
Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” Cinnamon released - Akhilan
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2626
======
agumonkey
Following Mint since version 10, I always fallback on Mint 11 (XFCE) since
it's the lightest non-obsolete version I can run on my old thinkpads (x40,
x60).

More recent versions were often quite slower, this one (MATE desktop) is by
far the slickest I've seen so far. The GUI has close to zero latency. Kudos.

~~~
pling
I'm using Debian 7 and XFCE. It's pretty much the same regarding UI latency.
And everything works on my T400 out of the box. Never been happier.

I've just migrated from Windows 7 (today after clinging on for about 3 years)
and it's refreshingly good.

~~~
agumonkey
I expect almost anything to run blink fast on a T400 though (far better
hardware, far better driver support).

~~~
pling
The hardware is not that great. It's got switchable graphics so I've had to
disable the Radeon portion and stick with Intel graphics. Managed with
powertop to get 10.9W of power usage and 4.5 hours of battery. Not bad for a 5
year old machine with a 5 year old battery.

------
intull
There's also the mate version -
[http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2627](http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2627)

~~~
jnbiche
Mate is an extremely solid desktop environment. So glad that someone saved all
the work that went into Gnome2. It's fast and familiar, and that's all I need.

------
bronson
Finally the Apple Magic Trackpad works everywhere. Even offers battery
warnings. Nice!

Mint+Cinnamon is a great desktop. It's saving me from being 100% Mac.

~~~
plg
"Finally the Apple Magic Trackpad works everywhere."

Is this solution something mint-specific? e.g. can I install whatever makes
this possible on an Ubuntu or Debian distro?

~~~
bronson
Haven't tried those distros. (my distro hopping days are OVER)

Before Qiana, Nemo (Mint's forked Nautilus), Cinnamon's prefs panels, some 3rd
party toolkits, they all got scrolling wrong. Lots of apps got it right too,
but enough was wrong that the trackpad was pretty irritating to use.

Now, in Qiana, everything seems to work. (well, the physics aren't there, like
flinging to scroll feels pretty dead, but it's not bad)

Based on that, I'd guess that Ubuntu Trusty would work great, likely Fedora 20
too. Guessing no for Debian stable or testing, but maybe unstable would be
good.

Ah, the benefits of choice...

------
lucb1e
The most interesting bits are at the bottom of the release page:

> Linux Mint 17 will receive security updates until 2019.

> Until 2016, future versions of Linux Mint will use the same package base as
> Linux Mint 17, making it trivial for people to upgrade.

> Until 2016, the development team won't start working on a new base and will
> be fully focused on this one.

[http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_qiana_cinnamon_whatsnew.php](http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_qiana_cinnamon_whatsnew.php)

------
tgb
The release candidate or something had a note that it wasn't compatible yet
with NVidia Optimus cards. I no longer see a note about that - does anyone
know if it's been fixed? I had some problems with that when I installed Mint
last time.

------
Tolbiac-110
I just installed the Release Candidate earlier this month. Simple but Useful
changes as far as I can see.

------
elinchrome
How do I update from 16?

    
    
        sudo apt-get dist-upgrade?

~~~
yulaow
Does linux mint allow to upgrade directly in that way? I remember that older
version would suggest to reinstall the os and strongly discourage a dist-
upgrade.

At the time that was the only reason I avoided mint

~~~
hollerith
>that was the only reason I avoided mint

Huh. I would consider it a good sign, a sign that the designers of Mint care
about reliability and know how to achieve it even though they probably have
fewer developer-hours to devote to a new release than the big distros have.

~~~
bronson
Not sure I agree. I changed /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-
repositories.list to use qiana and trusty (coming from petra), fired off apt-
get update and dist-upgrade, hit "Y" every time it asked if a config file
should be replaced, and ended up with a great system.

It just doesn't seem like a very hard problem to solve.

And, despite what the Mint guys claim, Ubuntu appears to have solved it just
fine.

EDIT: upgraded from petra, not olivia

~~~
nknighthb
You have confused luck in following an unsupported set of steps for your
particular configuration and set of installed packages with a solution to the
general problem. There was no guarantee your system would continue to
function, nor is there any guarantee that your system is not now broken in a
subtle, yet-unnoticed way, nor is there any guarantee that your process will
work for anyone else, nor that it will work for future releases.

This is the same mindset that blows up production systems with ad-hoc
maladministration instead of following sound, documented procedures created
with the input of people who actually understand the system and thoroughly
tested in advance.

~~~
bronson
You talking to me? I never said I had the solution to the general problem. I
only said that it doesn't seem like as big a problem as the Mint guys claim.

True, I did say that Ubuntu has solved this problem. For them, dist-upgrades
are well understood and not blind luck. If you're disagreeing with that
statement, I'd like to hear more.

~~~
nknighthb
> _For them, dist-upgrades are well understood and not blind luck._

Ubuntu specifically tells you _not_ to do a dist-upgrade, so your supposed
evidence of how easy it must be doesn't even pass the smell test. The
"correct" upgrade process is do-release-upgrade.

Unfortunately, that process still is not a complete solution, as demonstrated
by the multiple clusterfucks I've had to clean up when people tried to use
their upgrade process.

Even if they had succeeded, that would tell you nothing -- Ubuntu is a
commercial operation with a substantial amount of money behind it. Linux Mint
is not. ReactOS would be a perfect Windows clone if everything a funded
corporation accomplished were easy.

------
general_failure
Blog is down.

EDIT: It's back up now

