Linux Mint 21 has arrived and it includes some interesting updates and features that will please both new and previous users alike. One big addition is the new upgrade tool that makes it even easier to upgrade to a major version with just a few clicks of a graphical tool. The new updater displays packages that have been upgraded as well as those that won’t and reports if any PPAs will no longer be supported in the new version.

Linux Mint 21 also ships with a new Bluetooth application, Blueman, and the bluez backend. This was done for two reasons. First off Blueman is a superior application. The other reason is explained by Clement Lefèbvre (Linux Mint Lead Developer) when he said in a blog post back in March:

“On the development side of things, the latest version of gnome-bluetooth introduced changes which broke compatibility with Blueberry, and its main developer isn’t keen on seeing his work used outside of GNOME. Blueman on the other hand welcomed a Mint migration and is open to changes. We’re currently testing Blueman and working on its integration within Linux Mint.”

Other new features found in Mint 21 include Timeshift becoming an official Linux Mint tool, WebP image support, better thumbnails via Xapp, new wallpapers, the including of libfuse2 and libfuse3-3 for AppImage applications, Cinnamon 5.4.2, kernel 5.15, an improved Sticky Notes app (which allows for note duplication) and a new process manager system tray app for the monitoring of automated tasks.

One thing the Mint Developers didn’t add to version 21 is systemd-oomd, which is a service that automatically manages out-of-memory issues by killing running applications. Ubuntu 22.04 introduced this feature which has since caused numerous problems in user space. Because of this, the developers of Linux Mint opted to nix the inclusion of the feature.

Download your copy of Linux Mint 21 now.