Yesterday we announced a new partnership with Mozilla and a transition to Mozilla default settings in Firefox 96. If you didn’t read this announcement yet, please visit https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4244.

Today, in preparation for Firefox 96 I want to make one more blog post, this time to talk specifically about technical details and to help people before, through and after the transition.

Firefox 96 is out today but we’ll publish the update on Friday January 14th. This will give everyone a few days to read this post, prepare for the update and get an opportunity to ask questions and seek help before the transition.

Introduction

Impacted releases

This post is relevant for users of Linux Mint 19x, 20, 20.1, 20.2 and LMDE 4.

In Linux Mint 20.3 the transition already took place with Firefox 95 during the BETA (https://github.com/linuxmint/mint20.3-beta/issues/47).

Impacted browsers

Only the repository version of Firefox is impacted.

The flatpak version of Firefox already uses the Mozilla default settings. The Mozilla version (downloaded from their site) obviously also already uses it as well, and so do versions from PPA (ESR or not).

Other browsers are not impacted.

Nature of the changes

If you used Firefox in Windows or other Linux distributions you’re already familiar with Mozilla’s default settings.

We’re transitioning towards the same configuration as the one which is used everywhere else. The most noticeable changes are the search engines, the start page, and the preferences settings.

Impact on configuration (technical explanation)

The main impact is on the configuration. Because of the way settings work in Firefox, only settings which value is different from the default value are actually stored in your profile. As the default value changes, you can lose some configuration.

Say a particular setting defaults to A in Linux Mint but B in Mozilla. If you set it to C, then your profile contains a custom value. As we transition the default from A to B, you keep your C custom value.

Now, say you have it set to A. Since it’s identical to the default value, it is not custom, and so it’s not stored in your profile. To you it may look like something you set, but really you’re just using the default value, so this is actually not “set”. As we transition the default value from A to B, you simply transition from no custom value to no custom value, and thus also transition from A to B. From your own point of view this can create a gap between your expectation and the resulting configuration.

Before the update

Before the transition, make a backup copy of your profile and perform a system snapshot. This guarantees you’ll be able to go back and essentially removes any risk of losing anything.

System snapshot

To create a snapshot, open Timeshift and hit the Create button.

Profile backup

To make a backup copy of your profile, open a terminal and type:

cp -R .mozilla .mozilla-backup

Custom Policy file

Our packages will provide a policy file in /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/policies.json.

If you created a file under that path, it will be overwritten. Make a copy of it.

After the transition you can place your policy in /etc/firefox/policies instead.

After the update

Review your settings

In Firefox click on Settings and go through the tabs on the left to review your settings.

Set things to your liking and select your favorite search engine.

Spell check and dictionaries

On any website, right-click in a text area (i.e. a zone where you can enter text) and select “Languages”.

If you don’t see your language, select “Add Dictionaries…”.

Alternative solution

Alternatively, reinstall the package for your Firefox language pack. Type this command in a terminal to list your language packs:

dpkg -l firefox-l*

And then for each pack:

apt reinstall pack-name

Replace pack-name with the appropriate pack name. For instance, to reinstall the French language pack in Linux Mint, the command would be:

apt reinstall firefox-locale-fr

If you had added words to your dictionary and they are missing, look for a file called persdict.dat in your profile backup and copy it to your profile.

Custom Chrome CSS

If you had a custom chrome/userContent.css file and it goes missing, copy it over from your backup profile and enable the following setting in about:config:

toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets

Warning messages

Firefox cannot handle its own updates. It doesn’t know how to check the repositories and doesn’t have admin privileges anyway. In Linux Mint this is the job of the Update Manager so Firefox is told not to handle updates.

In the past, this was done via code changes. We patched Firefox not to do it and not to show any warning about it. This is how it is in Debian and Ubuntu as well.

With this transition this is done via a policy file, i.e. via system-wide configuration. Firefox shows the following messages in the preferences and in the about dialog as a result:

These messages can be quite confusing, especially the first one. Please ignore them for now. We’ll be reporting the issue to get it fixed upstream.

Comments section

The comments section on this post is exclusively dedicated to support. If you have questions, or you need help about the technical aspects of this transition then this is the right place.

We can’t “move” off-topic comments to the appropriate post here with WordPress. If something is off-topic we can either let it harm the topic or moderate it. Please respect this so we have this space to interact on support and technical questions don’t get lost.

To talk about Firefox in general or the partnership with Mozilla comment at https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4244 instead.

For any other topics use the forums or the other posts on this blog.

Thank you for your understanding and if you’re waiting on this update for your patience. I wish you all a smooth update and I hope you’ll enjoy your experience with Mint and Firefox after this transition as much or even more than before.

Many thanks to all the people who support our project. Thank you very much to all of you for your help and your generous donations.

All of our focus is on the BETA for Linux Mint 20.3. We’re planning to release it early this December. We’re finalizing translations, artwork and still making fixes and adjustments but for the most part it’s almost ready to enter QA.

Some of the new features in 20.3 haven’t been revealed yet, but we’re so close to release, I’m not sure there’s much point in giving you a preview 🙂

MATE 1.26 and Flatpak 1.12 were backported.

In the XApps, the PDF reader received proper manga support (hitting the left arrow key in manga mode now goes forward in the document), the image viewer received the ability to quickly fit to the width or the height of the displayed picture, and many of the apps received improvements for small display resolutions (hiding the menubar, not showing the toolbar in fullscreen…etc), and dark-mode support.

Cinnamon 5.2 features multi-calendar events. Events you create in your calendars will appear in your calendar applet:

Events in the applet use the same color as the calendar they belong to so it’s easy to keep track of multiple calendars.

The applet syncs with evolution-data-server so it supports many online calendars and applications. For instance if you want to use GNOME Calendar it just works out of the box. If you want to use Google Calendar, simply connect it in Online Accounts and it works as well. If you want to use Thunderbird, install an add-on to integrate it with evolution-data-server and it will start to work as well.

Sticky Notes and Hypnotix will feature a search function.

And last but not least there’s a little gift in 20.3, a brand new app. I’ll keep this one as a surprise for now though. I can tell you its name since it’s not very revealing, it’s called thingy 😉

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

Gold Sponsors:
Linux VPS Hosting
Simple Mobile Tools
Silver Sponsors:
Sucuri
ThinkPenguin: For Everything Freedom
Bronze Sponsors:
Vault Networks *
AYKsolutions Server & Cloud Hosting
hSo
BGASoft Inc
Feathercoin
HamoniKR
Laser Pointer Forums, LLC
Look To The Right SEO
Uwe Schneider GmbH

Donations in October:

A total of $11,749 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 460 donors:

$4851, Alex A.
$539 (2nd donation), Pascal S.
$300 (2nd donation), B
$250 (2nd donation), Gregg S.
$250, Scott R.
$240 (4th donation), Heinz G.
$200, Jason L.
$162, Joachim R.
$140 (4th donation), J aka “look but don’t touch. Thank you”
$115 (5th donation), Alan H.
$108 (7th donation), Uwe P.
$108 (4th donation), Peter A.
$108 (2nd donation), Gerhard D.
$108, Wolfgang B.
$108, Jan David M.
$108, Sylvain L.
$108, Francesco S.
$100 (5th donation), Joe K.
$100 (3rd donation), Programmed Precision
$100, Phil W.
$100, Lynne D.
$100, Rachel W.
$100, Christopher B.
$86, Jan V.
$75 (5th donation), Steven A.
$54 (7th donation), Hermann W.
$54 (6th donation), Juergen S.
$54 (5th donation), Udo J.
$54 (4th donation), Tanev, T.
$54 (4th donation), Guy B.
$54 (3rd donation), Detlef N.
$54 (2nd donation), Paul B.
$54 (2nd donation), Dejan Levaja
$54 (2nd donation), Ruediger B.
$54 (2nd donation), Martin K.
$54 (2nd donation), Henrik Simonsen
$54, Daniel H. aka “AlienJoker”
$54, Gudrun K.
$54, Stephen P.
$54, Gerold H.
$54, Alexander A.
$54, Bert V.
$54, Rob S.
$54, Mario I.
$54, Sebastian B.
$54, Christian N.
$54, Trevor F.
$50 (54th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (5th donation), Bob Tregilus
$50 (4th donation), Nathaniel B.
$50 (3rd donation), Keith M.
$50 (3rd donation), Christopher E.
$50 (3rd donation), Jaime F. Zarama
$50 (2nd donation), Patrick L.
$50 (2nd donation), Stephen R.
$50 (2nd donation), T. M. .
$50 (2nd donation), Lim C. W.
$50 (2nd donation), Louis D.
$50 (2nd donation), Larry D.
$50, Zack G.
$50, Alonzo J.
$50, Kelson V.
$50, Gordon D.
$50, David G.
$50, David T.
$50, Corey P.
$50, Rushi S.
$50, Randy N.
$50, John J.
$50, Daniel A.
$50, David T.
$50, David M.
$50, Joshua V.
$50, Jonathan R.
$50, Larry F.
$43 (139th donation), Olli K.
$43, Thomas K.
$40 (2nd donation), Systemutvikler R. S.
$40 (2nd donation), John D. K.
$40, Arthur T.
$40, W Neil E.
$40, Tormod Jahren
$39, Söhnke H.
$35 (18th donation), Ted S.
$35 (6th donation), Ron S.
$32 (4th donation), Harry F.
$32 (3rd donation), Tannis E.
$32 (2nd donation), Max S.
$32 (2nd donation), Jürgen S.
$32, T. Lindig
$32, Haeran J.
$32, João F.
$30 (2nd donation), Claud M. A.
$30 (2nd donation), John Eady
$30, David F.
$30, Aleksejs A.
$27 (10th donation), Ralf D.
$27 (4th donation), Wolfgang S.
$27 (2nd donation), Florian L.
$27, René S.
$27, Stefano B.
$26 (16th donation), Tsatsorin E. aka “Eugene713
$25 (13th donation), Vladimir Litvinenko
$25 (9th donation), Linux Mint Sverige
$25 (7th donation), Daniel B. M.
$25 (6th donation), Richard N.
$25 (4th donation), William V.
$25 (2nd donation), Jim R. aka “Images in Colour Inc.”
$25, Tulio J S.
$24 (4th donation), Jürgen S.
$22 (26th donation), Doriano G. M.
$22 (18th donation), Peter E.
$22 (15th donation), Per J.
$22 (8th donation), Frank V.
$22 (8th donation), Bjarne K.
$22 (8th donation), tenminutetechuk
$22 (7th donation), Kleiner Funk-Electronic
$22 (6th donation), Mladen P.
$22 (6th donation), Torsten B.
$22 (5th donation), Paco Galván
$22 (4th donation), Riccardo C.
$22 (4th donation), Ilia D.
$22 (3rd donation), Andreas F.
$22 (3rd donation), Jose Luis Nuñez Crespi
$22 (3rd donation), Albert V. N.
$22 (3rd donation), Harry T.
$22 (2nd donation), Jens G.
$22 (2nd donation), Liviu B.
$22 (2nd donation), particular
$22 (2nd donation), P V.
$22 (2nd donation), Michel H.
$22 (2nd donation), Christian B.
$22 (2nd donation), Arvids G.
$22 (2nd donation), Michael S.
$22 (2nd donation), Guillermo G. A.
$22 (2nd donation), Raul motoraul aka “motoraul”
$22 (2nd donation), Horst K.
$22, Volker H.
$22, Jaime B.
$22, Alexander O.
$22, Borko H.
$22, Christian S.
$22, Marc H.
$22, Patrick D.
$22, Viktor N.
$22, Bernhard L.
$22, Michaz P.
$22, Alan T.
$22, Michael F.
$22, Guenter G.
$22, Andreas A.
$22, Phillip D.
$22, Gerard C.
$22, Fabio M.
$22, Christer B.
$22, David O.
$22, Yvan P.
$22, René G.
$22, José Luis A.
$20 (58th donation), Curt Vaughan aka “curtvaughan ”
$20 (39th donation), Bryan F.
$20 (37th donation), Jim A.
$20 (36th donation), Stefan M. H.
$20 (20th donation), Christopher R.
$20 (15th donation), Brent P.
$20 (13th donation), Robert L.
$20 (10th donation), Terry B.
$20 (8th donation), Chungkuan T.
$20 (7th donation), Palmleaf
$20 (6th donation), Chris B.
$20 (6th donation), Jan R.
$20 (5th donation), Michael W. aka “bajan52”
$20 (4th donation), Ralph G.
$20 (4th donation), Jimmie D.
$20 (4th donation), C D. S. J.
$20 (4th donation), Todd W.
$20 (3rd donation), Robin S.
$20 (3rd donation), F. Gagnon aka “franckgaga”
$20 (3rd donation), Paul K.
$20 (3rd donation), Iain K.
$20 (3rd donation), Paul K.
$20 (3rd donation), Eddie B.
$20 (3rd donation), Jay J.
$20 (2nd donation), Hubbard T.
$20 (2nd donation), Jacques St-O.
$20 (2nd donation), Michael D.
$20 (2nd donation), Peter L. aka “Pedro
$20 (2nd donation), Antony C.
$20 (2nd donation), Wladyslaw T.
$20 (2nd donation), Brian C.
$20, Volodimir S.
$20, Jeremy S.
$20, James S.
$20, John W.
$20, Denis M.
$20, Ronald H.
$20, Images and Ideas
$20, Zbigniew K.
$20, Eugenijus U.
$20, Stephen A.
$20, Jyotirmoy G.
$20, Rob’s Small Engines
$20, Jim F.
$20, Jim B.
$20, Louise M.
$20, Oscar L.
$20, Ken K.
$20, Richard F.
$20, Gregory M.
$20, Frank T.
$20, William V.
$20, Vincent P.
$20, Jeremy S.
$20, Charles H.
$20, Dan M.
$20, Allen T.
$20, Brian U.
$20, Miguel M.
$20, Richard J.
$20, Mikhail Y.
$20, Otse E.
$20, Neil B.
$20, Jason T.
$20, Mark A.
$20, Hermanus I S.
$17 (62th donation), Johann J.
$16 (57th donation), Andreas S.
$16 (17th donation), Simone G.
$16 (2nd donation), Andreas S.
$16 (2nd donation), Salvador P. D.
$16, André F.
$16, Marija M.
$15 (7th donation), S.S. Gold Coast aka “zoom zoom”
$15, Robert H.
$14, Susan S.
$13 (8th donation), Gabriele I.
$12 (25th donation), Lance A.
$12, Julian P.
$11 (24th donation), Sami Mannila
$11 (19th donation), Daniel S.
$11 (18th donation), Piotr L aka “xpil
$11 (8th donation), Marko U.
$11 (7th donation), Gerhard A.
$11 (6th donation), Martin H.
$11 (5th donation), Michael W.
$11 (4th donation), Robert Z.
$11 (4th donation), John G.
$11 (3rd donation), Peter S.
$11 (3rd donation), Jeanmichel T.
$11 (3rd donation), Dino G.
$11 (3rd donation), Johannes S.
$11 (2nd donation), jo
$11 (2nd donation), Peter B.
$11 (2nd donation), Henk H.
$11 (2nd donation), Jose C.
$11 (2nd donation), Jan Z.
$11 (2nd donation), Andre T.
$11 (2nd donation), Milan Š.
$11 (2nd donation), Brian H.
$11 (2nd donation), Richard K.
$11 (2nd donation), Victor B.
$11 (2nd donation), Markus S.
$11 (2nd donation), Aleksander R.
$11 (2nd donation), Alex A. aka “cambiatealinux
$11, Marino R.
$11, Adam K.
$11, Barry B.
$11, Jean-claude M.
$11, Pablo O.
$11, Emmanuel C.
$11, Bjorn G.
$11, Giorgio D.
$11, Chirade C.
$11, Vladimir L.
$11, Peter H.
$11, John R.
$11, Tobias R.
$11, Daniel D.
$11, Radi D.
$11, Claire P.
$11, Frank J.
$11, Mauro G.
$11, Axel R.
$11, Miquel S.
$11, Georgios L.
$11, Jaime Ruiz-Borau
$11, Joseph M.
$11, Gianluca R.
$11, Corneliu-andrei F.
$11, Alan B.
$11, Sibe
$11, Benito H.
$11, Mario I.
$11, Miquel M. aka “hulot”
$11, Jan Holm J.
$11, A.l. P.
$11, Chris V.
$11, Frere D.
$11, Ricardo A.
$11, Jim O.
$11, Tom S.
$11, Adam B.
$10 (90th donation), Tree Service Kansas City
$10 (84th donation), Tree Removal Raleigh NC
$10 (68th donation), Thomas C.
$10 (62th donation), Fence Baton Rouge
$10 (29th donation), Francois-R L.
$10 (27th donation), Serhii B. aka “sinpavla
$10 (17th donation), Carpet Cleaning Winnipeg
$10 (15th donation), Platypus Products
$10 (15th donation), Fence Company Raleigh
$10 (15th donation), Philip Woodward
$10 (14th donation), Tree Service Kelowna
$10 (12th donation), Solar Panels Saskatoon
$10 (12th donation), Concrete Contractors Raleigh
$10 (9th donation), Kenton B.
$10 (7th donation), Daniel Tan
$10 (7th donation), Minneapolis Towing and Roadside Assistance
$10 (7th donation), Ellis
$10 (7th donation), Jorge R.
$10 (6th donation), George M.
$10 (6th donation), William M.
$10 (5th donation), Erik W.
$10 (5th donation), Jorge M.
$10 (4th donation), CHAZMAN
$10 (3rd donation), Niclas O.
$10 (3rd donation), Mark D.
$10 (2nd donation), Alan W.
$10 (2nd donation), Emin H.
$10 (2nd donation), Thomas D.
$10 (2nd donation), Kent J.
$10 (2nd donation), Gary W.
$10, Dale D.
$10, Atlanta Landscaping Matters
$10, Perry K.
$10, Sie masz Ignac!
$10, Andrew H.
$10, Maud H.
$10, Alessandro M.
$10, Andii P.
$10, Benjamin U.
$10, Dennis B.
$10, James R.
$10, Luis Andres B.
$10, David C.
$10, Greg G.
$10, Dire Noise
$10, Pericles B.
$10, Wojciech S.
$10, Ernest J.
$10, Matthew J.
$10, Peter P.
$10, Philip L.
$10, Lucian G.
$10, Kenneth H.
$10, Axel Z.
$10, zzzzzz .
$10, Cody R H.
$10, J R.
$10, Luke Bryden
$10, Brent B.
$10, Brennon S.
$10, Peterson’s Computer Solutions
$10, Gustavo F.
$10, Visa D.
$10, Norfolk Tree Service
$10, SAVE4ENERGY
$10, Jody M.
$7 (2nd donation), Pressure Washers Columbia
$7, Deez Nutz
$6 (2nd donation), Bernd St.
$5 (65th donation), Eugene T.
$5 (36th donation), William Menezes
$5 (29th donation), Hristo Gatsinski
$5 (23rd donation), Thomas R.
$5 (17th donation), Kirill
$5 (16th donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
$5 (13th donation), Szilard S.
$5 (11th donation), Teobaldo D.
$5 (10th donation), Timo K.
$5 (10th donation), Michael V.
$5 (8th donation), Willem V. U.
$5 (3rd donation), Rafal K.
$5 (3rd donation), Thomas K.
$5 (3rd donation), Simon A.
$5 (3rd donation), Denver Cockell
$5 (2nd donation), Eduardo K.
$5 (2nd donation), Sinisa B.
$5 (2nd donation), Dwane S.
$5, Francisco F.
$5, Robert J.
$5, Gift C.
$5, Ain U.
$5, Scott M. aka “tree service athens”
$5, Giuseppe Carlo P.
$5, Mark D.
$5, Pawel J.
$5, Howard R.
$5, Victor BQ.
$5, Johannes V.
$5, Gerald C.
$5, Paul B.
$5, Carlos aka “Synk”
$5, Marshall M.
$5, Massimo O.
$4 (5th donation), Csaba V.
$4, Mohamed E.
$4, Gabriele E R.
$3 (21st donation), Oleksandr P.
$3 (11th donation), Yinguang Z.
$3 (4th donation), Alexey Shtabskiy aka “youngsummerlight”
$3 (2nd donation), Pedram H.
$3, Anita S.
$3, GLS
$3, Siarhei V.
$33 from 25 smaller donations

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

Patrons:

Linux Mint is proudly supported by 590 patrons, for a sum of $2,852 per month.

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

Rankings:

  • Distrowatch (popularity ranking): 1976
  • Alexa (website ranking): 9914

We’ve got a lot of news for you this month. Before we get into it, let me thank all those who send us their help and contribute to make our project grow. Many thanks to all of you for your donations. Thanks also to our partners and sponsors for being there for us.

Warpinator

With Warpinator you can quickly and easily transfer files from computer to computer across the local network. Warpinator was already available natively for Linux Mint 20, 20.1 and LMDE 4, and as a Flatpak for any other release and for other Linux distributions.

Today we’re delighted to announce that Warpinator is now also available for Android.

To install Warpinator on your Android device simply search for it in the play store, or use the link below:

This port is an independent project written with the Android SDK and led by a developer called “slowscript”. It is hosted on Github at https://github.com/slowscript/warpinator-android.

Aside from a few minor issues (the project is very young) the app already works very well. I was personally amazed to see Warpinator in the play store first, and then to see my phone and my computer see each others and be able to transfer files almost instantly.

I’m also really happy to see 3rd party developers build and improve on top of what we created. When we made Warpinator we solved a need we had within Linux Mint and made the software available for all Linux distributions, but although we wouldn’t spend the resources to make it work on other OSes (Android, iOS, Windows and Mac for instance) we wanted to use simple and open technologies to make it possible for this software to be developed by others. Today, seeing someone put the effort and come up with an Android build is a really cool feeling. I’m really happy to see this happen.

Within the Linux Mint development team Lars Mueller (known as Cobinja on github) has also been working on a mobile version of Warpinator. This is something he did on his own and it isn’t ready so we haven’t had the opportunity to try it yet. The interesting thing about this project is that it is based on the Flutter SDK so in addition to an Android app, it could also lead to making Warpinator available on iOS.

Shells.com

While we’re talking about mobile devices and exciting technology, wouldn’t it be great if you could run Linux Mint on your phone and tablet? or anywhere at all? Wouldn’t it be great if you could run Android apps on your computer? This is what Shells is working on and we’re excited today to start a partnership with them.

With Shells.com you can run Linux Mint:

  • in a Web browser on any web enabled device
  • in a desktop app in Windows, Mac or Linux
  • in a mobile app on an Android device
  • in a mobile app on iOS devices

Your desktop environment is in the cloud and immediately available to you from any device and from anywhere at all. Start using it at home on your computer. Open it up from work using a Web browser. Connect to it in the train with a tablet or even access it from that mobile phone in your pocket anytime you need and from anywhere.

To understand how it works imagine if your Virtualbox VMs were in the cloud. You create a “Shell”, select an OS such as “Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon” for instance and tell it to install. Once it’s ready you can boot it and access Linux Mint. You never really have to reboot or shutdown or even logout. You just access your environment when you need it.

Shells automatically performs snapshots. These are not Timeshift snapshots within the OS itself, but global snapshots which can be used to bring back the entire VM to an earlier state.

The pricing model is a monthly subscription per VM with an amount based on the resources allocated. As part of our partnership, Shells is offering 3 months for the price of 2 at https://www.shells.com/pricing?special=linux_mint. 10% of all subscriptions created from this link go towards Linux Mint.

Shells VMs can be hosted in the USA (Chicago, Dallas or Los Angeles), in the Netherlands or in Japan. They have a shared IP address and provide SSH/SFTP access by default. With an extra $1/month they also provide a public static IP address, so you can install any server application in them like you would in a local Linux Mint environment but benefit from the fact that it’s in the cloud.

We’ve been working in tight collaboration with Shells.com to get Linux Mint running and it’s a real pleasure to work with them. We’ve fixed many issues together already. I found them to be extremely able and available. I already worked with Alex Lee in the past and I’m really happy to work with him again.

Going forward Shells.com is planning to provide 3D acceleration to its VMs. This should benefit the Cinnamon desktop. They’re also working on Android. Although this isn’t ready yet, their developers already have an ALPHA with access to the Play store and support for SIP numbers (phone calls, SMS, etc..).

My experience with Shell is complex. I find the technology really amazing and extremely promising. It’s so versatile it really opens the door to a lot of new use cases. The idea that you don’t even need a laptop to carry your environment around, that it’s immediately available to you no matter where you are, no matter what kind of device you have in front of view, if any, that itself is really appealing but it can go from something that just sounds cool to something that is actually really handy depending on the person that is using it. To me here in my rural country side where I work from home and do not commute it just does sound cool but I don’t need it. If I think of my younger self who was traveling through Paris on a daily basis, working on side projects all the time and carrying devices and storage units just to do exactly that then it’s a completely different story. The quality of my network connection also comes greatly into play. Here although 20Mbps (2.5MB per second) is considered quite decent, it’s just not enough for this to be comfortable. It’s usable, I can launch Youtube or Hypnotix in it and watch fluid TV/videos, but moving windows is slow and there’s a noticeable delay which makes it more pleasant to use the local environment rather than the remote one. Again, if I was still living in Paris this would not be an issue. I can see how fluid and comfortable the experience is for people in the US, it’s just not the same here for me in Ireland.

If you are creative, if you travel or commute quite a bit and you enjoy a good connection to the Internet this can be a fantastic idea. If you’re not sure and you want to take it for a ride Shells lets you cancel and refunds your subscription within 7 days.

Hypnotix

Hypnotix shipped with a default provider called Free-IPTV. Tensions and personal conflicts arose between Free-IPTV and some of its Github forks, and with other IPTV projects which copied some of its content. This eventually resulted in Free-IPTV closing down its project.

Although this had nothing to do with Hypnotix it impacted users which used the default provider. As a result we changed the default provider from Free-IPTV to Free-TV. This provider is much smaller (it currently provides 114 channels as opposed to 2055 for Free-IPTV) but it’s also very clear on its mission. Similar to the previous provider it only provides free and publicly available TV channels and with an emphasis on quality over quantity.

Note: Hypnotix was also backported to the Linux Mint 20 repositories.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon 5 will provide management tools to check for and perform updates of Cinnamon spices. As a reminder, a Cinnamon “spice” is an add-on to the desktop environment which is not part of the core desktop. There are 4 types of spices:

  • applets (which run in panels)
  • desklets (which run on the desktop itself)
  • extensions (which modify how Cinnamon functions)
  • themes (which modify the way Cinnamon looks)

Until now to see updates and to apply them you had to go in the system settings or you had to use a 3rd party applet developed by Claudiux called “Spices Update“.

Cinnamon 5 will ship with a command line tool called cinnamon-spice-updater which can list available updates and/or apply them. To make it easy for distributions to integrate Cinnamon spice updates within their Update Manager a Python 3 module will also be provided.

Update Manager

The Mint Update Manager will support Cinnamon spice updates.

Although from a technical point of view they are radically different than APT updates, from a user point of view they will be presented in a very similar manner. You’ll be able to see the same kind of information for them, and to enjoy the same features as you did already, such as the ability to blacklist a particular spice or a version of a spice for instance.

You’ll also be able to automate spice updates. In automatic mode spices will be upgraded shortly after you log in, the DE will then get refreshed (this is barely visible, Cinnamon restarts itself seamlessly, you just see the mouse cursor get reset on the screen when this happens) and a notification will popup to show you what was upgraded.

The Update Manager will also handle the automation of Flatpak updates. This was previously located in “Startup Applications”.

Mint 18 EOL

It’s been 5 years already. Linux Mint 18, 18.1, 18.2 and 18.3 reached EOL (End of Life) this month and are no longer supported.

If you are running one of these releases your operating system will continue to work but you will no longer receive security updates from the repositories. We recommend you backup your data and perform a fresh installation of Linux Mint 20.1, which is supported until 2025.

Alternatively, you can upgrade to Linux Mint 19.3 which is supported until 2023:

The minor upgrades (18->18.3, 19->19.3) are quite simple, easy and fast. The upgrade from 18.3 to 19 on the other hand is a major upgrade. It is longer and more complicated. Take your time with this one and don’t hesitate to seek assistance within the community, in the chat room or on the forums.

Sponsorships:

Linux Mint is proudly sponsored by:

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Donations in March:

A total of $12,044 were raised thanks to the generous contributions of 475 donors:

$400 (7th donation), Peter F.
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$300 (7th donation), Plamen Atanasov
$250, Alex S.
$200, paul wheaton
$200, Kenneth G.
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$129, Thomas B.
$120, George C.
$108, Slavenka O.
$100 (31st donation), Fast Junkie
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$100, Slower Traffic Keep Right aka “TwEECer
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$100, Joseph S.
$75, Michael C.
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$65, Georg W.
$54 (5th donation), Bernard H.
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$54, Dirk S.
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$54, Luigi P.
$54, Roman B.
$54, Bernard L.
$50 (47th donation), Anthony C. aka “ciak”
$50 (25th donation), Thomas T. aka “FullTimer1489”
$50 (13th donation), Robert M.
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$22 (5th donation), Janne M.
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$22, Anthony M.
$22, Michael S.
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$22, Carles R.
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$22, Claudio B.
$22, Giovanni S.
$22, Ralf M.
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$22, Ravi S.
$22, Reinhard H.
$22, Guenter B.
$22, Johannes S.
$22, Peter B.
$22, Millennium V.
$22, Jens F.
$22, P V.
$22, Andreas W.
$22, Andries S.
$22, Julian N.
$22, David L.
$20 (32nd donation), Bryan F.
$20 (28th donation), Mike W aka “bajan52”
$20 (22nd donation), John D.
$20 (17th donation), vagrantcow
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$20, Adrian C.
$20, Marcos F.
$20, Salvador F.
$20, Johannes W.
$20, Chinmay N.
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$20, Wing Ming T.
$20, Jae K.
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$20, Mr Christopher J W.
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$20, Phil W.
$20, Todd M.
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$20, Lydia D.
$20, Arnulfo B.
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$20, Kendal C.
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$20, Eric M.
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$16 (50th donation), Andreas S.
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$15 (3rd donation), John C.
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$12 (121th donation), Tony C. aka “S. LaRocca”
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$11, Patrick C.
$11, Susan D.
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$11, Vicente G.
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$11, Friedhelm S.
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$11, Rob P.
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$11, Carlos M.
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$11, Ingo K.
$10 (83th donation), Tree Service Kansas City
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$10 (20th donation), Serhii B. aka “sinpavla
$10 (19th donation), Sami Mannila
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$10 (13th donation), Nigel B.
$10 (13th donation), Tree Service Windsor Ontario
$10 (12th donation), tree removal calgary
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$10 (11th donation), Hot Tub Repair Calgary
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$10 (6th donation), Kitchen Remodel Spokane
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$10, Minneapolis Commercial Painting
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$10, Alton K.
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$10, William D.
$10, aka “DD Digital”
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$8 (4th donation), Curtis M.
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$6 (7th donation), Michał M. aka “Zaraki”
$6 (5th donation), Josef H. R. H.
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$6, Kamil T.
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$5 (17th donation), Thomas R.
$5 (10th donation), Sérgio D. S. S. aka “sersantos”
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$5 (4th donation), Keith W.
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$5 (2nd donation), AFELECTRONICS
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$5, Fabien
$5, Joshua L.
$5, Marko U.
$5, zzzzzzzz .
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$5, Christian M.
$5, Martin L.
$5, Fernando M.
$5, Nicolas V.
$5, Donatas D.
$5, Jose Maria S.
$5, Iñigo G.
$5, Oleksandr P.
$5, Mark R.
$5, Peyton H.
$5, Zac M.
$5, Adil O.
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$5, Carpet Cleaning Chelsea
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$5, Marcelo S.
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$3 (13th donation), Jonathan Gaddi Giomini aka “Jonny87”
$3 (7th donation), Szilard S.
$3 (2nd donation), Rafael C.
$3, Giada M.
$3, Daniel M.
$30 from 22 smaller donations

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

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