Clement Lefebvre published his monthly newsletter to let us know what new features and improvements are being worked on for the next release of the Linux Mint operating system.
Announced last month as the first update to the Linux Mint 19 series, Linux Mint 19.1 is dubbed "Tessa" and it will bring all the goodies from the Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (Bionic Beaver) release on top of the a brand-new Cinnamon 4.0 desktop environment that's yet to see the light of day.
The Cinnamon 4.0 desktop environment in Linux Mint 19.1 looks to shape up as a modern desktop interface thanks to a new panel layout with a larger and darker design. But the good old Cinnamon won't go away, as the developers promise it will be one click away if you don't like the new look.
"Whether you enjoy the new look or prefer the old one, we want everyone to feel at home in their operating system, so you’ll have the option to embrace the change or to click a button to make Cinnamon look just like it did before," said Clement Lefebvre in the monthly newsletter.
Furthermore, Cinnamon 4.0 will bring crispy looking icons, a window list applet that supports app grouping and window previews, and the Mint-Y-Dark theme by default for a more modern look and feel. After installing Linux Mint 19.1, users will be able to choose between the traditional and modern desktop layouts.
Support for mainline kernels, Mint-Y improvements
Apart from the Cinnamon 4.0 desktop environment, which will be the main attraction of the upcoming Linux Mint 19.1 "Tessa" release, the development team plans to add more improvements to the Mint-Y theme to increase its contrast, making labels on windows look sharper, darker, and stand out against their backgrounds.
Among other changes coming to the Linux Mint 19.1 release, we can mention support for symbolic icons in Redshift, NetworkManager-Applet, MATE Volume Control Applet, and the Onboard on-screen keyboard. The XApp library received an icon chooser to make it easier for the XApps to let users select themed icons and paths.
But probably the most important change coming to Linux Mint this winter is support for installing mainline kernels from the Update Manager in case you need a driver for your hardware that's only available in certain Linux kernel versions. Linux Mint 19.1 "Tessa" will see the light of day this Christmas as Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE editions.
