Get ready coz Ulyana is coming

Linux Mint 20 Beta has been released. Lets look what happened.

Introduction

Linux Mint 20 code named ‘Ulyana’. Traditionally Linux Mint codenames take a female name and are alphabetical in sequence. Since all of the Linux Mint 19 codenames were based on the letter ‘T’, it also means the next set of releases will be using codenames based on the letter ‘U’.

Linux Mint 20 will be a LTS release and it will be supported till 2025. There will only be 64-bit version. They dropped the support for 32-bit. Those who are still using 32-bit can continue on Linux Mint 19.x version as they will be supported till 2023.

Key Changes

Linux Mint 20 is based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, the latest long-term support releases of Ubuntu and will use the Linux 5.4 kernel. As usual, Linux Mint will be providing three desktop varients to choose from:

• Cinnamon
• Xfce
• MATE

Cinnamon gets an update

As the Cinnamon desktop environment is the heart of Linux Mint, it gained significant enhancements and features.

The most exciting of these is the support for fractional scaling support in Cinnamon. Its designed for High-Resolution displays and provides new scaling values between 100% and 200%.

As if that wasn’t enough they let you apply different Scaling values to different Monitors and also comes with the ability change monitor refresh rate through an easily-accessible display setting (Ubuntu 20.04 offers this too).

Warpinator

A new file transfer tool has been added with the name Warpinator.

Warpinator is a reimplementation of Giver, a tool which can share files without any server or configuration. Computers would automatically see each other and you could drag and drop to share files. It was removed from Linux Mint as Giver was discontiued.

With Warpinator you could get rid of Server configurations(FTP, Samba) and the use of external media(USBs, External HDDs). Warpinator brings back easy file sharing using local network in Linux Mint.

NIVIDIA Optimus is improved

Linux Mint 20 improves the support of NIVIDIA Optimus.

The Nividia applet now shows your GPU Renderer and now we can select which card to switch from its menu.

Snapd is REMOVED

You read it correct, Snapd is no longer available in Linux Mint and APT Packages are also not allowed to install it.

Although snapd is blocked, you can still install it manually

Download

Linux Mint Cinnamon Linux Mint Mate Linux Mint Xfce

Click the button above and you will be directed to their downloads page.

Be warned: Linux Mint 20 is still in beta, expect some bugs!!

Thats it fellas, See you in the next post. BYE