Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1 released

The 7th release of Linux Mint comes with numerous bug fixes and a lot of improvements. In particular the menu system, the application manager and the upload manager now provide new features such as “Suggestions”, “Featured applications”, “SCP and SFTP support”. The underlying base of the operating system was also strengthened with a new adjustment mechanism which makes Linux Mint more robust and less vulnerable to Ubuntu package upgrades, and the introduction of virtual and meta packages which simplify upgrade paths and the installation of multiple desktop environments.

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Linux Mint 7, codename Gloria, is based and compatible with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and its repositories.

New features :

mintMenu improvements
mintMenu lets you filter the list of applications to quickly access what you're looking for. A new feature called "Suggestions" was introduced in Linux Mint 7: When filtering gives no results the menu now shows a set of suggestions related to what is being searched.

mintInstall improvements
Some of the most popular applications were gathered in a new window named "Featured applications". This window shows the popular applications which are available and not currently installed on the system. This makes it simpler for users to install most of what people are commonly looking for.

mintUpdate improvements
The changelog tab now supports Linux Mint packages. Previous versions of mintUpdate could only show changelogs for packages maintained by Ubuntu.
mintUpdate now shows the download size associated with each package upgrade. In accordance with the Gnome usability guidelines mintUpdate's system tray icon does not blink anymore. The presence of available updates is still quite noticeable as different icons are being used. The update manager now feels even less intrusive.

mintUpload improvements
All ads were removed from the the default service. The GUI layout was improved in mintUpload to make the application simpler to use and to hide information which wasn't relevant to the selected upload service. Services can now be created, edited or deleted graphically via a new service manager. Two new protocols are supported by mintUpload: SCP and SFTP.

mintWelcome
Gloria or Linux Mint 7 now has new welcome screen

Command line improvements - apt version, rtfm
You can quickly get the version of an installed package by typing "apt version" followed by the package name. For instance, "apt version firefox" gives you the version number of the firefox package.RTFM is not an insult anymore, it's now a command. It's a simple link to the "man" command of course and it's nothing special.

New artwork
The default icon set was replaced with Gnome Colors. Various upstream improvements in the Murrina engine used by the Linux Mint theme make widgets, and buttons in particular, look better than they did before. A new alternative theme was included, based on Shiki Colors and the Mint-Dew wallpaper from Zwopper.

Other Features :

• Firefox now comes with the Moonlight plugin and support for Silverlight 1.x.
  
• The Firefox google search engine was enhanced to show links to popular search engines, as well as cached links and similar pages.
  
• The Linux Mint 7 Gloria repositories are now signed.
  
• Changes in the packages organization and the introduction of the mint-info virtual package make it easier to add additional desktops environments and editions on top of other ones. The new package hierarchy also makes it easier to upgrade Linux Mint.
  
• mintSystem now comes with a new adjustment system, which restores important files at boot time. This strenghen the system against Ubuntu package upgrades overwriting Mint's specific configuration. This adjustment system can be configured in /etc/linuxmint/mintSystem.conf.
  
• It is now possible to check the integrity of the liveCD and to boot the installer on its own.
  
• MintAssistant was removed, and the installer now applies the same password to root as the one you choose for the main user.
  
• mintDesktop was simplified.
  
• Xchat now replaces Xchat-Gnome as the default IRC client.
  
• A new command-line tool called Inxi, was introduced. Inxi shows various information about your system. An Inxi report can help a lot when asking questions on the forums or in the IRC as it helps others understand more about your system.

Other Minor Improvements :

• "apt purge" was fixed.
• "apt source" now runs in user mode.
• All Mint tools are now launchable from the command line.
• All Mint tools now detect their environment and adapt to it. In particular they know whether to use gksu or kdesudo. The consequence of this is that packages like mintupdate-gnome or mintupdate-kde are not needed anymore, and the same package is now compatible with all desktop environments.
• All Mint tools using an about dialog now show their own version number.

Download : Linux Mint 7 Gloria RC1

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