14 DAY TRIAL // After a couple of months of hard work, the crew behind the Linux Mint project has pushed today, November 30, 2015, the final builds of the Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa) computer operating system.
Distributed in two different editions, with the latest Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments, Linux Mint 17.3 remains based on the long-term supported Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system from Canonical, just as the Linux Mint 17.2 release was.
Linux Mint 17.3 ships with the recently released Cinnamon 2.8 and MATE 1.12 desktop environments, which bring a lot of improvements that we've covered here on Softpedia during the last two months. Of course, both desktops are also available for other GNU/Linux operating systems.
However, the big news that we want to share with you today is that both Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" MATE Edition and Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" Cinnamon Edition distributions have been released ahead of the official announcement. Yes, there's nothing yet published on the official website, but we already know what's new from the Beta builds.
What's new in Linux Mint 17.3 MATE and Cinnamon
Among the highlights of Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon Edition, we can mention that the Software Sources have been greatly improved to be more reliable, responsive, fast, and fully up to date, Update Manager has also been updated to perform more checks, Driver Manager is now more robust than ever before, and the Login Screen has seen some modifications too.
Moreover, Cinnamon 2.8 comes with a great number of changes, such as better settings, backend, and window management, Nemo improvements, visual enhancements, updates to the sound, power, workspace switcher, window list, and system tray applets, as well as higher performance.
On the other hand, the Linux Mint 17.3 MATE Edition brings a revamped Application Menu, screen-tearing, support for the Openbox, Compiz, and Compton window managers, and, of course, all the great new features provided by the MATE 1.12 desktop environment.
Both editions are powered by the Linux kernel 3.19 packages of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system and are supported with security patches and software updates until 2019. Below we've prepared in-depth screenshot tours for your viewing pleasure. Download Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa) Cinnamon and MATE right now from Softpedia.
