It could arrive in May based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Apr 30, 2018 20:38 GMT  ·  By

Linux Mint founder and lead developer Clement Lefebvre published another Monthly News newsletter today, this time for the month of April 2018, to keep the community up-to-date with the development of the upcoming Linux Mint 19 "Tara" operating system.

Now that Canonical released the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system, on which Linux Mint 19 "Tara" will be based, it's time for the Linux Mint team to finalize their releases. There's still no fixed release date for Linux Mint 19 "Tara," nor LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 3, but Clement Lefebvre said they will arrive soon.

While the beta versions are expected to land early next month, along with the official unveiling of the Cinnamon 3.8 desktop environment, the final releases should be out 2-3 weeks after that. So we're now looking at the end of May or early June for the final Linux Mint 19 "Tara" and LMDE 3 releases.

Clement Lefebvre also confirmed that the Linux Mint 19 "Tara" operating system series will have up to three maintenance updates, namely Linux Mint 19.1, Linux Mint 19.2, and Linux Mint 19.3, and will be available in three editions with the Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce desktop environments for both in 64-bit and 32-bit computers.

On the other hand, LMDE 3 will be available in a single edition with the Cinnamon 3.8 desktop environment, supporting both in 32-bit and 64-bit installations. Regarding some essential features, the team is working on keeping home directory encryption for Linux Mint 19 "Tara," while LMDE 3 won't get full-disk or home directory encryption.

Linux Mint 19 "Tara" won't collect or send personal or system data

Another interesting thing in Linux Mint 19 "Tara" is that it won't collect or send any personal or system data as Clement Lefebvre confirmed today the operating system would not include the "ubuntu-report" that Canonical implemented in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) to allow users to optionally send their data.

LMDE 3 will be based on the Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system series, so it won't include such data collection mechanism either. For now, the Linux Mint devs are working hard on last-minute improvements to in-house built tools like Update Manager, Software Manager, and Welcome Screen.