Linux Mint 5.0 is coming

OK. Rather than complain about Ubuntu (and it’s limited out of the box experience), I am genuinely waiting for Linux Mint 5.0 (Elyssa). And so…

After many sleepless nights and a lot of work I am delighted to announce that the first release candidate for Linux Mint 5 Elyssa was released and that it is now available for download. A lot of changes and improvements were made since Daryna so make sure to read the “What’s new in Elyssa” section of the Release Notes.

Links: Release Notes & Download mirrors

The news of the release candidate (beta 032) was found here: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=174

Details of the release here: http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_elyssa.php

Of course, keeping in tune with the fact that I’m still a Linux beginner (even after so many years)… I still don’t know what a Release Candidate (or the first beta 032) is… and/or whether or how many other Beta releases coming up. I couldn’t get a date or approximation about when exactly it would be completed, I’m still guessing it’s close. But not that close.

But regardless… at the moment I’ve gotten a request by a prospective Linux user who wants to use Linux Mint and was going to install Linux Mint 4.0 but I told him to wait for 5.0… (which I told him I would help to install) so I have a stake on this release!

My own view of Linux Mint is that I think it’s growing into a more mature distribution in its own right (not just as an Ubuntu derivative), but because of my limited downloads for my internet connection, I’m afraid that I would have to download a lot to make it multimedia friendly (ie. I haven’t tried it recently). Usually a PCLinux kind of distro works for me because it works pretty much out of the box (no need for downloading) and no need for internet connections (ie. it’s easy to pass to other prospective linux users).

Yet, I wonder what’s in store for this one.