Following the beta release of Linux Mint 20.1 in mid-December, the stable release has been finalised and approved for release according to the Linux Mint website. While approved, the Linux Mint project has not yet published a blog post about the release or the ISOs but they are expected imminently.
For those already running Linux Mint 20, the upgrade will be made available via the Update Manager but upgrading won’t be necessary if you’re happy with your existing setup. Like Linux Mint 20, Linux Mint 20.1 will receive security updates until 2025 as they’re both based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, however, it will come with desktop improvements and new apps developed by the Linux Mint project.
Some of the new apps that will be available include Web Apps which lets your turn your favourite sites into web apps accessible from the app menu and an IPTV program called Hypnotix that’ll come pre-loaded with several freely available channels. For Chromium fans, the Mint team has decided to begin compiling the browser itself without a dependence on Ubuntu’s Snap packaging software.
In a blog post from the end of December, Linux Mint’s head Clem Lefebvre said that there were still some issues that they wanted to work out before the release and couldn’t give an exact release date. Linux Mint is not known for giving exact release dates so there’s nothing out of the ordinary this time around. In the post, Lefebvre also stated that the team was considering an extra ISO image with the Linux 5.8 kernel to address some AMD Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 issues but this extra ISO has not yet shown up on the Mint website.
Update: Linux Mint 20.1 has now been released and can be downloaded from linuxmint.com.