Linux Mint 18



The Linux Mint project has been sitting at the top of our page hit ranking statistics for quite some time now. The project attracts a lot of attention, particularly from Linux newcomers who are looking for a familiar and friendly computing experience. The main edition of Linux Mint is based on the Ubuntu distribution with the latest release, Linux Mint 18, using Ubuntu 16.04 as a package base.



Linux Mint 18 is a long term support release and will receive security updates through to the year 2021. The project's release notes (Cinnamon, MATE) mention several new features. Some of the key items mentioned in the distribution's documentation include the introduction of the Cinnamon 3 desktop environment, updated themes and support for the Btr file system. The documentation mentions Mint supports booting on UEFI-enabled computers, but does not work with Secure Boot. Personal Package Archive (PPA) repositories can be added and removed from the command line as well as through the project's graphical repository manager.



The release notes mention Mint's update manager now makes update policies more clear. Mint users have historically been able to instruct the update manager to balance package stability against constant security updates. Mint marks some packages as safe to upgrade, others as risky and some neutral. The user has always been able to choose whether to install all security updates, most or just the ones which have been tested and shown to not adversely affect stability. With Mint 18, the update manager makes the available policies more clear to assist the user in selecting the update policy which best suits their needs.



Perhaps the most significant change though is the introduction of X-Apps. The Mint developers have noted that some GNOME applications have unusual interface designs and will not properly integrate with non-GNOME desktop environments. X-Apps are forks of GNOME applications which have had their interfaces tweaked to work consistently across multiple desktop environments.



Mint 18 is available in Cinnamon and MATE editions, with 32-bit and 64-bit x86 builds offered. I decided to try the 64-bit build of the Cinnamon edition. The download for this edition was 1.6GB in size. Booting from the live media brings us to the Cinnamon desktop. The wallpaper is dark and features the Mint logo. The application menu, task switcher and system tray sit at the bottom of the screen. Icons on the desktop can be activated to launch a file manager or the distribution's system installer.





Linux Mint 18 -- The welcome screen

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Mint uses a graphical system installer which is nearly identical to its parent's installer. On the first screen we select our preferred language from a list and we are given the option of viewing the on-line release notes in the Firefox web browser. The second screen asks if we would like to install third-party software, such as Flash and multimedia support. The next screen gives us the chance to select automated or manual disk partitioning. I went with the manual option and found Mint's installer has a very friendly and streamlined partition manager. The partitioning page supports working with Btrfs, JFS, XFS and the ext2/3/4 file systems. We are then asked to select our time zone from a map of the world, confirm our keyboard's layout and create a user account. While entering our user account's name and password we have the chance to encrypt our home directory's contents. When the installer has finished copying its files to our hard drive it offers to restart the computer. Alternatively, we can return to the live desktop environment and continue to explore the live distribution.



Our fresh copy of Mint boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the user account we created during the installation process. From the login screen we can change our locale information and desktop session. It is also possible to launch an on-screen keyboard and type our password using the mouse and the virtual keyboard. This means a user can still login even without a working keyboard, or if we want to avoid keylogger attacks.



Once we get signed into the Cinnamon session, a welcome screen appears. This screen provides links to many Mint-related resources, including the project's release notes, the distribution's on-line chat room and documentation. Other buttons launch the device driver manager and software manager, both of which I will talk about later.



Shortly after signing into Cinnamon, an icon in the system tray indicated there were software updates available to download. Clicking the notification icon launches Mint's update manager. The first time we launch the update manager we are given an explanation on how the update manager balances system stability with software security. We are given three options: only install software updates which will not affect system stability; default to installing stable updates while displaying all available updates; and install all security updates, even those which may negatively affect system stability. Once we make our choice, we are shown a list of available software updates. There were several updates available the day Mint 18 was launched. I did not get an exact count, but the new packages all downloaded and installed without any problems.





Linux Mint 18 -- Selecting an update policy

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Mint's application menu is divided into three vertical columns. On the left we find quick-launch buttons for common tasks. Down the middle we find application categories and the right column features specific applications in the selected category. There is a search box available to help us locate applications using either the program's name or a description. For example, searching for the term "Word" brings up the LibreOffice Writer application, a suitable alternative to Microsoft Word.



Speaking of applications, Mint ships with a relatively small, yet useful collection of software. Digging through the application menu we find the Firefox web browser, the Thunderbird e-mail client, the HexChat IRC software, the Pidgin instant messenger and the Transmission bittorrent client. The LibreOffice productivity software is featured along with the Xreader document viewer. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is included along with the Pix image viewer/image browser. The Banshee audio player, Brasero disc burning software, VLC media player and Xplayer video player are included. Mint optionally provides us with multimedia codecs and the Adobe Flash player, providing us with the ability to play just about any media file. Mint ships with a calculator, archive manager, text editor and USB image writer. In the background we find systemd 229 and version 4.4 of the Linux kernel.



I explored using Mint in two test environments: a desktop computer and VirtualBox. When running in VirtualBox everything worked well. Mint automatically integrates with VirtualBox and can make use of the host computer's full screen resolution. The Cinnamon desktop can be a bit sluggish when running in a virtual environment (a problem Mint's MATE edition does not share), but the sluggishness can be mostly negated by enabling 3-D effects and providing the VirtualBox instance with more video memory. When running on the physical desktop computer, Linux Mint performed very well. Networking and sound worked out of the box, my display's full resolution was used and Cinnamon performed well. In either test environment, Mint required from 360MB to 370MB of memory when logged into Cinnamon.



The only issue I ran into came about when I was trying to boot the live media on my desktop computer. While Mint would boot on the desktop computer, the display was left blank. I could hear the login sound play and the computer responded to keyboard input, but I was unable to see anything. Rebooting the computer and selecting Safe Graphics mode from the live disc's boot menu solved the issue and allowed me to use the live media without further problems.



One of the nicer features of Mint 18 is the System Settings panel. This control centre provides the user with easy access to most desktop and operating system settings. From the System Settings panel we can access modules which help us alter power management settings, set up printers, add or remove user accounts, configure the firewall and access the device driver manager. We can change the look and feel of the desktop, install Cinnamon extensions and Desklets (desktop applets). I found the System Settings modules worked well for me and I encountered no problems.





Linux Mint 18 -- Adjusting system settings

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Earlier I mentioned the device driver manager, which we can access from either the welcome screen or from the System Settings control panel. The driver manager will search our computer for devices which could benefit from downloading additional or third-party drivers. These extra drivers are described along with the hardware they support and can be enabled or disabled with a click. I quite like the device driver manager which ships with Mint 18, it is pleasantly easy to understand and navigate.



Mint 18 provides us with two graphical package managers, both which act as front-ends to APT. The first graphical front-end is called Software Manager. It begins by displaying a screen of software categories, each one represented by a large icon. Selecting a category presents us with a list of available applications. Each entry includes the name of a program, an icon, a brief description and a user-supplied rating. Clicking on an entry brings up a full page description of the selected software along with screen shots and an Install/Remove button. Clicking the Install button causes the software to be downloaded in the background while we continue to browse the available items.





Linux Mint 18 -- Browsing available software

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The second graphical package manager is Synaptic. The Synaptic application displays all available software items in a long, plain-text list. We can apply filters to the list or search for items with a specific name. Clicking on a package's name will display a summary of the package at the bottom of the Synaptic window. We can queue up multiple packages to install or remove and process them all at once. While Synaptic is installing or deleting packages, the interface is locked. Though Synaptic may seem less user friendly in some aspects, it is useful for quickly finding specific packages, especially low-level dependencies.



Conclusions



During my trial, Mint 18 provided me with a stable, friendly and problem-free experience. The distribution has a installer which is simple to use, a good collection of documentation and an excellent selection of default software. The configuration tools are straight forward to use, the software manager is easy to use and everything generally just worked the way I wanted it to. The one problem I ran into during my whole trial was the video display issue when running from the live disc, and that was quickly solved by switching to the fail-safe graphics mode from the live disc's boot menu.



I was curious to try X-Apps and I generally found these to be an improvement. I dislike the mobile-style interfaces GNOME applications tend to use and how they break consistency with other applications. X-Apps provide the same functionality as their GNOME counterparts, but improve the interface to work the same as all the other desktop applications. Most of the changes are small, but make working with the text editor or video player a much less frustrating experience.





Linux Mint 18 -- Comparing GNOME's Totem to Mint's Xplayer

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The one complaint I think people may have with Mint's Cinnamon edition is the desktop tends to be sluggish if suitable video drivers are not available. This may be a problem for people running Mint in a virtual environment or on hardware without solid driver support. This issue can be side-stepped by using Mint's MATE edition which is more forgiving where video cards are concerned and which offers a very similar desktop experience.



On its own, Mint 18 impressed me with its ease of use, array of software, media support and friendly utilities. However, where I think Mint really shines is when we compare Mint to its parent. Mint and Ubuntu mostly use the same packages and both strive to provide friendly desktop environments. When Ubuntu 16.04 launched a few months ago I tried it and found the desktop regularly crashed, the software manager would lock-up, Ubuntu failed to integrate with VirtualBox and the desktop was incredibly slow to respond. While Mint shares a lot of software with its parent, the Mint developers have managed to avoid all of the problems I encountered with Ubuntu and I was very pleased with this.



I was quite happy with Mint 18 and I would recommend it for most people, particularly Linux newcomers. The distribution manages to deliver a feature-rich, friendly experience with a minimal amount of problems. * * * * * Hardware used in this review



My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications: Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU

Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive

Memory: 6GB of RAM

Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card

Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card