Software Update: Linux Mint 18.3

Version 18.3 of Linux Mint has been released. Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based distribution and version 18 is a version with extended support until 2021. Initially downloadable only with a Mate or Cinnamon desktop environment, an Xfce version will become available at a later date. The release notes for this release can be found below.

Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” is out

Linux Mint 18.3 is the latest version of the popular distro. As you may already know, Linux Mint 18.3 has the Sylvia code name. It is based on Ubuntu 16.04.3. It comes with the following changes.

Software Manager

The Software Manager has got a refined user interface. Popular software applications such as Spotify, WhatsApp, Skype, Google Earth, Steam or Minecraft are now featured and very easy to install. The user interface looks more modern and its layout is inspired by Gnome Software. It no longer uses Webkit. Browsing categories and apps is almost immediate, and it launches 3 times faster than before.

Flatpack Support

Thanks to Flatpak you can install bleeding-edge applications even if their dependencies are not compatible with Linux Mint. Linux Mint 18.3 comes with Flatpak installed by default and the new Software Manager fully supports it. There is new section, ‘Flathub’, in Software Manager, which you can use to install apps in flatpak format.

Backup Tools

Along with MintBackup, Mint’s very own backup tool, there will be a new open-source app pre-installed in Mint 18.3. it is time shift, an excellent tool which focuses on creating and restoring system snapshots. It’s a great companion to mintBackup which focuses on personal data.

System Reports

A new tool, called “mintReport”, will bring information to users and help them troubleshoot issues with the OS. The app is not feature complete as of this writing, but it is already able to gather crash reports using apport as a backend. Mint 18.x releases will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and supported until 2021.

Cinnamon improvements

HiDPI will be enabled by default in Cinnamon 3.6. It will come with a refined user interface for the configuration page of Cinnamon spices (applets, desklets, extensions, themes). Nemo extensions have got a “Configure” link in the Nemo plugins dialog to quickly open their settings:

GNOME Online Accounts Support in Cinnamon.

Cinnamon 3.6 supports GNOME Online Accounts. Among other things, this support makes it possible to browse Google Drive and OwnCloud in Nemo.

Login screen

The login screen is more configurable than before. It is now possible to enable the automatic login feature, to hide the user list when using LDAP, to customize the panel indicators and more.

Progress bar in task bar

A special change has landed in LibXapp, the core library shared between apps included in Linux Mint. It will allow apps that use it to draw a percentage right in the panel. Some applications like the USB Stick formatter or Nemo file manager’s operations will use it to indicate their progress.

Other changes

• The Driver Manager app has got better HiDPI support and better detection of CPUs and microcode packages.
• Synaptic dialogs (used by Software Sources, Language Settings and the Update Manager) received support for window progress.
• The toolbar of the PDF reader, Xreader, was improved. The history buttons were replaced with navigation buttons (history can still be browsed via the menubar). The two zoom buttons were switched and a zoom reset button was added to make Xreader consistent with other Xapps. Xreader is also getting support for detecting your screen size, so that 100% zoom means that what you see on the screen is exactly the size as the document would have on paper.
• In Xplayer, which is the media player, the fullscreen window was improved to look cleaner and to be more consistent with the player’s window mode.
• Nemo preview received support for animated GIFs.
• Translations for Nemo extensions, cinnamon-session and cinnamon-settings-daemon are now handled by cinnamon-translations (and thus will be greatly improved).
• The PIA Manager, a set up tool for PIA VPN connections (available in the repositories), now runs in user mode and no longer requires a root password to be launched.

As of this writing, only Cinnamon and MATE editions are available. For desktop environments, Mate is at 1.18and Cinnamon is at 3.6.

release notes

• Release notes for Linux Mint MATE.
• Release notes for Linux Mint Cinnamon