It has taken Clem Lefebvre longer than expected to publish September's note of 2024 from Linux Mint, which corresponds to the month of August of the same year. One might wonder why, what has happened for something that is usually published at the beginning of the month, even before it ends as former, has been delayed until mid-2011, and the answer seems to be the problems with updates. Problems that go up the family tree to Debian.
Linux Mint 21.3 to 22 upgrade was broken by package conflict issues introduced in Ubuntu 24.04, in Samba and LibreOffice to be exact. When Debian Unstable was frozen for the Ubuntu 24.04 base, Debian was making major transitions for T64 packages. When 24.04 was delayed, it was to fix the backdoor issues in XZ. The Mint team didn't have time to do some of their work, and the transition to T64 was not finished.
«Now, because the T64 situation was already an issue for the Mint 22 upgrade, it was somewhat addressed in our upgrade tool. The 21.3 -> 22 upgrade is able to transition to T64 packages even when the packaging does not manage the transition. What it cannot do is pass along actual dependency conflicts«.
Linux Mint will get a better theme when Cinnamon 5.4 arrives
According to Lefebvre, the default Cinnamon theme is considered unattractive outside of Linux Mint. To address this, Cinnamon 5.4 will feature an improved default theme, which will focus on offering a more attractive and functional appearance. To see images of this new theme we will have to wait for future news.
On the other hand, an overhaul and modernization of APT dependencies for Linux Mint 22.1 is in the works. This includes merging tools such as gdeby y apturl into an application called Captain, and Aptdaemon with mintcommon-aptdaemon into a new library called Aptkit. These changes are intended to simplify the use and maintenance of APT tools, resolve long-standing issues, and improve the user experience, although the changes will not be very visible on the desktop.
Among other new features, the repository servers have been upgraded to 10gbps, ten times faster than before. This has eliminated bottlenecks during large updates, even when updating packages like Firefox or Chromium simultaneously. Finally, we are reminded that LMDE 5 “Elsie” has reached end of life and will no longer be maintained. The repositories will continue to function for a while, but no further updates will be offered.
The next note should come in early October with more information, probably with the first screenshots of the Cinnamon 5.4 theme.