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Linux Mint 11 Katya has been released



Introduction
This is Linux Mint 11, codename Katya.

Important links
What's new in Linux Mint 11
Download mirrors
User guide
Release announcement

Known problems
Icon sizes in the menu
Changing the size of the icons in the menu doesn't work at the moment. This will be fixed in an update to the mintmenu package.

Mint-X theme improvements missing
Due to an existing bug, the improvements made to the Mint-X theme were not featured in the final release. They will become available as an update to the mint-x-theme package.

Upstream issues
Gnome theme failing to load
Because of a race condition between the GDM and session calls to gnome-settings-daemon, Gnome can load without a theme.

For more information you can follow this bug report.

As a workaround, you can modify /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop and replace 'Exec=/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon' with 'Exec=bash -c "sleep 20; /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon"'.

Note that "20" is an arbitrary value. You might have to fine tune this value and find the one that's right for you. If the session call is too soon it will fail because the GDM one is still alive. If it occurs too late it will only theme your panel but fail to theme your desktop and nautilus. In Virtualbox we found "20" to work quite well. On real hardware this value is likely to be smaller. The slower your computer is, the higher this value is likely to be.

Compiz Fusion
If you experience problems with the window manager (with window borders, focus or mouse clicks) launch "Fusion Icon" from the menu, and use the Fusion tray icon to switch your window manager to "Metacity".

Upstream regressions affect the "Cube" plugin in particular. It is recommended not to activate this plugin in Linux Mint 11.

Battery status indicator
The battery status indicator doesn't show the charge percentage. A few workarounds to fix this problem are detailed in this article.

Moonlight
Moonlight was removed from Linux Mint because of a bug that made Firefox crash. The bug was fixed upstream and you can install the Moonlight plugin from the project's website.

Other issues
Linux Mint 11 is based on Ubuntu 11.04. Make sure to read the known issues related to this release.

Important information
Overlay scrollbars
Linux Mint 11 inherits the newly introduced "overlay scrollbars". If you would like to use traditional scrollbars instead, you can deactivate them by removing the "overlay-scrollbar" and "liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0" packages and by restarting your computer.

Black splash screens
In Linux Mint 11 the boot splash screen is now completely black. It doesn't show a logo with green dots as it used to. This is by design. Once the system is installed the boot sequence is relatively fast. The black loading sequence doesn't look out of place and it looks consistent across all computers, whatever driver you're using.

CD images
If you install Linux Mint from the CD, you're missing some applications and the multimedia codecs. You can install the missing applications by clicking on "Upgrade to the DVD edition" in the welcome screen or in "Menu->Administration". And you can install the missing codecs by clicking on "Install Multimedia Codecs" in the welcome screen or in "Menu->Sound and Video".

Distributors and magazines in the USA and Japan
If you're planning to redistribute Linux Mint in the USA or in Japan, please use the CD image, which comes without patented technology or proprietary components. Users can use the welcome screen and the menu to reinstall these missing components easily.

Local repository and GnomePPP
GnomePPP is not installed by default but it is present within the default installation of Linux Mint. Your APT sources point to a local repository in /usr/share/local-repository to which GnomePPP was added.

Windows installer
Mint4win, the Windows installer, cannot handle large ISO images and is only provided in the "CD No codecs" version of Linux Mint.
  Linux Mint 11 Katya released