to fix. Then I discovered I could install the latest Mint on the exact same hardware, and have both monitors working out of the box with 3D acceleration. Not to mention no issues with Flash or Audio. Maybe they'll be the first distro to allow you to boot straight into *3* working monitors one day.

Maybe it's better engineering, maybe it's luck, or maybe it's just magic, but my PC runs Mint because Mint just works. I've even donated to them, as they've saved me tons of hassles and time, and time is money. :thumbsup:

That said, I still hate the Mint Menu..

And none of that will be fixed unless you file bug reports...

 

[VinDSL]

And none of that will be fixed unless you file bug reports...

Good point! And, to whom would 'we' submit it?!?!?

I started running Ubu 10.04 when they released the first beta (not that long ago).

Canonical warned ppl NOT to use it on production machines -- but who listens? :awe:

I ran across MANY bugs, but a couple of them were so intolerable that I submitted feedback.

One was a regression. After one of the (many) updates, the boot screen would indicate that the file system needed to be FSCK'ed, but immediately continue to the login screen, regardless. This continued until the final release. Now, FSCK (at boot) works, but it's extremely s-l-o-w (in my experience).

The other one involved error messages that I received using the gwibber-service. I would get 3 notifications, sometime after midnight local time, then it would 'sleep' until the next night. I don't know if they ever fixed this bug. I simply turned off the 'social networking' nonsense.

Anyway, the question becomes...

If one spots a bug in Mint 9 RC, how far upstream does one go?!?!?

 

[Nothinman]

If one spots a bug in Mint 9 RC, how far upstream does one go?!?!?

Obviously you submit the bug to Mint, part of being a distribution's job is dealing with upstream on your behalf. If Mint ignores you then that's a pretty good reason to ditch it and move to a more responsible distro.

 

[iGas]

I was on Mint 7 XFCE up till recently, then I tried Mint 8 KDE (KDE still is a horrible bloated manager, so as Gnome) and I didn't last more than 3 weeks with it. I'm now back to Mint 8 XFCE edition for a week now and loving it.

I'm not going to jump on to Mint 9 till they iron out most of the bugs and release XFCE edition.

 

[Paperlantern]

I'm using Mint 8 as well, have been for about, oh, 2 months, almost 3. Basically my Win7 RC expired and needed something. I'd used Linux before and knew the basics, so it didnt scare me to try it, and I'm glad I did, I've had very little problems with it on both a Lenovo Thinkcentre and a Dell Inspiron 9100. Very fast, both video chipsets supported with full 3D out of the box, all eye candy turned on just fine with no hiccups. The only problem I have, every ONCE in a while my laptop will clog with dust and the 3D effects stop working, but that is NOT a problem with Mint itself. Once I clean the vents/heatsinks, and the 2 internal fans, it works fine again. Its en excellent distro.

I first tried Ubuntu 9.10 on the Inspiron, and similar to cKGunslinger, I was greeted with lousy video performance, craptastically slow overall performance, and no eye candy to speak of. After hours of tinkering and many attempts at getting ATI compatabile drivers to work, i tried Mint, and it worked with NO configuration whatsoever.