The community spin of Linux Mint 18 with the Xfce desktop

Jul 24, 2016 13:45 GMT  ·  By

It all took approximately one month, but the Xfce community edition of the Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" operating system is now available for download, as a public Beta release for 64-bit and 32-bit computers.

Last month, we reported on the debut of the Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" GNU/Linux distribution, which brought numerous goodies from the upstream Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, including its long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel, but only the main Cinnamon and MATE flavors were available.

"Linux Mint 18 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use," said Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint founder, in the official release announcement.

Linux Mint 18 Xfce Beta now available for public testing

As many of you already know, Linux Mint also features the KDE and Xfce community flavors, and while some of you are still waiting to get a taste of the upcoming KDE Plasma flavor, those who love the simplicity of the Xfce 4.12 desktop environment can now download the ISOs and take it for a test drive.

If you're wondering what's new in the Beta release of Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" Xfce, we can tell you that it comes with all the features that are present in the Cinnamon and MATE editions, such as the new X-Apps, namely Xed, Xviewer, Xreader, Xplayer, and Pix, as well as the beautiful Mint-Y theme based on Arc GTK theme and Moka icons.

Moreover, the distribution includes the same system improvements, such as out-of-the-box exFAT and Btrfs filesystems support, the brand new Update Manager tool, MDM 2.0 login manager, support for OEM installations, improved HiDPI and GTK3 support, lots of artwork improvements, and much more.

Linux Mint 18 Xfce edition will also be an  LTS (Long Term Support) one, supported with security updates and bug fixes until the year 2021, just like Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which just has received its first point release. You can download the Linux Mint 18 Xfce Beta Live ISO images right now via our website, but keep in mind that it's a pre-release version.