With just a few more months to go until the Linux Mint team releases the next major update of its operating system, it has announced that the upcoming release has been dubbed ‘Tessa’. All of the codenames in the 19.x series should begin with "T", while the second letter should progress further through the alphabet. Linux Mint 19.0, for example, is called ‘Tara’.
Wrapping up August, Clem Lefebvre, head of the Mint project, outlined some work the team has been doing to their software. The first improvement is to the Software Sources tool which has been given a new look similar to the welcome screen, it now uses an Xapp sidebar and a headbar. In addition, the optional sources section has been simplified and a new option is being planned to add debugging repositories.
Another big change that should make using the distribution more pleasant is that the contrast in the Mint-Y theme has been altered for better viewing. The changes are made based on feedback received after the release on Linux Mint 19 which said that some labels were too difficult to read. Writing about the contrast changes, Lefebvre said:
“The foreground colors were darkened (this is particularly visible here in the symbolic toolbar icons). The titlebar label is more pronounced as well, and the frame and contour of some of the widgets appear more clearly within the user interface.”
Linux Mint 19.1, when released, will be supported with updates until 2023. If you’re already running Linux Mint 19, the update will be made available via the Update Manager and it will be both easy and safe to perform.