14 DAY TRIAL // The Live ISO images for Linux Mint 17 RC “Qiana” have been made available for download for both the Cinnamon and the MATE flavors.
The new Linux Mint 17 RC “Qiana” is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and the first flavors to arrive are Cinnamon and MATE, as it was to be expected. The developers are right on schedule, even if they had to implement some last-minute changes.
“Some of the improvements featured in Linux Mint 17 came extremely late in the release cycle but they all managed to get in and we can’t wait to show you what’s new. Of course, you always find a lot of bugs during the RC process, and we’re ready for your feedback, we know we’re going to be busy. But in the meantime, I found the quality of this release to be outstanding,” said Clement Lefebvre, the leader of the Linux Mint project.
According to him, some bugs that affected multiple past releases, like the shutdown sequence, the inability to install broadcom drivers offline, and a few others have been fixed.
The official announcement hasn't been made yet, but the ISO images are the real deal. You can download Linux Mint 17 RC “Qiana” Cinnamon and Linux Mint 17 RC “Qiana” MATE right now from Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.