14 DAY TRIAL // The first Beta Release of Linux Mint 5.0, codename Elyssa, was launched. The distro is based on Daryna and is compatible with Ubuntu 8.04 and its repositories.
Elyssa comes with an improved mintMenu, which makes the process of removing applications much easier. From now on, you will only have to right-click on an application in the menu and select the "Uninstall" option. From the same context menu, you can set a chosen application to start automatically at login time. Elyssa also brings MP3 decoding and encoding support right out of the box.
The Linux kernel on which Elyssa runs is version 2.6.24, which sports features like the Completely Fair Scheduler. This is responsible for the CPU time allocated to each process, and seems to make this release of Linux Mint work much faster.
mintUpdate has a brand new information screen that shows the active logs, so the runtime mode - user or admin - and process ID can be seen. The list of updates can be configured to automatically refresh in an interval of one minute to a year. It was refactored so it doesn't use as much memory as it did in Daryna.
Gnome-Do is installed by default and runs in the background, so you won't be disturbed by it. If you press the SUPER+Spacebar key combination, Gnome-Do will show up and you can launch an application from it, or use the features provided by this application. Speaking of Gnome, Elyssa sports the 2.22 version of the popular desktop environment, with the virtual filesystem GVFS.
If you liked the eye-candy provided by the previous editions of Linux Mint, you will surely like the changes made in Elyssa. All the graphical interfaces are more compliant with the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. The overall look and feel is much more professional and consistent.
Transmission was added as the default BitTorrent client, thus replacing the Gnome Torrent application. Brasero also made its way into this release and Serpentine was removed. The configuration of Compiz Fusion is much easier now, thanks to CCSM and Simple CCSM. Envy Legacy, or Envy, was replaced with EnvyNG and PPPOE comes along with Elyssa.
Download Linux Mint Elyssa right now from Softpedia.
