Linux Mint was basically born as an Ubuntu for those who don’t like Ubuntu. However, this Linux has quickly become one of the favorite distros of many users, occupying the third place as one of the most sought after by users, ahead, even, of Ubuntu. In the middle of last year, its developers released one of the most ambitious versions of this Linux, 20.0 “Ulyana”. And now, 6 months later, the first update of this distro arrives. Know everything about Linux Mint 20.1 “Ulyssa” , the first version that we will see in 2021.
Ulyssa is not about as big an update as version 20.0. However, we are facing a very important new version that brings with it a series of moderate changes and endless corrections and optimizations. This is the first update of 20.0, and it will be succeeded by versions 20.2 and 20.3 in September and December of this year.
We remember that this Linux uses a Cinnamon desktop by default, although we can also choose to install others, such as Xfce or MATE , if we are looking for a different experience. Also, for the most demanding, we have LMDE , a version of Linux Mint based on Debian instead of Ubuntu.
What’s new in Linux Mint 20.1
The first thing to keep in mind is that this new version is based on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS. In this way, we will be able to find the main corrections and improvements introduced by Canonical in the first revision of its latest LTS. This new version will come by default with the Linux Kernel 5.4 , an already quite old version of the kernel, but it is the one offered by Ubuntu. However, the Mint developers have promised to offer a separate ISO with Kernel 5.8 for those with newer hardware (such as Ryzen processors) to enjoy better support.
Another novelty that we will find will be Hypnotix . This is a new program, which will be part of Linux natively, which allows us to play IPTV for free. It will come with a series of free channels, and then we can add the ones we want through m3u lists.
Various functions of the operating system have been improved and simplified. For example, now we will be able to create webapps through an Electron wrapper to always have our favorite websites at hand in the form of an application. We will also have more control over the favorite files, being able to add them to the list, and remove them, with the right-click context menu. The developers have also decided to remove ippusbxd due to the large number of problems it was causing.
Another interesting change is that Compiz makes a comeback, allowing us to activate all kinds of effects on our desktop and all windows. An excellent layer of customization that could not be missing in this Linux.
Lastly, a large number of bugs have been fixed to make Linux Mint more stable and faster than ever.
Download and availability
At the moment, it is not known exactly when the final version of Linux Mint 20.1 will be available. However, it is expected to be seen in the first quarter of 2021, so we could easily see it in February or early March.
If you want to try the news of this Linux before anyone else, you can download the new “beta” version from the following link . Of course, being a beta version, still in development, it may still have bugs pending to be solved. We recommend using these beta versions for testing only, never in production. The ideal is to test its improvements and news in a virtual machine, and wait for the final version to install it on the PC.