Linux Mint 17.1 Beats Ubuntu 14.10 – Linux Mint Review, Linux Mint 17.1 been released recently and become the first example of what the Mint project team can do when they’re focused on their own system rather than on making the latest Ubuntu work with Mint.
From Freedom Comes Elegance! That’s because Mint 17.1 sticks with the Ubuntu released earlier this year 2014 – the first time this desktop Linux has not gone with the more recent Ubuntu Linux. It’s a welcome upgrade for Mint fans.
You know that Mint’s flagship Cinnamon desktop, making the Cinnamon becoming the best desktop in Linux, and also it updated to Cinnamon 2.4 version. It lacks any revolutionary features, rather Cinnamon 2.4 polishes, refines and – perhaps most noticeably – speeds up the Cinnamon experience.
From very first time you launch the Cinnamon 2.4 you may be have attracted, which will greet you with a new zooming animation and startup that’s reminiscent of GNOME 3. And it’s a small thing, but it helps establish a more refined feel for Cinnamon desktop right from the start.
Running Linux Mint on A Mac OS Laptop
Speaking of Linux hardware, there are a bunch of small changes that are good news for anyone trying to run Mint on a Mac laptop. Linux Mint 17.1 features support for single-button trackpads. Even better, please go to Settings >> Mouse and Touchpad , here you can easily configure which actions apply to two-finger and three-finger clicks (by default it’s right-click and middle-click respectively).
Nemo – The Best File Explorer in Linux
Talking about File manager in Linux we have the best called Nemo, and in Cinnamon’s it is used as default file browser application, also gets some love. There is particular interest is the new option in Linux Mint 17.1 that let you to change folder colours and add what Mint calls “emblems” to folders. Emblems are best thought of as “sub icons” that sit atop the folder icon – for example the little filmstrip icon that sits atop the Videos folder by default.
On the Nemo sidebars, the Emblems and colour options is visible to us and making it a little easier to find the folder you want at a glance. Regrettably, the colours and emblems are not visible in application open/save dialogs, where they would also be helpful.
The Cinnamon Settings app has been improved with a few new options including a new Privacy Settings pane (to control how long “Recent Files” dialogs store their data), Notification Settings pane, and more. The revamped Background Settings pane now supports background slide shows like in Windows 7, and the Theme settings have been completely redone. The overall settings view also now lists panes in alphabetical order within each category.
In Cinnamon 2.4 everything is done by chock full of small, but welcome, new features and updates. You can also customize or configure desktop font, custom fonts and dates in the screen saver, sound applet improvements, multiple panel launchers, and a new default keyboard shortcut Super+e that opens up the home directory (a la Windows) and of course a lot of bug fixes.
Real improvements for everyone
Various other changes affect both desktops. Linux Mint now uses the Noto fonts by default, and the default theme comes in many other color choices. The Login Window preferences were redesigned, and the Language configuration window now allows much easier installation of “input methods”— welcome news for people who need to write Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and other languages where all the characters aren’t present on the keyboard for easy input.
But perhaps the biggest change is in the Update Manager application. It no longer shows individual package updates, but groups updates by “source package.” This means that—for example—when an update for LibreOffice is available, you won’t simply see a list of 22 packages. Instead, by default, you’ll see a single “LibreOffice” update in the list, although you’re free to drill down if you choose. According to Linux Mint’s developers, installing some individual package updates but not others —for packages like Mesa 3D graphics library, for example—can sometimes break people’s systems, however.
Going hand-in-hand with this change, there’s also a redesigned kernel selection screen that makes it easy to see available kernels along with information about security fixes and known regressions (problems in the new kernel, in other words).
For a more in-depth look at the changes, check out the official lists of new features in Linux Mint 17.1 MATE or new features in Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon.
Overall, this is exactly the kind of release I—and many other Linux users—like to see. While Ubuntu 14.10 just shipped with no visible changes besides version bumps in a number of packages, Linux Mint has made the choice to stick with Ubuntu 14.04 under-the-hood and modify the stuff on top. Linux Mint 17.1 provides a great Linux desktop system, especially if you long for the days of more traditional Linux desktop interfaces.
There’s also a script that included in Cinnamon 2.4 with the update so that you can make the migration setting backup for you, but you’ll need to run it manually. Please refer to Linux Mint’s Segfault blog for more details on how to do that. Linux Mint beat Ubuntu in 2015 and the other face of Mint is the Linux Mint MATE 1.8 desktop, with Compiz animation on the desktop. Read it Here!