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Linux Mint 21 Beta is now available
Linux Mint leader Clement Lefebvre; He announced that the beta ISO images for the versions
of Linux Mint 21, codenamed “Vanessa” prepared with the Xfce, Cinnamon and MATE
desktop environments, have been tested and approved, and that the versions are made available
for testing.
While reminding that this is a test version and should be used only for testing purposes,
testers are requested to report any errors they detect.
Since no official announcement has been made by Linux Mint on the subject, we have no chance
to give more details.
Linux Mint 21 “Vanessa” Beta was made available on the community page by Clement
Lefebvre the day before.
Thus, it will be prepared without using systemd-oomd.The Linux Mint 21 Vanessa, which we are reporting
, is in front of the user.
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Linux Mint 21 Beta Is Now Available for Download, Here’s a First Look
The beta version of the upcoming Linux Mint 21 operating system series is now available
for public testing ahead of the final release later this summer.
Development of Linux Mint 21 “Vanessa” kicked off a few months ago, and the upcoming
distribution will be based on the repositories and base packages of Canonical’s latest
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system series, which will be supported for
the next five years, just like Linux Mint 21.
Linux Mint 21 will ship not only with newer core components (e.g. Linux kernel, Mesa graphics
stack, GCC, GNU C Library) from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, but also with a newer version of the
in-house developed Cinnamon desktop environment, namely Cinnamon 5.4, which brings numerous
new features and improvements.
Bluetooth improvements will also be present in the upcoming Linux Mint 21 release as the
development team adopted of the Blueman 2.3 GTK+ Bluetooth manager as a drop-in replacement
for the Blueberry Bluetooth configuration tool that’s currently being used in the
Linux Mint 20 series.
Other highlights of Linux Mint 21 include home directory encryption in the installer,
support for WebP images in the Xviewer in-house developed image viewer, as well as in thumbnails
so you can see a preview of these images in the file manager.
Last month, the Linux Mint announced that they took over the development of the Timeshift
backup utility, and the next major release of the distribution
will ship with an updated version capable of calculating the required space for the
next snapshot when used in rsync mode so that you won’t end up with zero disk space.
Other noteworthy changes in Linux Mint 21 include os-prober by default to ensure out-of-the-box
dual boot detection for those who want to install the Ubuntu-based distribution alongside
Windows or another GNU/Linux distribution, and the removal of systemd-oom due to some
performance issues.
If you want to give Linux Mint 21 a try before the final release, you can download the beta
version right now as Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE editions using the direct download links below.
While your download completes, check out my first look video at Linux Mint 21 “Vanessa”.
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New Features in the Upcoming Linux Mint 21 Release
This is a continually updated article to share the latest features added to the upcoming
Linux Mint 21 release.
You probably already know that Linux Mint is based on the long-term support (LTS) release
of Ubuntu.
Hence, Linux Mint 21 features Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as its base.
The beta release for Linux Mint 21 is already available to download.
So, let us check out what you can expect with it.
Linux Mint 21 is codenamed Vanessa
Let me share something interesting:
Every Linux Mint release, be it minor or major, has a codename.
It is a female name, normally of Greek or Latin release.
Like Ubuntu, there is a pattern in the codename in Mint also.
The codenames are in alphabetically increasing order for the major release, but they use
the same alphabet for the minor releases.
For example, Mint 20 was called Ulyana, 20.1 Ulyssa, 20.2 Uma and 20.3 Una.
Mint 19 series had codenamed starting with T.
Mint 21 codename starts with V and the first release of the 21 series is called Vanessa.
There will be at least 3 more minor releases in the Mint 21 series, and they will be released
every six months until the next Mint major release in 2024.
They all will have a codename starting with the letter V.
New features in Mint 21 Vanessa With Linux Mint 21 beta available, we have
a better idea of what’s in store for us.
However, the official changelog/feature list is not yet available for the stable release.
New upgrade tool Existing Mint 20.3 users should be able to
upgrade to Mint 21 relatively easier thanks to the new upgrade tool.
Earlier, upgrading to a major version involved using the terminal.
Now everything should be done with a few mouse clicks in the new GUI tool.
It will show what packages have been upgraded and which packages won’t be upgraded.
It supports several languages.
It even checks if your PPA and custom repositories are supported in the new version.
Overall, an excellent tool to ease the upgrade process.
It’s good to see that Mint focuses on developing graphical tools to help its users.
New Bluetooth application Though not developed by the Mint team, Mint
21 will feature the Blueman tool for managing the Bluetooth settings.
What’s wrong with the existing Blueberry tool?
It was simply a front-end XApp for GNOME Bluetooth from the very beginning.
However, with GNOME 42 update, the newer GNOME Bluetooth is no longer compatible with Blueberry.
Hence, it needs significant changes to make it work.
The lead developer of Linux Mint, Clem also mentioned, “There is also frustration upstream
from the GNOME Bluetooth development team who simply does not want to have users from
other desktops than GNOME and so Blueberry will probably get discontinued.”
So, it makes sense to use a new app that works well on Linux Mint and any other Linux distro,
which is Blueman.
It is not a simple app like Blueberry, but can prove to be a useful utility for users.
Timeshift becomes a Mint tool Mint team has been recommending Timeshift
for system settings backups for some time now.
It almost felt a part of the Mint applications suite.
I mistakenly said that in one of the YouTube videos as well.
But the good news is that the Mint team has taken over the development of the Timeshift
application.
It is now an XApp and you should see it even more integrated within the Linux Mint ecosystem.
There are already a few developments to it.
For example, in rsync mode, Timeshift now calculates the required space for the next
snapshot and skips it if performing that snapshot leads to less than 1GB of free space on the
disk.
WebP image support WebP image format is getting popular these
days among website owners.
They are smaller in size without compromising on quality.
If you try to download images from the internet, and they are in WebP format, they are opened
with a web browser.
You’ll have to install additional packages for WebP support in other Linux distributions.
Mint 21 will have WebP support enabled by default.
You can open the WebP images in the image viewer and the images will be displayed with
their thumbnail in the Nemo file manager.
New Wallpapers Of course, technically, not a feature, but
it is worth mentioning that it includes some beautiful wallpapers in Linux Mint 21.
If you are trying the beta version, you can explore the photos, or wait for the final
release to check them all out.
No negative impact on dual boot It was noticed in Ubuntu 22.04 release that
Windows disappeared from the Grub menu in dual boot systems.
It was because the os-prober feature was disabled by default in version 2.6 of Grub bootloader.
Mint team has correctly decided to enable the os-prober by default.
This means that the Grub bootloader with Mint 21 should be able to properly detect Windows
(and other OS) as it used to previously.
No surprise killing of applications (like Ubuntu 22.04)
Ubuntu 22.04 introduced the systemd-oomd, a userspace out-of-memory (OOM) killing service.
This service takes “corrective action before an OOM occurs in the kernel space”.
So, when the system is struggling with memory pressure, this service jumps into action to
ensure that system keeps running.
How does it do that?
By killing some running applications.
But that has created a problem, as Ubuntu users complained of random closing of running
applications.
For this reason, the Mint team has decided against including this ‘performance improving’
feature in the upcoming Mint 21.
AppImage support as it is It looks like Mint 21 is undoing plenty of
things that Ubuntu 22.04 could have done.
The libfuse library has been removed from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS; hence, you cannot run AppImage
applications unless you install it explicitly.
The Mint team takes note of this pain point and has included libfuse2 and libfuse3-3 by
default in Mint 21.
Cinnamon 5.4.2 and Linux Kernel 5.15
Of course, Mint 21 will have newer versions of many popular applications and Linux Kernel
5.15 LTS.
Cinnamon 5.4 desktop environment is a good upgrade that includes a window manager based
on a modern version of Mutter, along with many technical improvements.
There aren’t any massive visual differences, but you can expect subtle improvements overall.
Download Linux Mint 21 Beta Note that only the beta version is available
for testing.
You can grab the latest ISO from a mirror.
We recommend you to wait for the final release to use it on your primary system.
More to come … Considering Linux Mint 21 is in its beta phase,
it is unlikely to find any other new additions.
However, with its official release and changelog, we could spot additional modifications that
we did not find in our testing and usage.
Meanwhile, do express your views on Linux Mint 21.
What kinds of improvements are you expecting in the new version?
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