Free Download Linux Mint KDE Edition for Linux ::: System Utilities

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Software Details:

Version: 18.2 / 18.3 Beta ^updated

Upload Date: 2 Dec 17

Developer: Linux Mint Team

Distribution Type: Freeware

Downloads: 249

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Linux Mint KDE Edition is an open source and free distribution of Linux, a special edition of the well known Linux Mint operating system that uses KDE Plasma as its default and only operating system, providing a modern and productive OS.

Distributed as 64/32-bit Live DVDs

The KDE edition of Linux Mint is a community project that can be downloaded from Softoware or the official Linux Mint website as two Live DVD ISO images, one for each of the supported hardware platforms (64-bit and 32-bit). Please note that you must deploy these ISO images to either DVD discs or USB sticks in order to boot them from the BIOS of a PC.

Standard boot options

The boot prompt of Linux Mint KDE Edition is a standard one, used on many other Linux Mint editions. It is engineered to boot the live environment in ten seconds, if no keyboard key is pressed. The boot menu will be revealed by pressing any keyboard key during this timeout, allowing the user to start the live environment with default drivers or in compatibility mode, perform a system memory check, boot an existing operating system from the first disk, or check the integrity of the bootable medium (only if using a DVD media).

Modern and professional looking desktop environment powered by KDE Plasma

As mentioned, the main emphasis is on promoting the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which looks modern and professional, comprised of a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen and designed for quick access to installed applications and easy interaction with opened programs and system tray functions.

A great selection of open source apps

We can’t complain about the software selection, as the distro comes with the Mozilla Firefox web browser, Amarok audio player, Konversation IRC client, KDE IM Contacts instant messenger, digiKam photo management program, GIMP image editor, LibreOffice office suite, K3b CD/DVD/BD burning utility, Kaffeine media player, VLC Media Player, and KTorrent BitTorrent client.

Bottom line

In conclusion, the KDE edition of Linux Mint is a more than welcome addition to the ever growing list of Ubuntu-based operating systems. Keep in mind that this flavor is suitable for high-end machines.

What is new in this release:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 18.2:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 18.1 / 18.2 Beta:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 18.1:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 18:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 17.3 / 18 Beta:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 17.3:

Software Sources:
Software repositories are very important. We use them all the time when installing new software or performing updates. They need to be fast and reliable. This was a major point of focus in the development of Linux Mint 17.3.
Software repositories are mirrored (i.e. duplicated on many servers) all over the world. The main goal of the Software Sources configuration tool is to make it easy to find the best available mirror for you; one that is...
Reliable and fully up to date
Fast and responsive
To find the fastest mirrors, the Software Sources tool now detects your location and starts its speed tests with mirrors near you.
The Software Sources tool tests mirrors near you, with better accuracy than before and can now detect mirrors which are not up to date.
Mirrors from your own country are tested first, then from neighbouring countries and finally from your sub-region and region of the world.
Say you live in the Netherlands, mirrors are tested in this order: Dutch mirrors first, then Belgian and German mirrors, Western European mirrors next, and then finally mirrors from all over Europe.
Speed tests are also much more accurate than before. They're performed one after another and on larger files (to get more precision while measuring speed).
Finally, the Software Sources tool is more reliable than before:
Even if a mirror is working correctly, the tool is now able to detect if its content is not up to date.
PPA (Personal Package Archives) are now tested for compatibility.
Update Manager:
The Update Manager now also performs more checks than before.
It warns you if the mirror you're using is not up to date:
Obsolete mirrors are now detected.
It prevents you from damaging the system if that mirror (or your local cache) is corrupted:
The Update Manager protects against corrupted mirrors or cache.
And it shows a little hint even when everything is fine if faster mirrors are available:
The use of local mirrors is recommended.
The local cache used to be refreshed every 30 minutes. It is now refreshed 10 minutes after you log in, and every 2 hours then after. Both settings are configurable.
Driver Manager:
The Driver Manager is more robust than before. It refreshes the cache before looking for drivers and reports update and installation errors if appropriate.
Drivers are now sorted by status and the Driver Manager now indicates if drivers are Open Source or not.
The Driver Manager features both UI and under-the-hood improvements.
The Driver Manager now also loads much faster and detects drivers in the background.
When a Broadcom chipset is detected, along with the recommended Broadcom STA drivers, the Driver Manager now also lists B43 installers (note that these options do require an Ethernet connection).
Login Screen:
HiDPI support was improved in the MDM display manager.
Many HiDPI related issues were fixed, in particular with HD TVs plugged over HDMI.
The way HiDPI support works in MDM was also redesigned. It used to double the pixel density on HiDPI displays and that sometimes resulted in a login screen that looked too big on some HiDPI monitors. It now works towards an ideal pixel density, so the scaling ratio isn't just 1x or 2x but an appropriate calculated value in between.
The login screen features an on-screen keyboard and improved HiDPI support
To improve the support for touchscreens and mobile devices, an on-screen keyboard was also added in the login screen. This keyboard is available for the default theme ("Mint-X") and it provides both common and special characters.
System improvements:
Xorg, Mesa and the Linux kernel were upgraded.
In many cases, this improves hardware support. Imacs for instance no longer need to use nomodeset, scrolling is now functional on some Asus touchpads, suspending is much faster on macbooks...etc.
Kernel 4.2.0 is also available in the repositories. However please be cautious with it if you are using proprietary drivers. At the moment, the following drivers are known not to work with it...
fglrx (ATI/AMD drivers)
ndiswrapper (Windows wireless drivers)
Support for these drivers with kernel 4.2.0 should improve before February 2016.
Artwork improvements:
Linux Mint 17.3 features a superb collection of backgrounds from Calexil, Falcon Photography, Jan Kaluza, Jen K, Konstantin Leonov, Sezgin Mendil and Vinod Chandar.
An overview of some of the new backgrounds: All the backgrounds from Linux Mint "Qiana", "Rebecca" and "Rafaela" are also present.
Other improvements:
The welcome screen was redesigned slightly.
LibreOffice was upgraded to version 5.
Inxi was upgraded and now supports multiple graphics cards.
When using an encrypted home directory, memory swap is no longer encrypted by default and hibernation works out of the box.
Main components:
Linux Mint 17.3 features KDE 4.14, MDM 2.0, a Linux kernel 3.19 and an Ubuntu 14.04 package base.

What is new in version 17.2:

Software Sources
Update Manager
Login Screen
Better support for UEFI, NVIDIA and Optimus cards
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Other Improvements
Main Components
LTS Strategy

What is new in version 17.1 / 17.2 RC:

KDE 4.14
KWallet Integration
Update Manager
Login Screen
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Other Improvements
Main Components
LTS Strategy

What is new in version 17.1:

KDE 4.14
KWallet Integration
Update Manager
Login Screen
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Other Improvements
Main Components
LTS Strategy

What is new in version 17.1 RC:

KDE 4.14
KWallet Integration
Update Manager
Login Screen
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Other Improvements
Main Components
LTS Strategy

What is new in version 17:

Update Manager
Driver Manager
Login Screen
Software Sources
Welcome Screen
KDE 4.13
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Main Components
LTS Strategy

What is new in version 16:

KDE 4.11
Samba Mounter
Login Screen
USB Stick support
Performance improvements
Software Manager
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Main Components

What is new in version 15 RC:

KDE 4.10
MDM
Software Sources
Driver Manager
Software Manager
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Upstream Components

What is new in version 14:

KDE 4.9
Software Manager
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Upstream Components

What is new in version 14 RC:

KDE 4.9
Software Manager
System Improvements
Artwork Improvements
Upstream Components

What is new in version 13:

KDE 4.8
Artwork improvements
Search engines

What is new in version 12:

Based on Ubuntu 11.10
Linux kernel 3.0
KDE SC 4.7.4
Print to PDF
Apturl
Ctrl_Alt_Backspace
mintDesktop
Mint4Win
Remove Moonlight

2 Dec 17 in System Utilities, Linux Distributions

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