FocusPoint Linux Shutter beta 1

We are very happy to announce the first news about our Shutter release *yes, all releases will have code-names from something to do with photography, this release of-course is inspired by the shutter on your camera.

Our release is not based on Ubuntu or Xubuntu but Linux Mint Virginia, yes that is correct, we have moved house and the reason for that is both simple and complex. The new Ubuntu iso’s are structured in a way that would involve a massive amount of work on our part just to get around the structure it selves. We assumed that would be a problem early so in paralel we started working with a Linux Mint base. We will eventually get there with the new iso types and we believe we need to do it anyway as Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, we do not know what sort of image structure Mint will run with, but we are assuming that they will indeed simply use the new structure as they will update to a Ubuntu Noble base, hence we probably need to “do the work” anyway we look at it.

The good about basing on Linux Mint:
– Linux Mint is regarded highly stable, by us and by about anyone, there’s not many other safer homes to live in, with maybe only a few exceptions
– Linux mint have some excellent tools, tools like
— Warpinator (send and receive files across the network)
— Pix View and organize your images. Pix might look like something to just gloss over, but as usual with mint tools you would be wrong to do so.
— Web Apps With Web Apps yo can turn any web-page into an application, OK, maybe that is not entirely true, but it is a nice way to isolate a page as an application.
— Mint Install This is Linux Mint’s awesome software manager, it supports whatever you expect from a software manager, but in addition it supports user reviews, witch comes very handy if you are unsure to try the application or not.
— System Reports This is one excellent tool that really takes care of you and your installation.

The above is just a few of the good reasons about basing our image on Linux Mint, there are some draw backs, but that all depends on how you look at it. One draw back is “old” packages, going for stability which is the Linux Mint philosophy means only using tried and tested software, basically that means software not on the bleeding edge side of things. So stability or not? We prefer stability.

With all of the above it raises a little question, why didn’t you base of Linux Mint straight away?
Well again that comes back to “old” packages/software versions, even though Ubuntu is no bleeding edge distro it does at this time have newer software than what Linux Mint has, this is just a fact, now what we could have done initially was to base on Mint and package whatever old versions that are in the Mint repos as new versions in our own repos (repository/software library) this and relying on other distros are what we have decided doing for now. We also have flatpaks to lean on, which we are doing and will do (so are so many other distros now doing)
To be honest, it would have made the most sense to base straight of Linux Mint to begin with.

Now this is important, we being based of Linux Mint should not mean anything for you when it comes to anything actually, we are our own thing and are in no way affiliated with Linux Mint or supported by Linux Mint, what does that mean for you? By using our spin of Linux Mint you accept that all the support or grievances you may have should and must be directed at us and not Linux Mint, please respect that as I personally know how busy they are!

To finish of, we are about 97% done with our goals before releasing a beta version, what is left is our own testing and some information. We will be releasing some screenshots real soon