14 DAY TRIAL // The desktop environments for both Linux Mint Cinnamon and Linux Mint MATE are about to receive a very important update that will bring some significant changes and improvements.
The two main flavors of the Linux Mint project are Cinnamon and MATE. These are the most used, with a lot of users. In fact, Linux Mint is the second most used operating system after Ubuntu, so you can imagine that a lot of people eagerly await any important update for their distro.
Starting with the 17.x branch of Linux Mint, the developers decided to only use the Ubuntu LTS releases as a base, and they said that it would help them push more updates and make changes much more often. That actually happened, and it is the main reason we see today that an update for Cinnamon and MATE are promised mid-way through the cycle. It would have been much more difficult to make these changes with the previous release model.
Cinnamon 2.6 and MATE 1.10 to land very soon
Cinnamon and MATE aren't just some packages that can be upgraded like all the others. Some of the core components for Linux distros are pretty sensitive, and they need to be tested thoroughly before they reach the bulk of the users.
"Cinnamon 2.6 reached feature-freeze. Its stable release is planned for the end of this month. It could adopt the 2.6 labels early and get into the Romeo repositories for Rebecca and Betsy though. The MATE 1.10 release is just around the corner. Upstream, only a few components are yet to be labeled 1.10. Packaging for Betsy and Rafaela started and is 57% complete," said Clement Lefebvre, the leader of the Linux Mint project.
As it stands right, you can download Linux Mint Cinnamon and Linux Mint Mate from Softpedia and keep them updated. Both Cinnamon 2.6 and MATE 1.10 will arrive soon.