Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” – BETA Release

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This is the BETA release for Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia”.

Linux Mint 21.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027. 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 21.3“.

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 21.3”

System requirements:

  • 2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended).
  • 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

Upgrade instructions:

  • This BETA release might contain critical bugs, please only use it for testing purposes and to help the Linux Mint team fix issues prior to the stable release.
  • Upgrade instructions will be published after the stable release of Linux Mint 21.3.
  • It will be possible to upgrade from this BETA to the stable release.
  • It will also be possible to upgrade from Linux Mint 21, 21.1 and Linux Mint 21.2.

Bug reports:

  • Bugs in this release should be reported on Github at https://github.com/linuxmint/mint21.3-beta.
  • Create one issue per bug.
  • As described in the Linux Mint Troubleshooting Guide, do not report or create issues for observations.
  • Be as accurate as possible and include any information that might help developers reproduce the issue or understand the cause of the issue:
    • Bugs we can reproduce, or which cause we understand are usually fixed very easily.
    • It is important to mention whether a bug happens “always”, or “sometimes”, and what triggers it.
    • If a bug happens but didn’t happen before, or doesn’t happen in another distribution, or doesn’t happen in a different environment, please mention it and try to pinpoint the differences at play.
    • If we can’t reproduce a particular bug and we don’t understand its cause, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to fix it.
  • The BETA phase is literally a bug squashing rush, where the team is extremely busy and developers try to fix as many bugs as fast as possible.
  • There usually are a huge number of reports and very little time to answer everyone or explain why a particular report is not considered a bug, or won’t get fixed. Don’t let this frustrate you, whether it’s acknowledged or not, we appreciate everyone’s help.

Download links:

Cinnamon Edition:

MATE Edition:

Xfce Edition:

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. Many thanks in advance for testing the BETA!

62 comments

  1. Thank you for this beautiful system, it’s been the most pleasing computer I have ever used, since I installed it 3 years ago. It’s great to see you’re still focusing on pleasing the user community and attracting new users, not the media or companies.
    I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

    Reply

    1. Thanks, that’s a really nice message. Merry Christmas to you too and to everyone.

      It’s a small release in terms of new features but under the hood we’ve reached really important milestones. Most of the development cycle was spent on mid to long-term aspects which are very important for us: ISO/live-build/Secureboot, reducing differences between LMDE and Mint, Wayland compatibility.

    2. yes cleam and his team are doing great.

      thank you for everything clem. thank you for your bravery. your spiritual mind and your ideas. thank you for your courage to get everything going here for the linux idea / spirit.

      i wish you happy christmas days and, above all, a relaxing time.

    3. @Clem Merry Christmas from me too! Could you please tell me which ISO building tools you used in the past and which you are using now for Mint and LMDE?

    4. We used to build on a dedicated server which ran an old version of live-build which we had forked years ago and which we had been modifying since. It was very stable but not flexible at all, and getting compatibility with new technology was always challenging. We recently moved to a new framework which uses docker to spawn a Debian image and run its version of live-build. If you run “isoinfo -d -i” on the ISO image you can see the version of live-build it’s built with.

    5. It also attracts the media and companies otherwise none of them would be its sponsor. Also, in my country there’s a very popular computer brand that ships Linux Mint as default system.

  2. Clem & team! You guys rock! Hats off to all your hardwork and support to make Linux mint as a most user-friendly operating system. Ive been using Linux mint from 4 years and I have no regrets! I also recommend Linux mint to all my friends in India, some of them have switched from windows and are very happy. Merry Christmas to you guys from India! Thanks a lot for this wonderful OS and constantly positive user experience!

    Reply

  3. Dear Clem & team. Just installed it on a Virtualbox, everything seems fine. I am now walking around it and customizing to my taste. Thanks a lot for all your work and dedication

    Reply

  4. Thank you.

    After seven years of using Mint I am now, finally, in a position to give on Patreon. It’s not a lot of money and certainly less than the value you’ve given me from a free operating system, but it’s better than nothing.

    I’m installing the beta in a VM and will report any bugs I find.

    Reply

  6. I’ve downloaded and installed the 21.3 Beta in a VirtualBox VM. I have a bash script that does all post-install setup and configuration to my normal settings. I have run the setup, installed and exercised all the functions I normally use and rely on. So far, everything works as expected – no glitches. This seems to be an excellent release. Huge Thanks as always to Clem and the Mint Team, and Merry Christmas to all this community! Looking forward to the full release, and expect to reload my main computers in January.

    Reply

  7. Installed 21.3 beta cinnamon in a VM and ran my bash customisation script. So far looks fine, only issue is my old Logitech webcam is not recognised but that is something I’ll investigate later.

    I have been using Mint for about 11 years and find I can do whatever I need to do without Windows.

    Thanks to Clem and the team for their wonderful work.

    Reply

  8. I honestly can’t believe that you are still ignoring and not wanting to have and edition with KDE Plasma!
    Sorry for the harsh comment but I thought that by now you will revert that decision.
    Anyway, I at least wanted to leave some feedback why I stopped recommending Linux Mint to people and always tell them to try other distros.

    Anyway, happy holidays!

    Reply

    1. Although I liked and prefered Mint with KDE, Cinnamon is also nicely usable. Therefor I cannot understand, why you would stop recommending Linux Mint. While it may not offer so many nifty features, for beginners coming from Windows for example, Cinnamon is very intuitive.

    2. @Daniel: You could just install Linux Mint Debian Edition – and install the standard Debian package “kde-standard” on top of it. This will provide all the tools of Linux Mint combined with a not too old version of kde plasma. I read about this on mastodon and it seems to be working out just fine.

    3. However Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE all use Gtk, while KDE uses Qt. Work can be shared between the current desktops due to them all using the same widgets. This is not true with KDE.

    4. You can’t please everyone, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, different strokes for different folks, and all that jazz. Just think, putt some people off because YOU don’t happen to like something, that’s like me saying don’t eat carrots because I think they are horrible. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you

    5. when you dont like it dont use it. so simple. the linux world is big.

      they are doing great. we have all these ubuntu versions + lmde which is great either.

    1. Is the kernel 6.5 (inux-oem-22.04d) really fully compatible with LM 21.2 or 21.3? Is the upgrade from kernel 5.15 to 6.5 save for LM 21.x users?

    2. Hi Ludolph, I would wait for 6.5-generic to be available and only update to it if you’re not using any proprietary drivers. NVIDIA, Broadcom and all can take a few weeks/months in the Ubuntu package base to get support for the new kernel series.

    4. Yes Nigel, I can confirm that!!!
      Clem, it is possible (and, of course, safe) to upgrade to kernel 6.5 now or not? Presence of Kernel 6.5.0-14 at kernels manager guarantee that upgrade will be safe (I am using proprietary drivers NVIDIA)???

    5. You can try but it’s not something I’d recommend. It’s quite common for NVIDIA/broadcom/proprietary dkms support to come later than the kernel itself in the Ubuntu package base. If you do I’d recommend a Timeshift snapshot first, so you can try and restore the OS if things go bad.

      The LTS kernel is 5.15.
      The HWE kernel is 6.2.
      The HWE-edge kernel seems to be 6.5 already.

    6. Why is the kernel 6.5.0-14 supported only until August 2024 (info from LM kernels manager). The 6.5 should be LTS kernel. Am I right?

    7. I found that kernel 6.5 installed when I did a manual update on seeing the ‘orange dot’. All seems fine but I do not have an nvidia graphics card so ……

    10. I am on Mint 21.2. I just upgraded to kernel 6.5 yesterday. It has improved support for Intel hybrid CPU that I am using. So far so good. No regression seen. I do not, however, use any proprietary drivers.

  11. Hi Clem, nice job as always with Mint but why on xfce the icon of taskbar (volume, notification ecc ecc ) are big ? onestlyy i prefer it like the other icon of taskbar if is possibile to have …. anyway i found a bug with jdownloader2 in Cinammon 21 and so on the icon of this program conflict with cinnamon only when before worked like a charm please consider this two bugs

    Reply

    2. Hello, I think the same, the taskbar icons in xfce are very large, they should be the same size as in cinnamon so that it looks more aesthetic

  12. Hello Clem, thanks to you and your team for the great work, you are the best, the Mint versions that I like the most are cinnmon and xfce, it would be a great Christmas gift if you could reduce the size of the volume and network icons , updates and others that appear in the xfce taskbar, they are very large, I hope it is not too much to ask, Merry Christmas to you and the entire team.

    Reply

    1. Hi Angel,

      Unfortunately it’s not possible for us to make it look better. We’d need Xfce4-panel to allow us different sizes between the right and the left zones of the panel, like cinnamon panel does. If we make the status icons smaller, the launchers and menu icons on the left become smaller as well. Ideally we’d want to keep large menu/launcher icons and smaller tray icons, but that’s not possible as it is. You can experiment with the configuration and see for yourself.

  13. Hello
    As usual good job , I updated 21.2 xfce –>21.3 beta everything works well
    bravo Cleam and all the linux mint team

    Reply

  14. Hi Clem,
    what about Kernel 6.2 EOL during February 2024? Will be available for LM users any other 6.x kernel? For new HW is kernel 6.x extremely important!!!

    Reply

    1. there is an edge version with higher kernel. also you can install newer kernels through kernel update manager on the ubuntu version of LM.

      greetings and godbless clem for all his work. godbless also his family and his team. i love clem personally (non romantical) as a person. he is great.

  16. i had a problem getting the system to run, if anyone has the same issue, the problem and resolution is below:

    system hp laptop

    linux mint 21.3
    kernel 6.5.0-14-generic
    processor AMD A4-9125 RADEON R3, 4 COMPUTE CORES 2C+2G × 2
    memory 7.2 GiB
    graphics card Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Stoney [Radeon R2/R3/R4/R5 Graphics]

    issue
    when computer started there was no picture on the screen (just garbled static)

    remedy
    did a hard shutdown
    on restart i chose advance options
    then recovery
    then resume normal boot
    this allowed me to boot into mint normally.
    i changed kernel from 5.15.0-91 to 6.5.0-14-generic

    Reply

  17. BTW, how is themeing going to be handled? I hope you won’t sacrifice themes and only allow changing the accent colour and mode, because of a few uncooperative apps. It is more important for the user to have a pleasing desktop, rather than being more consistent with the 1 libadwaita app it has.
    Also, you could ship your own version of libadwaita that allows changing the stylesheet, this has been done already, I think. Of course it should probably be a setting like “Forcefully theme more apps (experimental)”, and disabled by default. But as long as plain old GTK is themeable, I’m fine.

    Reply

    2. To change theme, they could use Gradience like Manjaro, to adapt GTK4 and libadwaita style to the distribution.

    1. Hi Lionel,

      The vulnerabilities are found in the BIOS (in their UEFI implementation), not in the OS. Potential updates would be provided by your laptop, desktop and/or motherboard manufacturer. Here are some of the CVEs mentioned in the article: CVE-2023-5058, CVE-2023-39538, CVE-2023-39539, CVE-2023-40238.

    2. Hi Lionel
      As these are related to the UEFI in the chips on the machines, my understanding is they will need a firmware upgrade from the manufacturers. As someone who has a couple of old machines, I suspect those will never be patched as they have had no manufacturer BIOS updates for many years. I will be delighted to be proved wrong

  19. Xfce-Panel size (Left-side larger launcher icons buttons vs. right-side smaller taskbar icons) … There is a simple workaround: instead of a single bottom panel, create 2 bottom panels. The left-sided panel can have those ;arger icons, the right-sided taskbar icons can have smaller icons. Yes, the panels’ background color/theme & size then become an issue, but that can be mitigated with a transparent background. Not idial, agreed, but a workable compromise. Thanks for a GREAT beta, and Happy Holidays to y’all!

    Reply

  20. Using a USB stick with Ventoy version 1.0.96 I was able to do an OEM install on a Lenovo X230 laptop. With same USB stick I was NOT able to see Grub menu and select OEM install on a DELL Inspiron 3650 desktop.

    This is a problem as I want to do OEM installs for hardware I give to beginner Linux users. As suggested in the Linux Mint Installagion Guide, my work-around solution was to burn a DVD with “xfburn”; which then, did provide a Grub display menu and I was able to select OEM.

    Reply

  21. Dear Clem and the team

    Just to say a BIG THANK YOU for all your hard work throughout the year which continues to make a fantastic distro better and better.

    I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year.

    Reply

    1. Yes, THANKS so very much, dear Clem, and THANKS to your team! You guys are the greatest! Thank you all for your careful, wise, and dedicated stewardship of the BEST Linux OS on the planet!

      MANY BLESSINGS and MUCH JOY to you and your families!

  24. on my computer is linux mint good only with kernel 5.15. After using kernek 6+ is booting stoped due to waiting for apparmor parser. Computer is 2y ago, and motherboard Asus TUF B550M Wifi.

    Reply

  25. on my computer is linux mint good only with kernel 5.15. After using kernel 6+ is booting stoped due to waiting for apparmor parser. Computer is 2y ago, and motherboard is Asus TUF B550M Wifi.

    Reply

  26. on my computer is linux mint good only with kernel 5.15. After using kernel 6+ is booting stoped due to waiting for apparmor parser. Desktop computer is 2y ago, and motherboard is Asus TUF B550M Wifi.

    Reply

  28. I installed the beta on a brand new dual boot machine besides Windows. Everything looks good. What is particularly nice is that secure boot is now working for me. The only issue that I encountered is that the RTX 4060 GPU didn’t work with the recommended driver. Thanks for providing such a solid and user-friendly operating system!

    Reply

  29. Everything seemed to go fine between change from 21.2 to 21.3, however, on future releases if more than one session/series of downloads are to be performed, it would be a good idea to have a bit of difference between the download sessions/windows other than the PACKAGES and FILES names that were shown on the 2 windows on the 21.3 version. Unless, you are looking you might not notice that difference and there are likely very inexperienced computer users who might cancel (if that function is an option) that 2nd download session when they are wondering to themselves well I wonder why there are 2 windows doing the same thing, when they really are NOT. Thanks.

    Reply

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