It's been about four years now that I came across this project on Twitter (I don't remember how) and I started writing everything I learned about it. It was great news, since it was a possible new flavor, but the excitement was leaving, or rather, dividing with the arrival of other projects. Now, Josuah Peisach and his team have the pleasure of announce Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04, his first release already under the umbrella of the company directed by Mark Shuttleworth.
This is not an article that is going to talk about the story behind this new official flavor. It is another like the many that we have published this afternoon, and in it we are going to talk about the new arrivals from Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04. We will also link to some articles of interest, for those who are thinking about how this project differs from the very popular Linux Mint. But one thing at a time. Let's go with the news.
Highlights of Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04
- Supported for 9 months, until January 2024.
- Linux 6.2.
- Cinnamon 5.6.7 (complete list).
- systemd v252.5.
- Use the new Ubuntu font.
- Updated software, among which we find Firefox 111, LibreOffice 7.5.2, Thunderbird 102.10 and other such as Python 3.11, GCC 13, GlibC 2.37, Ruby 3.1, golang 1.2 and LLVM 16.
- Fixed bugs like:
- Improved keyboard navigation in scale and expo view.
- The reloading of the GWL app.
- Themes will now show up in the themes menu, even if they don't have GTK2 support.
- The inverted scroll in the app switcher.
- New functions:
- Theme separation (light vs. dark vs. darker popup).
- Ability to block desktops on the site.
- System icon in the system information tab (can be activated).
- Lots of new keyboard shortcuts and inputs.
- Notification duration settings.
- Nemo 5.6.3.
- Muffins 5.6.2.
- Right now it uses the normal installer, which Canonical already refers to as "Legacy". In the future they plan to use the new one, the one based on Flutter.
Interested users can now download the ISO image from the following button:
And what about Linux Mint?
How to Live Aligned with we already explained As of Summer 2019, neither Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04 nor any other version of this flavor is intended to compete with Linux Mint. In short, the relationship is comparable to that of KDE neon and Kubuntu: Kubuntu is a bit more conservative, and also does a bit of things as the ones above tell it to, i.e. Canonical. KDE neon receives updates earlier and they don't have to explain to anyone, but they also "eat" bugs if they appear as soon as packages are uploaded.
Having explained this, you have to assess what you are looking for and decide. Linux Mint is a great project, but Canonical also has its weight. Do we prefer something more proven even if they force us to use snaps or go to the source with all that that entails?
In any case, we already have a new version of Ubuntu Cinnamon and a new official flavor.