Linux mint ubuntu xfce

New Features

Linux Mint 20 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2025. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.

Linux Mint 20 «Ulyana» Xfce Edition

Warpinator

The star of the show in Linux Mint 20 is a new application called Warpinator.

10 years ago, Linux Mint 6 featured a tool called «Giver» which could share files across the local network. Without any server or configuration, computers would automatically see each others and you could simply drag and drop files from one to another. When the Giver project was discontinued it had to be removed from Linux Mint and we’ve been missing that functionality ever since.

Warpinator is a reimplementation of Giver. Server configuration (FTP, NFS, Samba) is overkill for casual file transfers between two computers, and it’s a real pity to use external media (Internet services, USB sticks, external HDDs) just to share files when there’s a local network which could do just that.

With Warpinator, Linux Mint 20 brings back easy file sharing across the local network.

The main window shows you the computers on the local network which are also running Warpinator:

See the other computers on the network

By clicking on a computer you can see more information about it and exchange files with it:

No more USB sticks or external drive are needed just to send a file.

NVIDIA Optimus

Linux Mint 20 features improved support for NVIDIA Optimus.

The NVIDIA Prime applet now shows your GPU renderer and you can select which card to switch to straight from its menu.

The NVIDIA «On-Demand» profile is also now supported. When you run in that mode, it is your Intel card which renders the session.

From the command-line, two new commands are available to offload to GLX or to Vulkan:

To boost compatibility and make it easier to boot Linux Mint 20 in live mode without NVIDIA drivers, «nomodeset» was also added to the «Compatibility Mode».

Tray

XAppStatusIcon received the ability to handle mouse wheel scrolling events and a new function similar to gtk_menu_popup() which makes it even easier than before to port applications from GtkStatusIcon.

In all editions (Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce) many of the tray icons were harmonized, given symbolic icons and HiDPI support.

Better looking system tray

Blueberry, mintupdate, mintreport, nm-applet, mate-power-manager, mate-media, redshift, rhythmbox all use XAppStatusIcon and give the tray a consistent look in Mint 20.

XApps improvements

Xed received the ability to join lines together and to remove trailing whitelines before saving files.

Xviewer received fullscreen and diaporama toolbar buttons and remembers if its window was maximized.

In Xreader a print button was added to the toolbar.

To guarantee better support for modern Electron apps and indicators XappStatusIcon received mouse wheel support and SNI (StatusNotifier, libIndicator) support.

Other improvements

Gdebi, the tool used to open and install .deb files was given a new user interface.

The login screen (Slick Greeter) supports stretching backgrounds across multiple monitors.

Artwork improvements

The Mint-Y theme provides a nice variety of colors. A community project was started on Github to gather feedback and fine-tune these colors to find the right balance between colorful vibrant hues and contrast levels which don’t take the user’s focus away from the content being shown on the screen.

A vibrant version of Mint-Y-Aqua

Yellow folders are also available.

As you enter the Linux Mint 20 desktop for the first time, the welcome screen will bring these colors to your attention and ask you which one you enjoy the most:

Choose your favorite color in the welcome screen

An overview of the new backgrounds

System improvements

Apturl switched backend from Synaptic to Aptdaemon.

APT recommends are enabled by default for newly installed packages (not for upgrades).

Snapd is disabled by default and APT packages are not allowed to install it.

Live sessions running under Virtualbox automatically get their resolution bumped to a minimum of 1024×768.

This release ships with linux-firmware 1.187.

Main components

Linux Mint 20 features Xfce 4.14, a Linux kernel 5.4 and an Ubuntu 20.04 package base.

LTS strategy

Linux Mint 20 will receive security updates until 2025.

Until 2022, future versions of Linux Mint will use the same package base as Linux Mint 20, making it trivial for people to upgrade.

Until 2022, the development team won’t start working on a new base and will be fully focused on this one.

Thanks to your donations and advertising Linux Mint is completely free of charge. We hope you’ll enjoy using it as much as we enjoy working on it.

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New Features

Linux Mint 21 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.

Linux Mint 21 «Vanessa» Xfce Edition

Bluetooth

In Linux Mint 21 Blueman replaces Blueberry.

Just like Blueberry, Blueman is desktop-agnostic and integrates well in all environments.

Blueberry depended on gnome-bluetooth, which was developed exclusively for GNOME. In contrast, Blueman relies on the standard Bluez stack which works everywhere and can even be used or queried from the command line.

The Blueman Bluetooth Manager

The Blueman manager and tray icon provide many features that weren’t available in Blueberry and a lot more information which can be used to monitor your connection or troubleshoot Bluetooth issues.

Out of the box Blueman features better connectivity, especially when it comes to headsets and audio profiles.

In preparation for Linux Mint 21 the Blueman user interface was improved and received support for symbolic icons.

Upstream, Blueman and Bluez are actively developed and used in many environments.

Thumbnailers

The lack of thumbnails for some common file types was identified as a usability issue. To address it a new Xapp project called xapp-thumbnailers was started and is now featured in Linux Mint 21.

Improved thumbnail support

The project brings support for the following mimetypes:

• AppImage
• ePub
• MP3 (album cover)
• RAW pictures (most formats)
• Webp

Sticky Notes

The Sticky Notes application now has the ability to duplicate notes:

Duplicating a note in Sticky Notes

When Sticky Notes is told to pick different colors for newly created notes it no longer picks them randomly, but cycles through the color set to maximize the probability of each note having a different color.

The systray icon was restyled.

New notes are positioned relative to their parent.

Clicking the tray icon creates a new note if none are present.

Process Monitor

Automated tasks are great to keep your computer safe but they can sometimes affect the system’s performance while you’re working on it.

A little process monitor was added to Linux Mint to detect automated updates and automated system snapshots running in the background.

Ongoing automated tasks are shown in the tray

Whenever an automated task is running the monitor places an icon in your system tray. Your computer might still become slow momentarily during an update or a snapshot, but with a quick look on the tray you’ll immediately know what’s going on.

XApps improvements

Timeshift is now maintained as an XApp and its translations are done on Launchpad.

In rsync mode, it now calculates the required space for the next snapshot and skips it if performing that snapshot leads to less than 1GB free space on the disk.

Webp support was added to xviewer and thumbnailers.

Directory browsing was improved in Xviewer. Continuously pressing the arrow keys results in a smooth slideshow where enough time is given for each picture to be visible.

When Warpinator fails to find other devices, among other solutions, it now provides links towards its Windows, Android and iOS counterparts.

The Thingy bulk renamer application received UI improvements.

The WebApp manager supports additional browsers and custom browser parameters.

Printing and Scanning improvements

Linux Mint 21 uses IPP, also known as Driverless Printing and Scanning (i.e. a standard protocol which communicates with printers/scanners without using drivers). For most printers and scanners no drivers are needed, and the device is detected automatically.

If your printer/scanner doesn’t work properly disable driverless printing/scanning by removing the ipp-usb and airscan packages. Then install drivers from your manufacturer. For more information on printing and scanning: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/printers.html.

Note: HPLIP 3.21.12 is installed by default.

Other improvements

In Software Sources, the repository list, PPA list and key list support multiple selection. This allows several items to be removed at a time.

Uninstalling an application from the main menu (right-click -> uninstall) now triggers an evaluation of the application’s dependencies. To protect the system from the removal of key components, if another package depends on the application, an error message is shown and the operation is stopped.

Uninstalling an application from the main menu now also removes dependencies of that application that were automatically installed and are no longer needed.

When you switch graphics cards using the NVIDIA Prime applet, the switch is now visible and you can cancel it if you change your mind.

Artwork improvements

An overview of the new backgrounds

Initial GTK4 support was added in the Mint-Y and Mint-X themes.

The Mint-X theme was redesigned. It’s now built on SASS and supports applications which use dark-mode.

Main components

Linux Mint 21 features Xfce 4.16, a Linux kernel 5.15 and an Ubuntu 22.04 package base.

LTS strategy

Linux Mint 21 will receive security updates until 2027.

Until 2024, future versions of Linux Mint will use the same package base as Linux Mint 21, making it trivial for people to upgrade.

Until 2024, the development team won’t start working on a new base and will be fully focused on this one.

Thanks to your donations and advertising Linux Mint is completely free of charge. We hope you’ll enjoy using it as much as we enjoy working on it.

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