Canonical is increasingly relying on its in-house snap format in Ubuntu. In this way, the company primarily wants to offer software that requires frequent and fast updates. This includes in particular the free Chromium browser, which is now only available as a snap package. The Linux Mint makers, however, reject Snap and the associated Snap store controlled by Canonical. In Linux Mint 20 you have therefore deactivated the entire snap system by default. If you want to use the package format, you have to manually install the appropriate tools.

In order to continue to offer Chromium to your users, the Linux- Mint team now has its own Chromium package, which is available in the in-house repositories. The “chromium” package is not only available under Linux Mint, but also in the Debian GNU / Linux 10 based Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Debian offers its own Chromium package in its repositories. Since the browser version contained therein lags slightly behind the current development, the Linux Mint team has decided to offer their own package in the LMDE as well.

Own build server for the package The Linux Mint team set up its own build server for the creation of the Chromium package. In it translates a Ryzen 9 3900 – processor with 128 GByte main memory automatically the current Chromium source code in less than an hour in a suitable package. Without this potent helper, compiling could take up to six hours, as the Linux Mint developers explain in a blog post.

The browser version of the Mint team is currently on the status of the beginning of October.

(Image: Screenshot)

Outlook on further innovations In addition to the Chromium announcement, the blog entry by the Mint team also includes insights into the work on other innovations. Among other things, the developers have created “Hypnotix”, a client for playing Internet television (IPTV). Linux Mint users can install the alpha version of the client via the package provided. Hypnotix is ​​currently tapping into the FreeIPTV service, which in turn offers various TV channels as a stream. Whether Hypnotix will be included in upcoming Linux Mint versions has not yet been finalized.

With regard to For the upcoming version of the Linux distribution, the developers have announced that users will be able to add files to favorites using the context menu. The file manager in the favorites section, the file open dialogs and the sub-item “Favorites” in the “File” menus allow quick access. Cinnamon also receives a new “favorites” applet to go with it.

Speaking of Cinnamon: Version 4.8 of the desktop environment should use the JavaScript engine Spidermonkey from the package “libmozjs – 78 – use 0 “. In doing so, the Linux Mint makers are responding to a request that other distributors have often expressed. With further changes, Cinnamon 4.8 always receives current data from the add-on repository Spices. In addition, the desktop environment assumes forward compatibility of applets and desklets loaded there. This in turn simplifies versioning for your developers.

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