What's New In Linux Mint 20 "Ulyana"

Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana” was released last month with a list of new features and improvements. I upgraded my Linux Mint 19 to “Ulyana” and used it for more than a week. In this article, we’ll see the new features and improvements implemented in Linux Mint 20.

What’s New In Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana”?

Long-term support

Linux Mint 20 is based on Ubuntu 20.04 “Focal Fossa” and Linux Kernel 5.4. Ulyana is a long-term support release, will receive security updates until 2025.

Cinnamon 4.6 Better Multi-monitor & HiDPI support

The first big improvement in Ulyana is the better multi-monitor & HiDPI support. Linux Mint 20 supports fractional scaling. If you have connected multiple monitors, each monitor can have different scaling value from 100% to 200%. It is something that was not possible before.

If the user connects a 4K monitor and enables HiDPI mode, it’s easier to adjust the scaling of the monitor to get everything sharp and crystal clear. At the same time, on non-HiDPI compatible monitors, set a different resolution to get applications windows fit into the screen.

Better NVIDIA Optimus support

NVIDIA Optimus technology is developed to improve system performance & battery life. With two graphics cards built into a notebook, an integrated graphics driver, and a GPU, NVIDIA Optimus can automatically select the graphics card to handle all the GPU rendering calls. If you launch an application that does not require a lot of GPU usage, it’ll let the integrated graphics processor handle the application thus saving battery life.

Linux Mint 20 now has better support for NVIDIA Optimus. From the NVIDIA prime applet, you can select the graphics card that should handle the GPU calls.

The Nvidia on-demand profile is even better. When launching an application, you can select “Run with Nvidia GPU” to let NVIDIA handle the application.

Warpinator

As I mentioned in the Linux Mint 20 “Beta” release post that Linux Mint team was working on an appication that makes it extremely easy to share files on local network. The application is ready and it’s called Warpinator.

If you have multiple computers running on the same network and have warpinator running on each computer, you can easily share files back and forth.

Tray Icons better in HiDPI Mode

Tray Icons have been given a symbolic look & HiDPI support.

File manager files faster

Nemo file manager now prefers to load files with generic thumbnails. It makes the files & navigation show up faster and then it renders the thumbnails. The overall performance of the file manager is quite noticeable.

Download Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana”

Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana” is available to download from the official site. Or you can also download the torrent.

Linux Mint 20 Torrent