Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” arrives with Cinnamon 5.8, improvements and more

Recently the release of the new version of Linux Mint 21.2 with the codename “Victoria” was announced, version that comes with Cinnamon 5.8 and in its other editions with MATE 1.26 and Xfce 4.18. This new version comes with a large number of changes and improvements that we will talk about below.

As such, the Linux Mint 21 branch is classified as a long-term support (LTS) release, with updates running until 2027.

Main new features of Linux Mint 21.2

In the main version of Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria", the inclusion of Cinnamon 5.8 stands out in which added the concept of styles that offer three color modes for interface elements: Mixed (dark menus and controls with a light overall window background), dark and light. For each mode, you can choose your own color variant. Style and color options allow you to get popular interface templates without having to select separate skins.

Added the ability to control virtual windows and desktops using on-screen gestures, as well as use gestures to tile and control the playback of multimedia content. Gestures on touch screens and touch panels are supported and notifications use symbolic icons and colors used to highlight active items (accent).

Also noteworthy was the addition of the ability to resize applets with the mouse, which is included in the menu applet, as well as added settings to return the original size of the menu and resize based on the scaling factor. zoom.

Added the ability to use the Switcheroo VGA subsystem to switch between different GPUs on laptops with hybrid graphics, also a setting to change the mouse pointer after completing the Alt+Tab action and a setting to change the behavior of the middle mouse button, which is used by default for pasting from the clipboard.

Besides it the login screen (Slick-greeter) provides support for switching between multiple keyboard layouts. When you click on the active layout indicator, located in the upper right corner, a menu is provided to select a layout.

It is also highlighted that the login screen also adds support for sessions based on the Wayland protocol and a scrollable list of sessions, as well as the ability to customize the layout on the on-screen keyboard.

Keyboard navigation was improved, since the cursor keys can now be used when editing a password in the login form, plus an icon has been added to the password input field to show the entered password instead of showing asterisks.

Work with themes has been reorganized and the structure of themes has been simplified. For example, brown and sand colors were unified, support for colored stripes in pictograms, where symbolic pictograms may be involved, was removed. For active (highlighted) menu items, the icon color has been changed from black to white.

Added Freedesktop portals implementation (xdg-desktop-portal), which are used to improve compatibility with applications that are not native to current userspace (for example, libadwaita-based GNOME applications) and provide access to userspace resources from space applications isolated (for example, flatpak packages) ) . Portal-enabled third-party apps have the ability to take screenshots and add support for a dark theme.

Of the other changes that stand out:

• Updated UI in app install manager.
• Improved algorithms for classifying and grouping applications.
• The Recommended Apps list has been redesigned to include apps submitted in Flatpak format.
• Improved display of applications that are gaining popularity.
•  Added support for AVIF/HEIF and JXL formats.
• Added support for color profiles.
• Improved scale control.
• Added new effects and image editing tools.
• Added support for color profiles. Customizable dark mode has returned.
• The file manager uses new two-tone icons and multi-threaded thumbnail generation is enabled.
• New color options have been proposed.
• Changed the layout of the tooltip.
• Removed tooltip differences between GTK2 and GTK3 based apps and Cinnamon.
• Redesigned buttons in the window header.

Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link

Download and try Linux Mint 21.2 “Victory”

For those who are interested in being able to test this new versionPlease note that the generated builds are based on MATE 1.26 (2,8 GB), Cinnamon 5.8 (2,8 GB) and Xfce 4.18 (2,8 GB).

The link of download is this.