The same year, in an effort to increase compatibility between the two systems, Linux Mint decided to abandon its codebase and changed the way it built its releases. In 2008, Linux Mint adopted the same release cycle as Ubuntu and dropped its minor version number before releasing version 5 'Elyssa'. This made the two systems' bases almost identical, guaranteeing full compatibility between them, rather than requiring Mint to be a fork. It then followed its own codebase, building each release from the previous one, but continuing to use the package repositories of the latest Ubuntu release. Linux Mint 2.0 was based on Ubuntu 6.10, using Ubuntu's package repositories and using it as a codebase.

It had few users until the release of Linux Mint 3.0, 'Cassandra'. Linux Mint 2.0 'Barbara' was the first version to use Ubuntu as its codebase. Linux Mint began in 2006 with a beta release, 1.0, code-named 'Ada', based on Kubuntu.

The Linux Mint project was created by Clément Lefèbvre and is actively maintained by the Linux Mint Team and community. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to include proprietary software such as multimedia codecs. Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. 13-18.3: Cinnamon / MATE / KDE SC 4 / Xfce.

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