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Linux Mint Xfce RC (201104) released!

Written by Clem on Monday, March 21st, 2011 @ 2:01 pm | Main Topics

The team is proud to announce the release candidate of Linux Mint Xfce.

Linux Mint Xfce RC (201104)

Introduction to Linux Mint Xfce

Linux Mint Xfce is rolling on top of a Debian Testing package base and uses the same repositories as LMDE.

This offers the following advantages to Linux Mint Xfce:

  • A huge performance boost
  • A continuous flow of updates which allows users to keep their system up to date without waiting for new releases
  • A more mainstream desktop and software selection
  • An easier maintenance for the team which makes it easier to release in both 32-bit and 64-bit with every LMDE release

Performance boost

One of the most significant improvements is the performance boost given to this edition.

Here are a few figures comparing the memory consumption in the 32-bit live sessions of Linux Mint Xfce and Linux Mint 9 Xfce:

  • Mint Xfce: 107 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce: 153 MB RAM)
  • Mint Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox: 162 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox: 212 MB RAM)
  • Mint Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox + Thunderbird + VLC + Rhythmbox: 207 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox + Thunderbird + Gnome MPlayer + Exaile: 256 MB RAM)

A more mainstream edition

This performance boost allowed us to give Xfce a more mainstream software selection, replacing Exaile with Rhythmox, adding VLC and giving Xfce almost the same software selection as Gnome.

With KDE 4 and Gnome 3 bringing drastic changes to their environments, and with the emergence of Fluxbox and LXDE on the lightweight scene, Xfce represents a nice alternative for PC desktop users who are looking for a light yet full-featured desktop solution. Its relevance is becoming more significant and this is another reason for us to support it in both 32-bit and 64-bit and to give it a mainstream software selection.

We also added mintmenu to this edition as an alternative menu. Be aware that it was designed for Gnome and that it uses an additional 30MB RAM. You can add it easily by right-clicking on the panel and selecting “Add new Items”->”XfApplet”->”mintMenu”. Don’t hesitate to report bugs on mintMenu in Xfce as it will eventually support both desktop environments.

mintMenu in Linux Mint Xfce

Easier to maintain

We’ve been struggling with releasing editions in time. Too often, we’ve seen Linux Mint release its main edition and the Xfce desktop edition, among others, lagging behind and being released far too late in the release cycle. The switch to a rolling package base simplify things tremendously, both for the project and for the users.

Users do not rely on new releases to keep their system up to date, they can do so themselves with a continuous flow of updates.

Bringing the edition to a new release doesn’t involve re-basing it as it did before. It’s now a simple matter of updating the ISO and releasing a snapshot. Similar to LMDE (which will eventually be renamed “Linux Mint Gnome”), this edition will support both 32-bit and 64-bit within a loose release cycle. All Debian-based editions will be released at the same time either to keep up with new features coming in the frozen editions (i.e. Mint 11, Mint 12..), to feature LMDE specific improvements or simply as a snapshot update to their live ISO images.

The importance of feedback in our decision process

We’ve learnt a lot in the past few months and it enabled us to make difficult yet important decisions for this edition. Xfce was the 5th most popular Mint desktop behind the Main edition, “LMDE”, KDE and LXDE. Among its users, a vast majority of people were in favour of a switch to a Debian package base (twice as many as the number of people who were opposed to it). We also noticed only 1% of the users used optic drives that couldn’t read DVD discs. This was relevant as Debian’s language support takes more space than Ubuntu’s and our plan to mainstream this edition meant adding more applications to it.

This is also the first Debian-based release to feature a release candidate.

FAQ

1. Which editions are based on Ubuntu and which editions are based on Debian?

Frozen releases are based on Ubuntu. They carry a version number. For instance, Linux Mint 10 is based on Ubuntu 10.10. The next frozen release will be Linux Mint 11, based on Ubuntu 11.04.

Rolling editions do not carry version numbers. They follow the Debian Testing branch. Because of their rolling nature, they’re receiving continuous updates and their version number never changes (technically it’s always “1″ though we do not mention it since it’s not relevant). Note the absence of version number in “Linux Mint Xfce” for instance, indicating its rolling nature.

An important thing to notice is the fact that rolling editions are in constant evolution but that a particular ISO image is a snapshot of this edition at a particular time. So, though rolling editions do not get outdated, ISO images do. For this reason we use a timestamp for our ISO images, such as “Linux Mint Xfce (201104)”.

2. Is Linux Mint switching to Debian?

No. Linux Mint is Linux Mint, it’s not based on anything per say. It provides different editions which include different upstream components. In regards to package bases and repositories, what’s happening today is that the Xfce edition of Linux Mint is switching two important things:

  • It’s switching its package base from a frozen Ubuntu pool to the rolling Debian Testing branch.
  • It’s switching its lightweight software selection to a more mainstream one.
3. Are other editions going to switch to Debian?

Fluxbox will switch to Debian but remain minimalist in its default selection.

No decisions were made about LXDE and KDE yet, though switching them to Debian Testing would bring significant advantages to both the project and the users.

4. What about the main edition?

The main edition is and always was our flagship product. It implements the vision we have for Linux Mint and represents our most polished desktop. We do provide other editions and alternative desktops to please particular groups of people within our user base, but our main edition is where our biggest focus remains.

Unless major obstacles or changes meant either Ubuntu or Gnome 3 weren’t compatible with our vision of a perfect desktop anymore, this will not change. We’ll release two major desktops this year: Linux Mint 11 in May and Linux Mint 12 in November, and these two releases are by far the most important events for us at Linux Mint.

Switching editions to Debian Testing simplifies a lot of things and brings considerable advantages to everyone involved, but it doesn’t change our main focus and our commitment to our main edition, which is still featuring Gnome on top of an Ubuntu package base.

5. These switches to Debian seem to take the focus away from the development of the main edition

We’re holding back on two major projects, and sadly they’re likely to be postponed to Linux Mint 12. The main reasons for this aren’t associated with LMDE though. Drastic changes are occurring upstream, whether it’s with Ubuntu pushing for the adoption of its Software Center, switching to Unity and planning to switch away from Xorg, or Gnome moving ahead with Gnome 3, Shell and GTK3… we’re expecting that a lot of things will break and we’re not quite sure how big will the challenges ahead of us be. With this in mind, we’re not in a state of mind where we want to innovate and develop additional features, but in a position where we want to make sure everything works as well as before.

In the long run, switching our alternative desktops to a rolling base also simplifies their maintenance. To users, this means faster updates and synchronised releases. To us, this means more focus on the main edition.

Important links

Download links:

Md5 sum:

  • 32-bit: 308e3aa7a0f9763667f21b408d1af0fe
  • 64-bit: 0f1102f26d2acd70c953cc18fc0b7f13

Torrents:

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit ISO:

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit ISO:

Enjoy!

Mint Xfce isn’t “trying” to be lightweight anymore. It’s snappier and uses less resources, while becoming more mainstream and offering more popular applications. We hope you’ll enjoy this release candidate and we look forward to your feedback.

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73 Responses to “Linux Mint Xfce RC (201104) released!”

  1. Chris Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    Ooh, I’m going to download it now. I’m generally not a big fan of Debian base but I might warm up to it if Ubuntu keeps on their current path. Plus, rolling releases have definite advantages.

    With all of the weird and controversial decisions being made by Canonical and the Gnome development team, it’s nice to have good ol’ Linux Mint to rely on. You guys care more about what the users actually want, rather than trying to impose on us what you think we want. I applaud you for that and I’m likely to be using some version of Mint as long as it and I exist. :D

  2. Hoffmann Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    I’m going to download this and give it a try.

    I used the LM 10 LXDE for a while but it’s not very pleasant.

    With Xfce we have a x64 version and even better performance than the Lxde, and with a better software selection.

    So far, excellent job.

  3. Wajdi Karim REKIK Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    J’ai testé LMDX sur VirtualBox et c’est réellement une réussite, bravo Clem. Mes remarques maintenant:
    -le partage de fichier n’est pas si simple : l’onglet “share” des propriétés d’un dossier dans thunar est grisé et ne peut pas partager simplement un dossier de cette manière. La solution est indiquée en rouge et n’est pas compliquée (ajouter le groupe usershare et installer libpamsmb si je me souviens bien) mais Mint nous a habitué à plus simple que cela.
    -D’accord pour le DVD à la place du CD, mais pourrait-on obtenir une solution pour une installation directe à partir du disque dur ? Cela a été discuté sur le forum ( http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=63559&p=368129&hilit=lmde#p368129 ). Cela pourrait aider ceux qui n’ont ni graveur DVD ni clef USB bootable (ils existent, j’en suis !)
    Encore merci et bonne continuation

  4. CaptHilts Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    looks interesting! what’s the version of xfce, 4.8?

    keep up the good work
    Captn

  5. Clem Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    @Wajdi: Oh non, par pitie, ne l’appelez pas LMDX… on en finit plus avec les surnoms et ca va devenir difficile a suivre :) C’est Linux Mint Xfce tout simplement. Je note pour le partage. Pour le DVD unetbootin peut etre la solution. Sinon, mintconstructor permet de modifier le fichier ISO et de retirer des paquets pour en faire un ISO plus petit.

  6. Clem Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    @CaptHilts: 4.6.2, but it’s rolling so it’s only a matter of time before it updates towards 4.8.

  7. wooque Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    Because XFCE Edition is now on DVD it will be nice to see Chromium browser on it. I hoping that in the final release

  8. nikunj Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:28 pm

    best work i like linux mint very much. window sucks>>>>>>>

  9. tdockery97 Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    Great news for those of us who are concerned about the future of Gnome. I plan on trying this, and if it meets my needs it will replace the standard LMDE. While I truly love LMDE, it is only a matter of time before it will have to become Gnome 3 or be dropped. Great work Clem and the team!

  10. daemox Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Neat! Thank you very much for the FAQ (especially points 4 and 5). This definitely cleared up the future plans of Linux Mint up for me.

    With that said, I’m really hoping the upstream changes don’t prove insurmountable as the Ubuntu basis of the main edition is a driving force behind me using Linux Mint over Ubuntu.

    Thanks for all the hard work, it is definitely appreciated!

  11. Wajdi Karim REKIK Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    Merci Clem, je ne connaissais pas mintconstructor.

  12. Silent Warrior Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Sir Nitpick strikes again:
    “live sessions of Linux Mint Xfce and Linux Mint 9 Xfce”
    … What DIFFERENT editions are we comparing, again? :-P Proofreading FTW!

    Well, joyous day for the Xfce-crew, of which I’m not a part. Congratulations where congratulations are due, nonetheless!

  13. daemox Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    @CaptHilts: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=debian — You can watch the version of XFCE in the various versions of Debian here. Once it’s in Sid it should then come to Testing (and Linux Mint XFCE/LMDE).

  14. Clem Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    Silent Warrior: The comparison is between Linux Mint Xfce (this rolling edition, based on Debian Testing) and Linux Mint 9 Xfce (our latest Xfce frozen release based on Ubuntu 10.10).

  15. Сергей Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    Всем здравствуйте!

    Очень рад выпуску этой версии. Очень ждал ее…долго она не выходила…вот почему так :)
    Оказывается вы хорошо постарались!
    Мне нравится XFCE больше чем Gnome. Он быстрый, удобный, не раздутый. То что нужно. Ведь работа человека за компьютером должна быть проста и удобна.

    Мы знаем что все еще не перешли с Windows XP (XFCE можно сказать) на Windows 7 (Gnome 3 можно сказать) потому что в ХР есть все что нужно.
    Тоже самое между XFCE и Gnome 3. Хоть и девиз Gnome:” сделать проще и лучше” – но мне кажется что у них все выходит наоборот.

    Поэтому я рад выходу XFCE и попробую его поставить :)
    Спасибо команда Mint. Вы лучшие!

  16. wooque Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:17 pm

    Clem have this edition compiz? And I’m interesteing is there any plans for including Chromium in the XFCE Edition

  17. wooque Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:17 pm

    I forgot to say: Good work!

  18. schlomer Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    Exciting news – but… Installing onto a JFS partition still doesn’t work. Sad Day.

  19. Hezy Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Clem, I’m using this for a day now, and I enjoy it. There are however some bugs related to the theme:

    (1) pop up windows on right clicking a file or folder disappear when the button is released. it only happens with the Mint-X theme.

    (2) the mint wallpapers are in subfolders rather than directly in /usr/share/xfce4/backdrops. as a result they don’t appear in the Desktop Settings menu.

    (3) the window decoration you put in the Mint-X theme is for matacity rather than for XFWM, so it doesn’t work and you get the default Xfce 4.6 theme (I see that you adjusted it’s color by changing the gtk theme, and it looks nice, but still a hack).
    try this theme for a better fit: http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/elementary+xfwm4?content=137959

  20. Mokhtar_one Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Thinks !!!!!!!!!!!

  21. CaptHilts Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    @Clem & daemox

    thx for the info! will definitely give it a try!

    Cheers

  22. Blisk Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    I’m going to try this. I like the concept of LMDE, but it’ll eventually go to Gnome 3. I think I’ll prefer this. I think it’s better to have the alternate desktops as Debian as well. Thanks for all the work!

  23. mathi Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    what is the reason for the performance boost? will this performance boost eventually land in ubuntu based mint as well?

  24. lakerz Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    Hello guys, I have a short question:

    Wich release of Linux Mint is the best for an old computer – LXDE or XFCE – or something different (without tuning manually, out of the box)?

    Looking for a good distribution for a pentium 3 with 256Mb of Ram.. should I look elsewhere or is there a suitable Linux Mint release?

    Kind regards

  25. grnddragon57 Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    I’ve been playing with the XFce RC for a couple of days and so far I really like it. Only bug I’ve found is the right click menu in Thunar, solved by changing themes. Thanks for the excellent FAQ.

  26. asymmetros Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    Hi to everyone.
    Congratulations to Clem for another nice edition. I think he made clear his point of view regarding Xfce +LMDE.
    I already installed it in a spare partition -and in no time, debian out of the box!
    Apart from #19 (right click), no other problem so far.

    Does anyone knows what are the advantages, if any, of using “pure” LMDX instead of Xfce on top of LMDE Gnome?

  27. Mdyter Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    i’m having problems with the amount of ram used in live session (using 32 bit).
    it seems that the difference between my system and the amount of ram declared by Clem is about 50 Mb. in all cases i used System Monitor application to monitor RAM resources.

    # Mint Xfce: 142 ram and not 107 MB RAM
    # Mint Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox: 200 ram and not 162 MB RAM
    # Mint Xfce + OO Writer + OO Calc + Firefox + Thunderbird + VLC + Rhythmbox: 250 ram and not 207 MB RAM

    Why would be there such a big difference? could it be a hardware thing ?

  28. Carlos Felipe Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    Please, STOP to install fortune on terminal, the cow sucks!

  29. christopher patrick Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    i know this is a minute issue but shouldn’t it be 201103 not 201104 since March is the third month not the forth which is April

  30. Craig Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Just wanted to comment that it seems from some of the postings here that there is an impression that LMDE (or even mint main gnome for that matter) is going to eventually be forced to go with Gnome Shell…apparently that is not the case, based on what i heard in Clem’s podcast interview, while Mint will likely go Gnome3 it will NOT go Gnome Shell…Gnome Shell and that Unity stuff will be kept out of Mint…And just having Gnome 3 is NOT the same thing…so if that is your “fear”… fear not…LOL

  31. anzan Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    This is very good news indeed. This will be much easier for Clem and Ikey and much better for users in the long run. Thank you, gentlemen, for your excellent work. This is exactly what I had hoped would happen.

  32. Craig Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    Linux Mint 11 “Katya” to use GNOME 3

    Linux Mint Founder and lead developer Clement Lefebvre has announced that the next major release of his Ubuntu-based Linux distribution will feature the GNOME 3.0 desktop environment, which is expected to be finalised on the 6th of April. According to Lefebvre, unlike Canonical’s Ubuntu, Linux Mint 11, code named “Katya”, will not use Unity, instead opting for GNOME 3 “using a traditional desktop layout” without the GNOME Shell.

    So, what is everyone getting all excited about? If you prefer XFCE version of LMDE that is fine, but if you think that you must go to an alternate desktop to gnome to escape unity, as you can see…not necessary….

  33. Bobby Hunter Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    I am already running Debian testing XFCE. Can I add the mint repository to my sources.list and install the difference? Or must I re-install?

  34. stu Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    What XFCE version does this use? I saw that stable release 4.8 is out.

  35. Chris M Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    Good call on a rolling Debian distro. It looks like you guys have the Debian thing nailed down.

    As I indicated in your recent poll, you should really do the same thing with LXDE.

    It’s a performance winner, and obviously practical.

  36. holyguyver Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Wonderful news, I believe I will switch to this :D The only thing I will miss is Ubuntu’s PPA’s.

  37. David Brown Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    What kernel does Linux Mint Xfce use? I’m waiting for 2.6.38 for my new netbook, to get a driver for the SD card reader.

  38. Bobby Hunter Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    I think 2.6.36 but not sure. Debian Testing will likely be one of the first to have 2.6.38.

  39. Ryan Beckett Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 11:13 pm

    mintMenu has several issues, namely lock screen, logout, and shutdown buttons do not work. Additionally, (probably a setting somewhere) windows take focus when I scroll on them. (I do not want this )

  40. Zarggg Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    I’m pretty sure 2.6.38 is available to update manually if you really want to. (I haven’t checked in a while.)

  41. dp Says:
    March 21st, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    Hello
    Using lmde along time i have fallen twice (many more to come) on “Fix broken packages first”
    So some packages doesn’t allow the upgrade off ALL packages and this is a rolling release
    So 2 possible solutions
    1. Use dist-upgrade with “hold” in a terminal (if you have old software that you want to keep and i have)

    or
    2. Try to upgrade one by one and see which packages have problem

    Its working but this not the mint way

    Any other possible solution?

  42. Rob Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 1:49 am

    I am going to give this a try for my netbook. I had bad luck with what was being offered before. All went OK, until I went to the duel boot, I restarted, selected Mint, and got a blank screen on the final start up. But to be honest this happend with most Lunix versions too. Easypeasy worked OK. but when my questions were not getting posted on the forums, I gave up. Life is to short to stress out over that stuff.
    I was able to make pretty much everything work but the onboard camera, and the ear phone jack. (the sound worked other wise.

    So, I pray that this works.

  43. Silent Warrior Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 3:57 am

    Clem: … Oh, the Xfce-edition doesn’t have ‘Debian’ in its name? Ok, my bad.

  44. Hassle Mc Auliffe Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 5:37 am

    Easy peasy, you take LMDE and put XFCE to it, there you are, another rolling distro … Looking forward to innovation, guys, was not impressed with KDE either, I guess we are waiting for the main one with the innovations ? For example : we are not allowed to have Libre-Office before the main one comes with it ? Don’t go easy guys, keep up the good work and be different from the distro-jam. Maybe too many Mint versions now ? Maybe it’s better to stick to the main one ? Make up you mind, stay Mint. Focus. Better one good distro with a good philosophy ( mother debian, not ubuntu ? ) then a bunch of no goods, just because of.
    H.

  45. Finn Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 6:05 am

    As to the “Fix broken pacages first” issue. Exclude all the OpenOffice packages.Worked for me.

  46. Pete Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 6:34 am

    It seems like there is a bug in these Debian testing based system, which causes an infinite loop in the installer when installing the boot loader on a btrfs disk.

  47. Pierre Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 7:52 am

    Keeping Mint Gnome & Mint KDE both on the six monthly, Ubuntu release.
    porting the other three over to a Debian base, would be a good idea.

    I’ve always liked XFCE as a light-weight desktop, now as a rolling release, it is even better. ..

    lakerz: there are other light-weight desktop(s) around,
    apart from XFCE & FluxBox . ..
    ( but not from Mint)

  48. ruthless Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 9:13 am

    WONDERFULL , just please remove fucking Oracle OO from all disto!! and put in by default LibreOffice !!!

  49. hinto Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Great job… I was a reformed distro hopper…. but now… Just one more;)

  50. paz Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    First great work as always, Thankyou for your attention to detail. also for those interested there are two projects currently forking and preserving Gnome and Kde 3.5. The Kde group is called Trinity and the Gnome group is called EXDE. The Trinity Desktop site is http://www.trinitydesktop.org/ and the Gnome EXDE (although not an official project yet), is http://www.exde.org/node/1

  51. Jeff Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    Some thoughts on the various editions:

    1) I like the idea of using a Debian base on all except the main edition. This will reduce the resource usage and keep them up-to-date.

    2) All editions should use the same theme and MintMenu to provide a consistent identity for Mint.

    3) iso’s should be re-done on a regular (and frequent) basis. This will make it easier for new users doing a fresh install: Having to download and install hundreds of updates gives the distribution a poor image.

    Overall, still a great fan of Mint. Keep up the good work.

  52. paz Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    Maybe a Mint E17 someday? It,s beta now and looks good.

  53. roberto chile Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    gracias!!!!

  54. Maruel Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    I think releasing Xfce edition on top of Debian is an excellent decision! However, Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment, which I believe should be matched with lightweight applications (rythmbox is not at all lightweight). That’s just the way I see it, I mean, Xfce edition should be as lightweight as Xfce is intended to be, instead of being an alternative to Gnome.

    Congrats and thanks! =D

  55. thecursedfly Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    Totally agree with Maruel (51.)
    XFCE edition should have stayed with lightweight applications. A LMDE version with ‘heavy’ Gnome&Apps already exists.

    For the rest GREAT job, I found myself loving XFCE way more than LXDE as a lightweight DE, and a rolling debian edition is simply lovable.

    Mine now.

  56. Jose1965 Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    Great!!, I’m running LMDE Gnome in 32 and 64Bits PC’s, and I like how it work, I’ll give it a try to LMDE Xfce edition in an older system.

    I it Possible to create a DVD Edition of LMDE with an option to choose Desktop Enviroment (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc) during Install? maybe it is better One Edition of LMDE that include the most popular Desktop Enviroment to choose from.

    Thanks for all Your Great Job Mint Team!

  57. Linux4life Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    I think, in this situation, you made the right decisions.
    With a lot of heavy weather in the near-future I think many people will migrate to Linux Mint to get their old-trusted environment.

    Indeed, try to make things work.
    I’ll go over to Ubuntu and try to help, it’s what it needs right now.
    I didn’t say the heavy weather is bad, I try to say that as Linux Mint it is better to be conservative for a while…

    Oh, but I think it’s better if you drop one of the light-weights.

  58. Maurício Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    Yes!!!!

    Mint will debian based!!!

    Congratulations!!

    Uhuuuuu!!!

  59. Elena Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    Hi there!

    I am new into linux.

    1. I want to know if xfce has more native application than lxde?
    2. Linux Mint Xfce Debian Edition has more application than Xfce Ubuntu Edition?
    3. Gnome native application can be installed in xfce debian edition without installing gnome core system?

    Have a nice moments.

  60. Inoki Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    Sounds good, but I’ll wait ’till this is released as final. :)

  61. Bob Says:
    March 22nd, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    @mdyter-Yes, it could be the difference in hardware. It’s still likely that if you try a LM 9 XFCE disk live you’ll find a difference in favour of this system, though it may be larger or smaller than the difference of about 50 MB that was reported.
    _____
    I’m excited about this. On the cheap old computer I’d been using for testing I’d installed LMDE and the XFCE desktop, gotten rid of the Gnome desktop and gotten rid of some Gnome apps in favour of XFCE ones, and it turned out to be my favourite system until the hard drive gave up the ghost.

    I agree with Maruel about the choice of apps, though I’ll end up switching many of them myself. Also, I’d urge conservatism in updates. LMDE has a warning that it is more likely to break than the regular edition and so ability to fix broken packages will be useful. It would be nice if we perpetual Gnu Linux novices are able to use this system without things breaking too often.

  62. chrtis_debian Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 2:05 am

    This is really welcome news. Unfortunately XOrg fails with my hardware set-up, so I can’t see the Live environment to begin the install. I’d welcome the option for a text based installer, so I can configure X from the Bash prompt. I’ll have to use ‘vanilla’ Debian for now.

    Cheers,

    Chris.

  63. آزادمنش Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 2:59 am

    Good work
    احسنت زنده باشی با این پشتکار و تلاش

  64. Сергей Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 3:09 am

    Wait for final relis!!! :)

  65. chris_debian Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 3:26 am

    Posted once already, but not sure where it went!

    Anyway, this release is great news! Unfortunately, with my hardware combination (Radeon card and Sun 21″ GDM-5410 monitor), X does not configure properly, so I get an ‘Out of scan range’ message on my monitor. I’ve had this with other distros and it just means that I need to configure X manually (Xorg -configure). Because X doesn’t start, I can’t use the installer. What i’d like to see would be the option at boot to start a text-based installer, would be available. For me, this gives a bit more flexibility. Just an idea.

    Anyway, well done to the team that worked on RC3.

    Cheers,

    Chris.

  66. Robin Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 7:57 am

    Well, let’s hope it works better than the normal LMDE, cause that one simply didn’t want to update…

  67. Robin Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 8:54 am

    I’m using it from the LiveDVD now… This is what I noticed at once:
    - The sound icon has moved to the right of the clock.
    - Where’s the Mint Menu?!
    - The GTK theme appears messed up sometimes when I open a program.
    - It uses Thunar File Manager.
    - I can’t really judge the speed as I’m running it from a slow rewritable DVD.

    I can’t say I really like it… but it will probably be all right after a few updates, as this is still a new project and only an RC.

  68. Micah Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 9:34 am

    Not sure the benefit of using XFCE on top of LMDE Gnome? I did like the mint menu option, but could not get the logout or quit to work from Mint Menu. Aside from my personal choices, I want to recognize the developers who put this together. GREAT JOB!

  69. ClayThedill Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 10:18 am

    Excellent.

    Now for LXDE et alii to go Debian base…

    Ubuntu like to improve a Debian base. Good. Mint also like to improve a Debian base, originally via Ubuntu base, now Debian directly as well. Good again. Mint, IMHO, does a _way_ better job. Why bother with a middle-man? That’s a less elegant design process… What, they have better software, better people? _Mint_ has better software, & people. BTW, you guys rock.

  70. ClayThedill Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 10:20 am

    (My apologies for the rant.)

  71. Bob Says:
    March 23rd, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    Robin wrote:

    - Where’s the Mint Menu?! …
    - It uses Thunar File Manager.
    ___________
    1. Mint Menu-to quote the announcement above:

    We also added mintmenu to this edition as an alternative menu. Be aware that it was designed for Gnome and that it uses an additional 30MB RAM. You can add it easily by right-clicking on the panel and selecting “Add new Items”->”XfApplet”->”mintMenu”.it’s in the repos.

    2. Thunar-Is there a reason to expect otherwise in an XFCE release?

    b

  72. ivaylo Says:
    March 24th, 2011 at 12:35 am

    Great release and optimization. This implementation is far away Faster and Lighter than gnome.

    My congratulations to your decisions for the rolling Mint Debian.

  73. Сергей Says:
    March 24th, 2011 at 2:59 am

    Нравится как всплыват окна уведомлений внизу возле часов часов.

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