Linux Mint KDE Edition Changelog

What's new in Linux Mint KDE Edition 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.