Linux mint 20 ulyana cinnamon edition

Release notes

This is Linux Mint 20, codename Ulyana.

Linux Mint 20 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2025. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.

Known issues

Shutdown timeout

For your convenience, the shutdown timeout is reduced to 10s.

If you rely on lengthy operations to finish before shutdown, read /etc/systemd/system.conf.d/50_linuxmint.conf and override the timeout value in /etc/systemd/system.conf.d/60_custom.conf.

Grub2 theme in HiDPI

If the grub2 theme looks too small in your HiDPI monitor, install the «grub2-theme-mint-2k» package.

Snap Store

The Snap Store is disabled in Linux Mint 20. For more information on this or to re-enable it read https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html.

Virtualbox

If the screen is black when launching Linux Mint in Virtualbox, change the VirtualBox graphics controller to «VMSVGA». Do this by opening up the settings for your VM and select Display -> Graphics Controller.

If the screen is garbled when launching Linux Mint in Virtualbox, switch to console with HOST+F1 (e.g. the RIGHT Ctrl key, no ALT) and back to tty7 with HOST+F7.

Another workaround is to disable «nested paging» (in the System -> Acceleration settings) and to increase the video memory to 128MB (in the Display settings).

Note: This issue only affects the live session. You don’t need these workarounds post-installation.

To add support for shared folders, drag and drop, proper acceleration and display resolution in Virtualbox, click on the «Devices» menu of Virtualbox and choose «Insert Guest Additions CD Image». Choose «download» when asked and follow the instructions.

Home directory encryption

Benchmarks have demonstrated that, in most cases, home directory encryption is slower than full disk encryption.

The move to systemd caused a regression in ecrypts which is responsible for mounting/unmounting encrypted home directories when you login and logout. Because of this issue, please be aware that in Mint 20 and newer releases, your encrypted home directory is no longer unmounted on logout: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/1734541.

Guest sessions

You can still enable guest sessions in the «Login Window» utility, but this option is now disabled by default.

Touchpad drivers

The default touchpad driver in this edition is «libinput» (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-libinput package).

If you experience problems with it, you can switch to another driver called «synaptics» (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package).

To know which driver is used by your input devices, run the following command:

grep -i «Using input driver» /var/log/Xorg.0.log

When both drivers are installed, «synaptics» takes priority.

To switch to the «synaptics» driver, install it with the command:

apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then log out and log back in.

To go back to using «libinput», simply remove the «synaptics» driver:

apt remove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then log out and log back in.

Note: You can also try installing the «evdev» driver (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-evdev).

To install the complete version of WINE, open a terminal and type:

apt install wine-installer

Among other things, this will install wine-desktop-files, which adds menu entries for regedit, your C:\ drive and other items which are missing from upstream WINE.

Sound and microphone issues

If you’re facing issues with your microphone or your sound output, please install «pavucontrol».

This will add «PulseAudio Volume Control» to your menu. This application has more configuration options than the default volume control.

DVD Playback with VLC

If VLC does not find your DVD player, click on Media->Open Disc, and specify ‘/dev/sr0’ as the disc device.

Other issues

Linux Mint 20 is based on Ubuntu 20.04. Make sure to read the Ubuntu release notes.

Username and password in the live session

In the live session, the username is «mint» and the password is empty (i.e. just press Enter if asked for a password).

Moving windows which don’t fit in the screen

If your screen resolution is too low, some windows might not fit in the screen.

While pressing the ALT key, you can grab any part of a window with the mouse and move it across the screen.

Installing multimedia codecs offline

To download the multimedia codecs into an installable archive:

• Boot from the Linux Mint ISO on a computer which is connected to the Internet
• Open a terminal and type «apt download mint-meta-codecs» (without the quotes)
• This creates a «mint-meta-codecs.tgz» archive

On computers which do not have an Internet access, you can decompress this archive and run ./install.sh (or alternatively «sudo dpkg -i *.deb») to install the multimedia codecs.

Solving freezes during the boot sequence

Some graphics cards don’t work well with the open-source driver present in Linux Mint.

If Linux Mint freezes during boot time, use the «Compatibility Mode» boot option.

In this mode you should be able to boot Linux Mint and install it on your computer.

After the installation, reboot the computer and wait for the boot menu to appear.

Add the «nomodeset» option as illustrated below:

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If your graphics card is from NVIDIA, once in Linux Mint, perform the following steps to install the NVIDIA drivers:

• Run the Driver Manager
• Choose the NVIDIA drivers and wait for them to be installed
• Reboot the computer

With these drivers the system should now be stable and you no longer need to use «nomodeset».

Note: If you’re using an Optimus card, you’ve nothing more to do. Upon reboot, a system tray icon should show up indicating which GPU is currently active. Click on it to switch GPUs.

Note: If you still cannot boot try one of the following solutions:

• Try with «nouveau.noaccel=1» instead of «nomodeset».
• Try with «noapic noacpi nosplash irqpoll» instead of «quiet splash».
• After the installation, use «Advanced Options» -> «Recovery mode» from the boot menu and choose «resume».

Choosing the right version of Linux Mint

Each new version comes with a new kernel and a newer set of drivers. Most of the time, this means newer versions are compatible with a larger variety of hardware components, but sometimes it might also introduce regressions. If you are facing hardware issues with the latest version of Linux Mint and you are unable to solve them, you can always try an earlier release. If that one works better for you, you can stick to it, or you can use it to install Linux Mint and then upgrade to the newer release.

Thanks to your donations and advertising Linux Mint is completely free of charge. We hope you’ll enjoy using it as much as we enjoy working on it.

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Linux Mint 20.2 «Uma»

Ready to download?

Linux Mint is available in 3 different flavors. Choose an edition below.

For more information read the installation instructions.

Cinnamon Edition

The most popular version of Linux Mint is the Cinnamon edition. Cinnamon is primarily developed for and by Linux Mint. It is slick, beautiful, and full of new features.

MATE Edition

Linux Mint is also involved in the development of MATE, a classic desktop environment which is the continuation of GNOME 2, Linux Mint’s default desktop between 2006 and 2011. Although it misses a few features and its development is slower than Cinnamon’s, MATE runs faster, uses fewer resources and is more stable than Cinnamon.

Xfce Edition

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment. It doesn’t support as many features as Cinnamon or MATE, but it’s extremely stable and very light on resource usage.

Thanks to your donations and advertising Linux Mint is completely free of charge. We hope you’ll enjoy using it as much as we enjoy working on it.

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New Features

Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon

Linux Mint 20 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2025. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.

Warpinator

The star of the show in Linux Mint 20 is a new application called Warpinator.

10 years ago, Linux Mint 6 featured a tool called «Giver» which could share files across the local network. Without any server or configuration, computers would automatically see each others and you could simply drag and drop files from one to another. When the Giver project was discontinued it had to be removed from Linux Mint and we’ve been missing that functionality ever since.

Warpinator is a reimplementation of Giver. Server configuration (FTP, NFS, Samba) is overkill for casual file transfers between two computers, and it’s a real pity to use external media (Internet services, USB sticks, external HDDs) just to share files when there’s a local network which could do just that.

With Warpinator, Linux Mint 20 brings back easy file sharing across the local network.

The main window shows you the computers on the local network which are also running Warpinator:

By clicking on a computer you can see more information about it and exchange files with it:

No more USB sticks or external drive are needed just to send a file.

NVIDIA Optimus

Linux Mint 20 features improved support for NVIDIA Optimus.

The NVIDIA Prime applet now shows your GPU renderer and you can select which card to switch to straight from its menu.

The NVIDIA «On-Demand» profile is also now fully supported. When you run in that mode, it is your Intel card which renders the session and a menu option is available to let you offload a particular application to your NVIDIA card.

Select an application in the menu, right-click and select «Run with NVIDIA GPU». It’s that simple.

From the command-line, two new commands are available to offload to GLX or to Vulkan:

To boost compatibility and make it easier to boot Linux Mint 20 in live mode without NVIDIA drivers, «nomodeset» was also added to the «Compatibility Mode».

XAppStatusIcon received the ability to handle mouse wheel scrolling events and a new function similar to gtk_menu_popup() which makes it even easier than before to port applications from GtkStatusIcon.

In all editions (Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce) many of the tray icons were harmonized, given symbolic icons and HiDPI support.

Blueberry, mintupdate, mintreport, nm-applet, mate-power-manager, mate-media, redshift, rhythmbox all use XAppStatusIcon and give the tray a consistent look in Mint 20.

Cinnamon 4.6

The performance of the Nemo file manager was improved. The new version tries to prioritize content and navigation and to delay thumbnails as much as possible. As a result, the content of directories shows up with generic icons before the thumbnails are rendered, but the improvement in performance is quite noticeable.

This also has a positive impact on performance in cases of heavy I/O and slow HDDS, such as when moving videos to external devices.

In the Display Settings, it is now possible to set the refresh rate.

Cinnamon 4.6 also introduces fractional scaling. Until now your scaling was either 100% (normal mode) or 200% (HiDPI mode) and it was the same for all your monitors. With Cinnamon 4.6 each monitor can have a different scaling and it can be set to values in between 100% and 200%.

In normal mode the resolution you set is the resolution you see. In HiDPI, at 200% scaling, the screen is showing twice the pixel density so everything looks sharper, but the resolution you see on the screen is only half the resolution of your monitor. Many HiDPI displays have a resolution which is actually quite small once HiDPI is activated.

Take a 13″ Macbook Retina 2013. Its screen resolution is 2560×1600. That’s too much for a 13″ screen; Applications, text and desktop items look way too small. In HiDPI mode, the screen shows twice the pixel density and everything looks really crisp, but look what happens to the resolution… it gets halved to 1280×800. The problem then is that 800px is not enough in terms of screen space, and some applications don’t even fit in it. A display like this one looks perfect in 1200px and that unfortunately means reducing the actual resolution to 1200px and not using HiDPI.

Another issue with HiDPI is multi-monitor support. You could plug an external monitor to this Macbook in the hope to stay in HiDPI on the laptop but to be in normal mode on the monitor. That wasn’t possible before though, either all screens or none at all could be in HiDPI. and a non-HiDPI compatible screen set in HiDPI was just unusable.

Fractional scaling addresses these limitations. By being able to set the scaling for each monitor independently and allow for scaling values of not only 100% and 200% but also 125%, 150%, 175%, Cinnamon 4.6 tries to get higher pixel density and to allow HiDPI and non-HiDPI monitors to play well with each others.

In the example of the Macbook plugged to a non-HiDPI monitor, we’d typically set the Macbook to 150% and the monitor to 100%. Under the hood, the entire desktop environment would run in HiDPI mode, but the actual scaling of the Macbook screen would be reduced from 200% to 150% and the scaling of the monitor from 200% to 100%. We’d end up with a monitor which looks perfectly normal, and a Macbook screen which has a nice 1200px resolution and a «half-hidpi» 1.5 pixel density, which doesn’t look as crisp as full-hidpi, but looks crisper than in normal mode.

Middle-clicking the keyboard applet cycles keyboard layouts.

Cinnamon screensaver supports custom commands, making it possble to use alternative screen lockers with Cinnamon.

XApps improvements

Xed received the ability to join lines together and to remove trailing whitelines before saving files.

Xviewer received fullscreen and diaporama toolbar buttons and remembers if its window was maximized.

In Xreader a print button was added to the toolbar.

To guarantee better support for modern Electron apps and indicators XappStatusIcon received mouse wheel support and SNI (StatusNotifier, libIndicator) support.

Other improvements

Gdebi, the tool used to open and install .deb files was given a new user interface.

The login screen (Slick Greeter) supports stretching backgrounds across multiple monitors.

Artwork improvements

The Mint-Y theme provides a nice variety of colors. A community project was started on Github to gather feedback and fine-tune these colors to find the right balance between colorful vibrant hues and contrast levels which don’t take the user’s focus away from the content being shown on the screen.

Yellow folders are also available.

As you enter the Linux Mint 20 desktop for the first time, the welcome screen will bring these colors to your attention and ask you which one you enjoy the most:

System improvements

Apturl switched backend from Synaptic to Aptdaemon.

APT recommends are enabled by default for newly installed packages (not for upgrades).

Snapd is disabled by default and APT packages are not allowed to install it.

Live sessions running under Virtualbox automatically get their resolution bumped to a minimum of 1024×768.

This release ships with linux-firmware 1.187.

Main components

Linux Mint 20 features Cinnamon 4.6, a Linux kernel 5.4 and an Ubuntu 20.04 package base.

LTS strategy

Linux Mint 20 will receive security updates until 2025.

Until 2022, future versions of Linux Mint will use the same package base as Linux Mint 20, making it trivial for people to upgrade.

Until 2022, the development team won’t start working on a new base and will be fully focused on this one.

Thanks to your donations and advertising Linux Mint is completely free of charge. We hope you’ll enjoy using it as much as we enjoy working on it.

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