Bangalore: Two giants, Mint and Ubuntu has been continuously trading blows for the number one spot in the Linux distribution world. But who is the real number one? Well it’s hard to say. Both of them are keen on bringing the best to users and right now they are on the verge of launching their new version by mid 2012. Just a few weeks ago we saw the groundbreaking beta release of Ubuntu’s Fedora 17. Ubuntu have already patched up to bring the full version by the end of this month. And now the Linux Mint Project has just given us a sneak preview of their next generation release – the Linux Mint or “Maya”.
As the final version of Mint 13 is about to release soon, here’s slight peek into the 5 things to look forward in “Maya”.
1. Two Editions:
The Maya will offer two desktop editions. The popular, Cinnamon Desktop 1.4 is one. If you don’t know what Cinnamon desktop is, here’s a slight preview.
This new desktop shows the current and all other the workspaces available on the system. Users can switch between the workspaces, drag or drop windows into workspaces and above that you can decide how many workspaces you need. You can either create the new ones or even delete ones you don’t want. Another best feature is that it supports 39 languages.
Returning to the edition, the second edition is the “productive, stable and mature,” (as the project puts it) MATE 1.2 desktop.
2. Long-Term support:
A definite advantage for the business users. The Long Term Support (LTS) which was an Ubuntu Linux 12.04 release has been adopted by the Linux Mint 13. The LTS for Mint is from the same platform, Ubuntu 12.04. A very long support, all the way until April 2017, is more enough to put a wide smile on business organizations.
3. A New Display Manager:
The Linux Mint 13 has another feature called the MDM; a display manager based on GNOME Display Manager 2.20. There are a number of standout features in Mint 13, such as wide range of languages to choose from, event scripting, graphical configuration tools, in built various styles and themes and a login feature that can be scheduled, either automatic or timed.
4. Yahoo on board:
With the increase in popularity of Yahoo search engine, the Mint 13 has simply made Yahoo as their default search engine for the users in United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Along with Yahoo, the Mint project has already offered share revenues to DuckDuckGo and Amazon.
5. Fresh Beauty:
One of the best features that the Linux Mint 13 posses is its overall presentation beauty. With the latest themes- Mint-X and Mint-Z, the Mint 13 has just raised the bar. Along with the support of GTK3, the Linux Mint 13 also features some mind blowing beautiful photographs as backgrounds from an Irish artist called “masterbutler.”