Fresh releases of Xfce, Mint, Cinnamon desktops out in time for the holidays

Fancy spending time refreshing your setup over the holidays? Two of the more popular Windows-style FOSS desktops are about to drop new point releases, one for higher-end machines and one for lower-end kit.

Cinnamon is the default desktop of Linux Mint, but it's also included in lots of other distros. Release 6.4 appeared on Github a few days ago, and some downstream distros have already picked it up – it looks to be in Arch's repositories already, for instance. They might have jumped a little bit too soon, as release 6.4.1 followed in days.

As last month's Linux Mint blog post described, one of the new features of this version is integrated "night light" support. This is a newly native feature, which works similarly to the external Redshift program. (Windows and Mac types might be more familiar with the free F.lux.) These tools progressively dim the screen and reduce the amount of blue in its image, which some research seems to indicate may help you sleep, although whether the effect is real remains controversial.

As we mentioned a couple of months ago it's also got redesigned dialog boxes, and it's expected in Mint 22.1, which should arrive later this month. According to discussion on the Mint forums it will apparently be codenamed "Xia."

The next release of Xfce is also due around the same time, so that will not be in Mint 22.1 – the timing is too close. Xfce 4.20 pre 2 has just been released and the Gitlab issue list is in good shape. The roadmap for this release says it should deliver preliminary Wayland support, which is similar to the new protocol's status in Cinnamon: it's not officially supported yet, but you can try it, and it will probably mostly work — but you should expect to see some teething troubles.

• FLTK hits 1.4, arrives speaking Wayland and with better HiDPI support
• Photoshop FOSS alternative GNU Image Manipulation Program 3.0 nearly here
• LXQt packs Wayland punch with 2.1 release
• Fedora 41: A vast assortment, but there's something for everyone

With any luck, Xfce 4.20 should be in time to get into Xubuntu 25.04, which will be codenamed Plucky Puffin.

Xubuntu is especially worth a look for those who dislike Canonical's snap format: as we mentioned of Xubuntu 24.04, it offers a separate ISO download of the Xubuntu minimal edition, which strongly resembles the old Xubuntu core project. This has almost nothing except the base distro and the desktop: it doesn't even include a web browser. It's an ideal basis for the official Mozilla DEB package, or of course for that of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge or whatever floats your boat.

With no snap packages pre-installed, it's very easy to remove snapd and pin the package to prevent it being reinstalled. ®