Linux Mint is 1 of the most common desktop-Linux distributions and love to used by millions of people.
It is 1 of the best alternatives of leading Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS.
Reason
The main reason of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant & comfortable OS which is very powerful and easy to use in real life.
The main reasons for the success of Linux Mint are as follows:
- It works out of the box, with full multimedia support & also extremely easy to use.
- It’s completely free of cost and open source.
- It’s positive and amazing community-driven. Users are requested to send their important feedback’s, to the community of Linux Mint OS, so that their ideas can be used to improve .
- It Based on Debian and Ubuntu, it provides about more than 30,000 packages and 1 of the best software managers.
- It’s safe & reliable. Users loves to a conservative approach towards software updates, a unique Update Manager & the robustness of its Linux architecture.
- Linux Mint requires only little-bit maintenance (for example- no regressions, no antivirus & no anti-spyware…etc).
Timeline of Mint
15th anniversary celebrated by Linux Mint in 2021. Let’s see at how it all started & some of the events which have helped shape what it is today.
Linux Mint environments
It comes with 3 different desktop environments, each with its specific features. They are as follows:
- Cinnamon: The most modern, innovative & full-featured desktop environment.
- MATE: A more stable & faster desktop environment.
- Xfce: The most stable & most lightweight desktop environment.
Cinnamon is Linux-Mint 1 of the best desktop environment, primarily developed for and by Linux-Mint. It has many new features, is slick & beautiful. Linux-Mint are also developing MATE, is a extension of Gnome-2 which had been the default desktop environment for Mint from 2006 to 2011. Even though Mate development is much slower compared to Cinnamon, MATE is more stable, faster & utilizes less resources. But Xfce on the other hand is does not support so many features but it is lightweight & also very stable.
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2006 The Early releases
After a time, Clement Lefebvre, a French developer now commonly known as “Clem”, began to get a flavour for what the community needed out of a distribution & started implementing solutions to the common problems. In the year August 2006, Linux-Mint 1.0 “Ada”, based on Kubuntu 6.06 was released.
During Nov-2006, Clement Lefebvre switched to a GNOME desktop with Linux-Mint 2.0 “Barbara”, based on Ubuntu 6.10.
Updates
- GNOME desktop
- Multimedia codecs
- Improved support for Wifi and NVIDIA
- Added configuration options
2007 A new ambition
This project is so much popular & grows very rapidly. A team is formed, forums chat rooms & a website are open.
During the time Linux-Mint 3.0 “Cassandra” is released it introduced new logo for its identity & the ambition to competitor Windows & Mac OS.
Updates
- Filtered app menu
- App store
- Disk management
- NTFS support
2007-2010 Development & growth
Mint rises to the top & joins Ubuntu as 1 of the most popular desktops environment on the market.
Between Mint 4.0 “Daryna” & Mint 9.0 “Isadora”, new & more tools make Mint special and different from other. Such as- mintupdate, mintinstall, mintdisk, mintdesktop, mintnanny, mintbackup, mintstick, mintwelcome, mintupload, mintmenu… etc.
Updates
- Update Manager
- Unique features
- Many Mint tools are developed
2010 A mature desktop
Linux-Mint features a user friendly desktop experience based on GNOME-2 which has matured for more than 5-years. It is full-featured, extremely stable & very popular.
2011 A traumatic release of Linux Mint
When GNOME-3 replaces GNOME-2 it’s a catastrophe for Mint. Many different features like- the menu, the panel, the tray…etc, are missing & neither the desktop and the theme engine non of the toolkit are stable.
Even after the re-implementation of most of the missing features of Mint, the release of Linux-Mint-12 “Lisa” based on GNOME-3 is not so-good & is still to this day considered by the team as a regression.
To guarantee its future Mint decides to widen the scope of its development & invests in Two alternatives to GNOME-3: MATE, a joint project which consists in renaming GNOME-2 & bringing it back & Cinnamon, a Mint project, which consists in adapting GNOME-3 & turning it into a full-featured desktop.
2012-present-The modern era of Linux Mint
From 2012 it provides incremental improvements to what is a more & more refined desktop experience.
The team has boosted its development by focusing on Three desktop editions- Cinnamon, MATE & Xfce, also by taking the decisions in the year-2014 to only use long-term support releases.
The accent is put on quality over quantity, on doing less to do it more better & on pleasing existing users rather than attract new ones.
Following the success of Cinnamon & its compatibility with other distributions, It also started to develop cross-distribution & cross-desktop solutions. Recently some of the software developed by Mint is enjoyed in many other distributions & bug reports & development are boosted by contributions from people outside of the Mint community, which is simply great.
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