Monthly News – April 2014

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors:
VMware Cloud Hosting

Silver Sponsors:

Bronze Sponsors:

Community Sponsors:

Alyx Biologicals B.V.
Windows VPS Hosting
+++ PDF Reader for Android +++
Caturix
Cesar Alvarez
Charles Rivers
Craig
D M Hamilton
DRA MEDICAL
fotokasten GmbH
Inge Vabekk
Johan Grip
John Bayles Pianos
Mahen
Martin del Mazo
Nikolaj Petersen
Sascha Reinsch
SEER Interactive
sefcom computers
Steve Philipp
switchbit
The Survival Monkey

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 $8912 was raised thanks to the generous contributions of 350 donors:

$500 (2nd donation), Travis C.
$500, chainsaw
$200, Tord K.
$132.85, Joerg P.
$132.85, Jane S.
$132.85, Meises I.
$132.85, Sten L.
$100 (3rd donation), Jon Espenschied aka “xeno”
$100, Daniel W.
$100, Laserlab, Inc.
$100, Mikael L.
$100, Gary C.
$100, Danny L.
$99.64, Wemmarus W.
$81.6, Jacques P.
$75 (4th donation), Trevor H.
$70, Joseph L.
$66.43 (8th donation), Raymond E.
$66.43 (2nd donation), C. Lamb aka “Mike”
$66.43, Kaj S.
$66.43, Carlos C. C.
$66.43, Christine T.
$66.43, F HOU2BERT
$66.43, Ausra P.
$50 (49th donation), Matthew M.
$50 (3rd donation), Jeff W.
$50 (2nd donation), James G.
$50 (2nd donation), Pamino F.
$50 (2nd donation), Roy Q.
$50 (2nd donation), Frédéric S.
$50 (2nd donation), Stephen C.
$50, David P.
$50, Michal C.
$50, Steven N.
$50, Daniel S.
$50, Christopher B.
$50, Levon P.
$50, Brad L.
$50, Rodney W.
$50, Peter J.
$50, Styles D. aka “threeta“
$50, John S.
$50, Graham M.
$40 (2nd donation), Tom W.
$39.86 (50th donation), Olli K.
$39.86 (2nd donation), Ines R.
$39.86, Rémy M.
$39.86, Jascha L.
$39.86, Javier C. M.
$39.86, Pascal H.
$39.86, Michael B.
$35 (2nd donation), Devendra R.
$33.21 (3rd donation), Simon C.
$33.21 (2nd donation), Christophe L.
$33.21 (2nd donation), Jolyon H.
$33.21, Ruth S.
$33.21, Stephan B.
$33.21, Jan Müller
$33.21, Lars G.
$33.21, Patrick Vollring aka “Falco2“
$33.21, Enrique G. G.
$33.21, Bartosz K.
$33.21, Robert Sweetnam
$33.21, Markus S.
$33.21, Eric S.
$30 (15th donation), Maarten E.
$30 (3rd donation), Robert O.
$30, Nancy M.
$30, bkn
$30, PulpKult
$30, Tony C.
$30, Stephen G.
$26.57 (9th donation), Frank Bechstein
$26.57 (2nd donation), Pentti T.
$26.57 (2nd donation), Marko aka “playforvoices“
$26.57 (2nd donation), Pedro C. F.
$26.57 (2nd donation), Mark S.
$26.57 (2nd donation), Kari Y.
$26.57 (2nd donation), Roberto R. D. T.
$26.57, Paolo S.
$26.57, Niall M.
$26.57, Ronan P.
$26.57, Johannes F.
$26.57, Markku T. K.
$26.57, Michel J.
$26.57, stathious
$26.57, Stefan E.
$26.57, Andreas L.
$26.57, Thomas G.
$26.57, Tommi T.
$26.57, Gerhard R.
$26.57, Julio F. T.
$26.57, Frank D.
$26.57, Matthias M.
$26.57, Heinz M. S.
$26.57, Alain T.
$26.57, Jens M.
$26.57, Stefan B.
$26.57, Anita Z.
$26.57, r
$26.57, A J. M.
$26.57, Jose L. R. M.
$26.57, Ahmed B.
$26.57, Helmut Z.
$26.57, Pascal F.
$26.57, Nigel J.
$25 (31st donation), Ronald W.
$25 (2nd donation), Don L. aka “I.M. Online”
$25 (2nd donation), Waqas S.
$25 (2nd donation), Anonymous aka “MrNiceGaay”
$25 (2nd donation), Richard L.
$25 (2nd donation), Evan N.
$25, Ian M.
$25, Robert B.
$25, David T.
$25, Bruce S.
$25, Kirk G.
$25, Michael B.
$25, William S.
$25, Timothy L.
$25, Miroslav K.
$25, Joseph G.
$25, Justin M. H.
$25, F. N.
$25, P H.
$25, Richard L.
$25, Thomas S.
$25, Cameron T.
$25, David L.
$25, Charles T.
$24, Vernon G.
$20 (34th donation), Tsuguo S.
$20 (5th donation), Roger B.
$20 (4th donation), Jonathan Drake
$20 (4th donation), Kevin Safford
$20 (3rd donation), David M.
$20 (3rd donation), Nicholas T.
$20 (2nd donation), Wing T.
$20 (2nd donation), Yahya The Impaler
$20, Glover Electronics
$20, Richard L.
$20, Lindomar E. O.
$20, Tyler Mulligan aka “-z-“
$20, John M.
$20, Kelly S.
$20, Mary H.
$20, William J.
$20, James A.
$20, Beeblebrox, Z
$20, Adrian R.
$20, Milt K.
$20, Steven J.
$20, Carlos F. L.
$20, Jim D.
$20, Joseph V.
$20, Chris S.
$20, Brian Hilmers
$20, Brett H.
$20, Mauzz
$20, Gerardo E. R.
$20, Richard D.
$20, Conner C.
$19.93 (3rd donation), Roy S.
$19.93 (2nd donation), Michael J. L.
$19.93, Herminio F.
$19.93, Stoyan N.
$19.93, Michael J. L.
$19.93, Daniel C. M.
$17.27, Juergen F.
$17 (2nd donation), Athanasios F. aka “thanosfrag”
$16 (2nd donation), Rockford C.
$15 (3rd donation), Vincent B.
$15, Christian S.
$15, Mario L.
$15, Fraser P.
$15, Y.Satoru
$15, Harvey M.
$15, Gordon M.
$15, Kostiantyn M.
$15, John S.
$15, Kathy A.
$14.61, Ivy
$13.55, Andreas A.
$13.29 (10th donation), Mark W.
$13.29 (5th donation), Joanna Z. aka “GreenCatX”
$13.29 (5th donation), Rene Schwietzke aka “Rene S.“
$13.29 (3rd donation), anonymous
$13.29 (3rd donation), Veeti
$13.29 (2nd donation), Robin KAY
$13.29 (2nd donation), Viktor F.
$13.29 (2nd donation), Touko N.
$13.29 (2nd donation), Dirk G. aka “Dirken”
$13.29, Michele B.
$13.29, Franz J. S.
$13.29, Fabio L.
$13.29, Lorenzo Novara
$13.29, Rik aka “rik”
$13.29, Ticià Sala
$13.29, Thomas S.
$13.29, Ralf R.
$13.29, Bernd D.
$13.29, Thomas F.
$13.29, Wilfried S.
$13.29, Robert I.
$13.29, Carsten S.
$13.29, George S.
$13.29, Roger B.
$13.29, Marcel C. G.
$13.29, Harpreet D.
$13.29, Jürgen M.
$13.29, Stephan K.
$13.29, Herbert T.
$13.29, Mark P.
$13.29, Kevin O.
$13.29, Markus T.
$13.29, Leonhard K.
$13.29, S D
$13.29, Christian B.
$13.29, Richard G.
$13 (2nd donation), John C.
$12, CHAZMAN
$10 (37th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$10 (3rd donation), Larry I.
$10 (2nd donation), Indarien’s G. T.
$10 (2nd donation), Michael S.
$10 (2nd donation), Владислав Х.
$10 (2nd donation), Darlan P. C.
$10, Duncan O.
$10, Acm V. R.
$10, Corey W.
$10, Charles G.
$10, Pouya T.
$10, Richard M. aka “Richmelk”
$10, Steve D.
$10, Donald M.
$10, Federico L.
$10, Mark O.
$10, David M.
$10, Johnny O.
$10, D. M.
$10, Charlie T.
$10, Paweł S.
$10, Craig M.
$10, Raphael S. D. O.
$10, Bobylev O. aka “QDesnic“
$10, Annaniassen B.
$10, Matthew T.
$10, Frank V. Pedersen
$10, 手塚優.
$10, Ian C.
$10, Nicklas L.
$10, Nicholas P.
$10, Pete D.
$10, Kurt B.
$10, Runar B.
$10, Niels T.
$10, Victor B.
$10, Kevin H.
$10, Shawn L.
$10, Ron A.
$10, Irma O.
$10, Mark Y.
$10, Lars M.
$10, Leonhard K.
$10, Ashlon H.
$10, Breno B. T.
$10, Kyle R.
$10, Peter Nielsen
$9.3, Fabian van B. aka “Nishe”
$7.97, Lluis Solanelles
$7.97, Benedict B.
$7 (7th donation), Christopher R.
$6.64 (28th donation), Marco aka “Dictionary-Maker“
$6.64 (4th donation), Theis Hinz
$6.64, Ferit O.
$6.64, Philippe L.
$6.64, Oscar J. G. C.
$6.64, Francisco J. M. S.
$6.64, Jörg U.
$6.64, Matthias M.
$6.64, Michael F.
$6.64, Ivaylo K.
$6.64, Rafael Kallis aka “rafael94b“
$6 (3rd donation), Nicolás Costa de la Colina aka “NCosta”
$6, Piotr G.
$6, Dewey R.
$5 (13th donation), Mein Lenovo aka “LinuxMint“
$5 (9th donation), Carlos W.
$5 (9th donation), Edward S.
$5 (7th donation), Mordi K. aka “Mordik”
$5 (5th donation), Randolph K.
$5 (5th donation), Vladimir Kivernik
$5 (4th donation), Scanplus aka “The Brochure Printers“
$5 (3rd donation), Jh B.
$5 (3rd donation), Radim aka “myself”
$5 (3rd donation), Toronto Maple Leafs
$5 (2nd donation), Dan N.
$5 (2nd donation), Ronald K.
$5 (2nd donation), Dadykin A.
$5 (2nd donation), Marcin B.
$5, Kochetkov S.
$5, Diego L. F.
$5, Ondrej M.
$5, William S. M.
$5, John Sandora aka “obiwanjohn”
$5, Jerry L.
$5, Nicholas S.
$5, Daryl S.
$5, Mark D.
$5, Arwen N. A.
$5, Thomas B.
$5, Nicholas P.
$5, Bernard H.
$5, Heinz W. K.
$5, Robbie K.
$5, David H.
$5, Mohri K.
$5, Christopher D.
$5, Torsten T.
$5, Arno S.
$5, Thomas M.
$5, Dmitry Rutkov aka “Scanerdarkly“
$5, Geoffrey H.
$5, Kevin P.
$5, Frank P.
$5, Rick Gilley
$5, Sheldon F.
$5, Al S.
$5, Andy M.
$5, Business Credit Workshop
$4.42 (2nd donation), Erick P.
$4, Helton B. T. P. J.
$3, Clayton S.
$3, Susan M.
$2.7, Thomas P.
$14.82 from 15 smaller donations

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

Rankings:

Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 3792 (1st)
Alexa (website ranking): 5335th

Events:

The development team announced the release of Cinnamon 2.2 on Segfault

News and summary:

Many thanks to all the people who have sent us donations and to all our sponsors. You’re making it easy for us to focus on Linux Mint without worrying about anything else. In April, your help reached an all-time high. Not only did it surprise us, but we could see that donations had been high yet very stable since the beginning of the year. That put us in the very comfortable position where we were able to identify the reasons for our success and allocate a new budget to boost them even further. We get a lot of help from volunteers and people from our community who step up, get involved and join our teams. These people come with very different skills, very different interests, and they all have very different lives, jobs and availabilities. What they all have in common though, is that they love to help us with their spare time and when we look at the net result, their contribution to the overall Linux Mint project is simply amazing. Linux Mint 17 is just around the corner, and if I look at all the features that were developed for it, all the new improvements, I can see so many of them coming from volunteers. With this new budget, for the very first time, we’re funding these contributions. Money is given without asking anything in return to people who made a difference to our project. Ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, the sums involved aren’t large enough for volunteers to leave their jobs or to consider changing the way they live, but if their passion makes them work with us, it empowers them to have that spare time, to buy equipment if they need to, and to not worry about money, overtime, and whether they shouldn’t be doing something better with their spare time than helping Linux Mint. We’re also being very careful not to change the nature of these contributions. Linux Mint is not run like a company and it would lose a lot of flexibility if it was. Contributors are not entitled to funds and they are not expected to produce anything. We’re trying to get the best of both worlds with this new scheme, where people who are part of a team and actively make Linux Mint better also benefit from it financially, yet where the reason for their involvement remains the fact that they love what they’re doing and they’re not actually working but simply enjoying themselves. It’s only been a month but it seems to be working really well so far within the development team. The moderation team is currently discussing the idea and deciding whether or not they want to be part of it as well.
Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” passed QA yesterday. It was approved for an RC release which should come out either tomorrow or the day after. Some of the improvements featured in Linux Mint 17 came extremely late in the release cycle but they all managed to get in and we can’t wait to show you what’s new. Of course, you always find a lot of bugs during the RC process, and we’re ready for your feedback, we know we’re going to be busy. But in the meantime, I found the quality of this release to be outstanding. Everything is smooth, some bugs which affected multiple past releases (the shutdown sequence, the inability to install broadcom drivers offline..etc) have been fixed, and Qiana comes with the same traditional look-and-feel but implemented in a brand new Mint-X theme, so the experience feels very polished.
The decision was made to stick to LTS bases. In other words the development team will be focused on the very same package base used by Linux Mint 17 for the next 2 years. It will also be trivial to upgrade from version 17 to 17.1, then 17.2 and so on. Important applications will be backported and we expect this change to boost the pace of our development and reduce the amount of regressions in each new Linux Mint release. This makes Linux Mint 17.x very important to us, not just yet another release, but one that will receive security updates until 2019, one that will receive backports and new features until 2016 and even more importantly, the only package base besides LMDE which we’ll be focused on until 2016.
New equipment was acquired, including hidpi laptops for two members of the development team, a broadcom chipset (finally), a macbook pro and some NUC units sent by Intel.
Our traffic doubled lately and all our stats are on the raise, and we don’t know why. Maybe it’s related to the the end-of-life of Windows XP. We’re not really sure. The blog went down a few times, we’re addressing this by tuning its configuration. Post-release we’re likely to buy more servers to split services and scale our infrastructure.