Although Ubuntu is still one of the best known and used Linux distros in the world, it has long since lost its way. Canonical, its developer, hardly cares about the development of its system, releasing updates every 6 months with practically zero changes, beyond a new wallpaper. That is why other alternative distros have gained great popularity among users. And one of the ones that has gained the most followers is Linux Mint.
For many, Linux Mint is a system that offers everything that Ubuntu should be, and is not. It is a system that, although it uses Ubuntu as a base, pays attention to the community and changes everything that is not liked about the Canonical distro, from the Snap packages to all the proprietary code that is hidden inside this other one. OS.
While Canonical continues to release absurd versions of Ubuntu, with 9 months of support each (except for the LTS that arrive every two years), Linux Mint users are celebrating, since the new version of this distro, 21.2 “Victoria” , is closer than ever.
What’s new in Linux Mint 21.2
One of the sections that comes renewed to this Linux is the login screen. Now, after many requests from the community, we can find the possibility of using different keyboard layouts, and the possibility of activating the “tap to click”, as long as our PC has a trackpad and supports it. Keyboard navigation is also improved, and a new button is included to preview the password we type.
Other important novelties that we will find in this Linux are:
- Support for Wayland.
- Native support for HEIF and AVIF.
- Global dark mode.
- Greater compatibility with Flatpak apps.
- Xreader will now preview Adobe Illustrator files.
- The photo manager, Pix, is now called “gThumb.”
- Nemo, the file explorer, is much faster.
We will also find a large number of changes, both in the interface and internal to the system. By the way, it is important to remember that this version is still based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and that it will arrive with the Linux 5.15 kernel.
Download the Linux of “Victory”
Although the final version of this Linux is not scheduled until the end of next month (July 2023), if you want to try the new version of Linux Mint you can already download the beta of this distro. This version, although it may have some errors pending to be corrected, is already quite stable and is ready to be used on a day-to-day basis without major problems.
You can download the Linux Mint 21.2 Beta from the following links, depending on whether you want a Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce desktop image. The official image is the one used by the Cinnamon desktop.
- Download Linux Mint 21.2 Beta Cinnamon
- Download Linux Mint 21.2 Beta Xfce
- Download Linux Mint 21.2 Beta MATE
