14 DAY TRIAL // Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre published March 2018's newsletter to let the community know about some of the exciting features coming to the Linux Mint operating system this summer.
As you're probably aware, the Linux Mint 19 "Tara" release is currently in development, and it's coming in June based on Canonical's upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system with the latest Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments, as well as up-to-date applications and GNU/Linux technologies.
One of the new features included in the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 19 "Tara" is the ability to configure the maximum volume. In other words, you'll be able to raise the volume over the 100 percent limit. This is possible thanks to a new setting in Cinnamon's Sound panel, allowing volume amplification to up to 150 percent.
"In the past, the applet and the multimedia keys allowed you to set the sound volume between 0 and 100%, and you could open the sound settings to get access to amplification and set the volume all the way to 150%," said Clement Lefebvre. "This was changed. A new setting was added to define the maximum sound volume."
As in Ubuntu's case, Linux Mint users will now be able to raise the volume using either Cinnamon's sound applet, the dedicated multimedia keys on their laptops, as well as the sound settings (see the screenshot below). Of course, this sound amplification will benefit mostly laptop users, but also other Linux Mint users.
Xreader gets PDF improvements, support for smooth-scrolling
The upcoming Linux Mint 19 "Tara" operating system will also bring updated XApps, starting with the Xreader document reader, which received better PDF support, the ability to remove annotations, support for saving EPUB documents, as well as the ability to change the size of the thumbnails, which can be saved for each document.
Furthermore, Xreader now has a new preferences dialog, offers better smooth-scrolling support, shows you recently opened PDF documents if recent documents are enabled in your desktop’s privacy settings, lets users expand the buttons in the toolbar, and allows you to add history.
Lastly, Linux Mint devs have started using the Meson build system for their projects, reporting an extremely positive experience Meson is already being used on all the XApps, the Cinnamon desktop environment and Nemo file manager, as well as xplayer-plparser, but it's likely to be used on all Linux Mint projects.
