The release will be supported until 2023

Jan 3, 2018 12:30 GMT  ·  By

The Linux Mint project announced a few moments ago the codename and approximate release date of the upcoming Linux Mint 19 operating system.

Announced during the Christmas holidays, Linux Mint 19 will be the next major release of the acclaimed, Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distribution used by millions of users around the world. As we already guessed, this series will be based on the upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system.

What we didn't know was the codename and release date, and Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre announced today that the upcoming Linux Mint 19.x series would be codenamed "Tara," which is a popular name in Ireland where he lives, and will be released sometime in May or June 2018.

"Tara is a popular name here in Ireland, and the name of someone we really like," says Clement Lefebvre. "Linux Mint 19 is estimated to be released around May/June 2018. Linux Mint 19.x releases will be based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and supported until 2023. Linux Mint 19.x will use GTK 3.22."

Linux Mint 19's development cycle kicked off

The development cycle of Linux Mint 19 starts now, and it would appear that the distro will adopt many of the new GNU/Linux technologies of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, due for release on April 26, 2018. One of these is the move to the latest GTK+ 3 toolkit for the theme engine, which will also be implemented in LMDE 3.

Clement Lefebvre says that the upcoming Linux Mint 19.x series will become their main development platform, which should ease the development process and increase the quality of various core components outside of the Linux Mint project. All in all, Linux Mint 19 promises to be an awesome release for Linux Mint fans.

But Linux Mint 19 "Tara" also brings some bad news, especially for the fans of the KDE Plasma desktop evnironment, as it would appear that there won't be a Linux Mint KDE Edition released during this cycle. Linux Mint 19 will be shipping with the Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce editions, supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.