Linux Mint Finally Receiving Support for Gestures

Jun 06, 2023

If you use the Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop, you'll be thrilled to know that 21.2 is getting support for gestures on touchscreen devices and touchpads.

Getting multitouch gestures for touchscreen and touchpads on Linux has been problematic over the years. Although some distributions have offered it, the support has been fairly weak (at best).

Hopefully, that all changes with the release of Linux Mint 21.2 (and Cinnamon 5.8). When using the default Cinnamon desktop, users will finally get to enjoy gestures that will support media player controls, tilings, and other helpful features.

According to Clement "Clem" Lefebvre, these gestures will be supported for touchpads, touchscreens, and tablets.

Linux Mint 21.2 (based on Ubuntu 22.04) will also enjoy a few more updates and tweaks, such as Xfce version 4.18, global dark mode (thanks to an implementation of xdg-desktop-portal), and the Software Manager was given a UI refresh as well as better scoring/sorting algorithms for applications and a special list for tuned packages, an improved login (that includes support for multiple keyboard layouts and better touchpad support), auto-detection and enabling of tap-to-click, support for Wayland sessions, support for HEIF and AVIF images, an improved Pix image viewing app, better support for Flatpak apps, and improved support for GNOME's libadwaita library.

Linux Mint 21.2 (Victoria) is slated for release in June 2023. For those wanting to test Linux Mint 21.2, you'll have to use the Daily Builds PPA and upgrade from the stable to the the unstable version or you can wait until they release the beta version, which will probably happen a couple weeks before the final release. Make sure to check the official ISO Images page daily.
 
 

 
 

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