Latest Linux Mint Updates – Cinnamon 2.4, MDM, Update Manager

It’s been a while I wrote about Linux Mint, one of the most popular Linux desktop distro nowadays. There are some really good news about it, I like how this distro is developing from time to time. Here’s what to expect soon on Linux Mint 17.1.

Cinnamon 2.4

Cinnamon 2.4 is going to debut in Linux Mint 17.1. It will introduce some really neat new features and many UI improvements. Let’s see two of them.

1. New Theme Selection Settings Menu

   The new way of selecting themes will be even more user-friendly. It will look like this:
   
   When you click on one of these buttons, you’ll get a list of available themes:
   

2.  Background Slideshows

   
   So far, two types of background collections are supported:

   • Cinnamon background collections, which are XML collections provided by the OS or installed via the Software Manager (in the screenshot above we can see mint-backgrounds-qiana and mint-backgrounds-petra)
   • Filesystem directories, which you can add or remove via the interface

Better Looking MDM Setup

The MDM Setup tool was redesigned, too. It looks like this:

All themes (HTML and GDM) as well as the GTK greeter are now available from the same list.

Nemo Bookmarks Update

In the new version of Nemo thebookmark section will be updated. Once you create a new bookmark it will go under the new “Bookmarks” section instead of the “My computer” section. If you prefer the old way, you can just simply drag and drop the Bookmarks section within the My computer one.

 

Update Manager Improvements

The new Update Manager will bring a simplified interface. It no longer shows package updates, but updates (i.e. one line per source package).

A Cinnamon update for instance doesn’t need to list cinnamon, cinnamon-dbg, cinnamon-common… assuming you were able to only update one of these 3 packages, it wouldn’t work anyway. So that cinnamon update is now listed simply as “cinnamon” and it includes updates for all 3 packages.

Short descriptions also now appear in the list of updates.

Size and old version columns are still available in the View menu but hidden by default.

mintLocale Improvements

The user interface of mintLocale was redesigned. Locale selection is now split between “Language” and “Region” which makes it easier to set up for people living away from their home country but still prefer to use their own language. Input methods are now also supported.

If these changes are something you’d really like to use now and wouldn’t want to wait until Liunx Mint 17.1 then you can just go ahead and get the .deb file from here: https://github.com/linuxmint/mintlocale/releases/download/1.2.0/mintlocale_1.2.0_all.deb