Mint 19.3 Cinnamon

64-bit

We got so excited with the last point release of Mint that we based our whole LXF255 cover illustration on it. This time it gets barely half a page in the back of the magazine, but that’s not to say we’re not excited about it. (‘Tis merely an underhand suggestion that our cover ideas are engendered by whim and caprice – though what is life without whimsy? Ed).

Based on the Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS, the new release features a 5.0 series kernel and some rejigging of the bundled application chattels. Xplayer, from Mint’s own X-apps suite, has been ousted in favour of the stylish MPV frontend Celluloid. HIDPI support continues to improve, with almost all bundled applications now supporting being scaled. There’s a new Drawing application, which replaces GIMP, and there are far too many improvements in the Cinnamon 4.4 desktop to list here.

There is a new System Reports app that can tell you about missing codecs, drivers or language packs. And Nemo now has configurable context menus, so you can choose which actions appear for which filetypes. Perhaps most noticeable, though, is the new Mint logo. In hindsight perhaps we should’ve used this on the DVD wallet. Ooops, next time. Still, we did borrow its new boot menu theme on the disc, so you can see it there.

Mint has proven popular with 32-bit users, and even though our disc this month is useless to them, those readers should perhaps grab (or upgrade to) this release, because unless something drastic happens, this will be the last ever 32-bit Mint version. The next release will be based on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and that is a 64-bit-only affair. This one, based on Ubuntu 18.04, will be supported until 2023.