During the release cycle of Linux Mint 7 Gloria there was no Fluxbox edition. But not during the release cycle of Linux Mint 8 Helena. Back in December a new maintainer for the Fluxbox edition was found – his name is Kendal Weaver. The fruits of his labor were revealed in January when the first release candidate (RC1) of Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Community Edition was rolled out to the public. Weaver, with Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Community Edition RC1 managed to come up with an OS that strives to be as lightweight and yet as fully functional as possible.

If you thought the RC1 was good, then you will love what I’m about to say now: the final version of Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Community Edition has been released. Anyone can now download, install and enjoy this Linux distro.

“The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 8 “Helena” Fluxbox Community Edition. This release has been built with the emphasis on a lightweight and yet fully functional desktop centered on the Fluxbox window manager. Even though we strive to provide out-of-the-box readiness for all your hardware and common computing tasks, Linux Mint Fluxbox CE is easily configurable to run on lower-spec hardware with the tools needed for doing so readily available,” explained Lead Linux Mint Developer, Clem Lefebvre.

Linux Mint 8 Helena Fluxbox Community Edition highlights:

• Based on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic koala, Linux 2.6.31 kernel, Fluxbox 1.1.1 and Xorg 7.4
• The graphical interface is now easier to use and it shows more content
• The Update Manager will automatically inform the user when a new version of mintInstall-data is available. This way the user does not have to manually refresh the Software Manager.
• Software Manager is aware of the APT status of each application.
• The user can mark several applications for installation/removal.
• The looks of the Update Manager have been improved.
• You can resize the Update Manager and, in the view menu, you can define the visible columns in the list of updates.
• The user can define a list of packages for which updates will not be received.
• Update Manager now uses Synaptic to refresh the list of update. When Update Manager is visible, the user will see progress information on the screen.
• If a problem occurs, Update Manager displays an error message in the main window (previously the error message was displayed only in the logs).
• Software Sources tool can be accessed in the Edit menu (this is another Update Manager improvement).
• The user can define a list of packages for which updates will not be received. Wildcard characters can be used to define groups of package updates the user wants to ignore.
• Faster and more reliable update detection.
• This edition runs with no system settings daemon of any kind. This cuts down on resource usage.
• OpenOffice.org comes preinstalled.
• Play media with the Decibel audio player and Totem movie player
• LXTerminal replaces the XFCE4 Terminal
• Community editions use their own repositories
• Community editions can pin packages from the main edition.
• Mint tools are more modular they can now be installed without any configuration.
• Removed branding from Mint tools
• OEM installation can be launched from the LiveCD boot menu.

If you would like to get Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Community Edition, you can download the operating system here.