What To Expect From Linux Mint 15 (Cinnamon, Nemo Changes)

The Linux Mint roadmap was updated recently, pointing out what to expect in Linux Mint 15 for Cinnamon, Nemo, MDM or Mint Tools.

Cinnamon with Bumpmaps support

Linux Mint 15 is expected to ship with Cinnamon 1.8 which will include new features like:

• Desktlets (desktop widgets). Three such desklets should be available by available by default: System Monitor, Picture video & slideshow frame and Terminal
• Cinnamon Settings: ability to browse, install, remove and update Cinnamon themes, applets, extensions and desklets remotely
• Bumpmaps support (defines transparent textures which look like sculpted glass - see screenshot above)
• A Control Center that integrates both Cinnamon and GNOME settings into one tool
• Rethink Cinnamon 2D: fallback to a non-shadow CPU-less intensive session in software rendering mode. Muffin or OpenBox will be used.
• Configurable color schemes for themes
• Calendar events similar to KDE's implementation
• New/improved applets: upgrade Menu applet with mintMenu features, new email notifier and pulse-like RSS reader applets

Nemo (the target version for Linux Mint 15 is Nemo 1.8), the default Cinnamon file manager should get some new features as well, like an Actions API, disk management (with Mintdisk integration), a file preview feature and UI improvements (which include sidebar selection, independent path bar, better looking breadcrumbs and more).

The latest Nemo from GIT has already got some interesting new features, like an updated sidebar which now displays the amount of free/used space for each drive or zoom buttons as you can see in the screenshot above.

MDM (1.2) should be updated as well for Linux Mint 15, getting a new renderer which supports animations and interactivity to get on par with Unity Greeter. Currently, MDM, which is a fork of the old GDM 2.20, looks a bit outdated, while LightDM supports a lot of cool stuff - like you've seen in the elementary OS Luna video we've posted a while back.

Other potential changes you can expect in Linux Mint 15 include UI improvements for Software Manager and live-installer, a new screensaver, new driver manager, add ubiquity features to live-installer.

Under "R&D" (research and development), it is even mentioned that it's possible to switch away from dpkg: "investigation on pros and cons of dpkg compared to other packaging systems (multi-version installation, static/dynamic support, snapshots, delta, update reversals etc..)".

The official Linux Mint 15 roadmap can be found on GitHub.

via Marco's Box; first image via Linux Mint blog