Linux Mint team announced the new version of Linux Mint. The latest version Linux Mint 18 code named "Sarah" is a long term support release which will receive updates for next 5 years. Linux Mint 18 came in two editions "Cinnamon" and "MATE", features lots of improvements, enhanced update manager which allows to install different version of the Linux kernel, there are lots of package updates under the hood and Linux Mint 18 introduced X-Apps: "A new project called X-Apps was started and its goal is to produce generic applications for traditional GTK desktop environments. The idea behind this project is to replace applications which no longer integrate properly outside of a particular environment (this is the case for a growing number of GNOME applications) and to give our desktop environments the same set of core applications, so that each change, each new feature being developed, each little improvement made in one of them will benefit not just one environment, but all of them. The idea for X-Apps are: To use modern toolkits and technologies (GTK3 for HiDPI support, gsettings etc..); To use traditional user interfaces (titlebars, menubars); To work everywhere (to be generic, desktop-agnostic and distro-agnostic); To provide the functionality users already enjoy (or enjoyed in the past for distributions which already lost some functionality); To be backward-compatible (in order to work on as many distributions as possible)..." You can checkout release announcement Cinnamon and Mate.
