Linux Mint 18.1 “Serena” MATE released!

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The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 18.1 “Serena” MATE Edition.

Linux Mint 18.1 Serena MATE Edition

Linux Mint 18.1 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

New features:

This new version of Linux Mint contains many improvements.

For an overview of the new features please visit:

“What’s new in Linux Mint 18.1 MATE“.

Important info:

The release notes provide important information about known issues, as well as explanations, workarounds and solutions.

To read the release notes, please visit:

“Release Notes for Linux Mint 18.1 MATE”

System requirements:

  • 512MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 9GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
  • 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

Notes:

  • The 64-bit ISO can boot with BIOS or UEFI.
  • The 32-bit ISO can only boot with BIOS.
  • The 64-bit ISO is recommend for all modern computers (Almost all computers sold since 2007 are equipped with 64-bit processors).

Upgrade instructions:

  • If you are running the BETA, click the refresh button in your Update Manager and apply any outstanding level 1 updates.
  • It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 18. Upgrade instructions will be published later this month.

Download links:

Here are the download links for the 64-bit ISO:

A 32-bit ISO image is also available at https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php.

Integrity and authenticity checks:

Once you have downloaded an image, please verify its integrity and authenticity.

Anyone can produce fake ISO images, it is your responsibility to check you are downloading the official ones.

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun with this new release!

73 comments

  1. Thanks once again Clem & the entire team for all the work and effort you put into making Linux Mint world class. Congratulations on your ‘Serena’ release. Love it!

    Reply

  8. Gwenview is not working, broken since 18. It can only display a single image (if invoked properly) but not browse through files and directories. In KDE Edition 18 it works normally. Apparently some essential dependencies were omitted by mistake on transition to KDE 5 and Qt 5. Please pay attention to this issue, there may be a lot of other KDE-related applications broken in the same way.

    Reply

  9. Hi,

    Changing Caja’s background (tiles) was dropped in MATE 1.16 because of GTK3. I know this is not a deal breaker but personally loved the feature very much; it’s one of those little details that make you fall in love with your distro xD xD. Is there any hope you could keep it in this and future versions of Mint Mate? =) =)

    Thank you.

    Edit by Clem: I’m afraid it will go when we switch to GTK3.

    Reply

  10. In Xviewer, modul send as email is not working. (didn’t work in Mint 18 either)
    Email Application opens, image isn’t attached.

    Reply

  13. @ 11 LMDonations

    Are you still trying? 🙂

    Do a Google search for ‘Mint mdadm boot’ or ‘Ubuntu mdadm boot’ to see quite a few entries around this subject area. Apparently, it’s not easy with RAID 0.

    It might be an idea to have a separate (non-RAID) /boot partition on sda and then have the rest of sda and identical partitions on sdb as the RAIDed partitions, for root and /home etc, depending how you like to arrange use of partitions.

    Good Luck

    Reply

  14. at Greybeard:: I like luks/lvm encryption as well. No, I haven’t tried yet, but i read a little on the subject. Seems complicated w many steps prone to fail. However I don’t recall reading how to set it up including encryption.

    Unfortunately again, it seems more feasible under Windooze 7 or 10, plus bitlocker 🙁

    Reply

  17. Thank you guys for this great job.. One feature i was waiting desperately , a very basic one best still lacking in X Reader App is Highlighting the text. I have to use different readers just because of this need. It is very much necessary. Hope it will be soon included

    Reply

  20. Actually I use Linux Mint 18, I aim is to update to Linux Mint 18.1.

    Downloading and trying… Congratulations Mint team.

    Can you update the packages of the GO and Rust programming languages?. Please.

    Greetings from Colombia

    Reply

  22. To The Linuxmint Team, Clem and all those that contribute to mint
    I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas And a Happy New Year
    Greetings From The North Woods Backus MN USA
    and thank you all for such a wonderful world class distro
    I,am looking forward to mint 18.1 xfce

    Reply

  27. Many thanks to the LinuxMint-Team and merry christmas!!!!

    Thank you for this wonderfull OS, since Ubuntu with Unity became useless for me!

    Reply

  28. Please UPGRADE the BCMWL Wlan Packages and Virtual Box to the latest version, otherwise they are broken with the 4.8 KERNEL!

    Reply

  30. Very nice! I made a clean install of /18.1, upgrading from /17.3 (Rosa). I would’ve moved to /18.0, but WebUpd8 had not yet updated the Avant Window Navigator for Xenial (gotta have my MacOS X look ‘n feel).

    Thanks much to Clem and The Crew!

    (and to everyone, חג חנוכה שמח!)

    Reply

  31. Just installed 18 instead of Ubuntu. Mint works fine – looking forward to the upgrade steps from 18 to 18.1. Surprised it’s not part of the release process.

    Reply

  32. After reading the release notes I want to upgrade from LM 18. I’ll be looking for the instructions on how to do this.

    I wanted to tell everyone how fantastic LM 18 Mate really is. I had been running LM 17.3 and decided to upgrade with a fresh install of LM 18. My desktop and all applications now run FASTER than before!!!

    Today I donated $50.00 to the project. I have helped many Windows users to totally convert over to Linux Mint!!! Good work to all.
    Merry Christmas

    Reply

  33. Hallo, I’m a loyal user of LM Mate on my laptop HP Probook 4540s and keep using LM 13 and LM 17.3. Both are running smooth and nice with kernel 3.7.3 that provides best hardware support (inbuilt Intel video and Ralink wifi-bluetooth combo card)
    Still my attempts to get LM Mate 18.1 to run on my laptop were negative. I get too many bugs – wifi keeps failing all the time, unbelievable but the laptop reboots on its own after the shutdown, bluetooth is not working even with the usual (for me) kernel 3.7.3.
    I guess these are more the problems of Ubuntu rather than Linux Mint, but being just an advanced user (rather than geek) I decided to turn back to what I am enjoying so much LM Mate 13 and 17.3 (dual boot). I will make another try once LM Mate 18.2 is ready.
    My best regards to Clem and the great team

    Reply

  34. Many thanks for the exquisite job, Clem and Team.
    Looking forward to upgrade instructions. Don’t make us wait, guys. 😉

    Reply

  35. Hi to all!

    I have been a linux user for over 8 years now.
    Have hopped so many distros that I eventually lost count until I came across Linux Mint. Have been with Linux Mint since Gloria days.
    Even after getting hooked to Linux Mint, I have from time to time, tested out some distros like Fedora, Mageia, and many newbie distros too.
    After all my experiences with so many distros, I have to emphatically say that Linux Mint is, for me, the best all-round daily use OS that you can use with a ‘fill it, shut it, forget it’ attitude.
    It just keeps going and going and going.
    The ease of use, ease of installing packages are absolutely top class.
    I have taught my 63 year old dad, who never used a computer before in his life, to use a PC loaded with Linux Mint 17 MATE. And he is enjoying the experience so far. He uses it to browse, and to play some small Windows games installed through WINE and also Picasa on WINE.
    And I dare say again, the ease of use, especially for newbies, is absolutely top class.
    Hats off to all members of Linux Mint team, all upstream project members, and most especially to all the users of Linux Mint OS as well.
    With love from India,
    Manoj.

    Reply

  38. Answer to 37
    Either Ireland’s HEAnet or the UK’s Kent Uni sites, not helped via applying recent level 1&2 Updates for FireFox 50.1.0

    Reply

  39. was soll mir folgender hinweis der aktualisierungsverwaltung sagen ???
    W: Can’t drop privileges for downloading as file ‘/var/cache/apt/archives/partial/mint-upgrade-info_1.0.6_all.deb’ couldn’t be accessed by user ‘_apt’. – pkgAcquire::Run (13: Keine Berechtigung)

    und warum werden keine ordner installiert oder sonstwas, wenn im recoverymodus das netzwerk aktiviert werden soll.

    so’n blödsinn gab es bisher nocht nicht, weder unter lm12 noch unter lm17,3

    Reply

  40. I made a fresh install of 18.1 MATE after backing up my 18 MATE system. This is really running well on my 64 bit machine with Nvidia graphics card. Merry Christmas everyone on the Mint team and thank you so much for your continuing work on this fun and reliable OS! God Bless.

    Reply

  41. Download from HEAnet now successfully installed BrucesWay on a 16gb Lexar USB3key, hosted on an ‘obsolete’ E5700 and going great – Thank you Clem and a Merry Christmas to you and the team.

    Reply

  44. I just upgraded from Mate 18 to 18.1. It went smoothly without any errors. It runs well on the E6410Dell 64Bit, 5.8GiB. The most important improvement is the shutdown and startup. It starts much faster than before now it is 59 seconds from the dualboot menu, before it was nearly 120 seconds or more. I changed 3 months ago from Cinnamon 18 to Mate 18 because of Virtualbox slowness. With Mate it runs much smoother and also faster.
    Thank you Clem and your team, fantastic work, Merry Christmas and Happy Blissful New Year to you all. God bless you all

    Reply

  45. today I upgraded to 18.1,from 18
    I am unable to resume after suspending, A different type of password box comes on from LM 18, after I type in my password there is a “padlock” and “user” to click on , no response to either . I have too reboot my computer to boot.
    I need help please

    Reply

  46. Thanks Clem and Team. I’ve reinstalled from 17.3 to 18.1 . I’m only interested in MATE, it’s simple to use and just works. The only issue I have is with the WiFi icon not showing, a fault on the three devices I use. No big deal – I think it’s a Ubuntu problem. I reset it with
    “systemctl restart NetworkManager.service”.

    Reply

  47. Been using Mint Mate 17.3 since it came out. Runs superbly on my hardware (amd quad 9550–8gb ram–nvidia gt-gt710) Question, is it worth upgrading since 17.3 runs flawlessly?

    Reply

  48. Hi Guys

    18.1 Mate 32bit, 2gb mem,

    Works great on my old Vaio, thanks a lot for the great work

    Small issue,
    When suspended it will not resume, I am forced to hard reboot.

    last thing in the logs is “suspend”

    Reply

  49. I had a problem with suspend not resuming when laptop lid closed, but it has cleared all by its own.

    Great stuff!

    Merry Christmas.

    Reply

  50. Is there a way to downgrade to mint 18?
    mint 18.1 is causing my panel to lock up constantly.
    The desktop icons work, but the panel quites working after launching a few items.
    No can clicky.

    HELP

    Edit by Clem: Hi Roger, please take the update for cinnamon 3.2.7, it fixes that.

    Reply

  51. @Al (#47)

    Been using LM MATE for 18 moths, and currently I am running MATE 17.3 on my desktop PC. As you say, it runs superbly without ANY bugs and other issues. Sa I ask myself the same question, “is it worth upgrading?”

    Well, IMHO the answer is NO. At least, not now. As Clem says, an upgrade should be “for a reason”. E.g., “because some bug that annoys you is fixed or because you want to get some of the new features”. At least for me, upgrading from a perfectly running 17.3 to a still maturing 18(.x) brings more risks than advantages. I would rather try it on a test machine than take a risk with my main PC. I am going to wait patiently until 18 matures, leaving most of its current issues behind (maybe on 18.3), and then make a fresh install of a new and even better version of my favourite OS. 😉

    Reply

  52. Just to report no measurable differences in performance between an upgrade to Mint 18.1 and a clean install of same. I have 2 hard drives, one has gone through 4 upgrades, now has 18.1 and the other has a clean install. Upgrading Mint is quick and easy and will by no means slow the system or introduce bugs like some commercial OSs do. So you never have to fear an upgrade with Mint. Many thanks to the Linux Mint Team!

    Reply

  53. Hello,

    Another fine edition of LM, but I upgraded so I could get PIA to work and it does not even install? I tried 17.3 where it installed OK but it will not connect regardless of the settings I use taken from the PIA website.

    I will stick with 18 but I hope I can get my money back for PIA?

    Edit by Clem: I assume you’re talking about the PIA client? I heard it had issues with Mint 18.x and Ubuntu Xenial. Please try our own client, we’re working with PIA on this alternative: https://github.com/linuxmint/pia-manager/releases/download/1.0.1/pia-manager_1.0.1_all.deb

    Reply

  54. I want to install the program on a laptop that has a new hard drive ( Toshiba)I have put the program on a flash drive. When I start the laptop with the flash drive nothing happens. I was instructed to download a small program to , and I am guessing here, unpack the Linux program. However this went to my working computer and I cannot find it to send to my laptop. Can you help?

    Reply

  55. Clem: would your PIA client linked above work well with LMDE also?
    thanks

    Edit by Clem: hi Peter, I didn’t test it there yet, but I suppose it should yes.

    Reply

  57. And, just to add, i am still experiencing trouble with the built in Theme function.
    If i refresh the list of online-themes, i am getting:
    -121 % – – 555 / 455 files

    Reply

  60. PIA update – I have to say, yet again, Clem does it again! Within in a few minutes, his configuration file worked perfectly out of the box!

    This is why Linux Mint is one of the best distros out there – if anyone ever had any doubts about Mint, leave them aside and tell as many people as you can, Linux Mint is the way to go.

    Thanks Clem for all your hard work.

    Reply

  61. Just installed LM with Mate 18.1 on a Thinkpad x230 alongside win7, rebooted and pam! keboard, mouse and usb not working. Stuck at “choose user” page!

    Reply

  62. I was waiting for this 1st point release to make the jump from 17.3 MATE. I’m planning on a hardware upgrade to a Kaby Lake CPU & an H270 chipset motherboard. We’re still on kernel 4.4 with 18.1 so question: Will 18.1 run on this new Intel hardware or will a kernel upgrade be offered once Kaby Lake debuts?

    Reply

  63. Dear Clem I like LM18.1 64 bit on Lenovo t420 after upgrading from LM 17.3, however I am experiencing freezing of desktop. I frequently have to press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace logging in again. I hope that an update will solve the problem. Or do you have any ideas I could try. I have cleaned out tmp using sudo and .cache several times.

    Reply

  64. I suspect that it will be of complete disinterest, but I am pleased to report that BrucesWay installation of 64bit MintSerenaMate on 16GB USB3keys has enabled the supply of ready-to-go tutorial Mint to friends and family, avoiding the need for them to wrestle with installation!

    Reply

  66. Internet connection icon issue – Re #46.
    I have LM18.1 MATE 64B and 32B on three of my machines, Acer M3920 desktop, Dell 1545 laptop and a Zoostorm 10/240 netbook which all have the intermittent WiFi icon issue in that coming up from ‘sleep’ I see RJ45 icon even though I am still using WiFi. I reset with ‘systemctl restart NetworkManager.service ‘. Is there a permanent fix?

    Reply

  67. With Cinnamon 18 it was a typical Linux start page with 18.1 the whole feel has changed how can I put it, it feels and looks professional the same feeling you get with the big boys like Apple and MS. When I have tried Linux distro’s in the past the feeling you got that it had been hatched up by amateurs, it the whole thing felt wrong and if you did not use or know command line you were excluded from using any Linux system. With the start of distro’s like Robolinux and several other new distro who were trying to make Linux more accessible to ordinary people who only knew Microsoft, they were not very pleasing or easy to use. When I had enough of Microsoft cash cow Windows 10 because I was not pleased with their data collection and some other things and decided to look at Linux again I downloaded Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1. Well it was easy to use but a bit of a clod all I can say it was usable, when 17.2 came out it was better but not ideal. Now when Cinnamon 18 came out it was better than 17.2 but well still looked old fashioned but now with 18.1 it looks and feels a professional job, it is slick, looks good, feels good, great boot up time it is the whole thing, Linux distros have always looked amateur but this is the bees knees. Pros,quick boot up, all the aps you could want about 3000, well presented and slick looking, easy to use, long term support until 2023, no automatic updates you don’t have to download any or all updates if you do not want to it is entirely up to you. The ambiance of the distro is professional and slick, what more could you want

    Reply

  68. PANEL ON THE SIDE FOR CINNAMON: OUTSTANDING!

    I resisted Cinnamon for a time with MATE and then caved — as I disdained being forced to have my primary panel on the bottom. Now, with my penguin happily in the top left (yes, I change the Menu icon), I feel at home once again. So very happy! Many thanks to you, Mint and Cinnamon team!

    Reply

  69. please give linux mint multimedia codex preinstalled like before 🙂 or atleast a multimedia player thaht can play any multimedia files like vlc or smplayer preinstalled thanks

    Reply

  70. Thanks a lot. Absolutely new to Linux and very basic knowledge of computers and software. Works like a charm on my (very) old notebook.

    It was either throwing it away or try giving it a new life with this OS. It became the latter. Thanks again!

    Reply

  71. Just after Mate 18.1 was released I installed it with no problems, but suddenly, couldn’t open new versions of either Firefox or Thunderbird – just got crash notices from Mozilla. That was FF 50.1.0. I thought it was problem with Mate 18.1, but after having applied recent update packages on Mate 18, 17.3, 17.2, I got same problems with FF & TB crashing, not even opening, also. Yesterday, upon reinstalling Mate 18.1, I thought that maybe my problem could be the Adobe Flash Player plugin update in the batch of update files (which included FF 50.1.0), so I didn’t install AFP. Restarted, & now FF & TB start up with no problems. Replicated same results on other Mate versions I have installed for testing purposes, after I removed AFP plugin via Synaptic. Hope that helps someone else who has been having troubles with FF & TB. Other than that Mate 18.1 is working fine on my somewhat dated desktop computer. Thank you Clem & LM team!

    Reply

  72. In release Mate 17.x I had customised the icons of the mintUpdate in the systemtray. Why is this not possible anymore in Mate 18.x?

    Reply

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