Monthly News – August 2022

Hi everyone,

Thank you very much for your help, your donations, your feedback and everything you do to contribute to our project.

Fun Stuff

Wil Wheaton runs Linux Mint. It’s official! I really like him so it made my day to know about it. I just thought I’d mention it 🙂

To all the really cool people out there who haven’t come out yet. If you like what we do, don’t be a stranger, let us know!

Another piece of cool news this month is the Steam Deck. It’s starting to become available. I managed to get one. I’m hoping we’ll manage to get a few more for the team. It’s brilliant as a portable gaming device but it’s also fantastic for the future of gaming in Linux. A lot of people will get a Steam Deck. Many studios will want their games to be “Deck Verified” and thus this is going to significantly boost the compatibility of games with Linux, or at least with Proton.

Other than Linux and Proton, the Deck relies on an immutable version of Arch, Flatpak and KDE so its ecosystem is a little bit different than the one we have in Linux Mint. The development of SteamOS and Linux Mint isn’t likely to have much in common or to converge in any way. That said there will likely be some use cases we’ll be able to help with. Warpinator for instance, which we made available as a Flatpak, proved to be useful to share files between computers, smartphones and the Steam Deck.

Development Cycle

The latest development cycle was intense but we’re now in a comfortable situation. The two major releases LMDE 5 and Linux Mint 21 are out, they both benefit from the new upgrade tool and the mutter rebase in Cinnamon 5.4 was a success.

We’re still fixing small regressions in Cinnamon. We’ll also continue to improve the upgrade tool (in particular the way it handles orphan packages) and we’ll release a Linux Mint 21 EDGE ISO image when an HWE kernel series becomes available.

Continuous Integration

Whenever we make a change in the source code (via a commit) for one of our applications, or whenever someone contributes a change (via a Pull Request), the changed software is automatically recompiled to ensure it stills builds and installs fine in the latest versions of Linux Mint and LMDE. This is what we call Continuous Integration. To do this we rely on docker and CircleCI.

A regression between docker and glibc in Ubuntu 22.04 affected our ability to build for Linux Mint 21. We worked around this regression for our own build environments but it still affects environments we don’t control, such as CircleCI.

We’re currently tackling this issue. We successfully tested Github Actions, which gives us greater control over docker than CircleCI and we’re likely to migrate our Continuous Integration to it in the coming days.

Automation in Software Portal

The Software Center lists all the packages and flatpak applications which are currently available. It lets you install them but up until now it didn’t necessarily let you review them.

This is because the reviews themselves are stored online as part of the Community website and the list of software applications known to that website used to be updated manually.

This was all automated this week. The website now queries Flathub and the APT repositories on a daily basis to stay up to date and feature all the latest software.

Debbie reaches EOL

It’s the end of the adventure for LMDE 4 “Debbie”. This release has now reached End of Life and will no longer receive updates.

If you are running LMDE 4 upgrade to LMDE 5 by following the instructions at https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4320.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Donations in July:

A total of $8,855 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 371 donors:

$250 (2nd donation), Cale B.
$250, Kevin F.
$216, Ralph J.
$210 (3rd donation), Andreas S.
$200 (29th donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy“
$156, Aurélie S.
$100 (17th donation), Philip W.
$100 (9th donation), Robert K. aka “usmc_bob”
$100 (8th donation), Michael S.
$100 (3rd donation), Peter B.
$100, Luis K.
$100, Gary P.
$80 (8th donation), James L.
$80 (2nd donation), Terry Ya!
$70 (2nd donation), Andrew M.
$60 (2nd donation), Ganeshnarayanan K.
$54 (147th donation), Olli K.
$54 (17th donation), David M.
$54 (6th donation), Peter W.
$54 (5th donation), Jean-Pierre S.
$54 (3rd donation), Boris I.
$54 (3rd donation), Marco L. aka “mar9000“
$54 (2nd donation), David V.
$54 (2nd donation), Joerg B.
$54 (2nd donation), Thomas R.
$54 (2nd donation), Norman C.
$54 (2nd donation),
$54 (2nd donation), Daniel S.
$54 (2nd donation), Willem H.
$54, Roman J.
$54, Marion C.
$54, Daniel S.
$54, Jaap D.
$54, Michele M.
$54, Nicholai S.
$50 (63th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (6th donation), Joe K.
$50 (5th donation), Kyle S.
$50 (4th donation), Harry Fine Paralegal Services
$50 (4th donation), Ray W.
$50 (2nd donation), Charles T.
$50 (2nd donation), Michael M.
$50 (2nd donation), Dave B.
$50 (2nd donation), Tom K.
$50 (2nd donation), Clifford N.
$50 (2nd donation), David N. B.
$50 (2nd donation), Richard C.
$50, Blake N.
$50, Ricardo J.
$50, Jay H.
$50, Jeremy N.
$50, Jim R.
$50, Daniel E.
$50, Frank Berger
$50, Douglas B.
$50, Jeremy L.
$50, Eric S.
$50, Graham L.
$50, Peter G.
$50, James L.
$50, Lance L.
$50, James F.
$50, Brittany Taylor F.
$50, Mohammad A.
$50, Josh J.
$45 (3rd donation), Ian B.
$45, Trevor W.
$43 (3rd donation), Les W.
$40 (5th donation), John B. (nth donation)
$40, Frederick S.
$38 (20th donation), Joachim M.
$38 (7th donation), Devendra Rai.
$36 (25th donation), Ted S.
$35 (6th donation), Silvio H.
$32 (3rd donation), Jyrki A.
$32, Andrea Ronchetti
$32, Theresa V.
$32, Ersoy Y.
$30 (7th donation), John T.
$30 (6th donation), Jean-Michel R.
$30 (6th donation), Oleksandr Z.
$30 (6th donation), Bill and Susan
$30, Douglas J.
$30, Jean T.
$30, Chris Z.
$27 (8th donation), Daniel Gruhn
$26 (3rd donation), Ollie
$26 (2nd donation), Jonas K.
$25 (20th donation), Kevin S.
$25 (18th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (17th donation), George H.
$25 (12th donation), Donna B.
$25 (9th donation), Andrew Currie
$25 (8th donation), Clifton S.
$25 (6th donation), Donald F.
$25 (4th donation), M F M
$25 (3rd donation), Patrick M.
$25 (3rd donation), Benoit F.
$25, Julian C.
$25, Joshua T.
$25, Marc P.
$25, Ben P.
$24 (2nd donation), Niklas
$24, Christopher S.
$23 (19th donation), Teobaldo D.
$23, Christian P.
$22 (27th donation), Peter E.
$22 (17th donation), Nigel B.
$22 (15th donation), Alain P.
$22 (11th donation), Brandon W.
$22 (10th donation), Marc S.
$22 (10th donation), Frank J.
$22 (8th donation), Rob B.
$22 (7th donation), Tom B.
$22 (6th donation), Wolfgang N.
$22 (6th donation), Tapani H.
$22 (6th donation), Tom S.
$22 (5th donation), Wolfgang R.
$22 (5th donation), Eduardo K.
$22 (4th donation), Thomas G. aka “thg14”
$22 (4th donation), Henrik Simonsen
$22 (3rd donation), Martin A.
$22 (3rd donation), Alexander F.
$22 (3rd donation), Brigitte K.
$22 (3rd donation), Eugen A.
$22 (3rd donation), Sascha B.
$22 (2nd donation), Michael H.
$22 (2nd donation), Patrick R.
$22 (2nd donation), Micha H.
$22 (2nd donation), Matthias S.
$22 (2nd donation), Hendrik G.
$22 (2nd donation), Dragomir Deltchev aka “Drago”
$22 (2nd donation), GYE
$22 (2nd donation), RedFox
$22 (2nd donation), Martin S.
$22 (2nd donation), Eric F.
$22 (2nd donation), David M.
$22 (2nd donation), Philipp M.
$22 (2nd donation), Philip O.
$22, Benoit A. aka “Allben“
$22, Klaus B.
$22, Reynaldo M.
$22, Conor S.
$22, Ivo R.
$22, Robert G.
$22, Lasse L.
$22, Olivier J.
$22, Henk V.
$22, Jean C.
$22, Nigel W.
$22, Kchopein
$22, John P.
$22, Jeremy M.
$22, Jean Noel C.
$22, Carlo S.
$22, Frederic P.
$22, Jakob J.
$22, Hans-gerhard R.
$22, Bernard M.
$22, Martin W.
$22, Álvaro M.
$21 (19th donation), Ke C.
$21 (17th donation), François P.
$20 (48th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (22nd donation), Peter D.
$20 (15th donation), Dylan B.
$20 (14th donation), Anon
$20 (10th donation), Joao Kodama
$20 (10th donation), Intrinsic
$20 (8th donation), Lamont C.
$20 (7th donation), Patrick C.
$20 (7th donation), Pablo L. aka “LAFO”
$20 (7th donation), Mark F.
$20 (6th donation), Lennart J.
$20 (6th donation), Douglas H.
$20 (5th donation), Larry B.
$20 (5th donation), Gene P.
$20 (4th donation), Greg K.
$20 (4th donation), Marlin S.
$20 (4th donation), Paul W.
$20 (3rd donation), Moses R.
$20 (3rd donation), a donor
$20 (3rd donation), Yordan A.
$20 (3rd donation), Mario M.
$20 (2nd donation), Jonathan S.
$20 (2nd donation), Post ReportingService, Inc
$20 (2nd donation), Nikos M.
$20 (2nd donation), Jose R.
$20, Grayson W.
$20, Ronald B.
$20,
$20, John O.
$20, Robert F.
$20, Ben M.
$20, Paul B.
$20, Garry C.
$20, D Michael D.
$20, Nadir S.
$20, Peter A.
$20, Gregory K.
$20, Alex Z.
$20, Nathan P.
$20, Fred G.
$20, Glenn V.
$20, Esteban C.
$20, John B.
$20, Marc S.
$20, Greg G.
$20, Douglas C.
$20, William M.
$20, Laksma T.
$20, Felix Daniel P.
$19 (73th donation), Johann J.
$16 (12th donation), Rufus
$16, Joachim A.
$16, Thomas L.
$16, David M.
$16, Henk V.
$16, Timothy H.
$14 (6th donation), Andrew P.
$12, Vinay B.
$12, Bengt B.
$11 (38th donation), Francois-R L.
$11 (21st donation), Olaf B.
$11 (16th donation), Slobodan Vrkacevic
$11 (12th donation), Yves R.
$11 (11th donation), Gabriele I.
$11 (9th donation), Michael P.
$11 (9th donation), Thomas K.
$11 (9th donation), Gary N.
$11 (8th donation), Adam P.
$11 (7th donation), R. I. . aka “Birman”
$11 (7th donation), Caspar F.
$11 (7th donation), Bernhard L.
$11 (7th donation), Christian W.
$11 (7th donation), Rupert B.
$11 (6th donation), Tugaleres.com
$11 (6th donation), Michele C.
$11 (6th donation), Alfons B.
$11 (5th donation), Michael K.
$11 (5th donation), René R.
$11 (5th donation), Lazo L.
$11 (4th donation), Jeanmichel T.
$11 (4th donation), Alan Y.
$11 (4th donation), Marcos P. G.
$11 (3rd donation), Juan C.
$11 (3rd donation), Juergen K.
$11 (3rd donation), Marco C.
$11 (3rd donation), Jürgen M.
$11 (3rd donation), Dimitar S.
$11 (3rd donation), Denys G.
$11 (3rd donation), Franz Z.
$11 (3rd donation), Miroslav R.
$11 (2nd donation), Fabio P.
$11 (2nd donation), Amazias O.
$11 (2nd donation), Benedikt R.
$11 (2nd donation), Mathieu P. aka “Pila“
$11 (2nd donation), Carsten D.
$11 (2nd donation), Julian F.
$11 (2nd donation), Janne M.
$11 (2nd donation), Fritz P.
$11 (2nd donation), P aka “Pociao”
$11 (2nd donation), John M D.
$11 (2nd donation), Fernandes J.
$11 (2nd donation), Fernando A. P.
$11 (2nd donation), Ioan T.
$11 (2nd donation), Rüdiger A.
$11, Giovanni F.
$11, Steve P.
$11, Alfred H.
$11, Manel M.
$11, Balbir R.
$11, Bernd K.
$11, Adrian R.
$11, Daniel G.
$11, Tiberiu N.
$11, Salvador C.
$11, Ingmar N.
$11, Justus B.
$11, Kirill L.
$11, José Luis V.
$11, Nick G.
$11, Hartmut G.
$11, Mauro P.
$11, Damien L.
$11, Andreas L.
$11, César M.
$11, Adrian L.
$10 (100th donation), Tree Service Kansas City
$10 (94th donation), Tree Removal Raleigh NC
$10 (77th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (72th donation), Frank K.
$10 (72th donation), Fence Baton Rouge
$10 (54th donation), Rick R.
$10 (25th donation), Fence Company Raleigh
$10 (25th donation), Philip Woodward
$10 (23rd donation), Carpet Cleaning Winnipeg
$10 (22nd donation), Concrete Contractors Raleigh
$10 (19th donation), Yoga Spruce Grove
$10 (18th donation), Pawel M.
$10 (17th donation), Solar Panels Saskatoon
$10 (16th donation), Mr. Bee
$10 (11th donation), Troy T.
$10 (10th donation), Aimee W.
$10 (4th donation), Damir L.
$10 (3rd donation), William F.
$10 (3rd donation), Vlad Gruetz (YouTube)
$10 (3rd donation), Jaroszaw W.
$10 (3rd donation), Philip W.
$10 (2nd donation), Richard S.
$10 (2nd donation), Jan P.
$10 (2nd donation), Bill E.
$10 (2nd donation), James D.
$10 (2nd donation), Lawrence C.
$10 (2nd donation), Peers T.
$10, Paul B.
$10, Michael K.
$10, Ralph B.
$10, Nghia N.
$10, Jeff W.
$10, Lonnie S.
$10, Pierre S.
$10, Charles R.
$10, Allan T.
$10, Stan Harris
$10, Daniel O.
$10, Jan P.
$10, Michael F.
$10, Dennis R C.
$10, Belinda S.
$10, David Fernando E.
$10, platypus products
$10, PHOTOGRAPHER
$10, Greg W.
$10, Marcos P.
$10, Head 2 Foot
$10, Marshall H.
$10, Thoi V.
$9 (2nd donation), Richard G.
$8 (38th donation), Hristo Gatsinski
$8 (5th donation), Fernando Bou-Issa
$7 (3rd donation), Lorne F.
$7 (2nd donation), Kirby D.
$7, Junzi aka “Dataflow”
$7, Kristen B.
$6 (6th donation), Martin K.
$5 (73th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (28th donation), Sami Mannila
$5 (24th donation), Blazej P. aka “bleyzer”
$5 (24th donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
$5 (24th donation), Oleksandr P.
$5 (20th donation), Alexander G. B.
$5 (9th donation), Rafal K.
$5 (9th donation), Fergus T.
$5 (8th donation), patrick p.
$5 (7th donation), Lucas DH
$5 (5th donation), Tom N.
$5 (4th donation), Sinisa B.
$5 (3rd donation), Arndt
$5 (3rd donation), Carl T.
$5 (2nd donation), Daniel Greg aka “006.5”
$5 (2nd donation), Marco Aurelio M.
$5, Gerard G.
$5, Adnan C.
$5, Aligi Giovanbattista B.
$5, Dusko M.
$5, Alexandre Bento Freire
$5, José M B.
$5, Steve W.
$5, Silvio D.
$5, Edoardo G.
$5, Marco A.
$5, Aimless Games
$5, Isaías G.
$5, Michael P.
$5, Marek K.
$4, Deanna W.
$3 (8th donation), Chrisentiae Saint-Piaf
$13 from 10 smaller donations