As we eagerly awaited the arrival of Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” underneath our Christmas trees, the Linux Mint team has shared a new monthly update to keep us informed about the forthcoming release and EDGE ISO.
Primarily, it seems that not every bug reported by users during the beta testing of Linux Mint 21.3 has been addressed. This implies that the final version will take a bit longer to be launched. Regrettably, no release date has been specified by the Linux Mint team at the time of this report.
In addition to this, another noteworthy update regarding the incoming Linux Mint 21.3 edition is the upgrade of the EDGE ISO. Typically shipping with a newer kernel version than that of the standard ISO, the EDGE ISO will be upgrading to Linux Kernel 6.5, which has recently reached its end of life,. This is intended to resolve hardware issues with the latest AMD GPUs and certain wireless chips and SSD controllers in specific Acer laptop models.
“During BETA testing, we identified compatibility issues between Linux Mint and new hardware devices (recent AMD graphics but also wireless chipsets and SSD controllers used in Acer laptops). These are solved by upgrading the kernel series from 5.15 to 6.5,” stated Clement Lefebvre in the December 2023 monthly newsletter.
The EDGE ISO of the current Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” release shipped with Linux kernel 6.2 (HWE) from Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish). The upcoming Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” release will feature Linux kernel 6.5 for the EDGE ISO, which will probably be released at a later date than the regular ISOs.
Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” is expected to ship with the latest Cinnamon 6.0 desktop environment on the flagship editions, as well as with the Xfce 4.18 and MATE 1.26 desktop environments on the Xfce and MATE editions. Worth noting is the fact that the Cinnamon edition will offer an experimental Wayland session.
Linux Mint 21.3 will also offer full support for SecureBoot, EFI mode for the GRUB bootloader, updated Hypnotix and Warpinator apps, as well as artwork improvements. Under the hood, Linux Mint 21.3 will be based on Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS and powered by Linux kernel 5.15 LTS.