The eagerly awaited Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” edition can now be downloaded from various Linux Mint project mirrors globally, before its official launch later in the week.
Nicknamed “Virginia”, the Linux Mint 21.3 showcases the most recent Cinnamon 6.0 desktop environment for its key editions. It introduces an experimental Wayland session for those who prefer their Linux Mint on top of Wayland.
After an upgrade to Linux Mint 21.3, users will see a new “Cinnamon on Wayland” option on the login screen. The default session continues to use the Xorg Server. The experimental Wayland session provides fractional scaling support on HiDPI (4K) displays, though it is still in an experimental phase.
Wayland session on Linux Mint 21.3
Alongside the experimental Wayland session, the Cinnamon 6.0 desktop environment introduces a range of enhancements to the Linux Mint 21.3 release. Among these is the added capacity to download right-click context menu actions for the Nemo file manager in the same way that Cinnamon applets, desklets, extensions, and themes are downloaded.
Cinnamon 6.0 also delivers updated Sound and Power applets, support for AVIF images, a new desktop zoom gesture, color picker functionality in the screenshot service, a new menu details choice, 75% scaling, window opacity keybinding, and an xdg-portal configuration file, among other improvements.
The other editions of Linux Mint 21.3 that are supported come with the Xfce 4.18 and MATE 1.26 desktop environments, the same as those in the last Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” release.
All three Linux Mint 21.3 editions include updated in-house built apps, such as the Hypnotix TV viewer app, which received the ability to save channels as favorites and create custom channels so you can use the app without any playlist or any IPTV provider.
The Pix image viewer’s video playback has been enhanced in this release to take the orientation of the video clip into account and automatically rotate it. Also, the Bulky batch file renaming tool received support for thumbnails and drag and drop.
Additionally, the Slick Greeter login interface has received updates to allow users to adjust the placement of the login box. The Warpinator file-sharing application has also been improved with a new feature that allows manual connection to other devices by either inputting an IP address or scanning a QR code using a mobile device.
In the latest Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia” update, another noteworthy addition is the possibility to use the “Romeo” unstable software repository for integration of cutting-edge functionalities into the system. This update has rendered the unstable PPA of Linux Mint obsolete.
Internally, Linux Mint 21.3 operates on the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) OS series and relies on the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel series for long-term support. An EDGE ISO image would be released in the forthcoming weeks featuring an upgraded kernel for improved hardware compatibility, specifically the Linux kernel 6.5.
Linux Mint 21.3 is also fully supported for SecureBoot, compatible with a wide spectrum of BIOS and EFI implementations, default EFI mode for the GRUB bootloader, and default BIOS mode for the ISOLINUX/Syslinux bootloader.
Like with previous releases in the Linux Mint 21 series, Linux Mint 21.3 will receive security updates until 2027. You can download Linux Mint 21.3 right now using the direct download buttons below. An official announcement will be published by the Linux Mint team in the coming days on their blog.
More details about this release are available on the official website.
Last updated 4 hours ago