The team behind the popular Linux Mint distro is releasing ISO images for the version Linux Mint 19.2 BETA. The user can download Cinnamon, MATE, and XFCE editions to try out Mint 19.2 "Tina".
The 'Tina' release will be supported until 2023. It is based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Thisrelease ships the following DE:
- Cinnamon 4.2 (check out What's new in Cinnamon 4.2)
- MATE 1.22
- XFCE 4.12
Linux Mint 19.2 comes with linux-firmware 1.173.8 and the Linux kernel 4.15.0-54.
What's new in Linux Mint 19.2 Beta
Nemo: Pinning items
The Cinnamon file manager, Nemo, now allows pinning files and folders to the top of the file list. This a convenient way to access your important documents faster.
Nemo: Conditional actions
When you right-click a file, you see the actions you can perform on it. Until now these actions could only be generic. Starting with Nemo 4.2, actions can implement their own external condition. Now actions can use scripts or external commands to target specific files under specific conditions.
Generic actions work as follows. When you right-click a picture, you can choose the “Set as Wallpaper” action. This action targets all pictures files. No matter what file you select, if it’s a picture file, you’ll see this action.
Conditional actions: If you right-click an .mkv which is larger than 4GB, the context menu can show a “Split it” command which doesn't appear for smaller files. If you select a video which audio is encoded as DTS, the right-click context menu may show “Convert DTS audio to AC3”. And so on.
In future releases developers are going to assess the performance costs of shipping a multitude of actions. With Nemo 4.2, actions can predict whether they’re needed or not way better than they could ever do in the past, and that will allow action creators to make the right-click menu in the file manager one of the handiest tools in Cinnamon.
Cinnamon menu
Cinnamon is faster and snappier than before. It uses less RAM and it loads faster. Some of these improvements come from the DocInfo and Appsys reviews, some come from the Muffin window manager, and some come from the work done on the application menu. The are covered here:
Cinnamon 4.2 Desktop Environment is out
Beside the performance improvements the application menu now identifies and distinguishes duplicates. If two applications have the same name, the menu will show more information about them.
By default, the application menu shows the Xed app simply as “Text Editor”. If you install Gedit, you no longer end up with two “Text Editor” entries. Instead, you’ll see “Text Editor (Xed)” and “Text Editor (Gedit)”.
The same goes for Flatpaks, if you install a Flatpak app package that you already have installed via the package manager, the menu will distinguish between the two to let you know which one is the one from the repositories and which one is the Flatpak.
Scrollbar settings
A new option allows disable the annoying overlay scrollbars feature that makes them disappear on mouse leave.
Xapps
Pix, along with the text editor, the document reader, the video player and the image viewer were reviewed and support was added to ensure users could use the traditional Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+W keyboard shortcuts.
In the document reader preferences, a zoom selector can now be added to the toolbar.
Other changes include
- New kernel management options in Update Manager: The Update Manager now shows how long kernels are supported, can bulk remove old kernels, and more.
- Software Manager can download missing GPG keys, can scan for duplicate sources and remove them.
- A new “Boot Repair” tool to fix boot issues.
- Performance and pairing improvements made to the Blueberry Bluetooth applet.
- Traditionally, new wallpapers and theme improvements.
Check out the release notes:
- Cinnamon Edition Release Notes
- MATE Edition Release Notes
- XFCE Exdition Release Notes
The download links can be found here:
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