​Launched just some days ago, Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” is another LTS variant in the series of 18 and 18.1. However, the distro is still in beta, the team has promised that it will be possible to upgrade to the stable version through beta or 18.1 or 18 through native updates. The updates will be started after the launch of the stable version. ​There are a lot of things to get excited for. So let us start the review.

First Things First

​The assumption that 18.2 is based on Ubuntu 17.04 is entirely wrong. They are still using Xenial Xerus as their base. Linux kernel is updated to 4.8, Cinnamon is updated to 3.4 and Mate is 1.18. This variant will be supported until 2021. The team also informed that they won’t be touching any new base until 2018, which means 17.04 is a long way.

A Glance of System Info

Download Linux Mint 18.2 “Beta”

​You can download Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” Beta edition on the link below.

​I have extracted the wallpapers of Linux Mint 18.2. In case you don’t want to try the beta variant but want the wallpapers, head to my google drive by the below link and grab them.

Thanks for this awesome collections of wallpapers to Ashim D’Silva, Eric Kilby, Guy Bowden, Grant McCurdy, Harald Hoyer, Jan Kaluza, Jeremy Bishop, Jens Enemark, Jason Leem, Jakob Owens, Luca Bravo, Matheus Bandoch, N. Feans, Robert Lukeman, Stanley Dai, Sezgin Mendil, Shontz Photography and srslyguys.

What’s New In Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” Beta

​Many updates were added to the new edition. I will try to explain things in a quick and short way as possible.

Spices Website Updated

​The good, old-fashioned looked website has been finally updated with lots of tweaks and improvement. The brand new UI is beautiful as well as moving maintenance to GitHub.

The Updated Xapps

​As Mint calls them, Xapps have been updated and tweaked much. For e.g. Xed has got a new visual look and some more settings have been added, the same happened with Xplayer, Pix and Xreader and Xviewer. Most of them have received a new dark theme, which I of course loved. However, I don’t use Xapps much but tweaks and improvements are always welcomed.

Bluetooth Support Updated

​Blueberry, the name of Mint Bluetooth has received a fair number of tweaks. A new setting option is also available. The user interface again has a reboot.

New Update Manager Policies

​The update manager policies have been updated which simply means that they have worked on the level of importance, safety, and stability of updates and so users can be warned if an update can break the system. Also, a new CLI was introduced namely “mintupdate-tool”. Users can write cron jobs that can automate updates. This is a very nice step and I welcome it.

The update on kernel will now provide much more information than before and that’s also cool. Shortcuts are now also supported very more.

Introduction To LightDM

​Welcome the new login screen LightDM. It supports high resolutions and is beautiful to log in with. It provides a lot of options to customize.

​And yes, guest sessions is now also available.

Misc. Improvements

Software sources and foreign packages are now easy to configure.

Brasero is no longer installed by default.

Apt now supports markauto and markmanual commands.

Root account is locked by default.

Conclusion

​That’s all on Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” Beta from my side. Although the distro is still in beta, on my last 1-day usage ( normal functions only) I hadn’t encountered any problems. Everything works cool and easy. I like that Mint Team works on stability so much rather than running behind new features. Their work on Xapps is also awesome. Overall, Sonya is awesome. I recommend you guys go ahead and try it in live session or VirtualBox. I welcome your thoughts on this article. Comment below and let me know what you guys think about it.