MD5 Checksums are a method of verifying the integrity of a file, or uniquely identifying it.

Reputable download sites will publish the MD5 checksums for all their files. By downloading the Checksum and then using a verification tool to compare the published MD5 checksum against the MD5 checksum generated locally for the downloaded file, allows the user to confirm that the downloaded files is an exact replica of the original, without corruption, modification, or tampering.

I noticed some posts on Mint forums suggesting installation of various utilities, some even Windows programs to be run under Wine, when in fact Mint has a built in capability to generate MD5 checksums, without any further fuss. I thought it might be useful to point out the integrated capabilities of Mint.

Mint recognises ISO image files and has the capability to perform MD5 hash checks on those images.

Locate the image in Nemo file explorer,

Right Click & select "Check MD5"

Compare the result with the MD5 given by the file source.

To perform an MD5 CHeck on any other file type, temporarily add  ".iso" suffix

Check as above.

Remove .iso suffix

Tested on Mint 17 64 (Mar 2015)

If this is something you do frequently, and / or you require more advanced features of using other checksumming algorithms such as SHA, Misko_2083's post here :-

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=187500

Describes how to add this capability to the Nemo File Manager