Clement Lefebvre, lead of the Linux Mint project, recently shared an update in his monthly report, covering the work completed in August and upcoming plans for the project. Here are the highlights.
Aesthetic Enhancements to Cinnamon 6.4
Addressing a long-standing issue with the aesthetics of the Cinnamon desktop environment outside of Linux Mint, the team will introduce a much-improved default theme starting with the upcoming Cinnamon 6.4.
This move is part of a broader initiative to maintain a pleasing visual experience across different distributions, which often neglect their own themes, leaving Cinnamon with default settings and a look that, let’s face it, isn’t the prettiest.
LMDE 5 Is Now End-of-Life
LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 5 “Elsie” was released on March 20, 2022, reaching the end of life on July 1 this year. In other words, it will no longer receive updates. In light of this, users are encouraged to upgrade to LMDE 6 “Faye” to continue receiving support and new features.
Don’t worry if you’re unsure how to do itโwe’re here to help. Our step-by-step guide, “How to Upgrade to LMDE 6 from LMDE 5,” will guide you through the process, making it easy.
Revamping APT Libraries and Utilities
One of the significant undertakings in the upcoming Mint 22.1 release involves overhauling the APT dependencies to modernize and streamline the tools and libraries essential for the operating system.
This includes merging outdated tools like GDebi and apturl into a single utility application named Captain, and aptdaemon into a library called Aptkit.
These changes will eliminate “paper cuts”โminor but persistent issuesโfrom previous releases, refining Mint’s package management’s functionality and reliability.
Server Boosts
Thanks to generous community donations and ongoing support, the Mint project reported successfully upgrading its repository servers. These servers now boast a bandwidth capacity of 10gbps, a tenfold increase from their previous capability.
The upgrade has effectively eliminated bottlenecks during large updates, particularly noticeable when large packages like Firefox or Chromium are updated simultaneously. Such improvements ensure users receive updates without lag in download speeds, enhancing the overall user experience.
Navigating Upgrade Challenges
Transitioning from Mint 21.3 to 22 posed challenges due to package conflicts stemming from upstream changes in Ubuntu 24.04, specifically with the Samba and LibreOffice packages.
These issues were linked to the broader transition of Debian unstable packages being frozen for the Ubuntu release, compounded by a delay in the Ubuntu 24.04 release to address a critical issue known as the XZ backdoor.
The Mint team has been working to resolve these conflicts and has re-tested the upgrade path multiple times since their last update. Clem reports that the upgrade path is now functional and emphasizes the importance of system snapshots and data backups before attempting upgrades.
Check out the Linux Mint Project’s August report for more detailed information.
