Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” Cinnamon released!

[Pjotr]

1) Is there finally a fix for the not working "disable touchpad while typing" in Cinnammon?

Try it like this:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... one-second
(item 16, right column)

Written for Ubuntu, but it should also work in Mint 18 (all desktops).

[Reorx]

Try it like this:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... one-second
(item 16, right column)

OMG - Pjotr, THANK YOU. It worked on my LM17C64 system PERFECTLY. I've been hating the GUI's failure to address this problem for years! I feel like singing...

Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life
At last, I've found you.
Ah! At last I know the secret of it all.
For the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning,
The burning hopes,
The joy and idle tears that fall...

[Pjotr]

It worked on my LM17C64 system PERFECTLY. I've been hating the GUI's failure to address this problem for years!

Glad to have been of help. Solving the mystery of life will be the next thing on my to-do list, by the way.

The GUI way of disabling the touchpad in Cinnamon, is probably just a graphical handle of syndaemon.... Like most graphical settings managers, the same settings result can be achieved by going straight to the core, which in this case is syndaemon. Dealing directly with syndaemon also has the advantage of more potential tweaks than the GUI offers.

[dancingdog777]

Solving the mystery of life will be the next thing on my to-do list, by the way.

May I recommend BibleTime from the repos to help you!

[Reorx]

It worked on my LM17C64 system PERFECTLY. I've been hating the GUI's failure to address this problem for years!

Glad to have been of help. Solving the mystery of life will be the next thing on my to-do list, by the way.

The GUI way of disabling the touchpad in Cinnamon, is probably just a graphical handle of syndaemon.... Like most graphical settings managers, the same settings result can be achieved by going straight to the core, which in this case is syndaemon. Dealing directly with syndaemon also has the advantage of more potential tweaks than the GUI offers.

Maybe but I haven't found that the GUI works to disable touchpad while typing - in my experience...

[mintybits]

I've noticed some problems when running VirtualBox in Mint 18 regarding my cursor not appearing in text boxes in Mint and in Firefox, not being able to close the start menu and/or select things from it. Sometimes unable to resize windows. Also Only by shutting down the Vbox guest is my Cinnamon desktops functionality restored. Has anyone else seen symptoms like these?

[altair4]

It would appear you are between a rock and a hard place with VBox.

The repository holds version 5.0.24 of VBox. If you go to the virtual box site there is no such thing for the distro Mint18 is based on - Ubuntu 16.04:

VirtualBox 5.0.24 (released June 28th 2016)

Windows hosts x86/AMD64
OS X hosts Intel Macs
Solaris and OpenSolaris hosts AMD64
Linux Hosts:
Ubuntu 15.10 ("Wily") i386 | AMD64
Ubuntu 14.04 ("Trusty") / 14.10 ("Utopic") / 15.04 ("Vivid") i386 | AMD64
Ubuntu 12.04 ("Precise") i386 | AMD64

You can install version 5.1.2 of VBox but experinced users of VBox have learned to avoid major releases until they reach the X.Y.6 level or greater to avoid "new release" bugs.

[all41]

Solving the mystery of life will be the next thing on my to-do list, by the way.

May I recommend BibleTime from the repos to help you!

Don't confuse him

[Cosmo.]

@mintybits:

Please read the red bar at the top of the page, than create a new thread on the proper place and provide more Info: version of Mint and desktop environment of the host, of the guest, version and source of VB?

[jeanrocco]

Excellent distribution, it has all I enjoy, simplicity and "NO PAIN !!!"... meaning all the codecs are there, real Firefox... no wth Iceweasel, and everything plays nice; VLC is there, even my PIA's vpn install was a walk in the park ! (PIA's own "install_ubuntu.sh" works ~fine except for:

Code: Select all

...
#Restarting network manager... 
  /usr/bin/nmcli nm enable false  
  /usr/bin/nmcli nm enable true
  Error: Object 'nm' is unknown, try 'nmcli help .

...) but hey just reboot and there you go it's working fine !

So as many others have said: excellent work. With the years I've grown tired of reading all the "tips and tricks" for the various distributions, and it is a relief to finally come across one that works out of the box, and is fun to play with.... well yeah ! I'm getting a bit lazy with age ...! don't you do that you developers, I mean never age !

Thank's a lot !

jr.

My hardware:

HP ProBook 6560b "Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon 64-bits" dual boot with "Windows 10"

(Note: W10 won't install if your mbr is not Windows, that's a good reason to install W10 first ! (bootrec /fixboot ) http://www.thewindowsclub.com /repair-master-boot-record-mbr-windows )

CPU
Intel Core i5 2410M @ 2.30GHz x 2

Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8,00 Go Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 1619 (CPU 1):

Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1600x900@60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 (HP)
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000LM014-1EJ164 (SATA):

Optical Drives
hp CDDVDW SN-208BB
Audio
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC

bye !

[curtvaughan]

Don't expect any resolution to this, but I have an old MBP 1,1 that is eleven years old. I have run Mint 17.2 / 17.3 for the last three years with no problems. The original install was via reFind, etc. On a lark, I attempted to go through the upgrade process to install Mint 18 cinnamon. Two odd things occurred - grub updates complained along the way during the process, and there was a brief complaint that Cinnamon didn't install properly. The system then went dormant, with no mouse/keyboard input accepted. I powered off and rebooted. Now the machine eventually boots up to the graphical login screen, to which I enter my username/password. Then the screen goes blank with only the mouse pointer functioning. I cannot enter anything from the keyboard nor the mouse, but am left hanging. I think this old machine was hanging by a thread with 17.2/17.3, but the introduction of 18, with systemd, etc., onboard, and the failure for Cinnamon to restart seems to have hosed the old gal (MBP 1,1). The machine still runs, but Apple stopped supporting it 6 years ago, and now Linux is also hosed. Moral of the story with an old computer: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just f.y.i. - I'm likely one of the few on the planet that still has a running MBP 1,1 circa 2006. I might try to reacquaint myself with refind and install Mint 17.2 again. My year old Dell laptop is happy with multi-boots of Mageia, Manjaro, and Mint Cinnamon 18, and my 3 year old laptop is happy with LMDE Betsy, Peppermint, and Manjaro.

Happy Trails. Just an f.y.i.

Curt

[momist]

@curtvaughan Before giving up completely, is it feasible to try a clean install of LM18? That would clear out any old drivers and do a better job of detecting your hardware correctly.

[curtvaughan]

@curtvaughan Before giving up completely, is it feasible to try a clean install of LM18? That would clear out any old drivers and do a better job of detecting your hardware correctly.

Thanks. I'll probably give that a try before throwing in the towel - just have to find out how to get a non-booting MacBook Pro to boot from a live USB. When I originally installed 17.2, the machine still had OSX on it, so could use reFind to talk to the EFI firmware. At this point, I will need to do that by some sort of Apple manic key sequence. Should be a learning experience

[momist]

A few minutes reading around this suggests that booting from USB will be problematic - the machine will not have loaded the USB drivers. Later models do not have that problem. Best bet is a DVD install? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201255 may get you started. Good luck with that.

[mideal]

@curtvaughan and all others:

I attempted to go through the upgrade process to install Mint 18 cinnamon.

How? The mint blog http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3051 still says:

Upgrade instructions:
It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3. Upgrade instructions will be published next month.

My main computer is already on Sarah - just because I killed the old installation somehow...
(Installation right over 17.3 worked without any flews, done in ~15-20mins - feels like most of the time is used by taking care of correct partitioning&mount points -, 5-10 mins of selecting additional packages from my list, another 15 min to get them installed, some tweaks here and there, sums up to less than 1h for a "fresh" install.)
But I still have got three other net/notebooks to maintain, and because of the LTS status I'd like to upgrade them to Mint 18 soon, too.

Thanks!

[Pjotr]

because of the LTS status I'd like to upgrade them to Mint 18 soon, too.

Mint 17.x also has LTS status: it's still supported until May, 2019. So you might even skip Mint 18.x altogether on those machines, and wait for Mint 19, which will be released in 2018.

[rgand]

sha checksum gpg, is all jibberish nonsense at this stage for me, if this is necessary, there needs to be a very simple and precise recipe for anyone to follow, otherwise who will bother?

Well, I did.
But you're right. Unfortunately, the authenticity check is currently unfit for general use. We need an easy graphical tool for that....

Note that this is the simple method for checking (only for corruption, not for authenticity):
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... -SHA256sum
(item 12, right column)

In almost all cases, a simple corruption check is enough. As long as you trust the mirror server where you get the iso from, of course. So for the time being I advise to select the mirror carefully (check the URL!) and do a corruption check only.

Currently I have Mint 17.3 and it's clicking smoothly along. It would be nice to test Sarah on a live boot to see what it's like. I've tried to get my mind wrapped around the checks to do and find it difficult to understand. You say at least to check the URL on the mirror before downloading. Check for what? How do I know which mirror(s) is/are good?

[Cosmo.]

The drawbacks of the upgrade tool are the following:

It needs far more time than a fresh install, about 10 times the amount of time (without the time for downloading).
It is rather circumstantial to use. There are more than a dozen questions to answer during the process, distributed over the complete process.
If something goes wrong, you need to have experience with the command line and the usage of apt.
It does not give the same result as a fresh install. Several things do not get removed and installed in comparison to a fresh install.

You should make before you start besides the usual backup of your user data also an image backup of your system for being able to revert back in case you stuck with the process.

If you have backed up your home, which includes all user settings for the system and the programs, you can restore it. In case you have your home on a separate partition, you do not need to format this at all.

For transferring your applications you can use Aptik.

[lannatwin]

Whatever happened to the 17.3-18 upgrade instructions? Did I miss them them somewhere?

It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3. Upgrade instructions will be published next month.

[Reorx]

Whatever happened to the 17.3-18 upgrade instructions? Did I miss them them somewhere?

Yes... Instructions HERE