Fancy some fresh Linux Mint? 21.1 enters beta, should be here by Christmas

The first beta version of Mint 21.1 is now available for download, and the flagship Cinnamon desktop edition contains the biggest change, with a new version of the desktop. Mint 21.1's Cinnamon 5.6 looks much the same as before. If you pick the "modern" look, there's just an inconspicuous show-desktop rectangle at the end of …

[Neil Barnes]

...geolocates your region and sets the time, date and currency formats...

That is what the version 20 does, and it's a pain if you happen to want a UK locale after it's detected you're in Germany. It cheerfully accepted a UK keyboard in initial setup, and set the local GMT+1 time, but it will insist that I want to use a comma as a decimal separator and I'm blowed if I can find a way to change its mind.

But it's still my favourite distro.

[Liam Proven]

Re: ...geolocates your region and sets the time, date and currency formats...

[Author here]

> I'm blowed if I can find a way to change its mind.

How to change it is shown in the screenshots and explained in their captions. Hope that helps. :-)

[bofh1961]

I wonder

How quickly Cinnamon 5.6 will make it to the Fedora spin that I prefer. The changes to Nemo are welcome.

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: I wonder

I have fixed Nemo by replacing it with Caja (out of MATE). Much nicer for connecting to other boxen, with the neat trick that "Console here" will open a SSH terminal in the right folder of the other box if you connected over sftp.

Aside from that, it's got much more of a "windows file explorer, back from when it was usable" feel.

[ThatOne]

Thank you!

> Nemo file manager has new, more colorful icons

Hallelujah! The all-gray-on-black theme was not only ugly, but made it also much harder to spot things for my old eyes (lots of partitions, drives and bookmarked folders in my file manager...).

Favoring some abstract pseudo-artistic fad over usability is a typical Windows marketing move, and I was horrified to see it infecting Mint. Mint is supposed to be the level-headed, no-nonsense OS for people who need to get work done (as opposed to those who think their computer is a fashion statement, just there to be displayed at [coffee shop franchise]).

[Barry Rueger]

Hurrah! They've finally changed... Nothing!

I install Mint Cinnamon on my boxes, and aside from disabling CapsLock, run it totally stock, out of the box.

In a world of constant, swirling, and often pointless change it's a great comfort to know that at least my desktop OS remains the same year after year.

[CAPS LOCK]

Re: Hurrah! They've finally changed... Nothing!

Completely agree. Down with unnecessary change.

[nautica]

Re: Hurrah! They've finally changed... Nothing!

"We must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic."--Winston Churchill