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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Linux Mint Blog » Blog Archive » Linux Mint Xfce (201104) released!

I'm Downloading it now!:) Well... guess what! I found it in my Linux Distro Folders!:O Guess I did this already... But, since I don't remember... I think I'll Boot it up in VirturalBox and see (again, if I did it already in VB, that is...) It's a pretty cool Distro. It has plenty, good useful Apps pre-installed. Like the full LibreOFfice Suite. Firefox is ready to go for watching Videos on YouTube. And Linux Mint Xfce (201104) runs very well in VirtualBox with 512mb of Ram and 64mb of Video, pretty quick to respond. So, it should do great on Real Hardware:)

Don

Linux Mint Xfce (201104) released!

Written by Clem on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 @ 6:44 am | Main Topics

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint Xfce.

Linux Mint Xfce (201104)

Introduction to Linux Mint Xfce

Linux Mint Xfce is rolling on top of a Debian Testing package base and uses the same repositories as LMDE.

This offers the following advantages to Linux Mint Xfce:

A huge performance boost
A continuous flow of updates which allows users to keep their system up to date without waiting for new releases
A more mainstream desktop and software selection
An easier maintenance for the team which makes it easier to release in both 32-bit and 64-bit with every LMDE release

Performance boost

One of the most significant improvements is the performance boost given to this edition.

Here are a few figures comparing the memory consumption in the 32-bit live sessions of Linux Mint Xfce and Linux Mint 9 Xfce:

Mint Xfce: 114 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce: 153 MB RAM)
Mint Xfce + Writer + Calc + Firefox: 177 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce + Writer + Calc + Firefox: 212 MB RAM)
Mint Xfce + Writer + Calc + Firefox + Thunderbird + VLC + Rhythmbox: 220 MB RAM (Mint 9 Xfce + Writer + Calc + Firefox + Thunderbird + Gnome MPlayer + Exaile: 256 MB RAM)

A more mainstream edition

This performance boost allowed us to give Xfce a more mainstream software selection, replacing Exaile with Rhythmox, adding VLC and giving Xfce almost the same software selection as Gnome.

With KDE 4 and Gnome 3 bringing drastic changes to their environments, and with the emergence of Fluxbox and LXDE on the lightweight scene, Xfce represents a nice alternative for PC desktop users who are looking for a light yet full-featured desktop solution. Its relevance is becoming more significant and this is another reason for us to support it in both 32-bit and 64-bit and to give it a mainstream software selection.

We also added mintMenu to this edition as an alternative menu. Be aware that it uses an additional 30MB RAM. You can add it easily by right-clicking on the panel and selecting “Add new Items”->”XfApplet”->”mintMenu”.

mintMenu in Linux Mint Xfce

Easier to maintain

We’ve been struggling with releasing editions in time. Too often, we’ve seen Linux Mint release its main edition and the Xfce desktop edition, among others, lagging behind and being released far too late in the release cycle. The switch to a rolling package base simplify things tremendously, both for the project and for the users.

Users do not rely on new releases to keep their system up to date, they can do so themselves with a continuous flow of updates.

Bringing the edition to a new release doesn’t involve re-basing it as it did before. It’s now a simple matter of updating the ISO and releasing a snapshot. Similar to LMDE (which will eventually be renamed “Linux Mint Gnome”), this edition will support both 32-bit and 64-bit within a loose release cycle. All Debian-based editions will be released at the same time either to keep up with new features coming in the frozen editions (i.e. Mint 11, Mint 12..), to feature LMDE specific improvements or simply as a snapshot update to their live ISO images.

The importance of feedback in our decision process

We’ve learnt a lot in the past few months and it enabled us to make difficult yet important decisions for this edition. Xfce was the 5th most popular Mint desktop behind the Main edition, “LMDE”, KDE and LXDE. Among its users, a vast majority of people were in favor of a switch to a Debian package base (twice as many as the number of people who were opposed to it). We also noticed only 1% of the users used optic drives that couldn’t read DVD discs. This was relevant as Debian’s language support takes more space than Ubuntu’s and our plan to mainstream this edition meant adding more applications to it.

This is also the first Debian-based release to feature a release candidate.