Linux Mint 9 is available for download since last Tuesday. Isadora codenamed, is the new version of the popular distribution appreciated by all those who begin in the Linux world by concentrating on one site all packages, proprietary or not, we usually use in our equipment such as the codecs to play MP3, Java or Flash.

Following in the footsteps of his precedecesora Linux Mint 8 Helena continues to emphasize thecare of visual appearance , which maintains a nice appearance to work with it, and have tweaked slightly from its predecessor. Based on Ubuntu 10.04, 02.30 and includes Gnome desktop manager and Thunderbird 3 to manage e-mail. The main new features in this version we should note the following:

  • New manager software has been rewritten and now contains about 30,000 packages available to users 10 times more than the previous version. We sell it as a merger between the Software Center Ubuntu, the software manager before and the Add / Remove Gnome. They have also ordered the software by popularity and give the opportunity for users to add comments about the applications that appear in the Manager Software.
  • New backup tool , which has also been rewritten. It was a tool that would be necessary strength to migrate between different versions without losing data. It allows us to perform data backup as well as our selection of installed software. This option is very useful for installing on multiple computers, so do all the installation and restore one of them in others.

  • Improvements in the options menu where we now have more options for configuring the various inputs of the menus and set the level of transparency of the once deployed. Moreover, the initial menu allows us to add our favorite applications to have better visibility and create menu shortcuts as much on the desktop.
  • Installation options which mainly emphasizes around Wubi, the option allows us to install the distribution like a program within Windows and that was not available in previous version. Similarly, it is added by default the option to create a boot disk on a USB USB.

I think they have improved the distribution that I see has got to be the favorite distribution of many of the beginners in the Linux world for its ease of use, an attractive visual environment and the packages are installed by default, as FileZilla or Thunderbird more familiar to users coming to Linux than other options available by default in other distributions.