Linux Mint 20 Beta is Now Available to Download

[steven36]

 

Roll up your geek sleeves and get stuck in ‘cos the Linux Mint 20 beta is now available to download.

 

 

Freshly prepared ISOs have been spun up for testing and feedback and are in the process of syncing out to mirrors.

 

The Linux Mint 20 beta build precedes the final stable release, which is due for release in a couple of weeks time.

 

We’ve been keeping an eye on Linux Mint 20 development (it’s the first release of the distro to be based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) and know about many of the new features on offer, including:

• Fractional scaling support
• New file transfer app
• Faster file manager
• Linux 5.4 kernel
• Change monitor refresh rate
• Better support for multi-monitors
• Launch apps on specific GPUs
• More theme colours

 

There are plenty of other, smaller quality of life improvements but as this is a beta rough edges may remain. You know the drill.

 

On a mildly controversial note Linux Mint 20 does not allow snapd to be installed “out of the box” at all. If you want to leverage the cross-distro format in this release you’ll need to use a workaround to explicitly opt-in to the tech.

Download Linux Mint 20 Beta

Linux Mint 20 beta Cinnamon edition as a 64-bit .iso image you can flash to a USB stick or write to a DVD to boot from:

 

Download Linux Mint 20 Beta (64-bit .iso) #1

 

Download Linux Mint 20 Beta (64-bit .iso) #2

 

Beta versions of the MATE and Xfce flavours are also available here and here.

 

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[steven36]

Linux Mint 20 Blocks Snap App Installs, So Here’s the Workaround

 

 

 

Linux Mint 20 disables support for Snap apps entirely on your behalf, but in this post I’m going to show you how to re-enable it (if you want to, that is).

 

Why has Mint put the kibosh on this tech at all? Well, let’s not get in to that here as it’s been explained/debated/argued elsewhere. Suffice to say that there is a reason behind Mint’s decision to disable the format decision, and it impacts on what the Mint user base considerably.

 

 

Throw a glance at the install stats for any app in the Snap Store and you’ll learn that Linux Mint users are actively using the containerised tech to install fresh versions of well-known apps like GIMP, OBS Studio, VSCode, and the like.

 

But back to the task at hand.

 

Now that you can download Linux Mint 20 beta I figured I’d throw up an article on this now rather than wait for the stable release in a few weeks. That way anyone planning to test the beta release this weekend who wants the choice of whether to install Snaps apps (or not) can do so.

 

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Dang Joey, I can just run sudo apt install snapd to install Snap support in Linux Mint, it’s easy” — but you’re a little bit wrong. Mint has disabled that.

 

As noted by Leo Chavez, co-host on the (terrific) MintCast podcast, any attempt to install snapd from the command line will result in a package 'snapd' has no installation candidate error.

 

“Linux Mint no longer supports the proprietary Ubuntu Store of the “snapd” open-source client which connects to it,” reads the nosnap.pref file Mint has wedged down the package management pipework.

 

One “workaround” is to specify which version of snapd you want, e.g.:

sudo apt install snapd=VERSION

And this will install it. But, and it’s a notable but: knowing the exact version number of Snapd required is an ask as it constantly changes. And this method doesn’t restore full functionality of Snapd, either.

 

The proper fix? Nuke the file from orbit:

 

 

Now, to be fair, running file delete commands as root from the command line isn’t something you want to do absent mildly. So, again assuming you’re on Linux Mint 20 already, open Nemo as a super user and trash the nosnap.pref in /etc/apt/preferences.d/ the good ol’ fashioned way.

 

Once done, it’s then a snap to install snapd and Snap apps on Linux as normal.

 

Including, yes, Chromium, aka the cause of this particular controversy.

 

Side-note : you can still install Beta and DEV Chromium  from a PPA with the hardware acceleration patch  if it not compatible  with your hardware like it works good on mine you can always turn it off in the flags  , More Info on how to install it here .  I used  a version of  Stable Chromium with the patch from snap for awhile and some reason the Ubuntu  DEVs got lazy and it reverted back  to  the version with no patch so I switched back to the PPA  to get the patch so I'm using Beta right now. I'm software agnostic I don't mind using snap  if they is no  deb  or appimage . Sometimes the native deb  or appimage version  may not work or may be only ported to a newer version of a Ubuntu  PPA and snaps always work  because they have backward and forward compatibility. 

 

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