Linux Mint 18.2 will be called "Sonya" and will come with Cinnamon 3.4 and LightDM

On the last day of April, Clement Lefebvre, leader of the Linux Mint project, has published the monthly newsletter to inform the community about the future news of this Ubuntu-based distribution.

The developer assures all those still using Linux Mint 13 "Maya" that this version has reached the end of its life and that it was based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin), which also reached the end of his life on April 28. Therefore, Linux Mint 14 will no longer receive security updates and must be updated to a new version.

The developer then reveals the codename of the upcoming Linux Mint 18.2, which will be "Sonya", in order to commemorate the name of the late wife of Michael Webster, one of the developers involved in the Linux Mint project.

The biggest novelties of the next Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" are the presence of Cinnamon 3.4 desktop environment, which is currently in development and promises several major changes, such as the Nemo file manager, as well as the inclusion of the session manager LightDM as default session manager which will make use of the Slick-Greeter screen as the default home screen, which is somewhat similar to the welcome screen of Unity.

Also, the new version will come with a function called “setting Daemon”Which would help users identify and terminate processes or components of the operating system that are using excessive memory or processor without having to reboot the entire system.

Finally, note that MATE 1.18 desktop environment is coming soon to the LMDE operating system (Linux Mint Debian Edition), probably next week. Both Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” and the Cinnamon 3.4 desktop environment are currently in the process of development, so for now there are not even exact dates for their public release.