[Solved] Are there any Alpha/Beta phases for Linux Mint?

[Brucey99]

Hi

I was wondering if there are any public testing phases for Linux Mint releases (Alpha/Beta).

I can only find Release Candidates, so I'm guessing this is for people to test and then the final is released about a week later?

I know in Ubuntu, after a final release, only critical/crash bugs are fixed. Is this true for Mint, or are all bugs fixed whenever they are seen to?

[remoulder]

No, linuxmint does not have public testing releases other than the release candidate, however there are private versions for development testing, see http://community.linuxmint.com/

[cwwgateway]

The packages are usually put into the repository for the next release around the time the Ubuntu release happens (in Mint 14's case, a week before). Theoretically, you could add packages from this repository and from the linux mint github stuff, but there is no iso published until the RC. Note that for Linux Mint, the RC is considered more of a public beta than a candidate for release that won't have an changes unless there are major bugs - there can be many changes between RC and release. As for updates, Linux Mint recieves the same updates Ubuntu does to most applications. If Ubuntu fixes a bug, then the bug is fixed in Linux Mint. However, for mint software like mintInstall and mintUpdate, updates are pushed whenever they are ready. My guess is if there was a major bug that Ubuntu didn't fix, then linux mint would add their own patched version, but I haven't seen that happen so far.

[Brucey99]

Both of these comments answer my questions, many thanks