release of Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria. Features and characteristics of the distribution
Last December, Linux Mint 21.1 “Vera” Cinnamon Edition was released. Now, a few months later, Linux Mint 21.2 has arrived. It continues the “tradition” of the branch, which is based on the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS package base. Builds based on MATE 1.26, Cinnamon 5.8 and Xfce 4.18 are already available. Another positive point is that Linux Mint 21 will be supported until 2027, this is a “long-term” release. Well, the details about the new product are under the cut.
What you should pay attention to:
- Upgrading Linux Mint edition with Xfce desktop to Xfce 4.18.
- As for Linux Mint with MATE desktop, the old version, MATE 1.26, is used.
- In addition, the implementation of Freedesktop portals (xdg-desktop-portal) has been added. This is to improve compatibility with applications that are not native to the current user environment. An example is libadwaita-based GNOME applications. The organization of access to the resources of the user environment from isolated applications has also been optimized. These can be, for example, packages in the flatpak format.
- Optimized the security of the Warpinator utility. It is designed for encrypted file exchange between two computers. In this release, the developers were able to address previously identified security issues. In addition, a new tool has been introduced to prevent similar vulnerabilities from appearing. We are talking about isolating a part of the file system using Landlock or Bubblewrap.
- The Bluetooth Blueman utility has been updated to version 2.3.5. The new version has expanded the functionality of the utility, including the addition of full support for HEIF and AVIF image files. It expands compatibility and offers users more file format options. And Xreader, the document viewer, now supports Adobe Illustrator documents.
- Also work in progress to optimize applications that are developed as part of the X-Apps initiative. The main goal of this initiative is to unify the software environment across Linux Mint editions based on different desktops. Also, X-Apps uses modern technologies (GTK3 for HiDPI support, gsettings, etc.), but retains traditional interface elements such as toolbars and menus. Among them, it is worth mentioning the Xed text editor, the Pix photo manager, the Xreader document viewer, and the Xviewer image viewer.
- There are “boring wallpapers”, or rather, styles. Now the developers have proposed a concept with three color modes for interface elements: mixed (dark menus and controls with a general light window background), dark and light. For each of them, you can choose your own color option.
- Desktop notifications have been redesigned in Cinnamon 5.8. Now they support color accents.
- The Pix image viewer has been significantly improved and updated to the gThumb 3.12.2 base. It received several improvements at once, including optimized performance, faster image loading, faster navigation. Improved support for GIF, RAW and TIFF image formats. Video playback has also been optimized, plus there are new imaging tools, including special effects and curves.
- Optimized the application manager, which received an updated interface. The list of recommended apps now includes Flatpak. The system for calculating app ratings has also been improved in order to improve discoverability and highlight relevant software.
- It is also worth talking in more detail about the design and styles. So, two-color icons of various colors are now offered, including new options. The developers have standardized and improved tooltips. This was done to improve consistency between different versions of GTK and Cinnamon. Improved and interface elements such as window control buttons.
- Work with themes has been reorganized and the structure of themes has been simplified. For example, brown and sand colors have been unified, support for colored stripes on pictograms has been removed, where symbolic pictograms may be involved. For active (highlighted) menu items, the icon color has been changed from black to white.
- The login screen (Slick-greeter) provides support for switching between multiple keyboard layouts. When you click on the active layout indicator, located in the upper right corner, a menu is provided for selecting a layout.
- Also, on the login screen, support for sessions based on the Wayland protocol has been added. A scrollable list of sessions has also been added.
- If you like screen gestures, then there is good news – their support has been added to manage windows and virtual desktops. Gestures are also used for tiling and managing multimedia content. Gestures are supported on both touchscreens and touchpads.
Here are the links to the release based on MATE 1.26 shells (
), Cinnamon 5.8 (
) and Xfce 4.18 (
). Linux Mint 21.2 ships with the Linux 5.15.0 kernel.
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