Monthly Stats – August 2012

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors:

Blue Systems - Netrunner

Gold Sponsors:

Opera

Dedicated Hosting Server *

Silver Sponsors:

R1Soft

Milton Security Group

Bronze Sponsors:

ThinkPenguin.com

Vault Networks *

AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting

7L Networks Toronto Colocation *

Community Sponsors:

Kinescope Inc.
Alyx Biologicals B.V.
Coupon Hubs
Kyle Jones aka Mutiny32
CouponCodeSwap.com
Windows VPS Hosting
Kamal G
Mark Cohen
Caturix
D M Hamilton
David Reisner
David S.
Helmut Kleinhans
Kristian S.
levitra
Sascha Reinsch

To become a sponsor or see the full list of Linux Mint sponsors, please visit: http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php

Donations:

$4698 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 222 donors: http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

$250, Anjum S.
$200, Michael B.
$128
$119.74, Laurens van Hoorn
$119.74, Hubert Leber
$100, aka “manankanchu”
$100, Adrian J.
$100, Forrest D.
$100, Andrew F.
$100, Lloyd P.
$100, Leonard R.
$100, Alexander S.
$59.87, Jose L. G. G.
$59.87, Gilles D.
$59.87, Marco H.
$59.87, Jean-Michel L.
$59.87, Calix L.
$50 (7th donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy“
$50 (6th donation), Peter S. aka “Pierre”
$50 (6th donation), Richard H.
$50 (5th donation), Alex V. aka “Karashata“
$50 (4th donation), Carlos H. G.
$50 (4th donation), Jan C.
$50 (3rd donation), Sri Gadis Ranti Junus aka “ranti“
$50 (2nd donation), Gary M.
$50, Edwin B.
$50, Erdal TASKESEN
$50, Clovis F.
$50, Anthony C.
$50, Edward F.
$50, Rodney I.
$50, Mark B.
$50, Roman B.
$47.9, Marco S.
$40 (35th donation), Slavoljub aka “slw”
$40, Rohan W.
$40, Mark E.
$35.92 (30th donation), Olli K.
$35.92, Harmiton aurinkolampo
$35, Jonathan C.
$29.94 (2nd donation), Lars H.
$29.94, Frank B.
$29.94, Dick H.
$29.94, Johannes W.
$29.94, Peter de Vries
$29.94, Kenneth A.
$25 (14th donation), John M.
$25 (11th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (2nd donation), John C.
$25 (2nd donation), Gary P.
$25, Meta N.
$25, Marcelo G. V.
$25, Erick C.
$25, Jerry B.
$25, Ratish R.
$25, John U.
$25, Marjorie W.
$25, Robert S.
$23.95 (2nd donation), Josue M.
$23.95, Victor C. aka “Acquaforte Media“
$23.95, Simon Tutek
$23.95, Gerhard K.
$23.95, Pekka P.
$21.55 (4th donation), Dominik K. aka “doke“
$20 (18th donation), Tsuguo S.
$20, Brenda S.
$20, Richard M.
$20, Brian T.
$20, Helio C.
$20, Cameron
$20, Vincent B.
$20, Christopher A.
$20, Meide A.
$20, John B.
$20, Widar H.
$20, Peter D.
$20, Chris M.
$20, Kurt K.
$20, Ronnie G.
$17.96, Jean P. O.
$16.76 (4th donation), D. Manoj Prabhu aka “Munna”
$15 (3rd donation), Marcelo Parrela aka “Marcelo Parrela“
$15 (2nd donation), Kevin S.
$15, Suneel K.
$15, George H.
$15, Dayo A.
$12, C R. S.
$11.97 (16th donation), Marco R.
$11.97 (10th donation), Orlando M. M.
$11.97 (2nd donation), Werner G.
$11.97 (2nd donation), Lucien G.
$11.97 (2nd donation), Match Learner – Math for kids
$11.97, Petri K.
$11.97, Web agency Nantes
$11.97, Mathieu P. aka “Pyros65”
$11.97, Joachim J.
$11.97, Mikko L.
$11.97, Bernard A.
$11.97, Roberto S.
$10 (18th donation), John A.
$10 (18th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$10 (6th donation), CW P.
$10 (4th donation), Belak Adam
$10 (3rd donation), Thomas E.
$10 (2nd donation), Benceno el Sepulturero
$10 (2nd donation), Andrew B.
$10 (2nd donation), Antonio Alcides Salinas
$10 (2nd donation), Hans A. N.
$10 (2nd donation), Jens G.
$10 (2nd donation), Tony W.
$10, Jonathan D.
$10, Alistair G.
$10, Gary F.
$10, Larry M.
$10, Nadeem K.
$10, CouponCodeSwap.com
$10, Tristan L.
$10, Michael M.
$10, Johan S.
$10, Antonio Alcides Salinas
$10, Jason R.
$10, Robert S.
$10, Bob H. J.
$10, Shaun K.
$10, Paul C. aka “pacman67”
$10, Michael P.
$10, Prabhu S.
$10, Christopher D.
$10, Tyrone Slothrop
$8.12, Stephen H.
$7.18, Michael V.
$7.18, billynick
$7, zhangxinlong
$6.47, Librestickers
$6.15 (2nd donation), Shane K aka “BeyondCr”
$5.99 (6th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$5.99 (5th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$5.99 (3rd donation), Ke C.
$5.99 (2nd donation), Benjamin B.
$5.99, Zalando kortingscode 20
$5.99, hotel capvern
$5.99, Matteo O. aka “Theo81“
$5.99, Georgiy K.
$5.99, Clas R.
$5.99, Torsten O.
$5.99, Mario L.
$5.99, Mario G.
$5.99, P M. R.
$5.99, Cataldo S.
$5.1, Orange Poker
$5 (13th donation), Antonina K. aka “Tonya”
$5 (3rd donation), Happy Mint aka ““
$5 (3rd donation), Jerry Jones
$5 (2nd donation), Cliff’s C. C.
$5 (2nd donation), James Selvakumar
$5, Bejnamin O.
$5, William F.
$5, Agence W. S.
$5, Christelle aka “voyance par telephone“
$5, Christelle aka “voyance par telephone“
$5, Glauber M. Gallego aka “ggallego”
$5, Daniel N.
$5, Avinash G.
$5, Gustavo H.
$5, Kenny B.
$5, Joaquim M.
$5, Azconceptphoto.com
$5, Damion H.
$5, Pavel V. aka “Pajous”
$5, Eliraweb
$5, Herman B.
$5, Mal de dos
$4.87, Alan L.
$4.79 (5th donation), SilFox
$4 (2nd donation), Fastest Hosting
$3.59, Diego Langos
$3.47, Alberto S. R. aka “albertosalvdor“
$3.1, Laurent D. aka “Rock”
$3 (3rd donation), Web Design Company
$3 (2nd donation), Michael P.
$3, Madrass
$3, Referencement strasbourg
$3, zhangxinlong
$2.39, Mauro Di Dio aka “beneventoturismo.it“
$2.39, Sven-erik M.
$2.39, Thomas G.
$2.39, Maik B. aka “Android Developer“
$31.36 from 35 smaller donations

Rankings:

Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3608 (1st)
Alexa (website ranking): 7,621st

Events:

The name for Linux Mint 14 was announced

Developer of the month:

Each month we feature one developer and explain his contributions to the community. Development is a lot of fun and it doesn’t take much to get started. If you’re tempted to join the team, don’t hesitate to follow our development on http://github.com/linuxmint and come and chat with the developers at #linuxmint-dev (irc.spotchat.org).

This month’s “developer of the month” is: esteban1uy, 13 years old!

Don’t be fooled by his age, he’s new in the development team but he did 3 really cool things this Summer. Have a look:

First, he helped people on the forums troubleshoot a bug in Cinnamon 1.4 which made the desktop crash when using LibreOffice. The developers were running out of ideas, people didn’t know what to do so esteban1uy led the investigation, spent a lot of time talking to people, learnt about debugging C code and finally found the cause of the problem. A week later he had a patch ready, muffin was upgraded and people’s desktops didn’t crash anymore… that was on the forums and it made people very happy
Then, he made Cinnamon2D happen. The development team had given up on using llvmpipe. He led the R&D on software-rendering, clutter configuration, and came up with the idea of removing shadows… It’s a bit technical to describe in simple terms, but although he didn’t implement Cinnamon2D, it wouldn’t be in Cinnamon 1.6 if it wasn’t for him (note that Cinnamon2D is there for troubleshooting, there’s still a lot of work to be done before it enables anyone to have a decent Cinnamon desktop using software-rendering).
Right now, he’s working with dalcde on “bumpmaps”. The gaming industry calls this “tessellation”. The idea is to give artists the ability to define transparent textures which look a bit like sculpted glass. For instance, a honeycomb bumpmap would make your menu look like that:

Bumpmaps will come in Cinnamon 1.8. If you see esteban1uy, don’t buy him a beer, that would be inappropriate, but don’t hesitate to give him a pat on the back.

News and summary:

In its October 2012 issue, Linux Format ranked Linux Mint as the “Best Distro 2012”.
Very few announcements were made during the summer but a lot of work was done in preparation for Linux Mint 14. MDM received important bug fixes, compatibility with all GDM themes and support for user lists and user “faces”. Nemo was announced as the new Cinnamon file browser and received a lot of usability improvements. Cinnamon itself is getting ready for a massive 1.6 release and a huge number of new features. MATE continues to impress with an even more polished 1.4 release. All of these technologies are significantly ahead of the versions used by Linux Mint 13 and the gap between now and the end of November, when Linux Mint 14 is out, means they can mature and receive bug fixes to ensure a stable and impressive release.
There are now less LMDE mirrors than before but they sync the entire 600GB LMDE archive, including “latest” and “incoming”. This, along with a new feature in LMDE which tests the speed of each mirror and interactively asks the user which one to use when the list of mirrors is changed, should guarantee a better upgrade and better speeds than previously observed with UP4. Update Pack 5 itself is almost ready and received positive feedback from “incoming” testers.
This release cycle was a breath of fresh air for the development team. The ability to rely on Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce and KDE and the limited scope for regressions coming from upstream allowed us to spend more time and focus in development. With UP5, Cinnamon, MATE, MDM and Nemo almost ready, we’re switching focus towards mintInstall and Jockey (which is being replaced upstream and which features we’d also like to see working in LMDE).
Finally, we received a lot of donations despite the summer holidays. Many thanks to all our sponsors, partners and donors!