14 DAY TRIAL // The Linux Mint developers have released the final version of the "Qiana" Xfce flavor, completing the collection of Mint distributions.
With the release of Linux Mint 17 "Qiana" Xfce, the collection of Mint flavors is now complete. Cinnamon, MATE, KDE, and Xfce are the main versions, but the developers have been dabbling for some time in a Mint release based on Debian. We'll have to wait a little more until those experimental OSes make their entrance in this branch.
Just like all the other releases in the new 17 "Qiana" series, the Xfce flavor is also based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, a distribution that will be supported until 2019. This extended support period will also be adopted by Linux Mint developers and the next three editions of this distro will use the same base, 14.04 LTS.
"Linux Mint 17 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable to use."
"The Update Manager was hugely improved. It shows more information, it looks better, it feels faster, and it gets less in your way. It no longer needs to reload itself in root mode when you click on it. It no longer checks for an Internet connection or waits for the network manager and it no longer locks the APT cache at session startup. The UI was improved, the icons were modified a bit and the changelog retrieval is now much faster and more reliable," say the Linux Mint developers in the release notes.
According to the changelog, users will find that the Update Manager also shows the history of the updates, all the available Linux kernels are now displayed in a separate window, drivers can be installed with the Driver Manager without having to connect to the Internet, the login screen has been improved, background animation has less CPU usage, a new "Language Settings" tool has been added, and the shutdown sequence has been fixed.
Also, the distribution is based on Linux kernel 3.13.x (the same one used by Ubuntu and maintained by Canonical), Xfce 4.10 is implemented by default, users with UEFI systems should be able to install and run the distribution without any problems, and numerous other problems have been fixed.
Check the official announcement for more details about this release. Users can download Linux Mint 17 Xfce "Qiana" right now from Softpedia.
