Monthly News – April 2013

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Platinum Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors:
Opera

Silver Sponsors:
Idera (formerly R1Soft)

Bronze Sponsors:

Community Sponsors:

Alyx Biologicals B.V.
CouponCodeSwap.com
Windows VPS Hosting
Kamal G
Mark Cohen
+++ PDF Reader for Android +++
+++ PDF Reader for Android +++
Caturix
cialis
Craig
D M Hamilton
David Salvo
deep64blue
Free Bounce House
Helmut Kleinhans
Jerrick Davis
John Bayles Pianos
Kristian S.
Out of Hours IT Help Ltd
Sascha Reinsch
SEER Interactive
The Survival Monkey
Ultimate Gadget Laboratories Kft.
Unixmen- Linux News & Howtos

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

Donations:

A total of $4,667 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 210 donors:

$500 (10th donation), Mohammed A.
$200, Karl F.
$125.23, Frederic L. aka “”nofrog””
$100, Marc H.
$100, Stacy D.
$100, Frédéric S.
$100, anonymous
$90, John S.
$75 (10th donation), Ralph Siegler aka “ziggy“
$63.24, Nicholas L.
$63.24, Walter P.
$63.24, Stuart H.
$63.24, Mathieu L. aka “Matlo”
$62.61, Dr. R. M.
$51 (2nd donation), Mike M.
$50.09, Jean-claude R.
$50 (37th donation), Matthew M.
$50 (4th donation), JMB
$50 (4th donation), stuart
$50 (3rd donation), Jonathan L.
$50, Howard S.
$50, Jerry S.
$50, 2001 Refrigeration & HVAC, Inc.
$50, Johan R.
$50, Peter G.
$44.27, Julian S.
$40 (4th donation), Alex Dolhescu
$37.94, Alfred R.
$37.94, Baroukh M.
$37.57 (38th donation), Olli K.
$37.57, Raimo M.
$31.62 (2nd donation), Christian P.
$31.31, Malcolm C.
$30, Jerrick D.
$30, Rene K.
$30, Jean-pierre R.
$26 (2nd donation), Robert F.
$25.3, Tamas S.
$25.3, Hans E.
$25.05, Jukka K.
$25.05, Damien G.
$25 (19th donation), Ronald W.
$25 (11th donation), Adam D.
$25 (2nd donation), Michael P.
$25, Rhyss E.
$25, Douglas L.
$25, Peter P.
$25, Dianna H.
$25, Renquan C.
$25, Galileo M.
$25, Robert M.
$25, Craig C.
$25, David E.
$20 (43th donation), Slavoljub aka “slw”
$20 (25th donation), Tsuguo S.
$20 (2nd donation), Gabriel D.
$20 (2nd donation), iMarketing Solutions LLC aka “iMarketing“
$20 (2nd donation), Nicholas T.
$20 (2nd donation), Utah B.
$20 (2nd donation), Tom T.
$20, Stephen J.
$20, Web M.
$20, Mike T.
$20, Moacir I. C. J.
$20, Shestakov V.
$20, John R.
$20, Singing F.
$20, Petr V.
$20, Brent S.
$20, Alex M.
$20, Victor W.
$20, Daniel B.
$20, Evandro M. L. J.
$20, Uncle Geek
$20, Philip M.
$20, Terri C. aka “Austin’s Mom”
$18.97 (4th donation), Knut E. E. aka “Animoy”
$18.78 (18th donation), Jarkko K.
$18.78 (3rd donation), Antonio M. M. aka “zantaz“
$18.78 (2nd donation), Antonio M. M. aka “zantaz“
$18.78, Eoin E.
$18.78, Antonios P.
$18.78, Jeroen W.
$18.78, Loris A. aka “lorisangele“
$18 (6th donation), Dominik K. aka “doke“
$16, Terry I.
$15 (3rd donation), Steve T.
$15 (3rd donation), Robert E.
$15 (2nd donation), Dani Kupak
$15 (2nd donation), Daniel H. aka “Semper Fidelis“
$15, Seth E.
$15, George P.
$15, Edward S.
$13.91, Guillermo O. A.
$12.65 (2nd donation), Andreas S.
$12.65, Hugo L. R.
$12.65, Daniel W.
$12.65, Jose M. R.
$12.65, Thorsten S.
$12.65, Meiko M.
$12.65, Ulrich H.
$12.65, Simo M.
$12.52 (2nd donation), Nicolas B.
$12.52, Giorgio B.
$12.52, Mario R.
$12.52, Peter Mc Aulay
$12.52, Pierre S.
$12.52, Rune J.
$12.52, Joachim T.
$12 (25th donation), John A.
$12, Aylen B.
$10 (26th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$10 (7th donation), Jerry Jones
$10 (4th donation), Antonio M. M. aka “zantaz“
$10 (3rd donation), iPhone & iPad apps
$10 (3rd donation), Kirk P.
$10 (2nd donation), Charles P.
$10 (2nd donation), Eduardo R.
$10 (2nd donation), Stephen B. aka “Fio”
$10 (2nd donation), Brian T.
$10, Christopher H.
$10, Alain M.
$10, Alfredo A.
$10, Neil B.
$10, Brandon C.
$10, Bretislav W.
$10, Michael Dowden
$10, Roberto B. O.
$10, Beom J. S.
$10, Matthew L.
$10, Howard P.
$10, George W.
$10, Charles P.
$10, Paul P.
$10, Garre B.
$10, Carlos W.
$10, Brian B.
$10, Richard A.
$10, Jerry H.
$10, Dmitry F.
$10, William Wynn
$9 (26th donation), John A.
$8.77, Nelson T. Silva
$7.99 (4th donation), Stephan J.
$7.84 (5th donation), Librestickers.com
$7 (2nd donation), Grigore R.
$6.32 (16th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$6.32 (6th donation), Yannick G. aka “Uggy”
$6.32 (2nd donation), Vrettos M.
$6.32, Giovanni B.
$6.32, Frank B.
$6.32, Judith S.
$6.32, Manfred G.
$6.32, David R. G.
$6.32, Antonio T.
$6.32, Adam K. aka “Dakiro”
$6.26 (18th donation), Marco R.
$6.26 (15th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$6.26 (8th donation), SilFox
$6.26 (6th donation), Mark W.
$6.26 (3rd donation), Patrick R.
$6.26, Stephane F.
$6.26, Tobias K.
$6.26, Juan A. B. M.
$6.26, Umberto B.
$6.26, Jens P. F.
$6, Andy Chung
$5.69, Mihai A.
$5.3, Christopher L.
$5 (11th donation), Michael Gstettenbauer
$5 (4th donation), Roman Nikolaevitch aka “rv82”
$5 (3rd donation), Jose M. D. A.
$5 (2nd donation), Christopher D.
$5 (2nd donation), Redsandro
$5, Justin S.
$5, Alexander P.
$5, Hendrik C.
$5, Jacob G.
$5, Rodrigo H. M.
$5, Wei-ju Wu
$5, Jerod F.
$5, Roofing Grand Rapids
$5, Marco C.
$5, Donald K.
$5, Matthew S.
$5, Larry F.
$5, Freddy Shen
$5, Luong B.
$5, Alhakim
$5, Andrew P.
$4.25, Ivan I.
$3, Matthew Brener aka “akkatracker“
$2.53 (2nd donation), Athales.com Nantes
$2.53, Stefano V.
$2.53, Andrea F.
$2.26, Dean W.
$14.03 from 14 smaller donations

If you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Rankings:

Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3876 (1st)
Alexa (website ranking): 6,745th

Events:

Segfault was open on segfault.linuxmint.com

Latest development:

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).

Last months we talked about “mintSources” and the fact that it was going to replace “software-properties-gtk”. One of the features handled by software-properties-gtk and which isn’t handled by mintSources is the installation of proprietary drivers. In Linux Mint 15, this is handled by a tool called “mintDrivers”.

MintDrivers, the “Driver Manager”, relies on the same Ubuntu backend as software-properties-gtk. The main difference is that “Driver Manager” isn’t just a tab in some other tool but its very own independent application.

That makes it easier to discover for novice users and we took the opportunity to improve its user interface a little bit as well:

Drivers are no longer listed by description but by package name.
Versions are clearly stated (in the case of the nVidia drivers you can therefore choose according to a particular version instead of wondering what “current” or “updates” really mean)
The recommended choice is clearly stated
Devices from popular brands (nVidia, ATI, Broadom, Samsung…etc) are now illustrated with an icon

News and summary:

Many thanks to our sponsors, partners, donors and all the people who supported us this month and who allowed us to work on Linux Mint. As always you’ve been really generous and this is helping us a lot.
In addition to EUR and USD, Linux Mint now accepts Bitcoins. Users of the P2P currency can donate to Linux Mint using the following address: 1PQCrkzWweCw4huVLcDXttAZbSrrLbJ92L
A new blog called Segfault was created, targeted at enthusiasts and people interested in upcoming technology, technique and development. Articles are written by developers and team members at a rough pace of 1 post per day. If you want more in-depth news from us, more often, and you’re not afraid of getting too much details.. go and check it out.
Cinnamon 1.8 should be out in a matter of days, this week-end or early next week. Only one bug left is considered a release blocker.
Linux Mint 15 is just around the corner. The MATE and the Cinnamon editions will come out first, with an RC mid-may and a stable release at the end of the month.