First of all, just to disperse some confusion you may have encountered with this release, Linux Mint 17.1 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019.
Furthermore, if you consider yourself quite familiar with Mint and its traditions you may also wonder why does its codename doesn’t starts with a “Q” – the answer is in: Linux Mint 17.1 Is Codenamed “Rebecca”.
Now that we’ve cleared off the small details, it’s time to concentrate on the main subject:
Linux Mint 17.1 What’s New?
Following are the most notable changes you’ll find in Mint’s latest release:
- Cinnamon 2.4
- Small improvements to memory usage
- Added zoom animation
- “Super+e” now opens up the home directory
- Single-button touchpads are now supported
- Compositing in full-screen mode is now configurable and does not require to restart Cinnamon
- Desktop font is now configurable
- Theme and Background Settings were completely redesigned, support for background slidshow added
- Added Privacy and Notification Settings
- Nemo (the file manager)
- Toolbar got redesigned and its buttons are now configurable
- Added support for emblems
- Bookmark section in sidebar got improved, is now dynamic and “smarter”
- Update Manager
- Now groups packages together according to their source package (the packages are shown in the description below when selecting a package)
- Kernel selection screen was redesigned to quickly let you review known security fixes and known regressions
- Now groups packages together according to their source package (the packages are shown in the description below when selecting a package)
- Language Settings UI was redesigned to show more information in a simpler way
- Login Window Preferences were redesigned
- A new “pastebin” command added, e.g.
echo "Hello World!" | pastebin, text is then available online for 2 days
pastebin myfile.txt - The Linux Mint theme, Mint-X, now comes in Aqua, Blue, Brown, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, Sand and Teal
- Right-click any directory and change its color feature added
- The default MDM theme for the login screen now features a slideshow
And that’s basically the most interesting parts you’ll note on the latest Mint release.
Of course there are other changes and more editions such as the Mate one, however, the above is focused mainly on the essentials with the default DE as a primary example.
Download & Install
Mint, as you may already know, is a great choice especially for newcomers to Linux and people who wish to avoid command line as much as possible (though not limited to).
If you feel like giving the user-friendly distro a whirl, to see what it’s all about, you may do so by simply visit Mint’s Download page (link below) and choose the right architecture for your machine along with the edition of your likings
Click on downloading method you wish to use, e.g. Mirror / Torrent / etc…
