Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” MATE – BETA Release

[clem]

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3038

[Fred Barclay]

Sarah looks beatiful!
Thanks Clem!

[Habitual]

Let the insanity begin.

For instance, inquiring minds will want to know,
will there be an upgrade path from beta to release?

[0ddity]

Let the insanity begin.

For instance, inquiring minds will want to know,
will there be an upgrade path from beta to release?

That is answered in the BETA release blog post:

Upgrade instructions:

This BETA release might contain critical bugs, please only use it for testing purposes and to help the Linux Mint team fix issues prior to the stable release.
It will be possible to upgrade from this BETA to the stable release.
It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3. Upgrade instructions will be published next month after the stable release of Linux Mint 18.

[Habitual]

Let the insanity begin.

For instance, inquiring minds will want to know,
will there be an upgrade path from beta to release?

That is answered in the BETA release blog post:

Upgrade instructions:

This BETA release might contain critical bugs, please only use it for testing purposes and to help the Linux Mint team fix issues prior to the stable release.
It will be possible to upgrade from this BETA to the stable release.
It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3. Upgrade instructions will be published next month after the stable release of Linux Mint 18.

Thanks.

[Pjotr]

Been testing both Mint 18 Cinnamon and Mint 18 Mate. If only all bèta's were like that.... Haven't encountered one bug yet.

Thanks, Clem!

[pcspecialistpdx]

Is "Sarah" xfce even close to beta release?

[all41]

All peachy here.
Sarah seems very well polished. Clem, you and your expert team have taken us a step beyond.
Thanks to all for that effort--

[Fred Barclay]

https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... mate-first
Wow, Pjotr... that was fast.

[Pjotr]

https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... mate-first
Wow, Pjotr... that was fast.

I'm quite busy with the transition to Mint 18.... The to-do lists are finished, now I'm busy with the rest of the how-to's. My goal is a complete transition within two weeks.

All in all it's quite a bit of work, but thankfully the GUI changes in both Mate and Cinnamon are limited. It also helps that "under the hood" it's Ubuntu 16.04, and the *buntu how-to's on my website have already been adapted to 16.04 in April.

[all41]

I'm quite busy with the transition to Mint 18...

Pjotr,
You're the man.

[Schultz]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this. I just downloaded the beta .iso and burnt it to a disc. I can boot to the disc just fine. Problem is, I'd like to open some files (audio, video, text, images) that are on a second hard drive that is mounted to /mnt on my 17.3 installation, but I can't. I get a message that says something like: Denied, you don't have permission to open this drive. So, how do I give myself permission?

EDIT:
Never mind, I figured it out. Everything runs great.

[JosephM]

@Pjotr, maybe a little off-topic but since it's been brought up I disagree with something on your "to-do" list. Mostly this statement

For optimal performance of your Nvidia or AMD/ATI video card ... you'll want to install the closed source restricted driver

That is not always true. On the machine I use for Cinnamon development I have an older Nvidia 260 that runs smoother, more stable, and with less memory usage under the open source driver. I'm not sure you should recommend changing this unless there is a reason. Like gaming, using graphic intensive software, or something isn't working correctly. My daughters laptop uses an ATI chip and I've had issues with it overheating in the past using anything but the open source driver. For some people your recommendation might be the right thing to do but not for many others.

[barney384]

When will we get to download the cinnamon flavor?

Nevermind...

[Pjotr]

@Pjotr, maybe a little off-topic but since it's been brought up I disagree with something on your "to-do" list. Mostly this statement

For optimal performance of your Nvidia or AMD/ATI video card ... you'll want to install the closed source restricted driver

That is not always true. On the machine I use for Cinnamon development I have an older Nvidia 260 that runs smoother, more stable, and with less memory usage under the open source driver. I'm not sure you should recommend changing this unless there is a reason. Like gaming, using graphic intensive software, or something isn't working correctly. My daughters laptop uses an ATI chip and I've had issues with it overheating in the past using anything but the open source driver. For some people your recommendation might be the right thing to do but not for many others.

You're partially right: for AMD/ATI video cards, the default open source driver is indeed the best choice, most certainly in Mint 18. I've corrected the how-to.

Nvidia is another matter. The closed source proprietary Nvidia drivers are unsurpassed. Although to be honest, for an older NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] video card of mine, the legacy closed source nvidia-304 driver caused malfunctions in Mint 18. However, a switch to the newer closed source nvidia-340 driver fixed this.

[JosephM]

It's not always the case for nvidia either. After several years of Cinnamon development I can tell you that in many cases the open source driver simply works better. It's highly dependent on specific hardware and needs but many people are going to get a worse experience by installing the proprietary driver.

[wmh]

Thank you very much for your website. I mean it.

It helps newbies like me a lot!

As for the AMD/ATI driver discussion, the closed source one is better in my case. I tested the both X and fglrx from Driver Manager and the fglrx 15.302 from AMD and the last improved by a lot the games, even fixed a black box issue I had got in This War of Mine.

https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... mate-first
Wow, Pjotr... that was fast.

I'm quite busy with the transition to Mint 18.... The to-do lists are finished, now I'm busy with the rest of the how-to's. My goal is a complete transition within two weeks.

All in all it's quite a bit of work, but thankfully the GUI changes in both Mate and Cinnamon are limited. It also helps that "under the hood" it's Ubuntu 16.04, and the *buntu how-to's on my website have already been adapted to 16.04 in April.

[JosephM]

Thank you very much for your website. I mean it.

It helps newbies like me a lot!

As for the AMD/ATI driver discussion, the closed source one is better in my case. I tested the both X and fglrx from Driver Manager and the fglrx 15.302 from AMD and the last improved by a lot the games, even fixed a black box issue I had got in This War of Mine.

I certainly don't want to come across as putting down the work Pjotr has done with those sites. A lot of users obviously benefit. Just want to provide some hopefully decent feedback from what I've seen/experienced myself.

[Pjotr]

Thanks for your feedback.

About the closed fglrx drivers for AMD/ATI video cards in Mint 18 (under Known issues):
https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_sarah_mate.php

Key quote:

AMD Catalyst (fglrx) drivers

The AMD Catalyst (fglrx) drivers are not compatible with Xorg 1.18, which is the version used in Linux Mint 18.

These drivers are proprietary and so their code is not available. AMD indicated they no longer wanted to support them and urged their customers to use open-source drivers instead.

If you are using an ATI GPU in Linux Mint 18, the operating system will either select the Radeon or AMDGPU drivers for you, and these are installed by default.

[Arch_Enemy]

So...THIS is the Clem who doesn't have a /home/sandbox on my system! (RE: LiVES installation)

I'll try anything once...downloading 18 MATE right now..here goes!