Hello everyone,

I’d like to start the news with a big thank you to all the people who help us. Thanks you for your support and your donations.

Linux Mint 21.1

The next version of Linux Mint is planned for Christmas this year.

The codename for Linux Mint 21.1 is “Vera”.

User Guide

Documentation was written and added to the User Guide to cover the following topics:

• How to reset a forgotten password
• How to have Bluetooth disabled at boot
• How to make a Windows live USB stick or a multiboot USB stick

Backports

Blueman was updated to version 2.3.2 in Linux Mint 21.

Timeshift 22.06.5 was backported towards Linux Mint 20.x.

The changes made to the Software Sources and the Driver Manager (detailed in the chapters below) will be ported towards Linux Mint 21.

Software Sources

Following the upstream deprecation of apt-key, the Software Sources received changes to rework the way it handles PPA keys.

When a PPA is added its key is now only accepted for the PPA itself, not globally for all APT Sources.

Driver Manager

A lot of work went into improving the Driver Manager.

A dummy hardware device, dummy packages with exotic dependencies and a test mode were added so we could easily troubleshoot a variety of different scenarios.

We made the manager run in user mode so you no longer need a password to launch it.

Debconf is now properly supported. This was an issue for NVIDIA drivers when SecureBoot is enabled. This scenario was fixed.

Packagekit was patched to receive the ability to purge packages (i.e. to not only remove them but to also remove their configuration files). The driver manager now purges removed drivers. This fixes a niche issue with NVIDIA drivers when switching between different versions of the drivers.

The user interface was improved.

Offline support was redesigned. The Driver Manager now shows a dedicated screen if you are offline:

And a different screen if it detects a live USB stick (or DVD):

The way it mounts the live USB stick and adds it as a source to install drivers is more robust than before. These improvements make installing Broadcom wireless drivers easier than before.

ISO Verification Tool

It is important to verify the integrity and authenticity of your ISO image before writing it to a stick. It’s also quite tedious and confusing. So we made it easier.

Right-click your ISO image, select “Verify” and voilà.

The technology at play here is still complex. We’re dealing with signatures and checksums but the verification tool does most of the work for you.

If your ISO is from Linux Mint or Ubuntu, the URLs to the SHA256sum and GPG files are automatically filled in. Just click the verify button.

The tool checks the authenticity of the checkum file and the integrity of the ISO.

USB Stick Formatter and ISO Image Writer

The ISO Image Writer features a “Verify” button which launches the verification tool.

If you try to write a Windows image, it no longer fails. It directs you to helpful documentation.

The user interfaces for the Stick formatter and the Image Writer were also improved.

Desktop Icons

The following desktop icons will be hidden by default in future releases:

• Computer
• Home
• Trash
• Network

Home is already featured as a panel launcher and a favorite in the main menu. Computer, Trash, Network aren’t used as often and are easily accessible in the File Manager. 

Files placed in ~/Desktop will remain visible as well as mounted devices.

Of course this only affects the default settings. All of this is configurable.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors: Silver Sponsors:

Bronze Sponsors:

Donations in August:

A total of $11,208 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 452 donors:

$500, James N.
$400 (3rd donation), Secret Adventures Kauai
$200, Jeffrey E.
$150 (12th donation), TM
$125 (2nd donation), George C.
$108, Raphael O.
$108, Lukas S.
$100 (7th donation), Roy Q.
$100 (2nd donation), James Y.
$100 (2nd donation), Don M.
$100, Gene M.
$100, James S.
$96 (2nd donation), Timo M.
$90 (2nd donation), Jan A.
$75 (3rd donation), Ken D. V.
$75, Gerald O.
$69, Vojtech S.
$60 (4th donation), David B.
$54 (148th donation), Olli K.
$54 (14th donation), Bjarne K.
$54 (8th donation), Andreas M.
$54 (7th donation), Roland H.
$54 (6th donation), Rasmus A.
$54 (4th donation), jjhd
$54 (4th donation), CH
$54 (3rd donation), Thomas R.
$54 (2nd donation), Erik D.
$54 (2nd donation), Andreas M.
$54 (2nd donation), Heinrich H.
$54 (2nd donation), Luca S.
$54 (2nd donation), Marco van den Berg
$54 (2nd donation), Christian N.
$54, Siegfried S.
$54, Jurgen Moriau aka “Moriromio”
$54, Kai R.
$54, Christine P.
$54, Kenneth J.
$54, Dario D.
$54, Redkefy
$54, Leszek U.
$54, Klaus S.
$50 (64th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (12th donation), Tomasz E.
$50 (8th donation), Jeff S.
$50 (6th donation), Ricky G.
$50 (5th donation), Robert D. aka “MacDhai“
$50 (3rd donation), Cezary Z.
$50 (3rd donation), Thomas B.
$50 (3rd donation), Dean R.
$50 (2nd donation), John S.
$50 (2nd donation), StarGaze1
$50 (2nd donation), Ronald M.
$50 (2nd donation), Lydia D.
$50 (2nd donation), Robert S.
$50, John M.
$50, Matt S.
$50, Robert L.
$50, Pierre Jean E.
$50, Jacob R.
$50, Clark H.
$50, Samuel C.
$50, Michael H.
$50, Soly T.
$50, Willard P.
$50, Mathew W.
$50, Robert F.
$40 (9th donation), Robert T.
$40 (4th donation), SimpleASIC
$38 (7th donation), Alexander M.
$36 (26th donation), Ted S.
$35 (12th donation), B. H. .
$35 (4th donation), Ricardo M.
$35 (2nd donation), Rodney M.
$32, Alexander A.
$30 (5th donation), Terry Phillips aka “Terryphi”
$30 (2nd donation), Robert R.
$30, Kyle N.
$29 (3rd donation), Walter P.
$28 (12th donation), Adam K.
$27 (18th donation), John K. aka “jbrucek”
$27 (2nd donation), Michael R.
$27, Ilias G.
$25 (19th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (15th donation), George R. aka “Az4x4”
$25 (9th donation), Richard N.
$25 (7th donation), Robert S.
$25 (4th donation), Andrew E.
$25, Vernon S.
$24 (2nd donation), Dr. S. K.
$22 (28th donation), Peter E.
$22 (21st donation), Denis D.
$22 (12th donation), Dick B. aka “Dick”
$22 (7th donation), Martin L.
$22 (6th donation), Geoffrey Allgood
$22 (6th donation), Keith M.
$22 (5th donation), John Eady
$22 (4th donation), Didier P.
$22 (4th donation), Alexander H.
$22 (3rd donation), Antonio D.
$22 (3rd donation), Christian G.
$22 (3rd donation), Anthony G M.
$22 (3rd donation), Leon
$22 (3rd donation), Ian K.
$22 (3rd donation), Axel P. aka “Lukess “
$22 (2nd donation), Peter P.
$22 (2nd donation), Pavlos G.
$22 (2nd donation), Pierre B.
$22 (2nd donation), Alexandra V.
$22 (2nd donation), Peter M.
$22 (2nd donation), Jerry O.
$22 (2nd donation), Christian M.
$22 (2nd donation), Elie’s Freehand Pipes aka “Elise Bosmans“
$22 (2nd donation), Jean-francois R.
$22 (2nd donation), Claudio B.
$22 (2nd donation), Cornelis V.
$22 (2nd donation), Peter P.
$22, Kevin S.
$22, Marcus M.
$22, Rene G.
$22, Christoph M.
$22, Benedikt L.
$22, Karl G.
$22, Urs N.
$22, Philippe B.
$22, Andreas S.
$22, Simon A.
$22, Matthias C.
$22, Markus P.
$22, Jadran D.
$22, Peter W.
$22, Jan C.
$22, Weckler Medien
$22, Ngoc-bang D.
$22, Markus P.
$22, Peter L.
$22, John S.
$22, Jean-loup P.
$22, Tommaso M.
$22, Kirill L.
$20 (49th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (40th donation), Stefan M. H.
$20 (39th donation), Jim A.
$20 (22nd donation), vagrantcow
$20 (12th donation), Jon G.
$20 (5th donation), Michael A C.
$20 (5th donation), Tamer A.
$20 (5th donation), Peter L. aka “Pedro“
$20 (4th donation), Allen S.
$20 (4th donation), Gary M.
$20 (4th donation), Paul K.
$20 (3rd donation), Vitaliy R.
$20 (3rd donation), G.M.
$20 (3rd donation), William M.
$20 (3rd donation), Brent P.
$20 (3rd donation), Miles S. P.
$20 (3rd donation), Marco Z.
$20 (2nd donation), André G.
$20 (2nd donation), Mohammad Shihabuddin K.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael G.
$20 (2nd donation), Srinivas K.
$20 (2nd donation), Christopher P.
$20 (2nd donation), Kirby B.
$20 (2nd donation), Lance B
$20, Tim W.
$20, Russell M.
$20, Michael W.
$20, Glenda A.
$20, James B.
$20, Rudolf M.
$20, Paul L.
$20, Cesar Tadeu D.
$20, Rex A.
$20, Arron J.
$20, Larry W.
$20, Christopher F.
$19 (73th donation), Johann J.
$16 (66th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (11th donation), Peter R.
$16 (7th donation), Florian P.
$16 (4th donation), Paulo Ribeiro
$16 (4th donation), Brent F.
$16 (3rd donation), Hans aka “Hans“
$16, Roger M.
$16, Joan M.
$15, Roger B.
$15, Dianna R.
$15, Anna K.
$15, Virginia P.
$15, Cleofe P.
$14, Peggy S.
$14, Karin K.
$14, Teresa M.
$14, Krystal A.
$13, JB
$13, Silas R.
$12 (133th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$11 (39th donation), Francois-R L.
$11 (29th donation), Daniel S.
$11 (17th donation), Marko U.
$11 (14th donation), José G. aka “picaso”
$11 (12th donation), Christian B.
$11 (11th donation), Alan B.
$11 (9th donation), Adam P.
$11 (9th donation), Vjeran B.
$11 (8th donation), Bernhard L.
$11 (7th donation), Tugaleres.com
$11 (7th donation), Eduard L.
$11 (6th donation), Karlheinz R.
$11 (6th donation), René R.
$11 (5th donation), Ivan Stamenov
$11 (5th donation), Augusto B.
$11 (5th donation), Iker P. M.
$11 (4th donation), Denys G.
$11 (3rd donation), Tino M.
$11 (3rd donation), Miguel A. D.
$11 (2nd donation), Jürgen S.
$11 (2nd donation), Robin O.
$11 (2nd donation), Giorgio V.
$11 (2nd donation), Jan Holm J.
$11 (2nd donation), Christian H.
$11 (2nd donation), Jeremy E.
$11 (2nd donation), Ante B.
$11 (2nd donation), Benjamin L. aka “indivisual“
$11 (2nd donation), Alexander H.
$11 (2nd donation), Emiel V.
$11, Jochen M.
$11, Cjc S.
$11, Roberto B.
$11, Richard G.
$11, Rino F.
$11, Hans-jürgen H.
$11, Guillermo C.
$11, Laurence B.
$11, Tamas C.
$11, Adrián C.
$11, Jorge R.
$11, Francis S.
$11, José Luis V.
$11, Dan-constantin C.
$11, Sergio A.
$11, Elena S.
$11, Artto A.
$11, Claude D.
$11, Terje B.
$11, Bastian H.
$11, Marcel H. aka “gekketinus”
$11, Ana Mafalda P.
$11, Mika V.
$11, Andreas Dubja aka “Andreas”
$11, Mateusz K.
$11, Carmine S.
$11, Samuel B.
$11, Jaap B.
$11, Ewald L.
$11, Hans D.
$10 (78th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (72th donation), Frank K.
$10 (55th donation), Rick R.
$10 (25th donation), Philip Woodward
$10 (24th donation), Carpet Cleaning Winnipeg
$10 (21st donation), Jan Miszura
$10 (19th donation), Pawel M.
$10 (14th donation), Minneapolis Commercial Cleaners
$10 (14th donation), Minneapolis Towing and Roadside Assistance
$10 (11th donation), Minneapolis Commercial Painting
$10 (11th donation), Aimee W.
$10 (10th donation), Jorge R.
$10 (8th donation), Bathroom Remodel Kelowna
$10 (8th donation), tigari electronice de unica folosinta
$10 (4th donation), Organic CBD Gummies
$10 (3rd donation), Peter S.
$10 (3rd donation), Edward G.
$10 (3rd donation), Dave S.
$10 (2nd donation), platypus products
$10 (2nd donation), Oleksii Y.
$10 (2nd donation), Eric M.
$10, Amit F.
$10, zzzzzzzzz .
$10, Charles F.
$10, Steven W.
$10, Shawn P.
$10, Bryan P.
$10, Juan Q.
$10, Jason H.
$10, Kirill K.
$10, Pierre S.
$10, Felippe S.
$10, Shawn C.
$10, Robert B.
$8 (11th donation), Konstantin S.
$6 (3rd donation), Vincent D.
$6, James A.
$5 (74th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (61th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (46th donation), William Menezes
$5 (31st donation), Thomas R.
$5 (21st donation), Kevin O. aka “Kev”
$5 (20th donation), Teobaldo D.
$5 (14th donation), Jürgen K.
$5 (12th donation), Timo K.
$5 (9th donation), Bruce M.
$5 (8th donation), Jacob Buhl M.
$5 (8th donation), Lucas DH
$5 (8th donation), Martin K.
$5 (5th donation), Sinisa B.
$5 (3rd donation), Martin U.
$5 (2nd donation), Maciej D.
$5 (2nd donation), Paolo P. A.
$5 (2nd donation), Isaías G.
$5, Arturo L.
$5, Vladimir R.
$5, RDT1
$5, Dennis J.
$4, Mateusz H.
$4, Kent L.
$3 (5th donation), Lucas Miller aka “lukmly013”
$3 (4th donation), Pressure Washers Columbia
$3 (2nd donation), Massimo Giancani aka “FortNhyver”
$3, Ilya P.
$3, Andrew S.
$15 from 12 smaller donations

f you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit https://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Patrons:

Linux Mint is proudly supported by 630 patrons, for a sum of $3,065 per month.

To become a Linux Mint patron, please visit https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint

Thank you for your patience and many thanks to all our donors and sponsors.

Linux Mint 21 is almost ready for BETA. We’re entering QA testing this week-end. The BETA release will happen next week.

Linux Mint 21

Last month we got negative feedback about systemd-oom.  After investigating some of the issues we decided not to add it to Linux Mint 21.

Home directory encryption continues to be available in the installer.

The decision was made to keep os-prober enabled by default to guarantee proper dual-boot detection out of the box.

Webp support was added to xviewer and thumbnailers.

Blueman 2.3 is in and replaces Blueberry.

In rsync mode, Timeshift now calculates the required space for the next snapshot and skips it if performing that snapshot lead to less than 1GB free space on the disk.

Check your Automated Updates

On June 21st at 3pm, mintupdate 5.8.3 was released. It only contained two changes, the removal of files we no longer needed and a bump of its package’s debhelper version from 9 to 10.

A few hours later we received a bug report from a user who had taken this update. His automated updates which were disabled until then had been enabled by the update on his behalf. We investigated the situation and found out there was a nasty side effect to updating to debhelper 10; It enabled all the systemd services and timers provided by the package!

We quickly reverted the debhelper version back to 9 and released mintupdate 5.8.4 that same day at 9pm.

Mintupdate 5.8.3 was only available for about 6 hours but users who took it as an update got their automated updates enabled by default.

To know if you were impacted go to “Update Manager -> View ->  History of Updates” and see if mintupdate 5.8.3 is present in the list. If it’s there, you are impacted and your automated updates are enabled. If it’s not (say you’re still on an old version, or you went directly from 5.8.2 to 5.8.4), then you’re not impacted.

If you are impacted go to “Update Manager -> Edit -> Preferences -> Automation” and disable “Automatic Updates”.

In Mint 21, mintupdate 5.8.5 no longer relies solely on systemd timers/services to be enabled. The fact that such a small and innocent change lead to a huge regression really surprised us. This is a lesson for us and it confirms that we should rely on frameworks such as systemd or debhelper as little as possible.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors: Silver Sponsors:

Bronze Sponsors:

Donations in May:

A total of $7,214 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 307 donors:

$108 (16th donation), Naoise G.
$108 (3rd donation), W. S. .
$108, Andrew W.
$100 (34th donation), Fast Junkie
$100 (11th donation), TM
$100 (5th donation), Paul R.
$100 (2nd donation), Larry E.
$100 (2nd donation), Peter S. aka “Pierre”
$100, Richard W.
$100, Herb P.
$100, Ethan T.
$75 (2nd donation), Randall C.
$75, Jock’s White Van Services
$65 (2nd donation), Marcus A.
$59, Martin G.
$54 (145th donation), Olli K.
$54 (12th donation), Paul S. E. aka “Paul”
$54 (6th donation), Nadim K.
$54 (5th donation), C. Lamb aka “Mike”
$54 (5th donation), Peter G.
$54 (5th donation), Niklas
$54 (5th donation), Jorge R. R.
$54 (3rd donation), Heinrich S.
$54 (3rd donation), Jörg G.
$54 (3rd donation), Oliver B.
$54 (3rd donation), Clifford C.
$54 (3rd donation), Marco V.
$54 (2nd donation), Ralf M.
$54, RedWine
$54, Cornelis B.
$54, Andrei M.
$54, Thomas R.
$54, Andreas S.
$54, Erich L.
$54, Vidar Jon B.
$54, Jörg S.
$50 (16th donation), George H.
$50 (7th donation), Michael T.
$50 (6th donation), Karl B.
$50 (6th donation), Derek B.
$50 (3rd donation), Timothy P.
$50 (2nd donation), International Translation Services LLC
$50 (2nd donation), Ronald Z.
$50 (2nd donation), L. I.
$50 (2nd donation), Terry H.
$50 (2nd donation), Richard J.
$50, Daniel P.
$50, Albert L.
$50, Darwin H.
$50, Scott S.
$50, Kelvin P.
$50, Don M.
$50, Dean R.
$50, Lightages Multimedia
$50, Roberto R.
$50, Richard L.
$50, Vitalii R.
$50, Gonzalo B.
$36 (23rd donation), Ted S.
$32 (7th donation), Harry F.
$32 (6th donation), Frank H.
$32 (2nd donation), Daniel Pereira
$32 (2nd donation), Felix A. aka “unfelbar”
$32, Jose P.
$30 (5th donation), GJ aka “oldgit”
$30 (2nd donation), Katherine K.
$30, Les G.
$27 (3rd donation), linmint
$27 (2nd donation), Robin W.
$26 (42th donation), Michael R.
$25 (16th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (10th donation), Donna B.
$25 (9th donation), Marc B.
$25 (2nd donation), Beatrice G.
$25, Myron J.
$24 (2nd donation), Uwe T.
$22 (25th donation), Peter E.
$22 (9th donation), Filip N.
$22 (8th donation), Jean-claude M.
$22 (8th donation), Harald M.
$22 (7th donation), Francis N.
$22 (5th donation), Markus G.
$22 (5th donation), Arvi O.
$22 (3rd donation), Ghislain D. aka “gslndlb”
$22 (3rd donation), Thomas M.
$22 (3rd donation), Stefan B.
$22 (2nd donation), Guillaume P.
$22 (2nd donation), Bernd S.
$22 (2nd donation), Jesus Carlos B.
$22 (2nd donation), José L. R. P. aka “NoisyDad”
$22 (2nd donation), Michael F.
$22 (2nd donation), Jörg-michael S.
$22 (2nd donation), Alain C.
$22, Marian H.
$22, Christophe S.
$22, Roman B.
$22, Malte H.
$22, Wim V.
$22, J S.
$22, Dirk E.
$22, Donca V.
$22, Stephen C.
$22, Udo D.
$22, Szabolcs K.
$22, Geurt S.
$22, Marchionni M.
$22, Anonymous
$22, Jeroen A.
$20 (60th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan “
$20 (46th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (21st donation), vagrantcow
$20 (9th donation), Palmleaf
$20 (6th donation), DaveW
$20 (6th donation), Thomas B.
$20 (5th donation), Bogdan P.
$20 (4th donation), Dave Messenger
$20 (4th donation), Peter L. aka “Pedro“
$20 (3rd donation), John S.
$20 (2nd donation), Evregreen Arts
$20, Philip S.
$20, Michael R.
$20, Roger P.
$20, Donald K.
$20, Paul E F.
$20, Enes D.
$20, Edward N.
$20, Robert R.
$20, Christian S.
$20, James W.
$20, Larry S.
$20, Per Gunnar R.
$20, Daniel A.
$20, John S.
$20, Martin R.
$20, Stéphane L.
$16 (64th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (4th donation), Giovanni M. aka “gmaggior”
$16 (3rd donation), James H.
$16 (2nd donation), Christoph D.
$16 (2nd donation), Mark E.
$16, Marcelo A.
$16, Arjen K.
$15 (17th donation), Pawel M.
$15 (7th donation), George M.
$15, Ankit Tushar D.
$14 (71th donation), Johann J.
$12 (132th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
$11 (36th donation), Francois-R L.
$11 (27th donation), Sami Mannila
$11 (26th donation), Daniel S.
$11 (19th donation), Alexander G. B.
$11 (8th donation), Thomas K.
$11 (7th donation), Adam P.
$11 (5th donation), Patricia E.
$11 (5th donation), Tugaleres.com
$11 (5th donation), Thomas R.
$11 (4th donation), Noël D. K.
$11 (4th donation), Frederik M.
$11 (4th donation), Gatis Kalnins aka “gatons“
$11 (3rd donation), Jose C.
$11 (3rd donation), René R.
$11 (3rd donation), Ender T.
$11 (3rd donation), Eric H. aka “Eric”
$11 (2nd donation), Stephanie M.
$11 (2nd donation), Cyril Jouhanneau aka “sangorys”
$11 (2nd donation), Gianluca R. aka “Gica78R”
$11 (2nd donation), Felice A. P.
$11 (2nd donation), Aghiles C.
$11 (2nd donation), Roman T.
$11 (2nd donation), Jean Christophe A.
$11 (2nd donation), Johan A.
$11 (2nd donation), Thomas L. aka “hensys”
$11 (2nd donation), Rodolfo A.
$11 (2nd donation), Alexis G.
$11 (2nd donation), Ib Oscar J.
$11, Sascha B.
$11, Ennio M.
$11, Francis B.
$11, Eiaki M.
$11, Eero V.
$11, Jethro
$11, Alexander M.
$11, Nicholas J.
$11, Frank T.
$11, Tobias P.
$11, Dominique C.
$11, Emilio R.
$11, Denys G.
$11, Pgm R.
$11, Daniele P.
$11, Santiago G.
$11, Roy R.
$11, Carlos Bentzen
$11, Ignacio F.
$11, Jose Ramon R.
$10 (98th donation), Tree Service Kansas City
$10 (92th donation), Tree Removal Raleigh NC
$10 (75th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (70th donation), Frank K.
$10 (70th donation), Fence Baton Rouge
$10 (52th donation), Rick R.
$10 (23rd donation), Hemant Patel
$10 (23rd donation), Philip Woodward
$10 (23rd donation), Fence Company Raleigh
$10 (20th donation), Concrete Contractors Raleigh
$10 (16th donation), Abdulkadir H. aka “Askari”
$10 (14th donation), Dylan B.
$10 (11th donation), Joshua O.
$10 (10th donation), Philip E.
$10 (9th donation), William M.
$10 (9th donation), Kent J.
$10 (8th donation), Aimee W.
$10 (6th donation), Mihail S.
$10 (6th donation), Bathroom Renovations in Kelowna
$10 (5th donation), Alan C.
$10 (5th donation), Kirk W.
$10 (5th donation), Adrian S.
$10 (5th donation), Oscar B.
$10 (3rd donation), Mark R.
$10 (3rd donation), Michael W.
$10 (3rd donation), Michael S.
$10 (3rd donation), Gustavo A. B.
$10 (2nd donation), Encryptomatic LLC
$10 (2nd donation), Peter S.
$10 (2nd donation), George W.
$10 (2nd donation), Peter F.
$10 (2nd donation), Peter Vangsgaard
$10 (2nd donation), Sergio Arroyos
$10, Bakur A.
$10, Stephen S.
$10, Shawn P.
$10, Manfred C.
$10, James C.
$10, Scott P.
$10, Christopher T.
$10, Erci P.
$10, Karen M.
$10, Mary S.
$10, Ricardo T.
$10, Stevan F.
$10, Volker K.
$10, Umar B.
$10, Mark H.
$10, James D.
$10, Aliaksandr B.
$10, M J B.
$10, Markus B.
$10, Luca B.
$9 (2nd donation), Carlos M.
$8, Martin K.
$6, Eric L.
$6, Konstantin S.
$6, Rose H.
$5 (71th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (29th donation), Thomas R.
$5 (22nd donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
$5 (17th donation), Teobaldo D.
$5 (7th donation), Rafal K.
$5 (6th donation), Jacob Buhl M.
$5 (6th donation), Jeffery G.
$5 (5th donation), Lucas DH
$5 (4th donation), Edgar T.
$5 (2nd donation), Lorne F.
$5 (2nd donation), Gregory M.
$5 (2nd donation), Carl T.
$5 (2nd donation), Igor A.
$5 (2nd donation), Luis F C.
$5 (2nd donation), Giachodis V.
$5 (2nd donation), Michael F.
$5, Lucian T.
$5, Julian S.
$5, Carlos A.
$5, Alex Luton aka “Starcross”
$5, Michal M.
$5, Daniel Greg aka “006.5”
$5, Benjamin F.
$5, Long L.
$5, Karim L. aka “TheWalkingTrade”
$5, Alexander D.
$3 (9th donation), Ashraf H.
$3 (4th donation), Lucas Miller aka “lukmly013”
$3 (4th donation), Aliaksandr A.
$3 (2nd donation), Giovanni V.
$3, Jose R.
$14 from 10 smaller donations

f you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit https://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Patrons:

Linux Mint is proudly supported by 604 patrons, for a sum of $2,913 per month.

To become a Linux Mint patron, please visit https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint

Many thanks to our sponsors and all the people who donated to us. Thank you for your generous donations!

Many thanks also to our developers, moderators and all the people in our community who help us in different ways. This is a fantastic project, it’s a real pleasure to work with you.

Timeshift adopted as an XApp

System snapshots are at the heart of our update strategy.

A perfect system is a system where bugs and security flaws are fixed rapidly but where nothing that already worked ever starts to break. It’s a system where both security and stability are key, with no compromises. It’s a system where a a constant flow of code changes are applied to fix bugs and vulnerabilities but where a solid mechanism is in place to revert changes when regressions occur.

Thanks to Timeshift, Linux Mint has been able to come up with a robust update strategy and a very clear message: Take snapshots, apply all updates.

Timeshift was created and maintained by a very talented developer called Tony George. You probably also heard of UKUU and Aptik, Tony develops many exciting tools: https://teejeetech.com.

Unfortunately he had to stop developing Timeshift to focus on his other projects. We got in touch with him to see how we could help and the decision was made to take over the maintenance.

Timeshift is now maintained as an XApp and its translations are done on Launchpad.

If like us you’re a fan of Timeshift and you want to send Tony a donation visit https://teejeetech.com/product/timeshift-donation/.

Blueman replaces Blueberry

A long time ago Linux Mint shipped with GNOME Bluetooth, a utility which worked well in many desktops.

When it lost its frontend to become part of gnome-control-center, GNOME Bluetooth suddenly only worked in GNOME. We need a solution for Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce. It didn’t make sense for each desktop to develop its own bluetooth tool and we didn’t want to write an entire Bluetooth app from scratch so we wrote an XApp to bring back the missing frontend that had been removed.

This XApp was called Blueberry and it was just that, a missing frontend for GNOME Bluetooth. This allowed us to continue to use GNOME Bluetooth in many desktops for the last 7 years.

Blueberry was great because it provided that solution, but also because it didn’t do much and had a simple user interface. For most people this was perfect. When it wasn’t enough we recommended another tool to people, called Blueman, which provided more features and better troubleshooting.

Starting with version 42 GNOME Bluetooth is no longer compatible with Blueberry. Blueberry would need to undergo significant changes to work with it. There is also frustration upstream from the GNOME Bluetooth development team who simply does not want to have users from other desktops than GNOME and so Blueberry will probably get discontinued.

Blueman on the other hand welcomes users from all desktop environments. It does not rely on GNOME Bluetooth. It’s a GTK frontend for the Bluez bluetooth stack.

Its user interface is more complex but that’s because it provides many more features.

2 years ago, we started talking with the Blueman team about a switch and potential improvements. The developers were very open to our feedback.

We recently started contributing changes to Blueman and we look forward to switching to it in Linux Mint 21.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors: Silver Sponsors:

Bronze Sponsors:

Donations in April:

A total of $7,064 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 327 donors:

$250, Benjamin M.
$216, Hans V. Stichting Kringloopwinkel Ermelo
$200 (5th donation), Robert E.
$200, John A O.
$108, Michael L.
$108, Wolfgang H.
$100 (14th donation), Samson S. aka “Samtastic”
$100 (9th donation), Plamen Atanasov
$100 (7th donation), Matthew P.
$100, Bassam R.
$100, Robert J.
$78, Zoltan K.
$75 (10th donation), TM
$60 (6th donation), Erich K.
$54 (15th donation), Naoise G.
$54 (6th donation), Dirk B.
$54 (6th donation), Mikko I.
$54 (3rd donation), VVV
$54 (2nd donation), Martin C.
$54 (2nd donation), Henk B.
$54, Mark L.
$54, Andrey P.
$54, Hector Dardo R.
$54, Marek J.
$54, Dr. S. K.
$54, Matthias M.
$54, Christian K.
$54, Alexander S.
$50 (60th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (6th donation), Michael K.
$50 (5th donation), Ricky G.
$50 (4th donation), W G. M.
$50 (3rd donation), Rajesh K.
$50 (3rd donation), Stephen M.
$50 (2nd donation), Gerard S.
$50 (2nd donation), Brian H.
$50 (2nd donation), John W.
$50 (2nd donation), Alfonso D.
$50, Deborah S.
$50, John P.
$50, Rupert R.
$50, Laurence S.
$50, Landon L.
$50, Kyle A.
$50, Roger W.
$43 (6th donation), Ken W. aka “Tracknut”
$43, Wolfgang R.
$43, Chris M.
$40 (19th donation), Geoff P
$36, Igor D.
$34, David V.
$32 (13th donation), Henk van C.
$32 (3rd donation), Chris C.
$32, Joseph W.
$32, Andy
$30 (4th donation), John Eady
$30, Robert S.
$27, Sean M.
$27, Phil N. aka “ZiRiS”
$25 (15th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (13th donation), Bill S.
$25 (8th donation), Richard N.
$25, Chaz C.
$22 (24th donation), Peter E.
$22 (19th donation), Denis D.
$22 (12th donation), Bjarne K.
$22 (9th donation), Bernhard M.
$22 (8th donation), Filip N.
$22 (5th donation), Emanuel C.
$22 (5th donation), Jürgen B.
$22 (5th donation), Maurice G.
$22 (3rd donation), Frank B. aka “poypoyfrank”
$22 (3rd donation), Günter J.
$22 (3rd donation), Bernard L.
$22 (2nd donation), Oliver Hosp
$22 (2nd donation), Austin Security Guard Service
$22 (2nd donation), Alexandre Gambier
$22 (2nd donation), Johan P.
$22 (2nd donation), Axel P. aka “Lukess “
$22 (2nd donation), Tony B.
$22 (2nd donation), Jonas U.
$22, Ramon N.
$22, Luis D.
$22, Renaud P.
$22, MWI – Markweb Informatica
$22, Susanne K.
$22, Szymon N.
$22, Daniel T.
$22, Steffen S.
$22, Matthijs R. aka “Developenguin“
$22, Esa A.
$22, Catnap
$20 (45th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (39th donation), Stefan M. H.
$20 (30th donation), John D.
$20 (14th donation), Mr. Bee
$20 (12th donation), David Kelly aka “Daveinuk”
$20 (8th donation), C T Johnson, Inc
$20 (7th donation), Stephen F.
$20 (7th donation), Aimee W.
$20 (7th donation), Carl J.
$20 (6th donation), Mark F.
$20 (5th donation), James M.
$20 (4th donation), Lal C.
$20 (4th donation), Stephen Mayo Shaffer aka “Bruder Stefan”
$20 (3rd donation), Daniel J.
$20 (3rd donation), Josh T.
$20 (3rd donation), Alan B.
$20 (3rd donation), Debra D.
$20 (3rd donation), R. C. F.
$20 (2nd donation), Stacey U.
$20 (2nd donation), Stephen B.
$20 (2nd donation), Adam S.
$20 (2nd donation), John B.
$20 (2nd donation), Dan R.
$20 (2nd donation), Claude A.
$20 (2nd donation), Thomas G.
$20, Lisandro O.
$20, Leigh B.
$20, Michael F.
$20, Max-elie S.
$20, Eric H.
$20, Norman S.
$20, John B.
$20, Serhii H.
$20, Christopher P.
$20, Katherine K.
$20, Larry F.
$19 (4th donation), Fred D.
$18 (2nd donation), Jeste S.
$16 (63th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (2nd donation), Daniel T.
$16, Hartwig H.
$16, Glen R.
$15 (11th donation), Fred B.
$14 (69th donation), Johann J.
$14 (41th donation), Michael R.
$12 (5th donation), Stephen W.
$12 (3rd donation), Terry R.
$12, Richard J.
$11 (35th donation), Francois-R L.
$11 (25th donation), Daniel S.
$11 (20th donation), Piotr L aka “xpil“
$11 (17th donation), Arvis Lācis aka “arvislacis“
$11 (15th donation), Slobodan Vrkacevic
$11 (15th donation), Janne M.
$11 (15th donation), Marko U.
$11 (13th donation), Štefan V. aka “Thinker8”
$11 (13th donation), José G. aka “picaso”
$11 (10th donation), Gabriele I.
$11 (7th donation), Adis H.
$11 (7th donation), Hans-Dieter S. aka “hadisch”
$11 (6th donation), Robert Z.
$11 (6th donation), Adam P.
$11 (5th donation), Darius O.
$11 (5th donation), Bernhard L.
$11 (4th donation), Lazo L.
$11 (4th donation), Eduardo K.
$11 (4th donation), Giorgio C.
$11 (3rd donation), Viktor D.
$11 (3rd donation), Ivan Stamenov
$11 (3rd donation), Tugaleres.com
$11 (3rd donation), Cornelius B.
$11 (3rd donation), casca de copiat
$11 (3rd donation), Julio Abel M.
$11 (3rd donation), Javi Dieltron aka “ososoft“
$11 (2nd donation), Jean-marie R.
$11 (2nd donation), Thomas W.
$11 (2nd donation), Carle C.
$11 (2nd donation), Roy R.
$11 (2nd donation), James L F.
$11 (2nd donation), Jarmo K.
$11, Roman S.
$11, Maximilian G.
$11, Brian L.
$11, Matthew B.
$11, Aime A.
$11, Harold H.
$11, J.h K.
$11, Tomasz D.
$11, Vilmar M.
$11, Philip G.
$11, Andrea C.
$11, Michael O.
$11, Ja P.
$11, Rolf Peters cirkusdisco, Töreboda
$11, Csongor K.
$11, Magid E.
$11, Giovanni M.
$11, H C C.
$11, Boris R.
$11, Torben B.
$11, Silke S.
$10 (74th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (69th donation), Frank K.
$10 (51th donation), Rick R.
$10 (22nd donation), Carpet Cleaning Winnipeg
$10 (21st donation), Christopher R.
$10 (13th donation), Edward A.
$10 (11th donation), Harold R.
$10 (10th donation), Joshua O.
$10 (9th donation), Sergei K.
$10 (8th donation), Kent J.
$10 (6th donation), Phil aka “Smithereens NZ”
$10 (6th donation), apuestas deportivas
$10 (5th donation), Home Renovations Kelowna
$10 (5th donation), Andrei Sinkevich
$10 (4th donation), Ricardo N.
$10 (4th donation), Antonio M.
$10 (4th donation), Acoustic Ceilings Austin
$10 (2nd donation), Wojciech S.
$10 (2nd donation), Józef S.
$10 (2nd donation), Brandon H.
$10 (2nd donation), Reginaldo Bezerra Gervásio
$10, Alban K.
$10, Hung Clapham
$10, Alexander R.
$10, Julia G.
$10, Eric W.
$10, Daniel K.
$10, Robert S.
$10, Neil M.
$10, Johnson P Dilz, Esq.
$10, Gilles S.
$10, Bradley B.
$10, Jordan B.
$10, Yousaf A.
$10, Justin H.
$10, Isaac B.
$10, Gil G.
$10, Alon S.
$10, Michael S.
$10, Anthony L.
$10, Daniel R.
$10, Robert M. Jones
$10, Gilson B.
$10, Jorge B.
$9 (12th donation), Luk
$9, Skyler A.
$9, Manuel A.
$6 (21st donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
$5 (70th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (59th donation), Bhavinder Jassar
$5 (35th donation), Hristo Gatsinski
$5 (28th donation), Thomas R.
$5 (16th donation), Teobaldo D.
$5 (11th donation), Felipe P.
$5 (6th donation), Rafal K.
$5 (6th donation), Bruce M.
$5 (5th donation), Ernaelsten G. aka “MaitrePylos”
$5 (4th donation), Lucas DH
$5 (4th donation), Pierre-marie R.
$5 (3rd donation), Peer V.
$5 (3rd donation), Sinisa B.
$5 (3rd donation), Francisco Quintero
$5 (2nd donation), George D.
$5, Uwe J.
$5, Piotr K.
$5, David M.
$5, Anto Jakic Subara
$5, Lynn Z.
$5, Joseph S.
$5, Georgios P.
$5, Juris M.
$5, CSV Corp.
$5, Wojciech M.
$4 (8th donation), Ashraf H.
$4 (3rd donation), Dale D.
$3 (4th donation), Sergei M.
$3 (2nd donation), R T
$3, Doug M.
$13 from 10 smaller donations

f you want to help Linux Mint with a donation, please visit https://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php

Patrons:

Linux Mint is proudly supported by 629 patrons, for a sum of $2,838 per month.

To become a Linux Mint patron, please visit https://www.patreon.com/linux_mint