Article by George Norman

On 25 Nov 2009

On Friday the 13th, Lead Linux Mint developer Clem Lefebvre announced the release of Linux Mint 8 RC1. Now a Release Candidate (RC) is better than a Beta, but not as good as a final, stable release. Today Clem Lefebvre has come out to announce that the development process of Linux Mint 8 Helena is going along smoothly and that the final version of the operating system will be released shortly.

In a post entitled Getting close to a stable release, Clem Lefebvre announced the following:

• Linux Mint 8 translation templates are frozen; the team is just waiting on the translations to be completed.
• There will not be a Windows installer in Linux Mint 8 due to a compatibility problem between mint4win/wubi and the new Grub2.
• The final Linux Mint version, compared to the Release Candidate, fixes a total of 26 bugs.

“All fixes were made available as level 1 and level 2 updates. RC1 users can apply these updates using their Update Manager. Updated translations will come as an update to the mint-translations package,” explained Lefebvre.


While we wait for Linux Mint 8 Final to be released, let’s see what the operating system has to offer. Here are the Linux Mint 8 Helena highlights:

- Based on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic koala
- Linux 2.6.31 kernel, Gnome 2.28 and Xorg 7.4
- The user can define his own Places in Menu Preferences
- Enable/disable any button for the System and Places section in Menu Preferences
- The user interface has been enhanced. It is now easier to use and it displays 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 ware 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.
- 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.
- Brand new Upload Manager (mintUpload has been split into Upload Manager and File Uploader).
- Gnome Colors icon theme and the Shiki gtk theme.
- Firefox comes bundled with the Stylish add-on.
- Removed branding from Mint tools
- OEM installation can be launched from the LiveCD boot menu.
- Community editions use their own repositories
- Community editions can pin packages to from the main edition
- Mint tools are more modular
- Added Inxi buttons to xchat



Tags: Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint 8, Helena

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